Riders

That evening they all went to a party which continued in a state of rampage and carousal until eight o’clock in the morning. Neither Rupert nor Billy felt like playing tennis the next morning, so they lazed round the pool.

Helen was wearing dark glasses, a large hat to prevent her freckles spreading, and a lime green bathing suit. She’s so thin now, she’s really better covered up, thought Janey critically.

Every day Janey’d start on another diet, and abandon it by lunchtime, when Rupert opened a bottle and the smell of Abdul’s cooking drifted out from the kitchen. But her skin was turning as golden as a peach. She was four months pregnant, and Billy liked her plump, anyway.

Helen, having finished yesterday’s Guardian, was reading Crime and Punishment with effort. Janey was reading Vogue. Rupert was flipping through Horse and Hound for mentions of his name. Billy was reading through a pornographic novel, skipping until he came to the sex bits. Jomo, the African boy, was steadily but unhurriedly sweeping up jacaranda petals and bird droppings. Morning glory spread in a sapphire haze over the tennis court wire, vying with the sky in blueness.

“Have you ever tried that?” said Billy, handing the book to Rupert.

“Once in Solihull during the Royal.”

“Let me see,” said Janey.

“No, you can’t,” said Billy, “or you’d go back to bed for the rest of the morning. And you’ve only got another week to get brown.”

“Billy never finished Histoire d’O,” said Janey, peeling a piece of loose skin off her heel. “He kept having to take me upstairs between pages.”

Rupert got up to pour himself a drink. He was broad-shouldered, bronzed, and rippling fit as any of his horses, thought Janey. She lifted her thighs slightly off the lilo, so the flesh fell downwards and they looked thinner.

“Bikinis are awfully stupid things,” said Janey. “You look as though you’d got one on when you take it off.”

“Take it off then,” said Billy idly, not looking up from his book.

Janey encountered a searching look from Rupert.

“All right,” she said, and removed her bikini. Her breasts had a soft, honeyed ripeness, her round belly swelled like a fig, and her bush was shaved, leaving her as smooth as a pink snooker ball. Helen, rigid with shock and envy, couldn’t take her eyes off her. Billy looked up and found Rupert staring at Janey with an erection like a steeple. Next moment Billy found he had an erection like a steeple too.

“Christ, it’s like a cathedral city round here,” he said, rolling over and returning to his book.

Without turning his head, Rupert said to Helen, “Take your bathing dress off, too.”

“I can’t. I burn so easily.”

“Use plenty of oil,” said Janey, her breasts moving as she handed Helen the Amber Solaire.

“I’m fine,” snapped Helen.

“Take it off,” repeated Rupert, with a distinct edge to his voice.

“No! What would Jomo think? It’s all right for Janey; she’s a guest. I’d never be able to look Abdul in the face again when I discussed desserts.”

She turned back to Crime and Punishment and read a whole page without taking in a word. Abdul seemed to take an enormously long time clearing up ashtrays and taking orders for drinks.

I can’t do it, I can’t, thought Helen in panic. I can’t take my clothes off in front of them and besides, said an inner more truthful voice, my boobs aren’t as good as Janey’s.

Janey didn’t bother to dress for a late lunch, which started with salad Nicoise. A large piece of tuna fish fell on her left breast. Rupert removed it with a spoon. Everyone, including Abdul, giggled immoderately, except Helen, who was a tight knot of embarrassment inside. Realizing this, Billy tried to persuade Janey to get dressed. But the atmosphere was getting more and more highly charged.

“I’m going to have a siesta,” said Janey, who’d been exchanging lingering glances with Rupert. Inside, seeing her flushed face and bloodshot eyes, she felt irritated at how awful she looked and wondered how she could have flirted so much with him.

The next minute Billy had come up behind her, catching her oiled breasts in his hands, kissing the back of her neck, slipping his hands between her legs, which seemed even more oiled.

“Christ, you’re excited,” he said.

Instantly they were on the bed, not bothering to close the windows or the door.

Helen went into her bedroom next door. Despite the oppressive heat, she was trembling violently. She could hear Janey’s cries and moans and hastily shut the window. Rupert came in, red-faced and hard-eyed.

“God, it’s hot in here. Why the hell have you shut the window?” Opening it, he paused for a few seconds, listening to Janey and Billy, a half-smile on his face. Helen was desperate for him to make love to her gently and tenderly, not because she really wanted it, but because she’d seen the intense, predatory way he’d suddenly started looking at Janey. She’d die if he had an affair with her.

“Rupert, I do love you.”

“Why don’t you show it, then?”

“It’s so hard when you’re always so angry with me.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” He walked out, slamming the door.

He returned when it was dark and Helen was changing for dinner, grabbing her irritably. Helen shrank away. “I’ve just taken a bath and the Mountleys are coming to dinner.”

“So the Campbell-Blacks aren’t coming, hurrah, hurrah. Why the hell did you ask them?” Then answered for her. “Because they’ve already asked us twice and you can drop literary names all evening.”

Professor Mountley was in his fifties, an American who taught English Literature at Nairobi University. His English wife, a little younger, was a show-jumping groupie.

“She knows even more about my bloody horses than I do,” said Rupert.

Rupert mixed white ladies and they all sat on the terrace, gazing at the green pigeons and the enormous stars and listening to the rustle of night creatures: frogs bubbling like a cauldron, the hysterical chatter of baboons, and the water pump sound of approaching lion.

“I’m beginning to understand why evacuee children were so frightened of cows in the war,” said Janey.

“Nice to be here,” said Professor Mountley, raising his glass to Helen.

“Nice to be still here,” said Janey. “I’m sure some leopard is going to gobble me up.”

“Did you know warthogs lead exemplary married lives?” said Mrs. Mountley.

“No wonder there aren’t any in Gloucestershire,” said Rupert.

Rupert and Billy were drinking steadily, Janey only less so because it might be bad for the baby, and because she didn’t want to get too flushed. After long lovemaking, a sleep, three Alka-Seltzers, and a bath, she was feeling wonderful. She was wearing a frangipani flower in her hair and a white, ruffled, slightly transparent shirt, through which could be glimpsed her rosily sunburnt breasts. Conscious of Billy’s adoration, the professor’s admiration, and Rupert’s blatant lust, she was getting thoroughly overexcited.

Before dinner, Helen had gone in and offered her a choice of blue or lime green caftans. Being pregnant, she said, Janey might find them more comfortable. (“Comfortable indeed,” Janey had snorted to Billy. “Shapeless and ugly, you mean.”) If she wasn’t aware of Helen’s lack of malice, she’d have thought she was doing it on purpose.

“Billy’s been reading all about orgies today,” she said to Professor Mountley at dinner.

“Janey!” said Helen furiously.

“We call it group therapy in the States,” said the professor, with a nervous laugh.

Soon they were all discussing orgies.

I can’t bear it, thought Helen. I wanted a nice civilized evening discussing Crime and Punishment with the professor and all anyone can talk about is sex. They were all philistines. Earlier in the week she’d lent Janey her precious copy of A Hero of Our Time, and Janey had dropped it in the bath. Rupert was talking to Janey in an undertone. Frantically she tried to lip read what they were saying.

Billy, sensing her distress, patted her arm. “Everything’s under control.”

The Mountleys left around midnight, when everyone was still sitting round the table. The professor was very reluctant to go, but Mrs. Mountley had recently become a grandmother and felt things were definitely getting out of