No Escape (15 page)

Day three came and went.

‘Going great guns,’ Arden, a fairly superstitious man who tended on the whole to stick to faint praise until a production was in the bag, told Lizzie that evening before she went
upstairs for a quiet family supper.

‘Was Bill all right with it?’ Lizzie had felt unsure about the director’s reaction.

‘More than.’ The producer saw her face and grinned. ‘Don’t take any notice of Bill’s mood swings, darling. They’re a little dependent on the lovely Gina just
now. Nothing to do with you.’

Supper was delicious, children and parents in fine spirits, Gilly out for the evening with Rupe, a dishy sound guy who’d quite fallen for her. Christopher was at his very best, full of
fun, persuading Sophie to bed, telling Lizzie he was happy to stay up with Edward and Jack, who weren’t tired enough to sleep, while she – exhausted enough by then to collapse –
went to their suite and had an early night.

Well-earned rest. Sweet, undisturbed sleep.

Day four placed Lizzie in the kitchen of her Riviera dei Fiori villa, cool clay warmed with flowers and the heat from the rugged steel range that was a pleasure to cook on as she blended
inspirations of Liguria and old Russia in a kind of
kulebiaka
, a golden pastry shell encasing delicately pickled local fish with a light mushroom cream sauce.

‘Are we allowed to eat this one?’ Susan asked, salivating.

‘If Bill’s finished filming it,’ Lizzie said.

‘Bill’s finished,’ the director said, ‘and fit to eat a camel.’

‘Never cooked camel,’ Lizzie said, and felt a glow of pride as her main course was fallen on and picked clean.

Next morning – a designated rest day – she woke to find Christopher gone and a note on his pillow:
Take your time, star. I’ll be with the children by the
pool.

She hated it when he called her that, tried not to show it to others, who thought it fond and flattering, but inside she cringed each time, heard in her head his
other
way of saying it to
her, while he was abusing her.
Fuck-a-star.
One of his favourite terms of endearment.

Just a note, of course, this morning, nothing meant by the word.

Don’t spoil the day, Lizzie.

She thought of lazing for a while, maybe breakfasting in bed, but found that all she really wanted to do was be with the children, so she showered quickly, found a swimsuit, sundress and
sandals, looked in the mirror, saw that, despite all the hours of filming indoors, she was becoming quite tanned, and went down to the pool.

She saw Christopher first, sitting astride a lounger, wearing navy blue trunks, sunglasses and his wide-brimmed straw hat. He had maintained his liking for hats, refrained from wearing a panama
in summer because Lizzie disliked them, but still often wore a fedora in town, a slouch hat for country walks and regularly, from October till March, wore or carried his favourite, a now fairly
battered tweed number that made him feel a bit like Rex Harrison.

He caught sight of her, took off the hat and waved it first at her, then towards the pool, to draw her attention to Edward, just taking a dive.

Lizzie waited a moment, watching her oldest son, then headed over to where Christopher was sitting, only now seeing that Jack was sitting just beyond his father, in his chair, wearing a white
T-shirt, shorts and the pair of very cool Italian designer shades he’d bought with Lizzie in London before the trip.

‘Hello, everyone,’ she said, approaching.

Sophie, sitting under an umbrella two loungers away, chatting to another girl of approximately the same age, saw her mother and waved at her. She looked, Lizzie thought, her heart contracting
with love, adorable in a pink bikini and baseball cap.

‘Hi, Mum.’ Jack made his chair give a languid wiggle of greeting.

‘Hello, darling,’ Christopher said. ‘Why aren’t you still sleeping?’

‘Wanted to be with you lot.’

Lizzie dumped her bag on the table between her husband and son, gave Jack a swift kiss and looked back at the pool, where Edward was now laughing with a group of boys and girls.

‘Daddy said you were staying in bed.’ Sophie materialized beside her.

‘Hello, gorgeous.’ Lizzie gave her a hug. ‘Got enough suncream on?’

‘Course.’

‘She looks nice.’ Lizzie looked towards the girl Sophie had been talking to.

‘Daniela. She’s Italian, but she speaks great English.’

‘Ed’s diving again,’ Jack said. ‘Look, Mum.’

Lizzie looked, too late – just a spray of splash marking her older son’s point of entry, and his slim, tanned body already sleeking away beneath the surface. She turned, looked at
Jack, saw not a trace of envy and marvelled at his generosity.

‘I’m going for a swim. Mummy,’ Sophie said. ‘Want to come?’

‘Mummy probably wants to relax,’ Christopher said.

‘I’d love to have a swim.’ With a quick movement, Lizzie pulled her sundress up over her head, and kicked off her sandals. ‘How about Daniela?’

‘She doesn’t like swimming,’ Sophie said. ‘Come on.’

Mother and daughter emerged fifteen minutes later, heading straight to the shower to wash off the salt from the pool, then passing Edward on their way back to the loungers.

‘I’m going to get Cokes,’ he told them. ‘Anyone want anything?’

‘Ice cream,’ Sophie said. ‘
Gelato
.’

‘It’s a bit early for ice cream,’ Lizzie said.

‘Oh, Mummy.’

‘Their OJ’s good,’ Edward suggested. ‘Fresh squeezed.’

‘Mm,’ Lizzie said. ‘Would you get me one, please, darling?’

‘Ice cream for me, please – chocolate,’ Sophie said and ran on ahead, the soles of her still wet feet slapping the ground.

‘Have you got enough money?’ Lizzie asked Edward.

‘Dad said to sign for stuff,’ he said, and was gone.

Lizzie looked ahead towards the loungers, where Christopher was on his feet and drying Sophie with a towel. She was laughing, and it looked, from a distance as if her father was tickling
her.

Something in Lizzie’s mind went snap.

‘
No
,’ she said, so violently that several people turned to see what had happened.

Lizzie didn’t care. Five strides, and she was there, grabbing her startled daughter by the hand and pulling her away from Christopher.

‘What?’ Sophie demanded. ‘Mummy, what are you
doing
?’

Lizzie let her go, felt her cheeks burning, knew she’d taken a foolish, desperately clumsy nosedive into territory she’d sworn not to, and struggled to cover before it was too
late.

‘You were making a show of yourself,’ she said.

Sophie stared at her. ‘I was laughing.’ She looked at her father for back-up. ‘Daddy was making me
laugh
– what’s wrong with that?’

Lizzie felt Christopher’s eyes on her but couldn’t bring herself to look at him, knew she had no viable alternative but to continue.

‘This is a nice hotel,’ she told her daughter, loathing herself. ‘You were disturbing people.’

‘I
wasn’t
.’ Sophie’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Why’re you being so horrible?’

She didn’t wait for Lizzie’s answer, just bent to scoop up her sundress and beach bag, stuck her feet into her sandals and ran.

‘That was nice,’ Christopher’s voice said, coolly.

Lizzie did look at him then, saw that he was holding his sunglasses in one hand, and that his eyes, anything
but
cool, were appalled. That he knew what had just happened in her mind. She
looked back in the other direction, saw Sophie running past Edward, carrying the drinks and her
gelat
, saw Gilly, in a striking red bikini and cover-up, long dark hair pinned up, trying to
speak to Sophie but failing.

‘I’m going after her,’ Lizzie said, and picked up her own things.

‘Good idea,’ Christopher said, very quietly.

‘What’s up with Sophie?’ Gilly asked, arriving hastily, all set to turn around again. ‘She looked upset.’

‘I upset her,’ Lizzie said.

‘Oh,’ Gilly said, knowingly. ‘Who’d be seven?’ She smiled. ‘Who’d be a mum?’

Lizzie forced down her own sudden urge to burst into tears. ‘Me,’ she said.

‘She’ll be fine,’ Gilly said, sympathetically.

‘Hopefully,’ Lizzie said. ‘Once I’ve apologized.’

‘She’s a lucky girl,’ Gilly said. ‘Having a mum prepared to do that.’

‘I don’t believe you could even
contemplate
such a thing.’

Christopher had waited down by the pool until after Sophie had returned, and then he’d left her and the boys with Gilly and come up to the suite to find Lizzie. His suntan looked suddenly
odd, as if the colour were make-up and he was chalk-white beneath, and his hands were clenched fists.

‘I know.’ Lizzie turned away, walked towards the balcony.

‘Is this something you’ve always been afraid of?’

‘I’ve never thought of it before,’ she said.

It was the truth. It had never entered her mind before. Not only because it was too repellent, too horrific to consider, but because she had known –
thought
she’d known
– that whatever Christopher might have done, might still do to her someday, he would never do anything to harm the children.

‘Don’t you know,’ he said now, ‘that I would never, ever, hurt a hair on their heads?’

Lizzie turned back to face him. ‘When I first knew you,’ she said, quite evenly, ‘if someone had said that you might want to hurt me physically—’

‘I never do,’ he burst, passionately. ‘Not intentionally.’

‘You’ve hurt me repeatedly.’ She was quite calm now, was unsure how it was possible to feel so calm at a moment like this.

‘Then why have you stayed with me?’ he asked, quieter now, too.

‘You know why,’ Lizzie said.

‘I thought . . .’ Christopher stopped, walked over to the sofa, sank down heavily onto it.

‘What did you think?’

‘You sometimes give the impression, to me, not just others, that you still love me. Not just as the father of our children.’

Lizzie began to feel sick. ‘Please don’t pretend you don’t know how I feel about the things you do to me, Christopher.’

‘But this isn’t about that, is it?’ He stared up at her. ‘And even if it were, you can’t deny how restrained I’ve been for the longest time now, because I
knew how anxious you were about this tour.’

Lizzie sat down too, in one of the armchairs.

‘And even here,’ he went on. ‘You were so sure I was going to let you down on this trip, but I haven’t laid a finger on you, have I?’

‘No,’ Lizzie said.
Not yet.

‘Because I respect you, Lizzie,’ he said. ‘I respect what you do, who you are. And I know, I accept that I’ve lost the right to expect the same from you – I do know
that – but couldn’t you have just a little faith?’

‘I do have faith,’ she said, ‘in the rest of you.’

‘No,’ Christopher said. ‘Clearly not. Or you would never have done what you did down there.’

‘I overreacted,’ Lizzie said. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You all but accused me of—’ His colour was back, deepening with freshly mounting distress. ‘I can hardly bring myself to say it, Lizzie.’

‘It wasn’t an accusation, it was a
thought
, seeing you drying Sophie, tickling her, our beautiful little girl—’

‘Our
daughter
,’ he cried. ‘My own child.’

‘I couldn’t help it, Christopher. I saw you with her, and suddenly, this terror struck me of what might happen one day, and was that really so unreasonable, would you say, given your
history?’

‘Forget unreasonable,’ he said, louder now. ‘It’s
monstrous
that you could dream up such a notion, when the one thing you’ve always granted me is that
I’m a good father.’

Shame began to flow through her, yet still she could not seem to take back what she’d begun. ‘Maybe you’ve abused me once too often.’

‘I haven’t touched you.’

‘Not for a while, perhaps—’

‘Not for
months
!’

‘For which I’m meant to be grateful?’ Lizzie was back on her feet, her own anger growing, and she couldn’t wholly understand why it was all boiling over now, of all
times, when nothing at all
had
actually happened. ‘Give myself a convenient lobotomy? Obliterate everything you’ve done before?’

‘Things I couldn’t
help
, Lizzie.’

‘You’ve just told me how you’ve managed to restrain yourself,’ she lashed back. ‘Can’t have it both ways, Christopher. Either you
can
help yourself, or
you can’t – make up your mind.’

‘But all this has nothing to do with what just happened –
didn’t
happen – down by the pool.’

‘Of
course
it has,’ she yelled back at him. ‘It’s all about trust, can’t you see that? It’s all about the same thing.’

‘Yes,’ Christopher said. ‘I suppose it is.’

Lizzie sank down again into the chair.

‘It does all come down to the same thing.’ He was quieter again now. ‘To something I’ve never really understood, which is why, after all we’ve been through
together, my simple
need
for you, my wife, should seem so very terrible.’ He paused. ‘And even if it does seem so dreadful, Lizzie, if it’s the one awful thing you have to
put up with from me, once in a while, surely you don’t have that much cause for complaint?’

‘Because of this, you mean?’ She looked around the beautiful room. ‘Or because of our lovely homes, perhaps?’

‘I just think that perhaps, if you were a little more broadminded, a little less prudish, less
frigid
,’ Christopher said, ‘you might realize how much you actually have
to be thankful for, instead of dreaming up odious, entirely
groundless
, accusations.’

‘I’ve already told you, I didn’t accuse you,’ she said coldly. ‘I just reacted, instinctively, to the sight of the man who’s abused me repeatedly over the
years tickling my half-naked, seven-year-old daughter.’

‘
Our
daughter,’ he said, almost shrilly. ‘Whom I love totally.’

‘I know you do,’ Lizzie said. ‘And I do apologize for overreacting, especially in public. Most of all, in front of Sophie.’