But she looked upset. Charles filled his glass from the bottle of Southern Comfort and slumped back on to the white fur of the bed, shaking a small oil-lamp on the bedside table. ‘And you can’t get in touch with him?’
‘No. I’ve tried both the houses. And the office.’
‘I wouldn’t worry, Jacqui. He’ll call you.’
‘Maybe.’ She still looked tense and hurt. Strange, how a girl like that, who’d had everyone and done everything, could be so affected by one dirty old man not getting in touch with her. And Marius Steen of all people.
Jacqui stretched out her strong dancer’s legs and stared at her toes. ‘No. He often doesn’t call for weeks on end. He’s moody. Sometimes he doesn’t want me around. I’m his secret vice. Just a tottie. I mean, if he’s going to a do with the Queen Mum, he can’t take a tart along.’ Charles grunted uncomfortably. ‘No, that’s what I am. I don’t really want to be more than that. He’s an old man, he’s nice to me, we have a few giggles, that’s all. It couldn’t possibly last. I know that.’ She sounded as if she was bravely repeating a formula she didn’t believe.
‘When did you last see him?’
‘Saturday afternoon.’
‘For God’s sake, what is it now? Only Monday. Give him a chance.’
‘I know, but this time I think it’s over.’
‘Why?’
‘When I rang, there was a message. Said I wasn’t to contact him again.’
‘Ah.’
Jacqui poured herself a large glass of Southern Comfort and took a savage swallow at it. ‘Bugger him. I’m not going to get miserable about an old sod like that.’ She rose and flopped down on the bed beside Charles. ‘There are other men.’
‘Still older men, I’m afraid.’
‘You’re not old.’
‘I’m forty-seven.’
‘That’s cradle-snatching by my standards,’ she said with a wry laugh. Then she stopped short. ‘Old sod. It’s all because of the knighthood.’
‘Hmm?’
‘His last ambition. Reckoned he might get one this New Year.’
‘Services to the Theatre?’
‘I suppose so. And I suppose I let down the image. Well, I don’t care about him.’ She snuggled up to Charles.
‘Jacqui, am I being used merely for revenge? As a sex object?’
‘Yes. Any objections?’
‘No.’
Charles kissed her gently. He felt protective towards her, as if she might suddenly break down.
Her tongue flickered round the inside of his mouth and they drew apart. ‘You smell like a distillery,’ she said.
‘I am a distillery,’ he replied fatuously and hugged her close to him. She had a comforting little body, and the smoky taste of her mouth was familiar. ‘Hmm. We had a good time in Worthing. We were better than the dirty postcards.’
Jacqui smiled closely into his eyes and her hand fumbled for his zip. She couldn’t find the little metal pull-tag. An exasperated breath. ‘You know, Charles, I always think it’s simpler to take your own things off. If you’re both in agreement.’
‘I’m in agreement,’ said Charles. He rolled over to the side of the bed and fumblingly undressed. When he turned round, Jacqui was lying naked on the bed, familiar in the pale street light. ‘Charles.’
‘Must take my socks off. Otherwise I feel like an obscene photo.’
He lay down beside her and hugged her, warm on the fur. They held each other close, hands gliding over soft flesh.
After a few moments Charles rolled away. ‘Not very impressive, am I?’
‘Don’t worry. It doesn’t matter.’
‘No.’ A pause. ‘Sorry. I’m not usually like this.’
‘I know,’ Jacqui said meaningfully. ‘And I know what to do about it.’
He felt her moving, a soft kiss on his stomach, then the warmth of her breath as it strayed downwards. ‘Jacqui, don’t bother. I’m not in the mood. It’s the booze or…’
‘OK. Poor old Baron Hardup.’
‘I’m sorry, Jacqui.’
‘Don’t worry. All I really need is a good cuddle.’
‘Tonight I’m afraid that’s all I can offer you.’ And he hugged her very closely like a teddy bear in his arms. In a moment he had sunk into a heavy, but troubled sleep.
II
As Charles walked past the manicured front gardens of Muswell Hill, he tried to piece together his feelings. It was a long time since he had been so churned up inside. For years life had jogged on from hangover to hangover, with the odd affair between drinks, and nothing had affected him much. But now he felt jumpy and panicky.
Impotence is perhaps not unusual in a man of forty-seven. And anyway it probably wasn’t impotence, just the dreaded Distiller’s Droop. Nothing to worry about.
But that wasn’t the important part of his feelings. There was a change in his attitude to Jacqui. He felt an enormous need to protect the girl, as if, by failing in bed, he had suddenly become responsible for her. She seemed desperately vulnerable, like a child in a pram or an old man in a launderette. Perhaps these were paternal feelings, the sort he had somehow never developed for his daughter.
Together with this new warmth came the knowledge that he had to go and see Frances. ‘Marriage,’ Charles reflected wryly as he clicked open her wrought-iron gate, ‘is the last refuge of the impotent.’
She wasn’t there. Still at school. Not even six o clock yet. Charles had a key and let himself in. His hand instinctively found the light-switch.
The house hadn’t changed. As ever, a pile of books to be marked on the dining table, concert programmes, an old Edinburgh Festival brochure. Earnest paperbacks about psychology and sociology on the book-shelves. Auntie May’s old upright piano with the lid up. And on top, that terrible posed photograph of Juliet with pigtails and a grim smile over the brace on her teeth. Next to it, the puzzle jug. Then that windswept snapshot of him, Charles Paris, taken on holiday on Arran. It was a real LP sleeve photograph. Better than any of that expensive rubbish he’d had done for Spotlight.
He resisted the temptation to raid the drinks cupboard, switched on the television and slumped into the sofa they’d bought at Harrods when flush from selling the film rights of his one successful play.
He heard the guarded voice of a newscaster, then the picture buzzed and swelled into life. The news was still dominated by petrol and the prospect of rationing. Charles couldn’t get very excited about it.
Police had identified the motorist shot off the M4 at Theale. A blurred snapshot was blown up to fill the screen. It had the expression of a man already dead. There had been no petrol in the victim’s car; the back right- hand wing was dented; he had been shot through the head and left by the roadside. Police were still trying to find a motive for the killing.
‘In the second day of the Sally Nash trial at the Old Bailey, a 17-year-old girl, Miss C., told of sex-parties at London hotels. A lot of show-business people-’ Charles switched over to the serious face of Eamonn Andrews talking to someone about petrol rationing. He switched again and got a sizzling snowstorm through which a voice imparted mathematical information.
‘Sodding UHF.’ He got down on his hands and knees in front of the box and started moving the portable aerial
