She felt nervous, but she also felt good. Sure. ‘You wanted to talk to me about something.’
He nodded. ‘I wanted you to know that I told the truth all day today, Harriet. All of those Willoughby stories actually happened.’
‘Did they?’ She looked up at him and smiled. ‘Well done.’
‘I also meant it when I said you are beautiful.’
She went still.
He came closer, gazing down at her face, her bare shoulders, the curve of her neckline. She felt it like a caress. He was serious, his look intense. ‘Harriet, I think something’s happening. Something with us.’
She nodded. She couldn’t pretend anything else. ‘I think so too.’
‘I can’t even get you that drink. All I want to do is kiss you.’
She caught her breath as he brushed her cheekbone with his thumb. A charge of desire went through her as she felt his hands at her waist. He kissed her, a brief, beautiful kiss.
He lifted his head and she saw his eyes had darkened. ‘I’ve wanted to do that all day.’
He kissed her again, her lips, her neck, then her lips again. She kissed him back. It was different this time, more intense. She arched her neck at the feel of his lips, closing her eyes. There were waves of intense feeling building deep inside her. She hadn’t touched a man since Simon. It was as if all the passion and longing had been saving itself for now. She could feel it with each kiss, each touch. Her body was responding instantly to every caress he gave her, on her lips, her face, her neck, lower. She could feel his body under her fingers, the heat of his lips, as they moved closer against each other, tighter, harder. She felt his hand cup her breast, felt herself swell and push against him, as her hand found his skin under his shirt, as she moulded her body against his, the kisses getting hotter and deeper—
A noise filled the room. A banging noise.
‘Harriet? Harriet? Are you in there? I need your help. Now.’
Harriet pulled away. There was no mistaking the voice.
‘Harriet? Are you in there?’
It was Mrs Lamerton.
It was past one o’clock before Harriet got back to her own room.
The minute before she opened the door to Mrs Lamerton had almost been funny. She had smoothed her hair, checked her clothes were in place, trying not to look as if she’d been doing what she had been doing. Patrick had done the same thing. There hadn’t even been time to say anything to each other. Harriet opened the door to find Mrs Lamerton standing outside, dramatically clutching her stomach. ‘Harriet, I think I have food poisoning.’
Amid loud groaning, she insisted Harriet bring a first aid kit to her room and sit with her, until she felt better. She also insisted she didn’t need a doctor.
Harriet quickly went up to her room, snatching up the first aid kit, catching sight of herself in the mirror, conscious of her flushed face, her too bright eyes. When she got back to Mrs Lamerton’s room, Patrick was there.
‘Do you want me to do anything?’ he said. ‘Call anyone?’
Mrs Lamerton groaned again. ‘Harriet …’
‘I don’t think so. But I’d better stay with her,’ she whispered. He nodded. He didn’t touch her, but it felt like he had.
When she said goodnight to Mrs Lamerton an hour later, the older woman was sitting up in bed, in a quilted bedjacket. The groaning had stopped, even though she’d refused to take any of the array of tablets Harriet had been able to produce from the first aid kit. Harriet wasn’t convinced any of it had been genuine. But she couldn’t have abandoned her, much as she had wanted to. And she had wanted to, very much.
‘Are you sure you’re feeling better, Mrs Lamerton? You’ll be all right if I leave you?’
‘I hope so. But if I need to ring you again, Harriet, where will you be?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Where will you be?’
It was like being back at school. ‘In my room. Just ring the number and I’ll come down again if you need me.’
‘I didn’t interrupt anything, did I? With you and Patrick Shawcross?’ The tone was accusing, triumphant even.
‘No, Mrs Lamerton.’
It wasn’t until she was back in her own room that she wondered why Mrs Lamerton had come to Patrick’s room, not hers. Had she been following her? Watching her and Patrick together? Not just tonight but the last few nights? If she had been, she would have seen Patrick come to her room every night, once with a bottle of wine, stay for an hour and then leave. Oh God. She could only imagine what the older woman had been thinking.
Outside Mrs Lamerton’s door, she had stopped. Down the corridor was her own room. Upstairs was Patrick’s room. She was torn, but finally she had decided not to go back there. Not yet. Not tonight. She needed to think about this.
She went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror. She felt different. Patrick had looked at her tonight, kissed her tonight, caressed her, as though she was the most beautiful, desirable woman he had ever seen. It gave her a breathless feeling, like the earth was slipping away, things were out of control. It was how the panic attacks had felt, she realised. Yet this felt good. Better than good.
Wonderful.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘Thanks, Molly, you’ve done a great job.’
Molly picked up the last box of envelopes and added them to the pile she and Gloria had been stuffing with tour brochures all morning. She had the day off school and had been in the office helping.
Gloria enjoyed her company. Molly had somehow escaped the worst of Melissa’s genes, and inherited James’s calm temperament. She was in fact very restful to be around. A good worker, too. A bit distracted today, though. Gloria noticed her checking her mobile phone again. She’d been doing it all morning.
‘Waiting on an urgent message, Moll?’
‘I still haven’t heard from her.’
‘From Lara?’
Molly nodded. ‘Do you think she’s all right, Gloria?’
‘Of course she is, lovie,’ Gloria said as brightly as she could. ‘I’d say she just needs some time out.’
‘But not from me. Not usually, anyway. She’s always answered me. Especially when I told her it was urgent.’
‘Is something up?’
‘No, no, it’s fine. Just a school thing she was helping me with.’ She bit her lip. For a moment she looked like a little girl, not a fifteen-year-old.
‘Can I help?’
‘No.’ She answered quickly. ‘Thanks anyway, Gloria.’
‘Well, just ask if I can.’ She looked at the airplane clock. ‘I’d better head out for lunch. Thanks again, Moll.’ She picked up her bag and called over to the glass office. ‘I’m off to lunch, Melissa.’
Melissa didn’t turn around, just lifted her hand to say she’d heard.
Gloria hated the way she did that. She refused to let it bother her this time. She pulled the door shut behind her and stood there, in the shade of the veranda. She waved over at Reg from the deli, outside sweeping the footpath.
‘Beautiful day,’ she called over.
‘Beautiful,’ Reg called back. ‘You’re looking well, too. Everything good with Kev?’
‘No worries at all.’
So she looked normal. No one was picking up anything different about her. It was only inside she was feeling sick. She had felt sick since Austin had rung and told her about Lara and the Irish websites.
He’d rung early that morning. It had been after midnight in Bath. She’d just unlocked the front door and walked into the Turner Travel office when the call came. ‘Austin! What time is it there? Hold on, let me get my cup of tea. Of course, please fill me in.’
As he related the story so far, she found herself scribbling notes, out of habit when she was on the phone. Flatmate Nina. College. Lecturer. Ireland???
Ireland. She felt it in the pit of her stomach. The feeling of dread. ‘Where are you now?’
‘In Lara’s flat. Nina’s next door in the kitchen. She’s as
puzzled as we are. Said she wished she’d thought to ask Lara more questions. She’s been very helpful, actually. I think she feels like she’s in the middle of a detective film.’
‘Have you been to see Harriet yet?’
‘This morning, briefly. She was in good form, I thought. She’s got her hands full with that Willoughby, too. There’s a thought. He’s a detective, isn’t he? We can get him onto Lara’s case.’ His joke fell flat. ‘Maybe you were right about this having something to do with Lara’s parents, Gloria. The way she said she had to go off and do some family business.’ He laughed awkwardly. ‘Sorry, listen to me, Austin the amateur psychologist. But Nina and I were talking about it. Maybe Lara went to Ireland without mentioning it to any of us, and it’s sparked all sorts of horrible memories for her, from when her parents had that crash.’
Gloria was silent.
‘Gloria? Are you there?’
‘I’m here,’ she said. ‘Sorry, I was just thinking.’
‘I realised when we were talking about it that there were all these things I didn’t know about Lara’s parents. Where they came from, who they were even. I don’t even know where they are buried. Was it in Ireland, or in Australia?’
‘They were cremated, as far as I know,’ Gloria said. She knew for sure. There had been a lot of contact between the Australian police and the Irish police. The embassies had been involved as well. It was Penny again who had made the decision. She had requested the ashes be scattered somewhere in Ireland. ‘I know you’ll think I’m wrong, Gloria, you don’t even have to say it. I’m doing it to protect Lara. It’s what Rose would have wanted.’ Gloria could remember her voice as clearly as if it was yesterday.
‘So do you know the whole story from that time?’ Austin asked.
‘Not all of it,’ Gloria said hesitantly.
‘Has Lara asked you about any of this? I mean, she might have asked Mum and Dad about it, but we’ll never know now.’
‘I know they spoke about it with her a lot, around the time she turned eighteen especially.’ Penny had come to Gloria, asking for advice. It had been one of the few times since that first terrible night that she and Penny had spoken about it. Lara had started asking lots of questions again about her parents and Penny hadn’t known what to tell her. Didn’t I tell you this would happen, Gloria had wanted to say to her. Didn’t I tell you that it would all come back to bite you? They had nearly fought about it, Gloria remembered. But in the end Penny had stuck to her original story and, as far as Gloria ever found out from Penny, Lara had accepted it.
‘Why wasn’t Lara with her parents in Ireland that time, Gloria? Her flatmate asked me tonight and I couldn’t remember.’
‘I think her parents had been having problems,’ she said, choosing her words with care. ‘Lara had a school camp that week. Your mother told me they’d decided it was a good opportunity to go away on their own, to try and sort out a few things.’
‘That’s right. Mrs Robinson was always ringing Mum for help, wasn’t she? For hours on end, now I think of it. So where did the crash happen in Ireland? Was it near where her mother’s house was? Or somewhere else?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Gloria said. That wasn’t true, either. She knew exactly where it had happened. Just outside a town called Clonakilty, near the city of Cork. The name had always stuck in her head. She was hating this, hating being put on the spot, having to think before she answered him. Help me, Penny, she implored silently. At least it was only a phone conversation. She would have found it harder to lie face to face. She tried to change the subject, to buy herself some thinking time. ‘Look, Austin, you’re not getting carried away with this possibility, are you? You don’t think that maybe we should leave her be, wait until she decides to contact us again?’
‘I can’t, Gloria. Not now. It’s like I said to Harriet, if we find her and she’s all right, then we’ll leave her alone. If she’s not all right, then we’ll be glad we went looking. But something’s obviously wrong. She’s upset about something and maybe it’s got something to do with her parents and what happened in Ireland. Nina’s convinced that’s what it is. She’s going to come and help me look for her, too.’
‘Go with you? Where, to Ireland?’
‘Yes. She’s very fond of Lara. And she’s worried now, too.’
‘Have you got time to do this? What about the orchestra?’
‘It’ll be fine. I’ve still got two days off and I’ll do what I can in that time. What do you reckon? It’s worth a try, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, it is.’ What else could she have said to him?
Gloria started to take her usual route home for lunch, along the beach path, but as she reached the end of the curved bay she turned right, instead of her usual left. She leaned down and took off her sandals and picked her way through the sand to the tree trunk. Bleached from the sun and the water, it had been there for as long as she could remember. She had played on it as a child. She had sat on it with Kevin when they were first dating, with their three boys over the years, and even with her grandkids. She’d sat there with Penny many times too, watching their kids swim, shriek and bodysurf for hours on summer days.
The sun was high. The water was the glowing blue she loved. There were a few people swimming, a couple under an umbrella far to her right, a mother and her two daughters trying to fly a kite. Her imagination turned the woman into Penny, and the two daughters into Harriet and Lara.
Gloria had come to this spot the night she had that awful, difficult conversation with Penny, the night they heard the news about Lara’s parents. The night she’d made that promise. Gloria had regretted making it then and she regretted it now, twenty-four years later.
Gloria was in the back room of the agency, unpacking new stationery, when she heard the phone ring. She heard Penny answer it. The two of them were alone. Neil had left early to drop some tickets to one of their older customers.
Gloria finished the unpacking and was about to put on her coat to go home when Penny came in. Her face was white. Gloria’s immediate thought was someone had died. Neil. Or Kevin. One of the kids. ‘Penny, what is it?’
Penny told her. Gloria sat down, shocked. She was right. Someone had died. Two people. Lara’s parents. Little Lara, who had stayed with the family just a few months before. Her hand went to her mouth as Penny shut the door, sat down at the table and told her the details. ‘Oh God. Oh my God. That poor little girl.’
‘I can’t believe it, Gloria. How could something like that happen?’
Gloria shook her head, put her hand on Penny’s arm. ‘Did you have any inkling things were so terrible? How long was it since you spoke to Rose?’
‘Just last week. Before she left. She asked me to be Lara’s guardian while they were away. In case something happened. That’s how the police in Ireland tracked me down. My details were in the back of her passport.’
‘You think she knew? Had a feeling …?’
‘I didn’t notice anything. It was hard to tell with Rose. You know what she was like.’
Gloria knew well. She had answered the phone many times to Rose over the past few months. Rose had taken to ringing Penny during work hours, always with that edge of tears to her voice. Penny tried to be understanding about it, even while she was obviously getting impatient with the long, too regular and often increasingly drunken calls. Rose and her husband were always breaking up and getting back together. He’d moved to Queensland to live with another woman at one stage, Gloria recalled. That had sparked twice daily phone calls to Penny. Rose had nearly been hysterical, Penny had told Gloria. She would say over and over how much she loved Dennis, how she couldn’t bear it if he left her again. Rose had eventually gone up there with Lara and pleaded with him to come back.
‘I can’t believe it, Gloria,’ Penny said again. ‘I just can’t.’
‘Who’s told Lara? One of her teachers?’
‘No one yet. The teachers don’t know. That’s why the police rang me. They want me to go and tell her.�
��
‘Oh Penny, no! That’s very hard on you.’
‘It’s worse than hard. It’s impossible. What do I tell her?’
Gloria thought about it. ‘As much as you think she can stand. Not all the details yet, but the basic facts.’
‘Tell her the truth, you mean? Gloria, of course I can’t. She’s eight years old. What would news like that do to a child of that age? She wouldn’t be able to take it in, let alone cope with it.’
‘But you have to. What else can you tell her? Penny, her parents are dead. Nothing you say is going to change that. What could you say to soften it? Tell her they died in a car crash?’
‘A car crash?’ Penny was thoughtful. ‘Do you know, I think you’re right. I think that could be the best solution.’
‘Penny, I didn’t mean it. I was speaking hypothetically.’
‘But I think you’re right. What difference will it make to her if she thinks that’s what happened? It won’t bring her parents back if she knows the truth, will it? It might make it easier for her.’
‘Stop it. You can’t do this.’
‘I can, Gloria. I have to. Can’t you see it makes sense? I can’t tell a little girl the truth. You met Lara, you saw how fragile she was. How damaging would this be for her, the rest of her life? You know how people talk. She’d never be treated normally.’
‘But you can’t make up a lie like that. What about her family? Uncles, aunts? Grandparents?’
‘There aren’t any. Rose was an only child, and Dennis’s parents died before he emigrated. Her mother died a month ago, and she never knew her father. That’s why Rose went over there, to finalise her mother’s estate. There was no one else.’
Family Baggage Page 31
