CHAPTER
Two

I lay naked, with nothing above me but a sheet. My body was a perfect, cleansed and silken thing. Oliver knelt on the bed, slowly drew back the sheet and looked at me. He touched my breasts as if they were rare fragile artifacts, ran the palm of his hand luxuriantly down my stomach, until I caught my breath. “Oh, Jesus, Rosie,” he whispered. “I want to fuck you so much.”

Then the door opened, and Hermoine Hallet-McWilliam burst into the office. “Have you done that memo? Sir William’s asking where it is.”

For all her well-connected background, Hermione was badly challenged in the manners department. “Nearly finished, Hermione,” I said brightly, turning back to the computer.

“Can’t imagine what you’ve been doing,” she said. “Told you to do that an hour ago.” Then she picked up the phone and dialed a number. “Candida. Hi. Smee. Listen, you going to be Larkfield at the weekend? That’s completely brilliant. Ophelia’s coming with Hero and Perpetua. Well, fairly smart, I suppose. Absolutely. Quite agree. No, you’re quite right. Well, say hello to Lucretia for me. Bye.”

One of these days she would answer the phone to someone called Beelzebub.

Suddenly I was all softness and radiance in a powder-blue wrap. The sun was streaming down on us as we sat at my kitchen table. It was our first breakfast together.

“People can be really quite different from each other, can’t they, Oliver?” I said.

“Sorry, darling?”

“I, for example, like a warm currant tea cake for my breakfast. You, on the other hand, might prefer muesli, or scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, or bagels perhaps, with a range of cheeses,” I said, opening my immaculate fridge to reveal an array of tempting foodstuffs.

“Rosemary.” Hermione was standing above me, staring at me furiously. “I am not. Going. To ask you. Again. May I please have Sir William’s memo?”

I turned back, under Hermione’s gaze, to the computer and started typing out the handwritten memo which lay on the desk. It was another of Sir William’s mad attempts to make himself more famous.

23 JULY 1985
TO: ALL MEMBERS OF THE PUBLICITY DEPARTMENT
FROM: SIR WILLIAM GINSBERG
RE: CORPORATE PROFILE-RAISING

We are looking very very hard for ways of increasing public awareness of the socially responsible aspects of the company and myself as its chairman. In the light of the recent Live Aid concert it is very very important Ginsberg and Fink are seen to be doing their bit.

Suddenly the first birth pangs of an idea twinged in my brain. Startled by the sensation, I reached for the list of forthcoming Soft Focus programs, which was lying in a pile of papers on my desk. I scanned the list. There it was:

PROGRAM 25:In the wake of Band Aid and Live Aid, Soft Focus investigates the new phenomenon of charity in relation topopular culture, and looks at the contribution of various areas of the arts world to aid for the Ethiopian famine.

I reckoned it ought to be possible to get Sir William onto the program, although, obviously, it would have to involve a lot of consultation with the producer.

“Books.” Sir William banged his fist down on his large mahogany desk. “Ver’ good idea. Take ’em some books. Books all over the shop, clutterin’ the place up. Take ’em out in an airlift. Ties in smooth as a sewin’ machine. Ver’ good angle for an arts program.”

“Don’t you think the Ethiopians would rather have something to eat?” I said.

“No, no, no. Books. Just the ticket. Every man jack in the whole ruddy shootin’ match flyin’ out food. Need somethin’ to read while they’re waitin’ for it.”

“In fact, although naturally food is the pressing concern, there may actually be something interesting for us in the books concept.” Eamonn Salt, the press officer for the SUSTAIN charity, pulled at his beard. Sir William pulled at his beard too.

“Really?” I said.

“Yes, indeed. We’re trying to get away from the dehumanizing of the indigenous African in the media famine coverage,” Eamonn went on in his flat monotone. “Introducing the notion of the learned African person, the intelligent African thirsting for knowledge to replace what we call the Starving Monkey Myth. Your idea might well have a role to play in increasing public empathy, though many of my colleagues would disagree. It’s a different school of thought. Though, of course, we’d be up against public outrage about waste of resources, charity for luxury. I’m sure you’re familiar with the arguments.”

“Ver’ good. Arguments. Books. Just the ticket to get the Soft Focus lot goin’,” said Sir William.

“But would the Ethiopians be able to read the books if they’re in English?” I said.

“Ah, well, remember, the famine covers the whole of the Sahel. Your best bet might be to send them to the camps on the border between Abouti and Nambula. There are refugees from Kefti there who are highly educated. The Keftians have an excellent British-based education system,” said Eamonn.

“Where’s Kefti?” I said.

“Rebel province of Abouti, bordering Nambula, North Africa. The Keftians have been pursuing a somewhat bloody war for independence from the Marxist regime in Abouti for twenty-five years. Highly organized culture. The Sahel famine has hit them probably harder than anyone—it is impossible for the NGOs to get food aid to them because of the war and for diplomatic reasons. There is a major exodus from Kefti at present over the border into Nambula. Very, very severe malnourishment there.”

“What about taking out food with a few books thrown in?” I said.

“Ruddy good idea,” said Sir William. “First rate. Good thinkin’, gel.”

Fired up with unaccustomed zeal, I started organizing an appeal among the staff of the corporation for the food, rounding up remaindered books, looking into sponsored flights. I rang up Soft Focus and fixed up a meeting for a week’s time with Sir William, Oliver Marchant and me. A vision of Africa, with its tribes, drums, fires and lions, danced and twinkled. I thought of Geldof, I thought of purpose and meaning, I thought of relief workers being passionate, poor and self-sacrificing, saving the grateful Africans. But mainly I thought of Oliver.