‘Would you like another drink?’ Sean said, putting his mouth close to her ear.
‘OK.’
He steered her down the steps and into the throng.
‘What’s that smell?’ Bella said, picking up a lemony scent that threaded through the crowd.
‘Citronella. You can’t be out here without it. Keeps the bugs off. Want some?’ Sean handed her a small vial from his back pocket. ‘Dab it on your pulse spots.’ They stopped and he watched her as she placed dots of the oil behind her knees, inside her wrists, at the base of her throat. ‘Now you’re invincible. Come on, let’s get those drinks.’
He led her over to the other side of the fire pit where there was a large, circular wooden table, on which stood two old zinc tubs full of ice, beers and bottles of white wine.
‘I’ll have a beer, please,’ Bella said.
He picked out a bottle, twisted the top off and handed it to her.
They found a vacant patchwork quilt on the outskirts of the crowd. He sat next to her so their arms touched. She hugged her knees close and hoped that the citronella hid the slight sweaty tang she detected from her own body. She was desperate to tell him about Stephen Molloy – not least because it would give her something to talk about and she felt particularly tongue-tied – but she knew she couldn’t.
‘I’ve never been to England,’ Sean said. ‘What’s it like?’
‘Small. Crowded.’
‘I’ve never been to any other countries except for Canada,’ he went on. ‘Where do you live? London?’
‘Brighton,’ Bella said. ‘By the sea. Straight down from London.’
‘Show me,’ he said, reaching in his pocket. He got his iPhone out and moved even closer to her so she could see the screen.
‘You’ve got reception?’
‘Nah. Can’t get it anywhere for miles around here. I’ve jumped on James and Betty’s Wi-Fi.’
‘There we are,’ she said, pointing at their house on Satellite View, in among the stripes of terraced streets that radiated up from the sea towards the open expanse of the Downs. Stroking the screen, Sean zoomed in.
‘You’re right by the ocean,’ he said. They were so close now, their cheeks practically touched. Bella could feel the sweep of his long eyelashes and there was this swooning sensation going on somewhere inside her, as if she were opening up and letting go at the same time. But she tried to keep talking as if this were the most normal thing in the world.
‘If it’s the same picture, you can see our washing strung up across our back garden.’
‘Cute,’ he said, putting his arm around her so he could get even closer to the screen. Bella glanced up. There were people right near them, but no one was looking.
‘And that’s our car, out in the street there.’ Bella broke away and took a deep swig of beer. Home, and all it meant to her, seemed so far away. Even more so when it was relegated to tiny satellite pictures on a screen. The thought made her feel utterly liberated. If it weren’t for Olly …
Sean sat back too, so they were once again close to one another. Bella caught the scent of him as he moved, a mixture of soap, swimming pool and something else, a little like fresh sweat, but not at all off-putting.
‘Shall I show you round?’ he said. ‘James and Betty’s place is pretty cool.’
He jumped to his feet and offered his hand to help her up, but he held on as he led her down the lawn, past a grid of eight small vegetable and flower patches. Dancing Chinese lanterns on poles marked a path between the beds. The aniseed smell of basil filled the air as they brushed past the plants, only to be overtaken by the heady fragrance of a bed of pink and red roses. The voices of the party diminished in a slow cross-fade with the love songs of the crickets in the meadow beyond.
The lanterns dipped down towards, then encircled, a wide pond, which seemed to boil and shiver in the early evening light. At the far side stood an enclosed seat, made of half a wooden rowing boat stuck erect into the ground. Bella looked at the ridge beyond the end of the garden. It was outlined by a faint orange glow, the sun’s last gesture of the day. The moon was already up behind the house, and the three light sources – sunset, moon and lantern – lifted the shapes around them, making them appear more than real in a way that reminded Bella of the Salvador Dali poster she had Blu-Tacked to her bedroom wall back home.
‘Beautiful light,’ she said.
‘Beautiful.’ Sean stopped and looked at her.
Then Bella started as a sudden strange sound erupted from the pond, like a ghost jumping up and down on abandoned floorboards. It grew and grew, joined by other, similar sounds, until the crickets could no longer be heard. It sounded like the old barn was falling down.
‘Oh my God. What’s that?’ she said, turning to him, her hands on her ears.
‘It’s just bullfrogs,’ Sean laughed. ‘Come and see.’
They tiptoed down to the edge of the pond.
‘Look,’ he whispered, squatting and pointing.
Bella craned forward and, as her eyes grew accustomed to the greys, greens and browns of the water, she picked out first one frog, then another and another. Some sat on lily pads and rocks, some were just heads, ballooning out of the water.
‘A frog chorus,’ she said.
Their eyes met and this time Bella held his gaze. Her insides, which had been on the very verge for the last half-hour, finally turned right over. She couldn’t breathe. In the strange light, his irises were the colour of forget-me-nots, with dark flecks that seemed to draw her further in until she felt hypnotised, like a rabbit in a trap. He moved closer and she closed her eyes …
‘Hey, Sean buddy! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!’
They jolted apart and looked over to the other side of the pond, to the boat-seat, where the voice had come from. The glow of a cigarette being lit revealed an Italian-looking man. Bella guessed he was quite old, over thirty at any rate. She recognised him from the play.
‘Hey Tony, you asshole. What you doing? Spying on me?’ Sean said. The way he spoke, he sounded like a different person.
‘It’s all cool, man.’ Tony stretched his legs so they protruded from the shelter of the seat. ‘You kids just do what you gotta do. Don’t mind me.’ He folded his arms and continued to sit there, smoking and chuckling to himself. A smell of weed wafted over towards them.
‘Asshole,’ Sean muttered under his breath. ‘Come on, Bella.’ Taking her hand, he led her up the dip, away from the pond.
‘You takin’ her off to the corn, boy?’ Tony called. ‘For a roll in the husks?’ A guffaw of marijuana-fuelled laughter chased them up the slope.
‘Who was that?’ Bella asked when they were out of earshot.
‘Tony Marconi,’ Sean said. ‘Prick.’
‘Was he on
The Sopranos
?’
‘Yeah. Prick.’
‘Steady,’ Bella said, smiling at him.
‘Sorry. But he thinks I’m a joke just because I’m from ’round here and not come up from the city.’
‘That’s not very nice.’
‘No.’
‘I don’t think you’re a joke,’ she said.
They had reached the open doorway of the listing barn. The darkness of the interior was criss-crossed with beams of moonlight that filtered through the wide gaps in the wooden walls, catching the edges of piles of ancient agricultural machinery that had long ago been put to bed. It looked artificial, reminding Bella of the set of one of Marcus’s plays that she had been dragged to see.
The Cherry Orchard
, that was it. A faint but distinct animal smell rose from the ancient remnants of straw in the rickety stalls on one side of the building. A sharp gust of wind would probably be enough to bring the whole lot down.
‘Come on,’ Sean said, stepping in.
‘Is it safe?’ Bella asked, remembering what her mother had said.
‘Sure. I’ve been here a load of times.’
Putting all of her better instincts aside, Bella had no choice but to follow him, to step on to this hazardous stage. Sean drew her in, out of the doorway, took her in his arms and bent towards her. At last they kissed.
Bella felt the world swirl as she closed her eyes. The excitement that had burned inside her since meeting Sean earlier that day finally radiated outwards, so she didn’t know where she ended and he began.
His arms were around her, working their way up and inside the back of her short dress; his flesh was on her. She just wanted to be picked up and carried away wherever he took her. She felt him hard against her as their bodies pressed together.
‘Bella, what the fuck?’
They jumped apart, as if the current that held them together had suddenly been reversed.
Olly stood swaying in the doorway, his mouth working silently. He looked as if he were on the verge of exploding.
‘Mum sent me to get you because the food’s ready and I find you in here. What the fuck are you doing?’ He glared at Sean.
‘It’s cool, man,’ Sean said, holding up his hands.
‘No it isn’t “cool”, “man”.’ Olly strode up to Sean and put his face right up against him. He had a strange look in his eyes, as if he were slightly possessed. Bella had seen it before, and she didn’t like it.
‘Olly, this is Sean,’ she said, ‘he’s—’
‘Someone you know pretty well already, by the look of it,’ Olly said. ‘Get out of here, Bella.’
‘You’re not my keeper.’
‘Mum said we’re not to go in here.’
‘Like you listen to what she says.’
‘Jonny’s going to know about this.’ Olly said, lunging forward to grab her arm, the sinews in his neck standing out as he reached.
‘Fuck off.’ Bella slapped him away. ‘And it’s not Jonny that gives a shit, anyway, is it, Olly?’
Olly leaped again for his sister.
‘Leave her,’ Sean said, positioning himself between them.
‘Listen mate, you can stay right out of it.’ Olly shoved him aside with both hands.
‘Stop it, Olly!’ Bella said, running to Sean, who had fallen on to the dirt floor.
‘Bella! Olly!’ Marcus boomed from somewhere out in the party. ‘Grub’s up!’
Bella turned to Olly. ‘He’ll go crazy if he finds us in here.’
‘Get out, then,’ Olly said. He pulled her away from Sean, who had picked himself up and was brushing straw and dust from his clothes. Though younger and not so strongly built, Olly was taller than Sean. That, and the force of his jealous outrage, gave him the upper hand. He jabbed the older boy in the chest. ‘And hey, you, “man”. If I catch you creeping on my sister again you’re going to regret it.’
‘Olly! Bella!’ Marcus thundered again.
‘Yeah?’ Sean said.
‘Oh, yes,’ Olly said. Then, with one final prod at Sean, he went to stand in the barn doorway, his jaw still twitching. ‘Bella?’
Bella hesitated. She didn’t want to follow her brother, but she had little choice.
Because they had once been so close – too close – Olly believed he owned her, and she didn’t know how she was ever going to get away from him. He refused to see what they did back then as wrong, beyond any boundaries – if Olly
had
any boundaries, which she doubted. He couldn’t realise that, if they were to survive, he had to let her go. Two years she had put up with him using Jonny as a human shield on her and she had had enough.
And although she could put up a fight, there was something about him when he was like this that really frightened her. His force of will was so strong it seemed he would stop at nothing to get his way.
‘Go on, Bella,’ he had said to her when they were younger. ‘Just this once.’ She hadn’t stood a chance. It hadn’t been just the once, either.
And just right now he was clearly off his face, too, which didn’t help.
She wanted to stay with Sean, but she had to get out of the barn and go to her father who was calling for her. More than anything, she was scared; she had to separate Olly and the boy she had just kissed and quite possibly fallen in love with.
Her decision made, she followed her brother. As she joined Olly on the threshold of the barn, she turned back and Sean smiled at her.
‘See you again,’ he said, and she sighed with relief. He was a fighter.
‘Not if I catch you first, mate,’ Olly said, pointing at him and pulling Bella away.
‘You’re being a total twat, Olly.’ She tried to shrug him off as they crossed the lawn.
‘I’m going to tell Dad,’ Olly said.
‘No you’re not. I’ve got a lot more I can say about you if you do. I’ll start with the fact that you were smoking weed and drinking beer when you should have been helping me look after Jack. And then I’ll go on.’
‘Fuck you,’ Olly said.
‘For God’s sakes,’ Bella said, and stamped off, away from her brother to answer yet another one of her father’s calls.
THE FISH HAD BUSIED THEMSELVES IN THEIR SPARKLING TANK
, oblivious to whatever was going on between the two adults watching them, while the child prattled on, telling his mother the name of each and every one of them.
‘I promised Betty I’d be out of here before the food gets served up,’ Stephen had said, breaking away to scribble something on a small yellow card pulled from his breast pocket. ‘Here’s my email address. Send me yours.’ He handed the card to Lara, then he bent towards her.
It had been a brief kiss, but it was on her lips.
And as Lara stood in the kitchen snipping herbs, having been roped by Betty into helping with the finishing touches to the meal, she could still feel it. It made it very hard for her to concentrate on what Betty was saying.
‘When we bought it, it was in as much of a state as the barn.’ She was, Lara supposed, talking about the farmhouse. ‘But in a
very
distant past life I was a carpenter, so I know my way round a piece of wood.’ She was whacking half a pomegranate with a wooden spoon, making the seeds pop out and pink juice spatter all over a green platter of couscous salad. ‘We’ve got a place in the city, down in the East Village, although we never go there in the summer. It stinks in August. But the winters up here are harsh. The snow reaches right over the porch. Sometimes it’s just good to feel the warmth of other people, the kindness of strangers. Just to be able to walk round the block to a nice bar, see a show.’
‘So you close the theatre in the winter?’
‘Oh yes. No one goes out round here in the dark months, unless they positively have to. They just stay in and get cabin fever. There’s a lot of indoors drinking, and very little else.’