Love Falls (12 page)

‘OK.'

‘So.' May was counting, her eyes alight with organisation. ‘You, me and Piers, Lulu, Roland, Kip. That's six. Tabsy, will you come along?'

Tabitha threw a look at her husband. ‘I might come in for supper, but if you want to go on . . .' She yawned. ‘I'm usually finished by ten.'

‘Oh Tabs,' Roland said, ‘don't be a spoilsport. If you come, we'll have to take two cars.'

Tabitha's face fell. ‘Fine. It's all the same to me.' But not long after Lara noticed that she gathered herself up and as daintily as she could stumbled into the house.

 

 

They stopped at Caroline's on the way, their car sending out sparks of gravel as it skidded to a stop.

‘You're back!' Lambert was at the door, so pleased he put an arm out and gave Lara a hug. ‘I was beginning to wonder . . . how long can a wedding last?'

‘She's only come to change.' Roland strode forward. ‘We're all off for a night out.'

‘Oh.' Lambert seemed to droop a little and he let go of her arm.

‘It's Lulu's last night,' Lara explained. ‘We thought we'd go into Siena, eat pizza in the square and then go on to a club. There's a club apparently – the Purple Pussycat, behind the Duomo.'

For a moment Lambert brightened and then he understood that he was not being asked. He looked at the crowd of them, quiet suddenly under his penetrating stare. ‘I hope you have a good time.'

But couldn't we? Lara thought, couldn't we ask him? But nothing was up to her.

‘Hurry up!' Piers shouted from the car. ‘If you're going to get changed . . .' and without looking at Lambert again she ran upstairs.

Today, she realised, was the first time that they'd been parted since she'd arrived at his flat a week before, and as she tore through her clothes, hoping for something to materialise that wasn't actually there, she weighed up the idea of staying. She could curl up on one of the white sofas, listen to Lambert and Caroline swap slices of their past, but she knew she couldn't resist the lure of the night out, the thrill of driving through the early evening, of eating pizza in the dark.

Lara glanced out of the window and saw Kip, shuffling back and forth, his hands in his pockets, the nape of his neck dust-brown against the white collar of his shirt. Quickly she pulled on a pair of jeans, slipped her feet into high-heeled sandals, and with only the most cursory glance at her flushed face in the mirror flicked on a smudge of eye liner, bit her lips together for more blood, and ran.

The others had filed into the sitting room, were lounging against the furniture, restless, fidgeting, talking to Caroline as she sat, her feet on a stack of cushions, her legs wrapped in a mohair shawl so light it hardly touched her skin. Lambert stood to one side, his hands in his pockets, his head bent.

‘I'm ready,' Lara said, and as one they turned and bounded for the door.

‘Bye, Dad.' She leant up to him and felt the soft touch of his lips against her hair.

‘Bye.'

It was unfamiliar – being the one with something to dash off for, when for so long it had been him who was always too busy to stay. Usually within half an hour of meeting he was already restless to get back to work, and if not, then it was only because he had a drink, long overdue, with a publisher, or a meeting with a researcher who'd unearthed a document of such magnitude and significance it couldn't wait. Once he'd left her to attend a party at the French Embassy where the Ambassador was a particular admirer of his work, while she climbed down into the bowels of London to catch the underground to Finsbury Park.

‘Bye, I won't be late,' she said, knowing, as they both did, that she would, and even though he smiled encouragingly she could hardly bear to look out of the open back of the jeep as they sped away.

Siena at night was magical, the sandstone of the walls softened to honeycomb, the Piazza del Campo glittery with lights. Smartly dressed couples wandered arm in arm, their hair glossy, their clothes so perfect, so pressed and crisp they looked as if they must have an army of Italian mothers working at home just for this moment, to send them out into the evening with pride. There were tourists too, enthused by the rules of Italy, dressed in their best, sitting at tables, watching the young people saunter by while old men sat inside, drinking dark coffee and tall thin flutes of beer.

A waiter moved two tables together and pushed into place six chairs.

‘Can anyone speak Italian?' Lara asked.

Kip laughed. ‘More cheeps, more beer.'

‘I'm learning,' May said, and so they all pointed to their choice of pizza, while she read it out to the waiter, accompanied by the occasional cry from the others of ‘Don't forget, more cheeps, more beer.'

Lara sat facing the restaurant with her back to the square, her chair tilting very slightly, so that she had to lean forwards with her elbows on the table for support. Lulu, Roland and Kip sat opposite, leaning back, arms folded, making comments on the passers-by.

‘Bloody hell,' Roland gloated. ‘Look at that!' And in spite of herself Lara turned to stare.

The girl Roland was looking at had a large nose and narrow forehead, but she was dressed in a tight white T-shirt, nipped in at the waist, which showed every seam and contour of her bra, even the shape of the clasp that dug into her back. Beside her strutted a man in a cap-sleeved T-shirt and a chest that bulged like a bull.

‘You in the mood for a fight?' Piers laughed at him, and then as Roland began to flex his muscles May reared up as if she'd been stung.

‘Kip! If you want to play footsie, play it with someone else!'

‘I wasn't,' he mumbled. ‘Christ, I was just moving my legs.'

‘Lara?' May wasn't letting it go. ‘I think that was meant for you.' And she made a doe-eyed expression in Lara's direction.

‘Fuck off!' Kip threw a slice of bread at her, and then his leg really did brush against Lara's.

She froze, her eyes on the tablecloth, only looking up when it was safe again, and later, when she caught Kip's eye, amid the clatter of arriving food, she thought she saw the smallest smile of gratitude crease the corner of his mouth.

By the time they left the restaurant everyone was drunk. For a while they stood in the square and argued lazily over whether it mightn't be just as much fun to sit in the middle of the Campo and watch the people come and go.

‘No.' Both Lulu and May were insistent. ‘We can't miss the Purple Pussycat!' And with shouts of ‘Follow us,' they headed in the direction of the black-and-white spire.

The others ambled after them, down lanes and alleys, heaving themselves up hills and hurtling down again. Lara was the only one wearing high heels and her shoes kept catching and grating on the cobbles, small slices of colour shaving off along the way. After twenty minutes they found themselves once more in the square.

‘For God's sake.' Roland was sweating, his hair darkened almost to brown, but the others were doubled up with laughter.

‘Let's just stay here,' Kip suggested, but May began accosting people.

‘
Per favore
.' She smiled her sweetest smile. ‘
Dov'è il Purple Pussycat
?'

Mostly she was met with blank stares and shrugs of the shoulder, but then a man in a checked jacket and aubergine-shined shoes stopped to explain, and seeing them all looking so idiotically hopeful, he beckoned for them to follow.

They would never have found it without him. The Purple Pussycat was behind an arched door, sunk into the wall, with only the smallest strip of neon to show that it was there.

‘
Molto, molto genitale
.' May clasped his hands, and the man shrank back from her and dashed away.

‘Oh my God!' May's face flooded with mortification. ‘I meant to say thank you, you are most kind . . .
molto gentile
, but instead I think I said he had large genitals!'

They all fell against the wall, snorting and choking, coughing and screeching as if their lungs might burst and then Piers wheezed out, ‘I told you it was dangerous to learn Italian.'

‘I thought he looked a bit shocked.' Roland staggered up. ‘Anyway, we'd better go in, or he'll realise his mistake and come back to show you whether or not you were right.'

Still laughing, they pushed open the door and stumbled down the red-carpeted stairs to a small vestibule where, for millions of lire, they were admitted into the club. The whole place was padded in velvet, floor, walls, stools, even the bar, the underside of it lined with material, soft and grimy to the touch. Behind the bar there were tubes and swirls of purple light, just enough to see the long array of drinks by, but the rest of the club was in almost total darkness, the outlines of the tables just visible, a little rectangle of dance floor lit up by spotlights planted in the ground.

Roland took Lulu's arm. ‘Dance with me!' he crooned, and looking back over her shoulder at Kip, she shrugged and sashayed away towards the far end of the club, where very soon they could be seen, their dark and perfect silhouettes thrashing about to the slow music.

May disappeared to the loo, Piers offered to buy drinks, and Kip and Lara were left alone.

‘Shall we sit here?' Lara suggested, and she slid along a velvet bench so that there was room for him. For a moment they sat in silence and then Lara noticed they were wearing the same clothes. ‘Look,' she said, ‘we're twins.'

Kip looked down at himself, and then at Lara, at her denim legs and up over her white-shirted body and then slowly to her face. She got the full dazzle of his attention then, the dark round of his pupils, the sphere of blue, and the lashes, long as a girl's, as long as hers, glinting against his skin, tanned only lightly, the stamp of luxury, knowing there was the whole summer ahead.

‘Just give me one of your shoes,' he said, ‘and we'll be impossible to tell apart,' and he moved his leg against hers and touched her foot.

A spark shot through her. ‘No,' she laughed, ‘you'll wreck it,' but all the same, his foot began to prise away her shoe. ‘No.'

She was wrestling with him, her leg almost entwining his, and then his arm was across her, pressing her down against the seat. They were panting, their faces close, his lips seconds from her ear. She could smell his breath, still fresh through the sweet smell of the beer.

‘Stop scrapping, you two.' It was Piers, slamming the drinks down on the table, small clear glasses of liqueur, ‘or they'll check and find you're under-age.'

They pulled away, too quickly, Kip's elbow almost knocking over a glass.

‘I'm eighteen,' he hissed, ‘so shut the fuck up.'

Lara chose a drink. ‘What is this?' She took a gulp. The white hot liquid scorched her throat.

‘Grappa,' Piers said. ‘Go easy.'

And although her lips were numb and her eyes were stinging, she was fuelled with a new courage and she slid her hand across the inches of the seat between them and pressed it against Kip's. There was a dangerous chasm of lost time when she felt nothing, and then his fingers crept over hers and very gently squeezed them. Her heart soared. Her mouth swept up into a smile and, if it had been anyone but Piers sitting opposite, they would have asked what on earth was going on. They sat like that, not looking at each other, their fingers red hot, passing messages, a whole coded conversation, back and forth between them.

‘Budge up, you two.' It was Roland, a sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead. And then May appeared from the ladies, her hair newly brushed, her eyes glittering with fresh make-up. Lara inched closer to Kip, hiding their hands with her body.

‘I need a seat.' Lulu was rumpled and glowing from her dance and the splash of water she must have thrown over her face. ‘Make space!' and she squeezed herself in between them.

Lara couldn't even see Kip now. Just the shadow of him over Lulu's shoulder. Instead she sipped her grappa, keeping the heat in her alive, half following the conversation, which was never about anything she knew, until eventually it turned from talk to rambling and even Roland admitted they were in danger of losing consciousness in the over-padded cell of the room.

It was worth having spent an hour or two inside the Purple Pussycat just to emerge again into the night. It was a miracle – so jagged and cool, the stars as they walked through the darkened town like a spray of glitter across black.

‘This way, children.' Roland herded them, gentle suddenly as a grown-up, and Lara's shoes clacked and slipped as she hurried to keep up. ‘Come on, you,' he called over his shoulder.

They were walking up a hill, a sloping narrow lane between tall houses, when Lara heard music. Cellos and violins, the low hoots of a flute. She looked up. The sound was coming from a building on her left. There was a high arched door, and above the door, a sign:
Accademia Musicale
.

‘Listen.' She breathed in, but when she looked round the others were racing on. She could see them disappearing round a bend. All the same Lara couldn't move, the music was so beautiful in the silence. She walked forward into the doorway and let the music wash over her as the conductor must have raised his arms, stuck out his chest and urged the mass of musicians to swell the music out. She opened her own arms, floated back her head.