Love Falls (20 page)

 

 

Kip didn't appear until the middle of the afternoon, by which time Isabelle had gone and Caroline was taking a siesta.

‘Come in,' Lambert called as Kip and Lara whispered in the hall, and so together they sidled into the room and stood uncomfortably against a wall.

‘So, how are you?' Lambert asked him.

Kip paused as if giving the question real thought. ‘I'm very well.'

‘I haven't seen her for rather a long time. But how's your mother?'

Kip gazed at his shoes, which were worn and scuffed, but still managed to look expensive. ‘She's all right,' he said.

‘When you see her,' Lambert smiled, ‘do send my regards.'

Kip nodded slowly. ‘OK. But I'd better not say I saw you here.'

Lambert raised his eyebrows.

‘She's not meant to know.' He looked behind him. ‘About this place.'

‘I see,' Lambert said, and then he and Kip looked at each other and, man to man, they smiled.

Lara tapped her foot. She wanted, more than anything, to be gone.

‘So.' Lambert was still looking at him as he lounged against the wall. ‘What next? You've finished school, I hear?'

‘He's going to Kenya,' Lara interjected. She had to show she knew about his plans. That he was hers.

Lambert widened his eyes. I see, he seemed to say, I see, and Lara swore not to say another word.

‘Yes. I'm going to work somewhere, with horses, on a farm.'

Lambert was nodding, as if weighing up whether or not he approved. ‘Why not?' he said eventually. ‘Are you interested in farming?'

‘No.' Kip frowned.

‘In horses?'

‘Not really.' Their eyes met again and they both smiled.

‘I like him,' Kip said once they were outside, and Lara took his hand. The feel of it was warm and smooth and – it made her heart skip to realise it – already familiar.

‘Do you know him?' It was only really occurring to her now. ‘I mean, my father. Have you seen him much before?'

Kip thought. ‘Yes. Well, I used to see him when I was much younger. He used to visit before I went away to school.'

‘When was that?'

‘Seven.'

Lara turned to him and caught him before he had time to smile. ‘That's so young,' she said, imagining herself at seven still pressed against her mother's sleeping body, the cotton of her nightdress, the secret smell of her hair.

‘Yes, but if you don't go to prep school, then you can't get into Eton.'

‘And you have to get into Eton?'

‘So it seems.'

‘What a horrible, disgusting rule.'

‘It wasn't that bad. Well, not after the first term of crying yourself to sleep.'

‘No!'

‘Of course not. Only a few hopeless bed-wetters were still crying by Christmas.'

Lara looked at the drive. ‘Where's the car?' but he led her towards the road.

‘I walked.' He pulled her with him. ‘Along the sexy path.' And she had to run to catch up.

‘Is that the path with all the . . . statues?'

‘No!' Kip said. ‘That's perverted. ‘That's Papa's creepy idea of a joke. This path is actually . . .' He was laughing now. ‘It actually is sexy.'

As soon as they were in the secret overgrown thicket of the wood, Kip grabbed her and pushed her up against a tree. ‘See!'

Bark scraped through the material of her dress and a stray shoot of a twig spiked her in the calf. ‘Ouch,' she screamed. ‘Christ. Get off!'

‘I'm sorry.' He let her go and stood, his hand over his mouth, watching as she rubbed her sore skin. ‘Are you all right?' he asked then and she softened at the sight of his embarrassment.

‘I'm fine.' She put her hand out to him and pulled him back against the tree, the twig nothing but a nuisance now, and held him tight against her as they kissed. Their kissing was official now, their eyes open, their hands free to explore.

‘I always wanted something to happen in this wood.'

‘So nothing to do with me?' Lara ran a hand up under his shirt.

‘Well,' he laughed. ‘I have to admit it does help that you're here.'

Lara pressed against him, feeling his stiffness quiver against her, the sweet kernel of heat rising inside, the hunger and the longing and the safety of this public path.

‘Will you stay tonight?' he whispered breathless in her ear.

‘I can't,' she whispered back. It was what Caroline wanted – for her to come home the next morning, her clothes bedraggled, her mascara running down her cheeks.

‘No,' she said. ‘I can't. I really can't.'

‘Go on.' Kip nuzzled her ear. ‘Please.'

‘I can't.' She could see the porch light burning itself out. ‘Maybe . . . tomorrow?'

‘Tomorrow we're going to the waterfall. With everyone. Even Papa, even Pamela. But you could come over later.'

‘Yes.'

Promise?' He looked into her eyes and when she said yes he squashed her almost breathless.

This, she thought, is the happiest day of my life, and she felt her whole body burning up with longing. I promise. She was promising herself, and they walked on, arm in arm, turning sideways to avoid having to separate when the path became too narrow. They squeezed under low branches, scraped past brambles and then sidestepped through the field of soft-leafed maize.

‘Look.' Kip climbed on to a low wall and when she scrambled up she could see the field beyond, full of sunflowers, their faces, every one of them, turned their way.

They stood there for a while looking across the fields and up at the wooded hills on either side. Beyond them a jet of water was spraying out of a pump and as they watched it caught the sun and turned into a kaleidoscope of colours. They walked on until the house came into view. The red of its roofs clustered together, the old grey stone of its steps and streets, and above it, on the hill beyond, glinting white, the little chapel with its bell that tolled the hour.

‘We should climb up there,' Lara said, remembering the statue that she'd never reached.

But Kip ran his fingers through his hair and yawned. ‘Too lazy,' he said, and, giving her one last quick kiss, he moved away before she could return it.

 

 

At supper Andrew Willoughby was talking about the Queen. ‘She's not entirely unattractive,' he told the young end of the table, ‘and actually quite funny.' He'd been presented to her at a parliamentary function and had floundered around for something to say.

‘Can I seek your advice, ma'am,' he said. ‘I've been asked to a Right Honourables lunch and I don't know how to refuse.'

‘You can't refuse,' she said. ‘It's not an invitation, it's a command.'

‘So how can I get out of it?' Andrew had lowered his voice.

‘Feverish cold in the morning.' She spoke very quickly and moved on to greet another guest.

Antonia told a story about a party at an embassy. The Queen and Prince Charles were expected and, when they arrived, the guests all had to line up on either side of the room.

‘We got the Queen's side, and when she reached Papa he said, “Antonia, do you know the Queen?”

‘ “No,” I said, “I don't think I do,” and then I couldn't help it, I just got the most terrible fit of the giggles. “I don't think I do.” ' She said it again, and the whole table laughed uproariously.

Lara, not having any kind of royal story in her repertoire, kept as quiet as she could.

 

 

Lara woke from a dream where someone had placed a square of chocolate inside her – had set it delicately into the hollow entrance of her womb where it had sat undisturbed for many weeks. You said you weren't a virgin, Kip had accused her, and she realised she'd forgotten to meet and greet her Iris. Had forgotten she had one at all.

‘Yes,' she woke herself with shouting, and she realised someone was knocking on the door. ‘Come in.' She sat up in bed and she remembered with a flood of relief that she had switched off the porch light.

‘Good morning.' It was Lambert. ‘You'd better get up. They're coming for us at ten.'

‘OK.' She pushed back the covers and it was only when he'd gone she realised she had no idea what he meant.

‘The Willoughbys,' Lambert explained once she was downstairs. ‘They've invited us out to the waterfall. The Love Falls. Everyone's going. I thought you'd like to.'

‘Yes.' She looked at him, the bright-blue Speedo trunks flying up into her mind. ‘But you don't have to come, if you don't  . . .'

He withdrew very slightly from her. ‘I thought I would,' he said, and silently he poured them both a cup of pale tea.

 

 

Andrew's car was the first to arrive at half-past ten. Andrew at the wheel, Pamela beside him, and the twins' mother, Elizabeth Butler, arrived from London, in an orange hat and matching amber beads, resplendent in the back. Lara hovered by the door.

‘Hup hup,' Andrew called to her. ‘Jump in. We have to catch up with the others,' and obeying orders she slid in beside Elizabeth's oiled and scented body moments before the car sped off.

Lambert was on the other side, just visible behind the wide brim of the orange hat, and when she got a chance, Lara leant forward and smiled at him, grateful that he had come after all, and as if he understood, he smiled back.

Andrew Willoughby drove fast, as fast as Roland, but without the overt desire to shock or kill. Lara leant against the window, her face into the wind, and let the rush of air and sunshine stream over her, dancing patterns of light across her skin, filling her nose and mouth and ears.

The others were already there when they arrived, a small kingdom marked out with towels and blankets, bottles of water, bowls of fruit, cigarettes, magazines and lighters. Groups had already formed, the twins hunched over on their towels, Tabitha, May and Piers laid out in a row, chatting, sharing a cigarette, and Antonia, her black swimsuit stretched over her strong body, challenging Roland and Kip to feats of wrestling, throwing first one and then the other into the pool. And there was Allegra, looking up through a cascade of hair, and a boy calling to her from the water. He was shouting and thrashing and then, as if riding the crest of a wave, he rose up out of the pool and was tossed aside and Lara saw that it was Hugh and Isabelle's son, Hamish, and he'd been sitting on his father's head.

‘Hugh!' Andrew called. ‘Good man,' and Lara felt her father stiffen as Isabelle, in a white dress, looked up from her seat on the rock above.

‘How very nice to see you.' He stepped up to her as she stepped down, and there was the faintest question mark in Lambert's smile.

Lara didn't meet Kip's eye. She spread out her towel on the rock and watched him fooling around, hurling himself into the water, diving, splashing and teasing, his head sleek as a seal. Self-conscious, she slipped out of her clothes, embarrassed to think he might be watching her, afraid that he might not, but when she looked up he was climbing the rock steps with his sister, her hand clutching his wrist.

‘So how are you today?' Piers asked her as she tore her eyes away.

‘I'm very well,' she said, and then forcing herself to be polite, ‘And you?'

‘Very good.'

There was a pause and so to stop herself from watching she turned her full attention on him. ‘So . . . um . . .' What could she ask him? ‘So . . . how did you and May meet?'

He looked at her as if he didn't quite see what she meant. ‘Well . . . May . . . well, I don't know.' He thought for a while. No. He shook his head, irritated. ‘She's always been around.'

Lara was stunned. How could he not remember the day they'd met? But then she saw what Piers was telling her – May was a member of his club. She'd always been around, just like Isabelle's daughter was around now. She looked up and caught Allegra gazing at the top pool, pushing back her hair just in time to smile as Kip came hurtling down.

Lara turned to Piers, but he had his back to her now and was leaning over May's shoulder looking at her magazine.

‘She's had them done, you can tell.' Tabitha was staring at the protruding breasts of a star. ‘And that nose wasn't like that even last month, I swear.'

May flipped over the page but Piers caught her hand and turned it back. ‘Hmm. Not bad.' He perused it – its button end, its perfect slope. ‘But not as good as yours.'

‘Shut up!' May ripped the page in her effort to turn it, and Tabitha glanced over and caught Lara's eye.

‘She used to have a bit of a conk,' she mouthed dramatically. ‘Poor girl, looked as if she were up for a part as Shylock.'