‘Like I said, she’s fine.’ Gayle was growing impatient. ‘Was there anything else?’
‘No, yes …’ I had rehearsed my line and it was time to deliver it. ‘It’s just, I’m sorry if you thought I said “Thank God”.’
She snorted. ‘For Heaven’s sake, you know I can’t bear those passive-aggressive apologies. There’s no “if you thought” about it! You did. There were witnesses. Can’t you just say sorry and be done with it?’
‘I’m sorry. I really am. And I’m sorry the focus always seems to be on Molly.’
‘Not “seems”, Nat, is.’
‘Yes. I hadn’t realized. I’ve allowed her phobia to dominate, but I’m trying my best to stop that. I’m sorry.’
Gayle sighed again. I was becoming tedious. ‘I have to go. Have a good day on Sunday and enjoy the Noblesse pool party. Is Ed still going?’
I was a little taken aback by the question, since Gayle didn’t know about Lara’s implications of wrongdoing or Ed’s decision to sever ties. He’d confided in her and Craig his more general objections, clearly: our division over the Channings was now an established fact.
‘Of course,’ I lied. ‘We all are.’
She gave an odd little chuckle.
‘What?’
‘It just strikes me that you’d think, as a maths teacher, he of all people could put two and two together.’
‘About what?’ I asked, confused.
‘Nothing, Nat. Just … happy birthday.’
I didn’t know what she was talking about. And though her birthday wishes were grimly given, I thought I detected an undercurrent of relent, a nail-hold on the cliff-face of our friendship, and I accepted them with eagerness.
I couldn’t keep away, it was as simple as that. The truth – and I was perhaps the last to acknowledge it – was that if any Steele was in thrall to a Channing it was not Ed to Georgia, or even Molly to Georgia, but me to Lara. Arriving at La Madrague at five o’clock, I was sent by a departing Marthe up to the terrace; she was, she said, about to collect Everett from his friend’s. Georgia, I happened to know, was in Starbucks on the high street with Molly and Eve. The house was silent, no music, no chatter, none of the usual Lara effects. I entered the living room and crossed the parquet stealthily, as if I had no business being there. At the doors to the terrace, I lingered, thinking at first it was as deserted as the rest of the house and that Marthe had mistaken Lara’s whereabouts. Then I saw her, in the hanging egg chair, which had been turned from its usual inward-facing position towards the park; she was quite lost in her thoughts. To my surprise she was smoking, a veil of grey filling the egg, and as she exhaled she let her head fall backwards in a pose of tragic abandon. It was clear that she’d been subject to one of her low moods: her expression was that of the forgotten wife, the dismissed mother, the ageing beauty. I hoped her gloom was not to do with Georgia and Ed.
I felt suddenly unequal to the task ahead and was on the verge of turning and leaving when she stirred, called my name. ‘You’re here! How wonderful. As you can see I’ve fallen into a decline and it’s all your fault.’
At once my ears burned and roared and strained for more. ‘I told you I was coming.’
‘But I didn’t know if you meant it. Are we friends again?’ she asked, eyes huge, expression vulnerable and childlike. ‘Say we are.’
She was irresistible. ‘Of course we are. We never weren’t,’ I said.
She slithered from the chair to hug me. Her scent was cedarwood and cigarette smoke. Wine was fetched and we drank it side by side overlooking the lido. It seemed to me – maybe I imagined this – that for the first time I could glimpse a triangle of blue.
‘Just so you know,’ I said, ‘I spoke to Ed about what we discussed and we’re a hundred per cent sure you have nothing to worry about. He’s happy to talk it through if you’d like to, put your minds at ease.’
I was lying, saying things I thought she’d like to hear. Now his letter giving notice on their arrangement would cause even more of a stir.
Before I could commit further treason, Lara reached to put a finger to my lips, slender and cool with a coral blade of nail. ‘Darling, I told you there was no need to raise it with him.’
‘I know, but when you’re a teacher, especially a male one, you have to be vigilant. A friend of ours had a horrible time with a false allegation.’
‘No allegation has been made. You need to learn when to ignore me,’ she said, and she smiled with the blend of graciousness and gratitude that passes between the admirer and the admired. The rightful order had been restored and it was a relief to us both.
‘What about Miles?’ I said.
‘What about him?’
‘Does he agree the whole thing can be forgotten?’
‘Of course he does.’ There was a suspicion that we were talking at cross-purposes, but I had no desire to delve. As with Gayle, I had prepared lines to deliver.
‘The thing is, I think it’s best if we don’t come to the party on Sunday. It just removes the possibility of any awkwardness and I know you have a long waiting list for tickets so it isn’t as if they’ll go to waste. Someone will be thrilled to get lucky. Maybe Gayle.’ Yes, I thought, that would be poetic justice: with Lara’s agreement, I’d offer her our tickets.
‘I heard what happened with her,’ Lara said, pouting sympathy. ‘The way she shouted at you, you poor thing.’
‘I deserved it,’ I said. ‘I’m just pleased she’s still speaking to me.’
‘I know that feeling,’ Lara said sweetly.
‘So I hope you understand? About the party?’
‘Of course I do. But before you decide …’
‘What?’
‘Come with me. I have something I want to show you. Bring your glass.’
Bearing both her own glass and the bottle, she led me to the floor below, to the master bedroom at the front. I had not been in it before. A room more spacious than the two bedrooms in Kingsley Drive combined, it was directly below the terrace, with an elongated horizontal window overlooking The Rise. A run of mirrored palazzo doors, like a wall of folded silver, bisected the space; the central two were open, giving on to an en suite of grey marble and polished nickel, clusters of scent bottles and lipsticks on the glass shelves.
Was this where she and Miles would have brought me on Saturday night had I stayed? I erased the notion. Hadn’t I already decided that I’d been mistaken or deluded, that subsequent events had overtaken it and that, in any case, Lara had not given it a second thought?
She directed me to the little white sofa at the foot of the bed and, to my surprise, threw herself at my feet, her free hand wrapping itself around my left calf, as it had at the lido when we’d last parted. This time, however, the fingers did not lock rigid, but moved, caressed, rose to my knee and rested just above, only the thumb now in motion, somehow both idle and deliberate. At once all bodily sensations were condensed into that small area of skin. I swallowed more wine, failing to moisten a suddenly dry throat.
‘What did you want to show me?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes!’ As she jumped up, the withdrawal of touch was as unwelcome as an application of pain. ‘I found a dress I thought might suit you. For Sunday.’
‘But I told you, I’m not going to –’
‘Wait till you see it before you decide.’ She slid open lacquered wardrobe doors and found what she wanted. It was a long column of rose-print with a halterneck and a smocked waist, clearly a costly designer item.
‘It’s beautiful,’ I said, putting down my glass to touch the fabric with both hands. It was silk, erotically soft.
Lara smiled. ‘Try it on, go on, where’s the harm?’
I realized she intended staying in the room while I undressed so I moved discreetly into the en suite, though it seemed prudish to seal the doors behind me and the many mirrors and reflective surfaces made modesty impossible.
I slipped the dress over my head. It stuck.
‘I’ll do i
t.’ Lara was behind me, her fingers tugging, and the dress slid down an inch or two. ‘You can’t wear that bra with this neckline, you’ll need a strapless one, if at all.’ She unhooked my bra and brushed the straps from my shoulders, then when it fell to the floor, she slid the dress over me, running her knuckles over the fabric to smooth it. Her body was so close to mine, our body heat overlapped, doubled, and though covered now in the dress, I felt more naked than before, more naked than when we’d been in the pool together. In the mirror, my cheeks fired as I struggled to master a maelstrom of colliding words: … just gossip … the Land of Do As You Please … I have a confession to make … Miles said I shouldn’t say anything … What about him? … Come with me …
Her face was at my right shoulder, our hair touching, our breath flowing in parallel. Her hands remained on the fabric, fingers moving idly, deliberately, on my stomach, ribs, the underside of my breasts. I felt both wild, enemy fear and the confidence to overcome it.
‘La …’ I turned my head towards her face. Her mouth was at my ear, fingers moving slowly, possessively, over me.
‘You like that?’
I spoke without thinking or caring. ‘Yes.’ I wanted more. My head pushed, mouth seeking hers.
‘Marthe,’ she murmured, her voice thickened. ‘She’ll be back soon with Everett.’
‘Of course.’ But I couldn’t leave it in this teasing, unexplored way. ‘When?’
‘At the party.’
‘At the party? But … How?’ This was an empty house. That would be a teeming throng, how could it work? ‘What about tomorrow?’
‘Tomorrow will be crazy,’ Lara said. ‘Miles will be here, and the kids. We’ll be packing for the holiday. But at the party we can get lost for a little while. No one will notice who’s there and who’s missing …’
At the windows sheer drapes billowed, the breath of the real world outside. Then came the sound of footsteps on the pebble path, a boy’s cry rising in excitement. Everett.
‘Take the dress home,’ Lara said, her voice still hushed, secretive.
‘I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can.’ The same fingers that had smoothed it down began puckering it, pulling it up again. ‘You will wear it, won’t you? To the party.’ She ran a finger over my skin a final time. ‘You have to come now, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I said.
Stoneborough, August 1985
At the pond, when we were tired from swimming, all the kids would sit together in a loose crescent at the water’s edge or lie in a ring with our heads meeting like daisy petals and we’d play truth or dare. Which was really just truth. Which was actually insult, because none of the questions were designed to elicit answers that flattered or praised.
Who here would you least like to kiss?
Who would you save last from a burning building?
Whose pants do you reckon are the smelliest? (Cue laughter and concealed gulps of fear, followed by the inevitable citing of the latest boy to have been yanked out of the group for a family holiday or, as happened once or twice, to be kept out of Mel’s and my path.)
‘If you had to choose one person to have plastic surgery, who would it be?’ That was one I would remember because I knew I must be a contender. Beside me, Mel’s pull of breath was discernible only to me: she’d expect to be in the firing line too. Then again, as the more feared of the two of us, she also had the better chance of evasion.
Two of the boys made jokes about a third’s penis size.
‘Come on, you’re not allowed to bottle it,’ Mel said, her tone bitter, for it was Nessie’s question. It was as if she was willing Nessie to pick her just so she could punish her for it.
Nessie hesitated. This was a question she would have preferred to go to someone else, safe in the knowledge that she would have been the last to be named. Instead, she was required to deliver pain.
‘Otherwise you’re never allowed back here again,’ Mel said.
‘You’ll be shunned,’ I added, ever the spineless henchman.
Nessie’s worried eyes moved from face to face, until, two from where the ring returned to her, it flickered, briefly, tellingly, on me, on my forehead and the raspberry stain there. She never smiled, I thought, or at least never anywhere near me. Even when she spoke, her lips hardly parted. ‘I choose myself,’ she said at last, her voice very small. ‘I’d change my ears. I hate them.’
‘Liar,’ we began, but the others were clamouring to hear more from her – ‘Why, what’s wrong with them?’ – and she was showing them the way her ears were positioned a smidgeon less flat to her skull than they might have been.
‘My brother says they look like shells,’ she said unconvincingly.
Mel and I swore in disapproval when this prattle was judged valid and the game moved on.
‘She thinks she’s it,’ we told each other as we walked home.
‘She thinks she’s better than us.’
‘It’s that bloody hair. Like in Splash.’
‘She must bleach it. Slag.’
There was a gathering energy to our hostility, a reaching towards something previously unvoiced. Our footsteps became more certain, matched, an army of two. Sure enough, by the time we reached Mel’s door, she had an idea of how we might teach Nessie a lesson.
‘Brilliant,’ I said, and we stood face to face, hands joined.
We would have to bide our time, of course, and secure our weapon: a pair of scissors from the kitchen drawer, which I placed with my swimming kit in the backpack I used for days at the pond. When my grandmother missed them, I told her I’d borrowed them for a collage I was making as a souvenir of my special summer with her and Grandpa, and her eyes shone for a moment with sentimental tears.
32
Sunday, 30 August
It may be a false memory, but it seems to me there was melancholy in the air on the day of the party, that hovering sense of cusp, of the season deepening from gold to bronze and curling at the edges. There was a mood of … well, if not anticlimax, then a kind of foreseen grief.
At the party we would touch again and my blood would sing in my veins, my skin would shiver on the muscle. What she and I had started would continue and, whatever it was going to be, I wanted it. I wanted it enough to manipulate my husband, to bend his will by any means necessary.
‘I have to go to the party,’ I told Ed. ‘You don’t have to, I completely understand, but I promised I’d help out and I’m not in the habit of letting people down at the last minute.’
Had it not been my birthday, a day to be counted on for the suspension of hostilities in any civilized home, I would not have got away with that last pronouncement. Gayle, Craig, Sarah, Ed himself: there were countless recent examples to be cited of my having let people down.
‘Besides, Molly’s really keen to go. Remember, we’re the Channings’ guests, Ed, and she has no reason to think anything’s changed. She won’t want to disappoint Georgia and Eve.’
It was shameless to use our daughter like this. Unforgivable.
And effective. It was agreed that Molly and I would go to the party as planned while Ed stayed at home and brooded.
But when I was getting ready, trouble flared afresh.
‘I haven’t seen that before,’ he said of the rose-print dress, which, admittedly, a household pet would have noticed had more chic than my usual attire. I was nothing short of entranced by how the fabric fell, the way it kissed my skin without clinging, the touch of Lara in its fine weave. Lightly tanned and toned from all the swimming, I hadn’t looked this good in many years and, against my better judgement, that felt important.
‘When did you get it?’ Ed asked, and then, ‘It looks very expensive. How much did it cost?’
‘It cost nothing,’ I said.
There was a dangerous pause, a gathering of rancour. ‘Don’t tell me: she lent you it. When?’
‘Ages ago,’ I lied.
‘Are you even the same size? It’s probably not supposed to be that skimpy.
And your shoulders are going to get cold – it’s almost September, you know.’
I thought about the compliments Miles must surely pay Lara when she dressed for a party, or Stephen Angie, or even Craig Gayle, and I thought, too, of that spiteful comment of Ed’s that I was a desperate acolyte. Enough was enough. ‘You think I’m best kept covered up?’ I snapped. ‘Not as svelte as some of your year elevens?’
There was an ugly silence. I was as shocked as he was and immediately apologetic. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.’ Yes, I’d been provoked, but it didn’t take a psychologist to spot that I was deflecting my own feelings of guilty anticipation; in making Ed the villain, I was willing him to be deserving of betrayal.
He was staring at me in something close to horror. ‘You say these things and I don’t recognize the person who’s speaking any more.’
Neither did I. But whoever she was I wanted to be her – this evening, if not for ever. The truth was, I could not think beyond tonight.
From the next-door bedroom came sounds of drawers sliding open and thumping shut. Had Molly heard the exchange? Yet another argument between Mum and Dad. I knew all too well the feeling of being the child of parents who rowed, the turning off of the television or radio only to expose the bitter voices you hadn’t known were being smothered. The feeling that peace would never last long enough or go deep enough to reach your soul. Hadn’t I vowed Molly wouldn’t have to feel it too?
‘She’s destroying us,’ Ed said.
‘No, you are,’ I replied, ‘because you keep overreacting.’ And of all the things I said that summer, this was the most unjust.
I became aware then of Molly outside the door, of that prickle of energy her presence caused in me. ‘Molly’s here,’ I said brightly. ‘Doesn’t she look wonderful?’
If she’d heard any of our row, she gave no indication of having an opinion on the matter. ‘I said I’d meet Georgia at seven,’ she said. ‘Can we go?’
As we left the building, I said, ‘I’m sorry about all the arguing lately. It’s nothing to worry about, honestly.’
The Swimming Pool Page 27
