From the Top Shelf - Octavia

Jilly Cooper is a UK journalist and the author of many bestselling novels. This excerpt from Octavia, written in the 1970s, was sent to me by one of my readers, who also provided the following introduction.

Octavia, an obnoxious 26-year-old spoiled society beauty, is handled by a Welshman Gareth who is having as weekend break with her in the country. They are at a "country set" party and she is slightly drunk. She describes herself thus:

Upstairs in the bathroom, I hardly recognized myself. I looked like some Maenad, my hair tousled, my eyes glittering, my cheeks flushed. God, the dress was so beautiful. It was a short tunic in silver chain mail - the holes as big as half crowns - high necked in front, it swooped to positive indecency at the back. Two very inadequate circles of silver sequins covered my breasts. I didn't wear anything underneath except a pair of flesh-coloured pants, which gave the impression I wasn't wearing anything at all.

"Will you stop behaving like a whore!" he swore at me and, pulling me into the nearest bedroom, threw me on the bed and locked the door.

"Now I suppose you're going to treat me like a whore," I spat at him. "What will your precious Lorna say if she catches us here together?"

Suddenly I was frightened. There was murder in his eyes.

"It's about time someone taught you a lesson" he said, coming towards me. "And I'm afraid it's going to be me."

Before I realised it, Gareth had me across his knee. I've never known what living daylights were before, but he was certainly beating them out of me now. I started to scream and kick.

"Shut up," he said viciously. "No one can hear you". The record player was still booming downstairs. I struggled and tried to bite him but he was far too strong for me. It was not so much the pain as the ghastly indignity. It seemed to go on for ever and ever. Finally he tipped me on to the floor. I lay there trembling with fear.

"Get up," he said brusquely, "and get your things together. I'm taking you back to the boat."

She is sick, so he puts her to bed. Later:

"I'm sorry," I said, rolling my head back and forth on the pillow "I'm so terribly sorry". In a flash I saw him as the father, strict, yet loving and caring, that all my life I'd missed; someone to say stop when I went too far, someone to mind if I behaved badly, to be proud if I behaved well.

The book was made into a TV movie in 2009. Has anyone seen it?