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  “Where were you at college?”

  “Devon.”

  “Thank God it wasn’t Cambridge,” he said, smiling indulgently. “That explains the horny accent. And what did you study in Devon?”

  “Agriculture,” I said, and giggled.

  “Agriculture. Agriculture.” He threw his head back and laughed. “You’re like something out of Thomas Hardy. Did you ride horses and wear petticoats and frolic in haylofts?” He leaned over and pretended to look up my skirt hopefully.

  “No, I read books about crop rotation.”

  “And was Joel a farmer as well—no, don’t tell me, he was an army sergeant with an enormous flashing sword. No? A schoolteacher? A reddleman?”

  “He was a poet.”

  “No! This gets better and better. What did he write? ‘She was only a farmer’s daughter . . .’”

  “He didn’t write very much when I knew him. He drank a lot, smoked a lot of dope and went on about patriarchal capitalist societies. My brothers couldn’t stand him.”

  “How many brothers have you got?”

  “Four and one sister.”

  “Jesus, I’d better watch my step. So was Joel from Devon as well?”

  “No. He came from London and he had a publisher in London. Ginsberg and Fink, actually. I thought he was wonderful.”

  “Wonderful? I hate Joel,” Oliver said. “So what happened to the farming? Why aren’t you struggling with lamb’s afterbirth and moaning about hedgerows and subsidies?”

  “I did work on a farm for a few months after my finals, but then I missed Joel and went up to London to live with him in a commune in Hackney. I worked in a pub and then got a job doing market research on deodorants.”

  “And what was Joel doing? Knitting lentil stew and smoking joss sticks?”

  “Pretty much. He was out of his head most of the time.”

  “And you were earning the money?”

  “Not very much. Anyway, after I had been there for eighteen months I went to a party with Joel at Ginsberg and Fink and Sir William Ginsberg took a shine to me.”

  “I bet he did, dirty old devil.”

  “No, it wasn’t like that,” I said indignantly. “He asked if I would like a temping job for the summer with the company, so I took it.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last summer.”

  “So is Joel still around?”

  “Well, no. It was awful really. My grandmother left me a bit of money so I put it down on a flat. And Joel said I had reverted to my capitalist patriarchal roots and that I was a worthless, superficial trollop.”

  “A worthless, superficial trollop,” he said. “I see. And when was all this?”

  “I bought the flat in January.”

  “Ah, thank you, Roberto.”

  Having finished the champagne Oliver had ordered a bottle of red wine. I was feeling light-headed already and couldn’t drink any more but Oliver seemed completely sober. People in the restaurant kept looking across at him, and an elderly gentleman came over apologizing lengthily for interrupting us, said he knew this must happen all the time and asked for Oliver’s autograph for his daughter who was studying at the Slade. Oliver was charming and gracious but got rather cold when the man didn’t have a pen, and then extremely cold when the man started saying that the daughter would like to talk to him about working in television. The man left looking bewildered and sad. I took off one of my earrings, which was hurting.

  Oliver ordered us brandies and then he spotted another celebrity, Bill Bonham, sitting across the room and went off to talk to him. Bill Bonham was an actor who usually played intelligent thugs in TV plays. He was a director as well, and was always appearing on chat shows, making it clear he didn’t suffer fools gladly and swearing a lot. He was almost bald and had cut the rest of his hair very short to match. He always wore a leather jacket and jeans which fitted below his paunch and often seemed on the verge of showing bottom cleavage. I watched in admiration as Oliver chatted to him intensely. Then the two of them disappeared to the loos together.

  *

  “I don’t think Bill is more famous than you.”

  “Well, maybe Bill isn’t but Julian is,” Oliver muttered, and sniffed a few times.

  “No, he isn’t. Have you got a cold?” I said tenderly.

  “Oh, he is. It’s completely unfair but he is,” said Oliver morosely, sniffing again with one nostril.

  “He’s a different sort of famous. You’re an arts commentator and Julian Alman’s a film star.”

  Oliver was on his third brandy now. His tie was loose, and the top three buttons of his shirt were undone so I could see his dark chest hair.

  “But what you do is far more worthwhile,” I encouraged. “People see you as an authoritative, intelligent figure.”

  He wrinkled his nose fondly and squeezed my knee under the table.

  The waiter was clearing up the crumbs with a minivacuum, and I realized that he had scooped up the earring I had taken off. I was too shy to say anything to him so I whispered what had happened to Oliver and he roared with laughter and masterfully sorted it all out.

  When the bill came I got out my checkbook and offered to pay half, and Oliver leaned forward, tweaked my nose and got out his gold American Express card. He then performed a tour of the restaurant, saying good-bye to all the famous people, with me on his arm.

  When we got to my door Oliver stopped the car, turned off the ignition, loosened his seat belt. “So. Are you going to ask me in for a coffee?” he said.

  I was nervous and dry-mouthed again as I climbed the stairs with Oliver following. I was proud of my new flat. I thought it rather Parisian. But once inside he burst out laughing. I laughed along gaily trying to join in the joke but it went on too long for me to sustain. “What’s so funny?” I said eventually.

  “It’s so small and twee,” he said. “Sweet.” He wandered into the kitchenette. “This gets better and better,” he said. “You have mottoeson your wall.” He was looking at a picture my mother had given me which said, “Dull Women Have Immaculate Houses.”

  “Hmmm. I see what you’re trying to justify.” He was in the living room now. “God. You’d drive me mad with all this mess.”

  “What mess?” I said, genuinely puzzled.

  “Your cassettes are all out of their boxes and your books are all over the place and what’s this?” he said, picking up a hair elastic that was wrapped round itself. “It looks like a ringworm.”

  I was crushed. I had been brought up to think that people who had a place for everything, and no buttons and pencils in dishes, were a bit odd. “I’ll make the coffee,” I said. I felt oddly depressed when I went into the kitchen. It was all the unaccustomed booze, which didn’t seem to have affected Oliver at all. He followed me into the kitchen and, as I was plugging the cord into the kettle, came up behind me and put his arms round my waist. I forgot everything I had been thinking, turned round to face him and we kissed properly. It was ecstasy to be able to touch him, when I had so much longed to touch him for so long. After a while his hand moved to my waist, down my thigh and started to lift up my skirt. I didn’t want him to undress me because I was wearing tights with a stout reinforced top, and white knickers which had been in the wash with a blue sock, so I took his hand away and put it on my breast, for want of somewhere better to put it. We kissed some more but I was slightly unbalanced and thought I might lurch over. Oliver brushed his mouth against my cheek and whispered, “Can I stay with you tonight?”

  “I’m not sure.” I was suddenly nervous.

  He started kissing me again. “Come on, don’t be silly.”

  Then I was worried that I seemed immature, so I said, “Mmm, I’ll go and get ready,” which I considered would be a very adult thing to do and had the added advantage of giving me a chance to do my legs and get rid of the blue knickers. I shot into the bathroom and grabbed off my clothes, shoving them in the airing cupboard, to be tidy. I couldn’t use hair-removing cream—no tim
e, vile smell. I thought I had a razor, frantically emptied everything out of the cupboard under the sink, couldn’t find it. I heard Oliver going through to the living room and knew a full leg shave was out of the question. I ran my hand down my shin, it wasn’t too bad if you ran the hand down not up. I washed. I put perfume on key areas. I brushed my teeth. I realized my powder-blue wrap was in the wash, wrapped a towel round me, put my head—only—round the door, saw him, gorgeous in my living room, smoking, in my chair.

  “Ready,” I said, beaming excitedly. He looked up. I dived into the bedroom, put the bedside lamp on the floor, and got into bed with the covers up to my chin because I was shy.

  He came in, stumbling slightly, carrying the ashtray, put it down on my dressing table. He stubbed out his cigarette and sat down. He was turned away from me, bending to unlace his shoes, like a husband. It seemed rather unromantic not to acknowledge me, but still . . . He stood up and took off his shirt, lifting it over his back without undoing the buttons. I watched the line of muscle which ran from his arm to his waist. I was watching him bit by bit, not taking in the whole. He undid his trousers and stepped out of them, with his back to me. He folded the trousers, and put them on the chair. Then he folded the underpants, which alarmed me momentarily, placed them neatly on top of the trousers and climbed under the duvet.

  I turned to face him and we kissed and it was fantastic to be naked against him. He moved down and kissed my breasts. I gasped, ecstatic. Then he rested his head on me and I stroked his hair and he lay quite still on top of me with his arms on either side.

  After a few moments I became puzzled as to what was going on. I shifted position slightly and he lifted his head and moved up to my mouth and started kissing me again. His breathing was very heavy. He heaved himself over, easing my legs apart with his knee, kneeling between my thighs. He put his hand down and then he slipped himself inside me, straight in. I was longing for him so much, beside myself, arching my back, crying out, writhing with pleasure. But slowly, in the midst of the excitement I began to realize that Oliver was not moving at all. He was resting his weight on my body and his head in my neck, completely motionless. Gradually I stopped moving so that I was lying quite still too. And then he began to snore.

  Once I had got over the shock, I laughed. I thought of the people downstairs listening. “Oh, oh, oh, oh, HGNUURGH, oh oh, HGNUUURGH. Oh.” I had to wake him to move after a while. I thought I was going to be asphyxiated. His mood was very black now, his brow furrowed. He got up and went into the bathroom and I heard him go into the living room. After a while he came back in and started getting dressed.

  “What are you doing?” I said.

  “I’m going home. I’ve got an early start tomorrow.”

  A set of kitchen knives fell down through me from my throat.

  “Don’t even think about it,” I said. “Get back in the bed.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing. First, you just don’t do that, second, you are beyond drunk and if you go anywhere near your car I shall ring the police, third, you have just fallen asleep on top of me at the start of what was meant to be a first night of passion. And you snored. Now get back in this bed.”

  This was before Oliver had broken my spirit and turned my sexual confidence into a wizened little pea. His mouth tightened. He was staring at me oddly, then he started nodding, as if agreeing with one of his own thoughts. He moved the duvet and looked at me. Then he undressed again to reveal, astonishingly, a new erection, and climbed back onto the bed beside me. And when it was over I was full of pride and joy because I, Rosie Richardson, had made Oliver Marchant come.

  Some time later, when he had fallen asleep, I lay awake looking at him, with his long dark eyelashes resting against his cheeks like two furry caterpillars. I was happy now, all misgivings pushed to the back of my mind. I couldn’t believe that Oliver Marchant was actually in my bed. I knew instinctively that he was one of those men who was disproportionately protective about their sleep, but still I risked a little kiss on the cheek and snuggled up to him affectionately.

  “Oh, for God’s sake, you’re behaving like a five-year-old,” he said, and turned his back on me.

  *

  The lure of the bastard—I was a sucker for it. “Changeable women are more endurable than monotonous ones,” I read somewhere. “They are sometimes murdered but seldom deserted”—exactly the appeal of the male bastard. You know they’ll never tie you down or silt you up. It’s the excitement and absorption of pursuit: pitting yourself against their harsh nature, trying to turn it around. Even when I discovered what his nature really was I still thought I could transform Oliver. I thought he just needed a bit of love and care and he’d soon get the hang of things. I thought I could love him out of his character.

  My friend Rhoda, who was older than me and American, said that I was suffering from a dangerous addiction and shouldn’t touch someone like Oliver with a barge pole.

  “OK, so long as he can touch me with his barge pole,” I said giddily.

  Later she said that Africa was just another version of my masochistic bastard complex and I should stay in England, learn to love myself and go out with bores. But I said she’d been reading too many American self-help books, and should get a few drinks down her and lighten up.

  CHAPTER Five

  The start of an affair can be a dodgy time for everyone: it’s like learning to water-ski—once you get up it’s fine but there’s far more chance of falling over and getting wet and cross than getting up. Picture the scene, three days after that night with Oliver. No phone call. Zilch. But being young and in awe of him, I failed to think the sensible thing, which was “What a rude man.” I wasn’t quite stupid enough to sit at home in the evenings and do psychopath eyes at the phone. But it would have been acting equally neurotically to leave the answerphone off. So I had the crisis of coming back to no message when I got home at the end of the evening. Or coming back to three messages, and finding two of them were from Rhoda, and the other was from Hermione, asking why, in heaven’s name, I hadn’t told her that Cassandra had left a message that afternoon saying Perpetua wasn’t coming to dinner.

  Finally on day four in the office, his call came, in a manner of speaking.

  It was an irritatingly kindly female voice.

  “Hello, is that Rosie Richardson?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hel-lo, Rosie. This is Oliver Marchant’s assistant, Gwen.”

  His assistant? Why his assistant? Within seconds I was into an Oliver-in-hospital fantasy.

  “Oliver was wondering if you were free tonight.”

  “Yes.” There was a delicious, tempting rush in my stomach.

  “Good. He was wondering if you would like to come to the Broadcasting Society Awards at the Grosvenor House tonight.”

  “Yes, that would be—”

  “Super. Black tie six-thirty for seven. Oliver will pick you up at six-thirty. Could you let me have your address, Rosie?”

  This style of romantic follow-up to a sexual encounter is the kind of thing crushes allow you to put up with, which is why they are monstrous afflictions to be fled from like vengeful beasts.

  We were seated at a round table in a vast hotel ballroom. Above us, four gigantic chandeliers twinkled down on the mass of bare shoulders, sequins and cummerbunds, the TV lights, the giant screens, and the production staff scurrying round holding yellow scripts, looking self-important, verging on hysterical. The proceedings had not yet begun. Everything was already running late. Onstage a troupe of sparkling dancers were practicing, rushing at the audience doing starburst jumps, then turning and high-kicking off in the opposite direction, heads still turned towards us over their shoulders with air-hostess smiles.

  On my right was Vernon Briggs, a portly man with a broad Yorkshire accent. He was an executive at Channel Four, the company televising the awards ceremony. On my left was Corinna Borghese, Oliver’s co-presenter on Soft Focus. Corinna’s thin dark-red lips were pressed toge
ther with visible high pressure. Her pale face under its sunglasses and spiky hennaed crop was trembling like the steel ropes of a suspension bridge. Soft Focus had been nominated for an award and Corinna, to Vernon’s disgust, was insisting she go up and collect it with Oliver.

  “The point is, I have as much creative input as he does. I ought to have a producer credit anyway, but the point is if he goes up there on his own for it then it’s like Oliver Marchant is the face of Soft Focus, right? And I simply don’t think that’s representative.”

  “Listen, love, shall I tell you what you do in your job? You sit on your little arse in front of the autocue and you read out what it says.” Vernon was leaning towards her with his enormous red face and bulging eyes, wagging a finger. “Reading out loud, that’s what you do. Like in school. Oliver is the editor of the program.”

  “Oliver has a penis is what you mean, right, and I will not be addressed as love,” she managed to get out from between the clamped lips.

  I was having a lot of trouble keeping my dress under the table. It was part of a converted bridesmaid’s dress, silk with a springy, sticky-outy skirt. Once, the dress had been long and peach and worthy of Kate Fortune, but I had had it dyed and altered so that now it was short and black. I had suffered a panic attack while getting dressed. When the doorbell rang I was standing on the bed, trying to see myself full-length in the mirror, wearing a black lycra miniskirt over a swimsuit. At that precise moment, and at that precise moment only, the bridesmaid’s dress seemed a good idea. I realized later that one must never, ever go anywhere looking even faintly reminiscent of a shepherdess, even a shepherdess who has just been in a coal hole. The skirt misbehaved continually, springing about in an unmanageable manner. It was now protruding on either side of me, and interfering with the knees not only of Corinna Borghese but also Vernon Briggs, who had now turned his back on both of us.

  “Sorry about this,” I whispered conspiratorially to Corinna. “I wish I hadn’t worn this stupid frock. I tried on about eight things before I came out and panicked. Do you do that?”

  “Actually no,” said Corinna. “I try to keep my clothes simple.”