Summer Madness

by Susan Lewis

  As Jake’s face turned murderously dark Jean-Claude said quickly, ‘I ’ave been married too, Danny, maybe I could give you a few ’ints.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ Danny said, wagging a finger, ‘I don’t want the bedroom secrets of gays, it’s those of real men I’m looking for. Men who get deliciously rough with their women, not men who bugger young …’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Danny!’ Jake exploded

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she gasped, putting a hand over her mouth, ‘did I say something to upset you?’

  Jake nodded towards Jean-Claude as though to tell him to go into the kitchen and let him handle this.

  Jean-Claude needed no further bidding and going inside he found Louisa humming to herself as she dressed the salad and organized the cutlery.

  ‘Oh, Jean-Claude,’ she said, starting as he came in. Then grimacing when she saw his face she added ‘He’s not being difficult is he?’

  ‘No, ’e is being as charming as ’e can under the circumstances, at least with me ’e is. Can I give you a ’and with something?’

  ‘Yes, could you get the plates from the cupboard over there,’ she said, nodding over her shoulder towards it, ‘I just need to wash off these eggs. Where did you say Didier was tonight, by the way?’

  ‘Oh, ’e is down in the village, with ’is friends. ’e will be ’ome soon, I expect. Louisa? Louisa? What is it?’ he said, putting the plates down and going to her.

  She said nothing, just continued to stare at the half-open window. Jean-Claude followed her eyes and then he too could see what she was seeing. The slant of the window was such that it was reflecting what was happening on the terrace, where, with one hand idly massaging Danny’s exposed breast, Jake was gazing down into her eyes and listening to what she was saying. She was smiling, Jean-Claude saw, then suddenly Jake laughed and grabbing her to him he crushed his mouth passionately over hers.

  Louisa turned away, dropping the eggs in the sink.

  ‘No,’ Jean-Claude said, pulling her back. ‘Go out there and face it.’

  ‘No. You go out there. Just go and break it up, please.’

  ‘You want to pretend it ’asn’t ’appened?’ he challenged.

  ‘For now, yes. I’ll deal with it later, when Danny and I are alone.’

  By the time Jean-Claude stepped onto the terrace the embrace was over and seeing him coming Danny wandered off to the pool. Jake watched her go, then turning to Jean-Claude and seeing the expression on Jean-Claude’s face he said, quite matter-of-factly, ‘She saw.’

  Jean-Claude nodded.

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘Still in the kitchen, I believe.’

  Pushing aside a chair Jake walked into the kitchen.

  ‘Hi,’ Louisa smiled as she saw him come in.

  ‘Quit pretending. I know you saw.’

  She shrugged. ‘It’s OK, it’s …’ She stopped abruptly as he suddenly grabbed her by the arm and pushed her up against the wall.

  ‘So, I kissed her,’ he raged, ‘What the hell? I kiss who I want to kiss, same as I screw who I want to screw … I’m married, you know that, I love my wife …’

  ‘Jake, you’re hurting me,’ she protested.

  ‘I told you it couldn’t go anywhere with us,’ he growled, tightening the grip on her arm, ‘I warned you …’

  ‘Jake, let me go!’ she cried.

  But still he had hold of her and as his eyes blazed furiously into hers Louisa thought of Martina and felt suddenly sick with fear and a heartbreaking despondency that she had been so horribly, so unbearably wrong.

  He let her go, so abruptly she staggered.

  ‘I told you, it’s no big deal,’ she said shakily as he started to turn away.

  ‘No, that’s right!’ he said, turning back. ‘It’s no big deal. None of this is a big deal. We had a good time together, but I told you that what we had was for the here and now. So why the hell did you have to go and fall in love with me?’

  ‘I never said that!’ she cried. ‘Never once have I told you …’

  ‘Oh dear, I haven’t just walked into a lover’s tiff have I?’ Danny smirked from the doorway.

  Jake’s eyes stayed on Louisa as hers did on him, but she just didn’t know what she was seeing. Suddenly he turned away, snatched his keys up from the table and walked out.

  ‘Not staying for dinner?’ Danny smiled as he went past her. There was no reply, then Danny and Louisa were alone in the kitchen.

  ‘Well, at least you’ve had a taste of what he’s really like,’ Danny said, turning back to Louisa.

  ‘Danny, if I were you, I’d just shut up,’ Louisa warned, her voice trembling with fury.

  ‘Oh, come on, you knew all along what he was like,’ Danny said, helping herself to a handful of peanuts. ‘You just wanted to fool yourself. I don’t blame …’

  ‘Danny. I’m warning you,’ Louisa said, her hand tightening around the knife she hardly knew she was holding.

  ‘Louisa, for heaven’s sake, I only did it to prove to you what he was like! And look how much persuading he took. The very second your back’s turned he’s got my tits out. Mind you, I have to say, it was pretty nice.’

  ‘One more word,’ Louisa threatened. ‘Just one more word and I’m telling you, Danny, you’re going to find this knife between your fucking ribs, because I’ve taken just about as much as I can take of you …’

  ‘Louisa!’ Danny reprimanded. ‘I was only trying to help. And I’d better tell you now, that the real truth is Jake and I have been sleeping together all along …’

  ‘You’re a liar!’ Sarah yelled from the door. ‘I don’t know what’s the matter with you, Danny, whether you’re sick in the head or you just can’t stand the fact that he prefers Louisa. But you say one more thing, one more lie comes out of your mouth, then it’ll be me sticking that fucking knife into you.’

  ‘OK, come on, that’s enough,’ Jean-Claude said, coming in from the terrace. ‘Let’s all just calm down, shall we?’

  ‘Oh, Faggot Galahad to the rescue,’ Danny jeered and suddenly her head swung back as Louisa slapped her hard across the face.

  ‘You bitch!’ Danny gasped, real fury blazing in her eyes, but as she made to retaliate, nails brandished like claws, Jean-Claude grabbed her, wresting her arms behind her.

  ‘Let me go!’ she yelled, twisting and kicking. ‘I said, let me go!’

  ‘She needs a fucking straitjacket, that’s what she needs,’ Louisa hissed.

  Danny stared at her, eyes dazed with confusion. This wasn’t supposed to happen, this wasn’t a part of the script. What had gone wrong? They were all turning against her? ‘Get out!’ she suddenly screamed. ‘Just get out, the whole lot of you! It’s my villa, so pack your fucking bags and go!’

  ‘With pleasure,’ Sarah snapped, and taking Louisa by the arm she marched her out of the house.

  *

  The following morning, having spent the night at Jean-Claude’s Sarah went off early to see Morandi’s lawyer in Nice and Louisa, having grudgingly decided that she should try to make peace with Danny, was on the point of going over to the villa when Jake drove up the lane.

  She stood at Jean-Claude’s gates, wearing the now crumpled ivory silk dress she’d been wearing the night before, and waited for him to come to a stop.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ he said, looking straight ahead.

  She could see by the way he was gripping the wheel and from the hard line of his jaw that his temper hadn’t improved much overnight. ‘I don’t know, Jake,’ she said, her heart stinging with the bitter conflict of her emotions.

  ‘Please,’ he said, turning to look at her. His lips were pale, his scarred eye was covered by the patch, but the one she could see was bloodshot and heavy with tiredness.

  Walking around the car she got in beside him and half an hour later, after a drive that made her thankful to still be alive at the end of it, they were in the sitting room of his house.

  ‘I wanted to say I was sorry,’ h
e growled, as she walked away from him towards the fireplace.

  ‘You could have told me that back at Jean-Claude’s,’ she said, turning to face him.

  ‘I know.’ His voice was tight with anger, but there was something in him that seemed to be reaching out for her. He was fighting it, she could see that as clearly as she could see the struggle to control his temper. She made no move towards him, his sudden burst of violence the night before had left her more shaken than she wanted to admit, but even so she still wasn’t afraid of him. ‘I wanted you here,’ he said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know why,’ he seethed. ‘Does there have to be a reason?’

  ‘Jake, for heaven’s sake,’ she cried. ‘What is wrong with you? What’s happened to make you so angry? And why are you taking it out on me?’

  For several seconds he just stared at her, then wrenching the patch from his eye he threw it down on the sofa. ‘Plenty has happened,’ he said savagely. ‘Too much.’ Then lifting his eyes back to hers he said. ‘But you’re right, I shouldn’t be taking it out on you.’

  She continued to watch him as he sank down on the sofa and propping his elbows on his knees bunched his fists in front of his mouth. They were silent for a long time, until finally, his eyes closed and he let out a deep groan of anguish. ‘I told you I couldn’t love you,’ he said, his voice cracked with anger. ‘I warned you, but you didn’t listen.’ He got to his feet and began to thrash angrily about the room. ‘Why didn’t you listen?’ he raged, slamming a hand on the surface of an antique chest. ‘I told you I love my wife, so why didn’t you listen?’ He swung round, looking at her as though he meant to hit her.

  Louisa stood her ground, her dark eyes flashing the challenge.

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ he suddenly cried. ‘What is it with you? Why the hell are you doing this?’

  ‘Doing what? What am I doing, Jake?’

  ‘You’re standing there looking like …’ He let his voice go and dropped his head, bringing a hand to it and pushing his fingers through his hair. ‘You’re driving me crazy,’ he said brokenly. ‘You’ve got me so I can’t think about anything except what I’m doing to you.’

  ‘Jake …’

  ‘No, don’t say anything, I don’t want to hear it.’

  She stood silently, not knowing what else to do. That he should feel this way was everything she wanted, but not when it was causing him such torment.

  At last he looked up and she could see from the look in his eyes that for the moment the storm had passed. ‘Come here,’ he said wearily, holding out his arms. ‘Let me hold you.’

  She went to him, tears filling her eyes, love and pain and longing flooding her heart.

  Long minutes ticked by as he held her, rocking her back and forth and gently stroking her hair as he stared absently towards the window.

  ‘I love you, you know that, don’t you?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  He pulled her head back so that it was resting in his hand. ‘But I’ve got no right to say it.’

  ‘It’s not about having the right, Jake. It’s about us and what we feel, now, here today. You can’t help it, any more than I can.’

  His eyes moved over hers as though trying to find a way into her mind. ‘I want you, Louisa,’ he murmured. ‘I want you very much right now.’

  ‘I’m here,’ she said.

  Taking her hand he led her into the bedroom. He undressed her himself, looking at her and touching her as though seeing her for the first time. Then removing his own clothes he lay down with her. As their bodies entwined, his so big and masculine, hers so slender and feminine, she could feel their love pulling them together more surely and more commandingly than the physical movements of their limbs. When he was inside her he turned his face away and she wondered, from the way he was squeezing her hands, if he was crying. And as the tears rolled down her own cheeks she felt the anger building in him again and held him as the frenzy of his emotions vented itself in the pounding of his hips and in the brutal way he crushed his mouth to hers. He was hurting her, but there was nothing she could do to stop it, and neither did she want to. But at the last, he was gentle and tender and let his tears mingle with hers.

  ‘They’ve found her,’ he said quietly. ‘I’ll be leaving tomorrow.’

  He was lying on his back now, one hand on his forehead as he stared up at the ceiling, the other holding her.

  Louisa said nothing. There was too much sadness and pain in her to speak.

  ‘That with Danny, last night,’ he said. ‘It meant nothing, you know that, don’t you?’

  Still she couldn’t speak.

  ‘I was trying to prove something to myself, I guess.’ He laughed dryly. ‘It didn’t work.’ He closed his eyes. ‘God, what a fool, what a bloody fool I was to think that hurting you would make this easier.’

  ‘Where is she?’ Louisa said, in a soft, shaky voice.

  ‘In Mexico. My father got the call yesterday from Fernando to say that Fernando had seen her.’

  ‘Fernando?’

  ‘An American-Mexican who’s been working on finding her since all this began.’

  ‘So Consuela’s been holding her own daughter hostage all this time?’ Louisa said incredulously.

  ‘Yep,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Did Fernando say anything about your little girl?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s there.’ He paused, then in a voice gruff with emotion he said. ‘Her name’s Antonia.’

  As she felt the pain engulf him she tightened her arms around him. ‘Are they with Fernando now?’

  He laughed bitterly. ‘If only they were. He was driven somewhere blindfold, allowed to see them, then was sent back to tell me how much it was going to cost me to get them back. I received that call this morning, just before I came for you. There are still a few loose ends to tie up here then I can go get them.’

  They were quiet for a while as Louisa fought to keep lodged in her heart the choking knot of emotion and stop it making her cry out for him not to go.

  ‘What about you?’ he said, giving her a quick hug. ‘What will you do now?’

  She opened her mouth to answer then closed it again as the pain and denial rose up from her heart. She couldn’t bear to think of what it was going to be like here without him and neither could she bear the idea of returning to London. She didn’t know what she was going to do, the days and weeks and months ahead seemed so bleak. ‘I suppose I’ll start by trying to sort things out with Danny,’ she said. ‘She threw Sarah and me out of the villa last night.’

  ‘She did?’ He shook his head. ‘God, that woman. I don’t know how Erik can stand it.’

  Her heart jolted as he raised his arm to look at the time, but he made no attempt to get up. ‘You never did tell me exactly what Consuela told Danny about me,’ he said.

  She pursed her mouth at the corner. ‘Do you really want to know?’

  ‘Probably not. Just give me the outline.’

  When Louisa had finished, having told him of his apparent abuses to women, how he was supposed to have killed Martina, and how his father had cut him off he was silent for a long time, obviously deep inside his own thoughts.

  ‘And Danny swallowed it all,’ he said finally.

  Louisa nodded. ‘There was a terrible scene between us after you’d gone last night, if I remember rightly I actually threatened to stick a knife in her.’

  ‘You did?’ he said surprised.

  ‘Yes. So did Sarah.’

  ‘She doesn’t seem to have too many friends right now, does she?’ he remarked. ‘Unless she counts Consuela as a friend.’

  ‘Well hopefully I can put an end to that when I tell her you’ve found …’ She stopped, suddenly not wanting to say the name. ‘Do you think Consuela knows you’ve found her? Is it she who’s demanding all the money?’

  ‘I don’t know. It’s hard to tell. It could be that her own people have turned on her and are out to make even more money than she’
s paying them. I won’t know ’til I get there.’

  ‘But you truly don’t believe this is another hoax?’

  ‘No. Fernando wouldn’t lie.’

  She was looking at his chest, watching the lazy movement of her fingers as she ran them through the coarse, dark hair and wondering what terrible fear and anxiety, what trepidation and nervousness must be pounding in his heart as he thought about the future, of how hard the road ahead was going to be as he tried to pick up the pieces with his wife and child from whom he had been parted for so long. And for her it was almost impossible to make herself accept that she was never going to see him again, that she was truly losing the one man in the world she felt she could really love. Would she ever, she asked herself wretchedly, get over that wonderful, astonishing, and maybe once in a lifetime coup de foudre that had finally brought them to this?

  ‘So Danny’s there all on her ownsome, is she?’ he said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and sitting up.

  ‘Until Erik comes around. Or unless I get there first.’ Why did they have to be talking about Danny now, when he was preparing to go, when there was still so much she wanted to say, wanted to hear? But she knew why he was doing it, he was trying to keep away from territory that was only going to cause them both more pain.

  ‘Erik won’t be there today,’ he said. ‘He’s been held up in Paris, won’t be back until tomorrow.’

  ‘Is he there for you?’

  ‘No. He’s there on his own business.’

  ‘Does he know you’re leaving?’

  ‘He will when I call him.’ He turned to look back at her. ‘I’m going to take a shower, do you want to come with me?’

  She smiled as her throat tightened. ‘One last thing for us to share?’

  He nodded, then swallowed hard as he reached out for her hand.

  ‘What time are you leaving tomorrow?’ she asked as they walked into the bathroom.

  ‘Mid-afternoon to Paris, from there to Mexico City.’

  ‘Can I come to see you off?’

  He looked down at her. ‘Do you think that’s wise?’ he said, brushing a hand through her hair.