Loulou had
far more faith in her than she did herself, Camilla
thought wearily when she was alone once more. Sinking back
into the soft leather of the settee she closed
her eyes and pictured
Jack, imagining
what he might be doing at this moment.
Saturday
afternoon. On the one hand he could be in bed with
Roz – her mind
instinctively recoiled from the thought – but alternatively he could be sitting
alone, as she was, in their living-room regretting his behaviour and wishing he
had never
met Roz in the first place. Funny,
until Loulou had mentioned
it just now
it had never occurred to her that Jack might be unhappy, as well. She felt her
self-esteem rise by a single, hesitant notch and realized to her amazement that
she was
smiling.
’You caused it. You do something to help,’ said Loulou,
her expression rigid. Roz, unused to criticism from anyone, particu
larly the woman she regarded as her closest
friend, stared back
at her in astonishment. A small knot of unease
formed in the pit of her stomach.
‘
Lou, you know damn
well I had no idea that Jack was
Camilla’s
husband until a couple of weeks ago. It’s not as if I did it on purpose . . .
that would have been
really
tacky. And
now I’ve told you I have no intention of seeing him any more.
Isn’t
that enough? Do I really have to help her, as well?’
‘
Of course you really
have to help her as well, you selfish
bitch,’ yelled Loulou, causing her
bar staff to smile and the customers at adjoining tables to nudge each other in
anticipation of one of her famous outbursts. ‘She’s lost her husband, her kids
and her home. Right now she’s upstairs wearing my last ex-
husband’s
dressing-gown because none of my clothes fit her
and she doesn’t even
have any of her own. Camilla has nothing
left
in the
world
at this moment. All I’m asking you to do is go
to
her house, pick up some things and get some money from her
old man so that she can start getting herself
straightened out.
I’ve offered to lend her some cash, but she’s too
proud.’
‘
You could go
yourself,’ Roz pointed out, relieved that Loulou
had at least stopped
shouting.
‘We’ve got people off sick and this place is a madhouse. I
simply can’t take the time off at the moment. It’s your turn to do something
decent for a change.’
Loulou was looking grimmer by the second and Roz
understood that she was cornered. By Loulou and . . . of all people .. .
Camilla.
‘
OK, I’ll go this
afternoon,’ she conceded, her tone deliber
ately casual. ‘But I think you
should know that I’m not exactly Jack’s favourite mistress at the moment. He
called me yesterday and asked me to live with him.’
‘
And?’ said Loulou, equally casually.
Roz
shrugged and smiled. ‘I told him to go play with the traffic.’
Ch
apter
6
The moment Loulou emptied the four
suitcases of clothes into
a heap in
the centre of her living-room floor, she realized she’d made a big mistake.
Practically everything Camilla owned was beige with
elasticated waists and miles of room for growth. It was all perfectly hideous,
she thought faintly; just seeing it in the middle of her precious scarlet and
gold living-room made her feel slightly ill.
Camilla, evidently thinking otherwise, gave Loulou an
awkward hug. ‘It’s so kind of you to have gone to all this trouble.
Having my own clothes . . . it makes everything
seem less
strange . .
I can’t say it, thought Loulou, I mustn’t say a word, I
simply
mustn’t,
but – oh dear – I can’t help it.
‘I’m sorry, darling, but you can’t possibly wear these
clothes,’ she burst out helplessly, her blonde hair flying as she shook her
head in despair. "They’re too awful . . .
depressing . . . most of
them, anyway,’ she amended hastily, glimpsing
the stricken expression on Camilla’s face. ‘Cami, they really aren’t
you.’
‘
Of course they’re me,’ protested Camilla. ‘I
chose them!’
‘
Well, maybe they
were
you,’ Loulou explained, edging
towards the heap which reminded her so much of a
dead
elephant and pulling from it a grey knitted dress with a high
frilly collar and
fluted sleeves. ‘But they aren’t any more. Just
look at this, Cami. It’s hideous. It won’t do anything
for anyone, least of all the person wearing it.’
Camilla looked at it, drooping sadly
from Loulou’s fingers,
then transferred her attention to Loulou’s pencil-slim figure
tightly encased from neck to knees in crimson velvet.
‘If I had a figure like you I might be able to get away
with it,’
she struggled to explain. ‘If I
wore an outfit like yours I’d look
like a haemorrhage.’
Loulou laughed and tossed the dress behind the settee. ‘So
you try and
camouflage yourself instead. Don’t worry, darling,
after a couple more weeks living on the food I cook for you,
you
will
have a figure like mine. But in the meantime we’ll go
shopping and buy you a few replacements for all
this. It all has
to go, Cami. I’m
going to get you noticed in future. And,’ she
added sternly, seeing the woebegone expression on Camilla’s
face,
‘I’m going to make sure you
enjoy
being noticed!’
Roz’s conscience was bothering her.
And the mere fact that it
was
bothering her only served to alarm her all the more, since
much of her life and almost her entire career had
flourished
simply because she didn’t
allow her conscience to get in the
way of anything at all.
Since leaving the traumatic years of her adolescence
behind
her, she had managed to build herself
an entirely satisfactory
life. Her
dazzling career in television had almost been too easily achieved. It had begun
as a bet by a friend who had
challenged Roz to sleep with a producer
they had met at a particularly drunken party. The producer, proud of his
reputation
as a stud, had been so humiliated
by his disastrous performance
– blighted by at least a dozen tumblers of
rum punch – and so grateful for Roz’s patient understanding that he had
promptly
offered her a job as his assistant.
And from the moment that
Roz had first stepped into the TV studios with
their aura of
chaotic glamour and barely
controlled tension, she had known
that this was exactly what she wanted
to do with her life.
From then on her natural drive
asserted itself. Friendships
were forged and lost, useful lovers came and went, and she
quickly learnt that clever ideas could be borrowed,
adapted and
relaunched as her own. It wasn’t
dishonest because everyone else was doing it too; Roz simply ensured that she
was heard and taken notice of with greater efficiency than anyone else.
And it had culminated, in just six years, with the
glittering
prize of her very own chat show, ‘Memories’.
Her personal life had been equally
ruthlessly planned, and
she had
always taken care to ensure that her career remained
entirely separate from her private social life. The lovers from
those two worlds were strictly segregated, her
diaries a miracle
of modern planning.
The idea of marriage was anathema to Roz, a silly game she
neither wanted nor needed to play. Other
women’s husbands
were fair game, but the thought of getting one of her
own quite
simply chilled her. Before you knew
it he’d be demanding to
know where you’d
been the night before and searching your
pockets for clues.
No, lovers were far more sensible and
understanding, and
until now she’d always
been lucky.
Nico, it went without saying, was divine. Her horoscope
had warned her that she was in for a spectacular weekend and it had
been even better than that. Meeting him at one of
Loulou’s
famously debauched parties and spending the next three days in
bed with him had been a coup by anybody’s standards.
After that her very lack of interest had bound him to her
and
now, over a year later, the affair was
still going strong. As long
as Nico continued to propose marriage to her
and as long as she
refused to accept, there
was no reason why anything should
happen to spoil it .. .
Darling Sebastian on the other hand .
. . Roz’s lips curved
into a
smile at the thought of him. Sebastian would never dream of asking her to marry
him, yet their long-standing affair meant more to her than almost anything else
in her life. What could be more romantic, after all, than a relationship forged
over fifteen years ago and maintained between two countries for such an
amazing length of time. Sebastian took pride in her
career
successes, whilst spiralling equally dramatically up the banking
ladder in Zurich. They were a couple of achievers,
he was fond
of telling her, who had
their lives under perfect control and
knew
how to keep them that way. The brevity of her flying
visits to Zurich and his own occasional weekends in
England
when he could manage to
juggle his schedule were exactly
what
they both needed to keep their relationship exciting and
alive. And if
Roz ever felt that maybe their time together needn’t be quite so ruthlessly
rationed she made sure she kept those
thoughts
to herself. She and Sebastian were two of a very particular kind and she wasn’t
going to do
anything
which
might risk frightening him off.
No, Sebastian and Nico were perfect, just as they were.
Jack
had been fairly perfect, too. Until he
had gone and spoilt
everything, of course, by reminding her that
somewhere, deep down, she did still possess the tattered remains of a
conscience.
’Talk to me, Nico,’ said Roz with a hint of impatience. ‘I
don’t always just want sex, you know.’
‘You surprise me,’ Nico grinned, sliding his hand slowly
up her thigh and experiencing the usual thrill when he reached the top of her
sheer silk stocking and the even silkier texture of warm, bare skin. Stockings
and suspenders never failed to turn him on, even if his hand seemed to be
having quite the opposite effect upon Roz this evening.
‘Sometimes,’ she continued crossly, removing the offending
hand as if it were a dead animal, ‘I’d
prefer it if you treated me
as a friend instead of a lover.’
Nico
responded with a wink. ‘Can’t we be both?’
Glaring at him, Roz snapped back: ‘Can’t
you be serious?’
God,
he was purposely trying to irritate her and tonight of all nights she could do
without it, she thought with rising frustra
tion. Sebastian would have taken her
seriously, would have
realized
that she wasn’t in the mood for jokes – if he weren’t in
bloody Zurich. Jack was out of the window now, so
Nico was
all she had left. She really
needed another man, she decided,
closing her eyes and falling back
against the
chaise-longue.
Nico rose to his feet, crossed to the drinks cabinet and
poured himself a large Scotch.
‘
So tell me what’s on
your mind,’ he said eventually, still with his back to Roz. ‘It is man trouble,
I take it?’ It cheered
him somewhat to discover that the thought of Roz
with another
man no longer lacerated him
with jealousy. After thirteen
months, maybe he was beginning to grow out
of the obsession
which had at first gripped
him so fiercely that he hadn’t been
able
to control his feelings towards her. Falling in love – or lust
– with a bitch wasn’t exactly conducive to
happiness. He’d
already realized that, to his great cost. But as Loulou
had said
when he’d last met her at Vampires,
nice people were so
unutterably boring
the only way to last an evening in their
company was to either get drunk
or fall asleep. And no-one had ever fallen asleep when they were talking to
Roz.