The Lie of Love (18 page)

‘Ethan Reeves seemed rather
attentive the other night.’ Amanda gave an impish look from over the top of her
cup.

‘At the show?’
Darcy asked, relieved that Amanda seemed to be way off the mark. She gave a
nervous laugh. ‘I don’t think so; he’s like that with all the ladies.’

‘So he’s not your mystery man?’

Darcy frowned, which set Amanda
laughing.

‘Sorry. I simply love to see your
face.’

‘How would you like a punch in
yours?’

‘Most
unladylike.
  I hope your mystery man has a black belt in karate; he
obviously needs to defend himself against you, you violent harpy.’

Darcy couldn’t help but laugh
properly now, relaxing a little.

‘Only…’ Amanda began again in a
teasing voice, ‘I do believe Harry Simmons has developed a bit of a crush on
you too.’

Darcy’s laughter died. Did Amanda
really know? Was she playing some elaborate game? ‘He was all about Rachel the
other night. They looked happy as pigs in mud together.’

‘He was there with Rachel but he
was looking at you.
A lot.
And in a
very appreciative way.
And you know what they say about young boys and
older women…’

‘That’s rubbish,’ Darcy snapped.

‘All I’m saying is take care,
darling. You know not what power you possess in your delectable female form.’

‘Amanda…’ Darcy replied, trying,
but failing, to give a careless smile, ‘I think you were a bit too drunk to
remember who was looking at
who
. In fact, I think you
were a bit too drunk to remember much about the night at all.’

Amanda shrugged. ‘So you say. But
perhaps I was only pretending.’

‘Julia said he had been seeing
Rachel for ages.’

Amanda twisted her head around to
where the girl in question was cleaning the glass panels at the back of the
counter, and then looked back at Darcy. ‘When I spoke to Rachel before you
arrived she told me Harry hadn’t been in since that night and he hasn’t called
her. She also says that they haven’t been dating, contrary to what Julia may
believe… Or what Harry would have her believe.’

‘Really?’
Darcy said, cursing herself for not being at the café before Amanda and for not
being a better actress. The way Amanda looked at her was like she could see the
very shape of her lies as she formed them.  ‘That’s strange. He seemed so
keen.’

‘Not so,
apparently.
And I’ll tell you something else… Rachel seemed very, very
upset about it all. She says he isn’t the nice boy he makes out to everyone he
is.’

Darcy paused. She angled her head
at the folder sitting at Amanda’s right elbow. ‘Did you want to go through the
campaign figures?’

‘We can,’
Amanda said, obviously reluctant to change what she considered a very juicy
subject, ‘If you want to be terribly dull.’

‘I spoke to
Asda
too, and they said they would put Sophie forward for one of their community
causes, designate a box for people to put their tokens in. If she wins the
month they’ll make a good donation.’

‘Fabulous,’
Amanda replied. But she didn’t really look interested at all.

Autumn leaves had not yet started to fall but already Darcy
felt the chill of that season creeping over her. The last weeks of August had
been a frenzy of fundraising, interspersed with stolen moments of passion in
whatever bed or isolated spot she and Harry could get access to. The task of
finding these places had become something that had consumed Darcy almost as
much as Sophie’s Steps. The fact was she knew the end was near, and that end
would not be decided by either of them, as before, but by the demands of life
itself. Harry was due back at university in Bath
and had been called by friends to go early and sort out his new accommodation.
Darcy was needed increasingly at home to not only take care of the family, as
she had always done, but now to organise major surgery halfway across the world
for her daughter along with all the travel, accommodation, visas and paperwork,
equipment and aftercare that would entail.  She had had no idea there
would be so much work involved in simply setting a date for the operation and
turning up for it.

Amanda had
been pushing too, determined that they would meet their target before the
year’s end as they had discussed. Darcy was ever doubtful, but as she watched
the totals steadily climb, with some marvel she began to harbour that secret
seed of hope that they might just make it.

Harry flipped himself, naked, from the bed in the tiny
caravan, and padded across the room for a bottle of water on a shelf. Taking a
swig, he grinned at Darcy as she lay with a tangled sheet across her. They had
been desperate, ever more reckless, and their meetings had been getting closer
and closer to home. Right now, they were in a caravan in West
Bay that one of Harry’s friend’s
parents owned. Harry had reassured Darcy that he hadn’t divulged to his friend
the reason he needed it, and why he only needed it for one day, but Darcy
couldn’t be sure he was being entirely truthful about that. Despite her doubts,
she had agreed to come, the urge to see him too strong.

‘You want some water?’ he asked.

Darcy shook her head. ‘I’m fine.
It would mean sitting up and I really can’t be bothered.’

Harry laughed and vaulted himself
back onto the bed again, leaning across her and kissing her nose.  He
pulled back and stared at her.

‘What?’ Darcy asked with a frown.

‘I’m studying you carefully. I
want to remember you like this for always.’

Darcy was suddenly overwhelmed by
a wave of emotion, feelings that she couldn’t allow herself the luxury of. She
tried to think of something witty in reply, something to break the tenderness
of the moment, but she couldn’t. She let out a sigh and tears sprang to her
eyes.

‘Hey…’ Harry kissed her again. ‘I
didn’t mean to make you cry.’

‘You didn’t make me cry. It’s
this
…’

‘The caravan?’

‘Our situation.
It doesn’t seem fair that so much is against us having a future of any kind.’

‘We don’t have to think about
that now,’ Harry said gently. ‘We have to grab every moment as it flits by and
kiss it…’ he leaned into her, pressing his mouth over hers. ‘Just like
that…’  Shifting his hips, he moved onto her. She felt him stir and harden
as his kisses grew deeper.

‘Again?’
Darcy broke off with a watery smile. Harry gazed down at her and then rolled
off.

‘Maybe not
now.’
He gathered her into his arms and she snuggled against him. ‘Not
while you’re unhappy.’

‘I’m not unhappy.
Just frustrated with everything.
How is it so wrong for us
to be together when it feels so right?’

‘If it feels right then surely it
is right?’

‘That’s youth talking. It’s easy
to see things that way when you have no responsibilities and your whole future is
still laid out before you like a blank page.’

‘I have my mum and dad; I have
you to worry about too.’

‘You worry about me?
Since when?’

‘I don’t want us to get caught
because of what it would do to you, but it’s hard to hide this stuff when my
mum gets all Miss
Marple
on my ass.’

Darcy couldn’t help a small
laugh.

‘That’s better,’ Harry said,
pulling her closer. ‘I like to hear you laugh.’

They were silent for a time, each
lost in their own thoughts as the shadows moved imperceptibly across the room marking
the slow passing of the day. Slow it might be for anyone else, but for Darcy it
was all too fast. 

‘I don’t think we’ll ever see
each other again, will we?’ she asked finally. ‘At least, not like this.’

‘I don’t know. It’s been good,
hasn’t it?’

‘It’s been good.’ The word
love
kept intruding into Darcy’s thoughts. But saying it would break her heart so
she kept it deep inside.

‘I’ll text you,’ he said.

‘Better not. It might get awkward
when you’re at
uni
and there are lots of people
around you to notice.’

‘Will you text me?’

‘No. I don’t think that would be
a good idea either.’

Silence again.

‘But we’ve been
texting
all this time,’ he insisted.

‘That was different. There’s no
point after today, is there?’

‘I could see you when I come home
again.’

‘When you come home?’

‘Christmas is when I’m back
next.’

‘Christmas is busy when you have
kids.’

‘Right….’

Their final moments saw them
quiet again. Darcy shivered slightly. He untwisted the sheet and pulled it over
her before kissing her again.

‘We should get dressed,’ she said
finally.

‘Yeah,’ Harry agreed.

A few
minutes later, Harry was locking the caravan door. Darcy watched him from the
car a few metres away. He shot a final look at her, a faint smile, and then walked
in the opposite direction for his own car.

Autumn was harder than Darcy had ever imagined. Not only
physically, with the demands from Sophie’s Steps increasing as the campaign
kicked up a gear in an attempt to meet their deadline, but because she was utterly
bereft.  The times when she was absorbed in Sophie’s Steps, or when she
was busy playing house, were actually the times when it was easiest to cope
with her loss. After the first couple of weeks, where ignoring Harry’s texts
was torture, they lessened until he became silent. But that was when Darcy, who
had vowed not to dwell on it and get on with her life, as he would be, did just
that.  Solitary moments would see her obsessing over what he was doing,
who he was meeting, whether he had slept with anyone else since his
departure.  She hung on Julia’s every word whenever they met, eager for a
crumb of news, but Julia was only interested in the practicalities of his every
day domestic arrangements and that was no use at all to Darcy, starved of emotional
fulfilment.  And even as the fundraising steamrollered towards its target,
Julia’s involvement became less too. She could see that they were nearly there,
and she had other demands on her time. Darcy didn’t mind that, but as the only
link to Harry, she almost craved the company of the woman guilt had once driven
her to avoid.

As things settled back into a
routine of sorts at home, Amanda’s suspicions were forgotten too. Darcy was
always where she was supposed to be, answered her phone promptly,
arrived
for meetings looking like the light had gone out in
her eyes. Amanda seemed satisfied with this return to normality. So, for that
matter, did
Ged
.

There had been one blazing row
shortly after Harry had left,
Ged
checking their joint bank account and seeing a series of withdrawals Darcy had
made.
Ged
had thrown every
accusation at Darcy over the missing money except the right one. To Darcy, this
spoke volumes about the way he perceived her. In his eyes she was worthless,
unattractive,
undesirable
. She was a household expense
like the gas bill or the TV licence. Who would want her?  In the end, he
had been content with the story that the money had gone on fundraising
expenses, though she could see that he inwardly fumed.  Guilt ridden, she
had vowed to somehow put the money back. That was when the idea to get a job
had come about, something that seemed to perk
Ged
up no end.  After Sophie had her money, she
told him, she would get some work, and he readily agreed.

Their
current state, heading towards Christmas, was a cold, absurdly courteous truce.
They communicated, but nothing of any meaning was ever really said, and the gap
between them in bed as they slept was a gulf of thinly veiled despair.

Darcy was making mulled wine when the phone lying on the
kitchen worktop a few feet away buzzed a call.  She dried her hands and
rushed to answer it. Seeing the caller display show Amanda, she relaxed. 
She never expected it to be anyone else, but somehow the disappointment that it
wasn’t one person in particular lingered no matter how many times she chided
herself for it.

‘How are you?’ she asked.

Amanda sounded breathless. ‘I
made a mistake last time we met up.’

‘Sorry….’

‘With the
calculations.
We left out the money from the all the car boot sales and
the auction.’

‘So, what does that mean?’ Darcy
asked,
the faint stirrings of excitement within her. ‘It
means we have more than we thought?’  

‘It means we’ve done it!’ Amanda
squealed.

Darcy stared at the opposite
wall, mouth open. All those months of toil it felt like they would never get
there. But this was it? ‘Are you sure?’ she asked in a daze.

‘
Howie
has checked twice. It’s definitely all there.
Just under
forty-six thousand, according to his calculations.
I’ll get a proper statement
from the bank for the exact figure…. Isn’t it incredible?’

‘It is,’ Darcy replied quietly.
‘Incredible…’

She was happy, of course, but it
didn’t feel as she had imagined it would. Sophie would get her operation and
her life would be transformed. But it was a bittersweet victory for Darcy. She
had relied on the feverish activity of the last few months to give her life
purpose. For Darcy, to finally reach that target was another crutch pulled away
from her, to send her freefalling into the void of her empty marriage. She just
hadn’t realised it until this moment.

‘I’m going to phone Julia, let
her know.’

‘Good idea.’

‘And we need to celebrate. A huge
celebration! I propose we go out together, everyone who has been involved.
How about
Jupiter
Garden
?’