Love Falls (35 page)

Kip turned his back on her and bit into his sandwich.

‘You'll be back soon, anyway,' she coaxed, ‘and we can meet in London.' She rushed into the sitting room and taking up one of Caroline's sheets of writing paper she scrawled down her phone number and, just in case, her name. ‘Here,' she said, and in response he held out the sandwich to her. ‘No.' She was too desperate to eat. ‘Just take me to the hospital, and I'll get a taxi from there. I'll do anything . . . please.'

‘Anything?' Kip looked as if he were trying to decide. ‘How about a blow job?'

Lara was stony-faced. I hate him, she thought coolly. I hate him. That's all there is to it.

‘All right. All right.' Kip crammed the last of the food into his mouth. ‘I'll go, but I want you to know. The big P's going to slaughter me.'

‘Fine.' Lara took hold of both the bags, and without waiting for him to change his mind she pulled them to the porch. ‘Or shall I come too?' she asked, imagining dragging the bags behind her along the sexy path. ‘Will that be quicker?' But Kip was already running.

‘Don't be an idiot,' he said and he was gone.

Lara stood in the drive and waited. What if he gets waylaid again? What if he forgets and never comes back? She counted to a hundred. Kicked gravel across the drive and picked the heads off lavender, pressing the flowers into the pulse of her wrist, mashing out the scented oil. Eventually, she walked round to the back of the house and stared down at the pool. It looked abandoned. Deserted even. With leaves and dead beetles flecked across its surface. Where was the pool man? Did he know he was no longer needed? And then she noticed her polka-dot bikini, strung out some days ago across the back of a lounger to dry. Lara sprinted down. She seized it, and consumed with the idea there might be other valuable things forgotten, she raced back into the house. But everything, everywhere, was Caroline's. Her writing paper and pens. Her bowls of potpourri, her scarves and magazines.

Upstairs Lara's room was empty. She looked under her bed and into the already emptied cupboard. She peered into her father's room, sweeping her hand over clear surfaces, opening and shutting drawers. But then, and it made her heart stop to think she might have missed it, there was his passport in a drawer beside his bed. She lifted it out, dark-blue, gold-crested, and as she did a photograph slipped from between the cardboard covers and fluttered to the floor.

Lara stooped to pick it up. What could it be? Her father wasn't the sort of man to carry photographs, and for one giddy moment she thought it might be an old picture of her. But it was much older. A sepia-brown photograph of a family – the parents dressed in their black-and-white best, and between them their children, a tall boy in a suit, and a girl of about twelve. Lara turned it over. Otto, Olga, Lissia and Wolfgang. Their names were written on the back in pencil with the same care with which the family were posed. Wolfgang . . . Lara stared into her father's face. His hair was thick, his face still soft, but his eyes had the same determined look as they did now. Lara opened the passport, she leafed through its pages, hoping to find something more, but there was only the one small official photograph of Lambert as he was now, greying and severe.

A car hooted in the drive. Lara jumped. She slid the photograph back into the passport, picked up the bikini and ran down. ‘Kip,' she shouted, unable to believe that he was back, but there, standing in the doorway, was Roland.

‘Both these going?' He stooped down to the bags, and beyond him she saw Kip swing open the door of the jeep. Lara held the passport tight against her chest and stared at him. ‘Hey . . .' he said, holding her gaze. ‘Don't be like that.'

‘Like what?' Lara narrowed her eyes, and summoning up all the hatred she could find in her, kept staring.

‘Well, you know . . . give a chap a chance  . . .'

Lara said nothing, she kept on looking and eventually he turned away.

I should have hitched, Lara thought. I should have just run out on to the road, and she remembered her mother abandoning the Budget Bus and taking lifts all the way from Germany just to get them home.

Roland threw the bags into the back. ‘Stroke of luck, eh?' he said, as if nothing had passed between them. ‘I was just setting off for Siena anyway when lover boy came hurtling up.'

Very slowly Lara moved towards the car. Beep, beep, Roland hooted playfully, and without raising her eyes, she climbed over the metal ledge into the back.

They drove in silence, Lara watching the road roll out behind them, not daring to look round in case she caught the side of Roland's leer. ‘So what do we think?' Roland said. ‘Lulu's new boyfriend? Is he gay?'

Kip laughed. Impressed.

‘Shame he has to go back. I was looking forward to seeing what he was going to wear to the funeral. The pink shorts. Or the apricot shorts. Or . . . just to really thrill us all, the pink
and
apricot shorts.'

‘The funeral?' Kip asked for her. ‘Caroline? Bloody hell. Is that arranged already?'

‘Seems so. All set in place months ago. Andrew and Caroline have been planning it together. Every last detail. Scheming away. You know we had that tedious Ginny woman on the phone this morning, at the crack of dawn, in tears, offering her services. Saying if there was anything she could do to help.'

Kip glanced round at Lara as if only now he really believed that Caroline was dead.

‘I mean, the impudence. She'd only known her five minutes.'

‘When is it?' Lara had to ask.

‘Ah ha!' Roland was triumphant. ‘Our comrade finds her tongue. When is what? Our first date?'

‘The funeral.' Her voice, intended to be cutting, came out huffy and cross.

‘Woah, don't get your knickers in a twist. It's on Saturday. At three o'clock.'

On Saturday? Shouldn't they be staying? Wasn't it wrong to leave so soon? After all, Lambert was Caroline's very special friend. They'd known each other almost all their lives.

‘So,' Roland asked, once they'd sped down the wooded hill road and were out on the junction where the signposts appeared. ‘Which hospital is it anyway?'

Which hospital? ‘I don't know.' Lara felt panic rising. ‘Is there more than one?'

‘Sure.' Roland waved an expansive arm. ‘There's the Santa Maria della Scala and . . .' He paused. ‘Kip, where was that place your papa went when he hit his head? Le Scotte. There may be others as well.'

‘Just go to the Santa Maria.' She picked the first one. ‘And if he's not there . . .' she trailed off.

The Santa Maria della Scala was in the square opposite the Duomo. Roland parked the car as close as he could get and Lara got out and ran. She felt almost out of control as she raced along the alleyways, down the steps and out into the square. She hardly glanced up at the Duomo, its gold-and-blue Madonna blazing in the sun, but pushed open the door into the hospital, her heart in her mouth, hoping, praying, promising to devote her life to God, if her father were just waiting there. But there was no one in the cool quiet hall of the hospital. Just a smart groomed woman behind a desk.

‘
Si
?' She raised her head, but it was long past twelve now, and Lara turned and ran.

‘It's definitely the Scotte.' She scrambled back into the car, and Roland winked at her. ‘Lucky you've got me as your chauffeur, eh? It's not everyone you'll find is so very obliging.'

Lara put a hand up to her mouth and turned away.

It was twelve-forty-five by the time they reached the second hospital and there to her relief was Lambert standing outside, leaning against a wall, the sun beating down on his bare head. He was carrying a shoe, and a string bag of books, and his bad foot was white and bandaged, fat as a bread roll.

‘I'm so sorry.' She rushed towards him.

‘Thank God.'

‘Kip brought me  . . .'

They overlapped each other and clumsily they attempted to embrace. But Roland was hooting. There was someone behind him trying to get past.

‘Quick,' she said, and she took his arm and led him towards the jeep.

Kip got out and helped him into the front. ‘I was very sorry to hear about Caroline.'

‘Yes,' Lambert swallowed. ‘Thank you.'

‘Do you think she knew?' He lowered his voice. ‘About Il Nicchio . . . I mean before  . . .'

Lambert turned and smiled, but his face was pale. ‘I whispered it to her. I think she heard.'

Lara leant forward from the back. ‘I packed your bag.' She hesitated. ‘And I brought the tickets and your passport . . .' She waited for a sign. ‘I put your books in, and your glasses case . . .' but Lambert only glanced distractedly at his watch.

‘How long, do you think, before we're there?'

Roland shrugged. ‘Not long.' He nosed dangerously into a faster lane and narrowly missed colliding with a car.

Lara sat in the back still clutching her bikini. Lambert's passport was in her shirt pocket, its edges stretching at the seams. And inside the passport, the photograph of his family. She could ask him about it, bring it out, point to his mother and his sister. Tell me about them. Olga and Lissia, and she ran the names together to make her own middle name. ‘Your father chose it,' Cathy had told her, long ago. ‘He liked it,' she said simply, but it occurred to her now that Cathy must have always known.

Kip sat opposite her, his knees turned away, with no danger of nudging against her own. ‘Right, this is it,' he said, as if he were relieved, and Roland pulled into the station.

Kip leapt out of the back and swung open Lambert's door. ‘It was very nice to see you again, Mr Gold.'

‘It's been very nice seeing you again too, Kip.' Her father spoke slowly, and with exaggerated care, as if he'd only very recently learnt English. ‘And don't forget, do give my regards to your mother.'

Lara stood on the sweltering tarmac and looked at their two profiles. It isn't true, she insisted, but all the same her stomach knotted. Lambert and Kip continued to face each other. It was as if there was something important that they both wanted to say.

‘Mummy would love to see you, I'm sure.'

‘Yes,' Lambert frowned. ‘Tell her I'll call. I will.'

Lara pulled the bags out of the open back. ‘We'd better go. We'd actually better hurry.' She had to move before Roland attempted some kind of goodbye. Lambert nodded, and with as much dignity as he could muster, he began to hop and shuffle towards the train.

‘Bye then.' She smiled a thin smile at Kip, but as she moved away, dragging the bags behind her, she thought, I'll die if we part like this. I'll die. Wretched, she continued on, until, unable to stop herself, she turned, imagining he'd be gone, or laughing some horrid laugh with Roland, but he was still standing there, squinting into the sun.

‘I'll call you,' he mouthed, and he raised the white slip of paper that she'd given him and pressed it to his lips.

A smile leapt across her face. She nodded, desperately, and put her hand to her heart and held it there for him to see.

In an instant Kip was by her side. He kissed her, fast and light on the lips, and just as quickly he sprang away again.

‘Lara?' Lambert was turning towards her, leaning for support against a post. ‘Is this our train, do you think?'

‘Yes,' she said, ‘this one,' and when she next turned the jeep was gone.

There were ten minutes left. Lara found two seats with a spare seat opposite on which Lambert could rest his leg, and dizzy with Kip's kiss she jumped down on to the platform.

‘I won't be long,' she called, thinking all the time, I don't even care if he is my half-brother, I'll see him secretly. What can we do? We're in Love!

She careered along the platform and into the shop where she bought biscuits, water, several bags of crisps and, finding nothing else, more biscuits. Moments later she was sitting in her seat.

‘We did it,' she said, noticing for the first time that the carriage was full of backpackers, women, exhausted and dusty, with short cropped hair and noses that looked Dutch. But Lambert was leaning his head against the window, beads of sweat standing out on his brow.

‘Are you all right?' She touched his arm, and unable to wait she tore open a packet of biscuits and crammed one into her mouth. Oh my God, she thought, as soon as she began to chew. Ginny! Does she even know we've gone? ‘Dad?' she coaxed him. ‘Does Ginny know?' But Lambert had his eyes closed.

Lara ate another biscuit. Drank some water. Ate a packet of oily crisps. We did it. She looked out of the window. We had a holiday, and now we're going home, and she had to remind herself it hadn't all been a success. They stopped at their first station, and Lambert flicked open his eyes.

‘Binario,' she pointed. ‘We're at Binario again.' But Lambert didn't smile.

They sat together in silence, gazing out of the window, watching the scorched countryside slide by, and the further away they travelled from Siena, the more impossible her plans for a secret future with Kip became. I just won't answer the phone, she promised herself, and then he'll be away in Kenya, and by the time he gets back . . . and unable to think beyond that she closed her eyes.