Alas, no income would have been enough for my brother Xander. Sacked from school for smoking grass and seducing too many new boys, he was also sent down from Cambridge after two terms for riotous living. Being artistically inclined, he would have been happier editing an art magazine or working in a gallery, but as the only existing Seaford-Brennen heir, he automatically went into the family firm. Here he survived — after my father was no longer alive to protect him — by the skin of his beautifully capped teeth, and by his immense personal charm. Three years ago, when Ricky Seaford was on the brink of sacking him, Xander redeemed himself by selling an Arab a power station worth millions of pounds in a deal carried out across the roulette table. Eighteen months later when things had again looked really dicey, Xander had played his trump card by running off with Ricky’s elder daughter, Pamela, to the horror of both her parents. Even Ricky, however, didn’t want to have the reputation in the city as the man who’d booted out his son-in-law. Xander was made export sales manager, which gave him access to vast expenses.
In his new, exalted position Xander had managed to fiddle the renting and re-decorating of my flat on the firm. After all, he said, one must have somewhere nice to take overseas clients. The firm also paid my rates, telephone, electricity and gas, and provided me with a car which I’d just smashed up. On the whole Xander and I did pretty well out of Seaford-Brennen.
While I was waiting for the conditioner to soak into my hair, I flipped through my wardrobe deciding what to take on the weekend. I’d bought so many new clothes this week, my cheque book had run out, but after the nasty letter I’d got from my bank manager, I didn’t dare order another one. American Express and Access had also cut off their supplies. I still had to get another bikini and a glamorous dress to float around on deck. I’d have to borrow from Xander.
The doorbell rang. I peered through the spy hole looking out for creditors or unwelcome suitors, but all I could see were flowers. They turned out to be a huge bunch of pink roses in a plastic vase, filled with green spongy stuff, into which was stuck a mauve bow on a hatpin. I hoped for a blissful moment they were from Jeremy and felt a ridiculous thud of disappointment when the note in loopy florist’s handwriting said: ‘Don’t cut me out of your life altogether, all love, Charlie.’
Charlie, I reflected as I rinsed and re-rinsed, was going to be as hard to get out of my hair as conditioner. I wondered how the hell I was going to survive the next 30-odd hours until I saw Jeremy again. I felt a restlessness like milk coming up to the boil, an excitement sometimes pleasurable, but far more often, painful.
Chapter Four
The heat wave had set in relentlessly. The traffic glittered and flashed in the sunshine as it crawled up Piccadilly. The park was full of typists in bikinis, sliding off the deckchairs as the park attendant approached with his ticket machine. I could feel the tarmac burning through the soles of my shoes as I crossed the road to Freddy’s. I nipped into the Ladies first to tidy my hair and take the shine off my nose. I was wearing new pale pink dungarees with nothing underneath. I toyed with the idea of wearing them when I travelled down with Gareth tomorrow.
‘Thank you very much,’ I said in a loud voice to the cloakroom attendant as I left, just to draw her attention to the fact I’d put 50p in the saucer. Since I’d met Jeremy, sheer happiness made me overtip everyone.
Freddy’s was packed as usual and giving off the same my-dear-punctuated roar as a smart wedding. Along the bar sat advertising executives with brushed forward hair and romantic looking young men wearing open-necked shirts. Chatting them up were beautiful girls, their streaked hair swinging, their blusher in exactly the right place, their upper lips painted a perfect crimson double circumflex. As they sat, fingers tapping on their slim thighs, eyes flickering over each other’s shoulders to see who had just come in, they constantly checked their appearance in the mirror above the bar. Freddy’s was the current favourite haunt of trendies and show business people, anyone in fact who was important enough to get in, and rich enough to get out.
Freddy, a mountain of a man with a face as red as a Dutch cheese, was serving behind the bar.
‘Hullo, ugly mug,’ he bawled at me. ‘How the hell did you get past the doorman?’ Nearby drinkers looked at me in admiration. Only favourites and the famous got insulted. Freddy leaned over and pumped my hand vigorously.
‘Where the hell you been anyway, Octavia? Sneaking over to Arabella’s, I suppose. Can’t say I blame you, I eat there too. The prices here are too high for me.’ He bellowed with laughter, then added, ‘Your no-good brother’s already at the table upstairs drinking himself stupid.’
I followed the smell of garlic, wine and herbs up to the dining-room, waited in the doorway until I had everyone’s undivided attention, then sauntered across the room. The pink dungarees definitely had the desired effect; the front flap only just covered my nipples.
Xander was sitting at a window table, flipping through a Sotheby’s catalogue. He looked up, smiled, and kissed me on both cheeks. ‘Hullo, angel, you look positively radiant. Have I forgotten your birthday or something?’
Waiters immediately rushed up, spreading a napkin across my knees, pushing in my chair, getting a waiting bottle of Poully Fuisse out of an ice bucket, and filling up my glass. Xander ordered another large whisky.
Perhaps it’s because he
Impossibly spoilt, with all the restlessness that comes with inherited wealth, he moved through life like a prince, expecting everyone to do exactly what he wanted, and capable of making himself extremely disagreeable if they did not. Few people realized how insecure he was underneath, or that he employed a technique of relentless bitching to cover up his increasing black glooms. He was always sweet to me, but I was very glad he was my brother and not a boyfriend. Part of his charm was that he always gave one his undivided attention. He didn’t need to look over your shoulder, because he was always the one person people were looking over other people’s shoulders to see.
On closer examination that day, he looked rather ill, his eyes laced with red, his hands shaking. He had placed himself with his back to the window, but still looked much younger than his thirty years.
‘How are you?’ I said.
‘A bit poorly. I ran into a bottle of whisky last night. Later I landed up at Jamie Bennett’s. We smoked a lot of grass. I’m sure it had gone off. There was a case of stuffed birds in the corner and Jamie started cackling with laughter, saying they were flying all over the room, then suddenly he was sick in a wastepaper basket.’
‘What happened to you?’
‘I started feeling frightful too, and decided I must get home, so I drove very slowly to Paddington, but it wasn’t there, so I came back again.’
I giggled. ‘So you never got home?’
He shot me a sideways glance. ‘Can I tell Pamela I spent last night at your place?’
‘Of course,’ I said lightly. ‘It’s only another point she’ll notch up against me.’
Pamela had never forgiven me for slashing my wrists the day she and Xander got married, taking all the attention from her.
‘How’s our dear mother?’ I said.
‘Absolutely awful! You’ve no idea how lucky you are not being the apple of her eye. She rings up every day. Gerald is evidently threatening to walk out if she doesn’t stop drinking, so she has to resort to having quick swigs in the lavatory.’
‘Does she ever say anything about me?’ I asked. Even now I can’t mention my mother’s name without my throat going dry.
‘Never,’ said Xander. ‘Do you want to order?’
I wasn’t hungry, but I hadn’t eaten since yesterday lunch-time, and the wine was beginning to make me feel
