Free Imogen by Jilly Cooper

back to her room and found Homer dispiritedly pulling her underwear out of her suitcase. He hated people going away. ‘I’ll be back soon,’ she said, hugging him.
    She also packed a pile of big paperbacks she’d never got round to reading, Daniel Deronda, Lark Rise To Candleford , Scott Fitzgerald and Tristram Shandy . On the bed lay a box of tissues (they don’t have the kind of loo paper you can take your make-up off with in France, Miss Hockney had told her), a cellophane bag of cotton wool balls and a matching set of Goya’s Passport she had won in the church fête raffle. They didn’t look very inspiring as beauty aids. She imagined Nicky’s other girlfriends with the whole of Helena Rubinstein at their disposal.
    There was a knock on the door. It was her mother.
    ‘Hullo darling, how are you getting on? Daddy wants a quick word before he goes down to the jumble sale pricing committee.’
    As she went into the vicar’s study, Imogen started to shake. He was sitting behind his huge desk, lighting his pipe, a few raindrops still gleaming on his thick grey hair. All round him the shelves were filled with Greek and theological books, which the vicar never looked at, and gardening and sporting works which were much more heavily thumbed. On one ledge were neatly stacked volumes of the Church Times and the parish magazine. On the wall the vicar allowed himself one modest photograph of himself surrounded by the England team. On the desk was a large inkwell. He despised biros.
    Now he was looking at her over his spectacles. Was his jaundiced air due to the fact she’d been wearing the same skirt and sweater all week to save her best clothes for France, or was he remembering all the countless times he’d called her in to lecture her about inglorious reports, or misbehaviour at home?
    ‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Are you looking forward to your holiday?’
    ‘Yes,’ said Imogen.
    ‘Wish I’d been lucky enough to gallivant off to the sun when I was your age,’ he went on heavily, ‘but times were harder then.’
    Oh God thought Imogen, he’s not going to start on that one.
    But instead her father got to his feet and began to pace the room. ‘I don’t think your mother and I have ever been oppressive parents – we’ve always tried to guide you by example rather than coercion.’ He gave her the chilly on-off smile he used for keeping his parishioners at a distance. His flock-off smile Michael and Juliet always called it.
    ‘But I can’t let you depart without a few words of advice. You are going to a foreign country – where there will be temptations. I trust you follow me, Imogen.’
    ‘Yes,’ she whispered.
    ‘We are letting you go because we trust you. We know Nicky is an attractive young man, and a celebrity, used to getting his own way in life, but we still trust you.’
    He stopped by the window, absent-mindedly stripping yellow leaves off a geranium on the ledge, testing its earth for sufficient moisture.
    ‘It’s been a trying afternoon,’ he went on. ‘Molly Bates and her daughter Jennifer were here for over an hour. Poor Molly. Jennifer suddenly revealed she was three months pregnant and the young man concerned has disappeared. Of course every attempt will be made to trace him and persuade him to marry the girl, but if not, she will spend the next months in an unmarried mothers’ home – not the most attractive of dwelling places – but Molly Bates feels, as a member of the Parochial Church Council, that Jennifer cannot have the child at home. Whatever the outcome, the girl’s life is ruined. She is second-hand goods now.’
    Poor Jennifer, thought Imogen, perhaps she’ll be sent off to the jumble sale.
    ‘When you’re in the South of France,’ said her father, ‘remember the fate of poor Jennifer Bates and remember you’re a clergyman’s daughter, and they, like Caesar’s wife, must be above suspicion.’
    Imogen had a momentary fantasy that the packets of purple pills must at