Love Falls (31 page)

‘NICCHIO.' Lara was screaming with her whole body. Screaming so hard she was lost. ‘NICCHIO!'

It seemed the whole world was screaming as he galloped that last stretch, and before the horses had even reached the rope Il Nicchio's supporters were hurling themselves on to the track. One man crashed down from the seat behind her, using her shoulder as a step, and there they were, the men and women of the Shell, crying, shouting, kissing each other, stretching their arms up to the sky, to the Madonna, to God.

Lara watched open-mouthed. Never in her life had she seen so many people so overwhelmed with joy. They surrounded the jockey, lifting him off his horse, kissing and embracing him as they swooped him up above their shoulders and rushed him along.

‘Quick.' Kip took her hand. ‘Let's go. Let's get there first.' He pulled her with him as he jumped down from his seat, keeping hold of her hand as they nudged and squeezed their way through the mass of people.

‘Where?' she asked, as they ran up the steps away from the Campo, along the curving street of shops, down and up and into other identical curved streets.

‘Quick,' he said, and breathless they came out into the square before the Duomo.

They were not the first. Thousands of people were already there, and many more were pushing themselves inside. Lara and Kip squeezed in through the door and found themselves pushed forward on the wave of the crowd. All around them people were singing. That same painful blood-curdling song of the previous day's procession. Lara stopped, gulping in the thick hot air, damp with stone and overpowering sweat. A woman pushed her from behind, and a line of small children snaked under her outstretched arm.

Kip reeled her in towards him and then a shout rang out, the singing burst up louder, and everyone swarmed forward. It was the jockey, shirtless, being carried high into the church. The song swelled, rose into the vaulted ceiling, reached the painted stars.

‘Sometimes they bring the horse in too,' Kip told her.

She strained to see, standing on tiptoe, staring round, while behind her more and still more people pushed into the cathedral. The singing rose and fell, the air was stifling, and Lara couldn't imagine there was room anywhere in that whole cathedral for a horse.

‘I remember now,' Kip said as if he'd heard her. ‘They bring the horses in before the race. Each one is taken to its local church to be blessed.' But still they waited, her pin-striped shoulder pressed against Kip's own, the whole huge cathedral full of heat and singing, sighing, happiness and hope.

‘Shall we be Nicchios from now on, instead of Dragos?' she whispered, and he turned to her and beamed.

‘Fickle,' he said, ‘but why not?'

Eventually they sidled their way out. It was easier navigating their way against the stream of people, ducking past women's shoulders, pushing through knots of weeping men. Finally they burst out through the door. They unclasped hands, and feeling almost shy they stood in silence on the top step and looked out into the grainy night. People were still streaming up from the Campo, but more slowly now, more calmly, embracing each other only sporadically, crying only a few tears. Lara and Kip began to walk. The moon was out and the stone walkways and closed-up shop fronts, the sudden views and windows hung with washing, the flags and coats of arms all flickered in its light.

They arrived back in the square to find that many of the seats had already been taken down, the cafés at the top of the Campo had re-opened and long tables spread with white cotton cloths were being laid.

Kip pulled out the tickets. ‘Dinner included.' He pointed to the lines of small print, and disbelievingly she sat opposite him at the end of a long table that stretched almost to the edge of the track.

Soon the other places were taken by Italian men and women, some deflated, others arguing, but none quite clearly from the victorious
contrada
of the Shell. Wine was poured and they were served the first course – a cold spinach pâté, the second a plate of tortelloni stuffed with cheese. There was no menu and no choosing. They all ate and drank together, she and Kip, the smart middle-aged Italians, the diners at tables on either side. As they ate the square filled up again. People streamed by, some sucking giant dummies, others beating drums.

Three men serenaded Kip and Lara, another tried selling Kip a rose. Lara remembered Kip's aversion to anything romantic, and to disassociate herself from the lilting music she rolled her eyes. But really she loved it, the accordion and the fiddle and the strums of the guitar, and she wondered if it was these men she'd been listening to all summer, practising love songs in the hills, and not after all a group of communists planning who to kidnap and which town to bomb.

‘Why the dummies?' she asked Kip, when the trio, unrewarded, had moved on, and a man seated beside her replied in perfect English.

‘When the Palio is run, Siena is re-born.'

Waiters moved among them, filling their glasses, while more courses were brought, a bowl of salad and after a plate of blood-red meat.

‘It's the ox,' Kip told her, and she squinted to see if he was teasing. ‘No it is. Well, not the ox we saw just now, obviously, but it's a local speciality. Go on, try it, it's good,' and he cut into a slice.

Lara looked down at her plate. Nothing could entice her. ‘I think I'll leave it,' and although it pleased her to think she'd been true to her vegetarian beliefs, in reality she was too squeamish to eat anything that lay in a sauce of its own blood.

The waiter frowned when he removed her plate as if the animal had been killed especially for her ungrateful self, and to please him, although he showed no sign of noticing, she finished the ice cream that followed, every last scrap of it, and drained her glass of wine. By the time they got up to go her head was reeling.

‘What shall we do now?' Kip stretched, and not able to decide, they linked arms and walked anti-clockwise around the track, looking at the people sitting outside other restaurants, standing chatting and drinking at the long, glossy, caramel-coloured bars inside.

They plunged into the unlit area that formed the base of the square and peered into the courtyard of the Palazzo where the horses had been held. They walked on, examined the sharp corner at San Martino where the seats had been collapsed, the fences gone, the mattresses and injured horses carted away.

‘Quick!' Kip said. ‘Winner takes all,' and without warning he began to run, his jacket flying, his bare heels lifting out of his shoes.

‘Wait!' Lara sped after him, her head pounding. ‘Wait!' she called. ‘The Palio's been run,' but he had disappeared.

Lara ran as fast as she could, pushing past the teenagers with their linked arms, the men and women with small children, bright-eyed and perfectly dressed. Where had he gone? She stopped and looked around, and then from her right she heard a whistle. There, instead of Kip, was a whole table of Willoughbys. Andrew Willoughby at the head, Lulu beside him, Roland not far away and Isabelle too.

‘It's our little revolutionary.' Andrew's eyes were swimming behind his glasses, and to avoid Roland she looked straight at him.

‘Yes.' What else could she say, and for a moment it seemed the whole table was staring at her.

Lulu leant forward. ‘I thought you'd gone.'

‘Oh yes, well.' Lara felt as if an apology was called for. ‘My father hurt his foot . . . and  . . .'

‘Is he . . .?' Isabelle looked up through a strand of falling hair. ‘Is he here?' And Lara remembered he was ill. That he was in hospital. That Caroline was there too. She put a hand to her mouth. It was hours since she'd left the house, probably without even remembering to shut the door. And the porch light? Had she left it on? Or off?

‘Yes,' she stammered. ‘I'd better find him,' but Andrew reached out and caught hold of her arm.

‘I ask you.' He was looking back at Isabelle. ‘Don't honestly tell me you don't see what I mean. They look like bloody twins.'

Isabelle sat up straighter. ‘I don't see,' she said. ‘Leave the girl alone.'

‘Honestly, darling.' Pamela leant forward. ‘It's just that she's wearing Kip's jacket, that's all. That's all it is. Don't be such a bore.'

‘Where is that boy anyway?' Andrew had taken up his glass and still holding her arm with one hand he raised it to his lips. ‘Where's the little runt!'

‘He didn't come. Don't you remember?' Lulu frowned. ‘He lost his shoe.'

‘Well, I want to talk to Herr Professor Goldstein.' Andrew said it as if it were a joke – a name made up from Cluedo. ‘Wolfgang . . . Lambert. Whatever he's called.' He looked coldly at Lara and lowered his voice. ‘I used to know him, you see. Knew him in the old days. He can't fool me with that idiotic change of name.' He let go of Lara to tip more wine into his glass, and she glanced behind her, praying that Kip hadn't come back looking for her. But the bottle was empty. ‘Waiter,' he waved. ‘More vino. Thinks he can make a fool of me. Now. After all this time. Bringing that girl here for one reason, and one reason only  . . .'

‘Oh honestly,' said Pamela. ‘Of course he's yours. Anyone can see it. Stop making such a fuss. And anyway,' she added ill-advisedly, ‘even if he isn't, what difference does it make?'

Lara swallowed. ‘I'd better go.'

She looked along the table, saw only averted eyes, even Roland seemed for once to be paying attention to his wife. Only May smiled sadly at her as she backed away.

‘Don't forget,' Andrew called. ‘Send him over. Sore toe or not. Tell him I want a word.' But Lara had begun to run.

She ran as fast as she could along the track, forgetting even to look for Kip, wanting to get as far away as possible, until with a thud she bumped into him walking the other way.

‘Talk about the tortoise!' He laughed, grabbing hold of her, and for the first time that night he moved towards her for a kiss.

Lara pulled away. ‘I saw them!' she said. ‘Your family. At the Caffè del Campo.'

‘Yes,' he said, grinning. ‘Why do you think I told you to run? No one should have to see Papa the night he parts with money.'

Lara sank against him. She closed her eyes and breathed in the lavender and soap smell of his shirt. ‘Let's go,' she said. ‘I should really be getting back.'

Slowly they walked uphill towards the car. They stood in the square while the man retrieved it for them and then with only a few false starts Kip pulled away. They drove in silence through the quiet streets and on into the darker night. What did Andrew Willoughby say? She didn't want to remember, but she couldn't keep his voice from snaking in around her ears. Twins, he'd said. ‘They look like bloody twins,' and then she remembered his voice in the upstairs corridor at Ceccomoro. ‘A decade of fruitless fucking . . . and then that cunt whisks in and my wife is giving birth to a son.' What was Andrew saying? That Kip was Lambert's son? That she and Kip were sister and brother? And just then something dark and crazed and scurrying charged across the road.

‘My God!' Kip slammed on the brake so hard they skidded. ‘I think that actually was a wild boar.'

‘A wild boar,' Lara repeated, and she thought of the game they'd played by the river. Her father was well then. And Kip had never been in love. She glanced at him, her heart swollen, so tender it felt like a bruise.

‘It's gone.' Kip peered into the darkness, and more slowly he drove on.

Lara watched him surreptitiously. It's not true, she told herself. Andrew was drunk, that's all. No one else believed him. ‘Of course he's yours,' Pamela had said. ‘And anyway . . . even if he's not . . .' Lara kept on looking at him as if that might dispel her doubts. But there was something about Kip that was familiar. She'd always sensed it. So familiar she felt as if she'd been longing for him all her life. I'll have to tell him, she thought, her body quaking. At least I'll have to tell him he can't stay the night. But then what would she do? She couldn't go back to Ceccomoro, and if Ginny wasn't back from the hospital, she didn't dare spend the night alone in Caroline's house.

‘Kip?' She put a hand on his arm. ‘Would you come back and stay at mine?' and she gripped the seat with her free hand to stop herself from trembling.

‘Seeing as you're begging me.' Kip grinned and he accelerated so that the little car rattled up the hill.

The house was dark when they arrived and there was no car in the drive. Lara got out and Kip switched off the engine.

‘There's no one here,' she whispered, and Kip whispered back, ‘So why are we whispering?'

They walked round to the back of the house where they stood on the terrace and looked down at the pool. It glowed indigo in the moonlight but the trees beyond were silhouettes of black. For a moment a flare flashed up in the hills and Lara strained her whole body for a catch of music, but there was none. I'll think about it tomorrow, she promised herself. There's nothing I can do tonight, and she led the way down the steps to the pool.

It wasn't warm. There was a bite to the air and the water when she dipped her foot in it sent a shiver up her spine. But Kip was kicking off his jeans, pulling his shirt, half buttoned, over his head. He turned away and stepped out of his boxer shorts.