A Sky Painted Gold

by Laura Wood

  “Lou?” a voice says from behind me, and I turn to find Laurie ensconced on one of the sofas. And she isn’t alone. Elodie is sitting with her, her arm thrown around the back of the sofa behind Laurie’s head. Her hat lies tumbled on the cushions beside them, and her long dark hair is falling from its pins. The charcoal moustache has been badly smudged and so has Laurie’s lipstick. It is obvious that I am interrupting something. My heart clatters in my chest.

  Laurie seems completely unperturbed by my intrusion and, judging by the sympathetic face she is making, she also saw Charlie and Caitlin disappear into the library.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” she says gently, shrugging her shoulders. “They’ll have forgotten all about it in the morning. These things don’t often mean anything.”

  I stand still for a moment, considering this. I think about Caitlin and Lucky, and I think about Robert. “They mean something to me,” I say quietly. I may not want exactly what my sister has, but I know that her love for Jack is real. It’s honest and precious, and she values it above anything. And that’s what I want. Not this game, not this refusal to care properly about anything. It’s heartless. It makes people disposable. People like me.

  “Don’t be silly, honey, we all have our little affaires.” She speaks in a soft, teasing voice.

  “Come on,” Elodie joins in, her voice coaxing. “Don’t let it spoil your party.” As if I am a child who hasn’t got the present she was hoping for.

  In the end I say nothing; I just turn and walk away.

  I wander outside and stand at the front of the house, listening to the sounds of the party still filling the air. I need to be quite alone, I realize, and I slip towards the crumbling stone steps that lead down towards the beach. The moon still hangs above the water, but the sky is already beginning to lighten. Down here in the cove all is quiet and still. The only sound is the gentle rush of the sea as it ripples on to the shore; scrabbling white fingers of foam clutch at the sand before being pulled back, once more, into the inky water. I stand for a moment, looking out, and trying to calm the noise inside my mind.

  I untie my mask and drop it by my side. I pull the beautiful green dress from my shoulders so that it slides down, pooling on the sand at my feet, and I step out of it, walking towards the sea in my shell-pink slip. Slowly, I wade into the water, my fingers trailing on the surface. Thanks to the alcohol I barely register the cold. Instead, the waves washing over me feel like silk ribbons being drawn across my feverish skin. I swim out a little way and then turn on to my back, spreading my arms and legs wide, just as Alice and I used to do when we were little. “We are starfish,” Alice would say, as we floated side by side, and her fingers would wrap around mine, keeping us tethered together, suspended between the sea and the sky.

  I stare up at the sky now as it shimmers in that moment between night and morning, and I feel small and light. My hair drifts out around my head like a halo. I concentrate only on the sound of my own breathing.

  I don’t know how long I float like that. It is probably only a couple of minutes, but it feels like longer. Eventually, I turn back over and swim to shore to find that there is someone waiting for me on the sand. Robert is sitting on one of the rocks, watching me. He wears a white shirt, open at the collar, and black trousers, and there is an unreadable expression on his face. I’m not sure how many of my own feelings are on display, but there are certainly a lot of them. The shock of seeing him is welcome and unwanted at the same time, and my heart aches in my chest.

  I clamber out of the water, shivering as the cool air hits me and suddenly very aware that I am wearing only my underwear. Robert stands with his face turned away and his jacket held out in his hand. I slip into it gratefully, pulling the dark material tight around me, balling my hands up inside the long sleeves.

  “What are you doing here?” I ask finally. Seeing him now, after all that has happened tonight, stirs such a bewildering mix of feelings in me. I’m so conflicted, so confused. What do my feelings for Robert mean? What do I mean to him?

  “I saw you come down,” he says. “I wanted to make sure you didn’t drown.”

  I smile at this, at the offhand way he says it. I find it reassuring, the normality of it. I snuggle further into his jacket, and perch on the rock he has been occupying. He sits next to me.

  “Lou,” he says after a moment. “There’s something I need to tell you.” He stops himself there, hesitating.

  “Oh, really?” I say, nervously drawing circles in the sand with my toes. “There are lots of things I need to tell you.”

  “Are there?” he asks.

  I nod. “I’ve had quite an eventful evening,” I say. Filling the air between us with meaningless chatter seems like the only way I’m going to survive being so close to him. “I met a girl who thought I was called Cynthia.”

  “Ridiculous,” Robert declares. “Who could ever mistake you for a Cynthia?”

  “I heard a lot about a girl called Lois,” I say. “Apparently this is her birthday party.” I can’t bring myself to meet his eye. “It seems that she’s a local heiress who spends half the year in her family’s estate in the south of France. She owns a yacht and part of a racehorse … though which part of the horse is a little unclear.” Lois actually sounds like she would fit in perfectly, I think. She certainly doesn’t sound an awful lot like me.

  “She sounds dreadful,” Robert says. “Just the sort of bore you would run into at a party like this.”

  “Oh, yes?” I say with a prickle of relief.

  “Mmm.” Robert nods. “I was beginning to despair of ever meeting anyone interesting again. Before we came here.”

  “Before you … came here?” I swallow nervously.

  “Yes.” He leans back on his elbows. “Before I met your aunt Irene. What a fascinating woman.”

  I smile tremulously, because the warmth in his teasing voice pierces me with such pleasure and pain that I feel like it might tear me apart.

  “Lou, what’s wrong?” he asks then, and his voice is tender, gentle, like I have never heard it before.

  I shiver in his jacket and pull the back of my hand roughly across my eyes.

  “It’s nothing,” I say. “I’m just … I’m so confused … and I saw something that surprised me.” My voice wavers here. “Caitlin and Charlie were…” I trail off miserably here, because after all, this is only a tiny fragment of the story, but what more can I share with him?

  “Ah.” Robert exhales slowly.

  “You don’t sound surprised,” I say quietly.

  He is silent for a moment. “I am,” he says, “but Charlie has made his interest known in the past … and Caitlin has a habit of making … rash decisions.” He looks at me, his green eyes thoughtful. “I’m sorry if it has caused you pain, though.” Then he takes a deep breath. “There’s something I need to tell you,” he announces for the second time.

  “Oh, yes.” I nod. “You did say and I interrupted you. I’m sorry, what is it?” I reach out and touch his arm apologetically.

  And suddenly, just like that, something changes between us. It is as if something in the air around us shifts. We are sitting so close together, and I can feel the warmth coming from his body. I am suddenly very aware that the top of my leg is just grazing his. I can hear my heartbeat thundering in my ears. When I turn to face him his eyes are close enough for me to see the flecks of hazel in amongst the green. I watch my fingers reach up towards his face as though they belong to someone else. Surely this isn’t my hand gently pushing back Robert’s dark curls? He raises his own hand to mine, catching it there against his cheek. We sit like this for a moment, and that moment is sweet torture. I think I could kiss him now. I think he wants me to. But if I did, what would that make me? Kissing someone else’s fiancé, dismissing the promise he made because it suits me. I’d be as bad as the rest of them.

  I pull back. “I should go back to the house,” I say, and my voice sounds hoarse.

  The spell is broken. “Of cour
se,” he says, back to the polite, distant voice he uses for other people. “I’ll see you back.” Until this moment I hadn’t realized that he has a different voice for me, but he does – a warm, teasing voice that is like a secret between us.

  I go to collect my dress, which is thankfully none the worse for the adventure. I think ruefully of what Alice will have to say about leaving a bespoke couture creation in a pile on the sand, and decide that if we ever do make up I will never, ever tell her about it. Robert and I walk back to the house in silence. The sky is burning orange around the edges now, like touchpaper about to burst into flames, and the party has all but dispersed. Only a few of the more dedicated drinkers remain, slumped in corners or giggling together on the sofas. At the bottom of the stairs I turn to Robert. “Well, goodnight,” I say, staring down at my feet.

  “Goodnight,” he replies. “And happy birthday.” The words ring coldly in my ears.

  I turn and stumble up the stairs, heading for my bedroom. Once I am safely inside I carefully hang up my beautiful green dress, trailing my fingers over the shimmering beads, the golden thread. It is then that I realize that I am still wearing Robert’s coat. I brush the top of one of the sleeves, admiring the soft material. The front of the jacket is covered in elegant black frogging. I frown, looking at it more closely. I have seen this coat somewhere before.

  I feel something dawning on me, a realization that is slowly, slowly making its way into my fuddled mind… This coat is just like Charlie’s. I remember, very clearly indeed, the feel of this braiding beneath my fingers when we kissed. But why would Robert have Charlie’s coat? The answer, of course, is that he wouldn’t. I saw Charlie, wearing his coat, before I went down to the beach, and it certainly wouldn’t have been at a convenient moment for Robert to ask to borrow it. This is Robert’s costume, then, my brain finally concludes. Robert and Charlie have the same costume.

  I freeze, a shiver running through me. With trembling hands, I reach into the jacket pockets and feel my fingers brush against a piece of soft, silky material. I can feel my pulse trapped at the base of my throat, beating insistently like the wings of a caged bird. Slowly, slowly, I pull the silk object out of my pocket and hold it in my hand. I know with absolute certainty what it will be, but the sight of it there, in front of me, still takes my breath away.

  It is a black domino mask.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  The next morning, I am feeling even more confused after a restless night full of dreams of masks and kisses and swirling faces with green eyes. It seems impossible to separate the dreams from the reality after such a strange evening. My stomach is in knots and my head is pounding. Robert… I kissed Robert last night. And that kiss is playing on an endless loop in my brain. I know that it shouldn’t have happened, but now that it has, the memory of it is too searing and wonderful not to revisit. I lift a hand to my lips, remembering the feel of his mouth on mine. I think about repeating the kiss again and again, a million times more. Of curling my fingers into his dark hair, of pulling him against me.

  Knowing that I have shared such a kiss with Robert should feel like a shock, but instead it feels right in a way that scares me even more. None of this changes anything. Robert is not mine. Robert is getting married. Robert is marrying Laurie.

  But what about Laurie and Elodie? What did I interrupt there? Is Laurie in love with someone else? And Robert might have kissed me but it really wasn’t his fault; after all, I did literally throw myself at him. There wasn’t a lot of time to protest as my lips smashed into his. I groan, waves of mortification rolling over me. Only, a voice in my head whispers, a wicked little voice that won’t be quiet, he didn’t push you away. He didn’t have to kiss you back. But he did.

  I groan again, balling my fists and slamming them ineffectually against the white bed sheets. I am just lying here going round and round in circles, much like the ceiling above my bed. There is nothing for it but to get up and face the music.

  I drag myself from bed and go to the bathroom to splash my face with cold water, dismayed by the pale, drawn face looking back at me in the mirror. Eventually I manage to dress and stagger down to the dining room. Pushing the door open, I find Robert sitting at the table, alone. He gets to his feet and we stand staring at each other in silence. His eyes are careful, wary. I hold out my hand and the black mask unfurls from where I have been clutching it. His eyes meet mine and I see that he understands. That I know. He takes half a step forward, and his mouth opens to say something when Laurie appears behind me in a floral kimono dressing gown.

  “Coffee!” she croaks, slumping into a chair. “Need coffee. Right now.”

  I shoot a desperate glance at Robert, stuffing the mask back into my pocket, but he has turned his attention to pouring coffee for Laurie. The pot is empty.

  “Perkins,” Robert calls, but the butler fails to materialize. “I’ll grab it myself,” Robert says quickly, taking in the air of desperation that is hanging around Laurie. He disappears from the room.

  “I think I might have given you a shock last night,” Laurie says now, turning to me with her eyebrows raised.

  “Oh.” I jump. “No … not really,” I say awkwardly. She continues to look at me. “Well, maybe a little,” I admit. “So you and Elodie are…” I hesitate here.

  “Lovers.” Laurie nods. She says it plainly, without emotion, as if she is commenting on the weather.

  “I see,” I say, dropping into a seat beside her.

  Laurie laughs and takes my hand, squeezing it gently. “Poor Lou,” she says. “I forget that anyone can find anything shocking these days.”

  “What … um, what about Robert?” I ask as casually as I can. “Aren’t you in love with him?”

  “In love with Robert?” Laurie frowns. “No more than he is with me.” She says this lightly, as though it is not something terribly important. “Anyway, he doesn’t mind,” she says, waving her hand in the air. “Although he might tell me to be a bit more discreet than I was last night. It was those green cocktails, deadly things, had me throwing caution to the wind!”

  “Robert knows that you … er…” I trail off, confused.

  “That I enjoy the company of other people?” Laurie gives a throaty chuckle. “Sure he does. He and I are honest with each other. I have a great deal of respect for that man, and God knows marriages have been built on much less.”

  I am quiet for a moment, trying to absorb this. I knew that Laurie didn’t exactly have a conventional view of marriage, but it hadn’t occurred to me that she might not love him.

  “Does Robert have his own…” I trail off again, too mortified to continue.

  Laurie looks at me through narrowed eyes. “That,” she says carefully, “is something you’ll have to take up with him.”

  A feeling of intense nausea rolls over me. Perhaps this is it; perhaps this is why Robert kissed me back. Because he wanted to, because it meant so little, because who is about to be shocked by a little kissing between friends?

  “I don’t understand,” I say, and my voice is tight as I hold back tears. “Why bother getting married at all?”

  Laurie shifts a little in her seat. “That, if you don’t mind me saying so, Lou, is a pretty naive question.”

  “Is it?” I ask weakly.

  “Listen, honey.” Laurie’s voice is gentle now; she’s still holding my hand, and it’s as though she’s explaining something unpleasant to a child who doesn’t want to hear about it. Perhaps that’s exactly what she is doing. “In the world that Robert and I live in, marriages are like business contracts,” Laurie continues. “You have your wealthy American heiresses, with their fathers who have a soft spot for a title –” she gestures to herself here “– and you have your penniless British nobility, desperately trying to keep the family name going.” She shrugs. “Everyone wins. It’s a common story.”

  “Robert’s marrying you because of … money?” I am horrified. Of all the things I thought Laurie might say, I never ex
pected this. It seems so cold, so calculated. I can’t imagine Robert making such a decision. Or can I? No. Perhaps the Robert I met at the beginning of the summer, but not the one I know now.

  Laurie only laughs. “Well, I hope that’s not the only reason.” A smile clings to her rosy lips. “But, I guess, in the baldest terms, the answer is yes.” Laurie lets go of my hand and sits back in her seat. “Neither of us wants a stuffy marriage,” she continues. “He’s a good man and he will make a good husband, just the kind my daddy and all his business cronies heartily approve of, but he’s free to take his pleasure where he likes.” She raises her arms over her head and stretches, a slow smile spreading across her face. “As am I.”

  I sit, digesting this, and staring at the empty teacup in front of me. I think part of me thought that if Robert and Laurie loved other people perhaps they wouldn’t get married. But here it is; Laurie is telling me that they can both see other people whenever they like. What happened with Robert and me meant nothing to him. I am just another girl that he has kissed at a party. The novelty of me will wear off soon enough, and then, like Lucky, I’ll be cast aside and forgotten. And the wedding will go ahead anyway, because that is just the way these things work. Marriage is a contract, and I’m naive for thinking it is anything more. For using words like love. I feel completely adrift as I sit at that table. How can I have been so oblivious?

  Robert reappears then with a silver coffee pot in his hand. He pours a cup for Laurie and she stands, kissing him on the cheek as she accepts it. I keep my eyes down, looking at the ground. I can’t bear to meet Robert’s eye – I don’t know what I will find there.