Falling to Earth

by Deirdre Palmer

  She’d bought sirloin steaks and a bottle of his favourite, expensive, wine and set the table in the dining room. He seemed pleased but he ate distractedly, as if he wasn’t really tasting anything, and by the time they’d chatted about this and that, the meal was all but over and the opportune moment she was waiting for never came. At one point she’d toyed briefly with the idea of diving straight in and to hell with subtle, but the possible painful consequences held her back. The night before Gray was going away was not a good time to start a row. When he said he had to finish off some hand-outs for the Basingstoke job and would she mind very much if he got on with it, she sighed inwardly and said no, of course she didn’t mind. Short of roping him to the chair, what else could she do?

  As she cleared away the dishes and closed the dining room door behind her, Gray had already moved across to his desk, but when she’d gone in later to take him some coffee, she found him sitting there staring out of the window and there was nothing on the computer except the screen-saver.

  Juliet opened her eyes, hoisted herself up into a half-sitting position on the sun-lounger and addressed Rachel who was reclined in the deck-chair in the partial shade of the ancient pear tree.

  ‘How was ice-skating last night?’

  Rachel reached down and trailed her hand across the gingery-brown mound of Sid’s back.

  ‘Good. I only fell over once and the skates were brill. Even River hasn’t got ones as good as that. She was dead jealous.’

  Rachel’s new skates had been bought, as arranged, with birthday money from Charlton and were already firmly in her possession, even though her birthday wasn’t until the day after tomorrow. It had seemed a great deal of money for a pair of skates that she would grow out of in no time but Charlton said she was to have decent ones to protect her feet, and he was right, of course.

  Which reminded her. Juliet’s thoughts hastened away from feet protection issues and raced upwards to the rest of Rachel who had this morning emerged triumphantly from Top Shop with an armful of very small garments and Juliet had yet to inspect them for their body-covering properties.

  Thirteen. It seemed light years away from twelve. She felt suddenly middle-aged.

  ‘Was it all right at River’s house?’

  Rachel squinted at Juliet through the sunlight. ‘Of course it was all right. Why are you asking me that?’

  Well, it was a fair question, Juliet thought, considering that the one and only time she had set foot inside the Matthews’ house, the walls were practically buckling under the strain of heavy metal music, a woman with waist-length red hair who turned out to be River’s mother was squatting cross-legged on a stained velvet chaise longue, competing with the din by reciting dramatically from The Complete Works of Shakespeare, while a beautiful young man with corn-rowed hair was dreamily stirring something on the stove that smelled of week-old cabbage, and looked even worse. She supposed it was something of a Bohemian household - Bohemian, according to Juliet’s mother, being the code-word for unnatural behaviour and a poor excuse for domestic slovenliness.

  ‘Did they feed you properly? What did you have to eat?’

  Rachel emitted a dramatic sigh. ‘Yes. We had mussels and chips.’

  Wonderful. Rachel was about to be struck down by botulism, or whatever it was you caught from eating dubious shellfish – but wouldn’t she have contracted that already, given the time lag? Even so... Juliet leaned across and removed a non-existent insect from Rachel’s hair whilst giving her neck and chest a crafty once-over. No sign of any rash, thank goodness.

  ‘I thought you didn’t like mussels.’

  Rachel twitched out of reach. ‘I don’t much. Mum, did I tell you? River’s Dad’s going to be in EastEnders! He’s only got a small part but he’s hoping it’ll get bigger.’

  ‘I knew a man like that once,’ Andrea said, from the other sun-lounger.

  Rachel threw her a puzzled look. ‘Yes, and River’s mum runs an acting workshop thing for dis-something kids in Camden.’

  ‘Disabled?’ Juliet suggested.

  ‘No, not disabled.’ Rachel frowned.

  ‘Disjointed then. I know – disappointed!’

  Rachel giggled. ‘Mum, stop it!’

  ‘Disadvantaged?’ Andrea offered.

  ‘Yes, that’s it. Anyway, she’s doing that, and River’s brother is in Hollyoaks! How cool is that!’

  Juliet wondered about the logistics of all this. ‘How on earth do they manage to get to all these places, and who looks after River?’

  Rachel raised her eyes. ‘They have staff, of course.’

  ‘Oh, of course.’ Andrea grinned at Juliet.

  ‘River’s lucky,’ Rachel sighed. ‘She doesn’t have to bother with exams because she’ll get straight into drama school, no danger.’

  ‘Rachel, where do you get these expressions?’ Juliet said.

  Andrea turned over on her lounger and faced the other way.

  10

  Juliet swam slowly across the pool, the water caressing her skin like warm silk. It didn’t take many strokes to get across – it was a very small pool, but luckily the villa it was shared with was unoccupied. She stopped swimming but remained submerged up to her shoulders, letting her arms flap lazily in the water. Gray was sitting on the side of the pool furthest away from her, feet in the water, body glistening from his recent dip. He’d put on his sun-glasses but she could tell he was watching her.

  She could also tell by the set of his shoulders how relaxed he was. It had happened on the plane, the gentle easing of his posture, like a balloon slowly deflating, and by the time the taxi had jolted up the steep track from the Andalusian village and they’d stepped out into the thymey dusk of the mountains, she had been prepared to believe that as a couple they were pretty much as solid as they could be - disregarding the odd blip, of which, she thought guiltily, her dalliance with Jonno was one.

  As long as she could keep a perspective and not allow outside influences and the inevitable ordinariness of everyday life to send her imagination into free-fall, they would be fine, she was convinced of it. Well, almost.

  Her lack of experience at handling the ebb and flow of a long-term relationship probably hadn’t helped. After Charlton she had poured all her energy and emotion into caring for her baby and pursuing her career and there was no room in her life for anything, or anyone, else. It wasn’t until Rachel started school that she began to rekindle the kind of social life that was conducive to meeting men who might turn into boyfriends. Even then, it was ages before she went on a proper date.

  Realising she had to start somewhere, she joined a club for single parents - the first club she’d joined in her life - and before long, she and Colm, a fellow member, began a heady romance. It lasted for six blissful months. He was very fond of her, he said, but being with her had made him realise how much he wanted his wife back and he’d promptly set off in pursuit of his ex. Juliet’s new-found confidence had plummeted. There she was thinking she was Colm’s lover when all she’d been was some kind of therapist. It took a while after that for her to want to dip her toe in the water again.

  The years that followed offered up a few short-lived relationships, one with a fireman who spent all his non-fire-fighting hours tending his body at the gym instead of tending hers, and another with an extraordinarily handsome oboe player who turned out to be two-timing her with the second violinist, male. Then there was the pony-tailed and permanently stubbled forklift truck driver who wrote dreadful poetry between shifts - she only went out with him because her mother would have hated him on sight.

  Most of the men Juliet met during what she came to think of as her fallow phase had one thing in common – they took one look at her heart-shaped face and big grey eyes and decided she needed looking after. That was their first mistake.

  Then, just as she had all but given up hope of meeting anyone remotely sane, interesting and reasonably attractive, she met Gray at the local swimming pool. He caught her eye, literally, with a great
slosh of water as he thundered past and, spotting her predicament, he’d climbed out and fetched his own towel for Juliet to dab her eye with. He’d even taken care of Rachel, making sure she stayed safely in the shallow end.

  It had not been a case of love at first sight - Juliet didn’t believe in that any longer and anyway, with her eye full of water she couldn’t actually see him. When she recovered she was pleasantly surprised to find that the man who was being so attentive had dark blonde hair, kind, violety-blue eyes, a squared-off chin with a sexy little dimple in it and a slow smile that sent little darts of electricity down her back.

  As they’d chatted over coffee and aptly-named rock cakes at the pool-side café, during which Gray made it crystal clear that he was available, his last relationship with a barrister called Sophie having ended five months before, she’d had the wicked thought that meeting someone for the first time when you were both semi-naked had a distinct advantage since as far as physical attributes went, there was very little left to wonder about, which lessened considerably the potential for any nasty surprises.

  Now, Juliet hauled herself out of the pool and sat on the side, dangling her legs in the water. The view from here was so amazing that she’d felt almost tearful when she stepped out on to the terrace on the first morning. The drama of the mountains, the foothills and the lush valley sweeping down towards Nerja and the distant sea – it was all so impossibly beautiful it took her breath away. There were other villas in the vicinity but they were cunningly screened by trees and the undulating landscape, making it possible to believe there wasn’t another soul for miles.

  The villa nearest theirs was shuttered and grilled. What was it about Spanish houses that once they were closed up they looked as if they’d been that way for ever and no human being would ever set foot in them again? At first Juliet had been disappointed at the absence of any neighbouring couple or family to liven things up, but then as the peace and tranquillity, interrupted only by birdsong and the tinkle of goats’ bells, began to smooth out her nerves and lift her spirits she’d changed her mind. It was perfect as it was, just the two of them.

  ‘I don’t know why you bother with a bikini,’ Gray said. ‘There’s no-one to see you apart from me.’

  ‘Right then.’ Reaching behind her, she unhooked her purple bikini top and waved it in the air. Within seconds, Gray was round her side of the pool. Grabbing her top, he flung it into the bushes then took her into his arms and kissed her. Laughing, kissing, falling over one another as they clung together, they stumbled across the terrace towards the villa.

  For the last three days they hired a car and drove through mile upon mile of cane and avocado plantations and sunny hills laden with vines and olive trees in search of hidden villages, then down to Nerja and the beach. They bought enormous ice creams that melted faster than they could eat them and Juliet laughed at the sight of Gray with ice cream dripping off his chin and realised she hadn’t felt as happy as this for ages.

  Last night she’d apologised again for having been such a cow about the holiday - he was right, she did love it. Gray had matched her apology with one of his own. He knew he’d been a misery, he said, and he would try not to be in future. Well, it was a start.

  The planned visit to the Alhambra Palace they saved until the day before they were due to head home. It was quite a long drive from their mountain retreat and Juliet was impressed with Gray’s apparent familiarity with the route as he swung confidently across lanes and got them to the right place, which was just as well because she wouldn’t have had a clue how to get there, although she would never have admitted as much.

  The night before, while she’d talked on the phone, firstly to Rachel who was back from France and staying with Debbie’s family, then to Karina and, finally, Andrea, Gray had studied maps and guidebooks and made lots of pencilled notes. All this preparation had obviously paid off, Juliet thought appreciatively as they drove over a wide bridge and on to Granada’s main street, the noise of the traffic seeming extraordinarily loud after the quiet of the mountains.

  The Alhambra, Juliet discovered, was a series of palaces, mosques, towers and courtyards within a vast fortification. Gray had explained this last night and had read her snippets from the guide books, but she’d been too sleepy to pay much attention. Besides, history was more Gray’s thing that hers. All she wanted to do was to feast her eyes on the shapes and patterns and textures and colours of it all, then she would buy a stack of postcards to take home as a likely source of inspiration for future art projects. Taking her own photos would have been too distracting.

  They joined a tour but the guide seemed keen to hasten them on and as they entered the Arabian Lion’s Court and gazed wordlessly at the elegant columns rising to intricately patterned archways, the shadowy colonnade and the fountain in the middle with its crouching guard of water-spewing lion statues, Gray nudged Juliet and indicated that they should hang back.

  ‘Don’t worry, we won’t get lost,’ he whispered as the voice of the tour guide grew fainter and the shuffling footsteps died away.

  ‘I don’t care if we do,’ Juliet whispered back. It didn’t seem right to talk any louder.

  Other visitors straggled into the courtyard and Juliet and Gray wandered on, through airy rooms encrusted with exotically coloured mosaics and carvings, up and down echoey marble staircases until eventually they emerged on to a long terrace with a tiled floor and a breathtaking view over Granada.

  ‘Marvellous.’ Gray said, shaking his head. He gathered Juliet into a fierce embrace, kissing her smartly on the lips, then held her away from him, his eyes searching her face.

  ‘I would say something about Juliet on the balcony but that would be cheesy in the extreme so I’ll just tell you how beautiful you are and that I love you very much.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think anyone could be accused of cheesiness in a place like this. It’s so special, the normal rules don’t apply. Still, if it brings out the romantic in you, I’m not complaining.’

  Gray’s expression changed immediately, his mouth settling into a thin, straight line. Releasing her, he stood against the balustrade.

  ‘I was just saying what I feel. It’s how I feel all the time. It’s nothing to do with the place. You should know that.’

  Juliet’s insides contracted. She might have known Gray would take her throw-away remark as a snub to his compliment. Yet again she’d opened her big mouth without stopping to think first. But she shouldn’t have to walk on egg-shells all the time – it wasn’t right. She had hoped they’d left all that behind them – she thought they had – but Gray’s blue touch paper seemed intent on reaching for the flame as eagerly as before.

  ‘I do know, of course I do. I’m sorry.’ She tried to look into his eyes, appealing to him not to let her clumsiness spoil the moment, but he dropped his gaze.

  ‘Do you though? Do you really know me? Perhaps that’s the trouble. We don’t know one another well enough, even after all this time.’

  Please, not now. Juliet’s stomach lurched again. Don’t tell me now. She’d mentally rehearsed this moment so many times but she wasn’t ready for it. Never would be.

  She gazed at the blue expanse of sky above the city and sent up an arrow prayer: Please make it all right. Then, turning back to Gray, she saw that his expression had changed as swiftly as it had before and he was smiling at her, with humour, with affection.

  ‘I’m sorry. Forget I said that. I don’t know what’s got into me. Here we are in the place we always dreamed of and I go spoiling it. Trust me!’ He raised his eyes.

  She should have let it go, joshed with him, allowed them both to return, unscathed, to the place they’d been before they stepped on to this balcony, but she couldn’t. Things said could not be unsaid.

  ‘Is that really what you think? That we don’t know one another? Is that what’s wrong with us?’

  Gray looked down at his shoes. ‘I don’t necessarily think there’s anything wrong with us, fundamentally. I just mea
nt we seem… a bit far apart sometimes.’

  Now they were on the same page. Juliet let out the breath she’d been holding.

  ‘I’ve been feeling that too. Sometimes I look at you and I haven’t a clue what you’re thinking, only that it’s something private that I’m not meant to know, and it’s a little bit hurtful.’ She smiled. ‘I didn’t put that very well. I didn’t mean I have to know what you’re thinking all the time. Perish the thought!’ She gave a nervy little laugh.

  Gray looked stricken. ‘I didn’t realise you felt like that. Why didn’t you say so before?’

  Why indeed? Juliet thought, as pots and kettles sprang to mind. ‘You must know you shut me out sometimes.’

  ‘I can’t always discuss every little detail of my life with you. I can never tell how you’re going to react, for one thing,’ Gray said, irritably.

  What did he mean how she was going to react? Was she really that unpredictable, and anyway, what were these ‘little details’ and why couldn’t he share them with her? Did he mistrust her that much? Well, she wasn’t going to wheedle it out of him.

  They stood, side by side, at the balustrade, neither speaking. She stole a look at Gray’s stubborn profile, his folded arms. It was up to her, then, to rescue the situation. This mustn’t end in a full-scale argument – already a shadow had been cast over the day. Forcing back the ball of irritation that threatened to block her throat, she slid an arm around his waist.

  ‘Come on, honey, let’s not fight. I’m sorry. I expect it’s my fault.’