“Jeeennyyyy…”
I wake up suddenly, trying to work out where the voice is coming from.
The bedroom door slams, loud enough to wake the dead, and in the darkness of the room I hear a thud: someone must have just fallen over.
Wide awake, now, and quite worried, I turn on the light next to the bed and see Ian lying face down on the precious antique carpet. When he eventually left the garden, he must have carried on drinking.
I get up and rush over to help him.
“Come on, Ian, give me your hand, let me help you up.” He doesn't seem to hear, so I shake him, but all I get for my pains is an agonised groan.
“Serves you right,” I say, feeling no pity at the sight. “Drinking until you got yourself into this state… well done… very grown up of you.”
Ian manages to raise himself slightly from the carpet. “You'd have got drunk too if you were in my shoes—” he mutters, “… if your grandfather was always going on about the same bloody things to you—”
“Well at least I now understand why you don't visit your family very often. At this rate, you'll be dead of cirrhosis before you turn forty,” I comment in annoyance.
Ian actually manages a chuckle, but it's one of those ugly, drunken ones that makes him sound stupid.
“Don't be mean,” he begs, as he sits up.
“You deserve it,” I say, but at the sight of his suffering face, I relent and hold out my hand again, and this time he grabs it. Only to sit there like a cabbage, staring down my pyjama top at my cleavage.
“Have you had a good look?” I ask in a shrill voice.
“It makes me feel better,” he says, and finally decides to climb to his feet. But he doesn't keep his balance for long.
Very inelegantly, I manage to drag both of us over to the bed, and we fall onto it loudly.
“You're totally pissed,” I say in surprise. He mumbles something unintelligible. “Ian, you're still wearing your dinner jacket – you can't go to bed with that on,” I say.
“Oh, yes I can—” he sighs, closing his eyes.
“Come on, I'll help you,” I say, starting to take off his jacket.
He tries to collaborate as much as he can, but it's still hard work. I try to ignore the strange feeling in my fingers while I unbutton and remove his shirt. He has a perfect body, but I knew that already: clothes don't fit like a glove unless you've got a decent frame to hang them on.
“The trousers,” Ian reminds me.
No – I'm not taking off his trousers. “Only if you undo them yourself,” I say, my voice rising. I'm not putting my hand there. At the thought of it, though, I am suddenly overcome by a wave of abnormal heat.
“Prude,” he mumbles, accusingly, but then somehow manages to get them undone. He holds up first one leg and then the other, and I pull them off.
I know I shouldn't be looking, but I just can't take my eyes off him: he's wearing a pair of tight boxer shorts. Oh God. I'd better keep my mouth shut.
“Come on, get into bed,” I say.
He does as I tell him and, after covering him up, I grab my pillow and am all set to head off towards the sofa when a strong hand grabs me and a moment later I land on Ian's bare chest with a squeak of pure amazement.
“What are you doing?!” I ask in terror.
“Shhh—” he says, pulling me closer.
“Ian, you must have got me mixed up with someone else,” I say, trying to wriggle free, but he has a very strong grip for someone who's almost unconscious. “Ian!” I snap again, starting to get really upset now.
“Will you keep still?” he whispers in my ear. I'm getting goose bumps, and it's really embarrassing.
And lying there in his arms, completely lost, I realise that I have neither the physical nor the psychological strength to leave, so I just give in and close my eyes.
“Good girl. That's better.” He must have sensed my surrender.
Within a few minutes his breathing becomes regular and light. He must have fallen asleep. Despite the alcohol, his skin smells wonderful, and all my senses are wide awake. It feels as though every single cell in my body is incredibly alive.
This isn't good. I try and force myself to think about something else, but it's so difficult.
“You'll pay for this,” I say softly to the zombie sleeping blissfully next to me, its arms around me. And finally, after what seems like an eternity, I too am able to relax enough to fall asleep.
*
What a nightmarish weekend, I'm thinking, when the sound of someone knocking loudly on the door awakens me abruptly.
“Ian!” I hear a voice call from the other side of the door.
I only met her yesterday, but Ian's mother's voice is already unmistakable. He doesn't seem to have heard it, though, and he is still fast asleep, clutching me tightly. The scene is nothing short of grotesque.
“Ian,” I try to wake him up and free myself. “Ian, your mother's here!” I say, but I get no answer.
From outside, the voice gets louder.
“We'll be right there!” I shout, desperately, and then, with a jab of my elbow, I manage to escape from his grasp. The body next to me lets out a gasp of pain.
“Sorry, but you just wouldn't wake up”.
Ian finally opens his eyes. His face is greener than I've ever seen it, and the colour really doesn't suit him, I reflect. Not without a hint of anger, after having been put through the most absurd twenty-four hours of my life.
He tries to sit up, but after a few seconds a wave of nausea overcomes him.
Better and better.
Still clad only in his boxers, he jumps out of bed and races into the bathroom. Great! So I'll have to deal with mother.
When I open the door I try and force myself to look as natural and calm as I can. It would probably be better not to upset Lady St John. Her green eyes are wide open and worried, and her hair is oddly mussed.
“Good morning, Jennifer” she says, almost hyperventilating.
“Good morning,” I reply, letting her in. “How is Ian?” she asks, scanning the room in search of her precious son.
The answer comes in the form of a strange noise from the bathroom. Lady St John turns visibly pale.
“Not too well?” she ventures.
“Not really,” I admit. What else can I say?
“Do you want us to come in and help you?” I shout through the door to Ian.
“No!” he answers immediately. And if he'd said yes, I swear I would have sent in his mother.
“Well, at least he still has the strength to answer,” I say, trying to cheer up his mother.
“And what shall we do now?” she asks worriedly.
“Wait for him to come out?” I say, at the risk of sounding sarcastic.
“No, I mean what shall we do with my father-in-law. Last night he had another argument with Ian, and now we're behind schedule too. They're all waiting for Ian.”
The sounds that emerge from the bathroom in the meantime aren't really particularly encouraging.
“I'd say that it's probably impossible for Ian to take part.” I would have thought it was obvious, but with these people you never know what's going on in their heads. You're always better off spelling things out.
“Oh my God!” says the lady, in shock. In my heart, I genuinely hope that she's worried about her son and not about the hunt. “Then you must come!” she says, her eyes pleading.
“Me? To the hunt?” I ask, with a shiver of horror. “But I'm completely against hunting!”
By the look of it, Ian's mother is almost on the verge of tears. “Oh, his grandfather will get in such a terrible huff about it,” she begs.
Apparently, if there's one thing this family is good at, it's getting me to participate in things that I've always considered impossible for me.
“His grandfather can't be offended by Ian being ill!” I say, in a vain attempt to save myself.
“Oh, of course he can! He's capable of anything!” she says, amazed that something so seemingly trivial might not be self-evident to me.
I'll admit one thing, though – it's self-evident that the Duke of Revington needs someone to open his eyes, and it looks as though that someone is me.
“All right, Lady St John,” I say resignedly, “we'll do it your way. I'll come.”
Why does it always happen to me?
Meanwhile a greenish-grey Ian appears at the bathroom door. He's obviously feeling so sick that he doesn't even seem embarrassed to be almost naked in front of me and his mother. He staggers to the bed and throws himself in.
“Ian, what the hell happened to you?” asks his distraught mother.
“Don't ask questions you don't want to hear the answers to,” he mutters, covering his head with a sheet. “I'm going to die,” he adds, in an agonised voice.
“Of course you are. If only it were that easy to get rid of you.” I go over to bed and pull the sheet off his face so I can assess the situation. Against that sickly pallor, his eyes look incredibly blue.
His mother looks at us with some embarrassment. “Jennifer, you should get ready. If we don't appear in a couple of minutes, it will be a catastrophe.”
I get up, walk over to the wardrobe and take out a pair of jeans and a brown jacket.
“I don't have any boots with me,” I tell Ian's mother.
“I'll lend you some,” she offers immediately. “Just tell me your size and I'll fetch them.” And so, after discovering that I'm a size six, she rushes out of the room, leaving me alone with the moribund form in the bed.
Before going to the bathroom to get changed, I stare with all the hatred of which I'm capable of at the man who has caused this mess.
“Let me be clear: it may well be the last thing I do, but I'll make you pay for this. And dearly. Good job for you that you're rich.”
And so saying, I slam the bathroom door loudly behind me.