Lost Innocence (22 page)

It took only a moment for the boys to realise the female contingent had finally arrived, and as they turned to watch the sensational spectacle of eight topless babes approaching
they started to whistle and cheer and slap one another on the back as though congratulating themselves for such a great idea. Loving the attention, Annabelle sauntered on ahead, tossing one side of her hair back over one shoulder, and then the rest over the other, so her breasts were completely revealed. The next minute she was in the middle of the throng having drinks and Es thrust at her, while some of the girls leapt into the pool, quickly followed by a handful of boys, and others giggled and squealed as they struck poses for the cameras Carl and Kennedy had brought with them.

‘How about I mow your lawn?’ Theo murmured in Annabelle’s ear.

Treating him to a sultry look she said, ‘The skirt stays on.’

‘We’ll see about that,’ he smiled, and closing in on her he pushed his tongue deep into her mouth.

‘Ahem,’ Melody coughed, behind them.

Annabelle turned round, and smiling sweetly said, ‘Maybe later, Theo.’ Drifting away she left Melody to it, and went to find more E.

An hour later, as the sun vanished over the distant hills and the garden lights came on, Annabelle was sprawled out on a swinging hammock chair loving the world, her friends, this party, her life, even her mother. Everything was so wonderful and gorgeous and perfect that she wanted to pour endless amounts of love over everyone and make them all feel as happy and chilled as she did. Her smile was beatific, her eyes dreamy and blurred; she wanted to go on lying here for ever, wearing her grass skirt and nothing else, letting the fronds part around her thighs, trickling a hand lightly over her bare breasts unless someone was there to do it for her.

Carl had been lying with her, but he’d gone to get more drinks a while ago and hadn’t come back yet. She could hear someone splashing about in the pool, and a couple nearby making out on the grass. The music was like light pouring itself into her, filling her with sounds that made her want to dance like an angel. She could fly around the garden, up over the trees and away into heaven.

She turned her head to one side and saw Georgie,
her best friend in the entire universe, swaying towards her. Georgie’s skirt had gone, she was wearing only a bikini bottom now, and carrying an alcopop and a fat, half-smoked spliff.

‘Hey,’ Georgie slurred, rolling around the bars of the hammock and almost staggering into it. ‘You’ll never guess who’s just turned up.’

‘Tell me,’ Annabelle murmured, holding out a hand to take the drink.

‘Simon Forsey,’ Georgie announced, hiccuping as she passed it over. ‘And guess who’s with him?’

‘OMG,’ Annabelle drawled, ‘are you serious? Where is he? Tell him he has to come here because I love him.’

Georgie drew deeply on the joint, then held it out for Annabelle to take. Annabelle put it between her lips, but then her hand fell away and flopped to the ground.

Dropping to her knees Georgie retrieved the spliff, staggered back to her feet and began weaving her way across the lawn towards the vegetable garden.

Annabelle remained adrift on another plain, inhaling deeply and moaning with pleasure as she let the air go. Nat was here, gorgeous, wonderful Nat whom she’d been mad about for ever and wanted to love and love and love and then love some more.

At the other side of the pool where the drinks were set up, Nat and Simon were holding beers and surveying the improbable scene around them. The moonlight was making it seem even more surreal, as though it were a painting of a lewd bacchanal, occasionally stirring into life. Clearly everyone was stoned, or wasted, or both. A couple close by were smooching drowsily to a techno beat, a naked girl was floating like a starfish in the middle of the pool, others were lying around on loungers, or spread out on the grass.

‘Hey,’ a semi-naked Melody purred, coming up to them, ‘this is a topless party. You’re not supposed to be wearing shirts.’

Simon grinned and gazed into her eyes, not quite having the courage yet to look where he really wanted to. He was as tall and athletic as Nat, but much fairer, and not quite as good-looking. ‘I think that can be remedied,’ he replied,
and putting down his beer he hiked his T-shirt over his head.

‘Mm,’ she murmured approvingly. ‘You too,’ she said to Nat.

‘I’m good,’ he said, raising his bottle as though she’d offered him a drink.

Unperturbed, she turned back to Simon. ‘So you came,’ she said.

‘Looks like it,’ he replied. His eyes stayed on hers as he took a sip of his drink. ‘You’ve got great tits,’ he told her.

Nat gave a splutter of laughter, and turned aside.

‘Thank you,’ she said playfully, and taking Simon’s hand she started to lead him away. ‘Come on, let’s get to know one another a little better,’ she murmured.

Glancing back over his shoulder, Simon shrugged and grinned as though to say, ‘What’s a guy to do?’

Nat saluted him with his beer, telling him to enjoy.

Left alone, Nat continued to drink and look around. It seemed everyone was in couples, or even threes, and since he really didn’t want to get involved in an orgy, he stayed where he was. As soon as he’d finished this beer he’d be on his way, not because he was a prude, each to their own as far as he was concerned, but because he was driving and the last thing he wanted was to lose his licence when he’d only just got it. Added to which he’d told Summer there was no way he’d show up at this party, so if he hung around for a few minutes just to be sociable, he could tell her, in all honesty, that he’d only dropped in to keep Simon company until he got into the flow.

Come to think of it, Simon was already in the flow and since there was no one to be sociable with, in the conventional sense, he might just as well disappear. So, downing the rest of his beer, he was about to make good his escape when he noticed a girl swinging indolently back and forth in a hammock at the far end of the pool. Until then he’d assumed Annabelle was inside somewhere getting it on with one or two of the crowd, but to his surprise she seemed to be on her own.

Not entirely sure why he was doing this when he might so easily have got away without seeing her, he picked up
a can of Coke and wandered over to say hi. He didn’t want to think that his motive was merely to get a look at her breasts, but if he was being honest with himself, he’d have to admit that it was playing a part. She’d always been seriously attractive, and now she had this amazing figure that no red-blooded man could ignore, he was finding himself as drawn to her as he’d been all those years ago when they’d used draughts as a cover for their childish fumblings.

‘Hey,’ he said, as he reached her.

Her eyes fluttered open and as he came into focus she gave a sigh of pure pleasure. ‘Hey,’ she murmured back. ‘Look who’s here. So where’s the ginger one?’

‘Her name’s Summer,’ he retorted. ‘She’s in Italy.’

‘Oh yes.’ Her lips curved in a deliciously satisfied smile and she inhaled deeply as she closed her eyes. ‘Lovely,’ she whispered with a sigh.

He lowered his gaze to her breasts and felt a surge of lust tighten his groin. Her nipples were dark, fully erect peaks on firm mounds of perfectly tanned skin. He knew if he stooped to touch her she’d do nothing to stop him, but as irresistible as she was he forced himself to look away.

‘I knew you’d come,’ she said softly.

‘Really?’ His voice sounded gruff and grating in this soporific setting. ‘That’s funny, because I didn’t.’

She smiled dreamily. ‘I love you,’ she sighed, lifting her hands behind her head.

He took a slug of Coke and heard himself say, ‘So how come you’re alone?’

Fanning out her arms, she said, ‘Who knows? Anyway, I’m not now, because you’re here and I’m so happy I could float away, but if I did you’d still be here and I love you, so I want to stay with you.’

‘How much have you had?’ he asked, feeling ludicrously square.

She smiled and giggled. ‘Why don’t you come and sit down? There’s plenty of room.’

‘I’m cool,’ he said, taking a step back as she reached for him.

Stretching languorously she arched her back, pushing her
breasts tantalisingly towards him. ‘Do you think they’ve grown?’ she said. ‘You can touch them if you like.’

Turning away he kicked off his shoes and went to sit on the edge of the pool, dangling his feet in the water. Though he was rock hard, he wasn’t going to let himself do this. Sure, he might want to, but he wasn’t in the business of screwing girls who put it out there the way she did. Besides, he loved Summer.

‘Don’t tell me you’re shy,’ she teased. ‘You never used to be.’

‘That was a long time ago.’

‘You haven’t forgotten though, have you, I can tell.’

Not bothering to answer, he took another sip of his drink and brought a foot out of the water to rest an elbow on his knee.

‘You look like your dad,’ she told him. ‘I expect everyone says that.’

He didn’t respond. There was nothing he could say, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to get into a conversation with her about his father, especially not here.

‘It must have been horrible for you…’

‘Let’s just leave it,’ he cut in.

She rolled her head to one side and back again. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘You haven’t.’

A few minutes ticked idly by. He was aware of a girl wandering like a sylph through the trees close by, and the low burble of voices now the music had stopped. Theo, the host, climbed out of the pool at the opposite end and padded naked across the terrace into the house. A moment or two later the haunting sound of Take That began drifting around the garden, as ephemeral and intoxicating as the perfumed smoke.

‘Your mum’s still really cut up about it, isn’t she?’ Annabelle said.

Nat tensed. Why wouldn’t she let it go?

‘Mine is too.’

He frowned and half glanced back in her direction. What the hell did her mother have to do with anything? He couldn’t give a flying fuck how Sabrina felt about his father’s
death, or anything else come to that. Why would he, when the woman was a first-class bitch and actively hated his mother? So if this was Annabelle’s half-cocked way of letting him know that his father had been special to everyone, she’d do a lot better to leave her mother out of it. In fact, his time here was over, he decided, and got to his feet. There was no point hanging around when he had no intention of getting off his face, had zero interest in pulling, and even less in continuing a futile conversation with a doped-up Annabelle.

‘See you,’ he said shortly, and scooping up his shoes he walked back to the bar, dumped his can in a plastic sack and left through a side gate. Simon would easily find a ride home if he wanted one, but chances were it wouldn’t be until after dawn.

By the time Nat drew up outside the Coach House it was almost two in the morning, so seeing the lights still on in the sitting room caused a tremor of fear to shoot through him. His immediate thought was that something had happened to Darcie, and leaping out of the car he ran up the path to let himself in the front door.

‘Mum!’ he called, pushing open the sitting-room door. He was about to shout again when he saw her curled up in one of the armchairs, fast asleep.

Dizzied by relief, he picked his way through the boxes she’d evidently been unpacking, and was about to wake her when he saw the wedding album in her lap. Kneeling down next to her, he gazed at the photograph she’d been looking at before dropping off. It was one of her favourites, he realised, of her looking radiant in her lovely shimmering dress, with his father standing beside her, tall and striking in his dark grey tails and lemon cravat, and watching her in his typically sardonic way as she laughed uproariously at something he’d just said. Nat couldn’t remember what it was now, but his father had told him once and it had made him laugh too.

It brought a lump to his throat to think of her sitting here alone going through her memories, and having no one to share them with. She’d loved his father so deeply that his death must have left a terrible gap in her life. They’d been
so happy together, always laughing, or touching, or sharing little snippets from their days, mainly about him and Darcie, but often about other things too, like the cases his father was working on, or the new ideas his mother was developing for her art. They always took the time to listen to him and Darcie and all their childish nonsense, making them feel the most important people in the world even when they were still very small.

There had been dark times too, nights when they’d argued a lot, and he’d heard his mother crying and shouting, but Nat had always buried his head under the covers, not wanting to hear. By then he’d been old enough to know that all married couples rowed, but he hated to hear his parents raising their voices to one another, so he’d deliberately shut it out.

He wondered now what had happened to make his mother unhappy before his father had died. He supposed he could guess, if he wanted to, but he’d rather not. Or he could ask, but he didn’t want to do that either. Something had got to his father one night though. It was a night he would never forget.

‘Nathan, will you please sit at the table now,’ his mother snapped irritably. ‘Your food’s ready and you can send that text later.’

‘I’ve almost finished,’ he argued, carrying on with what he was doing.

‘Where’s Dad?’ Darcie said, bouncing into the kitchen. ‘He was here when I came home.’

‘He went out for a run,’ Alicia told her. ‘He’ll be back any minute. Now you sit at the table too, please. Nathan, I won’t tell you again, and why are you wearing that shirt? You’re supposed to be keeping it clean for my show on Friday.’

‘I’ve got a date, remember,’ he protested. ‘She’s finally agreed to go out with me.’

‘Who?’ Darcie demanded.

‘Who do you think? Summer Corby.’

‘That’s a nice name,’ Darcie commented. ‘Summer. Much better than mine. Why did you have to call me
Darcie
?’ she asked her mother.

‘Dad chose it, and it’s a beautiful name. OK, Nat, hold up your plate. How much sauce do you want?’