by Jilly Cooper
In the bedroom, she examined herself naked in the mirror. Were the goods good enough? Her bust was much too big. But men didn’t seem to mind that. Her legs were all right except for the bleeding, but everywhere else was a bit voluptuous. She took the mirror off the wall and, holding it above herself, lay down on the bed. Would she pass muster at this angle? Her stomach looked flatter anyway, and her hair fanned out nicely. Stop it, she said to herself furiously, you’re only going to have a drink with him.
There was a knock on the door. She jumped up guiltily, grabbing a towel.
‘Going out, dear?’ said the landlady, Mrs Glass. ‘There’s a nice piece of hot gammon if you fancy it.’
Mrs Glass often grumbled how much her lodgers cost her, but she preferred the ones that stayed in. Miss Poole was a nice, quiet girl, and sweet natured too, if she wasn’t so dreadfully untidy.
‘Your poor mother wouldn’t want you to starve yourself,’ said Mrs Glass, who thought everyone under eleven stone needed feeding up.
‘I’m going to a party,’ said Harriet. ‘I’ll probably stay the night with a girlfriend, so don’t worry if I don’t come back.’ The glib way she could lie.
‘Quite right not to trust young gentlemen driving on these roads,’ said Mrs Glass. ‘Do you good to get out and enjoy yourself for a change.’
‘I’ll have a real tidy out tomorrow,’ said Harriet, wincing as she put deodorant under her arms. Her leg was still bleeding; it must be all that excitement pulsating through her veins.
She put on a pair of black lace pants and a black bra with a red ribbon she had bought in anticipation of Geoffrey. The pants hardly covered her at all and the red ribbon was too much, so she tore it off.
There was her black sweater all the time under the bed. She could wear it with her red skirt. It was getting late. What happened if Simon got bored of waiting and went out?
For once, her hair obeyed her. She splashed a bottle of scent, a Christmas present from Susie, all over her. She hoped it didn’t clash with the French Fern. How did French ferns differ from English, she wondered. Perhaps they were more sophisticated.
She galloped back along the streets. It was very cold now and the street lights gave the snow a curious pale radiance. Her breath crystallized in little clouds before her. The white nights, she said to herself; she was Anna Karenina smothered in furs hurrying to meet Vronsky, Natasha quivering with guilty expectation waiting for Anatole.
She felt more and more sick with nerves. Perhaps her mouth tasted awful; she stopped at the newsagents to buy some chewing gum. The windows of Simon’s digs were black. He’s gone, she thought in panic; one of those dazzling creatures has spirited him away. No, a thin beam of light trickled through the green silk curtains. A group of people were coming out. Oh, those echoing self-confident voices!
‘I do think it’s anti-social of Simon to throw us out when it’s so cold. Chloe is going to be simply livid,’ said one of the girls, scooping up a snowball and throwing it at one of the boys, as they all went screaming off into the night. Harriet threw away her chewing gum, it made no sound as it landed in the snow. The door was still open as she went up the path. Simon emerged from the darkness, his hair gleaming white in the street lamp.
‘I thought you’d done a bunk,’ he said.
‘I got soaked. I had to change.’
He put his hand out and touched her cheek.
‘You’re frozen. Come in.’
Only three people were left in the drawing room. Deirdre, who was putting on lipstick, a blond man who was rooting around the drinks tray to find himself some more wine, and Chloe who sat on the sofa, huddled like a sparrow on the telegraph wires on a cold day.
‘Oh poor thing,’ thought Harriet. ‘I’d mind losing Simon.’
‘Come on chaps,’ said Simon removing the bottle from the blond man, ‘chucking-out time.’
Harriet went over to the fire. She felt miserably embarrassed. Chloe looked mutinous. Simon got her blond, squashy fur coat out of the bedroom and held it out for her.
‘Come on, darling,’ he said firmly. ‘Beat it.’
Two angry spots of colour burnt on her cheeks. She snatched the coat from him and put it on herself.
‘You’re a bastard, Simon,’ she hissed. ‘And you won’t escape unscathed either,’ she added to Harriet, and, with a sob, ran out of the room down the stairs.
‘We might all meet at Serena’s party later,’ said Deirdre, kissing Simon on the cheek. ‘She is expecting you, Simon.’
‘Not tonight, darling. Tell Serena I had a previous. .’ He shot a glance at Harriet. ‘No, a subsequent engagement. Now good night, darlings.’ And he shut the door on them.
He turned and shot Harriet that swift, devastating smile.
‘One has to be brutal occasionally to get what one wants in life.’
‘She was awfully upset,’ said Harriet.
‘She’ll recover,’ said Simon.
He chucked some logs on the fire, covering the flame and throwing the room into semi-darkness, and gave her a drink, the cold condensing on the outside of the glass. She held onto it to stop her hands shaking and took a huge gulp; it was a long time since the baked beans.
Simon disappeared into another room. She felt as though she was alone in some deserted woodland house, and that Indians or some invaders were slowly creeping through the undergrowth towards her — but she didn’t know when or from where they were going to attack. Simon returned with the remains of a quiche on a plate.
‘We never did have any lunch. Do you want some?’
She shook her head.
Simon helped himself to a slice.
‘You’re all right after the crash, are you?’ he said with his mouth full.
‘Just a few bruises, that’s all.’
‘I must look at them later.’
Her heart thumped madly; the firelight flickered on his face. She jumped as a log fell out of the grate.
‘Relax,’ said Simon. ‘I’ve never seen anyone as terrified as you. What put that scared look in your eyes? Were you raped as a child? Did you have strict parents? Were you bullied at school?’ He was making fun at her now, but his voice was like a caress.
She took another gulp of wine. Having eaten the inside of the quiche Simon was about to throw the pastry into the fire.
‘We could give it to the birds,’ said Harriet.
‘We could, I suppose.’ He opened the window, letting in a draught of icy air; the snow gleamed like a pearl. Simon put a record on the gramophone. It was a Mozart piano concerto.
‘You still look sad,’ said Simon.
‘I was thinking. . about Chloe.’
‘Not worth it. She’s the most frightful scrubber. I only took her out a couple of times. She’s one of those girls like scrambled egg, amazingly easy to make, but impossible to get off the pan afterwards.’
Harriet giggled.
‘That’s better,’ said Simon, ‘now come and sit on the sofa. No, next to me, not six feet away.’
She was still trembling, but the excitement was beginning to take over. He picked up her hand and kissed it.
‘I thought you were terribly good in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,’ she said brightly.
‘I know I was,’ said Simon. ‘So we’ve exhausted that subject.’
His hand on the back of the dark green velvet sofa was edging towards her hair, but he didn’t touch her. His timing was so good, he held off until she was in a panic that he was never going to. It was terribly hot in the room, she could feel the sweat trickling between her breasts.
‘You’re so pretty,’ he was saying in a low husky voice, and then he kissed her. At first she kept her arms clamped down by her side, but suddenly like the reflex action when one’s knee is tapped, they shot up and coiled themselves round Simon’s neck, and she was kissing him back with all her might, and his hands were on the move all over her body. Hastily she pulled in her spare tyre.
‘I mustn’t.’
‘You must, you
must.’
‘You’ll think I’m too easy.’
‘I don’t. I just think you’re overdressed, that’s all,’ and he took off her earrings and put them side by side on the table. Then took off her shoes, and took the telephone off the hook.
She sat back waiting for an attack on another front.
‘You’ve got such a lovely body,’ he said, filling both their glasses.
‘One should really take lessons at prep school in undoing bras. Oh, I see; it does up at the front,’ he said a minute later.
His hands were warm on her bare back. He kissed her eyes, her hair, her mouth; she’d never dreamed he’d be so tender.
‘No,’ she gasped, leaping up as his fingers edged inside her waistband.
How could she explain she wouldn’t be easy like this, if she didn’t find him so overwhelmingly attractive?
‘Sweetheart, stop fighting it,’ he whispered. ‘I refuse to be put outside the bedroom every night, like flowers in a hospital.’
Harriet gasped. ‘You’ve read Geoffrey’s letter!’
‘I picked it up in the snow. I’m glad he’s glad you’ve gone on the pill, but I’m even gladder.’
‘You shouldn’t read other people’s letters,’ she said furiously.
‘One must, just to find out all the nice things they’re saying about one. Tell me about Geoffrey. What does he do?’
‘He’s a marine biologist.’
‘Oh well, we can’t all be perfect.’
‘He’s clever,’ said Harriet defensively. ‘He’s just come down from Plymouth.’
‘One can’t come down from Plymouth. One can only go up,’ said Simon. He was attacking her waistband again.
‘It’s too soon,’ she muttered. ‘I don’t even know you.’
‘You talk too much,’ he said. ‘I’ve never heard so much fuss about something that’s so nice.’ He started to pull off her sweater and she was enveloped in a fuzz of black wool.
‘It’s got buttons at the back,’ she squealed, as he nearly removed her ears.
‘Don’t be frightened,’ he said, when she was finally freed, and he pulled her down on the floor beside him. The applewood of the logs mingled with a trace of his lavender aftershave, and the animal smell of the white fire rug which scratched against her back. She had no will power. It’s going to happen she thought in panic.
‘Will it hurt?’
‘You’ll be so excited by the time I’ve got you revved up, you won’t feel a thing,’ he whispered.
In a few minutes the Mozart concerto jigged jollily to its ending, and the only sounds in the room were her gasps for breath and the soft crackling of the fire.
Later they went into the bedroom, and once in the night she got up to go to the loo, and gazed at herself in the bathroom mirror, searching for lines of depravity. She looked rather disappointingly the same except that her face was flushed, her eyes glazed. She wondered why she didn’t feel more guilty, then realized it was because she loved him.
Chapter Five
‘That was so gorgeous,’ she said next morning when they woke up.
He grinned. ‘You’ll find it a perfect hobby, darling, and so cheap. I say,’ he added, ‘what’s your name?’
She gave a gurgle of laughter.
‘Harriet,’ she said. ‘Harriet Poole.’
‘I’ve never had a Harriet before.’ He lay back and laughed, ‘Oh I’m just wild about Harriet,’ and then he pulled her down on top of him.
For the next fortnight she had to keep pinching herself. Simon Villiers was her lover; the impossible had been achieved. They hardly got out of bed, except for the occasional excursion to the Randolph for breakfast, or an excursion to Hinksey Hill to see what making love was like in the snow. Harriet found it extremely cold, and nearly died of a heart attack when a cow looked over the fence and mooed at her.
Never in her life had she been so happy. Willingly she cooked for Simon, ironed his shirts rather badly, ran his errands, and submitted rapturously over and over again to his love-making.
‘You really do ad-dore it, don’t you?’ he drawled in amazement.
The snow seemed here to stay. The ploughs came and scattered salt and sand on the roads, but the houses and the parks were still blanketed in whiteness. Harriet was doing absolutely no work. Simon had forbidden her to wear her glasses, so work gave her a headache anyway. She rang both Theo Dutton and Geoffrey and told them she’d got ’flu. The weight fell off her; she lost over a stone living on wine and love.
Never had she met anyone so witty, so glamorous, so glorious as Simon. Only one thing nagged her, at this supreme moment in her life: she felt unable to describe him adequately in her diary. There was an elusiveness about his character that she couldn’t pin down; he seemed permanently to be playing someone other than himself, and watching himself doing it at the same time. Although books filled his flat, he never appeared to read, except theatre reviews in the paper or the odd stage magazine. When he watched television he was far more interested in the techniques of the actors and actresses, and in who was playing whom, than in the story.
It was only in the third week things started to go wrong. Simon had an audition in London with Buxton Philips. Not realizing it was early closing day, Harriet arrived too late to get his grey velvet suit out of the cleaners. She was shattered at the storm of abuse that broke over her when she got home.
‘But you’ve got hundreds of beautiful suits,’ she stammered.
‘Yes,’ hissed Simon, ‘but I wanted to wear this one,’ and he walked out of the house without even saying goodbye.
Harriet was supposed to be writing her essay on the sonnets, but she couldn’t stop crying. In the end she gave up working, wrote a poem to Simon, and spent hours making a moussaka, which she knew he liked.
He came back from London on the last train, if anything in a worse mood than when he left.
‘How did it go?’ she said nervously.
‘Bloody terrible! Buxton Philips didn’t show up.’
‘Oh no,’ wailed Harriet. How could anyone stand up Simon?
‘All I saw was some old bitch of a secretary. “Ay’m sorry, Mr Villiers, but it’s always wise to ring Mr Philips in the mornin’ to check he’s able to make it, he’s so busy.”’
‘Oh poor Simon.’ She got up and put her arms round him, but she could sense his detachment.
‘Fix me a drink,’ he said, pacing up and down the room. ‘In a few years’ time, that bastard’ll be crawling to me. “Ay’m sorry, Mr Philips, Mr Villiers is far too busy to see you.” He’ll regret this.’
‘Of course he will,’ said Harriet soothingly. ‘You’re going to be a big star, Simon. Everyone says so.’
She handed him a drink.
‘I missed you so much, I’ve even written you a poem,’ she said blushing. ‘I’ve never written anyone a poem before.’
She handed it to him.
Simon skimmed through it, his lips curling.
‘“Our love is like a rainbow arched in shuddering orgasm against the sky”,’ he read out in a deliberately melodramatic voice. ‘“Orgasm” in the singular? I must be slipping.’
Harriet flushed and bit her lip.
‘I also found this lovely sonnet, which describes exactly how I feel about you,’ she said hastily, handing him the volume of Shakespeare.
‘Harriet de-ah,’ sighed Simon, as he glanced at it, ‘if you knew the number of women who’ve quoted that poem at me! You’re in danger of getting soppy, sweetheart. I don’t mind women being romantic, but I can’t stand soppiness.’
She tried once again.
‘I’ve made some moussaka for supper,’ she said.
‘I’m bored with moussaka,’ said Simon.
She was still crying when he came to bed. ‘What’s the matter?’ he said. ‘I love you,’ said Harriet, in a choked voice. ‘Well, if you love me,’ said Simon softly, ‘you must like the whip.’
He woke up next morning in a better mood, and they made l
ove, sat drinking coffee and reading the papers in bed until lunchtime. Harriet had forgotten the insults of last night, aware only of a swooning relief that everything was all right again. Her euphoria was short-lived. She was looking at the horoscopes.
‘It says I’m going to have a good day for romance,’ she giggled. ‘Perhaps I shall meet a tall dark stranger. I always dreamed I’d fall in love with someone tall and dark. Funny you should be small and blond.’
‘I am not small,’ said Simon icily.
She knew by the idle drumming of his fingers on the bedside table that there’d be trouble, that he’d bide his time and then retaliate without scruple. He started to read a piece about some famous actor’s sex life. When he came to the end he said:
‘That’s why I want to make it up the top. Apart from telling Buxton Philips to get stuffed, just think of the birds one could pull. Once you become a big star, you can virtually have any woman you want.’
There was a pause. Harriet felt faint at the thought of Simon having another woman. A great tear fell onto the paper she was reading, followed by another, and another.
‘What’s eating you?’ said Simon.
She got clumsily out of bed; not wearing her spectacles and blinded by tears, she bumped into a table, knocking off a little Rockingham dalmatian that she knew Borzoi had given Simon. It smashed beyond redemption. Harriet was appalled.
‘I’ll buy you another, Simon, truly I will.’
‘As it cost about £80, I think that’s extremely unlikely,’ he snapped. ‘For God’s sake stop snivelling. It’s bad enough you breaking it, without making that Godawful din. I’m hungry. Go and put on the moussaka, and then have a bath, but don’t forget to leave the water in.’
