Love Falls (10 page)

Lara dried her hands and looked into the mirror. ‘Hello,’ she practised. ‘Yes, I’m fine.’ And she tilted her head this way and that, smiling so that the smile reached her eyes.

When she came out she was introduced to a woman, Isabelle, and her husband Hugh. They had two children, already dashing out towards the pool, a girl of about twelve and a boy, as lively as a dog, of seven or eight.

‘I’d better chase after them,’ the woman said, brushing light strands of hair out of her eyes, and she set off anxiously into the garden. ‘Allegra, stop him.’

Lara shook hands with Hugh, a big shambling man with surprisingly thick hair above a battered face.

‘So nice to meet you.’ He bent over, whispering unnecessarily into her ear. ‘So very nice.’

They walked out on to the terrace and looked over the railings to where Isabelle was frantically trying to stop her boy from hurling himself into the pool.

‘No, Hamish,’ she kept saying, her voice travelling up, as he tugged at his clothes. ‘No. Stop it. NO!’

‘Oh just let him do it,’ Hugh mumbled.

Caroline, taking a deep breath, shouted down, ‘Do let him swim, we won’t eat for at least an hour!’

Isabelle looked up at them, her hands raised to the sky, as if to say thanks. Thanks a lot! Beside her the child grinned, stuck out his tongue, and plunged into the pool. Allegra, who’d been squatting by the deep end, her long hair trailing down into the water, stood up slowly and, pulling off her sundress to reveal a silver costume, tested the water with a toe.

‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’ Hugh asked, as they watched his two children, one serenely swimming, the other flipping and diving as he hurled his body back and forth.

‘No, I’m an only child,’ and as always she didn’t know whether to be grateful or sad.

‘Lara is Lambert’s daughter,’ Caroline said, passing Hugh a tumbler of whisky.

He stopped, his arm outstretched. ‘I thought . . . I didn’t know.’ He frowned.

Just then, in a great flurry of noise, two carloads of Willoughbys arrived. They stormed into the house, kissed Caroline hello, were introduced to Hugh, although some of them obviously knew him already, and then waited eagerly while drinks were poured.

‘This is Ginny,’ Lara said when she came out with a bowl of cheese straws warm from the oven, and, with exaggerated friendliness, they greeted her. Roland even took her hand and kissed it, but Ginny didn’t seem to mind. She blushed and giggled and went to the fridge for more wine.

Eventually Isabelle came up the stone steps, pulling a squirming Hamish, his hair all spiked with wet, and followed languorously by her daughter who’d slipped her dress back on.

‘Thanks.’ She glared at Hugh as if to say it’s all very well for you, but Hugh, who had already been poured a second whisky, put his head imploring on one side. ‘Hey,’ he murmured and his eyes seemed to say what did I do?

Caroline began to seat everyone, the young and old interspersed, as far as Lara could see, for maximum discomfort, although cleverly she put Hamish beside Kip, who immediately began a game of paper, scissors, stone with him, adding the welcome agony of a Chinese burn for anyone who lost three times in a row. Hamish squealed with delight the first time the skin of his arm was twisted, and Isabelle, smiling wearily, accepted a large glass of wine and sank back in her chair.

‘Are you having a nice holiday?’ Pamela asked her.

Isabelle flicked the hair out of her eyes. ‘Well,’ she said, and she sighed.

Just then Lambert appeared. He looked ruffled as if he’d been far away and there was an ink stain across the fingers of his right hand. ‘So sorry,’ he nodded apologetically, ‘I lost track of the . . .’ and everyone at the table looked up at him. He had a splash of ink under his right eye too, as if he had literally been wrestling with his pen.

‘You’re just in time,’ Caroline called, gracious, and she motioned to the empty seat beside Isabelle.

Lambert sat down. He poured Isabelle a little more wine, himself some water, and then he leant in to her and murmured something, too quietly to be overheard.

‘How very funny.’ A smile crept across her face, and she turned in to him and lowered her voice too.

She had pale-brown hair, the colour most women dye blonde, and light-brown almond eyes. Her hands, folding and re-folding her napkin, were unusually worn, the skin along the index finger splintered and cracked, the nails cut square and short. But all the same she exuded glamour, as if those hands, among all the others, oiled and buffed and painted, were the only hands to have.

‘So . . . um  . . .’

Someone cleared their throat and Lara realised that it was not just her but Hugh who was watching Lambert and Isabelle.

‘Are you on holiday here as well?’ She turned to him.

Hugh swallowed. ‘We’ve got a house near by, an hour or so. We come here every summer and at Easter too and if the weather holds, sometimes in the autumn. Issy is passionate about it. She’d live here all year round if she had her way.’

They couldn’t help it. They looked back at Lambert and Isabelle, and it seemed, even in the moment that they’d looked away, Hugh’s wife’s face had changed. The creases had smoothed out, her eyes had brightened and even her hair was streaked with fine splinters of gold.

‘Dad?’ Lara felt she must at least try and save Hugh from his agony. ‘Dad?’ she tried again, but Lambert, so unused to being addressed as anybody’s father, failed to look up.

Mercifully Ginny appeared with two huge plates of salad from which everyone could help themselves.

‘Please let me.’ Hugh grabbed at one, holding it at an alarming angle so that Lara had to slide off her portion before it fell to the table in a mess of olive oil. ‘Bread?’ He passed it round, holding the basket obstinately across the table to his wife, although she had shaken her head curtly at the first sign of it.

‘Thank you, no,’ Lambert said when he continued to dangle it, and, their voices lowered still, they carried on their talk.

Lara looked along the table. Kip was piling bread on to his plate as if he hadn’t eaten in a week and Hamish, eager to replicate him in every way, piled his plate too.

‘No.’ Hugh leant over at least two people, a note of hysteria rising, and removed all but one slice. ‘Sorry,’ he said then, and as if in apology to the people he’d half squashed, he offered round more wine. ‘Go on,’ he insisted when Lara declined, and he looked so mournful that she changed her mind, although her head was already spinning with the glass she’d just gulped down.

By the end of the main course, she’d drunk so much that she was talking quite merrily with Tabitha on her other side, asking her what it felt like to be pregnant, to have something moving about inside you, to feel it kick. How would Tabitha know when it was coming? Was she afraid? She had to stop herself from asking how she could bear it, being married to a man like Roland, when there he was, squatting down between their seats, sweating slightly, holding a cigarette.

‘Anyone coming for a swim?’ he asked, and Tabitha ran her fingers through his hair.

‘You’ll sink if you swim now, you great oaf.’

‘Looked in the mirror recently?’ His eyes narrowed, and he blew a cloud of smoke up into her face.

Tabitha laughed. ‘Go on, swim with him, Lara, or he’ll sulk.’

Not wanting to add to the game of insulting her, Lara followed him towards the steps. She looked back once, to check for disapproval, but everyone was taking up their cups of coffee and moving about the table, everyone except Isabelle and Lambert, who stayed where they were.

As soon as they reached the pool Roland, with one fluid movement, tugged his shirt off over his head. He tossed it on to a chair and unfastened his belt, unbuttoned his trousers, began to pull at the zip, and then, as if he knew she would be watching, he snapped his head up.

‘I don’t charge,’ he grinned. ‘Come closer,’ and he stepped with his muscled thighs out of his trousers.

Underneath he was wearing trunks and as if solely for her entertainment he walked very slowly round the pool. He had an athlete’s body, naturally strong, as if without effort he’d been the hero of his school. But his hair, although blond, had the slightest tint of green, and this green was there too in his skin. He dipped one toe in, and then, without warning, he leapt into the air, flipped over into a somersault, and plunged in. She couldn’t help it, she grinned.

‘It’s not a spectator sport,’ he shouted, flicking the water from his fringe. ‘Come in!’ and he lay back in the water and watched as she removed her clothes in the most matter-of-fact way she could.

Tentatively she walked to the edge, stepping back a little whenever he swam near, feeling as if she were standing on the edge of a tank of dangerous fish. I’d get in, she thought, if I could be sure he wasn’t about to attack me, and then as if reading her mind, he swam away from her and began to do lengths in backstroke, to show that really she had nothing to fear. Lara sat down on the edge and dangled her legs in, and then, to her relief, Kip, followed by Hamish, came running down the steps.

Roland ducked under the water and burst up beside her just as they appeared. He draped one arm over her legs, his hand on her thigh, so that she had to slap him away, her eyes shooting towards Kip to show him this wasn’t how it had been, wasn’t why they’d crept away. But Kip didn’t meet her eye. Instead he tugged off his clothes, left them where they fell, and divebombed into the deep end of the pool. Hamish tried to copy him, landing on his belly, flailing for a moment before he caught his breath.

A moment later Allegra appeared, silent on bare feet, and slipped off her blue sundress. She sat beside Lara, her slim legs hanging down into the pool, her face inscrutable as she dripped patterns of water over her skin. In silence they watched Kip and Roland racing and wrestling, while Hamish, swimming like a puppy between them, begged to be picked up and flung into the air. Lara copied Allegra and scooped up handfuls of water, flicking the cold drops against her face, trickling them over her burning head. The sun was beating down now and the sky was dense with blue. But rather than get in Allegra splashed herself with bigger handfuls, wetting her costume, her neck and her long hair, so that it stood back from her face. For the first time Lara saw her properly, her wide mouth and high forehead, the delicate colours of her skin. She was long and thin and coltish, must have been told a thousand times she was going to be a beauty.

Slowly the whole party descended to the pool. They brought coffee cups and miniature glasses of liquor and Hugh a full bottle of red wine. The adults arranged themselves in the shade, and Andrew Willoughby picked up the most recent copy of
The Times
and began to read.

‘Who’s coming up to Ceccomoro to watch the wedding tomorrow?’ he asked, and when no one answered he let the paper slide to the ground. ‘Suit yourselves,’ he said and closed his eyes.

‘I’ll come.’ Allegra raised a hand, but Isabelle, from where she sat on a lounger, shook her head.

Lambert took up the abandoned
Times
. ‘The English papers.’ He held the newsprint to his nose. ‘It almost makes up for being away from home. The one reliable pleasure.’

Andrew, his eyes still closed, spat back, ‘It depends on whether one is in them or not.’

‘Yes,’ Lambert murmured. ‘And what is being said.’

The party didn’t break up until early evening and slowly, sleepily, everyone staggered away.

‘We’ll see you tomorrow?’ May asked as she was leaving. ‘Come early or you’ll miss it.’

Lara looked round at Caroline. ‘I’d love to. If I can get there.’

‘Well, if there’s any problem, Kip can walk over and get you, can’t you, Kip?’

Kip, who had Hamish in a headlock, looked up. ‘What?’

‘You can walk over and get Lara, show her the shortcut?’

‘Help!’ Hamish screamed. ‘Mercy!’

‘She wants to see the wedding,’ May insisted.

‘If I’m up.’

Hamish was kicking out at him in an attempt to loosen his grip, and just then Lulu who had spent the afternoon chatting mostly to the grown-ups put her hands under his shirt and tickled him so that with a groan he released Hamish and turned to grab her wrist.

‘Can’t catch me,’ she shrieked, and she dashed away, running just out of his reach around the drive, screeching and laughing so that the whole party turned to watch them as together they crashed into the back seat of the car.

May shrugged and rolled her eyes, and Lara turned to say goodbye to Hugh who was gulping down a mug of black coffee, while his wife, with crossed arms, watched from beside the car.

‘I said I’d drive,’ she told him, but he ignored her and smiling blearily at Caroline, at Lara, even at Lambert, he swung into the car.

When everyone had gone they turned back into the house, already clear and tidy as if the day had never been, and Lara lay down on a white sofa, and once more leafing through the pages of
¡Hola!
listened while Caroline and Lambert dissected the guests.

‘Sorry you got stuck with poor Isabelle Whittard. She used to be rather lovely, but marriage has turned her into a bit of a bore.’

Lambert looked amused. ‘How odd,’ he said. ‘I used to find her rather plain, but now I see that I was wrong.’