Love Falls (28 page)

‘
Pronto
,' he barked in an impatient staccato. ‘
Pronto. Si
.'

‘What's happened?' Lara gripped her arm.

A tear dripped from Ginny's face. ‘She said she needed to be up early. So I went to wake her with a cup of tea. I thought to myself, before I have my swim  . . .'

Lara felt her eyes grow rounder in her head. ‘Caroline? Is she  . . .?'

‘I don't know how long she'd been like that.' Ginny took a big gulp like a fish. ‘I was frightened to try too hard to wake her. I mean . . . she looks so fragile, doesn't she? Like a little bird. I didn't want to shake her. I thought it might be dangerous and the doctor said that was right. That was the right thing to do. Not to move her. He came ever so quickly. Said he'd been expecting this call all summer. Said it was a miracle how long she'd lasted.'

‘But is she?' Lara felt her stomach knotting. ‘Is she . . .' She couldn't say it, and then the doctor turned and told them that the ambulance was on its way.

‘No.' Lambert was standing in the door, as straight and tall as was possible while balancing on one leg. ‘I must insist on it,' he said. ‘She must not be moved.'

The doctor looked at him, bemused.

‘I know her.' Lambert was trembling. ‘I've known her all . . . almost all my life. She wouldn't want it.'

The doctor looked at the ground. ‘The ambulance. It will be here soon.'

‘But what are you saying? That she'll recover? That if they take her to hospital she'll be her old self again?'

The doctor heaved his shoulders. ‘They may be able to revive her.'

‘So she can die in hospital, without any of the things she loves?' He was holding on to the table for support.

‘There may be people who wish to say goodbye. Friends. Family. It will give them the time they need to reach her. That's important. No?'

Lambert was silenced. He hung his head, and then a beeper went off somewhere on the doctor's body and he turned away.

By the time the ambulance arrived Ginny was making bread, pounding and beating the dough. Throwing it down like a fat white wrestler on to the slab of stone. Lara stood to one side as the ambulance men brought Caroline down. They had wrapped her carefully in an emergency blanket, tucking it in under her chin, and Lara saw that even in unconsciousness she managed to exude an air of glamour.

They stopped in the hall and Lara gazed down at her face. She didn't look like the woman who'd eaten ice cream in the streets of Siena the night before. Who'd shaken her fist at the enemy. Who'd held her hand and run, quick as a cat, up the steep steps. She was still and pale, but her skin, she'd be pleased to know it, was as white and dense as cream.

Lambert limped out into the drive and watched as they manoeuvred her into the back of the ambulance. And then to Lara's surprise he heaved himself in after her, dragging his sore foot, wincing as he knocked it against the step.

‘I'll be back later,' he called to Lara, and she saw that he had a book and a silk scarf of Caroline's in his hand.

‘Call if you need me to come.' Ginny wiped her hands on her apron. ‘Just call, I won't go anywhere.' She waited until they'd clanked shut the ambulance doors, and with a quick dab at her eyes she rushed back into the house to check on the bread which was under a tea towel rising.

Lara felt ashamed. Had everyone else known, not that Caroline was ill, but that she was actually dying? and she listened while Ginny dialled numbers from a list on Caroline's desk. She had two sisters, it transpired, and an uncle. A best friend, and two ex-husbands who were still alive. Ginny spoke tenderly and low. Promising each one that she would call back as soon as there was news. One of the sisters, or maybe both, were making plans to fly. To arrive today, if at all possible. And Ginny intimated that there was little time to lose.

Lara sat in the house. It seemed wrong to go outside and loll by the blue pool. Instead she fingered through a stack of Caroline's records, Edith Piaf, Billie Holiday, Nina Simone and an album of Brahms' Violin Concerto, which seemed safe enough to play. She walked through the wall of crashing rolling music to the kitchen to gauge Ginny's reaction but Ginny was busy separating eggs, collecting the whites in a large bowl, the yolks in a smaller, cracking the shells with a neat sharp knock. ‘Who is all this food for?' Lara wanted to ask, but she didn't dare.

Ginny reminded her of the Bangalore widow. They'd paid a few rupees a week to sleep in her back room, to share her and her daughter's food three times a day. And the food they ate was delicious. Curry for breakfast, lunch and supper, but so light and fine and full of delicate flavour – cardamom and fennel – that you were always ready for more. But it shocked Lara to see what went into the preparation of these meals. Every waking moment, from dawn to dusk, the mother and the daughter worked. Grinding spices. Making parathas. Shopping for okra, potatoes, beans and coriander. Chopping and de-seeding. Washing out pans. Filling them with food again.

Until then they hadn't met many Indians, mixing mostly with Tibetans, friends of friends of people they knew from Samye Ling. The Tibetans felt familiar, with their shrines and their pujas, their gossip and their jokes, but the Indians were foreign. When I'm reincarnated, Lara had prayed, I hope I don't come back as a daughter or a wife. I'd prefer to be a dung beetle or an elephant. Anything other than that endless chopping and mixing, cleaning and scouring. Anything other than that life of chores. But Ginny would have been in heaven.

She was whipping the egg whites into peaks, sifting in a shower of icing sugar, whipping and whipping until each peak stood alone. She lined a tray with greaseproof paper, oiled the paper, spooned on a froth of white.

‘There,' she said, in satisfaction. ‘Now we have meringues,' and she put them in a low oven to bake. But her happiness was short-lived. ‘What,' she wailed above the violin surge of Brahms, ‘will I do with all these yolks?' and to calm her Lara suggested they have breakfast.

They sat down together at the table on the terrace, their plates piled high with golden scrambled egg, the cloth spread with toast, honey, fruit and tea.

‘Thank you,' Ginny said, as if it were Lara herself who had been cooking since dawn, and for the first time that morning she sat quite still.

Lara wanted to tell her about the Tibetan monks and how once, during a death puja, one of them had put a whoopee cushion under the orange-robed bottom of another monk. There was a gurgle, a squelch, and then a low loud fart. The monk threw his hands up in the air and then rocking, his eyes crinkled, he began to laugh. Everyone laughed. Monks and lay people, men, women and children, and she could still see their warm, round faces, laughing and laughing as they prepared to make a puja to death. But Lara couldn't tell Ginny about this in case she mentioned that unmentionable word – death. Even her mother, who still meditated at her shrine, filled the seven little bowls with water, for the eyes, the hands, for lights, for incense, for music, food and flowers, who still sat her blue-painted, long-eared Buddha on a crochet table mat that Lara had made one winter when there was nothing else to do, even her mother avoided the word.

Would you want to go to hospital, if you were . . .' Lara swallowed. ‘If you were dying?' She'd said it, and she watched as Ginny blanched.

‘No.' She took a moment. ‘Not really.' And then warming to the idea, ‘I'd like to die in my conservatory with my face full in the sun and that sweet stalky smell of tomatoes just tickling in my nose.'

‘I'd like to die' – Lara had never thought about it for herself – ‘just drift away as I slept on the top bunk of a train in an Indian ladies' carriage.' She could feel the soothing rattle of the wheels as field after field swished by.

‘I'd like someone there.' Ginny pondered. ‘Or would I?'

‘Yes.' Lara closed her eyes, imagining Kip, weeping, clinging to her hand. ‘Well, maybe not in a ladies' carriage. Maybe first class.' She could see herself covered with a pink-and-green water-lily quilt. ‘Actually . . . no.' Life seemed so precious suddenly. ‘On second thoughts. You know what? I don't think I will die.'

‘Of course you won't,' Ginny said kindly and she began clearing away plates.

 

 

All morning the telephone rang and Lara sat on the terrace listening to the low hushed tones of Ginny, giving information, soothing with kind words. Twice she called the hospital but she was only told that Caroline was stable, and each time, although Lara stood beside her, signing and whispering for news of Lambert, Ginny always put down the phone without having asked. ‘He's not a patient. You can't ask them to track down visitors.'

But eventually some time after lunch Lambert called. He sounded tired and worn down and he told Lara that against much opposition he'd agreed to let the hospital take the nerve out of his toe. ‘They can do the operation tomorrow,' he said. ‘Otherwise for the rest of my life I'll keep breaking it, over and over. In fact I will still keep breaking it. But once the nerve's removed I'll never know.'

And the Palio? Lara thought. But instead she asked about their train.

‘I know.' Lambert sounded pained. ‘We'll go the next day. As soon as I can escape. Will you ask Ginny to bring me in some of my things, my books and papers, and if she can find a newspaper?'

‘And what about Caroline?'

There was a silence and Lambert took a deep breath. ‘She's not come round.'

‘Shall I visit?'

‘No.' He was adamant. He almost shouted. ‘Please don't. Come and get me when I'm leaving.' He hesitated, and then in a quieter voice, ‘Or did you mean visit Caroline?'

‘I don't mind. Whatever would be useful.' She wished she'd never mentioned visiting at all.

Ginny, who was hovering, seized the phone and pressed it importantly to her ear. Lara stood beside her and let her fingers trail over Caroline's desk, idling over the list of names, the neat stacks of papers, the headed notepaper, the jar of pens. There was a tray with change, some paperclips, a comb, and then slipped in beside a brochure for a hotel were three square oblong tickets with
Palio
in large black letters across them. Lara inched her hand forward, and while Ginny was scribbling down the contents of Lambert's list, she drew them towards her and slipped them into the pocket of her shorts. A shiver ran through her, tightening her scalp, and she shook her head and walked out into the sun. She sat on the top step of the terrace and fingered the tickets. So precious. So valuable. It made her heart beat. What would happen to their seats now?

‘I'm off then,' Ginny called from the house.

Lara stuffed the tickets back into her pocket. ‘OK.'

Ginny had a basket filled with food, a bag of books and folded clothes. ‘I'll be back later. There's soup and bread and meringues for supper. If the sisters don't arrive I may even sit up with Caroline tonight.' Ginny was beaming. She'd come into her own. ‘Will you be all right?'

‘Of course.' Lara followed her to the door to wave her off. ‘Bye then,' she said. ‘Send my love.'

‘Do you want me to call you later? If I can't get back?

‘No! Really. Don't call. I'll be fine.'

But she already felt like crying. Why couldn't she go too. She almost stamped her bare brown foot. It was only when the car was gone and she turned into the empty house that her spirits rose. She stretched out her arms and whirled around, and although she knew it was disrespectful it was impossible not to relish the freedom of having the house to herself. She ran from room to room. She ran across the garden, down the steps, past the pool and tried the door to Ginny's room. It was unlocked and she opened it a fraction, just to see. But it was just a room. Simply furnished. A voluminous dress draped over a chair. The boulder-like contours of a discarded bra beside it. She shut the door quickly.

Feeling wicked, she ran back to the house, up the stairs, along the corridor and turned the handle to Caroline's door. Her heart was pounding. She shouldn't be doing this but she needed to see everything. She couldn't be alone in the house until she had. Caroline's room was full of Caroline. There were flowers on the dressing table, cushions plumped where they'd fallen from the bed. Her wardrobe door was open and there, reflected in the dressing-table mirror, were silky hanging dresses in shades of ivory and beige. There was her sun hat sitting on a chair and another more elegant hat with a sheer scarf tied round it on a shelf.

Lara took a step forward. Caroline's rings were on her dressing table in a china bowl. And her watch with its thin gold strap was laid beside it. Lara pulled out the chair and sat down. She picked up one of Caroline's brushes and dusted powder over her face. It gave her a soft, out-of-focus look and so she swept on a little eye shadow and patted her cheeks with rouge. Very carefully she lifted Caroline's hat from its shelf and tried it on and then whirling round she felt the silk scarf tickle her bare arms.

She ran to the cupboard. There were crocheted tops, pleated skirts, elegant strapped sandals all in muted colours. Lara ran her fingers through them, relishing their softness and their rustle. She pulled one down, a dusty pink, a dress she'd never seen, and held it up against her. It felt cool and slippery against her skin and although she knew she shouldn't she slipped it on over her shorts and T-shirt. The bust was fitted, lined with satin, ruffled in fine layers of silk, the neck was wide, just capping her shoulders, and as she slid the zip it held her waist willowy and firm.