Love Falls (8 page)

‘And Piers, her fiancé.’

Piers, sitting on Lara’s other side, took her hand and shook it as if he were on best behaviour, was showing his future father-in-law just what a good upstanding citizen he was.

‘And of course, my son, Kip. Kip!’

But Kip ignored them. He was stretching across Lulu for the breadsticks, which he managed to knock over as he prised one out. ‘Sorry,’ he said, and his hand brushed against her cleavage, displayed to its best advantage in an off-the-shoulder top.

‘Fuck off.’ Lulu swiped away his hand indulgently. ‘Or when supper’s over I’ll find you, and I mean it’ – she was grinning – ‘I’ll sit on your face.’

‘So, Lara Gold.’ Andrew had turned back to her. ‘Tell us about yourself.’

‘I . . . um.’ Lara felt herself blushing. ‘I’m Lara Riley actually. I got my mother’s name.’

‘Are you the O’Riley they speak of so highly?’ Andrew leant in towards her:

Are you the O’Riley of whom I’ve heard tell?

Well, if you’re the O’Riley they speak of so highly

Cor Blimey, O’Riley, you are looking well!

Andrew finished with a flourish and just then someone kicked Lara under the table.

‘Sorry.’ Kip looked up with genuine concern, his eyes meeting hers, his face growing serious for a second.

‘It’s all right.’ Lara tried to smile, but something in his look made her feel as if she’d been hit. She put a hand up to her chest. She could hardly breathe. It was as if all the wheels on a fruit machine had come to a sudden stop. ‘I um  . . .’

‘Don’t be shy,’ Andrew was demanding. ‘Tell us something we don’t know.’

‘How old are you?’ May offered helpfully.

Lara turned away from Kip. ‘Seventeen.’

‘And what are you going to do when you grow up?’ Andrew’s eyes were twinkling, and feeling sure it was a trick question, she racked her brains for something witty and urbane.

Finding nothing, she fell back on the truth. ‘I’d like to work in the same area as my mother . . .’ She hesitated, but seeing they wanted more she carried on. ‘She works with adult literacy students, people who never got a chance in life, you know, to basically learn to read and write, and with the support of the local council my mum set up a writing group for women who arrive in Britain with no skills. Last year they produced a book . . .’

She’d forgotten to be self-conscious and was really trying to let him know, let the whole table know, how truly amazing it was. To see these women, who not so long before could hardly read and write, search through the index of a book and find their names. ‘The book is full of poems and stories about their lives, where they came from, the things they’ve suffered, the terrible things they’ve seen, and it’s on sale in the local bookshop and so far sixty-five copies have been sold.’

She finished speaking and looked around, at Piers who had blushed a mulberry red, at May who was making some kind of sculpture from her napkin and at Kip who was crumbling up his breadstick, making an anthill from the crumbs. Lulu had pushed her chair out from the table and was mouthing some information to another girl further down.

Only Andrew Willoughby was looking at her. ‘So we have a guest in our midst with a social conscience,’ he said. ‘What are you doing for your A levels, or have you given up on this elitist system of education?’

‘No, I mean . . . English and history and –’

‘History . . .? I see. Always a sign of danger.’ He looked along the table at Lambert. ‘So we’ve got a little Bolshevik in the making, have we? You’d better watch out’ – he turned to the others – ‘watch out she doesn’t infiltrate with her ideas.’

Just then a ruddy-faced, blond-haired man squeezed in next to Lulu. ‘Too boring down that end,’ he said. ‘What’s all the excitement up here?’

‘A communist,’ Andrew told him. ‘A communist with blue eyes and a sunburnt nose. The most dangerous kind. Be warned.’

‘Roland.’

The blond man put out his hand and when Lara took it, protesting that she wasn’t a communist, he slipped his thumb against her palm and stroked it. Startled, she pulled back. He laughed and Kip, presumably aware of the trick, laughed too.

To Lara’s relief Andrew turned his attention to Lulu, to a film she’d been cast in, and Andrew began teasing her about a sex scene she would have to do. ‘But I haven’t given my written permission,’ he said. ‘How dare these Yanks come and take advantage of our most beautiful girls!’

‘Sorry to disappoint you,’ Lulu said. ‘One, you’re not my father and two, I’m not doing any sex scenes. There’s just a snog.’

‘Not true,’ Andrew insisted, but Lara didn’t know which piece of information he was refuting.

The food came then, and there was an excuse for her to duck out of the conversation as she tried to find a way of pulling apart her prawns, peeling back the slippery shell, scraping off the soft slush of the eggs.

Occasionally she looked up and whenever she did she found Roland’s eyes on her. ‘Like this,’ he said, ‘Comrade Lara,’ and he sucked at the belly of a prawn, made a slurping noise with his tongue, and winked.

During the main course, Roland described a waterfall he had heard about, ‘
La cascata dell’amore
– the Love Falls.’ It had a pool below it into which you could jump. ‘It’ll only be fun if we all go,’ he said expansively. ‘Except my fat wife, of course. She can stay behind,’ and although Lara took an audible intake of breath, and looked round for some response, the insult was ignored and it wasn’t until later in the evening when a tall woman, heavily pregnant, came up behind him and began whispering in his ear that Lara understood this had been meant as a joke.

People began to drift around, swapping places, squeezing on to others’ chairs. Andrew stood and stretched, and visibly giving up on the young crowd moved down to the far end of the table, where immediately great gales of laughter rose up as if he were relaying some anecdote he’d been saving just for them. Lara felt the atmosphere at their end of the table lighten and for the first time, in a tone of genuine conversation, May turned and asked her where she lived.

‘Finsbury Park,’ she said.

‘Where the Rainbow is?’ She’d caught Kip’s attention, and they all looked at her, mystified, impressed, as stunned as if she’d said she lived on Mars.

‘Have you seen any bands there?’ Kip asked.

‘I saw Peter Tosh once.’ She didn’t mention she’d gone with her mother. ‘And you?’

‘I was thinking about it,’ he said. ‘I wanted to see Peter Tosh but I was away at school.’

‘He was good,’ Lara said, remembering the reggae star’s tall dark dancing frame, and it gave her confidence, the way Kip looked at her. ‘So, have you got other brothers and sisters?’ She wanted to hand the conversation back to them. ‘Or are you all here?’

‘Sisters,’ May corrected, and she explained that apart from Kip there were only sisters. Tabitha, the pregnant woman, and another, older girl, Antonia, who had a place among the grown-ups. ‘Then there’s Katherine who’s in America and Fifi who’s . . . not well.’

‘And then, finally, me.’ Kip looked up.

‘Yes, you.’ May poked him. ‘Our poor mother. Papa was never going to let her stop breeding until there was someone to inherit.’

‘And is she . . .?’ Lara remembered too late her father’s assurance that the mother of all these girls, the mother of Kip, so disconcertingly handsome she could hardly trust herself to look, was unlikely to be here.

‘Shhhh.’ May had hold of her arm. ‘She’s never been here. Papa won’t let her come. And if you see her, whatever you do, never mention Pamela.’

‘Of course,’ Lara agreed blindly, and she nodded her head as if it was likely she’d see Lady Willoughby any time soon.

Later, while the grown-ups and the older girls sat around drinking small shots of grappa with their coffee, Lara sat with May, Piers, Lulu and Kip along the edge of the swimming pool, their feet in the water, drinking cold beer, smoking Marlboro, flicking ash from their cigarettes into the roses behind.

Lulu talked. She looked even more beautiful, if that were possible, than she had in her bikini. Her low-cut top showed up the flawless beauty of her skin, her chest and neck so smoothly gold it looked as if she had sat with a copper plate in her lap to reflect the sun. Her arms hung cool and luscious and her legs, bare from the knee down, were golden too. She talked and the others listened, aware that next year she would be gone. She was only an honorary teenager, just gracing them with her company, playing with the small fry before she jumped. She told them about Los Angeles, about the actors she’d met, about the film she had a part in, about the classes she’d taken and what had been said about her talent. Occasionally she brushed her hand against Kip’s leg as she stretched and flexed her body and Lara noticed with surprise that he didn’t take any of the opportunities she gave him to respond.

Lara sat on his other side. She could feel the tension of his shoulder, the heat of his leg. Once, when Lulu momentarily leant against him, he turned and caught Lara looking, and she had to cough to cover the sound of her nervous gulp.

‘So Kip’ – Piers sounded earnest – ‘what are you going to do now you’re set to fail so spectacularly in your A levels?’

Kip shifted uneasily. ‘Same as I was going to do before. Nothing.’ And he raised his eyebrows and smiled.

‘What about your guitar?’ May coaxed him. ‘If you keep practising?’

‘And what about you? What are you planning to do?’ he said accusingly.

‘I’m getting married, you know that.’ She looked quickly at Piers. ‘There’s lots to arrange.’

‘Well, maybe I’ll do that too’ – he shrugged – ‘get married.’

Just as Lara was about to cough again, someone crept up from behind and pushed her into the pool. She flew in sideways, awkward, her mouth open in a scream, so that with a throat full of water she plunged down towards the bottom, and she couldn’t somehow find the strength to propel herself back up. She was choking, struggling, and then as if a tide was turning, she started to rise back up.

‘You bastard,’ she spluttered when she finally surfaced, looking along the row of grinning faces. ‘You bastard!’

She settled on Roland, who had squeezed in between Lulu and Kip and was grinning at her even more widely than the others. She threw the stub end of her cigarette at him, the one she was still holding, and then seeing she wasn’t expected to be angry she tried to smile as she swam to the side. She climbed out and with her back to them she began to wring out her wet clothes.

‘I’m soaking,’ she moaned, to give herself more time, and she began to twist the water out of her shirt, which had become transparent, sticking to her body, outlining her breasts, clinging to the dark points of her nipples.

She stood there, mortified, refusing to give Roland the pleasure of seeing her turn round, until eventually May took pity and brought over a towel.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked, and seeing that she was shivering she offered to lend her some dry clothes.

‘Thank you.’ Lara tried to keep the tremble from her voice, and with the towel held around her she followed May into the house.

‘Why did he do that?’ she asked pointlessly, and May laughed.

‘Oh, he’s always like that. Don’t take it personally. It’s nothing to do with you.’

They padded with wet feet along a path lined with lavender and then up a flight of old stone steps.

‘This building used to be home to a family of sixteen,’ she said, and they stepped into a high-ceilinged room with several doors leading off it. May opened one on to a room filled almost entirely with a high wooden bed. ‘This is where I sleep.’

There were two dark-wood cupboards bulging with clothes, drawers and hangers dense with clean, ironed cotton. May tugged at a lower drawer which sagged almost to the floor, and after rifling through she found a pale-blue vest and a pair of shorts. Gratefully Lara pulled them on, kicking off her wet things, rearranging the towel round her shoulders for warmth.

‘Right,’ May said, and led her out along a narrow corridor, past a bathroom into which she slung her wet clothes, down several steps until they passed the half-open door of another bedroom. There were plates and books strewn across the floor, clothes and magazines and torn packets of Marlboro jumbled on the bed. ‘Actually, hang on,’ and running in, May pulled an ash-grey jumper off the bed. ‘Kip won’t mind,’ and she hurled it to Lara.

It was soft as satin and crumpled, but the creases fell out when she put it on. Lara folded the sleeves over and watched it fall against her thighs.

‘Thanks,’ she said, but when she looked up May was watching her. ‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ It was as if she was shaking out some thought. ‘You just reminded me of someone,’ and frowning May flung the towel into another bathroom as she led Lara out of the house.

The party by the pool had broken up and everyone along the candlelit table had changed places again. A plate of chocolates was being passed around, and Kip, who was sitting in his father’s old place, legs draped over the edge of the table, grabbed at it, taking as many as he could before it was passed on.

‘I’m so sorry.’ Roland’s wife Tabitha sat down beside her. ‘I hear my dreadful husband’s been up to his old tricks again. Anyway’ – she smiled sweetly – ‘you look ravishing in that outfit. Rollo,’ she called, ‘you’re an absolute disgrace.’