Love Falls (16 page)

Instead she stumbled against something down by her feet and almost tripped. It looked like a white rock, but when she bent down she saw it was a pair of breasts. Just sitting there, with no body anywhere in sight. The breasts were beautifully carved, perfect in their curve, the nipples even slightly different from each other, just like her own. Lara looked back the way she'd come and noticed other mounds she'd assumed to be stones lining the path down which she'd run. Slowly she walked back, inspecting each one, more breasts, some buttocks, and a penis that would have put Michelangelo to shame.

By the time she'd inspected them all, the sun was almost overhead, drying the grass so that it cracked and sizzled along the edge of the white path. Her head was spinning, her ankles stung where they'd been scratched, and the jumper she was still carrying was damp from the sweat of her hands. Ignoring the last slack penis, lying against its cushion of stone balls, she pushed back through the gate, skirted the edge of the garden and walked slowly into the shade of Ceccomoro. There was the pool, so cool and inviting, and Lara kicked off her sandals and sitting on the side dipped her feet and legs in.

‘Oh. It's you.'

Pamela was standing on the other side, looking over at her. She was dressed in a pink-and-black kimono, the sleeves almost hanging to the ground, her hair swept up into a chignon, but her face gave her away. It was swollen, streaked with tears. She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and turning away, quickly blew her nose.

‘Are you all right?' Pamela sniffed. ‘Out here all on your own?'

‘I'm fine. I'm . . .' Lara hesitated, and then relieved to have something to do, picked up the jumper and splashing up out of the water handed it to her. ‘I borrowed this ages ago, I thought I'd better bring it back. I think it's Kip's.'

‘I see.' Pamela took the jumper and held it against her. ‘They've all gone out.'

‘Oh yes, that's fine. I wanted to walk home anyway, but Caroline didn't know the way.'

Pamela scanned the fields around them. Her eyes were bloodshot, mascara smudged into the fine damp lines below. ‘You want the escape route?' She laughed drily, and pulling her kimono around her, started down the lane that ran behind the yard. ‘I'll show you.' She strode ahead, her bare brown legs only a little less beautiful than her daughter Lulu's, her shoulders and sunbleached hair identical from behind.

‘From here . . .' She stopped and pointed. ‘You head for that field, walk along the edge to the corner, where you'll see a path between the maize. Just follow that and you'll come out, after twenty minutes or so, on the road above your house.' She must have caught Lara's look of wariness, because she gave a rousing smile.

‘You'll see where you are. And don't forget – beware the wild boar.'

‘OK.' Lara smiled back, hoping it was a joke. Then, more to convince herself. ‘I'll be fine.'

It wasn't until she'd traipsed halfway across the field that she remembered Caroline. She turned round to shout a message for her, but Pamela was gone. For a while she stood, undecided, and looked back at Ceccomoro, the white-painted sides of the houses, the red steps and rooftops, the grey shutters, and below it, dug into the side of the hill, the blue streak of the swimming pool, bordered with lavender, so dense she imagined she could smell it from here. And then she heard the distant drift of a shout, the unmistakable sound of a splash. Was it them? But if they'd come back, then surely she would have heard a car? And knowing anyway it was too late to return, she walked on.

There was the corner of the field, just as Pamela had promised, and a high mass of bright-green reeds that looked like corn on the cob. They were so lush and soft they made her think of water and she realised that, thirsty as she'd been, she'd forgotten to ask for a drink. Lara walked more quickly now, consumed with only one desire, to get back to what she considered suddenly to be home. In front of her was the path. She swelled with the success of it, her abilities, her fearlessness and navigational skills, but within minutes, as if to punish her, a second path appeared, running off at an angle, neither one giving up a single clue as to where it might come out.

Now what am I going to do? And not wanting to dwell on it, she chose one indiscriminately and began to rush along, the reeds waist-high, the white earth of the track dwindling to a trickle as the foliage became denser, her legs and arms scored with blunt scratches, her eyes stinging with the dust of jostled stalks. She pushed on, even though it seemed impossible that this was the right route, and then, finally to answer her doubts, the path stopped altogether. She was in the middle of a field, surrounded on every side by maize. Lara stood still. Her throat was parched, her head hummed with the heat, a tender spot on the crown growing more tender with each bolt of the sun's rays. Slowly, reluctantly, she turned around, and pushing her way back through the already trampled reeds, she arrived surprisingly quickly at the point in the path where it had forked. She didn't trust herself even to look across at Ceccomoro, to imagine the swimming pool, the table laid by now for lunch, so instead she plunged into the other path.

The grass was lower, soft as banana, soothing her torn arms. The path wove and twisted, widened and wound through a little wood where the trees bent over to create a den of shade. Lara stopped, drinking in the cool, pressing her sore limbs against the trunk of a granite-coloured tree, letting the molten boiling of her head settle and become still. She couldn't be far now. She peered into the dark entrance to the path that dipped down into a rust-red trickle of dried swamp, and saw to her dismay that leading off from it was another path, narrower, but straighter, the flickering light of sunshine just visible at the end.

She went back to her tree. Her mouth was so dry she could hardly swallow and a great flare of misery rose up inside. She'd be here for ever, lost in this wood, eaten eventually by wild boar. She had to laugh then as she sank down against the tree, and what made it worse was knowing she could so easily go back. If she ran, she could be at Ceccomoro, plunging into the pool, glugging down a glass of ice-cold juice, in ten minutes or less. But even as she thought it, she knew it was out of the question. A wild boar would have to eat at least one of her arms first.

‘For God's sake,' she said aloud, and she stepped down into the dip of the stream. The earth was crumbly and, as she reached out to pull herself up by a tree root, she heard a noise, the swish of grass, the tramping of feet. A sheen of sweat broke out over her, and her heart pounded so loud she could hear it in her ears.

‘Who's idea was this?' It was a male voice, low and grumbling.

And then irritable, a girl's. ‘Yours!'

‘Well, she's either a medal-winning sprinter or she's been kidnapped by the communists.' She recognised the voice as Kip's.

‘Don't joke.' It was May. ‘Really. They could have mistaken her for someone important.'

Lara looked down at her legs. There was one long trail of blood where a stalk had caught a vein. Her hands were grey with dust and she could feel the grit of husks against her scalp. She swallowed and tears pricked dangerously against her eyes.

‘Let's get back.' May was close now. ‘Or the P will murder us.'

Lara held her breath as first Kip in his trodden-down loafers, his ankles brown below his jeans, and then his sister in khaki shorts and flip-flops traipsed by, swiping at the grass.

Lara hardly dared breathe until they were out of sight, but as soon as it was safe she scrambled up the other bank into the mouth of the path from where they'd come, and ran without stopping until she reached the road. She burst out on to it, so dizzy with relief that at first she couldn't get her bearings. Where was the house? To the left or right, up or down the hill, but when a car swept past, the three men inside all craning round to stare at her, ragged in her sundress, her sandals torn, she remembered, and she raced along the road, only slowing to slip through the door, up to her room where she waited until she was safely in the bathroom, under the shower, before she allowed herself, for one brief moment, to sob.

 

 

‘You missed a very enjoyable lunch.' Caroline eyed her over tea. ‘And those poor Willoughby youngsters, traipsing off to look for you.'

Lambert glanced up.

‘I just wanted to find the path,' she said, but she could tell Caroline disapproved.

‘I think it would be polite,' Caroline continued, ‘if you gave them a call to tell them that you're all right.'

She wrote down the number and, once Lara had dialled, gracefully retreated to the terrace where Lambert was working in the shade.

The longer the phone rang, the easier Lara breathed. Who would be inside on such a beautiful afternoon? And looking round to see that Caroline had noticed her attempt, she moved to put the receiver down.

‘
Pronto
?'

She'd left it too late. Lara cleared her throat. ‘Hello. It's . . . Lara.'

‘Lara.' It was Roland's unmistakable drawl. ‘We were just wondering about you, and now I can ask you myself. Do you, or don't you, want to come out with us tomorrow on an outing?'

Lara hesitated, looking back at her father, remembering how uncomfortable it had been the last time he'd been left behind.

‘We're going to the Love Falls. You know.' He put on a fake Italian voice. ‘
La cascata dell'amore
. Now it's all very well saying you'll come, but what about the other day, making promises and then disappearing without a word?'

‘I . . . we went to Florence!'

‘Lara . . .' He was laughing. ‘It's only a joke.'

‘But seriously.' She lowered her voice. ‘Could my father come, it's just. . .'

Roland's laugh turned to a snort. ‘Of course, bring anyone you like. Bring your mother, your sister. Bring the cook!' He almost choked as if the idea was hilarious, and still laughing he put down the phone.

 

 

Lara and Lambert were ready the next morning by ten, their towels rolled into sausages, their costumes flat inside. Ginny had packed them a bag of supplies, great melting slabs of sandwiches, thick with ham and mozzarella, glued together with olive oil, and a basket arranged with half a dozen different kinds of fruit. Caroline had found a newspaper in Siena, a copy of
The Times
, which Lambert, leaning up against the door jamb, was flicking his way through now.

‘Well, have fun!' Caroline called as the first of two cars pulled into the drive.

Piers climbed out and, seeing Lambert, nodded courteously to him and opened the passenger door, offering him his arm as if he were an old man.

‘Lara!' Roland called, his bare torso at the wheel of the jeep. ‘Jump in the back, and we'll race them.'

Lara looked over at Lambert to show she had no choice and, throwing her bag and towel in before her, she climbed over the metal door into the back.

‘Hello.' Kip was in the front, and he turned and just for a second caught her eye.

It was a sensation like melting. Burning and dissolving all at once. ‘Hello,' she mumbled, and she felt so dizzy that she closed her eyes.

‘Are you all right?' It was Tabitha, sitting opposite in a bright-red dress, its scallop sleeves and scoop neck showing off the beauty of her upper body, helping to distract from her legs, which even since last week had swollen, the calves veined and heavy, the ankles gone.

‘Yes.' Lara pinched the underside of her knee where no one would notice. ‘We went to Florence for a few days, that's all.'

But Tabitha was too tired to concentrate any further. She let her head loll back, her hand on her high stomach.

‘Ready?' Roland said, and he roared out of the drive.

‘Careful,' Tabitha whispered, but it seemed that no one heard.

It wasn't long before they passed the others. They were driving more sedately, Lambert in the front, two girls Lara didn't recognise in the back. She caught her father's eye as they sped by, forcing herself to wave cheerfully when she caught sight of his alarm. Soon after they turned on to an unmade road, but rather than slow down Roland forced the car on, flinging and bumping it over the ruts of the ground.

‘Wooaaa there,' May cried out involuntarily as her sister was thrown up nearly to the roof, and Antonia, who was on Tabitha's other side, asked, shouting over the noise, if she didn't think she'd be better off in the front.

Tabitha only shook her head. ‘It's fine,' but a sheen of sweat stood out on her brow.

Up and down hills they drove, swerving round S-bends, falling against one another, hanging grimly for dear life on to the metal and canvas walls. Dust blew in from the open back, and cars, the ones they narrowly missed, hooted furiously while Roland, choosing to misunderstand their recriminating tone, hooted joyously back. By the time they stopped in a grove of trees where several other cars were parked Lara was so angry she could hardly stand. She wanted to run at Roland, gore him with her fists, show her outrage at his behaviour, but she knew any flicker of feeling would be met with hilarity and delight.