From a Distance (26 page)

She remembered once reading in a novel that the hero had ‘raked’ the heroine with his eyes. It sounded painful, but Kit did it. So did Tom, and he also patted her shoulder and said, ‘Good effort, Tod,’ as though she was a rugby forward in his team.

‘That’s some dress,’ said Kit as they danced, ‘You look—’ he pulled his handkerchief from his pocket with a flourish Luisa had noticed was an habitual gesture. ‘Well, let’s just say I don’t think the Lighthouse had ever seen anything to equal you.’

Today, Luisa found she was suffused with a gnawing regret for the things she had never done. She hadn’t ridden a motorbike or slept in a gypsy caravan, she hadn’t travelled round the world or lived in another country, and she hadn’t kissed the wrong man.

Tom had stood chatting by the fires while she danced with Kit. He drank beer from the bottle, and when she broke away from Kit and walked over to him, he put his arm round her to whisper, ‘Please don’t make me dance, Tod’ and her euphoria evaporated, leaving her feeling like a limp balloon. The pounding heart, the static in the air as she danced was easily crushed. The thrill was ultimately just a moment. Luisa had put her apron on, and hidden herself behind her formidable
batterie de cuisine,
a barricade of spatulas, wooden spoons, baking trays and sharp knives. Luisa was aware of Kit as he wove in and out of the crowd, filling glasses. Luisa had arranged sausages in rows, shook out salad, scattered flower heads on top of the leaves and checked the fridge where the pudding waited, formidable and over-ambitious, a floating island ice cream construction cut to look like the cliffs.

‘Will it last?’ Tom had leaned in as she shut the fridge door.

She shrugged. ‘Don’t know. It’s risky, but we’ll see.’ She had a small toy lighthouse in her hand. Tom looked at it.

‘That’s nice. Thoughtful,’ he said.

An explanation burst out of her. ‘I got it in the newsagent in Blythe. It’s nothing really, but I thought it was too good to resist. I’ll put it on the pudding when I bring it out.’

The night sky was purple over the sea, the horizon a pale fire flickering in the distance. ‘The Northern Lights,’ Tom told Mae.

‘They look like a lava lamp,’ she commented.

Luisa brought out the Cliff Top dessert in flames, Luca at her side with his lighter poised, feeding more brandy onto the surface.

Kit was touched by the trouble Luisa had gone to. ‘That’s a real show stopper,’ he finally said, after the general applause had subsided. ‘You are a force of nature, Luisa, there are no other words for it.’

Luisa didn’t look up, she was intent on rebalancing the teetering toy lighthouse, which wanted to career over the cliffs, rather like Virginia Woolf, she’d suddenly thought. Oh, but she was mixing everything up. There was a book about a lighthouse. Poor old Virginia had actually thrown herself in a river with stones in her pockets.

Kit tapped a glass with a knife. Luisa wasn’t sure if he was drunk, but she knew Tom was. She saw him on the edge of the light thrown by the fire, his head back as he downed a glass. She felt cut loose, reckless. Kit’s eyes were on her every time she looked at him.

She tossed her hair off her shoulders. The party fell quiet, someone turned the music down, and the sea breathed a hush over everyone.

‘Superb dinner, thanks to Luisa.’ His glance took in the range of guests, and Luisa sensed him choosing a line. ‘I think most men here will agree that it’s way off beam to believe that we blokes only want one thing. We also want food.’ A crack of laughter showed he was spot on. Her shoulders, which she hadn’t realised were tense with a degree of trepidation for him, relaxed.

‘I want to thank you all for welcoming me to Kings Sloley. I didn’t know I had a connection here until very recently, and now I have a lighthouse and all of you new friends.’

There was further clapping, and Luca turned the music up again. Luisa stood on the edge of the rug, hugging herself. The air was a delicate veil across her skin. A few people, Dora and Mae and a couple of other girls and some children, were all dancing. Luisa shut her eyes. Flames from the bonfire threw dramatic shadows across the Lighthouse walls, turning the dancers into spirits conjured from the depths of the sea, the earth and the fire.

‘What’re you looking at?’ Kit was beside her.

‘They look like nymphs,’ she said.

‘They do? That’s one way of looking at them I guess. I see something more straightforward – the extras from a cult film, for example.’ He looked at Luca, and Mae, who, with a couple of others, were collapsing with laughter as they inhaled the helium from Maddie’s bunch of balloons, and then spoke in fast, ludicrously squeaky voices. Luisa caught the infectious laughter and began giggling.

Kit’s hands were clasped on the top of his head as he turned a full circle, taking in everything. ‘I’ve never given a party where the thing everyone has in common is the only thing I don’t share with them,’ he said.

‘What? Is it a riddle? If it is, the answer’s usually an egg.’ Luisa dragged her gaze from the heap of teenagers, collapsed with laughter.

‘You all belong,’ Kit said. ‘I’m the outsider.’

Luisa shook her head. She’d drunk enough to be forthright with him, she felt superhuman, wise and utterly happy. ‘No! It’s the opposite, silly! The thing we all have in common is you.’

‘Me? Not sure about that.’

Luisa could feel his body heat at her side. It was getting late, the evening was cooler now. ‘Come on, let’s dance,’ she pulled him towards the music.

She’d thought, as she twirled in the dark, breathless, unable to stop, that she would pay for her fun the next day. But oddly, she wasn’t really hungover. All that laughing probably sorted it. Didn’t it bring oxygen to the brain? She picked up her phone to send Kit another text. She’d already thanked him in one earlier, and now that didn’t seem enough. She would ask him to lunch. Now. Oh dear, she should have thought of it sooner.

She scrolled idly through her phone, deleting old messages, wondering what to write. Suddenly she noticed a text she hadn’t opened.

Got you in my mind’s eye, dancing. Sweet dreams Kx

It had been sent at 2.41 a.m. Straight after the party. Her throat tightened, and a prickle of embarrassment crawled up her chest to her face. She threw the phone on to the table, then snatched it back, shoving it in her pocket. She must delete the message. The phone vibrated, she didn’t look at it. At the same moment, the house phone rang, and a gurgle from the computer in the corner of the kitchen announced a Skype call. Luisa fought an impulse to hide under the table. The smell of burnt butter forced her back to the cooker. One blackened pancake glared back at her. She threw the whole frying pan into the sink.

‘Oh God,’ she muttered, reaching for the computer to answer the Skype call. She wanted to talk to Ellie, no one else. There she was, pixillated but present. Luisa was instantly cheered.

‘Ellie! Hi there, sweetheart. I’m just making pancakes. What are you up to?’ It would have been impossible just a matter of a week ago, but she hadn’t spared a thought for her beloved eldest child for days. ‘We’ve been so busy here, and there’s so much to tell you. I can’t remember when we last spoke. Weren’t you off on some trek? Anyway, since then we’ve got a new neighbour and—’

‘Mum! Keep still, can’t you?’ Ellie’s voice was scarcely audible above the background street sounds. Luisa drank a glass of water. Ellie was surrounded by alien sounds, the spattering of a clapped out engine, a cacophony of car horns and tuk tuks beeping and tooting, and the storm of busy chatter surrounded Ellie.

‘Gosh, it’s so colourful,’ she said. ‘Oh Ells, you look lovely,’ Luisa couldn’t really believe that she was somewhere so vibrant, it was like a filmset. The other Skype conversations they’d had had all been in hostels and hotel rooms.

‘Mum! I’m at a cafe in Hyderabad. I’ve been in the countryside for so long, I can’t get my head round the city, it’s insane. Last week I was in an Ashram, and I’ve still got the meditations ringing through my ears. This city is crazy, it’s so busy. The view on the screen shifted suddenly, as she lifted her laptop to show Luisa. Grayson started barking and she could hear a car arriving.

‘Damn,’ said Luisa, ‘they’re all coming back.’ The new pool of pancake batter was smoking in the pan, she had flour on her hands and she didn’t want to wreck the computer.

‘Darling, I really want to catch up properly, but there are so many people about to arrive and I’ve burned the pancakes and—’

Luisa was spared the need to cut her daughter off as the screen froze then blacked out. She’d try later.

‘Oh! How did you know to come?’ Kit walked into the kitchen, startling Luisa. ‘I was going to invite you, but I didn’t,’ she said baldly.

‘Thought I’d bring you these back,’ he said pointing to the basket full of roasting tins and plates he was carrying. He leaned to kiss her cheek. ‘You were phenomenal. It was sensational, I don’t know how you do it, and I’m about to write you a large cheque in thanks.’

‘Oh. Yes. Good. I don’t know where everyone is but they’re on their way. Coffee?’ Luisa couldn’t meet his eye. Too embarrassing. It was as though they had slept together. She sneaked a look at him, but he was also determinedly looking elsewhere. Was he embarrassed as well? Did that make it better? Or worse?

‘Where’s everyone?’ Kit opened the door and peered into the garden.

‘Well they’re not out there,’ Luisa snapped.

His eyebrows flew together. ‘Okay,’ he said mildly, and moved the pile of bowls he’d brought off the table, making room for himself to perch there. He rubbed his forehead. Luisa noticed he had circles under his eyes. He was probably hungover. She opened the window. The kitchen had closed in, clogged with steam. There was too much going on, the recklessness she had embraced the night before now felt dangerous. She pressed a glass against her face and took a deep breath. Now was the moment.

‘Kit, I—’

‘Hey there, something smells good.’ Luisa spun around as Tom walked into the room. People flooded in behind him. Luca, Dora and Maddie stepped in from the garden, repeatedly banging the door against the wall until the glass juddered. Luisa wondered if research had found that noise actually
was
louder when made by teenagers. Mae emerged like a dormouse from the hall and snatched the laptop.

‘Mae. Don’t start on anything,’ pleaded Luisa. ‘The pancakes are ready. It’s time to sit down.’ She flipped the final golden disc and slid it onto the stack in the oven. Everyone was at the table, and the party post-mortem was interspersed with requests for butter, milk, sugar and lemon.

Dora poured a glass of water, and drank it in huge gulps. ‘Sorry, I didn’t think I drank much last night, but I feel like I’m on another planet today.’

Maddie waved her fork, festooning liquid chocolate over the table and her sleeve. ‘Watch out for my laptop,’ shrieked Luisa.

Kit stood up suddenly, cleared his throat and fumbled at the side of his chair.

Amazing, thought Luisa, he’s going to give another speech. Must have got a taste for it last night. She bit her lip, then thought better of her intention to eat nothing, and tucked into a twist of bacon and a mouthful of Luca’s pancake.

‘Mum,’ he muttered. Kit was clearing a space on the over-cluttered table. He placed a cushion on the cleared table in front of him.

‘I need to talk to you all .
.
. I am .
.
. Oh, God. Let’s just say I didn’t see what has now become very clear.’ His smile was apologetic. ‘Anyway, I’m going to seize the moment. In the midst of the family.’ He looked vulnerable, young.

Luisa suddenly wondered how old he was. Funny, she’d never thought about it before. He was looking at Tom. Tom stood up, ran a hand through his hair and said something to Kit, their heads close. Luisa didn’t hear his words. She didn’t hear anything except blood thumping in her head. In that moment, time shifted its pace, and her world became no bigger than the distance between Tom and Kit as they stood side by side. The sounds in the room, the movements of cups, food, hands and cutlery, the vapour trail from the kettle, the rhythm of voices stopped. Ceased. Vanished. The plumes of steam that had curled up to the ceiling to hang in festoons evaporated, and within Luisa’s body and mind, the charge of energy and excitement, the exhaustion and the laughter and the fun, all became still. In the midst of this stillness, her gaze met Kit’s. An ache of silence passed between them, subtle and vital as a heartbeat. Tears sprang in Luisa’s eyes, and she dropped her fork on the floor. She bent to retrieve it, a coward’s impulse pulling her down to hide under the table. She straightened herself again. There was no need. Who was she hiding from? What was she hiding? There was nothing. There never had been, there never would be. In the room, movement had begun again.

‘Dad, did you really not know?’ Mae was asking, ‘I mean we did the Second World War in history. How come you didn’t tell us what happened to our grandfather at the end?’

Tom shrugged. ‘You know, it did come up, Mae. Your grandmother, whom you won’t remember really, used to say that my father,’ he paused, looked across at Kit, and their eyes met, ‘
our
father, lost a whole swathe of time. He came back from the war a couple of years after VE Day, and I don’t know where he’d been. No one did. My mother always said she wouldn’t ask him, she said if he wanted to tell us, he would. So we never asked.’