Lies Like Love (17 page)

He hadn’t been sure if London was the best choice, but when he saw Audrey’s face he knew he’d done the right thing. Pulling up outside his parents’ place, he felt nervous again.

‘Here we are. We can dump our stuff.’ He led the way up marble steps to the imposing front door. The house was all lit up, even though no one was home.

‘What is this?’

‘Well, this is where my parents live sometimes, when they’re over here, if they’re not using a hotel. Which for some reason my mother often prefers. I think it’s because then she doesn’t have to do any cooking or any domestic duties whatsoever.’ He locked the car and pulled Audrey towards the building. ‘My mother, as you will see when we go inside, has transcended the domestic.’

‘Oh. That’s pretty weird.’

‘Agreed. But find me someone who isn’t.’

‘It’s cool though. I’d like to transcend the domestic, or whatever. Basically, stop doing all the flipping jobs is what I think you mean.’

‘Exactly. When I’m a rich man, not just a rich man’s son, I’ll buy you a robot to do all your chores. Or maybe we’ll just travel the world; no possessions, no ties. Just you, me and wherever we want to wander.’

Audrey kissed him on the cheek, fast. ‘I’ll be there,’ she said. ‘Don’t go without me, OK?’

She held his face in her hands and he wondered if they both saw the same thing: an aeroplane, Audrey in a white dress and sunglasses. He’d be in jeans and a vintage leather jacket. He saw them holding hands above the clouds and the endless opportunity of their forever, and wondered if he could fix it for this summer; they should find a way to make something like that happen, some time soon. Anything was possible.

He led her into the hallway, downplaying it all the way. Audrey gawped: the baby grand, white carpets, glowing art. He knew it sang of money, style, luxury. But to him it wasn’t really a home, not like Sue’s place. As a kid he’d played quiet games, contained and controlled – moving his little cars sedately through the thick pile carpet – and later awoken from dreams of walls covered in thick scrawls of black crayon, sweating and shaking at the thought. He’d get up every time, pad to the living room, switch on the lights. Check the wallpaper remained pristine after all. Audrey wanted to linger, admire and inspect, but he told her they could only stop a minute, freshen up, then hit the town.

Audrey put down the figurine she’d been examining – a little bronze Cupid – and realigned it on the chest of drawers.

‘First, though, you have to play me something.’ Aud perched on the edge of the sofa, her long legs crossed at the ankles, her face expectant.

‘What?’

‘I want to hear you play. I never knew anyone before who could play the piano. My dad, he had this old banjo or something, like a little guitar it was, but he wasn’t much good.’

‘Seriously?’ He lifted the lid to reveal the keys and felt a strange pull towards the instrument as he flexed his fingers, already thinking. What would he play? Something special. Something for her. And for him. Something for them. Leo rested his fingers on the keys. His heart stopped and restarted.

‘All right,’ he said, although he wasn’t sure how this was going to feel. In his head the piano was still partly to blame. All the music that had run through him before he cracked up, his fingers dancing over imaginary keys, his dreams full of whirling storms of crotchets and semi-quavers, riotous arpeggios, taunting major chords marching like soldiers, the minor lament making him cry.

‘Right. Here goes.’ Leo thought for a while longer. Then it came to him and it was like he’d never stopped, every note was still there in his fingers, waiting like memory, like fingerprints, fossils. He forgot Audrey was there. Forgot about everything.

‘Oh, my goodness,’ she said when he finished, and he only just heard her; he was shaking a little, wanting to start again, play it all over from the beginning, better this time.

‘Leo,’ Audrey said, clapping her hands, ‘you’re like flipping Mozart or something.’ Breaking the spell and making him smile. He turned round slowly to look at her.

‘Yeah? How did you know?’

‘What, you mean it was? Actually Mozart? You’re kidding me. Will you teach me?’

‘Sure, some day. But now we should go.’ He pulled himself away from the piano, grabbed his jacket, handed Aud hers, ushering her back out on to the street.

‘You know this is massively posh, this place, don’t you?’ she said, pausing to stare up at the white Georgian mansion as she zipped up her coat.

‘I guess I do. Although there are posher places.’

‘We’re not going to them, are we?’ The fear in her voice made him laugh again.

‘No. Far better than that. OK?’

They caught the Tube down to Trafalgar Square. It was getting colder outside, but was hot and stuffy on the Tube. They had to stand, swinging from the overhead bars, grinning as they collided.

‘What are you doing?’ He stared and grabbed her arm. Audrey was pulling off her coat.

‘I’m hot.’ Audrey let go of the hand rail and chucked her jacket at Leo, then threw her arms out, insisting on space, forcing the other travellers to back away. People stared, then looked away as she began to twirl and swirl – singing the tune he’d played for her, or what she remembered of it at least, la-la-ing the rest. Her head was back, her hair flying. Leo watched her, part alarmed, part in awe.

‘This is wicked,’ she said. ‘You know what? We’re free,’ she sang, spinning on the long vowels. She grabbed Leo, wrapped her arms round his waist, made him dance with her, their waltz, until they ricocheted into the side of
the carriage, almost collapsing on top of one another. Someone tutted, but mostly people ignored them, probably thought they were drunk. Leo held her up, pulled her straight as the train shuddered to a halt.

‘Come on – we get off here. You can be as excited as you like now, Aud,’ Leo said, dragging her on to the platform and towards the escalators.

‘I don’t think London’s big enough for how excited I am. Trafalgar Square? Is that where we’re going?’ She yelled and ran up the escalator, making him chase.

‘Yes. Then the river. It’ll blow your mind, Aud.’

‘It’s blown,’ she said, ‘long ago,’ and bumped him with her hip, making him stumble a little. All night she’d be tripping him up, surprising him, making him fall again and again, head over heels.

‘Thank you for this.’ Audrey stood on tiptoe, kissed him and they walked into the crowds squeezed tight together, bodies attached from waist to shoulder, and he thought that this was what happy felt like. This was almost perfect.

None of it frightened me. Not the crowds or the noise or the feeling of being cut loose, like a kite or a kid’s balloon. I was with Leo and we walked through the throng of people like we floated, as if they didn’t even exist. We didn’t talk about anything real. But Leo made me believe in possibility as we pushed through the crowds with the stars above us and the night ahead, and I saw flashes of the future, one I’d never imagined, and realized how different the world was through his eyes. He believed we were only just beginning.

‘Can we stay here forever?’ I asked as the first firework exploded way in the distance, and Leo nodded.

‘If you like. But it gets pretty gross. Pigeons and the pollution, bad combination.’ I stared at the dancers on stage, swayed to the music.

‘You could turn me into a statue. Then I wouldn’t care about pigeon shit,’ I shouted over the noise.

‘Hmm. Like a reverse Pygmalion.’

‘What?’ He was too clever; there was some erudite comment for every occasion. And the way he played the piano. How he’d lifted something out of the keys, a magic that had made me giddy. What the hell had I been doing for the last sixteen years? There were a lot of gaps I needed to fill.

‘It’s a play. But also a myth. About a man falling in love with his statue, or with the girl he’s created in the image he desires. Pretty sick.’

‘Sounds it. But maybe worth it. Would you fall in love with me if I were a statue?’ I kept my eyes away from his. Fishing for compliments, Mum would say. Flirting like a fool. But Leo didn’t seem to mind.

‘I don’t know.’ He smirked, pulling my eyes round to his with his voice, teasing. ‘Maybe.’

‘You’re mean.’ I stuck out my tongue.

‘I know. But I like it when you frown. ‘

‘What? That’s doubly mean.’

‘And when you laugh and when you yawn or sigh and smile. Everything becomes you. Except crying though, I don’t think I’d like to see you cry.’

‘I’ll have to try not to, then.’

He hugged me and all of a sudden I was thinking of Peter and swallowing back tears as I stared at the iridescent beauty of the night, the glow of the city, a wild fairyland blazing neon mystery and light. My heart felt heavy and full all at once and I put my hand to my chest.

‘It hurts,’ I said.

‘What?’ Leo whispered. ‘What hurts?’

‘Everything.’

‘Don’t,’ he said. ‘Don’t think about it. Just be here, be happy with me.’ He held me tighter, like he could squeeze away my sadness.

‘I am. I am happy with you.’ His hair was soft, his cheeks softer. He was always good. Always kind.
People should be like that more
, I thought,
all people
.

‘Have I ruined things?’

‘No, course not,’ Leo said, touching my cheek, holding my face in his hands.

‘Good. Thanks.’

‘What for?’ He looked down into my eyes. My legs trembled, my hands, my heart.

‘This, for everything. For being my best friend,’ I said.

‘Best friend?’

‘Yeah. Aren’t you?’

‘Maybe; I thought something else,’ Leo said, smiling.

He kissed me again and there was music and stars and laughter and happiness, all the things I hadn’t known existed but which were ordinary in other people’s worlds.

Counting down the time, we screamed ourselves hoarse and then there was more kissing, Leo and even strangers, and jumping up and down and singing without knowing any of the words, and arms were lifting me off my feet and I was whirling again, turning and spinning and the world was something utterly beautiful.

He could have watched her forever. She was beautiful and everyone knew it, everyone who smiled at her caught a little bit of the magic of Audrey. Leo held on to her for fear she’d float away, buoyed up on her own excitement, the power of her own happiness. He felt it coming off her like beams of light and it made him realize how sad she’d been, how the Grange had dulled her, not allowed her to glow.

‘We should get something to eat,’ he told her after they’d sung themselves hoarse. They wandered through the weaving crowds to Chinatown, ate dim sum holding hands, strolling and staring.

‘I love it,’ she said. ‘I love everything.’

‘I’m glad.’ His face was aching from smiling and hope leapt like a stag in front of them, leading the way. ‘Let’s go home.’

Back in the flat Audrey announced she didn’t want to go to bed.

‘Maybe if we stay up, this’ll last forever. As long as we don’t sleep, the night has to stay night, right?’

‘We could try. Film?’

‘Yes.’

He put on
Badlands
because Aud had never seen it. She lolled against him as she watched; he held her and didn’t think about the film at all.

‘Tired yet?’

‘No. Not at all.’ She stretched. ‘What time is it?’

‘Four thirty.’

‘Oh.’

Audrey lay back down, her head sinking into the cushion, hair fanning out behind her.

‘This was the best day ever. Crazy killers on the run and all.’ Leo laughed.

‘Yeah?’

‘Yeah. Thanks to you.’ Audrey turned to look at him, reached out to trace his lips with the tip of her finger.

‘Did you have fun?’ she asked, scrunching up her face and examining his expression.

‘Absolutely. Although I don’t think that word does it justice. I think we should find a better one.’

‘Fun is fun.’ Audrey shrugged.

‘Yes, but it’s too small a word.’ He pulled Audrey closer, wrapping both arms round her. ‘Good time doesn’t do it either. I don’t think there’s a word for it, Aud, about how I feel, right now, about you and all this. You’d have thought there would be; someone should have invented one.’

‘You could write me a poem about it,’ she teased, but her eyes were serious and he wished he could find the words.

Leo had thought about this. That they might go to bed. And about what would happen then. He’d tried not to think about it a lot, but it had cropped up more and more often. Not that he planned on doing anything about those thoughts, but if love was this deep hole in the centre of his chest, the one that opened up whenever she was far
away and hurt like hell, well, then he loved her. It was almost impossible to feel this much, all at once, and impossible not to think about what having sex with Audrey would be like. He coughed, clearing his throat. She raised an eyebrow.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ She crossed her eyes and stuck out her tongue and he grabbed her wrists, gently, and pushed her backwards on the sofa, so she was lying under him. He kissed her lips, her eyelids, her cheeks, her neck, lower. He could hear her breathing. It turned him on. Her skin was hot and soft. That turned him on too.

‘I guess we should watch another film,’ she said, pulling away. He grabbed one last kiss. Her cheeks were glowing, flushed, and so were his. Leo didn’t want to watch a film.

‘OK,’ he said, not moving his mouth away. Speaking through the kisses.

‘Or maybe, just go to bed?’ Audrey said, lying back again and looking up at him with big eyes.

‘Yeah?’

‘In the same bed?’

He shrugged and made a good attempt at looking neutral at the thought. ‘If you like.’

‘Maybe. I dunno. My mum would freak out.’ It was the first time she’d mentioned her mother for hours. Leo did not want Lorraine anywhere near this. He gathered Audrey’s hair in his hands, twisted it on top of her head, then let it fall like water all around her face. She looked away, avoiding his eye.

‘She thinks you want to get me pregnant, then run off and leave me with a screaming brat.’

‘She said that?’

‘Something like it.’

‘Jesus.’ Leo could have said a lot more.

Audrey bit her lip, staring at him. He tried to smile, to laugh it off.

‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have said it. You really didn’t need to hear that.’ She struggled upright, smoothed her hair flat and rearranged her clothes.

‘It’s up to you. We don’t have to do anything that you don’t want to,’ Leo said. ‘But I would love to sleep with you. In the same bed, I mean. Anything else, up to you.’ He coughed and stood up.

‘OK.’

Leo lent Audrey a T-shirt. She changed in the bathroom, then dived into the bed and under the thick downy covers. He didn’t touch her; he couldn’t. Lorraine. Leo thought he quite possibly loathed her, but of course he couldn’t say that. Or maybe he could. He was about to speak when Audrey moved over and put her arms round him, holding him tight.

‘Sorry for spoiling it all,’ she said, whispering into his back. ‘I’m sorry, Leo.’

‘No, you didn’t – don’t worry.’ He turned to her. They held on to one another now, tight, like earlier; like a promise it would be impossible to break.

Their legs tangled together, and their arms. Leo ran his hands over Audrey’s back, her smooth soft skin, and felt her hands tracing the same paths on his own body. He
touched her hair, and her neck and her shoulders and she touched his as if he were a mirror in which she found herself, and then she sat up and pulled off the T-shirt before she lay down next to him again: utterly, beautifully naked. She was smiling and pulling him closer again and this time Leo couldn’t stop.