Every Vow You Break (31 page)

‘What do you think?’ Lara asked Jack, who looked blankly back. ‘I think you’ll need to speak to his agent,’ she said.

‘Hello? Is that Jack’s agent?’ Betty held an imaginary phone up to her ear. ‘Would your client be interested in a small part in the Trout Island Theatre production of
Macbeth
?’

‘Scottish Play,’ James shrieked. Jack jumped and looked alarmed. He stuck his thumb in his mouth and stared, wide-eyed, at James.

‘Oops. We’ll have to get Danny in to clear the space again,’ Betty said, winking at Lara.

‘I’ll just confer with my client,’ Lara said into her own imaginary phone, trying to distract Jack, whose bottom lip was wobbling. ‘Jack, would you like to be in Daddy’s play with Daddy?’

Jack looked round at her, thumb still firmly planted, and nodded, his red curls bouncing around his face.

‘My client would like to accept your offer,’ Lara said into her hand-phone, thinking of the acres of free time that had just opened up for her.

‘Great! What are your terms?’ Betty said.

‘Terms schmerms. Just get Danny on to the house,’ Lara said, hanging up her imaginary phone.

‘Well. That’s all just lovely,’ James said. ‘Now then, Lara and the pretty chick. If you don’t mind, I have some rehearsing to do.’

‘And I have a garden to tend,’ Betty said.

‘After you’ve delighted us with your costume ideas, my love.’ James turned to Lara. ‘I’ve given her the afternoon off. I have no idea why.’

He showed them to the door.

Marcus was outside on the porch, sitting on a plastic chair, his back to them as they came out of the theatre. He was angled towards a tanned woman with long, honey-coloured hair, who had one arm looped around his neck.

‘Unsex me here,’ she was saying to Marcus as he lit her cigarette for her, her eyes burning into his face, ‘and fill me, from the crown to the toe, top-full of direst cruelty—’

She noticed Lara and stopped, looked up and smiled, leaving Marcus holding his lighter in mid-air.

Marcus turned and saw his wife and son. ‘Oh, hi,’ he said, tossing his own cigarette into a fire bucket by his chair. ‘We were just going through our lines. Lara, this is Selina Mountford, my Lady MacB. Selina, this is Lara, my Lady Wayland. And Jack, a babe whose brains were not dash’d out.’

‘Pleased to meet you,’ Selina said, reaching across Marcus to shake Lara’s hand.

‘And you too,’ Lara said, thinking how beautiful this Selina was. And didn’t her arm brush Marcus as she leaned forward? Might there be something going on here?

She rather hoped there might.

Lara and Jack were just crossing Main Street when Sean’s Nissan pulled over in front of them. Bella wound down the window, letting some lovely acoustic music escape into the warm air.

‘Hey Ma. Where you been?’

‘Around,’ Lara said.

‘Hello, Mrs Wayland,’ Sean said.

‘It’s Lara, please, Sean. Where are you off to?’

‘Swimming,’ Bella said. ‘I’ll be back for supper.’

‘Be good,’ Lara said. The car took off, dissolving into the heat haze.

‘You’re a fine one to talk, Miz Wayland,’ a voice drawled behind her, making her jump.

She wheeled round to see Stephen, in his Sam disguise, standing right behind her.

‘Where did you spring from?’ she asked, her initial shock turning into a flush of pleasure at seeing him.

‘I just happened to be passing, ma’am.’

‘But I didn’t see you.’

Stephen smiled and pointed to a bench, half hidden by the branches of a tree. ‘I was just sitting there, passing the time of day,’ he said.

Jack held his hands out to be picked up by Stephen.

‘Is everything OK?’ Stephen asked, taking Jack.

‘Yes,’ Lara said. ‘Why?’

‘You look a little unsettled.’

‘Oh. It’s nothing.’ Lara’s mind raced, confused by what she could tell to whom. ‘I’ve just found out some stuff about the house we’re staying in.’

‘Really? What?’

‘I can’t say in front of—’ She motioned to Jack, who was too busy trying to get Stephen’s attention to notice what his mother was saying. ‘Some other time, when we’re on our own.’ She smiled up at him and felt the world tilt.

‘I look forward to it.’ He angled his mirrored aviators at her.

She shook her head and rubbed her eyes. ‘Oh damn, and I forgot to ask about the locks.’

‘Locks?’

‘There’s no locks on the house and I want some. I meant to ask James and Betty about them.’

‘Locks are good. I’m a fan of security.’

‘I noticed. Although I’m not asking for something as advanced as your set-up. And I want something on the basement door, too. Marcus said he’d sort it out, but …’ She trailed off, because it felt like a betrayal to talk Marcus down in front of Stephen.

‘I’m sure if Marcus says he’ll sort it, he’ll sort it,’ Stephen said, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘Anyway,’ he went on. ‘I’m glad I ran into you, because I was wondering if you and the kids would be interested in coming to this with me.’ He held out five tickets. ‘It’s a circus show – new circus, thank God, because they still have performing animals in the traditional type over here. They’re on in a small town about half an hour south. Tomorrow evening. It’s unmissable.’

‘What about Marcus?’ Lara said.

‘Oh, it starts at seven, so he won’t be finished rehearsing in time.’

‘Pity,’ Lara said, smiling at Stephen.

‘Yes, pity.’

‘We’d love to come.’

‘Great.’ He pocketed the tickets. ‘I’ll call by about five, then. We’ll grab something to eat while we’re out.’

He stood there smiling at her while Jack tugged at his wig. A cicada buzzed somewhere close by. Even in this strange, slightly absurd disguise, Stephen felt special to her, precious,
hers
. She reached up and lifted his aviators so she could see into his eyes. A split second before Jack became aware of anything passing between them she stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek, at once breaking and sealing the moment.

‘Pushing the envelope,’ he said. ‘I like that.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then,’ she said, her voice catching.

‘Does it have to be so long?’ He handed Jack back to her.

Lara and Jack set off along Main Street. Just before she reached the village store, where she was going to buy the bribe lollipop, she turned back to where they had been standing. Stephen was there, shielding his exposed eyes from the sun, still watching her.

IT TOOK LARA AND JACK ANOTHER HALF AN HOUR TO DECIDE ON
the lolly of the day. As they dawdled back to the house, she tried to concentrate on the more benign aspects of its shabby appearance: the peeling clapboard and picturesque window shutters. But her eyes kept on being drawn back to the stone plinth the house stood on; how dark and moss-covered it was. Like gravestones, she thought.

She decided to keep what she had learned about the building to herself. It would be pointless to worry Bella and Olly, and she really couldn’t face the belittling Marcus would bestow on the whole story.

As they turned on to the front path, she noticed the little thing on the decking, at the top of the porch steps.

A yellow, fluffy chick lay on its back, its stubby wings splayed, its wormlike feet pointing, like arrows, back up at its own corpse. Its neck was clearly broken. Bending to examine it, Lara was reminded of the diagrams of a twelve-week foetus in an old pregnancy book back home that she hadn’t been able to stop herself looking at. It would have been about this size, she thought.

‘Poor baby bird,’ Jack said, squatting by it, letting his lolly drip on the ground.

Lara stood and looked along the street. The air was always filled with animal sounds – insects, dogs, the horses round the back, and wilder things. But she had not once heard the cluck of a hen, or the crow of a cockerel. In any case, this tiny thing couldn’t have come very far on its own. And, from the angle of its neck, it must have been killed by something bigger than itself.

She thought of Dog. Without any real evidence, she had already cast him as the Larssen hound that got away. Was this some sort of canine peace offering, because he knew that she had found out?

She passed a hand over her eyes. Was this place turning her mad?

‘Yes, poor baby bird,’ she said, lifting her son up and opening the front door.

‘Hello?’ she called on the threshold, hoping that at least Olly might be around. But only the house greeted her, with its particularly heavy brand of nothingness and putrid stink. Only the whirring of the old fridge, as it kept itself from overheating, punctured the quiet inside. She looked down at the patch of floor on the hall landing where the stain had been. She had done a good job on that. You’d never guess that anything nasty had ever happened there.

Stepping in, Lara trod on the letter waiting for her on the doormat. She knew it was for her, because the sender had written her name on it in capital letters, in green ink. The envelope stank of stale cigarettes. Inside was a note, scrawled in the same idiosyncratic, unpunctuated hand.

HEY CHICKEN DONT COUNT YOUR CHICKENS LEAVE SM ALONE
.

Lara flushed. Someone knew about her and Stephen. But who? Surely the only person who could have an inkling was Betty, and from the little Lara knew about her, nastiness like this was not her style.

She took Jack to her computer where she set him up with a game on CBeebies. Then she got a beer from the fridge and went outside to sit on the porch and think, looking at the dead chick as if it could tell her what she wanted to know.

Things were getting ever more complicated: the stolen clothes, the chipmunk incident; the madwoman nearly mowing them down; the Larssen thing; Bella losing her head; Olly running around with bad boys.

For a moment, a solution presented itself in high definition. She would take the children back to England, leaving Marcus here to get on with his work, unencumbered by his family. When he got back in September, she would sort things out one way or another, depending on what the distance from him had taught her, and without the complicating presence of Stephen.

She couldn’t think straight with him so close.

But, even as she thought it, she knew she wasn’t going to do it. She would have to explain her departure to Marcus; Bella and Olly would demand a reason, as well as quite possibly arguing that they could stay on with their father. And she couldn’t have that.

But the main reason she wasn’t going to leave was the main reason she
should
leave.

She wasn’t going to do what the malevolent little note ordered. She couldn’t leave SM alone. Not any more.

She put her hands underneath her hair and rubbed her neck. She looked at the blind-eyed houses all around her, feeling watched. It was horrible. Behind her she felt the pressure of the Larssen place and all its misery.

Unable to sit there any longer, she got up and went down the side of the house to the shed at the back, where the hummingbirds were still feeding as if nothing had changed since she watched them on that first morning. Pushing open the cobwebbed door, she peered gingerly into the dark, creosote-scented interior.

It was almost completely empty, except for a few flowerpots and – the thing she was looking for – a spade, which she picked up. She went round the back of the shed and dug a small grave in the rough grass. Then she returned to the front porch and scooped the dead chick up with the spade, taking care not to further mutilate its body.

She carried it to the hole and tipped it in. Seeing it lie there lifeless in the red soil reinforced her conviction that she had to see this thing with Stephen through. Life was short, a one-time event, and the shocking thought came to her that she had wasted sixteen whole years of her threescore and ten.

Wasted was perhaps a little strong. But even so …

Saying a prayer to the baby she had pulled the plug on, she covered the dead chick with a mound of soil. She plucked a chrysanthemum from a scabby bush sprouting in one of the overgrown flowerbeds behind the shed and stuck it in the freshly turned earth. Kneeling there in the dirt, she knew she had to call Stephen.

She hurried inside and dialled his cellphone number, but, not surprisingly, reception in the area being so patchy, it went straight to voicemail. She tried his house phone, but it just rang and rang. She could almost hear the bell echoing in the cool, high-ceilinged living room. There was no answerphone, but she couldn’t have left a message anyway because she had no idea what to say.

Jack still happily played on the computer, but Lara felt shredded. She needed to talk to someone. But who? She couldn’t call Gina, because she couldn’t mention Stephen. The only person she could think of was Betty. She punched the farmhouse number into the phone. She counted fifteen rings and was just about to hang up when a breathless voice said, ‘Hello?’

‘Betty?’

‘Is that you, Lara?’

In a rush, Lara told her about the chick and the note. Betty made her describe it in detail – the colour of the writing, the capital letters.

‘Have you told Stephen about this?’

‘No. Not yet. I can’t contact him.’

‘Good. Don’t breathe a word to him, honey. I want you to come up here to the house right now and we can have a talk. I’ve got iced tea in the cooler. Bring me the little letter so I can see it.’

‘I’ve got Jack, though.’

‘That’s fine, sweet. I’ve just the thing to keep him amused.’

After a slight delay, because Jack needed a complete wash-down after managing to get most of his lollipop down his front, Lara pulled up in the lane by the side of the farmhouse.

‘Hello,’ she said, rapping on the kitchen door.

‘There you are!’ Betty called from the garden behind Lara. ‘I’d given you up for lost.’ She straightened up behind the tomato plants and came up the path between the vegetable beds, a trug tucked in the crook of her arm. Since Lara had seen her in the theatre she had changed into an antique silk kimono and a pair of cut-off shorts. She had tied her hair back but still sported full make-up.

‘Trudi’s down there. Say hello to Lara and Jack, Trudi,’ Betty said. The stout upper half of the strange, scarred woman appeared from behind a chaos of gooseberry plants, and she lifted her hand in greeting before bending to her work once more. ‘Look at these babies.’ Betty picked one of the tiny, fat tomatoes from her trug and popped it into Lara’s mouth.