Angels of the Flood (22 page)

She said, ‘Let’s not talk about Francesca any more.’

‘You want we talk about you?’

‘Or not talk at all.’

‘No talk?’

‘No.’

She hardly moved, and nor did he, just leaned a little towards her and she closed her eyes as their mouths drew together. His hands were on her shoulder blades and she let her body drift against his. She felt easy as thistledown, as though a breeze had blown them together and she would stay in his arms for ever.

His kiss grew stronger, hungrier, more insistent and she arched her spine towards him. She felt his desire increasing, like a force that’s been kept in check too long. Her own desire was growing too, and alongside that there was a kind of triumph, a sense of obstacles overcome and the scent of victory, though victory over what or whom, she didn’t know.

He drew back first. ‘You like, Kate?’ It was a teasing question.

‘Maybe,’ she said, the surface of her body vibrant with desire. ‘Let’s try again to make sure.’

He cupped her head in his hands, his fingers raking back her hair, and pulled her face towards his. Kate had never known that kissing could be like this, sensations so powerful it was like flying and drowning all at once. She wanted it to go on for ever and she wanted more… She could feel his excitement echoing hers, stronger than hers, his arousal pressing against her stomach. Surrender and power.

This time, she drew back, her lips swollen with kissing.

He was breathing heavily. He asked again, ‘You like, Kate?’

Her whole body humming with desire, she never noticed the harshness of his repeated question. ‘Yes,’ she said happily. ‘I like very much.’

But this time when she moved forward to kiss him, he put his hands on either side of her face and held her away from him. She was startled by the strength of the two hands gripping her head and the dark anger in his eyes.

‘Is what you like to do with your English boys?’

‘What?’

‘You like to fuck?’

‘
What?’
Kate was so stunned by the change in him that for a moment it was all she could say.

He said, ‘You want a Latin lover, Kate?’

She gasped. ‘You bastard! How dare you!’ There was a catch in her voice, hot tears of shock springing into her eyes.

Still his hands were holding her face, his eyes searching hungrily. He said, ‘Is all a game for you, right? A stupid child’s game?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You come here and you know nothing of Francesca’s world, but you make big speeches and you help her to destroy her future. You think it is a game just like having fuck with stranger.’

Kate wrenched herself away and slapped him, hard. ‘How dare you! You’re the one who’s got it all wrong, not me, you bloody pervert. What are you trying to prove anyway? I don’t care about her uncle’s money. All I care about is Francesca! Jesus! I can’t believe you just did that!’

To her fury, Kate found she was weeping. Mario caught her by the wrist. She struggled, but his grip was too strong for her. ‘Kate,’ he said. ‘Please—’

‘Let go of me!’ she yelled. ‘Jesus, just because you’re totally fucked up, you think everyone else is the same. Just let go of me, you creep!’

‘Kate.’ But he released her wrist. ‘Maybe I am mistake, but—’

‘Like hell you are!’ she said, backing off.

‘Kate!’

She turned, and ran back to the front of the house. She was shivering violently as she went back into the hall. Her heart was thumping with fury and the last remnants of arousal as she went back into the party and searched among the bottles strewn around the room for one with some left in the bottom. The huge room where the record player was seemed even larger now that one or two couples had disappeared. Francesca and David had vanished, so too Jenny and Aiden, but Larry was sitting sadly by the record player. He tried to engage Kate in a discussion of the Venetian contribution to the Renaissance but she snapped at him and he subsided into a rare silence. She was smoking a cigarette when Francesca found her.

‘Where have you been?’ asked Kate.

‘I thought I’d better persuade Angelica to go to bed. She’s got a room above the kitchen. Have you seen Mario?’

‘No,’ said Kate shortly. And if she never saw him again that was fine by her. ‘Have you seen David?’

‘No.’

They grinned at each other. The party was winding down. The wine had all been drunk and they’d listened to every record ten times over. Larry had fallen asleep by the record player. Dido was tucked up on a chaise longue, head to toe with an Irish mechanic called Fergus. Hugo was already fast asleep on a chair in the corner of the room, his empty wine bottle with the enormous neck propped up like a rifle against the wall.

‘I’m pooped,’ said Francesca.

‘Me too. Pity we can’t use the bedrooms.’

Francesca hesitated, then, ‘There’s cushions in the
camerino.’

‘What’s that?’

‘I’ll show you.’

Francesca led her to a small room at the centre of the house. As far as Kate could tell by the light of the torch in Francesca’s hand, it had no windows of any kind.

‘Don’t the lights work in here?’

‘We don’t need them.’ Francesca stooped to gather up a couple of enormous cushions from the floor. There was no other furniture. ‘You take those two,’ she told Kate.

‘What’s it for?’

‘My uncle used to keep his most valuable paintings in here. Now they’re all up at his house. Hurry up. This room gives me the creeps.’

But Kate was too interested to hurry. By the light of the torch she could make out that it was an eight-sided room, panelled to about three feet, with spaces above the panels where paintings must have hung. ‘Look,’ she said, pushing the door behind her. ‘If we shut the door, you’d never know where it was.’

‘Stop it,’ said Francesca, and there was real anxiety in her voice. ‘I hate this room. Let’s get out of here.’

They put the cushions on the floor in the room on the other side of the hall from the
sala
and lay down fully clothed. Francesca had found a blanket from somewhere which she pulled over them both.

‘How did you get on with David?’ asked Kate. ‘I thought maybe you had something going between you.’

‘Yes. Well. It didn’t work out.’

‘What’s Mario’s problem?’ Kate wanted to know.

Francesca sighed. ‘Where do you want me to start?’

‘Is he in love with you?’

Francesca didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched out so long Kate thought she must have fallen asleep. ‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘He thinks he is, but…’

‘But?’

‘He wants to marry me,’ said Francesca.

‘Marry you?’ Kate was horrified at the thought of anyone getting tied down so soon. ‘God, what an idea!’

‘Well, you have to marry someone,’ said Francesca.

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know, but you just do.’

‘Maybe when you’re thirty, or something.’

Francesca giggled. ‘I think he’s resigned to a long engagement.’ She sounded happy as she said, ‘Good night, Kate.’

‘Good night, Francesca.’

They laughed, rolled over and were asleep within minutes.

Kate was woken just as it was getting light. Francesca was sitting up beside her; she was panting with fear. ‘Go away,’ she gasped. ‘Leave me alone! I won’t do it! No!’

Sleepily Kate reached up and patted her shoulder. ‘Francesca, wake up. You’re having a nightmare. Wake up, it’s just a dream.’

It took a little while for Francesca’s fears to subside. At last she let out a long breath and lay down next to Kate again.

‘What was all that about?’ asked Kate.

‘Just a dream,’ said Francesca. ‘A bad dream.’

D
AVID WOKE WITH A
fur-lined mouth and nausea in his guts. It was more than a straightforward hangover. He was depressed and angry, disgusted with the others and sick with himself. Last evening, he’d looked out of the window and seen Kate and Mario, first talking then kissing. He’d turned back into the room and bumped into Anna who seemed to be at a loose end too, and danced with her to stop himself from storming out onto the terrace and making an even bigger fool of himself than he had done already. He’d really thought he was getting somewhere with Francesca, but it turned out she’d just been using him to get her away from the argument with that creep Mario. After a couple of dances it was
‘Arrivederci,
David,’ and she was off to amuse herself with someone else. And thanks to her, he’d missed his chance with Kate as well. There was no doubt, from what he saw through the window, that the smoothie Italian doctor meant business.

He was still debating whether to march out and pick a fight with Mario when he noticed that Anna was a very sexy dancer indeed, especially up close. She might look like she’d stepped straight out of a Victorian vision of Camelot, but she danced like a sensuous snake, writhing and coiling herself around him, in a way that suggested he might do well to try some kissing, which he did, as an experiment. She didn’t seem to have strong feelings one way or the other about the kissing, but after a bit she leaned back and looked up at him in an appraising way, then said, ‘There’s a room at the back where we can be private.’ She led him by the hand down a long corridor into a small room which looked like some kind of store, with boxes stacked up on one side and on the other a narrow green army camp bed with a couple of blankets.

It suddenly dawned on his wine-fuddled brain what was being offered. He moved forward to kiss her but she was already pulling her sweater off over her head, so he stooped down instead and picked a pale green sock from the floor. Its mate was not far away. ‘Looks like someone’s beaten us to it,’ he said. When he stood up again, Anna was down to bra and pants. He’d never known it was possible for clothes to come off so quickly. He was standing there holding the pair of pale green socks when Anna unzipped his fly and put her hand inside his Y-fronts. After that, everything happened extremely fast, like a speeded-up version of a blue movie.

It had all been much too fast, David realized as soon as it was over. But when he mentioned this to Anna, she said that no, it was fine by her. Long hair falling in curtains over her face and shoulders, she was already pulling on her trousers.

‘I mean,’ he said, ‘I thought we might try again. More slowly.’

Anna thought not. He observed that she was pulling on the pale green socks.

‘Are those yours?’ he asked.

She nodded.

David propped himself up on one elbow. He felt deflated in many different ways. ‘Who was it the first time?’ he asked.

She turned to look at him. ‘Larry,’ she said. Her face looked pinched and childlike, in a way he’d never noticed before.

‘Larry? I thought he and Jenny—’

‘She’d gone off with Aiden.’

‘Jesus!’ David leaned back so quickly he cracked his head on the wall. The pain and shock made him feel savage. ‘Are you always the consolation prize?’ he asked.

She was fully dressed. She looked down at her shoes and said quietly, ‘I just keep looking for something.’

‘I don’t suppose you found it with me?’

‘No.’ Sadly. She gave him a little smile, a consolation prize for him too, then she turned and walked out of the room. He heard her shoes squeaking unevenly away down the corridor.

He groaned, rolled over and started to pull on his trousers. This had been all wrong, wrong, wrong, more wrong than he could have believed possible. Too fast, too furtive, too cold and heartless. But above all, Anna was the wrong person. Francesca would have been all right, but it was Kate he really wanted. Just how badly he’d wanted her, he didn’t realize until he sat on the edge of the little camp bed and pulled up his trousers. It must be someone’s fault that it had all gone so horribly wrong. Kate’s? Maybe, but he preferred to put the blame on Mario. He felt sick with jealousy at the thought of Kate and Mario together, right now.

He was going to put on his shoes, but instead he rolled back onto the camp bed and fell into a gloomy sleep.

David emerged from the store room to find the morning world muffled and white. A shroud of mist had drifted up from the river during the night, so that when they threw back the shutters the rooms filled with eerie mist-light, making them seem larger, cooler, more impersonal. Their footsteps were dulled on the marble floors, voices and laughter were echoey and distorted.

No one had slept very much or very comfortably. David’s little camp bed had been one of the choicer options. After all his anxieties about who they’d paired off with, he discovered that Kate and Francesca had spent the entire night together on a couple of flat cushions; Hugo had slept between two Louis Quinze chairs which slowly parted company leaving him suspended like a human hammock between them. He woke finally when the hammock broke. David was relieved to see that there was no sign of Mario anywhere.

The villa’s hot water gave out after the first bath. The housekeeper told them triumphantly that it would take hours for the water to get hot again. Still, the Villa Beatrice was different. This was an adventure. Angelica’s hostility only made them giggle. They stretched and yawned and warmed themselves with coffee and cigarettes.

And then they set out to explore.

When they arrived the previous afternoon they had noted in a haphazard sort of way that it was an interesting place, but the Villa Beatrice had been a stage-set for their party, hardly a real house at all. Now, in the chilly early morning mist-light, they saw that the house was solid and full of character, not a stage-set at all, and that it had its own very real magic. Cool, airy rooms opened onto a long terrace that overlooked the valley and the hills beyond. David was curious to know what kind of people it had been built for: wealthy merchants, perhaps, with fine clothes, or aristocrats with innumerable servants. Whoever the original occupants had been, they would have been as horrified as Angelica to see the place swarming with mud angels.

Nursing their cups of coffee and their hangovers they wandered from one huge room to another. The furniture was sparse but enormous, the kind of pieces that David had thought only museums and houses open to the public contained. Francesca was dismissive. ‘Just the stuff that was too big to move up to La Rocca,’ she said. ‘My uncle has taken all the best bits with him.’