‘This is my turning,’ Selina said. ‘Can I help you get him back to the house?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ Lara said. ‘Why don’t you go home and get some sleep? It’d be good if at least one of you is compos mentis for rehearsals tomorrow.’
‘Goodnight then darlings,’ Selina said, kissing each of them.
Lara watched her trip-trap into the shadows of the street to her lodgings, then she hoisted Marcus’s arm up on her shoulder and lugged him back. Thankfully no strange packages awaited her on the deck, so, with Olly’s help, she unlocked the doors and got her husband upstairs, undressed and into bed. As they pulled off his trousers, Marcus let out an enormous fart.
‘For fuck’s sake, Dad,’ Olly said.
‘Thank you darling,’ Lara said, kissing her son goodnight. Then she tucked Jack into his nest on the floor and went in to check on Bella, who was fast asleep, the covers pulled right over her head. Back in her own room, she tugged on her old sleeping T-shirt and slipped into bed.
She was just dropping off when Marcus moved over next to her and pressed himself into her back, his erection hard against her.
‘We haven’t done thish for a long time,’ he slurred into her ear.
‘There has been a reason,’ she said.
He put his hands up under her T-shirt and started rubbing her breasts. He pulled her round and his bearded face rasped against hers. Then she felt the wet softness of his tongue as he tried to find her mouth. She let him kiss her briefly with his winey, ashtray mouth, then moved her face up, so it might seem to him – if he were in any condition to wonder – that she wanted him to nuzzle her neck. Then, as she knew she must, she let him slide on top of her, pinning her down with his weight, parting her legs with his fingers. He thrust himself inside her, heedless that she wasn’t ready for him.
‘Ah. Ah. AHHH.’ After a couple of thrusts he started breathing and exclaiming loudly. The bedsprings ricocheted against one another, squeaking and screeching.
‘Shhh,’ she said, mindful of Jack sleeping on the floor just a few feet away.
‘Ah, ah, AH,’ he went on regardless. He thrust a couple more times. She just managed to wriggle herself away from under him so that, when he came, it was on the sheets, not inside her.
‘I love you,’ he said. Then almost instantly he fell asleep.
She lay there awake listening to his snores, fuming at him for not being more careful, and at herself for continuing to put up with this sort of thing.
Things, she thought, were going to change around here.
THE NEXT MORNING, AS SHE WAS MAKING COFFEE AND EGGS TO PRISE
Marcus from his hangover, Lara noticed that the roses seemed to have perked themselves up overnight. She went over to take a closer look, marvelling at the difference her splash of fresh water had made. But, with a skipped heartbeat, she realised that these flowers weren’t a resurrection. They were completely new.
Lara put her hands to her face. She had locked the doors when they went out the night before and before she went to bed. How had these roses been replaced? Her head whirling, she hurried out into the back garden and dumped both the vase and its contents behind the shed.
‘What are you doing running barefoot round the grounds?’ Marcus said, leaning on the door frame, managing to look at once both wrecked and pleased with himself. He climbed down the wooden steps and carefully stepped across the hot tarmac in his bare feet, to put his arms around her.
‘That was nice last night,’ he said.
After an edgy morning, she put Jack into the hire car and set off to meet Gina for the trip into town. Olly said he had other plans and couldn’t come, and Bella showed no interest in getting out of bed. Both of them said they’d trust Lara to buy them some new clothes – something neither of them had done for over five years. Thinking she must be doing something right for once, Lara left them locked into the house, with a key and strict orders not to go out and leave the place open. She ignored Olly’s eye-rolling.
Gina showed them the mall first. Perched on the outskirts of town, it was beige and frigid. Most of the shops were shut down and empty.
‘Daddy says the mall is a prime example of capitalism in its death throes,’ Gladys said.
‘Daddy might have a point,’ Lara said.
‘They’ve got a JC Penney at the end,’ Gina said. ‘You could look in there. We’re going into Payless, see if we can find some cheap shoes that aren’t too depressing.’
Lara went off with Jack, who was asleep in the buggy. One turn round the deserted floor of Penney’s told her there was nothing that Bella or Olly would be seen dead in. Waiting for the others, they walked the length of the mall. There was a Radio Shack, but all the other shops that were still trading sold stuff no one could ever want or need – ‘gifts’ of plasticised dream-catchers, unwitty fridge magnets and vile, synthetic pot pourri, the odour of which tainted the entire building. At the far end, an army recruitment stall was doing no business whatsoever; the lone soldier manning it sat flicking through the
New York Post
. Apart from Gina, the children, and two shop assistants, he was the only other person she had seen in the entire building.
Again, she was struck by the chasm between the shiny America she had imagined from the media, and this down-at-heel reality. How brilliant of a country to market itself so convincingly to the rest of the world.
She went down a side alley and paused to look at a display of tarot cards in a shop window. As she bent to wonder at the poor quality of the design, a movement in the reflection of the corridor behind her made her wheel round, her heart pumping. Glimpsing a heel turning a corner into the main body of the mall, she rushed with the buggy to the end of the alley to see who it was. About a hundred yards away, back down near the army stall, a beige-clad woman hurried out of the sliding doors to the car park.
‘Wait!’ Lara called, but she was too far away to be heard. Even the soldier didn’t stir.
‘Hey!’ Gina tapped Lara on the shoulder, making her jump again. ‘Oops, sorry. We got lucky, though, look.’ She pointed out the girls, who were swinging a yellow plastic bag each and looking pleased with themselves.
They went into town proper, or ‘downtown’ as Gina called it. She led them in convoy along a narrow Main Street lined with shops. They parked up, climbed out of their cold cars on to the sweltering pavement and got the two young boys into their buggies.
‘Are you OK?’ Gina went up to Lara and put her hand on her shoulder. ‘You seem a little on edge.’
Lara, who had been scanning the street for a woman in a dun-coloured car, turned to her new friend and smiled.
‘I’m fine, thanks. It’s just I’m not used to this heat yet.’
‘I know. Isn’t it disgusting?’ Gina made a face. ‘So,’ she said, looking up and down the street. ‘Clothes for your big kids.’
‘And running gear for me,’ Lara said.
‘Running. You’re so crazy,’ Gina said. ‘Hey girls, shall we take them to Fashion Bug?’
‘Yay!’ Gladys and Ethel cried. ‘Fashion Bug!’
From the font used for the signage, to the merchandise – nasty pastel items in man-made fabrics – Lara knew she wasn’t going to find anything in Fashion Bug for her kids. She shuddered as she fingered a shiny polyester blouse.
‘Isn’t it great?’ Gina said, holding up a light pink shirred skirt and posing like a catwalk model.
‘Um …’ Lara said, as the two girls collapsed into giggles.
‘I’m just messing with you,’ Gina said, slapping her arm with the back of her hand. ‘Fashion Bug
sucks
.’
‘Where do you get your clothes from?’ Lara asked. Gina wore loose, simple cotton dresses and the girls jaunty little shorts and sleeveless tops.
‘Well,’ Gina said. ‘We usually wait until we go down to the city. Or we buy online. There’s nothing really here for anyone other than freaks to buy. But I wanted to check out this new store, just off Main. One of the guys last night told me about it.’
She led them round the corner and, much to Lara’s relief, this new shop sold skater/surfer-style clothes in fabrics she could bear to touch. She bought a couple of items each for Bella and Olly, and a new dress for herself. On the way back to the cars, Gina took her to an expensive sports shop where she replaced all her lost running gear.
‘There’s nowhere I can buy a couple of good, smart men’s shirts?’ she asked Gina.
‘You’re kidding me, right?’
They dropped the car off at the Avis depot on the outskirts of town. Lara said a quiet farewell to all that luxury, then they piled into Gina’s people carrier.
‘We’re on the right side of town to go home via Pretty Fly Pie …’ Gina said. ‘It’s the best ice cream this side of the Catskills.’
‘I know. We’ve already been,’ Lara said.
‘Wow. You do get around, don’t you?’
Lara nearly told her that she had a guide, but she buttoned her lip just in time.
Gina pulled the car into a parking place in front of the big red barn. Just before she got out, Lara glanced in the wing mirror and saw the dun-coloured car edge slowly behind them, as if the driver were looking for a parking place. The windows were tinted, but she could clearly see the outline of a woman at the wheel. Without a doubt it was her.
‘Stay in the car,’ Lara said to Gina and the children, who, stunned at her tone, did as they were told.
Incensed at the cheek of this person, at all the misery she had caused Stephen, Lara jumped out of the people carrier and lunged forward, yanking open the dun car door. The woman inside turned, roared, and swung her vehicle into reverse, knocking Lara flying across the gravel car park. The car spun and screeched out of the exit, nearly crashing into an oncoming vehicle as it did so. Lara scrabbled to her feet.
‘I know what you look like now!’ she yelled at the dust cloud that hid the car. ‘I know what you are.’
‘Are you OK?’
Lara turned and saw Gina, Ethel and Gladys standing in a line, looking at her, their mouths wide open.
‘That’s the laundry thief,’ Lara said. ‘That’s the bitch who stole our clothes.’
‘Your knees,’ Gina said.
Lara looked down and saw the blood running down her shins, seeping into her leather sandals.
WHEN STEPHEN ARRIVED AT THE KITCHEN DOOR AT THE END OF THE
afternoon, his physical presence made Lara quite giddy with relief.
‘Hi,’ she said, touching his shoulder.
His disguise for the outing was different from his daytime get-up. Heavy, geek glasses covered his eyes, and a battered fedora obscured half his face. A light vintage mac hid the rest of him.
‘You look like a nineties art student!’ Lara said, her lungs only half full of air. He looked, in fact, like he did when they first met.
‘You look like the woman of my dreams,’ he whispered, kissing her on the cheek. As he bent towards her, Lara scanned the darkening hill behind him for any movement or presence.
Jack ran up and placed himself between them.
‘Hello Stephen. Are we going to the circus now?’ he said.
‘I think we just might,’ Stephen said, hoisting him into his arms. ‘Now, where are your brother and sister?’
Jack pointed to the living room, where Olly sat, chewing gum, strumming his guitar and singing a rather nice song that he had just written.
‘Hey man,’ Olly said, getting up and holding out a hand.
‘Byron?’ Stephen said, pointing to the guitar.
‘From that book you lent me.’
‘Good lad.’
‘Bella’s got some kind of bug or something,’ Lara said. ‘So she won’t be joining us.’
‘Or she’s a bit lovesick,’ Olly said, winking at Stephen. ‘Lover boy hasn’t called. Diddums.’
‘Don’t be cruel, Olly,’ Lara said.
‘That’s a pity,’ Stephen said. ‘Do you want me to go up and have a word?’
‘There’s no persuading her, I’m afraid,’ Lara said.
They piled into the Wrangler and, with the top down, they set off, winding along a valley into the deepening evening, past a series of phallic silos and red barns that became more dilapidated the further they went.
‘Do you know why they’re red?’ Stephen shouted over the noise of the engine. ‘The farmers used to cover them with oil mixed with blood from a recent slaughter.’
‘Ugh,’ Lara said. ‘Why?’
‘Because it looked good,’ Olly said. He seemed to find this hysterical.
They turned a corner and crossed a bridge over a rocky river some fifty feet below. Then they carried on past a pristine modern low-level house, all minimal glass and oak, reflected in a board-edged pond.
‘
New York Times
journalist’s summer place,’ Stephen said. ‘A dangerous gossip. I try to avoid this road as much as possible.’
The journey continued along a flat expanse carved out by a river and lined by fields of man-height maize, blue in the early evening light. Stephen switched on the wipers to remove the carnage of insects from the windscreen.
They climbed up out of the valley. As they approached the blind brow of the hill, a white car with go-faster stripes roared up and overtook them. Stephen hit the brakes.
‘Idiot,’ Lara said, her nerves creeping with the suddenness of it. ‘He could have killed us all.’
‘There’s a lot of moronic driving out here. Kids as young as sixteen, drunk or stoned,’ Stephen said. ‘The only way out is by car.’
‘And here we are,’ he said as they reached a small town and turned into a beautifully kept Main Street of bustling cafés and restaurants. ‘It’s one street and it’s where it all happens. The liveliest place for miles.’ He found a parking spot and pulled up.
Lara got out of the Wrangler and lifted Jack from the back. From where she stood, she could see a sushi restaurant, a couple of independent coffee shops, a wholefood shop that was still open and busy, a couple of Italian places and a bookstore-cum-bar. The people milling along the streets looked youngish and hip, a variation on the crowd at Gina’s place. As if to confirm this, one of the Brooklyn painters walked by, a brown paper bag of vegetables in the crook of his arm.
‘Hey Lara, how you doing?’ he said, shaking her hand. ‘Hey Olly.’ He nodded, then reached to ruffle Jack’s hair.