‘Wow,’ said Chessie enviously, watching Angel’s gyrating pelvis and flying feet, and his utterly still face, ‘talk about Travoltage.’
Gradually the room cleared. To keep up, Bibi kicked off her red shoes. Her scarlet toenails flashed like swarming ladybirds, her dark red hair flowed like seaweed and her lovely body writhed like a flame. Then the band switched to ‘Rock Around the Clock’, and each time Angel took her hand and put his other hand on her waist to swing her around, it was as though he was giving her an electric shock. Finally, such was the violence of her turning that he had to catch her as she fell.
‘Don’t move,’ he hissed as she tried to wriggle free.
‘That’s zee second lesson, don’t move until I say.’
Meekly Bibi rested in his arms, luxuriating in the heat of his body and the strength of his arms.
‘We go now,’ said Angel.
‘We can’t,’ said Bibi aghast. ‘They haven’t even drawn the raffle yet.’
Returning to their table, Angel took a sheaf of pink tickets from her bag and, tearing them into tiny pieces, dropped them on the floor.
‘You win me. I am first prize.’
Bibi’s jaw dropped. Her heart was pounding so hard she could hardly whisper. ‘Your place or mine?’
‘Mine,’ said Angel. ‘I want you to see my ’ovel, and I don’t want your father barging in in zee middle.’
Ignoring a furiously waving Bart, they slid out of the french windows. Picking a gardenia whiter than the moon, Angel put it behind Bibi’s ear.
40
Angel lived in a rundown housing estate near the airport. Bibi was appalled by his room which was tiny, airless and impossibly hot, with only a minute chest of drawers, a narrow bed little wider than an ironing board, no carpets and no curtains.
‘This is awful. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Would you have listened?’
‘Why’ve you put tin foil on the windows?’
‘Zee sun gets up earlier than I like to do.’
Down the landing was a grimy bathroom, with a john, a cracked basin and a creaking inadequate shower.
‘Miguel found this room,’ said Angel. ‘He theenk eet five star for spy of Alejandro.’
‘We’ll move you tomorrow, right. I’m so sorry. I feel terrible.’
Bibi moved to the chest of drawers, admiring first the photograph of Pedro. ‘He’s like you, and so handsome.’
‘He’s dead,’ snapped Angel.
‘That’s a purple heart,’ said Bibi in surprise. ‘Dad got one in Korea.’
‘Eet was sent me by American pilot.’ Removing his dinner jacket and black tie, Angel threw them in the corner. ‘He won eet in Vietnam. He say it was the most important of his medal, and he wish to present it as a token of respect to the professionalism and unbreakable courage of Argentine pilots.’
‘But that’s wonderful,’ sighed Bibi.
‘The Eenglish say we were kamikaze, but a fighter pilot ’as to be in complete control. We were fighting for something that was ours. We knew it was dangerous, but we ’ad to go on.’
Slightly frightened by the fanaticism in his eyes, Bibi picked up the jar of earth. ‘What’s this?’
‘Malvinas earth. I brung it back. One day it will be Argentine earth.’
Tears triggered off by champagne filled Bibi’s eyes. ‘I’m so sorry.’
‘I don’t need peety,’ snarled Angel. ‘I need vengeance.’
A Simenon paperback lay face down by the bed. Bibi blushed as she remembered how she and Red had bitched in French about Angel at Christmas. As he pulled his shirt out of his trousers, she went over and put her arms round his neck. For a second Angel went rigid. ‘I thought I was the one calling the shoots.’
‘I’m just checking the monitors,’ whispered Bibi.
Looking down, he could see between her breasts to her scarlet pants and breathed in the remains of Giorgio and the acid reek of hot, hopelessly excited woman. Her nose might be like Concorde, but her eyes were dark, long, loving and glazed with desire. She was Bart’s daughter, rich as an Arab sheik and the key to worldly goods.
Angel laid a warm, steady hand on the back of her neck, then stretched his long fingers round to the front to gently stroke her cheek. Bibi gave a moan as he spat on the thumb of his other hand and smoothed away the mascara that had streaked under her eyes. Her mouth, huge, red and smudged, was trembling as Angel ran a lazy tongue along her upper lip then back along the lower one, then, slowly, as his hand slid down her neck to caress her collar bone, he kissed her properly. Simultaneously he turned her sideways, so his left hand could slide into her coral dress to stroke her breasts. The bra was built in. His right hand reached for the zip, and she was naked except for her red pants and her diamonds.
God, thought Angel, what a glorious undreamt-of body. He could have rewritten the Song of Solomon just for her. Comparisons with pomegranates, twin roes and sheafs of corn were totally inadequate. Her hands were shaking so much a pearl button flew off as she undid his shirt. His jockey shorts were made up of two pieces of blue-and-white Argentine flag.
‘You’re so beautiful,’ muttered Bibi burying her face in the silken softness of his chest, ‘I’ve never met anyone as beautiful as you.’
‘Flattery will get you a preek as hard as a truncheon,’ said Angel with a slight smirk.
Dropping to her knees, Bibi very gently put her lips round it, her tongue flickering like a captured moth. Just managing to control himself, Angel drew her to her feet and laid her back on the narrow bed. Running his tongue up the smooth hillock of her breast, he fastened on her nipple and slid two fingers between her legs. Christ, he could restore polo sticks in the slippery linseed oiliness. Rubbing expertly until she was moaning with ecstasy, anxious not to lose the momentum, only when he was sure she was on the brink did he open her mouth with his tongue and drive his cock deep inside her. As his hips had undulated on the dance floor, so they writhed on top of her now, his pelvic bone driving her towards pleasure.
‘Omigod, I’m coming,’ gasped Bibi, bucking as joyously as a pony.
Angel gave a groan that turned into a sob and came too.
‘You are old phoney,’ he whispered in her ear a minute later. ‘All that macho talk and you are soft as marshmallow inside.’
And, despite the repeated roar of landing and departing aircraft which shook the little room as a terrier shakes a rat, he immediately fell asleep.
Bibi lay on her side reliving every moment of the last half-hour, which would spoil her for the fumblings of Trust Fund Babies for ever. As she waited for stubble to darken his cheek, and admired the long lashes sweeping the scattering of freckles like the inside of a tiger lily on his cheekbones, she also counted his ribs, and, remembering how he wolfed his food at dinner, wondered how many meals he’d been skipping. Perhaps he was sending money home to his peasant mother. Bibi imagined her, black-eyed in her black dress, a black scarf over her greying hair, with a certain dignity in her prune-wrinkled face despite her desperate poverty in the slums of Buenos Aires.
She would rescue Angel. She would give him a massive pay rise Bart would never know about. Then she would buy him the best ponies in the world and he would lovingly consult her on every move. Light was creeping along the edges of the tinfoil. Every lining has a window of silver, thought Bibi, gazing down at this glorious animal lying beside her so much in need of her protection.
‘This is adopt-an-underhandicapped-animal day,’ she said out loud, and had to stuff her face into the pillow to stop herself laughing.
