Ibiza Surprise (4 page)

‘You’re so lovable!’ he said, the rest of him following, so I put my hands comfortably round his neck and we had a very soft, long-winded kiss. He was good; and I must say I was glad of every bit of practice I’d ever had. Then he took his hands away and sat back a bit and said: ‘I beg your pardon. You’re too lovely a person, and I want you to forgive me. I don’t know . . . I just couldn’t help myself.’

I thought of the last hunt ball I’d been to, and kept my face straight.

‘It was nice,’ I said. ‘But we don’t really know each other. I think perhaps we’d better get on.’

Either I hadn’t managed to keep my face straight, or he was normal after all, for instead of driving on, he suddenly grabbed me in quite a definite way and stuck his mouth on mine in a much more advanced method, doing lots of fancy things, on the side, with his tongue. It was super, but I was being slowly shoved back into the side of the car, and I was just thinking of feeling for my shoe when the car door gave way and we both fell, headfirst, backward into the ditch. We landed just as a seedy old Seat came wheezing up round the bend and slowed, its headlights picking out the whole scene like an art clip from Ulysses.

‘Perdone-me,’
said an English voice in horrible Spanish. ‘Does the
Senor
require assistance?’

I could see a pair of spectacles winking in the Cadillac’s dashboard light: Flo would have killed herself laughing.

Austin said: ‘No, sir; I thank you. There’s no trouble at all,’ in a loud, hearty voice and after hesitating, turned and helped me to my feet. I’d busted my tights, which was more than a bit sad. Austin said one or two bright things about tripping and dark nights and fine weather, and handing me in, got seated and started the engine. I gave the other driver a wave. He stood and watched us go in a bemused kind of way before turning back to the Seat. Austin drove the rest of the way to Santa Eulalia with a hand on my knee, pressing it.

It was just before we got into Santa Eulalia that I missed my handbag. My hair was a mess, and God knows what had happened to my mouth outline. I grubbed all over the floor of the car, and it just wasn’t there.

Austin stopped the car, and by the time we’d made a thorough search, it was quite certain it must be back in that ditch where the Seat had interrupted us.

Austin said: ‘You go on. I’ll drop you at the Lloyds’ and then go back for the bag.’

There was nothing else I could do. I drove up to meet Gilmore Lloyd after seven years with my tights wrecked and my hair hanging in hanks and my lipstick all over my chin. All right. At least he could tell I was sought-after.

The Casa Venets is set on a hillside in five acres of tropical garden, which go right down to the sea. Arriving there in the dark, with the palm trees showing against a big yellow moon like an advertisement for coconut candy, and the cicadas making the sound the BBC always makes them make, and the lizards flicking up and down the house walls, it was a bit breathtaking suddenly, and I wished Flo or someone had been there. Then we got round to the front of the house, where there was a great sweep of drive all done in little honeycomb circles and a £6,000 Maserati with this girl just getting into it.

I’d have known those legs anywhere.

‘Janey!’ I yelled.

I saw her take in the Cadillac. Then she turned, giving Austin the whole view of 32-21-34 and looked at me through two bounces of thick auburn hair.

‘Darling!’ she said, and took me by the shoulders as I got out of the car. ‘It’s grown up. Did you ask Aunty’s permission?’

‘It all happened in the woodshed before I could help it,’ I said, before I remembered Austin behind me. ‘Oh. Janey, I think you know . . . ?’

‘Austin!’ said Janey, and kissed him with absent fondness on one cheek. ‘Treasure! Was Paris naughty? Tony is looking for ikons: you must come to dinner next week. How did you meet Sarah?’

Austin explained, and refusing a drink with prolonged American courtesy, said goodbye to us both and drove off. He didn’t say anything about coming back with a handbag: I supposed he’d just hand it in. It wasn’t the easiest thing to explain.

In the hall, which was white carpet on white marble with those cut-glass German wall lamps, Janey looked me over and said: ‘Austin’s coming on. The work I’ve put in with that boy. How
are
you, She-she? The line-up’s pretty average, but I think I’ve one or two possibles. You’re not hooked already or sold on girlfriends or whatever, are you?

‘Janey, ‘ I said. Warningly. Janey is terrible.

The plucked eyebrows got right up, along with her smile.

‘Why not. honeychile? I bet you Derek’s a poof.’

It had never struck me. Janey’s like that.

Even while I was thinking hard, I said indignantly: ‘He’s jolly well not,’ and of course was caught in mid-bleat, sophistication minus a hundred, by Gil Lloyd, coming downstairs.

You would say he made Cary Grant entrances except that he wasn’t the kind who would bother. He dressed in silk and cashmere and had thick, dark hair and a tan and a prowl that was second nature like Janey’s. There is something about them that, sooner or later, makes you want to kick their teeth in. Only, so far, their defence has been smarter than anyone else’s attack. And Gilmore Lloyd’s defence, so help me, is bloody disarming. He swooped smoothly and kissed: it was like being held by packing-case wire, and my lip started to bleed.

I opened my mouth to breathe, and he stepped back and said: ‘Poor She-she. Did Austin try some rough American tactics? We must teach you how to handle him.’

Good humouredly, Janey used a very off word.

‘She’s not wasting time on Austin Mandleberg. Wait till you meet Lobby du Cann. And if you’re bored with Americans, we’ve Joe Hadley, and Guppy Collins-Smith and Coco Fairley.’

Coco Fairley had been a boyfriend of Mummy’s. Good old Janey.

‘Keep it clean, Janey,’ I said. ‘Son of Coco, or nothing.’

Gilmore laughed, genuinely. The touch comes back to you, after a time.

My room had a balcony, and a bathroom off, and wall-to-wall washed Chinese carpeting in quiet shades of money. On my way there, I was introduced to the Couple. The Couple, Anne-Marie and Helmuth, looked after all the Lloyds’ houses. Like the wall lights, they were German and efficient: with the help of Concha the chica, they cleaned and cooked and chauffeured and laundered and mended, getting in local staff when the Lloyds had houseguests or a party.

That was where I came in, Mr Lloyd had said. Anne-Marie needed a rest. I was to take over the cooking.

I found I wasn’t meant to take over the cooking that evening, or at least Anne-Marie wouldn’t hear of it. She was fair and cheerful and pillowy and spoke perfect English. Like Flo, I’ve had a few dodgy times with backstairs diplomacy, but I could see this was going to be all right. I’d hardly opened my suitcase when there was a tap at the door and Anne-Marie came in carrying a plate of fat, pink
langostinos
and a half-bottle of champagne sitting in ice. She put them down and ran me a steaming hot bath, chatting softly, while I hauled my things out of my bag. They were in a horrible muddle. From the look of it, I should think the Customs had taken out and chewed every garter. I’m a neat packer, and I resent being made to look untidy. I opened my own champagne, to show I could, and after cracking a joke or two about the mess I was going to make in her kitchen, saw her out of the room. Then I took the champers into the bathroom, undressed, and lay back in the steam, drinking. After a bit I got out and, putting off the light, opened the shutters and got back into the bath again.

Outside, the moonlight fell on the sea and the palms and the flowers and this enormous swimming pool, all floodlit with statues of Greek gods, starkers, all round the edge. Inside, the warm water sloshed about over my skin, and the champagne, very cold, made its way down the bottom of my throat and I lay for a long time, feeling very sad and happy expecting to wake up.

I was just thinking, rather fuzzily, that it was about time for dinner when this great bang came from the shutters and I slopped half the fizz into the bath. The shutters swung quickly out and a pair of legs swung neatly in. and before you could yell for your chaperone, one of the Greek gods from the garden, without a stitch on so far as I could see in the darkness, was saying in Giller Lloyd’s voice: ‘A little bird tells me you’re drinking champers, sweetie. Do tell me there’s a drop for a friend.”

Janey always told me I react the old-fashioned way. It isn’t true. At least, I don’t mean to. It’s just that you’re brought up to act like a lady and it sticks.

I said: ‘Get the bloody hell out of here, Gilmore Lloyd,’ and heaved a towel into the bath just as the door opened, the light came on, and another masculine voice said mildly: ‘Excuse me, is this your handbag?’

I honked. I couldn’t help it. First there was Giller caught knees up on the windowsill in his bare skin and two hundred watts of Phillips’ best. And then in the doorway stood this poor, pole-axed Charlie in seventeen-inch bags and woolly sweater and bifocal glasses.

He ran his eye over Gilmore and then over me and said again, his voice half an octave lower: ‘Excuse me, is this your handbag? It’s got birth pills in it, popped out to Sunday?’

Poor, pole-axed Charlie, hell. I knew him. It was the man with the Seat. The wag who’d found Austin being overkeen in the ditch and had offered to help. It
was
my bag.

‘Don’t you knock,’ I said freezingly, ‘when--’

‘He didn’t,’ said Bifocals, surprised, looking at Greek God. ‘And I’m dressed.’

‘Not for long,’ said Gilmore Lloyd coldly. ‘What bloody manners.’ He wasn’t jealous, I think. He was just asserting his territory. He launched himself from the sill and, adopting a classical and rather beautiful stance, drove to the jaw with his right.

Bifocals sort of didn’t wait for it. I saw Giller’s jaw crack against the white marble wall, then he fell down it, and Bifocals stepped over him very carefully and said: ‘If you don’t mind, I’ll need to take the bag back, if it isn’t yours, in case someone is looking for it. It may be a regular—’

‘It’s mine,’ I said. ‘And thank you for bringing it. ‘Although I really don’t see why you had to walk into my room. Mr Lloyd would be—’

‘Mr Lloyd told me to go right up,’ said Bifocals. He put one foot on Gilmore’s rising chest and immobilised him. ‘Didn’t you hear the last bell for dinner? He didn’t know you were getting sloshed under the hot tap.’

‘I’m not!’ I said. I nearly sat up.

‘Say
cessation,’
said Bifocals.

I changed my ground.

‘That,’ I said coldly, ‘is Mr Lloyd’s son.’

‘He didn’t hear the last bell either, did he?’ said Bifocals. ‘Did Mr Lloyd send him right up too?’

He removed his foot and Gilmore, rising like Cary Grant, said: ‘Do I have to ask you again to leave this lady’s room?’

‘You didn’t ask me the first time,’ Bifocals pointed out. ‘But that’s all right. I hear the tiny voices of dry martinis calling.’ He looked over Giller’s shoulder at me. ‘Why didn’t you pop Monday’s pill?’

‘I forgot,’ I said.

‘Mistakes,’ said Bifocals firmly, ‘are expensive. You’ll be late for dinner.’

Gilmore grabbed both his arms.

‘So shall I,’ said Bifocals. ‘I shouldn’t do anything dashing. I’ve just rung for Helmuth.’

Gilmore dropped his hands and said: ‘Are you dining with Father?’

‘He did ask me,’ said Bifocals. ‘He’s rather keen. In fact, he’s just offered me twelve hundred pounds to do a portrait of Janey. Miss Cassells, you’re stoned.’ He leaned forward and turned on the cold shower, then leaving me under it, walked through my bedroom and got to the door just as Helmuth tapped on the outside. The door closed. By the time I got the tap off and the freezing water out of my eyes, Gilmore also had gone. I dressed and went down to dinner. I’d been in Ibiza two hours and I’d had a near rape and two uninvited men in my bathroom. It was better than cooking for dentists.

That was the way I first met Johnson Johnson, and after the drinks and the introductions, I had a good look at him, bifocals and all, over the dinner table. He looked the sort of man who kept spaniels and went in for old beams and growing delphiniums, or maybe tropical fish. His hair and his eyebrows were black, but there really wasn’t much of his face that wasn’t covered with glasses. On Ibiza, the Lloyds don’t wear DJs except for a party, though of course, everyone changes. If Johnson had changed, I wouldn’t like to have seen what he had on beforehand: I could see Janey eyeing the woolly and the old crumpled bags, and I could guess she was storing the lot inside her Jane Austen hairdo. Janey can imitate anybody. So can I. We used to do a couple of Cockney charwomen in our Thursday free period, when we had to sew for the poor, and we’d have the whole form in hoots. But of course, Johnson hadn’t come to dinner, really, only to give over my handbag.

I don’t know whether he expected Janey’s father to pounce on him, or why he didn’t dodge him if he did: he can’t have needed the money. If you believe William Hickey, Johnson Johnson makes more money than Annigoni and Kelly and Hutchinson all rolled into one, painting portraits, and he can afford to be choosey. Mind you, Janey is elegant, and over dinner, she had decided to fascinate. I could hear her going into her act. It was just as well she did, for Gilmore, beyond her, was sulking. He’d been even later to table than I was and hadn’t looked at me once. He had a pink place on his jaw where it had hit the wall of my bathroom. It was a bit of foul luck, for I really had been looking all right, with my hair piled up on top and my eyelashes wet. He was Scorpio: I asked him over a swallowed martini.

We had artichoke hearts, but Mother Trudi wouldn’t have been too delighted over the veal. Once, when Janey let go for a minute,

I asked Johnson Johnson if he kept tropical fish. The bifocals turned all merry, whether with the recollection of me in my bath or the question, I wouldn’t actually know. He shook his head.

‘Too sexy,’ he said.

‘Fish?’

‘Have you ever
watched
them?’ he said. ‘You can’t cure it, either. Friend of mine used to give his guppies a session of group psychotherapy.’