worry, I'm not going to hit you again.' He gulped the freshly made coffee as if it were spirits - he seemed indifferent to its heat. 'Have you got a cigarette?'
'I don't smoke. You can look around.'
'She never has any cigarettes.' But he heaved up his body and started to prowl about the room, disarranging the huge downy cushions as though packets might be disgorged. Then he vanished into the bedroom. The keys of the flat were lying on the table. Jemima wondered rather hazily whether she should grab them and run down and out into the square. She was still contemplating the move when Kevin John returned, smoking a black cigarette. The new harsh smell made Jemima feel nauseous.
'These yours?' He held out a box of Black Sobranies, and a lighter.
'I told you I didn't smoke.'
'They're not hers. The ' He added a crude description of Chloe.
Jemima remained silent. She was fairly sure such conspicuous cigarettes had not been visible in the bedroom the night before since her own distaste for cigarettes, above all in a bedroom - even unsmoked - would have caused her to remove them. He must have routed them out from some drawer, exacerbating his own hurt; still it was pointlessly provocative to say so.
'Look at this.' The lighter was dumped down in front of her. It was a pretty little object, striped black and white enamel, with an opaque reddish-brown jewel - a beryl or a piece of agate - set in its head. 'Recognize it?'
'No.' But even as she spoke, a memory stirred; she felt she had seen the lighter or something very like it before. For one thing it was the kind of personal detail Jemima noticed automatically about people whether she was interviewing them or not, a professional habit of observation. Placing the precise person was more difficult because during the last month, both setting up programmes for the autumn series and clearing the decks for her own holiday, Jemima had spoken to, eaten and drunk with an inordinate number of different people, types jumbled together.
It was also possible that she had marked down the lighter at Megalithic House. Cy Fredericks, her boss at MTV, had a fine taste in gold accoutrements, and was fond of throwing any new little bejewelled toy at her as a joke at the expense of what he supposed to be her Puritan streak: 'Fancy it, Jem? Gems for Jem? Yours if that programme wins the prize at Amsterdam.' The last time Cy Fredericks indulged his taste for that particular pleasantry, he had been referring to The Unvi sited.
But the lighter was, she had to admit, in rather too good taste for Cy. It was really very attractive, with a feeling of modern Faberge about it. Where had she seen it? Never mind, it would come back to her.
'Where is she, Miss Jezebel Fontaine, the bitch of Bloomsbury, the fuck of Fulham, the harlot of the Brighthelmet Press, the curs' delight—' And Kevin John proceeded to embark upon a string of imprecations in which terms of Biblical denunciation and suggestions of animal congress were mingled. His language had always been appalling - if colourfully so - but what had seemed rather amusingly vivid in the jolly young painter Chloe had run off with, was now merely the gratuitous thrusting of his untrammelled anger on the world.
At the same time, despite his outburst, it was clear that Kevin John was rapidly becoming less drunk. But the expression on his face being no less threatening and his wild round blue eyes still dilating, Jemima had no confidence that temporary sobriety would prevent him beating her up again if he was so minded. It had been a bad mistake not to run while she had the opportunity.
'I tell you again I haven't the slightest idea!' Jemima almost shouted the words. Despair, brought on not only by an aching head but also by a sense of the ludicrous unfairness of his question, to say nothing of his behaviour, made her abandon caution. She proceeded to tell Kevin John, furiously but succinctly, exactly what had happened since Chloe tripped so lightly out of her
'I don't smoke. You can look around.'
'She never has any cigarettes.' But he heaved up his body and started to prowl about the room, disarranging the huge downy cushions as though packets might be disgorged. Then he vanished into the bedroom. The keys of the flat were lying on the table. Jemima wondered rather hazily whether she should grab them and run down and out into the square. She was still contemplating the move when Kevin John returned, smoking a black cigarette. The new harsh smell made Jemima feel nauseous.
'These yours?' He held out a box of Black Sobranies, and a lighter.
'I told you I didn't smoke.'
'They're not hers. The ' He added a crude description of Chloe.
Jemima remained silent. She was fairly sure such conspicuous cigarettes had not been visible in the bedroom the night before since her own distaste for cigarettes, above all in a bedroom - even unsmoked - would have caused her to remove them. He must have routed them out from some drawer, exacerbating his own hurt; still it was pointlessly provocative to say so.
'Look at this.' The lighter was dumped down in front of her. It was a pretty little object, striped black and white enamel, with an opaque reddish-brown jewel - a beryl or a piece of agate - set in its head. 'Recognize it?'
'No.' But even as she spoke, a memory stirred; she felt she had seen the lighter or something very like it before. For one thing it was the kind of personal detail Jemima noticed automatically about people whether she was interviewing them or not, a professional habit of observation. Placing the precise person was more difficult because during the last month, both setting up programmes for the autumn series and clearing the decks for her own holiday, Jemima had spoken to, eaten and drunk with an inordinate number of different people, types jumbled together.
It was also possible that she had marked down the lighter at Megalithic House. Cy Fredericks, her boss at MTV, had a fine taste in gold accoutrements, and was fond of throwing any new little bejewelled toy at her as a joke at the expense of what he supposed to be her Puritan streak: 'Fancy it, Jem? Gems for Jem? Yours if that programme wins the prize at Amsterdam.' The last time Cy Fredericks indulged his taste for that particular pleasantry, he had been referring to The Unvi sited.
But the lighter was, she had to admit, in rather too good taste for Cy. It was really very attractive, with a feeling of modern Faberge about it. Where had she seen it? Never mind, it would come back to her.
'Where is she, Miss Jezebel Fontaine, the bitch of Bloomsbury, the fuck of Fulham, the harlot of the Brighthelmet Press, the curs' delight—' And Kevin John proceeded to embark upon a string of imprecations in which terms of Biblical denunciation and suggestions of animal congress were mingled. His language had always been appalling - if colourfully so - but what had seemed rather amusingly vivid in the jolly young painter Chloe had run off with, was now merely the gratuitous thrusting of his untrammelled anger on the world.
At the same time, despite his outburst, it was clear that Kevin John was rapidly becoming less drunk. But the expression on his face being no less threatening and his wild round blue eyes still dilating, Jemima had no confidence that temporary sobriety would prevent him beating her up again if he was so minded. It had been a bad mistake not to run while she had the opportunity.
'I tell you again I haven't the slightest idea!' Jemima almost shouted the words. Despair, brought on not only by an aching head but also by a sense of the ludicrous unfairness of his question, to say nothing of his behaviour, made her abandon caution. She proceeded to tell Kevin John, furiously but succinctly, exactly what had happened since Chloe tripped so lightly out of her
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