‘Oh – Mungo. Hi. What are you doing here?’
‘Visiting your mother, I hope.’
‘But I thought –’
‘Yes, I know, but I had to come up to town, so I just dropped by on the off-chance. Aren’t you going to ask me in?’
‘Oh – sorry, I wasn’t thinking – but the thing is, Mungo, well, that is Mummy isn’t here.’
‘Isn’t here? But her bedroom light’s on.’
‘Yes I know. I was in there myself, just – oh, you know, looking at her dresses. Seeing if there was anything I could borrow for a – a dance I’m going to.’ She pushed her heavy hair back; smiled at him awkwardly.
‘Well, where’s your mother?’
‘She’s gone out to dinner. With – with a friend.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Well, that was all right. Alice had every right to go out to dinner. With anyone really, and certainly with a girlfriend. Even if she hadn’t mentioned it. It was probably a last-minute invitation.
‘When do you think she’ll be back? I really do want to see her.’
‘Oh – I don’t know. Not for ages probably. She’s with her very best friend. They just talk and talk for hours.’
‘Who, Anouska?’ said Mungo. He didn’t quite know why he said that: he wasn’t really checking up, of course not, he just wanted to make sure, to be able to go home to bed with an absolutely easy mind.
‘Yes,’ said Jemima. ‘Yes, that’s right, Anouska.’
‘I see,’ said Mungo. Anouska was away with her husband for a long weekend in France; Alice had told him herself.
He stood there for a long minute, trying to convince himself that it still didn’t mean anything, that Jemima was simply trying to come up with an answer, to please him, to get rid of him. He failed. ‘Well, I think if you don’t mind, Jemima,’ he said, ‘I’ll come in and wait for your mother. I’ve got something terribly important to talk to her about. You just get off to bed and I’ll sit and read or something.’
‘But –’
‘Jemima,’ said Mungo. ‘I really do want to come in. Friend of yours just leaving, was it?’
Jemima looked at him; her face in the street light was startled, guilty. ‘No. Yes. Well, an old friend of the family. Of Mummy’s, really.’
‘I see. And you were entertaining him with all the lights out, were you?’
‘Mungo, I – oh shit, I –’
She looked very scared. Mungo smiled at her suddenly, conspiratorially. ‘Listen, Jemima, I’m not so much of a grown-up I’m going to tell on you. But I would like to come in.’
‘Oh, all right,’ said Jemima, and smiled, slightly uncertainly, back. She undid the chain and unlocked the door; Mungo wondered vaguely how Alice might have been supposed to get in, but then dismissed the thought. He had more important things on his mind.
‘Thank you.’ He looked at her; under her long dark lashes her eyes were knowing, defiant. She led him into the kitchen. ‘Coffee? Drink?’
‘I’d love a coffee. Thank you.’
She made two cups, slightly to his surprise, put them on the table, sat down on a chair opposite him. She was wearing a silk robe; her cleavage was very visible, her hair, thick, blonde, tousled, tumbled over her shoulders. One long brown leg was crossed over the other, revealed almost to the crotch. God, she was gorgeous. Talk about jail bait. Mungo concentrated very hard on his mug of coffee. ‘You don’t have to worry,’ he said again, ‘I really am not going to tell on you.’
‘Thank you. Of course we weren’t –’
‘Of course you weren’t.’
‘But he’s much older than me and Mummy doesn’t really approve.’
‘I see. Is it – quite serious?’
‘Well, a bit. But only a bit. I’ve got another year at school yet and –’
‘Three surely. Three years. With A-levels.’
‘Oh, I’m not going to do A-levels,’ said Jemima, with as much scorn in her voice as if he had suggested she might take up cleaning or pig farming. ‘I’m going to do modelling.’
‘Oh really? Well, you’ll make a lot of money. If you do well.’
‘Yes, I know. And it’s obviously great fun. You know Ottoline, don’t you? What’s she like?’
‘She’s gorgeous,’ said Mungo simply, ‘and fun, and really nice. But she works like a dog.’
‘Oh, really? How?’
‘Hours and hours on end in boiling studios. And freezing clifftops and things. And twenty-hour days in fashion showrooms, for weeks at a time. It’s tough.’
‘I don’t call that tough,’ said Jemima carelessly, ‘and she gets bloody well paid for it, doesn’t she?’
‘Yes she does. Tell me, Jemima, what would you call tough?’
‘Oh God, studying. I loathe it. And looking after kids. That’s what I’m doing these holidays until we go away. It’s gross. I hate it.’
‘Well, I presume it’s earning you a bit of money.’
‘A bit. Mummy won’t put my allowance up, and I just don’t get enough –’
‘I think it’s more that she can’t, Mimi, isn’t it, she really doesn’t have a lot of money.’
‘I’m sure she could if she wanted to. She seems to have plenty of money to spend on herself. She’s always buying clothes and things.’
‘She seems to me to buy you quite a lot,’ said Mungo, ‘you and the others. So where is she then?’
He shot the question out quickly, catching her off her guard. Her voice was nervous, a bit too loud. ‘I told you. She’s gone out to dinner with Anouska.’
‘Jemima, Anouska is in France. I happen to know. So who is your mother with?’
‘Mungo, I don’t know. I wasn’t really listening. She’s with friends, anyway.’
‘Uh-huh. Look, do you want to go up and finish changing the sheets on your mother’s bed? I’d hate to be responsible for your getting caught out –’
Jemima stared at him, her eyes filled with fear. ‘How did you –’
‘Oh Jemima, I’ve been fifteen too, you know. Not so long ago. You didn’t invent naughty behaviour. Go on, go and get on with it.’
‘OK,’ she said, looking at him uncertainly, ‘OK. Thanks. I won’t be long.’
He sat drinking his coffee, feeling increasingly disorientated. He looked at his watch: one o’clock. Late. Well, quite late. Late for an impromptu dinner with a girlfriend. Or was it? Maybe not. Late for something Jemima was covering up anyway. Very late. He sighed, got a half-drunk bottle of wine out of the fridge and poured himself a glass. It was extremely good: expensive. Very expensive, he thought, looking at the label. Maybe one of the ones he’d bought. No, it wasn’t, it was a French burgundy, he never bought French wine these days. Californian was a lot more interesting. She must have bought it herself. Maybe for a dinner party. Or maybe Jemima’s friend had brought it. Yes, that was it. He drank the glass very quickly, finished the bottle, put it down under the sink. Alice was very strict about empties, taking them all to the bottle bank on Saturday mornings. There was another identical one there, plus a champagne bottle, and a bottle of red as well, a Penfold, 1989. Jemima and her friend must have had quite an evening. And he must be pretty well-heeled. Well, he’d looked well-heeled. And pleased with himself as well. Disgusting, fucking schoolgirls. Mungo felt angry suddenly, angry with all of them; he ran up the stairs and stood in the doorway of Alice’s bedroom. Jemima had her back to him; she had nearly finished her task, was pulling the duvet cover finally into place. She hadn’t heard him. ‘Who’s she with?’ said Mungo. It was a dirty trick, but he couldn’t help it. She jumped, spun round.
‘Mungo, don’t, please don’t. I can’t tell you. It’s – it’s not fair.’
He sighed. ‘I suppose not. All right. Well, I’m going to wait. As long as it takes.’
‘Mungo, there’s not much point,’ said Jemima, and for the first time that evening her large blue eyes – beautiful eyes, he noticed, irrelevantly, flecked with darker blue still – were soft, concerned.
&n
bsp; ‘Why not?’
‘Because – because she won’t be back. Not until the morning. Oh Mungo, don’t look like that. I’m so sorry.’
‘That’s all right, Jemima. Thank you for telling me. I think I’ll still wait, though, if you don’t mind. You go to bed, I’ll be quite all right on the sofa.’
He was sitting there, staring into the darkness when she came in ten minutes later, bringing him a brandy and a cup of coffee. ‘There you are. A nightcap.’ She bent down and kissed him very gently on the cheek.
‘I’m sorry, Mungo. She doesn’t deserve you, she really doesn’t. And you certainly don’t deserve her.’
Chapter 22
Tilly 12:30am
Considering she stood to make several hundred thousand dollars out of it herself, Felicity had been very noble about Tilly’s decision. ‘I really am not at all sure you should do it,’ she said, when Tilly told her. ‘You know how homesick you get, you know how you hate being tied down. There’s more to life than money, Tilly.’
‘You’re kidding me,’ said Tilly grinning into the phone. ‘Yeah, I know. And the reason I want to do this – correction, the reason I am doing this – is exactly that. I have to get away, Felicity, away from London, out of this whole thing. And besides, I have plans for the money.’
‘Tilly, don’t get too excited about the money. It will go fast enough. Hideous tax bills, horrible expenses –’
‘Yeah, outrageous commission to my agent, don’t forget that. Don’t fuss, Felicity, I know what I’m doing.’
‘And you’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Can I call Meg? I mean you still won’t be totally committed, not till you’ve signed, but she’s going to start getting very wound up –’
‘Sure,’ said Tilly. ‘Tell her. It’s fine. Really.’
Felicity rang back five minutes later. ‘She’s so excited. She asked me to tell you she never felt more happy about anything in her life.’
‘She must have had a pretty crap life,’ said Tilly. Then she poured herself a very large glass of wine, and sat down to watch the last vestiges of day leave the sky.
She was woken by the entryphone ringing. She stumbled over to the door, stupid with sleep, picked it up. ‘Yeah?’
‘Tilly. It’s Rufus.’
‘I thought you were still in Wedbourne.’
‘You thought wrong. Please, Tilly, let me in. I have to talk to you.’
‘Rufus, I –’ God, she didn’t need this. Not now. Not tonight. She needed her strength, her sleep.
‘Tilly, please.’
‘Oh – all right.’
She pressed the entryphone, went into the bathroom. God, she looked terrible; great hollow eyes, saggy skin, and she had a spot, for Christ’s sake, coming on her chin. Thank God they didn’t have to reshoot any of the wedding dresses. Tilly dragged a comb through her cropped hair and cleaned her teeth. When she came out Rufus was standing in the sitting room. He had a bunch of rather tacky-looking flowers in his hand, wrapped in the lace-printed plastic garages use as substitute for wrapping paper. He was deathly pale. He tried to smile at her.
‘Hallo, Tilly. These are for you.’
‘Rufus, you really shouldn’t have got Pulbrook and Gould out of bed at this time of night,’ said Tilly, trying to sound light-hearted. She took the flowers, kissed him briefly. ‘Drink?’
‘Yes please. Well, if I can stay.’
Tilly took a deep breath. There was no point in postponing the agony longer than necessary. The swifter and cleaner the surgery the better.
‘I – don’t know. I have a six o’clock call.’
‘Oh.’ He looked confused. ‘That never stopped you before.’
‘I know, but I’m fucking tired.’
‘Oh. Oh I see.’ His eyes were so dark, his face so collapsed with hurt she could hardly stand it. She went into the kitchen quickly, poured two glasses of wine, handed him one. ‘Here you are. I guess you could sleep on the couch.’
‘Tilly! Tilly, whatever is it? What did I do?’
‘Nothing. I told you, I’m just wrecked.’
‘Too wrecked to talk to me?’
‘No, of course not. But I have to talk to you too.’
‘Oh. Well, all right. Of course. You go first.’
Oh God, he was such a nice man. Here he was, exhausted, clearly upset, desperate to talk to her, and she was treating him like some kind of pervert, and he was politely prepared to listen to her. How was she going to do this; and did she really really have to?
‘No. No, you have first claim. Go ahead. I’m all yours.’ She smiled at him, settled in the sofa opposite him.
‘Are you, Tilly? Are you really? Because that’s, at rock bottom, what I want to talk to you about. Well, there is something else, connected to it, but – before I start on that I just have to know, Tilly. Whether you’ll marry me. I need you so much. More than ever now. You see –’
Right. This was it. She couldn’t let this one go. Whatever else was going on. She took a deep breath, lit a cigarette, offered him one. He shook his head; he hated her smoking, she was always promising, without really meaning it, to give it up. ‘Well, Rufus,’ she said, not trying to be careful, tactful (for what was the point, what good would it possibly do?), ‘Rufus, I’ve had an offer.’
‘Ah.’ She sensed him bracing himself, watched his eyes darken with alarm.
‘What kind of offer?’ he said clearly struggling to sound relaxed. ‘From another man?’
God, Rufus, don’t do this to me, don’t try to be so nice, so brave.
‘No. Well, from a whole load of men.’
‘I’m sorry, Tilly, I don’t follow.’
‘From a cosmetics company. Called Rosenthal. I’m sure you won’t have heard of them.’
‘I – don’t think I have. No.’
‘Well, they’re big. Very big. And they want to sign me up.’
‘And is that what you want?’
‘Yes. Yes it is.’
‘Well, I should let them. If I were you. You want to get a good lawyer to look at the contract though.’ He managed to smile at her; she didn’t smile back.
‘Yeah, I probably will. It’s very big.’ Might as well make herself sound as bad as possible. It would help him through it.
‘How big?’
‘Around two million dollars.’
Rufus whistled. ‘That’s a lot of dollars.’
Tilly shrugged. ‘Yeah, well.’
‘Tilly, what’s the matter? You just don’t seem yourself.’
‘I’m myself,’ said Tilly, beginning to believe it, ‘probably more myself than I’ve been for a while.’
‘So what does this have to do with us?’ asked Rufus quietly.
‘Well, I have to move to New York basically. For at least a year.’
‘And?’
‘And what?’
‘Are you going to?’
‘Yes, of course I am. Rufus, I really can’t turn down two million bucks.’
‘You could have talked to me about it. We could have discussed it, I would have thought.’
He looked so desperate, so bewildered, Tilly relented just a little. ‘Rufus, I’m sorry. But I had to decide today. And there was rather a lot going on, it didn’t seem quite the sort of thing to bother you with.’
‘Tilly, anything to do with you is the sort of thing to bother me with. You know that.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is. Yes of course. But – well, I do think it’s for the best. In the long run.’
‘Why?’ He came over to her, took her hand, kissed it tenderly. Tilly looked at him, into his brown eyes, so full of love for her, and her heart quite literally seemed to be dying, choking to death. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, ‘I’m so sorry. It just seemed – well, like I said, the best thing. To me.’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘it doesn’t to me. And I think you should have talked to me.’
‘But Rufus, why?’
‘Because I love you, Till
y. Because I want to marry you. To be with you. You know that.’
‘Yes, Rufus, of course I do and –’
‘Don’t you love me? Is that what this is all about, is that what you’re trying to tell me suddenly?’
‘Yes,’ she said, unable to lie about such an important, such a lovely thing, ‘yes, Rufus, of course I love you. You know I do. But – well, love isn’t everything. Is it?’
‘For me it is. Everything.’
‘Well, you’re not very sensible, in that case,’ said Tilly, getting up, fetching the wine bottle.
‘No I’m not. I never thought being sensible was very important.’
‘Well, I’m afraid I do. Rufus, we can’t get married. I’ve told you so many times. It’s hopeless. It would be like – I don’t know. Pushing water uphill. Every day. Our lives wouldn’t work together, Rufus. You’d want me to be what I’m not and I’d want you to be what you’re not. It isn’t practical, Rufus, I know it isn’t. And in the end you’d know it too. We’d make each other so unhappy. So it’s best to end it now. Before everything stops being good. And I’ve had this offer, and I’ve said I’m going. It’s the right thing for both of us, Rufus, don’t you see?’
‘No,’ he said, ‘no I don’t. I can’t believe I’m hearing this, Tilly, I really can’t. It’s unbelievable.’
‘I don’t know why,’ she said, irritated in spite of herself, in spite of her love for him. ‘I’ve said all along that any idea of our being together, properly together, was hopeless. I think fate’s come along and given us a bit of a shove.’
‘And that’s it, is it?’ he said. ‘Goodbye, baby, and amen. Just like that. You’ve decided it’s not going to work, and so you’re going. Have I got this right, Tilly?’
‘Well,’ she said, and she was having to drag the words out now, one by one, each more painful than the last, ‘well yes, Rufus, actually, you have. I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.’
‘Yes,’ he said, standing up, staring down at her, ‘yes I can see that. Terribly sorry. Nothing two million dollars can’t fix though. Well, good. Tilly, I think there’s something more to all this. I don’t know what. And I don’t know that I want to hear it, but I suppose I have to ask. Good lawyer that I am, I want to examine all the facts. Has something happened today, in this bloody awful day we’ve all been through, that’s made you feel differently about me? Apart from the prospect of being a millionaire? Like have you met someone? Or –’
Another Woman (9781468300178) Page 40
