She stopped briefly as she walked to the back of the house after locking the doors and scanned the muggy yard and bushes beyond for observers. It was extraordinary how in a matter of days this had become instinct. But she was pleased now she could speak to Stephen and they could go to the police.
If she managed to find him.
She hurried to the old Volvo. Three turns on the ignition produced nothing: no sound, not even a stutter. Following Gina’s liberally exclamation-marked instructions in a little brown book in the glove compartment, Lara got the ‘giant great spanner from the trunk!’ located the ‘recalcitrant starter motor!’ and gave it a ‘Gawd almighty whack!’.
The unlikely recipe did the trick and, sweaty now, she turned the growling car on to Main Street. The evening was especially humid: hot, damp air pressed in on her body, and, of course, the Volvo’s air-conditioning didn’t work at all. Even without thinking about her own situation, there was a sense of something on the verge of happening, a storm on its way. On top of this, Lara felt a heat in the base of her belly, and a pins and needles sensation danced between her legs. She was on her way to misbehaviour and possibly danger, and this brought on light-headedness.
It was like she was nineteen again, off to meet Stephen in his attic digs in Stratford, where his theatrical landlady, a woman fond of fabric flowers and Judy Garland movies, made herself discreetly absent whenever her actor gentlemen ‘entertained’. Lara looked back at it now as a sort of age of innocence, and although it was of course anything but, compared to what was at stake with this visit, she had some reason for doing so.
The shadow of the unanswered phone calls and the thought of what might be going on up at his house made her foot rest a little heavily on the Volvo’s accelerator.
But before she got very far she was forced to stop. Someone had decided to do some road works on Main Street, and had so far got around to putting in an excessively slow-to-change set of temporary lights just outside Gina’s house. As Lara sat there, dissolving on to the hot leather seats, waiting for the non-existent oncoming traffic to pass through the one lane left open on the road, she extended Stephen’s
what-if
into a detailed scenario where they had brought up the twins in LA and lived a life that consisted of family evenings at the circus punctuated by untold nights of winding their bodies around and around each other …
A hand thumped down on the roof of the old Volvo, jerking Lara out of her daydream.
‘How’s the old girl?’
Lara turned to see Gina’s head poking through the passenger window. By her side were her daughters.
‘Oh, hi, Gina,’ Lara said, breathing out with relief. ‘Ethel, Gladys. I can’t believe these lights.’
‘I know!’ Gina said. ‘Jim was waiting here for three years the other day! Hey, cool – matching bag and car.’
Lara looked down. It was true, her handbag, which she had flung on the seat beside her, was the exact same colour as the car.
‘Except for the rust!’ Gina added.
Lara smiled. Normally she loved Gina’s upbeat manner, but she was in no mood for chitchat. Also, she was pointing in exactly the wrong direction for her going-to-town alibi. Not even properly started on a double life, and here she was, already slipping up.
‘Where you off to then, lady?’ Gina asked, one eyebrow raised.
‘Oh just um …’ But Lara was saved by the changing lights.
‘Catch ’em while you can!’ Gina said, slapping the car again as it were a lazy horse. Lara cranked the handbrake and set off at a bit more of a lick than the
Dead Slow
decreed by the roadwork signs.
As she reached the turning that took her off Main Street towards Stephen’s place, she glanced in her rear-view mirror to check once more she wasn’t being followed in any way. To her dismay, Gina and her daughters were standing by the road, still waving goodbye to her through the wiggling heat haze. That would be typical Gina, waving and waving with her children until the very last glimpse of the person they were saying goodbye to had disappeared. It also suggested, however, that Gina was on to her.
But what did it matter, really? As she wound her way up the mountain and across the grassy plateau at the top, Lara began to detach herself from the crippling fear of consequence that had hampered her life so much.
At the highest point, where she could see for miles, the hills folded blue into blue underneath a khaki sky. Forks of lightning – so distant she couldn’t hear even a whisper of thunder – stabbed at the furthest ridge, sparking a crackle of electricity through the damp flannel air. Looking west as she was, across a land vast and empty to a degree unimaginable to a European mind, Lara knew anything was possible on this earth.
She drove back into the forest on the other side, crunching off the gravel on to the dirt road that took her eventually up to Stephen’s gate.
Reading the numbers from her arm, she punched them into the entry keypad. She drove in and forced herself to wait for the gate to close behind her. Then she set off – too quickly for a car with such antique suspension – along the rocky drive that led her, through the trees, to the magical house that Stephen built.
She pulled up between his dented Wrangler and the wooden garage and cut the engine. The drive up with the windows open had brought road-dust in; she tasted powdery dirt as she licked her lips. For the first time in this country, she heard absolutely nothing. The silence was so dense, it made her ears ring. Not an insect, bird or any other creature intruded.
This must be the storm on its way, then. Her vest was drenched with sweat and something buzzed behind her eyes.
Not only was it silent in Stephen’s clearing. The house seemed pretty quiet too. All the blinds and curtains were drawn. Her own heartbeat thumping in her head, she wiped the sweat away from her upper lip. His car was there, so he must be around somewhere. She scanned the perimeter of the garden. Beyond the grass, the forest could conceal or swallow up anyone or anything.
Nothing, not even the stir of a branch, made the scene seem other than a photograph, or a still at the beginning or end of a film.
A flicker of lightning led the way for a low rumble of thunder. The sky darkened like she remembered in the eclipse of 1999, when she had been standing in the middle of a Sussex campsite, on her own as usual, with her two small children.
Then she heard the sound – irregular cracks and pops, like bones breaking – of the first, fat raindrops fighting their way down through the thick air to land on taut leaves.
She didn’t like that the house appeared to be closed up. She fought the urge to get back into the car and drive away and forget all about it. Whatever she was going to find there, she had to go inside.
She strode over the snake lawn towards the back door, and, using the key Stephen had given her, let herself in. The door swung shut behind her. If it had been dark outside, inside the house was like a tomb. She stood still, waiting for her eyes to accustom to the gloom. Then she angled her vision across the kitchen towards the living room, where, outlined by the light from a dimmed table lamp, she could just about pick out the shape of a figure sitting on the leather sofa.
Whoever it was had a gun, and they were pointing it directly at her.
With a jab of terror, Lara heard the click of the catch coming off the gun. For a moment, she was reminded of the stand-off with the bear. But this was even more deadly.
A simultaneous flash and crash of lightning and thunder heralded the arrival of the storm directly overhead. Confused by the surge, the dim lamp flickered on full, revealing the gunman on the sofa to be Stephen.
‘Stephen!’ she said. ‘What?’
‘Step into the light so I can see you,’ he said.
Carefully, Lara moved forward into the living room. Her hands lifted automatically into the air. ‘Stephen, it’s me, Lara.’
‘Lara!’ Stephen let out a great sigh and seemed to collapse in on himself. The gun clattered to the floor. Lara stayed where she was, rooted to the spot, unsure of whether to run out of the house or towards him.
‘I could have shot you. I thought you were …’ he said, pressing his fists into his forehead.
Lara took the seven faltering steps necessary to reach him, then, gingerly moving the gun to one side, she sank to her knees and grasped his hands in hers, moving them away from his face. Behind the dirt that smeared his cheeks, his skin was white. Desperation clouded his eyes. She saw him, for the first time, with his guard down, defenceless.
‘I thought you were her,’ he whispered.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I know she’s here again. She’s been after me since I arrived.’
‘What?’ Stephen’s eyes flashed up at her.
‘Betty told me not to tell you, that it would kill you to know,’ she said, squeezing Stephen’s hands tight as he gasped.
‘Betty?’ he said.
‘But I’m glad you know now,’ Lara went on, ‘because we can talk. You’re not alone, Stephen. You’ve got me, and we’re going to make sure this Elizabeth Sanders gets sent down once and for all.’
‘I’ll never get the better of her.’ He broke away and buried his head in a cushion. ‘She’s tracked me across a whole continent, like I was some sort of wild beast.’
‘But look,’ Lara said, rummaging in her bag for her iPhone. ‘I’ve got evidence.’ She showed Stephen the photographs she had taken of Sanders and her car.
‘She got this close to you?’ Stephen said, his voice tiny with disbelief. ‘Jesus, what sort of danger have I led you into?’ He took her face in his hands. ‘Lara, if anything ever happened to you, I’d—’ He stood up and started pacing the room. ‘I can’t believe Betty put my sanity above your safety. Doesn’t she know how dangerous this woman is?’
‘She wanted us to work out a way of trapping her so you didn’t even know about it until it was all over. But Sanders did me a favour by letting you know she’s here. You’ll never believe it,’ Lara said, ‘she even tried to tell me you’d brought her here. She’s crazy. Completely la-la.’
A roll of thunder shook the house and seemed to echo in Stephen’s eyes as he looked at her. ‘Don’t believe a word that
creature
says. She’s evil, Lara, a player of dark games. And Betty – such a meddling mother hen. Doesn’t she know I can look after myself?’
‘Can you?’ Lara said, getting up and moving towards him. ‘From the state of you right now, I’m not so sure she wasn’t right to try to protect you.’
‘But it’s no protection at all, me not knowing. And what if something had happened to you Lara? Where would I be then?’
He had his hands on her shoulders now, and was holding her at arm’s length, looking at her. His concern, and the whirl of the moment, made her feel as if he were pulling on some cord deeply rooted between them. She wanted to ask him the details, about how he had found out about Sanders, about whether she was out there right now, lurking in the dense trees, but all of that seemed unimportant as their bodies were unstoppably drawn together.
‘I have waited so long for this, Lara,’ he said, his voice hoarse.
‘Shh,’ she said, and reaching up, drew him down towards her, so their lips touched. As he fell to his knees, she feared she might float away and never be seen again.
‘Oh God,’ he said, pressing his face against her belly. The noise of water hitting wood deafened as the rain battered down on the house, but all she heard was his breath as it came in short, shallow gasps.
He knelt back and, slowly and gently, took her clothes off piece by piece, revealing her more fully than she felt she had ever been before. Then she was naked, standing there in front of him. He gazed up at her, a small-boy look of wonder on his face.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he said. ‘More beautiful than I remember even. More beautiful than I have imagined.’
Lara closed her eyes. No one had told her she was beautiful. Not for years.
He reached out and ran his hand over her hip and down her thigh, little darts of pleasure shooting into every inch of her he touched.
‘So soft,’ he said. ‘So soft all over.’ He pressed his cheek to her again, this time skin on skin, and she fell – no, she folded – to the floor.
‘I love you, Lara. I have always loved you and I always will.’
That she would find herself here, being adored by him like this. She wondered if it was real. Then his hand moved between her legs and she realised how tangible, how palpable, it actually was.
‘I love you too,’ she said. ‘I have always loved you and I always will.’
For the next hour, he didn’t allow her to touch him. He worshipped every inch of her, every nook, every hidden curve. This was what she remembered. This was what she had missed. Then, when she couldn’t imagine having any pleasure left to spend, he pulled off his own clothes, leaving only his vest, and, standing, gently lifted her up and on to him.
They stood there, coupled, still, full, until neither of them could bear it any longer. Then, by some unseen signal, she arched back and he followed her down on the sofa, where the frenzy began until, minutes later, they came together, him deep within her.
This, she knew, was what she wanted. She wanted him to lay himself there in her core, to become one with her, to plant his DNA inside her too-recently emptied womb.
They slid to the floor into a tangled heap, him still taking the last, electric grips and turns of her. Outside, the wind was up, driving the branches of the nearby trees against the house like a thousand scratching fingers. Another simultaneous lightning and thunderclap shook them into one final mutual shudder.
‘Welcome home,’ she said. And then, everything else forgotten, they fell into a brief but deep sleep, wrapped at last in each other’s arms.
‘Tell me how you found out Sanders was here,’ Lara said a short while later as she lay on Stephen’s chest, listening to his heartbeat and trying to breathe in time with him.
‘Tell you what,’ Stephen said, stirring. ‘I’ll take you out and show you what we’re up against.’ He stood and got dressed. Then he helped her back into her clothes, kissing goodbye to each part of her body as he covered it up.
The storm had passed far more quickly than it had arrived. When they stepped outside on to the sodden back porch, Stephen with his gun slung over his shoulder, Lara heard the distant rumble of retreating thunder. The clouds above them – partly steam rising from the trees – were clearing to reveal a golden red and orange sky, the prelude to a spectacular sunset. All around them and beneath their feet, crawling and jumping things ventured out from behind their shelters to start up their racket again. The air, washed by the rain of its heaviness, now carried the tang of newly wetted earth.