take two years.’
‘What’s his name? Your MP? I might know him.’
‘Oh, rather romantic. Gabriel Bingham. Straight out of
Thomas Hardy. I must say, for a Labour man, he’s a bit of a
surprise.’
No doubt he speaks nicely, thought Octavia, and has
good manners.
‘He’s very well spoken and extremely polite,’ said
Patricia David. ‘Quite young and good looking in a wild
sort of way. He’s been to a couple of the meetings. Very
noncommittal of course, but I’m hopeful of his support. Now, the Daily M.ail want to interview me, about the latest development. Is that a good idea?’
‘Yes, but make some really solid noises, Patricia. Don’t
just waffle on about the wood and how lovely it is. Say
you’re starting an appeal fund, that you plan to brief a
barrister, take it to the European Courts if necessary. Sound
as if you really are going to be tough opponents. Not just an
emotional band of mothers.’
‘Hang on, I’m just writing that down. Marvellous. I
know I’ve said it before, but we really are lucky to have
you on our side, Octavia. I wish you could meet our Mr
Bingham — you’d like him such a lot and maybe you could
persuade him to come in on our side.’
‘Now that really would be dangerous,’ said Octavia,
laughing. ‘For me to meet him.’
Marianne looked at Nico Cadogan across the table and
wondered quite what she was doing here. At Le Caprice,
where half the clientele would know either her or him and
wonder what they were doing together.
‘Well, this is fun,’ he said, as if he read her thoughts.
‘Good to do something just for fun, don’t you think?’
‘Yes,’ she said, slightly doubtfully.
‘Come along. Drink your champagne. I want to hear all
about these terrible problems you’re having with your
family.’
When he had phoned that morning, ostensibly in search
of Felix, she had told him she was the last person Felix
would be with at that moment, and he had asked why, and
rather rashly she had told him.
‘You sound as if you are feeling neglected,’ he said.
‘Come and have lunch with me, and let me treat you rather
better for a bit.’
She had said no, of course she couldn’t, and he had said
yes, of course she could, and she had suddenly looked over
her life and thought that yes, he was right, of course she
could. And here she was, sitting opposite him, feeling
absurdly nervous and more than a little confused, both
emotionally and sexually, by the rather fearsome force of his
attentions.
‘I’m finding it rather insulting,’ he said, looking at her
over his glass of champagne, ‘that you’re not enjoying this
more.’
‘Oh, I am,’ she said, taking another sip of the champagne
- not the house champagne either, but Veuve Cliquot.
Clearly, Nico was not over-concerned about his personal
financial stability.
‘No, you’re not. You’re worrying about whether someone
you know will see us; you’re worrying about what
Felix might say if he knew — or does he know?’
‘No,’ she said, half amused, half indignant at the
question, ‘I don’t have to tell Felix everything I do — we’re
not married.’
‘Why not? You’ve been together a long time, you’re
obviously very fond of him, you’re both free …”
‘We choose not to be,’ said Marianne firmly. ‘And,
Nico, I’d rather not talk about it. It really is nothing to do
with you.’
‘Yes, it is,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘I think you should use your imagination on that one.’
‘I’m afraid, Tom, we may have to look for an extra
injection of capital,’ said Aubrey.
‘Christ. Is it that bad?’
‘Not yet. But if we lost an account, even a small one,
we’d be done for.’
‘Well, we’re not going to,’ said Tom lightly. ‘Everything’s
going well.’
‘Including Michael Carlton?’
‘Oh, I can steady him. He’ll get his permission. It’s just
going to take a bit longer. You could argue it’s a good
thing; we’ll get his fee for longer as well.’
‘Okay,’ said Aubrey with a sigh, ‘we’ll hang on. I’m
having dinner with an old City chum on Tuesday night.
You’re not free, are you? You and Octavia? I know he’d
like to meet you. Both of you,’ he added, stressing the point.
‘No, sorry,’ said Tom. ‘I’m out of town. Got a meeting
in Oxford with a group of environmentalists, interested in
forming a parliamentary committee. I won’t be back, I’m
afraid.’ He was thumbing through some papers, just a bit
too intently.
Aubrey looked at him for a moment. ‘I see,’ was all he
said.
‘Where have you been?’
Marianne jumped; she had thought the house was empty.
Zoe was sitting in the kitchen watching TV. ‘You look
nice. A bit flushed, but really nice. Cool dress.’
‘Thank you,’ said Marianne with some difficulty. She felt
flushed all over. Her body, always sexually responsive, was in shock with desire: she wanted only to get upstairs, and into the shower, to try and drown the acute reaction she
was experiencing after two hours of Nico Cadogan and his
intense sexual attentions. It wasn’t that he had even touched
her - well, apart from a kiss goodbye, utterly casual, at the
door of Le Caprice. And the occasional covering of her
hand with his. And the smile — that dangerous, intent smile.
He had put her into a taxi, apologised for not being able to
escort her in it back to Eaton Square — he had an urgent
meeting. Thank God for that, thought Marianne. Her
mother had talked laughingly about men in her youth who
were labelled NSIT — Not Safe In Taxis. She wouldn’t be at
all safe in a taxi herself, with Nico Cadogan, the state she
was in; she would have been hard pressed not to make the
first move and start kissing him. It was an event that must
not be repeated. Much too dangerous.
She smiled at Zoe carefully, pushed her hand through her
hair, and even that was disturbing. Nico had done the same,
pushed his hand through it, said I do like a woman’s hair
that isn’t all fussed to bits. And where had they been when
he had done that? In the lobby of Le Caprice. Well, most
people had gone by then, it had been ten to four. Only the
manager and the hat-check girl and the barman and the
doorman and about a dozen other people could have
noticed. Oh, God.
‘I must go and have a shower,’ she said to Zoe quickly. ‘I
really am very hot.’
‘Okay. Cool,’ said Zoe. She grinned at her, rather
conspiratorially. Marianne felt like a teenager in the
presence of her mother, rather than the other way round.
‘I’d like to invite Louise over on Sunday,’ said Octavia.
‘And Sandy, obviously.’
They were going to the cottage, had been invited to a
big fortieth birthday party on the Saturday night; but that
still left Sunday to be alone with Tom. The prospect
frightened her.
They were in bed. He had been late the last three nights
and she had been able to pretend to be asleep when he came in; tonight they had been out together, and she was
inescapably in bed with him.
Tom was looking at some papers, annotating them. ‘I’d
really rather not,’ he said. He sounded distracted.
‘Why?’
‘I’ve got a lot of reading to do. Bloody Sandy’ll want to
play tennis, and—’
‘Tom, they’re having an awful time at the moment.
Louise’s mother is dying!’
‘Well, if her mother’s dying, surely she won’t want to
drive an hour in the opposite direction. Suppose something
happened while she was with us?’
‘I think she needs the break,’ said Octavia firmly. ‘In fact,
I’ve already asked her.’
‘Well, you must un-ask her. Or I’ll go back to London
on the train. I really can’t face an afternoon of Sandy talking
about his days in Bosnia. He really gets up my nose.’
‘Tom, he’s not that bad.’
‘I find him very bad.’
‘You wouldn’t find him bad if he was a client, would
you? We’d all have to hang on his every word about
Bosnia, if he had a nice fat fee to wave at you!’
‘Oh, shut up,’ he said wearily. ‘Look, I think I’ll go and
sleep in the guest room. I really do have to work on this
thing. All right by you?’
She shrugged.
He got out of bed and gathered up his things. ‘Good
night, Octavia.’
‘Good night, Tom.’
It was frightening how swiftly the relationship had
deteriorated since she had made her discovery. What scared
her was what would have happened if she hadn’t made it.
Would she still have been living with him perfectly happily,
sitting at the same table as him without feeling sick,
discussing things with him without wanting to scream,
getting into bed with him without shrinking away? Would
he have been making love to her still - it hadn’t happened since that first night — would she have been enjoying it, responding to him? And would he, all the time, through the
meals and the discussions and the lovemaking, have been
thinking of Her, wishing he was with Her, comparing her to Hal How long had it been going on, and why, why had it started in the first place? What had she done or not done,
that he had felt the need to turn from her, seek comfort,
fun, sex or whatever it was he wanted, from someone else?
For the thousandth time she wondered how much longer
she could go on like this, saying nothing, pretending she
didn’t care, getting on with her own life.
Why, why in God’s name didn’t she have it out with
him?
But she knew the answer to that one. She was afraid.
‘How about it, then?’ Ian’s eyes were very confident as he
looked at Zoe; they had just left the Garage in Brixton, and
had been standing outside kissing for a while.
Zoe, as she always was when she had been clubbing, was
in a feverishly overexcited state. She was desperate for sex
now: desperate for him. She hoped he didn’t know it.
‘I’ve got somewhere. Quite near here. Few streets away.
One of the houses I’m working on. It’s empty. I got a key.’
‘But what if we get caught?’
‘Zo, we won’t. The owner’s in the Maldives. It’s really
nice, got good beds and everything. Come on, Zoe,
otherwise I’ll think you don’t want to.’
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Sounds cool.’
The house was what estate agents used to call bijou; a
Victorian cottage in one of the smarter squares in Brixton.
Zoe found herself walking on thick carpets, then saw in the
dim dawn light a half-done, patently expensive new
kitchen.
‘Nice, innit? I put most of this in. Come on upstairs,
there’s a great bed up there, just been delivered.’
‘Ian, I don’t think we ought to—’
‘Oh, for God’s sake. ‘Course we ought. Come on, Zoe’, life’s too short for worrying.’
“Where’s the loo?’ she said. She was shivering, partly
from cooled sweat, partly from nerves.
‘In there. Go on, then, I’ll turn the bed down.’
Zoe used the loo then went on upstairs. She had lost all
desire for sex: only her fear of being called a wimp or worse
by Ian kept her from running away.
Ian called her from the front bedroom: ‘Come on, Zoe,
what you doing, for Christ’s sake?’
She went in nervously. He was sitting naked in a large,
brass-headed bed, under a very expensive-looking white
duvet cover. He grinned at her. ‘Come on, I’m all ready
and waiting for you. Look, got something to warm you up.
Or cool you down.’ It was a bottle of champagne.
‘Ian! How gorgeous. When did you buy that?’
‘It was in the fridge. Very nice brand of bubbly indeed.
None of your rubbish.’
‘Ian! You can’t take things out of their fridge.’
‘I’ll be putting it back, won’t I? And they don’t exactly
need it out there in the Maldives, do they? It’s a loan, Zoe.
I’ll replace it Monday, when I come to work. Here, out the
way, I’m going to pop it.’
He pulled,the cork; there was a loud bang. Zoe was
terrified, half expecting the neighbours to hear, start
knocking on the wall.
He held out the bottle, let her drink from it, then
dribbled it slowly down on to his cock. Zoe looked at the
cock in awe. It was extremely large.
‘Try sipping from there now,’ he said, and laughed. ‘Go
on, it won’t bite yer. And don’t you go biting it, either.’
Zoe took a deep breath and slithered down the bed.
The cab dropped her on the corner of Eaton Square; it was
almost six and completely light. She often got home at four
from clubs, but that was with friends, who came in with her
and then slept the clock round on her floor. She wondered
what they would think if they knew what she had been doing, having sex in a bed and in a house where she had had no business to be, where she could be arrested for
breaking and entering or whatever it was called. With a
boyfriend who had stolen some champagne and some
cigarettes from the house. And it had, actually, been
exciting. Given the whole thing an edge. And Ian was very
very clever in bed. Definitely the best sex she’d ever had.
Tom had suggested they left the cottage very soon after