Love Falls (18 page)

Lambert and Kip looked at each other.

‘Damn.' Kip shook his head.

And Lambert smiled, rueful. ‘Damn indeed.'

‘Lara wins,' Roland said, and he stood up and stretched.

 

 

It was late in the afternoon when they arrived home.

‘How was it?' Caroline looked up from a letter she was writing.

‘It was good.' Lara had to force herself to smile. She felt tired suddenly, her skin dry and dusty from so much sun.

‘It was interesting.' Lambert was himself again in his white shirt and polished shoes, and he sat down on the sofa as if he'd just conducted an experiment, which could now be put safely to one side.

As soon as it was polite to do so Lara went up to bed. How could he, she asked herself, say he'd never been in love? And she didn't know who she felt more bitter towards – her father or Kip.

 

 

Only Ginny noticed anything was wrong. ‘A touch of sunstroke, could it be?' and she made Lara a drink of iced water and lemon and cut two slices of cucumber to put over her eyes.

‘It could be,' Lara agreed, hopeful that it was, but she felt heavy-hearted and despondent.

She lay by the pool, swam, sat up in her room, even wrote the postcard to her mother she'd had for more than a week.
It's great here
. She let her writing grow large.
I'm having a really good time. Swimming, eating and sunbathing. Has Berry had her kittens yet? Hope you're well
. She could imagine her mother reading it, flipping it over to look at the picture on the front – the Palio, horses streaming round the Piazza, their legs so delicate and brittle it would take one fall for them to snap. She could see her turning it back over, frowning at the lack of information, and before she was tempted to add more she scrawled a row of kisses and her name.

After lunch Lara went out for a walk.

‘Careful,' Lambert warned her, but she didn't invite him and he didn't offer to come.

She walked down the road, turned the bend and found herself at the mouth of the path that led to Ceccomoro. The escape route. She thought of Pamela's sad face, and she walked on down the road. It was hot today. Mad dogs and Englishmen, she remembered, and she wished then she hadn't set out alone. A car sped by and she shielded her eyes against the glare. Heat bounced off the road, shimmering silver against the olive leaves, beating down painfully on her exposed toes. She should turn round, she knew, but ahead of her was a layby with an empty car parked in the cool of some trees.

Lara reached it and found the stump of an old gate-post on which to sit in the shade of the wood. It smelt good. Pine and dust and the hot tar of the road. She gulped the air down. There was silence here except for the reedy shrill of crickets that she already had to listen for to notice they were there. And then a white car slowed on the bend. There were two people in it, talking, and it pulled up just beyond her and stopped. The engine stayed on, the exhaust pumping out hot fumes while the two heads came together and kissed. Lara could see them silhouetted against the windscreen, the wisps of the woman's hair and the man, half-bald, half-curls. You see, she found herself thinking, even they're in love, and then the passenger door opened and Andrew Willoughby got out. Lara looked away.

‘
Au revoir
,' she heard him say. ‘And let it be sooon.' He eased out the word with longing.

‘Soonimento,' the woman replied, and Andrew laughed.

Lara looked back in time to see them kiss again, Andrew leaning into the car, the woman – a screen of light-brown hair falling forward to obscure her face.

‘
Arrivederci
.' Andrew straightened up. ‘Bye now,' and the car screeched out on to the other side of the road.

Lara looked away again but it was too late.

‘Can it be our young communist?' Andrew called, straightening his clothes, ‘waiting for a revolutionary to come by and whisk her away to the hills?' He fished some keys out of his pocket. ‘But seriously, my darling, if you want to meet up with your pals you've come the wrong way.' He unlocked the door of his car. ‘Get in,' he said. ‘Go on, I'll give you a lift.'

Obediently Lara got in. The seats were hot and sticky, despite the shade, and she had to squint to look at him.

‘So.' Andrew drove slowly, one hand on the wheel. ‘Are you having a good time?' He glanced at her bare legs burning into the leather of the seat. ‘Is it living up to your hopes? Italia?'

‘Yes,' she said. ‘Oh yes.'

‘Good.' He sounded magnanimous, the host of all of Italy, as if he'd sort it out for her if that were not the case. ‘You went to Florence, I hear. With your dear papa.'

‘Yes.' It was only then she realised they'd passed Caroline's turning and were on their way to Ceccomoro. ‘Oh no,' she gasped. ‘I . . . they'll be worried if I don't go back. I only said I was going out for a walk, and anyway I saw everyone yesterday.'

‘You think they'll be disappointed to see you again?' He laughed. ‘You've no idea how many distractions my family need.'

‘Exactly,' she said. ‘They probably need someone new.'

Andrew looked at her. ‘True.' His eyes narrowed. ‘But there is no one else.' He smiled as if to take the sting out. ‘So buck up. You'll have to do.' He slapped her lightly on the leg and drove through the gate of lions, along the avenue, and drew the car up in the yard. ‘I'll ring Caroline and tell her we're keeping you here. Until tonight.'

It was only later as she stood in the cool stone study, soft with rugs and tapestries, waiting while he dialled, that she had time to wonder what he'd been doing leaving his car in a layby and driving off with someone else. Who was she? Lara frowned, and she had the uneasy feeling the woman was familiar, with her curtain of brown hair catching the light as she leant out to pull the door.

There was no one by the swimming pool, or in the garden. ‘Yes,' Andrew Willoughby had said into the telephone. ‘Someone will bring her home.' And then, his duty done, he'd wandered off, his footsteps echoing over stone, and left her alone.

Slowly Lara walked through the narrow web of streets that ran between the houses. She looked up at each building, expecting to hear the hum of voices from one window or another, but the air was thick with quiet and there was no one there. Eventually she went back to the main square. There was the table under its double canopy, the countless chairs ranged around it. Not far away, just up the hill, was the kitchen in an old stone building so shaded it was actually cool. Lara peered inside. There were two tables for chopping, a range, a tall white fridge, but everything was orderly and deserted, the surfaces empty, the floor swept clean. She tiptoed through it and out into a breakfast room on the other side.

From there she walked along a corridor, and was surprised to find herself once more in the main part of the house. A bedroom with a white-painted bed, a state room with a wooden table and some sort of giant dark-wood throne. Beyond that was a room with nothing in it but two tall pale cupboards and a sewing machine on a table, the pedal for turning it built into its frame.

Further along she recognised the door to the television room. Lara pushed it and found herself in almost total darkness. She could sit in here, she thought, and when it was cooler walk home, and she let the door fall shut behind her. A figure shifted in the corner, and Lara jumped. It was a man, she could see him now, his legs slung over the arm of a chair.

‘I hate the sun. Couldn't it just go behind a cloud, just once?' And she realised it was Kip.

Lara stepped nearer. Kip was wearing jeans and a dark shirt. He had on shoes and a jacket.

‘I'm holding out for a bit of rain,' he said. ‘I thought it would help if I was prepared.'

Lara chose a chair and sank down into it. She wanted to laugh but he sounded so serious. ‘Do you get homesick?' she asked instead, swinging her own legs over the arm.

‘For where?'

‘For . . .' She wanted to say home, but she caught herself in time.

‘I won't miss school. If that's what you mean.'

‘For England?'

Kip shifted in his chair. ‘Do you get homesick for Finsbury Park? For the Rainbow  . . .?'

‘No.' She laughed. ‘Well, I might, if I stayed away long enough.'

They sat in silence.

‘I expect I'd miss my mother,' she said eventually. She tried to summon her up, but for some reason all she could manage was the sweet face of the cat.

Kip swung his leg and for just a second their feet touched. Lara felt every nerve in her body fizz. She gulped, and they both heard it.

‘So what will you do?' she said. ‘You know . . . I mean, did you really do so badly in your exams?'

‘They're sending me away.'

‘Where?'

‘At first they said I could go anywhere. But when I suggested Las Vegas, they said they meant . . . anywhere in Africa.'

‘Oh.' Lara felt light with shock. He was going away. But she was relieved too. He'd be safe in Africa. Away, not just from her, but from everyone. From Lulu, from his sisters, from the sisters of his friends. ‘How long will you be gone?'

‘A year or so. It's to keep me out of trouble. Form my character. Give me a chance to experience life.'

‘A bit like a year off before university?'

‘Yeah, but just without the university.'

They both laughed, and then, frowning, Kip stared at the floor.

‘When will you go?' Her voice was almost a whisper.

‘In a month or two. I'm not sure.'

He swung his legs down and pushed himself up out of the chair. He seemed unsure what to do next, because he hovered there, still frowning, as if he'd forgotten what had propelled him to stand. Lara put out a hand to him. He took it, and as if it were the most natural thing in the world that he should help her, he pulled her up. She straightened against him and still holding her hand he slid her arm inside his jacket. She felt the warmth of his ribs through the cotton of his shirt, the silk lining of his jacket. Kip wrapped his other arm around her.

‘Is
this
too corny?' she asked.

‘I don't know.' His mouth was close. ‘But I think it might be all right.'

They turned and surveyed the room. There was a sofa with its throw half-dragged on to the floor and an ashtray full of the butts of cigarettes.

‘We're safe . . . no violins . . . no moonshine . . .' and he bent his head and kissed her.

His lips were cool, his breath as fresh as summer, and as he pulled her to him she felt her heart leap up like a flame.

‘You're so . . .' she tried to tell him.

‘What?' he murmured.

She ran her hands along the shirted stretch of him. ‘Nice,' and she kissed him through his smile. ‘You're meant to say you too,' she laughed, but instead he kissed her again, and again, until they were drunk, and without letting go of each other they lay down on the floor.

Kip pushed off his shoes, fumbled with the buttons on her shirt, but she wound her arms around him, and pulled him on to her. She wanted to feel his weight, his knees, the buckle of his belt dig in.

‘I'll squash you,' he warned, and it was true she wanted to be squashed.

By the time the bell for dinner rang her face was sore from kissing, her clothes rumpled, her hair ragged with heat.

‘My God, what time is it?' She sat up. She felt as if she'd been in that room for days.

Kip looked round for his shoes. His jacket was half under a chair and the buckle of his belt was loosened. He'd taken her hand and eased it down the front of his jeans until she'd felt the hardness of him straining against his shorts but they'd done nothing more. Anything more would have involved talking. Contraception, a lock for the door. It was easier to just go on kissing.

Kip flicked on the light.

‘Ow.' Lara covered her eyes. She turned away to pull her shirt closed, ran her fingers through her hair and turned to face him. ‘How do I look?'

Kip put his head on one side. ‘Fuc . . . fine,' he said and he took her hand and led her out.

 

 

Lara sat at dinner and pressed a cool glass against her face.

Andrew Willoughby was seated with the twins on either side of him, and he was amusing the top half of the table by interrogating them, asking them which girl at school they most admired. ‘Was it on the same girl – your pash? Come on, you can tell me. Isn't that how it works with twins?' He stopped then to see which one was blushing the brightest scarlet, but it was impossible to say.

Lara hid behind their despair, watching them, relieved, as they sent occasional beseeching looks down the length of the table to Pamela who was bright and smiling again, her face aglow with sun and make-up.