Prudence

blue shirt that matched his eyes, he was easily the handsomest man in the room and I, if not the prettiest, was certainly the most outrageously dressed. Those colonels couldn’t keep their monocles off my bare tummy. ‘I’m fast becoming a navel specialist,’ Jack told everyone. With everyone else in wool dresses, I felt rather like a street lamp left on during the day.

Maggie and Pendle seemed to have disappeared somewhere and I found Jack’s presence curiously reassuring. We leant against the wall together.

‘I like large parties, don’t you? They’re so intimate,’ said Jack. ‘Look at Ace. Talk about the stag at bay!’ I looked across the room. Ace had been cornered by the daughter of the house.

‘He’s a handsome sod, isn’t he?’ said Jack. ‘Don’t you find him attractive?’

Ace looked up and glared across at us.

‘No, I don’t!’ I said crossly. ‘He makes me feel I’m in the Upper Fourth, and covered with ink.’

Ace was obviously coming over to break us up. I was dying to go to the loo, so I sloped off to the downstairs cloakroom. Maggie was right, the only thing to do was to take my dress off altogether. I laid it on the floor. In the pile of Esquires on the window ledge, I found a story by Graham Greene which I hadn’t read. I settled down with enjoyment. The only snag was that I hadn’t locked the door properly. A few minutes later it was pushed open. And there I was naked to my enemy with Old Overkill glowering down at me. I gave a scream and snatched the dress round me.

‘Jesus,’ said Ace.

‘Get out,’ I yelled.

Ace slammed the door.

Oh, the embarrassment. Still, if he’d flipped through Esquire, he’d have seen lots of girls just as naked as me, if not in such an undignified position. Do him good, boring old prig. All the same, it was several minutes before I could screw up enough courage to go back to the party.

Thank goodness the fireworks were about to start, and I could hide my blushes in the garden. Jack brought my drink out to me. Touching shoulders, we watched the fireworks explode over the lake in a blaze of coloured stars, while everyone ooh-ed and ah-ed. Suddenly someone let off a squib behind me and I jumped straight into Jack’s arms. He seemed in no hurry to let go of me until he saw the expression on Ace’s face.

As soon as the last rocket had emptied its splendour into the night, the Mulhollands made leaving noises.

‘Won’t you stay for some spaghetti?’ said the daughter of the house, flashing her teeth at Ace.

‘No, they won’t,’ said Rose. ‘They’ve got to go on somewhere else. But I think I’ll stay. More my age group,’ she added to us. ‘Besides, they’ll need some help with the washing-up.’

‘Washing-up!’ snorted Maggie, as soon as Rose was out of earshot. ‘She can’t wait to slope off and see Copeland.’

We dined in a smart restaurant; deep carpets, and waiters rushing around silently with lighted frying pans. Nothing, however, could have been more flambee than the atmosphere at our table.

Ace and Pendle sat on either side of me opposite Jack and Maggie. I found it sinister the way Maggie and Pendle avoided talking to each other.

Jack kept ordering more wine.

‘I’d adore to have snails,’ I said.

‘Well, I will too,’ said Jack. ‘Garlic’s all right if you both do. What a frightful party,’ he went on, unfolding his napkin.

‘I didn’t notice you making major in-roads into it,’ snapped Ace.

‘Oh, I had a nice time,’ said Jack, winking at me. ‘But I was worried about the rest of you.’

Soon they were all tearing the party to shreds.

‘The daughter of the house was noticeably taken by you, my dear,’ said Jack, grinning at Ace, ‘Nice to see you haven’t lost your touch.’

I had suddenly developed a fearful sore throat, and found I couldn’t eat very much after all. The cold night air knocked me for six when we came out of the hotel. As I wandered towards Pendle’s car, desperately trying to walk straight, I was grabbed by the arm.

‘You’re coming with me,’ said Ace.

‘I’m going with Pendle and Jack.’

But before I could argue, he opened the car door. ‘Get in!’ he said coldly. One didn’t argue when he used that tone. I lowered the window, however, and as Jack and Pendle came out of the hotel I shouted, ‘Help! I’m being kidnapped.’

‘I’m running Pru home,’ said Ace. ‘You two take Maggie.’

‘Oh, she was coming with us,’ said Jack. ‘Cradle-snatcher!’ he shouted as we drove off.

My giggle faded away lamely. I reached in my bag for a cigarette. The packet was empty. ‘Hell’ I said angrily.

‘You smoke too much,’ said Ace. ‘Do up your seat belt.’

‘I don’t fancy them. I don’t like being trapped in cars with strange men.’

‘Do it up!’

Bloody Hitler — but he was bigger than me. Sulkily I tried to shove the seat belt into place. In the end he had to do it for me. I cringed back against the seat so no part of me would touch him.

After a couple of miles, he turned off the road down a cart-track stopping at the edge of the lake. Then he lit a cigarette but didn’t offer me one. Out of the corner of my eye I studied his forbidding profile. Perhaps the sight of me naked in the loo had been too much for him, and he was going to run true to Mulholland form and make a pass at me. More likely he was thinking about Elizabeth and that car crash. That must have been why he’d made me wear a seat belt. Suddenly, I felt sorry for him.

‘What a heavenly moon.’

‘I didn’t come here to discuss the moon,’ he said. ‘I want you to lay off my brother.’

I gaped at him. ‘Which one?’

‘You know perfectly well which one,’ he said harshly. ‘Jack’s married — leave him alone.’

‘He doesn’t behave as though he is,’ I snapped.

‘Of course he doesn’t, with you egging him on.’

‘Me!’ I said in amazement. ‘Me egging him on!’

‘Yes, you. Clinging to him like ivy when I arrived last night, snuggling up to him at the stables, wearing that monstrous dress this evening, and pretending you were scared every time the smallest firework went off.’

‘I don’t like bangs!’ I said, my voice rising.

‘I thought you came here with Pendle.’

That went home. ‘So did I,’ I said.

‘You probably know Maggie was Pen’s girlfriend before Jack ran off with her. How do you think he feels now? The first time he brings someone else up here, Jack just snaps his fingers and she comes running.’

I wanted to scream at him — to tell him that Pendle hadn’t taken any notice of me since we arrived, that he hadn’t seen the way Pendle devoured Maggie with his eyes whenever he thought no one was looking. But some peculiar loyalty to Pendle — or was it reluctance to utter out loud what I dreaded? — kept me from saying anything.

‘Look,’ I said, ‘I’m not after your precious brother. He kissed me the other night only because I was there.’

‘It makes no difference, I suppose, that he’s married? You can behave like that with anyone else you like, but not with Jack! Now are you going to leave him alone?’

‘I might and I mightn’t.’

Ace exploded. ‘You bloody well will!’ he said.

I lost my temper. ‘You don’t understand anything!’ I screamed. ‘You go about like God Almighty on speech day, like a flaming spare prig at a wedding, ordering everyone around just because, to your eyes, they’re behaving badly. You never stop to think why they’re behaving like that.’

‘Cut it out,’ he said sharply. ‘You’re behaving like a child.’

‘This time tomorrow,’ I said, my voice shaking, ‘I shall have left this beastly place and you’ll never be