Summer Lies Bleeding (20 page)

Paula leans back in her chair and breathes a contented sigh as she looks around the idyllic garden. It is still light and a cool breeze ruffles the flame of the tea lights making them shudder in their glass holders.

‘This is beautiful, Stella. Who would have thought this place even existed? It really is exquisite.'

She picks up her glass of wine and takes a long sip. Stella smiles. It is wonderful to see Paula so relaxed, so at ease with herself.

‘I knew you would like it,' she says, looking around at the beautiful walled garden with its wild tangle of fruit trees and plants, its white-washed brick wall and higgledy-piggledy tables and chairs hidden among the foliage. They managed to get a table for two tucked away at the back of the garden and Stella had giggled when she saw the red-and-white gingham table cloths, and red roses in thin glass vases, a little bit of fifties Paris in the middle of Earl's Court.

‘I do. It's wonderful,' says Paula. She puts her glass down and rubs the petals of the rose in between her finger and thumb. ‘It reminds me of home. I've missed the garden, missed the earthy smells and … anyway, I won't go on about gardening.'

The waiter arrives with their main courses and Paula orders another bottle of wine.

‘It will do me good,' she says, a touch of cynicism in her voice. ‘After months of caffeine-free teas and water and juice and looking after my body like some glass sculpture that's going to break into pieces, I think I deserve a night off.'

Stella watches her as she slips her cutlery out of the red paper napkin and places the knife and fork onto her plate. Will Paula mention the baby? Should she raise the subject herself, get it all out into the open? She can't read Paula at the moment, it's like she's hiding behind some clear glass door and Stella can't reach her. She was so excited yesterday when she left in the taxi, now it's like the light has been extinguished. Something irreparable has taken place, though Stella is not quite sure what.

*

‘The restaurant was beautiful,' says Paula, slicing through her steak with the precision of a Samurai.

‘Which restaurant?' asks Stella, holding out her glass to the waiter who has returned with the bottle of wine. She holds her palm up as the ruby-coloured liquid reaches the half-way mark. ‘Thanks,' she nods.

Once Paula's glass is filled, she holds it aloft and clinks Stella's.

An old ritual, thinks Stella. An automated response; what does it mean? She has raised her glass hundreds of times over the years and still she isn't quite sure why she does it. She has raised it at weddings, at funerals, at dinner parties and book readings; she has raised it as a child, her glass filled with watered-down champagne, and as an adult; she has raised it with smiles, with frowns, with indifference; she has lifted the glass as high as it would go, she has barely raised it from the table; she has spilled droplets of wine onto the floor, she has been drunk and sober, elated and desolate; it feels like she has toasted the world and all who live in it over the course of her life and still she has no idea what it means.

The glasses meet for a split second, sending little crystalline droplets of sound out into the cool evening air, before parting. The ritual has been adhered to, now they can carry on.

‘I was talking about The Rose Garden,' says, Paula, taking another bite of steak.

‘Oh, yes,' says Stella. She hopes this isn't going to end up being a paranoid discussion of Seb and her long-dead association with him. ‘Did she like the jasmine?'

Paula nods her head as she chews a mouthful of food. She swallows and takes another sip of wine. ‘She loved it. I think she'll be a regular client, finger's crossed. It could really open up London to us.'

Stella raises her eyebrow. ‘You mean …?'

‘I mean in a business sense, Stella,' says Paula, wearily. ‘I love London just as much as you, but we could never live here again and certainly not with a ch …' She stops and blinks away the word like it's a bad taste in her mouth.

Stella starts to eat her risotto. She won't press the ‘living in London' thing any more than she will raise the subject of the baby. Let tonight be easy, let it be about nothing much; flowers and the lifting of glasses, anything but another bloody argument.

‘So what was it like then? The restaurant?' She keeps her voice light, in case Paula suspects she is asking the question as some ruse to bring the subject round to Seb. But Paula seems keen to talk about it, her manner is warm and open.

‘Oh, it was gorgeous,' she says, laying her knife and fork down. ‘Very Moorish. The jasmine plants are going to be the focal point of the roof garden they've built out on the terrace. Yasmine showed me it and it's breathtaking. It reminded me of some of the little places we went to in Vejer. Do you remember the one in the town square? I think it was a hotel as well and it had that amazing garden with fig trees and jasmine … The Rose Garden's a lot like that. I was expecting typical Soho bravado and bling but it's different and Yasmine was lovely, she knows her stuff. Anyway, you'll see for yourself tomorrow night, she's invited us to the launch.'

Stella isn't sure what to say, remembering Paula's outburst
last night. She doesn't know whether Paula is actually suggesting they go to the launch or is asking it as a trick question to see how Stella responds. If she says she wants to, will Paula get upset? The effort of avoiding confrontations and arguments is starting to take its toll on Stella. She has forgotten what an easy conversation feels like.

‘And?' She manages to come up with one word.

‘And what?' Paula seems okay, though Stella notices that she has worked her way through the wine pretty rapidly.

‘And do you want to go?' Stella says the words slowly, holding them in her mouth for as long as she can.

Paula shrugs. ‘Well, it might be nice. We're going home on Thursday and business-wise it's probably a good idea. Actually, yes of course we should go. Absolutely.' She sits up in her chair as though suddenly remembering who she is, why she is here.

‘Excellent,' says Stella, finishing a last mouthful of food. ‘What time will we have to be there?'

‘I don't know, says Paula. She leans down and picks up her bag. ‘I've got the invite in here, that should tell us. Here,' she says, pulling out a wedge of cards. ‘It says from 6 p.m. You better hang onto these, you know me I'll probably forget them.'

She hands Stella a wedge of cards; black with gold lettering and red roses snaking across.

Stella looks at the cards. ‘That should be okay.'

‘I daresay we can get there around six,' says Paula, taking
another sip of wine. ‘Anyway, you'll have bags of time. You'll only be at the London Library for a few hours won't you? Any more and you'll be goggle eyed,' she laughs.

Stella smiles; hating Paula for being glib and hating herself for lying to her partner. But of all the places to say she would be for the afternoon, the London Library was the only one that Paula wouldn't question; the only place where it would be plausible to be ‘uncontactable' for a few hours, away from Paula's steady stream of text messages demanding to be answered immediately.

‘Why have we got so many?' asks Stella.

‘Oh, she gave me a few extra,' says Paula. ‘Asked if we knew of anyone who might want to come. I said we don't know a soul in London any more, pair of country bumpkins that we are,' she laughs. ‘Although, I might give one to Carole at the garden tomorrow, she's a real foodie.'

‘They're lovely,' says Stella, as she puts them in the front of her bag. ‘They must have spent a fortune on them.'

‘Well apparently, they've got a wealthy backer,' says Paula, taking a sip of wine. ‘I mean, you'd have to have money behind you to afford the lease on that property; it's prime West End real estate.'

Stella nods, remembering Seb's crumpled suits and his messy hair. He certainly didn't have money when she knew him, but good on him, she thinks, good on him for making something of his life.

‘She's very beautiful.'

Paula's voice interrupts Stella's thoughts and she looks up. Paula is running her finger round the rim of her empty wine glass. She looks at Stella with a penetrating stare, like she is trying to read whatever response Stella's face gives up, whatever it betrays. But Stella keeps a smile fixed to her face, an anaemic, half-smile, a one-size-fits-all seal across which anything may glide.

‘She's very dark, very Moroccan,' continues Paula. ‘Beautiful face, hardly any make-up. And they have a child.' This time she manages to get that word out and it sounds like a bullet, as though she intended it to hurt, to cause maximum damage and pain.

She stares at Stella as though goading her. The word hangs invisibly over them, little wisps of it hover atop the creeping wisteria, it weaves around the fruit trees like little ghostly fingers trying to loosen the pregnant buds from their branches. The air has turned toxic, the sweet jasmine scent that just moments ago wafted across the table like freshly laundered linen now seems cloying and rancid. Paula's eyes are red and dazed; she is getting tipsy.

Stella once again searches for the right response, then something within her disconnects. It feels like the power has been switched off. Can she ever make this right? She looks at the garden and realises she has been seeing it through Paula's eyes; the trees and flowers, the herbs and hanging baskets, that's
not what had drawn her to this place all those years ago. She had sat in this garden with her ex-boyfriend Ade and the band while they smoked cigarettes and dissected their performance. She had looked up into the sky, looked above the white-washed wall and the tables and candles and flowers up into the London night and felt that somewhere out there, out in that great, monstrous city, her life lay waiting for her. Men and women, books and songs, experiences, words and laughter and music – they were all out there hanging in the air like apples waiting to be picked from the tree.

‘… tapas dishes and fresh fish … the most incredible spices … sumac and a gorgeous grain called freekeh …' Paula is talking about the restaurant again now. Her face is back to normal, she is animated and alive, the edge has gone from her voice. It is like the whole exchange never happened, as though Stella imagined it all.

The waiter comes to take their dishes away and asks if they want dessert.

‘No, thank you,' says Stella. She needs to get out of here; to be among crowds. It feels like sitting here in this too-perfect garden is almost tempting an argument. As the waiter leaves she leans over to Paula and smiles.

‘What do you say we go into town?' she says, squeezing Paula's arm lightly.

Paula looks shocked then a smile creeps across her face. ‘No, we can't,' she says, unconvincingly. ‘I mean it's almost …'

‘Eight-thirty,' says Stella and they both burst into giggles. ‘Christ. We're like a pair of exhausted parents already.'

Paula leans across the table and kisses her; it's a warm lingering kiss of a kind they haven't shared for a long time. Stella feels a tingle of excitement trickle through her body; a mixture of the kiss and the promise of a London evening spread out in front of them.

‘Come on then,' she says, standing up. ‘Let's go. And we'll get a cab, might as well travel in style.'

Paula giggles and they link arms as they weave their way through the glinting tangle of tables.

*

Mark feels lighter than he has in years as he stretches across the floor and drains the last can of beer. He looks at the woman who has kept him company for the past hour or so. It might be tiredness or the blur of the beer but she seems to have grown more and more radiant as the minutes have gone by. He is noticing things that had escaped him this morning. The piercing blue of her eyes, the contours of her cheekbones, the long, toned legs encased in cotton and denim, the hair, wild and messy like she has just woken up, the smooth pale chest peeking through the sheer cotton of her shirt. He can feel the blood building up in his groin and he shifts position, hoping she can't see the lump in his jeans.

‘Think that's the last of them,' she says, holding up an empty can, and giving it a little shake for good measure.

‘It's given me a thirst,' he says, squelching his can into a compact square.

‘And an appetite,' she says. She looks at him for a moment; it's a quizzical look, as though she is weighing up whether or not to ask him a question.

He notices her looking and puts his hand to his hair. ‘What? Have I got something on me head?'

She starts to giggle, light at first then great snorts of laughter.

‘What?' He is laughing too now. ‘You're making me paranoid.'

‘It's nothing,' she says, regaining her composure. ‘It's just you looked so funny just then, so … cute.'

The word hangs in the space between them like a diver perched on the edge of the board, wondering whether to walk back down the steps or throw himself into the depths of the water.

Mark smiles. The beer has taken the edge from him. When he thinks of why he is here, of Zoe and Seb and that filthy street, it seems like they are outside of him, outside of his head, connected to him by the thinnest of strings. He feels like the man he once was; confident and relaxed, working out his next move on this sexy young woman sitting opposite him. He had been a good-looking lad back in the day, he had worn his dark hair longer than it is now and girls would comment on
his big blue eyes and long eyelashes: ‘Our Mark's got eyelashes like spiders webs,' his mam would say.

Sex was fun back then, it was a laugh, a distraction from work and real life. He thought about it a lot, it was what got him through most of his days, and he had amassed quite a collection of lads mags in his room, though he lost interest once Zoe got it into her head that she wanted to be a glamour model. He couldn't open up one of those magazines without picturing her face in place of the model's face. It made him feel sick; his kid sister spreading her body out for all to see. He was a lad, and he knew how other lad's minds worked, he knew what they talked about when girls weren't around. It appalled him to think that he might overhear the men at the factory talking about Zoe that way, poring over her photographs in a magazine.