I looked from Andrew to Alice and back. She had flushed slightly. Was she happy that Andrew was persisting with the lie? Did it matter? If Louis had been that drunk he wasn’t exactly a useful witness. Or a likely suspect for that matter. But still. It would have been better to have told the truth.
‘I see,’ Gavras said. ‘In that case let us not disturb the boy from his killing machine.’
Everyone laughed, except me.
‘How is she doing?’ I said.
Gavras looked at me, confused. ‘Who?’
‘Laura, the girl who was attacked. Is she OK?’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you familiar with Laura Cratchet? Is she a friend of yours?’
‘No. I just overheard her name, that’s all.’
‘How kind of you, Mr Morris, to show concern.’
Andrew smiled. ‘Our guest is always attentive to detail when it comes to young ladies.’
Gavras bowed his head. ‘She is receiving the best possible care and is assisting us as much as she can. Mr Morris – were you at the club the night she was attacked?’
‘No.’ I shook my head, laughing. ‘I’m far too old.’
‘I see,’ he said again.
‘What do you mean, “assisting”?’ Alice said. ‘Did she see her attacker?’
‘No she did not.’
‘Do you think it was planned?’ Andrew asked. ‘Or heat of the moment?’
‘It is impossible for me to say.’
I said: ‘Did the girl get any sense of how old her attacker was?’
Gavras looked at me. ‘Enough questions.’ He made a rotating movement with his shoulders, stretching out the muscles. ‘None of you must worry. He will not get away.’
There was to be no intimate dinner à deux after that. Tina made another pasta dish – this one with tinned tuna, seriously worse than anything I ever ate at college. It was supposed to have olives in it, but Alice had bought the wrong sort at the supermarket – uncured, raw and hard as bullets. ‘Never mind,’ she said, closing up the jar. ‘We’ll find some use for them.’
We all sat down together on the terrace. The atmosphere was tense. I was sure Andrew and Tina had rowed again, and Alice was in a state about the imminent arrival of Yvonne and Karl. I was troubled by Louis. I studied him across the table, a great lumpen man-child, his body too big for his developing mind, his face still undergoing that teenage seismic shift. He shovelled in his food, holding his fork in his right hand, as if showing he was beyond conventional manners, too macho. But then Daisy asked him to pour her a glass of water, which he did clumsily, spilling some on the table, and he blushed, as bashful as a small boy.
It was still hot, as humid as it had been, and there was talk of a ‘midnight swim’. Alice insisted she do the washing-up; ‘Go on,’ she said to me, caressing my shoulder, ‘you’ve done enough today.’ Andrew volunteered to dry, and the rest of us went down to the pool and switched on the underwater lights.
Tina was in a mood. ‘I’m sorry it didn’t work out in Epitara. But I could have told you.’
‘Yes, it was a shame. Still, we had to try.’
‘We missed you both today. Well.’ She flicked a leaf off the table towards the pool. ‘Andrew did.’
I watched Daisy as she swam aimlessly, her hair dripping, her nubile body flickering white in the LEDs. For once it left me cold.
‘What’s keeping Andrew and Alice?’ I said.
‘I’m sure they’ll be down in a bit.’
But I couldn’t stay still. I told Tina I’d forgotten my cigarettes and climbed back up to the house.
They were on my fag bench where they must have thought they were safe, out of sight. Andrew’s arm was around Alice’s shoulder, his fingers clasping her upper arm, his chin resting on her head. The thought of his bristles against her soft hair made me shudder.
They didn’t see me. Alice was looking down. His eyes were closed. They were talking quietly; her lips moving. They hadn’t heard me approach – to be honest, I’d crept up from the pool as quietly as I could.
This was a stolen moment; not the intimacy of friends, but something darker, more dangerous.
My teeth clenched, my fists coiled.
So I was ‘daft’ to feel jealous, was I?
I felt as if I had been kicked in the groin. I didn’t know what to do with myself. I wanted to scream, to fight. But in the end I turned away and went quietly back the way I had come.
Chapter Fourteen
I hardly slept, what with the dog and the heat and the yearning for Alice. Perhaps if I hadn’t been so far from home, if I had been in London, with Michael to talk to, I’d have kept my perspective. But instead I lay there, veering between violent jealousy and a pathetic humility. One minute I ached for the feel of her skin on mine, longed to stretch my palms across the hot crumpled sheet, to run my hands over her ribcage; the next I imagined getting out of bed, finding Andrew, kicking him all over the house.
With daylight came a new rationality. Perhaps I had imagined it? Alice was still lying in bed when I came out of the shower, and she put her arms out and pulled me down next to her. ‘Thank you for yesterday,’ she murmured, her fingers slipping under the damp edge of my towel. I searched her face. ‘It was nothing,’ I said. ‘I was happy to.’
She kissed me on my nose, and then on my mouth, her tongue seeking mine. ‘Come back to bed,’ she said, her hands slipping lower and cupping my naked buttocks.
I had turned my back on her the night before to read my book, or pretend to, but now I succumbed – of course I did. I forced her legs apart more insistently than felt right, caught her lip between my teeth, and pinioned her hands above her head. I was trying to possess her, trying to exert control – over my own emotions if nothing else. She moaned in pleasure, though she didn’t come. Could I have misread the situation? Would she have initiated this, would she have enjoyed it, if she was in love with Andrew?
We joined the others, late to breakfast. The construction work had re-started; there was a sound of drilling. Tina in her pink dressing gown was sitting a distance from Andrew, painting the view, tubes of paint and a pot of water arranged at her feet. Andrew was perched fully dressed on the table, looking at his watch. ‘Cutting it a bit fine, aren’t we?’ he said irritably to Alice. Yvonne and Karl were due to land at lunchtime; there had been discussions at supper about what time he and Alice should set off to collect them.
‘We’ll be OK,’ she said. ‘They’ve got to get through security. Anyway, I’m ready.’
She tore herself off a piece of bread, holding it to her nose, breathing in the yeasty scent, her eyes closed.
‘Of course, now I’m insured for the car,’ I said, sitting down and pouring myself a coffee, ‘I could drive.’
I put the cafetiere back on the table and watched them both carefully. Alice looked thoughtful, as if considering it: ‘Well, that’s a suggestion,’ she said. ‘Andrew, what do you think?’
‘The airport is quite hard to find.’
On the other side of the terrace, Tina put down her sketch pad. ‘I’m sure Paul can manage.’
‘No, it is difficult,’ Alice agreed. She stretched over me for the butter and wiped some on her bread. She finished speaking with her mouth full. ‘We’ll leave it as is.’
I waited until I could no longer hear the car, until it had reached the end of the drive and bumped around the corner, until the engine was a distant rumble. And then I went back round the house to find Tina.
She was in the kitchen, having abandoned her paints and got dressed – another linen sack, this one an over-washed, faded green, a few inches shorter at the back than the front, revealing the dimpled blue-white curves above her knees. Her eyes were red – a tiny mesh of broken veins in the corners – and I wondered if she had been crying.
‘You all right?’ I said.
‘Yup.’
I took a deep breath. Should I ask her what she thought about Andrew and Alice? Did I dare I put it into words?
&
nbsp; ‘I’m planning a picnic in Stefanos. We can walk down. It will do us good. Plus get us away from the noise.’
She pushed past me and started picking up towels from various chairs on the terrace. ‘We can buy cheese pies for lunch and eat them on the beach,’ she said, stuffing the towels into a large canvas bag. ‘Snorkel. Swim. I’ll take my paints.’ She shouted: ‘Kids! Hurry up! Let’s go!’ and then to me again, ‘Maybe write some postcards. You coming?’
I stopped her in the doorway by putting my hand on her shoulder. She was agitated, I could tell. She needed to know I was on her side. ‘Would you like me to come?’ I said with meaning.
‘You must do what you like,’ she said.
‘Yes. But do you want me to come?’
Shit. Thinking about it now: yes. Maybe I did sound needy. I didn’t mean to. I was just trying to be kind.
She looked at my hand, and then up into my face. Her voice was steady, as she said again: ‘You must do what you like.’
There was something in her expression that I resented. I took my hand back. ‘Maybe I won’t, then,’ I said.
I sat on the terrace after that, smoking, and watched them fussing about, coming and going, searching for and finding and losing again what they needed (trunks, balls, rush mats), collecting useless props for their useless lives. Nobody wanted me, I thought to myself with self-pity; nobody needed me.
‘You staying here?’ Frank said before they left.
‘I thought I might, yes.’
‘To do what?’
‘I’ll find something to do, some use for my time.’
‘Like mend Hermes?’ he said, and behind him, Phoebe laughed.
When they were safely out of the way, I went back into the house. There were two doors into Andrew and Tina’s room – one from the terrace, which was locked; the other from the lounge, which wasn’t. I went straight in and looked around. It was a combination of messy and scrupulously tidy, as if a sergeant major lodged with a whore. The chest of drawers was littered with make-up and jangly nests of jewellery, but the bed was neatly made. Andrew’s side was clear, but Tina’s book, a bestselling romance, was open, face down with the pages scuffed, on the other side. A half-empty glass of water sat on the small wooden stool next to it, and a blister pack, which I looked at closely. It contained sleeping pills – Ambien. So that’s why she slept so soundly. I helped myself to a couple just in case – you never know when a good night’s sleep might come in handy.
I opened the wardrobe and looked through his clothes. Emptied his pockets: nothing. On the bottom shelf, tucked under a towel, was a small leather washbag, which I emptied onto the floor: a tube of Kiehl’s ‘Ultimate Brushless Shave’, Tom Ford ‘Noir’ and a jar of Macho-man MAX vitamins for ‘increased health & vitality and sharpened mental performance’. I was about to return the items to the bag when I realised it had an internal compartment. I felt inside and took out three gold-wrapped packets. Condoms. I held them in my hand, feeling suddenly sick. Why would Andrew need condoms? An early menopause, Tina had said. He certainly wasn’t using them to sleep with his wife.
I put everything back into the washbag and replaced it under the towel in the wardrobe. But the condoms I put in my wallet. Maybe Andrew would think Tina had found them. But I hoped he’d know it was me.
Back on the terrace, I turned my head, holding my breath. Above the distant drilling, I could hear voices, and a girl’s laughter. It was coming from the pool. I slipped quietly to the bottom of the steps and stood under the fig: two people entwined in the water. One was Daisy; and the other was a blond man with broad shoulders. He turned, saw me. Fuck. Artan.
I waved.
Daisy leapt out at the side closest to me, and grabbed a towel. ‘I thought you’d gone with the others.’
‘I thought you had,’ I said.
‘Don’t tell,’ she said. ‘It’s not what it looks like. We’re just friends.’
Artan had got out at the far end of the pool, and was pulling on his trousers with his back to us.
‘He’s a bit old for you,’ I said.
She gave a sarcastic smile. ‘Really, we’re going to go there?’
I considered her for a moment, weighing up the options. Was I supposed to be outraged? To yank her up to the house? Wait until I tell your mother, young lady. Is that how someone with a normal moral compass would react? To be honest, I didn’t care. I had too much on my mind to worry what she did. She was an adult. Or almost. ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Deal. I’ll be up at the house if you need me.’
‘Doing what?’ she said suspiciously.
I shrugged. ‘Mending the van.’
This time I wedged the shed door open, using a large plastic container that was sitting by the wall. The label was in Greek, but showed a skull and crossbones – the international sign for poison. The lid was tightly closed, but to be on the safe side, I wiped my hand on my shorts after I’d moved it. A shaft of dusty light streamed in and I saw that where the wall had been thick with dirt two days before, now a smear ran along it, in a wide curve, as if it had been wiped with a towel, or as if someone else had squeezed past.
The stuff on the shelves at the back of the shed looked like old rubbish – half-finished paint tins, empty containers. I couldn’t think why anyone would have ventured in. And then I remembered Artan closing the door behind him. Maybe this was where he kept his tools, though I couldn’t see any. Or perhaps he came in here to change into his work clothes. Or to fuck Daisy? Was he fucking Daisy? Who cared?
The car had been parked almost up to the shelves, but with just enough room to stand at the front of it. I fiddled under the bonnet and found the release hook in the middle under the front. It popped quite easily, and I secured it open with the metal support. Easy so far. But inside – I recoiled. It was like looking at innards, intestines – coiled and dirty. I didn’t have a clue. I couldn’t even locate the water tank let alone the oil stick. An old spanner was resting on what might have been the fan belt. I took it out, weighed it in my hands. It was heavy, rusted up, the hinge like a parrot’s beak. Then I moved round the bonnet to try the driver’s door. It opened – not fully, because of the wall, but just wide enough for me to wriggle through and up on to the seat.
I sat there for a few moments in the cool half-light, with the bonnet open. I tried to imagine I was a mechanic, or maybe just a regular guy somewhere in the American Midwest who knew what they were doing, a man a woman like Alice would have no choice but to respect. I lit a cigarette and rolled down the window to stick out my elbow. I leant back. It wasn’t particularly comfortable; the seat was a flat bench with a padded plastic cushion. But the interior was clean, apart from a few pieces of twig and road-grit and an old handkerchief lying scrunched in the footwell. Hell – I smiled ruefully to myself – if Alice left me for Andrew, I could move out here.
I finished the fag and stubbed it out with my shoe. The key was in the ignition, just as Alice had said. A surprisingly stunted key for such a mighty machine; no fob. It seemed an unwise thing to do, get a car going in an enclosed space. Carbon monoxide fumes, all these bottles of liquid.
I bent my head to twist the key but it was stuck tight. I tried to pull it out but it wouldn’t budge. My fingers were slippery with sweat and it was almost impossible to get a purchase. I mopped them on my shirt and tried again. Still no joy. The key couldn’t have rusted completely; I just needed something to help my grip. I looked around, and spotted the old handkerchief on the floor. That would do. I reached down to pick it up and then wrapped the dusty cream cotton round my fingers and tried again. This time, my grip was secure enough to provide sufficient friction. The key turned. The engine coughed, died. A second go: same deal. One last time, my hand sore already, the metal digging deep into the meat of my forefinger through the cotton. A rattle, and then a throaty whirr and the beast began to vibrate, the propped-open bonnet rattling on its support. I took my hand off the key and marvelled. I had mended it. Perhaps it was as simple as removing that spanner
.
I switched the engine off and the shed fell quiet again.
I felt an extraordinary sense of achievement, and with it a lift in my self-esteem. What could Alice possibly see in Andrew that she didn’t see in me? Clearly he provided her with moral and emotional support, but were they having an affair? Could the gold condoms be old? Or confiscated from his son? I lit another cigarette and took a deep drag. Fact is, if they had been sleeping with each other, was Andrew really any match for me? I had to prove my worth, was all. I had to find a way to get rid of him.
I remember this thought process in detail. What I don’t remember is what I did with the spanner. I don’t know whether I dropped it on the floor of the shed – but it was heavy and would have made a resounding clank and I don’t remember that. Or whether I took it with me into the cab and left it there.
Chapter Fifteen
Alice and Andrew were back at about 5 p.m., long after the others. I was lying on the bed, pretending to read, when Alice breezed in as if nothing were wrong. The plane had been delayed, their car had got stuck behind some goats – ‘we had to switch off the engine and wait for a man to come and shoo them through a gate’ – and they’d stopped for a drink before dropping Yvonne and Karl at the hotel. ‘Anyway,’ she said, throwing off her shoes and plonking herself down on the side of the mattress. ‘They’re here.’
‘Are they OK?’ I said. ‘It must be traumatic coming back.’ I was reaching for the intimacy we’d shared in the car. But Alice was in a different sort of mood. Her gestures were over-generous. When she reached over to kiss me, her mouth loose and moist, her breath smelt of ouzo. ‘Yes. Actually, yes, they’re both fine. Under the circumstances.’ She was drawing out her words. ‘I’m not sure it’s hit them. What have you been up to?’
Lie With Me Page 16
