Janice Gentle Gets Sexy (35 page)

'What's wrong with here?' she said defiantly.

There was a rustling from the duvet, a head began to appear from beneath it. He grabbed Melanie's hand and pulled her out into the corridor. There were some things he was not up to dealing with. He released her hand and dived back into the bedroom. 'Stay there,' he pleaded. He tweaked the duvet cover up again. 'Sorry about this.'

'You're
sorry!' came the muffled indignation.

'I'm dealing with it, OK?'

'Tell her to piss off.'

He was thinking much the same himself.

Melanie was still in the corridor. 'Who does she think she is? And who is she, anyway?'

He ignored both questions and, with the courage of a Wild West sheriff, turned his back and walked down the passageway into the living-room.

Melanie followed. He closed the door after her.

'Well?' he said.

'Sorry to disturb,' she said sweetly.

He sat down. 'Melanie,' he said, 'you had no right -'

'I had every right.' She raised her voice, the stridency betraying that she wanted it to be heard. 'You invited me over. You said you were in all evening. You said come any
time
. Didn't you?'

Once more he put his head in his hands. 'Oh God,' he said, remembering.

'Well?'

'I didn't mean three bloody a.m.'

'Clearly,' she said, with potent satisfaction.

'I think we should talk,' he said.

'Talk?' she said. 'Talk? Talk? What about?'

He knew that trick. 'Melanie,' he said, not without anger, 'why did you choose to come here, unannounced, at this time of night?'

'Morning,' she corrected.

He felt dangerously close to smacking her. Instead he got up and switched on the lamp, dispelling the shadows and moonlight and bringing sanity to the proceedings.

He looked at her. She was tensed as if under starter's orders. She was also, he knew from the line of her mouth, hurt. But over all she was
angry,
which made him afraid of her. He suppressed thoughts of conciliation and allowed his own anger in.

'Well?' he said, folding his arms like an inquisitorial father. 'Explain yourself.'

She shrugged. 'I still have your keys. You never asked for them back.'

'And I still have yours. Doesn't mean I'd come bursting in in the middle of the night, showing you up in bed with lover boy.'

'You wouldn't find me in bed with
lover
boy — because there isn't one.'

'Pull the other leg . . .'

'I just wanted my things, that's all.' She was walking round the room, trailing her fingers over objects, riffling through postcards on the mantelpiece. He knew her. She was out to irritate and she was succeeding. 'I needed one or two things from the box.'

'At three in the fucking morning?'

'Do you have to swear?'

'Yes, I fucking well do. Fucking.' For a moment he hoped she was going to laugh. No such luck.

'Like what did you need?' he said belligerently. 'A hairbrush? Those pink socks with stars on them? Your
Wind in the Willows
‘I
-shirt?' He laughed. 'Oh my goodness, I simply can't go
on
without Toad . . .'

'Don't be so childish. Can I have them, please?'

'No.'

'You wanted to get rid of them. You rang me and told me you did. The only phone call you've made in the whole six weeks was to say you wanted to give me my things back.' Her lips wobbled but she righted herself.

'Don't cry,' he said warningly.

'Well, it's true, isn't it?'

'It is not true. I didn't only ring about that. . .'

'Oh. Now I'm a liar.'

'Melanie!'

She stood in front of him, cocking her head in the direction of the bedroom. 'Didn't take you long. How many's that? Six? Seven? Eight?'

For a moment he felt rather flattered. He thought about looking as if it might just be true but remembered the reality of the lump under the duvet next door. This was no
time
for misplaced pride.

'What about you?'

‘I
haven't been to bed with anybody.'
‘I
saw you.' 'What, in bed?' 'No. In Popinjay's.'

'So? It's a restaurant, not a knocking shop. At least, so far as I know. Of course, you may know different and -' 'You were all over him.' 'So?'

'Don't keep saying that.'
'So.'

'Boots, short skirt - putting it all out on display. What's the matter? Didn't he bite after all? Perhaps you didn't leave enough to the imagination.'

'You bastard. Just get my things.'

He stood up. 'Well? Did you?'

'Did I what?'

'Let him?'

'Let him? You are just so unliberated.
Let
him? As if I am a piece of merchandise . . .'

'That's what you looked like.'

'We had a meal and then he took me home. And why the
hell
am I justifying myself to you - when you've got
that
in the other room?'

'Melanie, it may have escaped your notice, but I
live
here. This is my flat, my home, my bloody bed if you want to know, and you've just barged in . . .'

She was silent. Swallowing.

Very quietl
y she said,
‘I
apologize. If you will get my box, I'll go.' And she immediately sat down. 'It's funny,' she said, 'but I thought you'd be thinking things through. Instead you've been out fucking every Tom, Dick and Harry.'

'Hardly,' he said, feeling the first thaw of humour, 'I don't go in for that, remember?'

She looked
at him. He nodded in the directi
on of the bedroom. 'Female,' he said. 'It's a woman.' He attempted a joke. 'Try Thomasina, Doreen or Harriet.'

'It's not funny,' she said. 'How many times?'

'One - and a half, thanks to you.'

'I don't mean that.'

'Just this once.'

'Did you use condoms?'

'Of course I bloody used condoms. Did you?'

'I . . . haven't . . . haven't —' She broke off, unable to finish the sentence. She stood up.

He was torn. Part of him was pleased. Part of him knew he had lost ground now.

'What? Not even once? What about the guy tonight?'

‘N
ot my type. Would you get my box? Then I can go and you' - she looked significa
ntly
at the door - 'can carry on.'

She put out her hand as if to shake his. 'I apologize again. I just thought I could come over and slip into bed beside you.'

He laughed, forgetting for the moment the seriousness of the situation. 'It might have been interesting if you had . . .'

The laugh died. Too late. He knew, quite suddenly, that he had blown it. Quite suddenly, he knew the whole thing had turned and would not turn back. Her face had set to a ghastly stone. The hand he held went rigid and withdrew itself. He heard a choir of told-you-so's singing that he shouldn't have done that. He remembered. A sense of humour was not one of her strongest points. Oh
God,
what the hell, that was it, then; he had really done it now.

'You insensitive shit,' she said quietly. And without another word, she opened the door, clicked it behind her, and left. 'What about your things?' he called. But there was no reply.

'Is that it?' he asked himself wryly.

It seemed that it was. For a split shard of time he felt liberated, and then from the bedroom he heard the distinct sounds of female sobbing, a familiar tune. He kicked at the couch, swore under his breath, and returned to the alien woman.

Chapter Twenty-one

T
he
cab pulled up outside Janice's address. 'Oh,' said Rohanne surprised. 'Here already.' Janice laughed. 'Despite Sylvia's disapproval, the place is very close to the centre. Piccadilly to Battersea High Street is a very few miles.' She raised a finger. 'Remember the old saying, "You must go to Battersea to get your simples cut"?' 'No,' said Rohanne.

'In olden days the market gardeners of Battersea grew simples - medicinal herbs - and London apothecaries came here to choose and gather what they wanted.' She looked out of the taxi's window at the brick walls and car-lined streets. 'Wouldn't believe it now, but so it was. They used the old saying to reprove a simpleton - someone who held a foolish belief. Like you.'

'Me?' Indignation overruled politeness. 'What, exactly?' 'Love, dear. Or the virtues in the lack of it. You think I'm quite dotty to have waited for Dermot Poll this long.' 'Well. . .'

Janice raised a hand. 'Oh yes you do. Well, believe me, it is better to have hope in your heart and love on your sleeve than the freedom of emptiness.'

'It weakens,' mumbled Rohanne.

'It what, dear?'

'I said it weakens.' Rohanne was about to say, 'Look at you . . .' But somehow the equation didn't hang together.

'No, no. Good love supports weakness, draws from strength. It's a state of enhancement. In its perfect state it makes all who are held in it good. It spreads to every fibre; its strength can outwit evil. And though Perfect Love is of its nature unattainable, we can at least strive for it. I am quite sure of that. And as such it will wait for ever, even to the moment of death . . .'

'Hah’
said Rohanne. 'You really
are
in the fourteenth century. There doesn't seem to be a lot of Perfect Love about nowadays
...'

'Oh but its essence stays the same in whatever age. Poor Ovid, happy in his lusty detachment, suddenly bewails that he has fallen in love - and in so doing he feels like a hunter who has stepped into his own snare, never to be rescued
...
Dante glimpses Beatrice; Troilus, Criseyde; Lancelot, Guinevere .
..
Even Victoria sees a sneezing Albert through a curtain and loves at once. There is no age in which it was not so, no time in which lovers did not seek the elusive joy - and no age which did not set out to bludgeon the purity of Love Found.'

A little coldness clutched at Rohanne Bulbecker's heart. 'Janice,' she said, 'the . . . um . . . sex thing
...
in the book — it is
.
..
um .
..
going to be all right for you, isn't it?'

'You mean all right
iozjou,
I think, dear?'

'Well, perhaps.'

Janice leaned back and smiled. 'Oh yes. Perfectly all right. No problem at all. Your . . . er . . . inventive action was' - she stifled what Rohanne thought might have been a giggle - 'just right. It fits exactly. You and Mr Pfeiffer mustn't worry at all. Sex you will have.
That,
I promise you. Six scenes, evenly distributed, just as you ask, and sensitively handled, of course . . .'

Rohanne wriggled.

The taxi-driver, too, began to show signs of restlessness. Despite the clock going into pleasant profit, it was irritating to have to sit there while two women nattered in the back.

'I should go,' said Rohanne, 'I have a plane to catch tomorrow.'

'Somebody nice waiting for you?'

'Morgan Pfeiffer,' said Rohanne darkly.

'No one else - of a romantic nature?'

'Nope,' said Rohanne positively. She thought about Herbie. 'Well, certainly not a case of
Vous ou Mort,
anyway.'

Tn all,' said Janice, 'I've been in love for twenty years. It's what kept me going.'

'And I
,' said Rohanne cheerily, 'have successfully avoided love, and
that's
what's kept
me
going.'

Janice patted her knee. 'Try it the other way round for a change. Go through the looking-glass. You never know, you might prefer it.'

'I threw a Filofax at my last lover,' said Rohanne, 'the day I came to London. It hit him on the shin.'

'Better there than anywhere else,' said Janice and, with surprising suggestiveness, she winked.