‘Oh, really?’
She would have been quite happy in that moment to have moved straight to horizontal, but she didn’t want him thinking she was a tart. She was sure his life was littered with women who had thrown themselves at him, and she had no intention of joining them. If any throwing of anyone was to be done, then it was to be him at her.
‘Oh, yes,’ he said. ‘Where would you like to go? How do you like the Café?’
‘De Paris? Love it.’
‘OK. You never know, it might be one of Princess Margaret’s nights.’
‘Well, that would be exciting. I’ve never seen her.’
‘She’s very beautiful. She was there the other night, made an amazing entrance in a white fur coat. Spoilt, though.’
‘Well, she’s a princess. She would be. She should have been allowed to marry Townsend. I would have done it anyway, whatever those old fogeys said.’
‘Do I detect a romantic here, beneath the cool exterior?’
She was rather pleased about the cool. It was what she aimed to project, but rather feared she didn’t always come over that way.
‘I’m quite romantic. Sometimes.’
‘I see.’
‘What about you?’
‘Oh, I’m very romantic. That’s why I’ve had three wives. Keep falling in love.’
‘You don’t have to marry them, though,’ she said, intrigued.
‘I know,’ he said and sighed. ‘I just get – carried away. I’m quite a helpless chap really.’
‘You don’t seem in the least helpless to me,’ said Diana briskly. ‘Come on, let’s go dancing.’
‘Apparently, we should have come last week,’ he said, as they settled themselves at a table gratifyingly near the band. ‘No?l Coward was doing the cabaret.’
‘Oh, my God. How marvellous! I wish you hadn’t told me.’
‘Well, I’m here,’ he said, looking mildly put out.
‘I know. Sorry. But he is one of my all-time idols.’
‘Champagne?’
‘Please. The thing about champagne is it takes you back to where you started. Makes you feel the evening’s just beginning.’
He laughed. ‘I think I know what you mean.’ A Sinatra sound-alike was crooning ‘Moonlight in Vermont’. ‘Come on. I want to express my horizontal desire.’
He danced very well. So important, Diana thought: such a barometer of sexiness. Johnathan had been a terrible dancer, she should have taken heed of that fact. Although she’d known, of course, all along; no use pretending it had been a surprise.
She looked around as they sat down again; you so often saw famous faces here. She couldn’t see any.
‘Who are you looking for?’ he asked, amused
‘Oh, just someone famous. I like seeing them off duty, so to speak. It amuses me. Specially if they’re in a bad mood. I once saw Grace Kelly here.’
‘In a bad mood? I don’t believe it.’
‘No, just clearly bored. Goodness, she’s beautiful. She was with her beau, that French actor, Jean-Pierre something.’
‘Aumont.’
‘Yes, that’s right. I suppose you know hundreds of famous people?’
‘Met them, let’s say. Very few of them would say they knew me. Anyway, there’s no one here for you tonight, I’m afraid. Oh – yes. Billy Wallace. Over there, look.’
Diana looked; Billy Wallace, one of the so-called Margaret set, officially acknowledged – by the press at any rate – as one of her suitors, was escorting a girl off the dance floor.
‘He gives new meaning to the term “chinless”, doesn’t he?’ said Diana with a giggle. ‘She can’t like him for his looks.’
‘No. But he has huge charm and he’s very, very nice. I’ve met him several times, over the years.’
‘What a glamorous life you do lead, to be sure, Mr Bennett.’
‘Yours can’t be exactly dull.’
‘No, it’s not. Actually, maybe you can advise me.’
She told him about the New York offer.
‘Darling, it sounds a terrible idea to me. Don’t go.’
She liked the ‘darling’, although it probably meant nothing.
‘Why not?’
‘For a start, it’s probably the loneliest place in the world. Anyway, what about your little boy?’
‘I’d work around his holidays. They don’t need me there full-time.’
‘Diana, you know as well as I do, that won’t work. There’ll be a crucial fashion shoot you’ve got to go to California for, exactly coinciding with his half term.’
She looked at him with interest. ‘You sound as if you speak from experience.’
‘Our esteemed fashion editor has children. I hear her constantly wailing about such dilemmas, in spite of what seems to be a fleet of nannies. And what do you think your ex-husband would have to say about your upping sticks and going to the States?’
She shrugged. ‘He’d just see it as a way of seeing more of Jamie.’
‘And you wouldn’t mind that?’
‘Well, of course. But I just want to do this. And it wouldn’t be for long, I’ll be too old to model soon.’
‘Well, I think you’d find it hard for all sorts of reasons. Anyway, having just found you, I don’t like the idea of your moving to the other side of the Atlantic.’
She liked that. As much as the ‘darling’.
She smiled at him, leaned across the small table and gave him a kiss.
‘Let’s see. Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go to the ladies.’
She was sitting on the loo, holding her skirt round it with great difficulty, when she heard the door open.
‘Well, I see our Leo hasn’t wasted any time. How long since he finished with Celia?’
‘Oh, not long – two weeks? Maybe three. She’s still sobbing, poor creature. He really is a prime bastard. Just dropping her like that, without a word of warning.’
‘Well, to be fair, a warning would be as bad. Either a man’s madly in love with you as he professes to be, or he isn’t. But he’d more or less said he was going to propose. What a bastard.’
‘Especially when he’s still married to Baba, technically speaking. Mind you, she’s very beautiful this one.’
‘Yes. She looks familiar, don’t know why.’
Diana sat frozen on her porcelain throne. She couldn’t go out now – could she? But it would be a long wait if she didn’t. While first one and then the other used the second lavatory, did their make-up, debating Leo and his sexual peccadilloes. Of course, she’d learn a lot.
‘Mind you, Anna’s got her revenge, scooped up Hugh Wyndham. She always did like a title.’
This was too good to miss. Diana settled down more comfortably on the seat, eased her skirts gingerly downwards. The small tin bin in the corner labelled Napkins rattled loudly. The two women paused; one of them called, ‘You all right in there?’
‘Yes, thank you.’