Consider the Lily (9 page)

‘Teri!
Encore.’

‘Coming, Monsieur.’

‘Teri, poppet. Where are you?’ said a plaintive voice. ‘You’re keeping me waiting.’

Voices gave counterpoint to the music and the popular Teri was kept busy. Every so often he addressed a remark to a woman, dressed in a striped sailor’s top and blue trousers, who sat at one end of the bar drinking anis. Cradling a glass smeared at the rim in one hand, she peered through the smoke from under a hennaed fringe, and the scarlet fingernails on her other hand went tap, tap, on the bar’s surface. A cigarette burned in the ashtray beside her, and the diamante clip on her clutchbag caught and fractured the light. She seemed entirely at ease in familiar surroundings.

‘I wonder who she is.’ Daisy was intrigued.

‘Perhaps she’s one of the local—’ Kit checked himself in time.

Daisy leant back in her chair and eyed Kit. ‘I know what you mean. You can say it, you know.’ She examined the woman with redoubled interest. ‘I wonder what her story is.’ Daisy reached for Kit’s cigarettes. ‘I do wish my French was better.’

‘Perhaps she was taken in adultery and cast forth into the world by an irate husband.’ Kit grabbed Daisy’s hand and she dropped the cigarette packet. ‘So be warned.’

‘Is that what you would do?’ Daisy sounded thoughtful. ‘No forgiveness? For a little matter of the flesh?’

‘You can’t mend a smashed vase.’ Kit was serious.

‘Only if you consider it has been smashed.’

Her answer unsettled Kit for he imagined it indicated she had gone beyond him on the subject of infidelity. He imagined, too, finding Daisy in someone else’s bed and felt the outrage of the betrayed.

‘If I ever—’ he began, but she anticipated what he was going to say and interrupted.

‘Now you
are
being absurd.’

True, he was. Nothing was settled between them. Kit dipped his bread into the
bouillabaisse.
Daisy was unlike any other woman he had met. Light years away from the awkward, rather jolly girls whose eyes begged him to single them out at dinners and dances. In the past, Kit had felt sorry for them: their freedom was limited, their ambitions for marriage of necessity predictable. No wonder, as they sat garnished with their mother’s pearls in chaperoned chastity, that they appeared powerless – and he quite forgot that if one of them had attracted him the power would have shifted.

Daisy
was
different, and he marvelled at how much so and why. Like her chestnut hair, she was filled with springing life. There was an element of attack about her. A readiness to lock horns. He knew without asking that Daisy would pack her bags and follow him into the noise, clutter, hard journeying and lotus-tinged luxury of the East. As Kit ate, he pictured the two of them
riding in the desert, a hot wind tugging at their clothes.

‘Daisy,’ he said. ‘Can you drag your attention away from Fifi or whatever her name is? I want to talk about you.’

Eyes glittering with enjoyment, Daisy pushed the candle in the bottle aside to see him better. ‘Good, I love talking about me. I’m such a fascinating subject.’

There was silence.

After a second, the teasing died from her face. Daisy reached over the table and cupped Kit’s cheek in her hand. ‘Darling Kit,’ she said softly, and with a queer, muted sound Kit reached up to imprison her hand.

‘What have you done to me, Daisy? I came to the Villa Lafayette a free man.’

‘You were never free. No one is.’

‘Are we prisoners, then?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Of whom?’

‘Of what, rather, in your case. Your home, stupid.’

He reflected. ‘I expect you’re right, but I hope you aren’t.’

Daisy made to take away her hand. ‘Leave it there,’ he said. ‘Don’t take it away.’

‘Kit, darling, I’m getting cramp.’

Reluctantly he allowed her to drop her hand back into her lap. ‘What do you want from me?’ she asked, at last. ‘An anchor?’

Kit was not given to dramatic statements, or to quick decisions, but now he said, without a moment’s pause, ‘You. For ever.’

Pupils dilated in the gloom, she tried to fathom what lay behind the uneven smile. ‘Did anyone ever tell you, Kit, you should be a film star? Your floppy hair and brooding eyes would be perfect.’

‘Daisy.’ Simultaneously exasperated, maddened and intoxicated by her, Kit felt he was running down several roads all at once. ‘Will you talk sense.’

She turned her attention to the question. ‘For ever,’ she repeated.

‘That’s what I said.’

‘I don’t have a penny to my name, you should know that. Yes, I know Mother and Father put on a reasonable show. Just. Matty’s helps, you know. But there is nothing for me when I marry.’

Kit refilled their glasses from the carafe. ‘Why mention money? I haven’t said anything about it.’

‘Oh, yes, you have, without realizing it, of course. Besides, money is important.’

‘Not that important.’ As he spoke, Kit knew that Daisy had put a finger on the only issue that did have a bearing on his decisions.

‘You’re wrong, Kit. I didn’t go to Eton but I know money is significant even if it isn’t everything.’

‘Thank God you weren’t a boy, and Eton isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.’

Daisy shrugged. ‘Matty and I shared a governess whose ignorance was only matched by an ability to suck up to Mother. As a result, my mind is a ragbag.’ She stuck out the tip of her tongue at Kit and grinned. ‘But, then, girls are not supposed to have brains, are they?’

She was teasing him again and Kit said nothing; for it was precisely the sentiment that had been expressed often enough in Eton’s changing rooms and freezing studies.

‘Don’t be so touchy,’ he said.

‘Don’t be so stuffy.’

The conversation was veering from the path Kit wished it to take. ‘Enough,’ he said, retrieving the initiative. ‘Let’s dance.’

He pulled Daisy close. She smiled, sank against his shoulder and fitted her cheek against his. Her hair smelt of rosemary and verbena and her skin sweet and musky. Under her dress, her breasts pressed into him and he felt his body tighten in response. Slowly, they circled the dance area. Plagued by their own memories, the older men at the bar watched them.

‘
Êtes-vous anglais?
’ called out the woman at the bar as they circled past her.

‘
Oui
,’ Kit replied. ‘
Oui. C’est ça.’

‘Come and talk to me, then, English. I need a dose of the old Alma Mater.’

Kit and Daisy looked at each other and Daisy whispered, ‘It would be fun.’ Reluctantly, Kit removed his hand from Daisy’s bare, warm back and ushered her to the bar. The woman shoved two bar stools towards them with a cork-sandalled foot.

‘I’m Bill,’ she said.

‘Daisy Chudleigh and Kit Dysart.’ Daisy held out her hand and the red talons touched it briefly.

Bill leant over the bar and tugged at the minuscule apron tied around the waist of the waiter. ‘You drink anis?’ she asked and, without waiting for an answer, said, ‘One each for my guests and a double for me, Teri sweetie, there’s a love.’ She smiled, revealing perfect white teeth. ‘You don’t mind talking to a has-been, I hope. I won’t keep you long and you can tuck it away under the section labelled “good deeds in a naughty world”.’

Kit balanced his drink on his knee. ‘I can see you live here.’

‘Oh, yes, sweeties. This is my home now.’ Bill poured water into her glass and Daisy watched the spirit transmogrify from crystal to cloud. She sipped at her own and swallowed experimentally. Bill clinked her glass on Daisy’s.

‘Cheers.’

‘Why did you leave England?’ Daisy wasn’t sure about the anis and wrinkled her nose at the taste. Bill looked at her sharply.

‘Dear me,’ she said. ‘I thought it was obvious, but I forget that the dear old Alma M. likes to keep its virgins in complete ignorance.’ She sucked at her drink. ‘Because, my dear child, it suits me here. But I would like to know how England is.’

Kit looked up from his drink. ‘Not good. We have a Labour government but rising unemployment. Not to mention income tax.’

‘I know, I know,’ said Bill. ‘Picture it: socialists on every street corner.’

‘No,’ said Kit. ‘Unemployed on street corners.’

‘That’s bad,’ said Bill. Daisy did not think she sounded as though she meant it. A silk pouch embroidered with Chinese symbols lay beside Bill’s glass. Daisy watched as she picked it up, extracted a pinch of a dark powdery substance and tapped it into a cigarette paper with some tobacco. ‘Forget it, I say.’ Her fingers worked at the paper and its contents. ‘Life is cheaper over here, better, too, and nobody expects anything from you. That makes it easy.’ Under her fringe Bill was frowning a little. ‘On the other hand, it can be curiously disappointing.’

She poked the end of the cigarette paper into place with her nail and licked it. Beside Daisy, Kit went very still. Bill flicked at her hair and appraised them both. ‘You look nice, the pair of you,’ she informed them. ‘Young, unbothered. Still children, really.’

‘Twenty-five,’ said Kit protesting.

‘Twenty-two,’ echoed Daisy, and added a shade defensively, ‘only just, though.’

‘Take it from me, you’re at a good moment in your lives... before you have found out too much about yourselves.’

‘Is that a bad thing?’ Daisy wet her fingertip, leant forward and placed it on a speck of the substance left on the bar top. She examined it with interest. ‘Finding out about yourself.’

‘Depends what you find out, sweeties.’ Bill lit the cigarette and inhaled. Smoke wreathed out between her glistening lips and curled over Kit and Daisy. ‘Here,’ she said, holding out the cigarette now bordered in scarlet. ‘Help yourself. It’s on me.’

‘Thank you.’ Daisy reached over.

‘No,’ said Kit at precisely the same moment. ‘No, thank you.’ And he pushed aside Daisy’s outstretched hand.

Bill closed her eyes. ‘Up to you,’ she said, both sharp and dreamy-sounding at the same time. ‘It’s up to you.’

‘Kit.’ Daisy was annoyed by his interference. ‘Do you mind?’

He hesitated, cupped Daisy’s chin with his hand and said, ‘Yes, I do. Very much. This stuff is dangerous.’

Bill reopened her eyes. Her pupils had grown large and black. ‘Do I look dangerous?’

‘It’s not your business, Kit.’ Daisy pulled away from him. ‘You mustn’t tell me what to do.’

Kit took her hand. ‘Come with me,’ he said.

‘No.’ She shook her head.

‘Don’t let’s quarrel.’

‘You are not quarrelling,’ said Bill, taking another lingering drag. ‘It’s sex talking.’

Kit threw back his head and laughed. ‘Wonderful,’ he said. ‘But enough.’ He slapped some francs down onto the bar and, without further warning, grabbed Daisy and hustled her through the door.

She was furious with him. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

‘Sex,’ called Bill after them. ‘See if I’m right.’ Daisy felt a giveaway flush sweep over her cheeks.

Outside, she fought free of Kit and moved away into the shadows beside the harbour wall. ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ she said at last. ‘I was enjoying talking to her and I have a right to do as I please.’

Kit took his time lighting a cigarette which he passed over to Daisy. Then he lit one for himself. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But that stuff is dangerous, Daisy. I’ve seen a lot of it out East. Believe me.’

‘What
did
you see out East?’ Daisy leant against the warm stone.

‘People who lived for it and not much else. Their families suffered, and if it really got to them, they died very nastily.’

‘Why?’

‘Opium’s addictive.’ Kit paused. ‘The need for it can outweigh everything.’ He paused again and the wine he had drunk came to his aid. ‘Because the dreams it brings are wild and paradise-filled.’

‘Hmm.’ Daisy raised a finger and pointed at Kit. ‘You tried it.’

Kit blew out a stream of smoke. ‘Yes.’

‘And?’

He shifted back through the memories. Lured by its promise and blurring of senses, he had gone willingly with the drug. Offers had been made by his attentive host and Kit — young, curious, away from home — accepted.

Of course, the drug had led to other things.

Sent in with instructions to please, the boy’s limbs were pale coffee against the sheets, and heat bathed both of them in sweat. The touch of skin against skin had been unforgettable; so had the sensation that began in the groin and bloomed all over his body. In the darkness, gender had been left behind, and there was only the business of satiation and its aftermath. ‘And?’

‘That’s why I know how dangerous it is.’

Daisy gazed at the sea beneath the quay and digested the implications. Every so often a bubble of light broke the surface of the water as a fish moved about in the shallows. A salty tang merged with the acrid-sweet smell of sewage. Behind the quay the black shapes of olive trees on the slope above the village straggled up to the crest, and there were flat slabs of shadow where terraces had been cut from the hillside.

‘I have to see things for myself,’ she said. ‘Like you have.’

‘You also have to be careful.’ Kit moved closer to Daisy and his hands again snaked up her wrists. Then he pulled her towards him and she went quiet while he held her so tight that she almost cried out.

‘Tell me,’ she said at last. ‘Tell me about it.’

Trust did not come easily to Kit but this was one occasion when he had to make a leap. Hesitant and with none of his usual irony, he told Daisy about the coffee limbs and his drug-disordered defloration.

‘A boy?’ was all she said, both appalled and stimulated and, like many lovers, jealous more of a past in which she had not figured than of the thing itself. But she was also affected powerfully at the sharing of Kit’s secret. After a minute, she buried her head in his shoulder, thought about Tim Coats waiting in England, and then forgot about him.

‘I think I understand, Kit.’ And then a bit later. ‘Kiss me.’

Kit’s lips were hot and dry on Daisy’s. They brushed her cheek, and travelled down the length of her tantalizing neck to the hollow at the base. She tasted of salt, damp face powder and scent. He muttered something which she did not hear and she placed a hand on either side of his face and tugged at it. He raised his head. A lock of hair fell over his forehead, and from under it he gazed at Daisy with unconcealed want.