Imogen Read online

  About the Book

  As a librarian, Imogen read a lot of books, but none of them covered Real Life on the Riviera. Her holiday with tennis ace, Nicky, and the whole glamorous coterie of journalist, playboy, photographer, was a revelation - and so was she. A prize worth winning. A wild Yorkshire rose among the thorny model girls, Cable and Yvonne, with a rare asset that they'd mislaid years ago.

  But the path of a jet-set virgin in that lovely wicked world was a hard one. Imogen began to wonder if virtue really was its own reward …

  Jilly Cooper

  IMOGEN

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781409032120

  Version 1.0

  www.randomhouse.co.uk

  IMOGEN

  A CORGI BOOK : 9780552152549

  Originally published in Great Britain by

  Arlington Books Ltd

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Arlington Books edition published 1978

  Corgi edition published 1979

  Corgi edition reissued 2005

  3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Copyright © Jilly Cooper 1978

  The right of Jilly Cooper to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Condition of Sale

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Corgi Books are published by Transworld Publishers,

  61–63 Uxbridge Road, London W5 5SA,

  A Random House Group Company

  Addresses for Random House Group Ltd companies outside the UK can be found at: www.randomhouse.co.uk

  The Random House Group Ltd Reg. No. 954009

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title

  Copyright

  About the Author

  Also by Jilly Cooper

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  About the Author

  Jilly Cooper is a journalist, writer and media superstar. The author of many number one bestselling novels, she lives in Gloucestershire with her husband Leo, her rescue greyhound Feather and her black cat Feral.

  She was appointed OBE in 2004 for services to literature, and in 2009 was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Gloucestershire for her contribution to literature and services to the County.

  Find out more about Jilly Cooper at her website www.jillycooper.co.uk

  By Jilly Cooper

  FICTION

  RIDERS

  RIVALS

  POLO

  THE MAN WHO MADE HUSBANDS JEALOUS

  APPASSIONATA

  SCORE!

  PANDORA

  WICKED!

  JUMP!

  NON-FICTION

  ANIMALS IN WAR

  CLASS

  HOW TO SURVIVE CHRISTMAS

  HOTFOOT TO ZABRISKIE POINT (with Patrick Lichfield)

  INTELLIGENT AND LOYAL

  JOLLY MARSUPIAL

  JOLLY SUPER

  JOLLY SUPERLATIVE

  JOLLY SUPER TOO

  SUPER COOPER

  SUPER JILLY

  SUPER MEN AND SUPER WOMEN

  THE COMMON YEARS

  TURN RIGHT AT THE SPOTTED DOG

  WORK AND WEDLOCK

  ANGELS RUSH IN

  ARAMINTA’S WEDDING

  CHILDREN’S BOOKS

  LITTLE MABEL

  LITTLE MABEL’S GREAT ESCAPE

  LITTLE MABEL SAVES THE DAY

  LITTLE MABEL WINS

  ROMANCE

  BELLA

  EMILY

  HARRIET

  LISA & CO

  OCTAVIA

  PRUDENCE

  ANTHOLOGIES

  THE BRITISH IN LOVE

  VIOLETS AND VINEGAR

  For Lyn Adams

  with love

  Author’s Note

  The idea for IMOGEN first came to me in 1967. I wrote it as a long short story called THE HOLIDAY MAKERS and it appeared in serial form in 19. In 1977 I took the story and completely re-wrote it, and the result is IMOGEN.

  Chapter One

  The little West Riding town of Pikely-in-Darrowdale clings to the side of the hillside like a grey squirrel. Above stretches the moor and below, in the valley, where the River Darrow meanders through bright green water meadows, lies Pikely Tennis Club. In the High Street stands the Public Library.

  It was a Saturday afternoon in May. Miss Nugent, the Senior Librarian, put down the mauve openwork jumper she was knitting and helped herself to another Lincoln Cream.

  ‘I’ve never known it so slack,’ she said to the pretty girl beside her, who was dreamily sorting books into piles of fiction and non-fiction and putting them on a trolley. ‘Everyone must be down at the tournament. Are you going, Imogen?’

  The girl nodded. ‘For an hour or two. My sister’s raving about one of the players – some Wimbledon star. I promised I’d go and look at him.’

  ‘I’m sorry you had to work this afternoon,’ said Miss Nugent. ‘You’re always standing in for Gloria. I wonder if she really was “struck down by shellfish”. I’m going to ring up in a minute and see how she is.’

  ‘Oh, I wouldn’t do that,’ said Imogen hastily, knowing perfectly well that Gloria had sloped off to Morecambe for the week-end with a boyfriend, ‘The – er – telephone in her digs is in the hall, and I’m sure she’s feeling far too weak to stagger down two flights of stairs to answer it.’

  Feeling herself blushing at such a lie, she busied about stacking up leaflets entitled Your Rights as a Ratepayer and What to do in Pikely. Bugger all, Gloria always said, in answer to the latter.

  Miss Nugent burrowed inside her cream rayon blouse, and hauled up a bra strap.

  ‘Decided where to go for your holiday yet?’

  ‘Not really,’ answered Imogen, wishing some reader would come in and distract Miss Nugent’s attention. ‘My father’s swapping with a vicar in Whitby in September. I might go with him.’

  She dreaded discussing holidays; everyone else in the library seemed to have planned trips to exotic places months ago, and talked about nothing else. She extracted a romantic novel called A Kiss in Tangier from books destined for the Travel Section and put it on top of the Fiction pile. On the front was a picture of a beautiful couple embracing against a background of amethyst ocean and pale pink minarets. Oh dear, thought Imogen sadly, if only I could go to Tangier
and be swept off my size seven feet by a man with a haughty face and long legs.

  The library was certainly quiet for a Saturday. In the left-hand corner, where easy chairs were grouped round low tables, an old lady had fallen asleep over Lloyd George’s letters, a youth in a leather jacket was browsing through a biography of Kevin Keegan, his lips moving as he read, and little Mr Hargreaves was finishing another chapter of the pornographic novel he didn’t dare take home, for fear of his large wife’s disapproval. Apart from an earnest young man with a beard and sandals flipping through the volumes of sociology and a coloured girl who got through four romances a day, desperately trying to find one she hadn’t read, the place was deserted.

  Suddenly the door opened and two middle-aged women came in, red-faced from the hairdressers opposite, smelling of lacquer and grumbling about the wind messing their new hair-dos. Imogen took money for a fine from one, and assured the other that Catherine Cookson really hadn’t written another book yet.

  ‘Authors have to write at their own pace you know,’ said Miss Nugent reprovingly.

  Imogen watched the two women stopping to browse through the novels on the returned books trolley. Funny, she thought wistfully, how people tended to look there first rather than at the shelves, how a book that appeared to be going out a lot was more likely to be in demand. Just like Gloria. Three boys had been in asking for her already that day, and had all looked sceptical on being told the shellfish story. But Imogen knew they’d all be back again asking for her next week.

  You learnt a lot about the locals working in a library. Only this morning Mr Barraclough, who, unknown to his wife, was having a walk-out with the local nymphomaniac, had taken out a book called How to Live with a Bad Back. Then Mr York, reputed to have the most untroubled marriage in Pikely, had, with much puffing and blowing, rung in and asked Imogen to reserve Masters and Johnson on Sexual Inadequacy. And after lunch Mrs Bottomley, one of her father’s newest parish workers and due to do the flowers for the first time in church next week, had crept in and surreptitiously chosen four books on flower arrangement.

  ‘Vivien Leigh’s going well,’ said Miss Nugent, ‘and you’d better put David Niven aside for repair before he falls to pieces. When you’ve shelved that lot you can push off. It’s nearly four o’clock.’

  But next minute Imogen had been accosted by a dotty old woman with darned stockings asking if they had any dustbin bags, which led to a long explanation about how the old woman’s dog had been put down, and she wanted to throw its basket and rubber toys away as soon as possible.

  ‘The dustmen don’t come till Wednesday, and I’ll be reminded of him everytime I see them int’ dustbin.’

  Imogen’s eyes brimmed with tears. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she said. After devoting five minutes to the old woman, she turned to two small boys who came up to the desk looking very pink.

  ‘Any books about life?’ asked the eldest.

  ‘Whose life?’ said Imogen. ‘Biographies are over there.’

  ‘You know, facts’a life – babies and things,’ said the boy. His companion started to giggle. Imogen tried to hide a smile.

  ‘Well the biology section’s on the right,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be daft,’ snapped Miss Nugent. ‘Run along, you lads, and try the children’s library next door. And hurry up and shelve those books, Imogen.’

  She watched the girl pushing the squeaking trolley across the library. She was a nice child despite her timidity, and tried very hard, but she was so willing to listen to other people’s problems, she always got behind with her own work.

  Imogen picked up a pile of alphabetically arranged books in her left hand – so high that she could only just see over them – and started to replace them in the shelves. The collected editions were landmarks which made putting back easier. Sons and Lovers was replaced at the end of a milky green row of D. H. Lawrence. Return to Jalna slotted into the coral pink edition of Mazo de la Roche.

  Even working in a library for two years had not lessened her love of reading. There was Frenchman’s Creek. She stopped for a second, remembering the glamour of the Frenchman. If only a man like that would come into the library. But if he did, he’d be bound to fall in love with Gloria.

  A commotion at the issue desk woke her out of her reverie. A man with a moustache and a purple face, wearing a blazer, was agitatedly waving a copy of Molly Parkin’s latest novel.

  ‘It’s filth,’ he roared, ‘sheer filth. I just came in here to tell you I’m going to burn it.’

  ‘Well you’ll have to pay for it then,’ said Miss Nugent. ‘A lot of other readers have requested it.’

  ‘Filth and written by a woman,’ roared the man in the blazer. ‘Don’t know how anyone dare publish it.’ Everyone in the library was listening now, pretending to study the books on the shelves, but brightening perceptibly at the prospect of a good row.

  Imogen returned The Age of Innocence to its right place and rolled the trolley back to the issue desk.

  ‘Let me read you this bit, madam,’ shouted the man in the blazer.

  ‘Run along now, Imogen,’ said Miss Nugent, hastily.

  Imogen hesitated, embarrassed, but longing to hear the outcome of the row.

  ‘Go on,’ said Miss Nugent firmly. ‘You’ll miss the tennis. I won’t be in on Monday. I’m going to Florrie’s funeral, so I’ll see you on Tuesday. Now, sir,’ she turned to the man in the blazer.

  Why do I always miss all the fun, thought Imogen, going into the back office where Miss Illingworth was clucking over the legal action file.

  ‘I’ve written to the Mayor five times about returning The Hite Report,’ she said crossly, ‘You’d think a man in his position . . .’

  ‘Maybe he thinks he’s grand enough to keep books as long as he likes,’ said Imogen, unlocking her locker and taking out her bag.

  ‘Twenty-one days is the limit, and rules is rules, my girl, whether you’re the Queen of England. Have you seen Mr Cloth’s PC? It’s a scream.’

  Imogen picked up the postcard of blue sea and orange sand and turned it over.

  I wouldn’t like to live here, the deputy librarian, who was holidaying in Sardinia, had written, but it’s a horrible place for a holiday. The pillows are like bags of Blue Circle cement. Wish you were here but not queer. B. C.

  Imogen giggled, then sighed inwardly. Not only had one to find somewhere smart to go on holiday, but had to write witty things about it when you got there.

  She went into the ladies to comb her hair and wash the violet ink from the date stamp off her hands. She scowled at her reflection in the cracked mirror – huge grey eyes, rosy cheeks, too many freckles, a snub nose, soft full lips, long hair the colour of wet sand, which had a maddening tendency to kink at the first sight of rain.

  ‘Why do I look so young?’ she thought crossly. ‘And why am I so fat?’

  She removed the mirror from the wall, examining the full breasts, wide hips and sturdy legs which went purple and mottled in cold weather, and which fortunately today were hidden by black boots.

  ‘It’s a typical North Country figure,’ she thought gloomily, ‘built to withstand howling winds and an arctic climate.’

  During her last year at school she had been unceasingly ragged for weighing eleven stone. Now, two years later, she had lost over two stone, but still felt herself to be fat and unattractive.

  Her younger sister, Juliet, was waiting for her as she came out of the library. Far more fashion-conscious than Imogen, she was wearing drainpipe pedal pushers, brilliant coloured glove socks, and a papier mâché ice cream cornet pinned to her huge sloppy pink sweater. A tiny leather purse swung from her neck, and her blonde curls blew in the wind as she circled round and round on her bicycle like a vulture.

  ‘There you are, Imogen. For goodness’ sake, hurry! Beresford’s on court already and he’s bound to win in straight sets. Did you bring Fanny Hill?’

  ‘Blast! I forgot,’ said Imogen, turning back.

  ‘Oh,
leave it,’ said Juliet. ‘It doesn’t matter.’ And she set off down the cobbled streets, pedalling briskly.

  ‘What’s his name again?’ said Imogen, panting beside her.

  ‘I’ve told you a million times – Beresford. N. Beresford. I hope the “N” doesn’t stand for Norman or anything ghastly. Mind you, he could get away with it. I’ve never seen anyone so divine!’

  Last week, Imogen reflected, Juliet had been distraught with love for Rod Stewart, the week before for Georgie Best.

  Although a pallid sun was shining, afternoon shoppers, muffled in scarves and sheepskin coats, scuttled down the street, heads down against the wind. Imogen and Juliet arrived at the Tennis Club to find most of the spectators huddled for warmth around Court One.

  ‘I can’t see, I can’t see!’ said Juliet in a shrill voice.

  ‘Let the little girl through,’ said the crowd indulgently and, in a few seconds, Juliet, dragging a reluctant Imogen by the hand, had pummelled her way through to the front.

  ‘There’s Beresford,’ she whispered, pressing her face against the wire. ‘Serving this end.’

  He was tall and slim, with long legs, smooth and brown as a conker, and black curly hair. His shoulder muscles rippled as he served. His opponent didn’t even see the ball. A crackle of applause ran round the court.

  ‘Game and first set to Beresford,’ said the umpire.

  ‘He plays tennis champion,’ said a man in the crowd.

  ‘Isn’t he the end?’ sighed Juliet.

  ‘He looks OK from the back,’ said Imogen cautiously.