Imogen

Chapter Ten

‘I feel lucky tonight,’ said Matt after dinner. ‘I’m off to the Casino.’

‘To blow all our French bread, I suppose,’ said Cable sourly.

As they went into the Roulette Room, Imogen was overwhelmed by the smoke, the glaring lights, and the fever the place itself generated. Gambling was obviously taken very seriously here. Round the table sat women with scarlet nails and obsessive faces. None of the pale, hard-eyed men behind them betrayed a flicker of interest in Cable. Huge sums of money were changing hands.

Matt went off to the Cashier and returned with his big hands full of counters.

‘Fifteen for Cable, fifteen for Imogen, and the rest for me because I’m good at it. The others are fending for themselves.’

To Imogen, her fifteen counters suddenly became of crucial importance, and the green baize table a fearsome battleground. If she won, she would get Nicky back; if she lost, then all was lost. She would play number twenty-six, Nicky’s age. But twenty-six obstinately refused to come up, and gradually her pile dwindled away, until she had only one counter left. She put it on number nine. It came up. Relief flooded her. She backed it again, and again it came up.

‘Good girl,’ said Matt, who was steadily amassing chips beside her.

But something compelled her to chance her luck and go on playing, and this time she lost and lost until she only had two counters. In desperation, she put them both on Noir. Rouge came up.

Tears stinging her eyes, she escaped to the ladies.

‘Oh God, I look hateful,’ she moaned. Her face was still bright scarlet. The mistral had played even worse havoc with her hair, whipping it into a wild mop like a Zulu warrior. She couldn’t even get a comb through it.

She didn’t recognise the couple locked together in the passage when she came out a few minutes later. But she stiffened as she heard the familiar purr of Nicky’s voice.

‘Darling, you’re so lovely,’ he was saying. ‘And I can feel your heart going like the Charge of the Light Brigade.’

Cable gave a husky laugh, and wound her arms round his neck.

‘Do you believe in love at first sight?’ he went on. ‘I didn’t until I met you. Then — pow! Suddenly it happened, as though I’d been struck by a thunderbolt. I don’t know what it is about you — something indefinable, apart from being so beautiful.’

Imogen couldn’t believe her ears. He was using exactly the same words he’d used when he’d tried to seduce her that first time on the moor. Words that were irrevocably signed on her heart.

‘What about old purple sprouting Brocklehurst?’ said Cable softly.

Nicky laughed. ‘I knew it was a mistake the moment I met you, but I couldn’t let her down. She’s not much trouble and anyway it gave me a chance of being near you.’

‘I feel a bit mean. Can’t we find some arresting Provençal fisherman to bed her down?’

‘Never get near her,’ said Nicky and started to kiss Cable again.

They were so preoccupied they didn’t notice her stumbling past.

She met Matt coming out of the Roulette Room. He was looking pleased with himself.

‘I’ve just won nearly three thousand francs,’ he said.

‘How much is that?’ said Imogen, desperately trying to sound normal.

‘About £300. I’ve been good and cashed it in.’ He looked at her closely.

‘Hey, what’s the matter?’

‘Nothing, I’m fine,’ she said.

‘Cable and Nicky, is it?’

She nodded — impossible to keep anything from him.

He took her arm. ‘I think you and I had better have a little talk.’

He led her to a deserted corner of the beach. They sat down on the warm sand. A huge white moon had turned the sea to gunmetal; the waves were idly flapping on the shore.

Matt lit a cigarette. ‘All right lovie, what happened?’

Stammering, she told him.

‘I don’t mind him kissing her so much,’ she said finally. ‘I mean she’s so lovely anyone would want to. But it’s just his using the same words.’

‘Cliché, cliché, cliché,’ said Matt scornfully. ‘But then you can’t expect someone who hits a white ball across a net year in year out to have a very extensive vocabulary, can you?’

Imogen had a feeling he was laughing at her. ‘But Nicky’s clever. He speaks five languages,’ she said defensively.

‘A sign of great stupidity, I always think,’ said Matt. ‘Hell, I’m not trying to put Nicky down. I’ve nothing against people with IQs in single figures. I just think you should know some home and away truths about him. I bet I know how he picked you up.’

‘We were introduced,’ said Imogen stiffly.

‘No, before that. Wasn’t he playing in a match, and he suddenly picked you out in the crowd, and acted as though he’d been turned to stone? Then, I suppose, he missed a few easy shots, as though he was completely overwhelmed by your beauty, and flashed his pretty teeth at you every time he changed ends.’

‘He must have told you,’ said Imogen in a stifled voice.

‘No such luck, sweetheart. It’s standard Beresford pick-up practice in tournaments, all round the country. Quite irresistible, too, when combined with those devastating good looks. He never does it if there’s any chance he might lose the match.’

‘Then why did he bother to bring me on holiday?’

‘For a number of reasons, I should think. Because you’re very pretty, because he’s got a jaded palate, and you’re different from his usual run of scrubbers. Because he couldn’t make you in Yorkshire, and he always likes to get his own way and, finally, because he hadn’t met Cable then.’

‘And what chance have I got against her?’ sighed Imogen.

‘You still want him, after hearing all that?’

Imogen nodded miserably. ‘I’m a constant nymph,’ she said.

Matt sighed. ‘I was afraid you were. Well, we’ll have to get him back for you, won’t we?’

Outside her bedroom he took her key and unlocked the door.

‘Now baby, lesson one. Don’t cry all night. It’ll only make you look ugly in the morning. And if you’re still smarting about the purple sprouting Brocklehurst bit, remember that Cable’s real name is Enid Sugden.’

He smiled, touched her cheek with his hand, and went. Imogen undressed and lay on her bed for a few minutes in the moonlight. Fancy Cable being called Enid. She giggled, then her thoughts turned to Matt.

Was it Jane Austen who said friendship was the finest balm for the pangs of despised love? She got up, locked her door and fell into a deep sleep.

It was after ten o’clock when she woke next morning. She found Matt drinking Pernod on the front, surrounded by newspapers, his long legs up on the table.

‘You’re going brown. Isn’t it a pity one can’t have the first drink of the day twice?’ he said, ordering her a cup of coffee.

‘How is everyone?’ she said.

‘Grimly determined to enjoy their fortnight’s holiday. Yvonne running herself up as usual, Cable in one of her moods — I’m not sure which one. They’ve all gone water skiing.’

‘Didn’t you want to go?’ said Imogen anxiously. It was bad enough that Nicky should annexe Cable without Matt being left with Nicky’s boring girlfriend.

‘After my performance on the boat coming over — you must be joking. You and I are going to take a trip along the coast.’

It was a perfect day. The mistral had retired into its cave. The air was soft. And as they drove along the coast road, the smell of petrol mingled with the scent of the pines. She still felt upset about Nicky, but for today she was determined not to brood.

‘Where are we going?’ asked Imogen.

‘St Tropez,’ said Matt.

Oh, God, thought Imogen as the wind fretted her hair into an even worse tangle. Everyone will look like Bardot there.

Matt parked the car on the front. In the yachts round the Port, the rich in their Pucci silks were surfacing for the first champagne of the day. Matt steered Imogen through a doorway, up some stairs, into a hairdressing salon.

‘To kick off, we’re going to do something about your hair,’ he said.

Imogen backed away in terror. ‘Oh, no!’ she said. ‘They’ll chop it all off.’

‘No they won’t,’ said Matt, explaining to the pretty receptionist exactly what he wanted them to do.

‘It’ll look great,’ he said, smiling at Imogen reassuringly. ‘I’ll pick you up later.’

‘Il a beaucoup d’allure,’ sighed the pretty receptionist to one of the assistants, who nodded in agreement as she helped Imogen into a pink overall.

When Matt came back, he didn’t recognise her. He gave her one of those hard, appraising sexy looks that men only give to very pretty girls. Then he said, ‘My God!’ and a great smile spread across his face.

Her hair hung in a sleek bronze curtain to her shoulders, parted on one side and falling seductively over one eye.

‘Very pretty, little one,’ he said, walking round her. ‘You don’t look like Judge Jeffreys after too much port any more.’ But the expression in his heavy-lidded eyes belied the teasing note in his voice.

‘Let’s go and have some lunch,’ he said, tucking his hand underneath her arm.

He led her down a labyrinth of alleys smelling of garlic, abounding in cats and washing, to a tiny dark restaurant, which was full of fishermen. The food was superb.

Imogen watched Matt slowly pulling leaves off his artichoke.

‘What does beaucoup d’allure mean?’ she asked.

Matt looked up. ‘Lots of sex appeal. Why?’

Imogen blushed. ‘I just heard someone saying it about someone.’

As always he drew confidences out of her, as the sun brings out the flowers. Under that exceptionally friendly gaze, she was soon telling him about the vicarage, and her brothers and sister, and what hell it had been to be fat at school, and how difficult it was to get on with her father. He’s a journalist, she kept telling herself, he’s trained to ask questions and be a good listener. He’d do the same to anyone. But she found herself noticing that his eyes were more dark green than black, and there was a small scar over his right eyebrow.

‘You’re not eating up,’ he said, stripping one of her langoustine, dipping it into the mayonnaise and popping it into her mouth.

‘I was wondering what the others were doing,’ she lied.

‘Bitching I should think. Yvonne told me this morning that it takes all sorts to make a world. Really someone should write all her sayings down in a book so they’re not forgotten.’

He ordered another bottle of wine. Two of the fishermen were staring fixedly at Imogen now. She wondered if she’d got lipstick on her teeth, and surreptitiously got out her mirror.

Matt grinned at her. ‘They’re staring at you because you look beautiful,’ he said.

The musky treacherous fires of the wine were stealing down inside her. She was beginning to feel wonderful. Matt asked for the bill. Imogen got out her purse.

‘Let me pay, please let me.’

Matt shook his head. ‘This is on me.’

As they went out into the fiery sunshine, she swayed slightly, and Matt took her arm.

‘Come on, baby, we’ve got things to do.’

Imogen kept catching reassuring glimpses of her sleek reflection in shop windows. The rich in their yachts and their Pucci silks held no terrors for her now. She was walking on air.

‘I think I’m a bit tight,’ she said.

‘Good,’ said Matt, turning briskly into a boutique.

In a daze, she watched him rifling through a tray of bikinis.

‘If it’s for Cable,’ she said, ‘that red one would look lovely.’

‘Not for Cable,’ he said, piloting her into one of the changing rooms, ‘for you.’

‘Oh I couldn’t! I’m too fat.’

‘I’m the best judge of that,’ said Matt handing her a pale blue bikini and drawing the curtain on her.

‘Oh, what the hell,’ thought Imogen, hiccupping gently.

She put on the bikini, and then stood gaping at herself. Except for her midriff which was still pale, there, smiling back at her in the mirror, was one of those beautiful shapely blondes who paraded up and down the beach at Port-les-Pins. Could it really be her? She gave a squeal of delight.

Matt pulled back the curtain and gave a low whistle.

‘That’s not bad for a start,’ he said.

‘But I’m practically falling out of it,’ she said.

‘Disgusting.’ He ran a leisurely hand over her midriff. ‘You’ll have to put in some overtime here. Try these on.’

Everything he handed her — dresses, trousers, shirts, beach shifts — was in pale greens, blues and pinks, calculated to take the last tinge of red out of her suntan.

The record player was pounding out old pop tunes.

‘You’re just too good to be true,

Can’t take my eyes off you. .’ sang Andy Williams.

‘Took the words out of my mouth,’ said Matt. Still the same teasing note in his voice. But in his eyes, once again, she read approval and something else which made her heart beat faster.

As she struggled into an apple green dress covered in white daisies, wondering how he should so instinctively know what suited her, she suddenly heard a commotion outside.

‘Matthieu, mon vieux!’

‘Antoine, mon brave!’ followed by a torrent of excited French.

Imogen put her head round the curtain to find Matt talking nineteen to the dozen to the wickedest-looking Frenchman she had ever seen. He was wearing an immaculately tailored suit in brilliant yellow pinstripe, with a grey shirt and a green carnation in his button hole. Rings flashed from his fingers, gold rings in his ears. He reeked of scent and was smoking a large cigar, and although he had a young dark gipsy face, his hair was already quite grey.

Suddenly his black eyes lighted on Imogen.

‘She come with you, Matthieu? What a beautiful girl.’

‘This is Imogen,’ said Matt.

‘Beautiful,’ murmured Antoine, fingering the green dress. ‘You look like a meadow, Mademoiselle. May I come and roll in you some time?’

‘Imogen, baby,’ sighed Matt, ‘I’m afraid this is Antoine de la Tour, playboy of the Western world. In between bouts of debauchery, he makes films.’

‘We are old friends,’ said Antoine. ‘We were at Ox-fawd together.’ He spoke English fluently with a strong Yorkshire accent.

‘My Nanny come from Yorkshire,’ he explained to Imogen. ‘She taught me English, and much else besides. Ever since Nanny, I’ve a tendresse for Yorkshire girls.’

‘Keep your hands off her,’ said Matt. ‘She’s not mine to lend. I only borrowed her for the day. Tell me, do you know anything about Braganzi?’

‘I’ve seen him in Marseilles once,’ said Antoine. ‘And the Duchess, what a beautiful woman.’

‘How do I get to see him?’ asked Matt.

‘You don’t,’ said Antoine. ‘’is house is like a fortress.’

At that moment a redhead came undulating across the room with a pile of silk shirts over her arm. She was of such massive proportions, she made Imogen feel like Twiggy.

‘This is Mimi,’ said Antoine. ‘Good girl, but spik no English.’

He handed her his wallet and, after smiling ravishingly at him, she undulated to the cash desk.

‘Look at those ’ips,’ sighed Antoine, ‘but then I always prefer quantity to quality. Her father is biggest bidet manufacturer in France. ’E finance my next film.’

‘What is it?’ asked Imogen, wondering where Matt had disappeared to.

‘I mek story of ’annibal and the Halps. We import one hondred elephants from Africa. Mimi will ’ave small part as ’annibal’s slave girl.’

‘She’ll be splendid,’ said Imogen.

Matt appeared and handed her a bulging carrier bag. She peered inside, aghast. ‘But Matt, I can’t. I thought we were just fooling about. All these things must have cost a fortune. You can’t give them to me!’

‘All in a good cause,’ said Matt. ‘Consider that they come with the compliments of Port-les-Pins Casino. Let’s go and see Antoine off,’ he added before she could argue any more.

Outside, deep in onlookers, was a huge pale mauve Rolls-Royce with smoked glass windows. Mimi, two Great Danes and a goat were watching television in the back.

A tall sleek Negro in a white suit and dark glasses was opening the door for Antoine.

‘This is Rebel,’ said Antoine. ‘My bodyguard and friend. I want him to play Caesar in my film. But he say it against Black Power principles to play white dictator. We’ll come over to Port-les-Pins this evening. Au revoir, mes petites,’ and he joined Mimi and the menagerie in the back.

‘He certainly has great style,’ said Imogen, still giggling as she and Matt stretched out on the beach later. ‘I mean that grey hair with that young face.’

‘It’s dyed,’ said Matt. ‘You may laugh, but he’s absolutely lethal where women are concerned. You should have seen him at Oxford, bowling them over with his Cartier watches and his dinner jacket with green facings. Any girl worth her salt in those days claimed to be educated at Roedean, Lady Margaret Hall, and Antoine de la Tour. So watch it, mate.’

Although everyone else on the beach was sunbathing topless, Imogen jumped out of her skin as she felt Matt’s fingers undoing the clasp of her bikini.

‘No, I can’t,’ she gasped.

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Matt. ‘Turn over. I’ll oil you.’

Imogen shut her eyes and turned over. The hot sun beat red through her lids. Hastily she covered her breasts with her folded arms.

‘Come on,’ said Matt. ‘I want to look at you.’

‘Oh please don’t,’ muttered Imogen. ‘I’m so awful.’

‘Shut up,’ he said, gently pulling down her arms.

‘You’ve been hiding your finest asset for far too long. Nicky was absolutely right about your tits.’

As his hands began to move luxuriously over her stomach, she felt her throat tighten and her mouth go dry. She opened her eyes to find him smiling lazily down at her, the heavy olive lids almost shutting out the dark green eyes. Her heart was going bump-bump like an overloaded spin dryer. Suddenly the beach had become a tiny room.

‘I’ll oil the rest of me,’ she stammered, snatching the tube of Ambre Solaire from him and hastily smothering her tits.

Matt laughed. ‘Fear no more the heat of the sun,’ he said.

‘It’s not the heat of the sun I’m scared of at the moment,’ muttered Imogen, frantically reaching for her bikini top. ‘I’m going for a swim.’

‘Uh, uh,’ he held her down. ‘Not when I’ve just oiled you. Concentrate on getting brown.’

He picked up the evening paper. ‘Bugger,’ he said. ‘Braganzi and the Duchess went to the theatre in Marseilles last night. Jesus, if only I could get in there.’

If he’s totally unmoved by my lying beside him half naked, perhaps it’s all right, thought Imogen, looking timidly around. A few yards away a handsome German was lasciviously rubbing oil into his companion’s enormous breasts. Goodness, I am seeing life, she thought as gradually the tension seeped out of her.

Much later, when Imogen’s bosom and the sea were turning a deep rosy gold, Matt glanced at his watch. ‘Christ it’s late. We’d better get back.’

They drove back in a manic mood. The wireless was roaring out the Fifth symphony. Matt was waltzing the car round the hairpin bends. He was wearing that battered Panama hat to keep the sun out of his eyes. His thick tawny hair was now extravagantly bleached and streaked by the sun, his teeth gleamed white in his brown face.

God, he’s divine. How could I ever have thought he was ugly? she wondered.

‘Such a lovely day,’ she said, stretching luxuriously. ‘And all my heavenly clothes. You are good to me, Matt.’

He looked round and smiled approvingly.

‘Nicky won’t be able to keep his hands off you now.’

Nicky! That brought her up with a jerk. How awful, she hadn’t given him a thought for hours.