Summer Lies Bleeding

by Nuala Casey

  When she reaches the door to reception, she peeks through the glass to check that the receptionist has gone for the evening. There is nobody there; the high sided pine desk is empty and the pile of post that sits on top of it at the end of each day is gone. Kerstin holds the small fob up to the grey panel and as the light turns from red to green she counts to seven and back before pushing the door open.

  Silence. They must have all gone home, she thinks as she walks towards the office. But as she reaches the open door her heart sinks as she sees a familiar figure hunched over her desk.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Her voice quivers as she walks towards him.

  ‘Shit, Kerstin,’ says Cal, leaping back from the desk. ‘You almost gave me heart failure. What are you doing here?’

  What is she doing here? Suddenly her mind is blank and all she can think of is the sound Clarissa’s skull made when the metal jug smashed down onto it. She closes her eyes and taps her fingers against her thigh ten times each side.

  ‘Kerstin? Are you all right?’

  When she opens her eyes, Cal is back at his desk, looking up at her with his large brown eyes, like a sad puppy dog waiting to be patted.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she replies tersely. ‘I’ve just come to pick up a few things.’

  ‘What things?’

  Kerstin glares at him. Does he realise she is his superior? How does he think he can get away with this endless back-chat. But she hasn’t the energy to spar with him; she just wants to take the money and get out of here.

  ‘Cal, why were you at my desk?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just now when I came in, you were leaning across my desk.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says, with a tone of voice that sounds like he is addressing a small child. ‘I was just stealing your identity.’ He lets out a fake cackle, then slams his hand on the desk.

  Kerstin stops and looks at him. Why is he here; him of all people, the office joker? Does he ever stop fooling around? She pulls out the top drawer and finds two crisp twenty pound notes in a little plastic wallet. Thank God, she thinks as she puts them into her pocket and shuts the drawer.

  ‘Ooh, last of the big spenders,’ says Cal, nodding.

  ‘I lost my wallet,’ says Kerstin. She wishes he would leave. If only she could sit here for a few moments in peace, she might be able to think straight; might be able to work out what to do next.

  ‘Lost your wallet? How did you manage that?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘I must have dropped it, while I was at the dentist.’

  ‘What are you like Kerst, always losing something. What was it last week, your keys? You need to be more careful.’

  There is something about Cal that unsettles her. Despite being his senior, Kerstin always feels the need to defend herself; to assure him that she is not some flake. He had been there when she lost her keys three weeks ago; he even gave her the name of a locksmith to replace them.

  ‘I might have dropped it or it might have been stolen,’ she says. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well if it’s been stolen you should go to the police. Let’s trace your steps. When was the last time you saw it?

  Kerstin’s brain feels sticky, as though her capacity for thought is submerging in a deep vat of molten lava.

  ‘I don’t know, Cal.’ As she speaks the room starts to spin and it feels like she is going to fall. She holds out her arms to steady herself and grabs clumsily to the back of her chair.

  ‘Steady,’ Cal’s loud voice cuts through her consciousness and she feels his arms wrap around her back like a snake as she slumps into the familiar softness of her chair.

  ‘Kerst, you don’t look too good,’ says Cal. ‘Do you want a glass of water?’

  She shakes her head. It is throbbing, but the last thing she needs is water. She never drinks water from the office cooler; even the thought of it makes her gag; drinking from a plastic cup that has been touched by the clammy, sweaty hands of twelve people. Never; she would rather die of thirst.

  ‘Why don’t you get off home, have a lie down,’ says Cal, who is balanced on the edge of the desk, so close Kerstin can smell him: a mix of sweat and peppermint chewing gum. ‘Shall I call you a cab?’

  ‘I can’t go home,’ Kerstin mutters.

  ‘What’s that?’ asks Cal.

  ‘I can’t go home,’ she repeats. ‘I’ve got … there’s work being done in my flat and it’s upside down. I was going to book into a hotel for the night but then my wallet got …’

  ‘Well you’re not going to get far on forty squids,’ says Cal. He drums his fingers on her desk nonchalantly. The noise goes right through Kerstin and if she had a knife right now she would cut those fingers off, one by one.

  ‘Tell you what,’ says Cal, jumping off the desk. ‘Why don’t you come to mine. There’s a spare bed – my flatmate John’s in New York this week – and I was going to cook chilli, be nice to have a bit of company.’

  Kerstin puts her head in her hands and lets out a small wail.

  ‘Shit Kerst, don’t get the wrong end of the stick. I’m not trying to sleaze on you or anything. I’m being a mate, yeah?’

  From the darkness of her closed hands, Kerstin knows that she is running out of time. She needs to rest, needs to eat and sleep and work out her next move. Cal may be a pain in the backside but he is her only option right now.

  ‘I’m sorry Cal,’ she says, as she lifts her head from the desk. ‘I just feel a bit dizzy that’s all. I know your intentions were well meant.’

  ‘So you’ll come?’ Cal stands up and takes his coat from the back of the chair.

  Kerstin nods her head.

  ‘Well come on then,’ says Cal, holding out his hand. ‘I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.’

  *

  Seb switches off Cosima’s nightlight and tiptoes down the corridor to the kitchen. He looks at the digitalised time on the oven: 8 p.m. Yasmine will be home soon and he’s decided to cook dinner for them both, something simple and hearty, something to make her feel relaxed and calm before the madness of tomorrow.

  He goes to the fridge and takes out two chicken breasts wrapped in paper, a stick of chorizo and a box of cherry tomatoes. Yasmine will giggle when she sees he has made his ‘Sebastian Special’ again, one of the very few dishes – apart from beans on toast and egg sandwiches – he can make with any degree of proficiency.

  Cosima was worn out when he collected her from Gracie’s house. As well as the guinea pigs, there had been trampolining, cake baking and a dress-up competition. She managed to tell him snippets of information as they walked home, but she was so tired he had to carry her for the last leg of the journey. When they got home he had ordered take-out pizza, as promised, then told her about Mummy’s special painting.

  ‘But you mustn’t tell her,’ he said, putting his finger to his lips. ‘It’s going to be a big surprise.’

  Cosima had grinned excitedly. ‘What does it look like?’ she asked, between mouthfuls of hot pizza.

  ‘Well,’ began Seb. ‘You know the lake in the park?’ Cosima nodded. ‘Mummy and Daddy got married right next to that lake; it was early evening in mid-winter on the shortest day of the year and the stars came out just as we were leaving the party and Mummy and I watched them twinkling on the surface of the water.’

  Cosima put her pizza back onto the plate and wiped her hands on her skirt. ‘I know this story. Mummy told me that when you got married all the fairies came out on the lake and Mummy asked them to send me down from heaven and they did.’

  Seb smiled. Yasmine had been brought up to believe in fairies, her mother Maggie came from Irish stock and she would tell her young daughter about the power of the fairies. ‘Ask them a question and they’ll answer you,’ she would say. ‘It might take minutes, it might take years, but they’ll answer you.’ It had baffled Seb when they first met as it was so unlike his own upbringing with his military father and a mother whose idea of magic was the first day of the Harrods Sale.<
br />
  Like with so many other areas of his life, Yasmine had taught him how to see things clearly, to believe in the fantastical but also in the beauty of real life. Until he met her his life had been one long escape, running from his childhood, from his cold, unfeeling family, from his dreams and ambition. And then one day there she was and he could stop running. She is the strongest person he has ever known and though she may believe in fairies and magic, she also believes in forgiveness and redemption, no matter how hard you fall there is always a second chance, and it was that belief that brought him back to life all those years ago.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘There were hundreds of them all gathered on the lake like fireflies, it was very beautiful. And that’s Mummy’s surprise – a big painting of the lake that’s going to hang on the wall of the restaurant …’

  ‘And remind her of the fairies,’ said Cosima, taking another bite of pizza.

  ‘… remind her of the fairies,’ his daughter’s words dance in his ears as he assembles the ingredients onto the granite work surface.

  17

  Paula leans back in her chair and breathes a contented sigh as she looks around the idyllic garden. It is still light and a cool breeze ruffles the flame of the tea lights making them shudder in their glass holders.

  ‘This is beautiful, Stella. Who would have thought this place even existed? It really is exquisite.’

  She picks up her glass of wine and takes a long sip. Stella smiles. It is wonderful to see Paula so relaxed, so at ease with herself.

  ‘I knew you would like it,’ she says, looking around at the beautiful walled garden with its wild tangle of fruit trees and plants, its white-washed brick wall and higgledy-piggledy tables and chairs hidden among the foliage. They managed to get a table for two tucked away at the back of the garden and Stella had giggled when she saw the red-and-white gingham table cloths, and red roses in thin glass vases, a little bit of fifties Paris in the middle of Earl’s Court.

  ‘I do. It’s wonderful,’ says Paula. She puts her glass down and rubs the petals of the rose in between her finger and thumb. ‘It reminds me of home. I’ve missed the garden, missed the earthy smells and … anyway, I won’t go on about gardening.’

  The waiter arrives with their main courses and Paula orders another bottle of wine.

  ‘It will do me good,’ she says, a touch of cynicism in her voice. ‘After months of caffeine-free teas and water and juice and looking after my body like some glass sculpture that’s going to break into pieces, I think I deserve a night off.’

  Stella watches her as she slips her cutlery out of the red paper napkin and places the knife and fork onto her plate. Will Paula mention the baby? Should she raise the subject herself, get it all out into the open? She can’t read Paula at the moment, it’s like she’s hiding behind some clear glass door and Stella can’t reach her. She was so excited yesterday when she left in the taxi, now it’s like the light has been extinguished. Something irreparable has taken place, though Stella is not quite sure what.

  *

  ‘The restaurant was beautiful,’ says Paula, slicing through her steak with the precision of a Samurai.

  ‘Which restaurant?’ asks Stella, holding out her glass to the waiter who has returned with the bottle of wine. She holds her palm up as the ruby-coloured liquid reaches the half-way mark. ‘Thanks,’ she nods.

  Once Paula’s glass is filled, she holds it aloft and clinks Stella’s.

  An old ritual, thinks Stella. An automated response; what does it mean? She has raised her glass hundreds of times over the years and still she isn’t quite sure why she does it. She has raised it at weddings, at funerals, at dinner parties and book readings; she has raised it as a child, her glass filled with watered-down champagne, and as an adult; she has raised it with smiles, with frowns, with indifference; she has lifted the glass as high as it would go, she has barely raised it from the table; she has spilled droplets of wine onto the floor, she has been drunk and sober, elated and desolate; it feels like she has toasted the world and all who live in it over the course of her life and still she has no idea what it means.

  The glasses meet for a split second, sending little crystalline droplets of sound out into the cool evening air, before parting. The ritual has been adhered to, now they can carry on.

  ‘I was talking about The Rose Garden,’ says, Paula, taking another bite of steak.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ says Stella. She hopes this isn’t going to end up being a paranoid discussion of Seb and her long-dead association with him. ‘Did she like the jasmine?’

  Paula nods her head as she chews a mouthful of food. She swallows and takes another sip of wine. ‘She loved it. I think she’ll be a regular client, finger’s crossed. It could really open up London to us.’

  Stella raises her eyebrow. ‘You mean …?’

  ‘I mean in a business sense, Stella,’ says Paula, wearily. ‘I love London just as much as you, but we could never live here again and certainly not with a ch …’ She stops and blinks away the word like it’s a bad taste in her mouth.

  Stella starts to eat her risotto. She won’t press the ‘living in London’ thing any more than she will raise the subject of the baby. Let tonight be easy, let it be about nothing much; flowers and the lifting of glasses, anything but another bloody argument.

  ‘So what was it like then? The restaurant?’ She keeps her voice light, in case Paula suspects she is asking the question as some ruse to bring the subject round to Seb. But Paula seems keen to talk about it, her manner is warm and open.

  ‘Oh, it was gorgeous,’ she says, laying her knife and fork down. ‘Very Moorish. The jasmine plants are going to be the focal point of the roof garden they’ve built out on the terrace. Yasmine showed me it and it’s breathtaking. It reminded me of some of the little places we went to in Vejer. Do you remember the one in the town square? I think it was a hotel as well and it had that amazing garden with fig trees and jasmine … The Rose Garden’s a lot like that. I was expecting typical Soho bravado and bling but it’s different and Yasmine was lovely, she knows her stuff. Anyway, you’ll see for yourself tomorrow night, she’s invited us to the launch.’

  Stella isn’t sure what to say, remembering Paula’s outburst last night. She doesn’t know whether Paula is actually suggesting they go to the launch or is asking it as a trick question to see how Stella responds. If she says she wants to, will Paula get upset? The effort of avoiding confrontations and arguments is starting to take its toll on Stella. She has forgotten what an easy conversation feels like.

  ‘And?’ She manages to come up with one word.

  ‘And what?’ Paula seems okay, though Stella notices that she has worked her way through the wine pretty rapidly.

  ‘And do you want to go?’ Stella says the words slowly, holding them in her mouth for as long as she can.

  Paula shrugs. ‘Well, it might be nice. We’re going home on Thursday and business-wise it’s probably a good idea. Actually, yes of course we should go. Absolutely.’ She sits up in her chair as though suddenly remembering who she is, why she is here.

  ‘Excellent,’ says Stella, finishing a last mouthful of food. ‘What time will we have to be there?’

  ‘I don’t know, says Paula. She leans down and picks up her bag. ‘I’ve got the invite in here, that should tell us. Here,’ she says, pulling out a wedge of cards. ‘It says from 6 p.m. You better hang onto these, you know me I’ll probably forget them.’

  She hands Stella a wedge of cards; black with gold lettering and red roses snaking across.

  Stella looks at the cards. ‘That should be okay.’

  ‘I daresay we can get there around six,’ says Paula, taking another sip of wine. ‘Anyway, you’ll have bags of time. You’ll only be at the London Library for a few hours won’t you? Any more and you’ll be goggle eyed,’ she laughs.

  Stella smiles; hating Paula for being glib and hating herself for lying to her partner. But of all the places to say she would be for the
afternoon, the London Library was the only one that Paula wouldn’t question; the only place where it would be plausible to be ‘uncontactable’ for a few hours, away from Paula’s steady stream of text messages demanding to be answered immediately.

  ‘Why have we got so many?’ asks Stella.

  ‘Oh, she gave me a few extra,’ says Paula. ‘Asked if we knew of anyone who might want to come. I said we don’t know a soul in London any more, pair of country bumpkins that we are,’ she laughs. ‘Although, I might give one to Carole at the garden tomorrow, she’s a real foodie.’

  ‘They’re lovely,’ says Stella, as she puts them in the front of her bag. ‘They must have spent a fortune on them.’

  ‘Well apparently, they’ve got a wealthy backer,’ says Paula, taking a sip of wine. ‘I mean, you’d have to have money behind you to afford the lease on that property; it’s prime West End real estate.’

  Stella nods, remembering Seb’s crumpled suits and his messy hair. He certainly didn’t have money when she knew him, but good on him, she thinks, good on him for making something of his life.

  ‘She’s very beautiful.’

  Paula’s voice interrupts Stella’s thoughts and she looks up. Paula is running her finger round the rim of her empty wine glass. She looks at Stella with a penetrating stare, like she is trying to read whatever response Stella’s face gives up, whatever it betrays. But Stella keeps a smile fixed to her face, an anaemic, half-smile, a one-size-fits-all seal across which anything may glide.

  ‘She’s very dark, very Moroccan,’ continues Paula. ‘Beautiful face, hardly any make-up. And they have a child.’ This time she manages to get that word out and it sounds like a bullet, as though she intended it to hurt, to cause maximum damage and pain.

  She stares at Stella as though goading her. The word hangs invisibly over them, little wisps of it hover atop the creeping wisteria, it weaves around the fruit trees like little ghostly fingers trying to loosen the pregnant buds from their branches. The air has turned toxic, the sweet jasmine scent that just moments ago wafted across the table like freshly laundered linen now seems cloying and rancid. Paula’s eyes are red and dazed; she is getting tipsy.