Love Falls (24 page)

Lara shot a quick look at her father to see if he thought Caroline was mad. It was as if she were drunk. Drunk, or Italian.

‘I shall go and touch the earth,' she said, beaming at them, and ignoring their bemused faces she left the room.

Lambert closed his eyes. ‘Is it time for my medication?' he asked, trying to sound casual, but beads of sweat were standing out on his forehead.

‘Your painkillers?' Ginny was already there. ‘You should ideally . . . no, I think it is time,' and she tipped two large capsules into her hand and passed him the glass of water.

As soon as the pills began to work his face relaxed, his fists softened and he turned to Lara, his eyes half closed. ‘Did you have a nice evening,' he asked, as if he'd only just noticed she was back, ‘at Ceccomoro?' and she nodded, very fast.

Soon Lambert was asleep. Lara sat beside him a little longer. It didn't seem right to watch someone without their permission but even so, while Ginny was out of the room, she allowed herself to stare. His ears were small – she'd never noticed that before – tight against his head. No lobes. That means something, she thought, at least to the Chinese, but whatever it was she couldn't remember. His skin, in the bare patches between stubble, was fine and powdery smooth. He had a web of lines across his forehead, a groove down each side of his mouth. His eyes were deep-set, his lashes pale with age, but his eyebrows were raised as if even in sleep he was intrigued. His nose was large, much larger than it ever looked when he was animated, and it had the same kink and curve to it, although magnified, twice the size of hers. She brushed her hand against his and although his eyelids flickered he didn't stir.

‘It's OK,' she said, and she thought of their ritual of the Perrier water and the way they'd shared the last flat sips. ‘Shh,' she said, although he was silent, and when she could think of no other reason to keep sitting there she wandered up to her room.

‘Lara?' Ginny's whisper followed her up the stairs. ‘Lara!' but she didn't trust herself not to cry in front of Ginny so she stepped into the bathroom and quickly turned the handle of the shower, drowning out her voice.

Lara stood for a long time under the running water. She washed herself, hard and businesslike, as if it were not her body but an old chair she was rubbing down. She lathered shampoo into her hair, kneading her scalp, scratching at it, twisting the water out with a last yank, feeling the violence in her fingertips, knowing they were meant for Roland. Just thinking his name made her want to scratch herself, draw blood, and in some kind of hopeless retribution she peed right there in the shower, seeing the yellow stream mix and wash away between her feet. She couldn't imagine why, but it made her feel better, and she got out and wrapped herself in a towel. No, she said silently to the mirror where she usually stopped to admire herself, and she climbed into bed.

 

 

She woke to the sound of Ginny's high voice. ‘She's still sleeping. She's been sleeping all morning.' There was a mumble and then Ginny again. ‘Mr Gold? He's sleeping too. He's not at all well. But come in and wait.' Lara held her breath. ‘Oh do come in. I could make you a cold drink. Lara's bound to be up soon.'

Ginny's voice was louder than usual, echoing up, she imagined, for the benefit of her own ears, but not long after there was the crunch of gravel, and crawling to the window she saw Kip slouching away. He was wearing dark jeans and a purple-and-white-striped shirt and even from there she could see that his shoulders were hunched. Lara knelt on the floor, her eyes above the sill, and watched him go. It made her heart ache, but she couldn't call, not till she was sure she could contain her secret, force it down so deep it didn't show.

Lara crawled back to her bed. She wanted to sleep again, lose herself in dreams, but hard as she tried she couldn't manage it. Reluctantly she got dressed. She put on old shorts and a faded T-shirt and went downstairs. She took her college books with her and looking in on her father, who lay stretched out on the sofa, she tiptoed out on to the terrace, avoiding Ginny who was busy rolling pastry at the table, and went down to the pool. She piled her books up in the shade under a lounger and with a frown to prove to herself she was serious she opened the first one on a chapter about Britain at the time of the French Revolution, and marking and underlining words and passages, she read a letter written to the Earl of Dartmouth in 1791:

 

All Birmingham is in an uproar. The meeting of the Revolutionists to celebrate the infamous Revolution in France has given occasion to the most dreadful proceedings. Someone had written in large characters on the Church ‘To Be Let', or ‘This barn to be let or pulled down', for the report of the writing is various. So great was the offence taken at this writing that the mob assembled and destroyed all the windows of the hotel where the Revolutionists met. They then burnt down the new meeting house, the old meeting house, and Dr Priestley's house at Fair Hill with everything therein contained. The Doctor had escaped into Shropshire, or he would certainly have made his last exit. The mob solemnly cut off his head in effigy.

 

Cut off his head. Lara thought and she knew she would have to do something violent. She swiped at an oleander, stamped to scare a salamander, which darted away, and still seething she took off her clothes and not bothering to go back up to the house for her bikini she jumped naked into the pool. The water sliced up between her legs, cut in under her armpits, stung the roof of her mouth. She forced herself to the bottom, opened her eyes to see the other world of it, the tiny bubbles of her breathing, the leaf points of her hands. She felt swift and strong. She kicked and spun, keeping herself under, her head reeling until finally she was sucked upwards where, her lungs tearing, she burst into the air. There was no one around. She cut through the water in backstroke, baring herself to the sky, kicking against the side and turning until every sinew in her body felt strong.

‘Lara?' It was Ginny, calling from the terrace. ‘Lunch,' and Lara felt so grateful to her that she almost skidded as she ran naked to the lounger for her clothes.

 

 

Caroline was out all the next day too, watching over her horse, the one she hoped would race in the Palio, and Lambert continued to sleep.

‘It's the painkillers,' Ginny said, more confident with every day. ‘And the shock. It's good for him to rest.'

Lara took her book and went and sat beside him, but really she was watching. The more she watched him, the more she noticed. The veins on his hands, the clean-cut whiteness of his nails, the sprout of hair protruding from the unbuttoned top of his pyjamas. He slept with his head turned to the side, and she realised that this was the part of him that was most familiar. This view of his jaw, half turned away, as if she'd been watching him like that her whole life. All afternoon she sat with him. The kitchen was silent, the house quiet and the only noise apart from her father's slow breathing was the hectic rustling of crickets.

Eventually Ginny came in to prepare supper, and Lara sat on a high stool and watched her instead. She made it look so simple, slicing pears, dipping down to lift the core, sliding them into a dish of melting butter, sprinkling them with sugar. She dropped in a vanilla pod and placed them in a low oven, and rolling up her sleeves still further she began making gnocchi. She mashed already cooked potatoes into a purée, kneading in flour, butter, salt, pepper and eggs. She rolled it under her hands until she had a long thin worm and then with a knife cut it, brutally, into many smaller worms. She dented each one with her finger so that they curled into a crescent, elegant again, and set them aside while she made a sauce.

When I get home, Lara thought, I'll amaze my mother with this dish, and she thought disparagingly of the watery tomato sauce they made for their spaghetti, the onions and mushrooms still visible amid the tinned lumps of the pulp.

‘You have to let it reduce,' Ginny taught her as they watched her sauce turn thick and treacly with simmering, but the truth was that she and Cathy were always in too much of a hurry, too ravenous to leave anything to simmer.

And in Finsbury Park there was very little to remind them of Italy. The shops were almost all West Indian. Yams and sweet potatoes spilling out on to the street. Melons and papayas and a multitude of roots and bulbs and knobbly, prickly, star-shaped fruit for which she didn't have a name. There were Cypriot shops too which sold white loaves of bread sprinkled with sesame, tubs of humous and taramasalata, white packets of feta and black vinegary olives on which they feasted when they couldn't be bothered to cook. The bread was moulded into sections, making it easy to tear apart, and as she watched Ginny so artfully blending her ingredients she had a sudden pang for these instant picnic meals.

If Kip visits tomorrow, Lara told herself then, I'll see him. I'll pretend nothing is wrong. And comforted by this promise she spent the evening listening to Caroline, who had returned home flushed with hope for her horse, talking of people and places, of jokes and journeys, of animals and elderly aunts, none of whom she'd ever heard of.

‘Yes,' Lambert said when prompted. ‘I do remember,' and he kept a fond smile on his face.

The next day Kip didn't come. Lara sat by the pool, read her father's day-old paper, read some more of her own textbooks, even dipped distractedly into her novel. Maybe
she
should visit Kip? Officially it was her turn. But she couldn't do it. Several times she walked around to the front of the house, peered along the road, and then terrified she would bump into him, breathless from his race along the sexy path, she ran back inside and arranged herself, nonchalant, under a shade.

 

 

Only Ginny noticed anything was wrong. ‘Fallen out with your friends?' she asked, and taken back by the vehemence with which Lara denied this she didn't mention it again.

Lambert was still marooned on the sofa. ‘Could you . . .?' He was attempting to get up.

‘Of course.'

She stooped down and he held on to her shoulder, limping very slowly towards the bathroom. Just once he let his foot knock against a metal standard lamp and he let out a howl of pain. Sweat broke out over his forehead and he had to steady himself. Lara waited outside, humming loudly to block out any intimate noise, and then when he came out she helped him to the sofa where he sat down.

‘
Porca Madonna
,' he said, but she could see it was an effort for him to smile.

Later she heard him talking on the phone.

‘No really, I don't need visitors. Not at all.' He was dismissive. ‘It has nothing to do with you. Don't be ridiculous – I'd just rather recover on my own.' There was a pause, and then a little more irritably, ‘Oh for goodness sake, really, if I have to explain . . . Thank you,' he said eventually. ‘I'm glad you understand. That's very good of you.' And he put down the phone.

 

 

The little toe on Lambert's foot had turned completely black, the bruise spreading over the misshapen hump of it, to purple, green, then fading out to yellow on the other side. ‘But I do feel better,' he said, and to prove it he ate several crostini and a plate of salad. ‘I've been having the oddest dreams lying on this sofa all day,' he began, and then as if remembering that dreams are only interesting to you and no one else, he bit his lip.

‘Like what?' Lara encouraged him. ‘What kind of dreams?'

But just then Caroline came in from visiting her horse, and Lambert looked up at her. ‘Did you get my paper?' he asked, all else forgotten, and Caroline brought it out from behind her back.

Caroline and Lambert sat together and looked at the obituaries. ‘The Earl of Donoughmore has died aged seventy-two. Is that respectable?'

Lambert shrugged. ‘I used to think so but now I'm not so sure.'

The Earl of Donoughmore
, Caroline read,
who died in the Republic of Ireland, was in the public eye seven years ago when he and his wife, the Countess of Donoughmore, were kidnapped from their home in Clonmel, Co Tipperary . . .

‘Oh yes,' Lambert nodded. ‘I remember now. Wasn't that odd? Go on.'

The kidnappers were thought to have been seeking influential hostages in the cause of the Price sisters who were on hunger strike, Lord Donoughmore having been Conservative MP for Peterborough thirty years before. But after he was freed – the hunger strikers having given up – he remarked that he had no influence with the British Government and did not think that the Government ‘cared a damn' about his or his wife's life.

Lambert laughed. ‘I'm sure he was right.'

‘Two sons, one daughter . . .' Caroline put the paper down. ‘The usual sort of thing.'

It was a beautiful night. They sat with the doors open on to the terrace, talking very little, listening to music – old records full of sliding rhyming refrains. Caroline smoked, giving it her full attention, and Lambert, unable to resist, picked up the paper again and read every word of every page as if he were licking clean a bowl. Lara looked out at the night. What would Kip be doing? she dared herself to think, and she had to press her hand flat against her chest to calm herself.