‘Yes,’ Lara said in a small voice. Tears were rolling down her cheeks now.
‘And if we take the fact that you’re not exactly regular—’
‘How did you—’ She looked up at him, but he seemed distant from her, his energy making him unreachable.
‘What you thought was ten weeks could easily have been just eight …’
‘But the dating scan?’
‘Even now, dating scans before twenty weeks are only accurate in about ninety per cent of cases.’ Stephen recited this like a script. ‘And,’ he said, ‘back then it would have been even less. Again, the twin thing would complicate it. I always had my doubts, you know. And then, when I saw the first photographs of Bella and Olly …’
‘What?’
‘And Olly particularly struck me. Surely you noticed how alike we are?’
‘Yes. YES. STOP!’ Lara said, putting her hands over her ears.
They both sat still for what seemed like hours. Eventually, Stephen took her hand.
‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ he said, bringing his mouth close to her ear.
‘It’s all such a mess,’ Lara said. ‘It was bad. But now it’s even worse. I can’t think straight, I can’t even—’
‘It’s simple though.’ Stephen laughed. ‘He’s got no claim on them now. It’s all about us, Lara! We have so much time to make up. You, me, our kids.’ He kissed her neck.
‘This is too brutal, too sudden. I’ve got to go,’ she said, tearing herself away from him and standing up. ‘I need time to take it in.’ All she could see now was Marcus, alone, coming back to a cold, empty house in Brighton after a terrible tour of some godforsaken play with no one to greet him, no one really to live for, the family he thought he had as good as dead.
She ran across the kitchen to the back door and turned the handle. It was locked.
‘Unlock the door. Please, Stephen. Let me out.’
He stood and walked slowly towards her. ‘I can’t let you out there. It’s far too dangerous, remember? With Elizabeth Sanders. She might strike any minute.’ He took her face in his hands. ‘And you can’t really drive now. Not with those eyes.’ He bent down and kissed each of her eyelids.
She tried to move away, but he held her too tightly.
‘Not now, Stephen. I need a bit of time.’
‘There’s been too much time.’
‘It’s all been such a waste.’ She looked up at him, her eyes overflowing, the tears tumbling out of them and running down her cheeks. ‘All those years and now it’s such a mess. The children – I can’t. Their lives pulled away from them, everything a lie.’
‘Shh,’ he said, pulling her to him. She felt him harden against her, press into her. What was he trying to do?
‘Not now Stephen. I can’t – please drive me back.’
‘We’ve only just started though. We’ve got so much catching up to do,’ he said, his lips buried in her hair. He pulled her gently but firmly down on to the kitchen floor. She tried to move him away, but he was insistent. Then he was straddling her. His hand worked at his fly.
‘No, Stephen,’ she said. This was not right. It was not what she wanted.
He was on her, his hand now up her skirt, his fingers up inside her.
‘You can’t leave me now, you know,’ he said, closing his mouth over hers. She gasped as, in one rough movement, he pushed himself deep inside her. It hurt, because she didn’t want it, and he thrust so violently. Her head whirled as if she were seasick – this was the opposite of the worshipful lovemaking she had received during the night. Struggling underneath him, trying to get away, seemed only to excite him more. He was staking his claim and she no longer had any part in it.
‘Please Stephen …’ she said, but he was beyond hearing her.
‘I love you Lara,’ he said, over and over, until he came, again inside her.
When it was over, after he had lain, panting, on top of her, the rhythms of his breath in counterpoint to the heaves of her sobbing, he knelt up at her side.
‘You don’t know how much time it has been for me,’ he said. As he spoke, he removed her clothes. ‘Look at you. You’re so lovely. I’ve never loved anyone else but you, Lara. You’re like a disease for me. I’ve been waiting all this while to be with you, waiting for those twins to grow up and be old enough for you to leave Marcus. I’d never, ever, split up your family. You know that. I am chivalry, I am.’
He laughed, but there was no joy in it. ‘The irony is though, by leaving you, I did just that. We could have had a happy little family, Lara. You, me, our babies. It could have been perfect.’
Naked now beneath him, her eyes screwed tight against the light that filtered though the shaded kitchen windows, Lara nodded, wretched. What happiness they had lost. Could he be blamed for losing his balance over what he had just found out? She opened her eyes and looked up at him. ‘What about Jack though? Where’s the chivalry in that?’
He shifted and lay down on the floor next to her, stretching his fully clothed body against her naked skin. He cradled her head next to his. She held herself stiffly against him.
‘Fair do’s Lara,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘He’ll have to be mine now. After all, Marcus had my two for all those years.’
Again, Lara struggled to get away from him, but he held her tight.
‘Didn’t you wonder sometimes, Lara? When you looked at our boy, and he looked so like me? Didn’t you ever wonder that you might have got your dates wrong?’
Lara nodded miserably. She had, but it was all too late by the time the thought struck her, and she had buried it away, far, far beneath her consciousness.
‘Oh Lara. Why didn’t you come and get me and tell me? Just think how happy we would have been. That was so bad of you. In a way, I suppose, you robbed us both.’
‘It would have made so many people so miserable,’ she whispered.
‘And this is going to be
easy
?’
Still holding her down, he got to his feet. Then he scooped her up, pressing her close to him as if she were his baby. She realised, from the shuddering of his chest, he was crying.
‘Oh Stephen,’ she said. ‘I’m so, so, sorry.’ She stroked his cheek. His tears tracked down his face, along the skin of her arm and around her hip. Like a thread, tying her to him.
‘Think how happy we would have been,’ he said again. Holding her tight to him, he carried her up the stairs.
‘I need to go, Stephen,’ she said, trying to appeal to what reason he might have left.
‘You love me though, Lara, don’t you? You’ve always loved me. You said so.’
He laid her on his bed and swiftly curled up behind her, to hold her in place, as he wept into her shoulder. She could barely breathe, he held her so tightly. They lay there for a long time, his face pressed into her back and, in the end, her system shutting down after the shocks it had been subjected to, she tumbled into an obliterating sleep.
She woke much later to the phone ringing, echoing across the bare wooden house. The day had disappeared. Its final throes of light striped the room in long, slanting shards across the bedroom floor. Stephen’s arms were still wrapped, vice-like, around her. The phone stopped. Then it rang again.
‘That’ll be Marcus,’ Lara said. ‘Wondering where I am.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Stephen kissed the back of her neck.
A scream lifted into the dusk from somewhere outside, somewhere up the hill behind the house. Others joined it. In the cage of Stephen’s arms, Lara tensed.
‘What’s that?’ she said, her heart racing.
‘Coyotes on the kill,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘Like a group of girls being murdered in a field.’
The phone stopped ringing.
‘Now. I think we need a bath. Don’t you?’ He moved away from her and rolled her on to her back. ‘So lovely,’ he said, as he looked at her.
‘But Jack will need picking up,’ Lara said. ‘They’ll all be wondering where I am.’
‘Don’t worry, love,’ he said. ‘That’s been taken care of.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I rang James this morning and told him the tree was still blocking the road, and it’s not likely to be cleared up for a couple of days. He said he’d tell Marcus. He’s very good like that, James.’
Lara curled back up on to her side and looked away.
‘It means we can just relax and be together,’ Stephen said, as he rose and went through to run the big, round bath. ‘We’ve got all the time in the world.’
Lara lay there and considered the slenderness of her options. Even if she managed to get out of the house, there was no way she could drive down to Trout Island. Without her contact lenses she could only see a foot in front of her. If she walked it would take hours. The only way she knew was on the road, so Stephen would be able to follow her. If she went through the forest, though … But there were miles of woods out there, with bears and coyotes and snakes.
The phone rang again. Before Lara got across the bed to pick it up, Stephen was there, his hand on the receiver.
‘I don’t think you should be answering phones, Lara,’ he said. ‘Leave it to the professional.’ He picked up the phone. ‘Hello? Oh, hi, Marcus. Yes she’s fine. I think she’s having a little nap. No, no.’ Stephen held his finger up to his mouth as he listened to what Marcus had to say. ‘It’s too far to walk, no. They’re very inefficient round here. We’re just going to have to sit it out. Oh. That’s good.’ He listened a little more then laughed at something Marcus said. ‘OK. Yes, cheers mate then. Yeah. ’Bye.’
Lara looked up at Stephen.
‘He says Jack had a great day at Gina’s and she’s offered to have him overnight.’
‘That’s good then,’ Lara said, wondering what Marcus had told Gina about where she was, and whether her friend had drawn any conclusions.
‘Tub time.’ Stephen picked Lara up and carried her through to the bathroom, where he put her into the hot, deep-drawn bubble bath. He didn’t get in, but knelt beside her. Then, with great care and attention, he washed her, using his bare, soaped hand to cover every inch of her skin.
‘I think I owe you for earlier,’ he said, bending to kiss her breasts. ‘I’m sorry about that. I got carried away.’
His expert hands caressed her, his beautiful mouth explored her, until, despite herself, she felt herself turning inside out.
‘Stay there, Lara,’ he said, getting up and leaving her while the water still lapped around her, while she still pulsed deep inside. ‘I’ve got just the thing for you.’
Lara did as she was told, wondering what on earth he had in store for her next. After about half an hour he returned, with a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and one glass, which he put on the console by the bath, across the room from her. She could do with a drink, she thought. There was nothing else she could do now and it was dark outside.
With his back to her, Stephen poured her a glass. Then he turned and handed it to her.
‘To us,’ he said.
She drank deeply, downing her glass in one. He quickly refilled it and again she drank. Almost instantly the numbing sensation of the alcohol crept over her, and her limbs grew heavy. When the whole bottle was gone he helped her out of the bath, wrapping her in a thick fluffy towel so large it trailed on the floor behind her, as if she were some sort of bride.
‘Come and see.’ As he led her to his bedroom, she realised she could barely feel her legs. The sheets were strewn with fresh rose petals, and crammed around the bed were vases and vases of blooms still on their stems. They weighted the air with their scent.
‘A byre fit for a queen,’ Stephen said.
‘The roses were from you,’ Lara said, her voice slurring.
‘Damn straight they were,’ he said, as she collapsed on to the mattress and passed out.
LARA OPENED ONE EYE AND TRIED TO FOCUS ON THE PILLOW. EVERY
part of her ached.
As she pieced together where she was and what had happened, snatches of barely registered images flashed through her mind – Stephen’s face, looming over her, lit by a candle, perhaps, from below. She saw orange, she saw red. She saw him in close-up, like an owl, or a dog.
Then there she was, somehow viewed from above, juddering so every part of her moved, a rag doll. A ribbon digging into the flesh of her arm, rose petals crushed up against her face. The smell, the stink of rose, of rotten rose water, seeping through her skin, working into her bones.
She shifted on the mattress. Stephen’s arm lay over her, weighty with sleep.
Taking his wrist, careful not to wake him, she freed herself from his embrace and swung her legs so she sat on the edge of the bed. Her head hurt, and she badly needed to pee. But what she noticed most of all was the pain between and around the backs of her legs. Passing her hand over herself, to the source of the hurt, she drew it away and found a streak of blood.
Standing, a little shaky, she turned to look down at Stephen, who was still fast asleep, smiling to himself. He seemed so beautiful there, like a dark angel. But what had he done to her in the night? She remembered drinking champagne – too much champagne – and then she could recall nothing else.
She staggered to the bathroom and leaned on the sink, examining her bloodshot eyes in the mirror. Her arms shook, supporting her weight against the basin. She noticed the red weals on her wrists.
She splashed her face, took a burning pee and levered herself on to the bidet, where she ran warm water to soothe the stinging pain. Taking his sandalwood-scented soap, she began to wash herself. She tried to formulate a plan, but her brain couldn’t string any thoughts together. A movement caught the corner of her eye. She looked up. Stephen leaned against the door, gazing down at her.
‘Don’t stop,’ he said. She lowered her eyes, ashamed. He knelt in front of her. ‘Let me help you.’
‘I don’t know if I can,’ she said as he worked his hands between her soapy thighs where she hurt the most. But, somehow, he picked her up, using that most intimate touch. Jamming her up against the door and ignoring her gasps of pain, he entered her yet again, pushing into her until she fell, sobbing, against his strong, scarred shoulder.
‘Can I get dressed now?’ she asked as he dried her once more after another shared shower.
‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘It would be a sin to cover up all that beauty.’
So she was naked as he served her coffee, eggs and toast at the dining-room table, under the great wooden fan that turned and circulated chilled air around the space. She didn’t feel like eating at all, but she was light-headed and dizzy, so she forced down a couple of mouthfuls.