He put his hands around my ear. 'I know you're not wearing any knickers. In a few minutes you and I are going for a walk.'
As the sun went down, we took cushions and a pile of blankets out to the terrace. Danny brought the stereo out and spent a quarter of an hour fiddling with extension leads and speakers, eventually trailing the cable across the flagstones from the library window. It was clear from the less than usually nonchalant way he was carrying himself that he was feeling his earlier embarrassment acutely. I had wondered whether he would thank Greg for helping him so subtly but he never mentioned the incident again. Greg asked me later what sort of parents didn't teach their child to swim. It was such a simple thing; my mother had taught my brothers and me as soon as she could, in case we ever fell into water unsupervised.
The music Danny put on was wonderful. The beat was melancholic and insistent, and above it a woman's voice, clear and strong, sang snatches of Spanish that sounded like a lament. I lay on my back, watching as the sky softened in colours of mother-of-pearl, and bands of blue-black light began to rise above the wood.
Greg raised himself on his elbows. 'This is great. Who is it?'
'Friends of mine. They're not signed. They're out in Ibiza, getting exposure.'
I rolled on to my front and Greg rested his hand on my skin, where my T-shirt rode up in the small of my back. Lucas saw it and looked quickly away, his face unreadable. Danny was lighting candles now, shielding each little flame with a cupped hand. Night had crept around us, and the circle of light drew us into a ring. We lay facing each other, like spokes in a wheel. Only our faces and shoulders were illuminated; our bodies disappeared into the darkness. It was as though we were preparing for a seance, to contact those long dead.
Danny went inside and returned with a bottle of absinthe. Martha groaned. 'God, do we have to? Remember how sick we were last time?'
'It'll be fine. This is better quality stuff. You'll enjoy it.' He winked at her and rejoined the circle, twisting the cap off the bottle and taking a huge swig before passing it to her. Whether he was treating himself for the shock of the afternoon or trying to regain face, it was plain he was on a mission. When the bottle came round to me, I misjudged it and took a far larger mouthful than I had intended. It burned my throat like a line of flame on the way down.
Lucas had made jugs of Long Island iced tea so potent I wondered whether there was actually any Coke in them at all, and between that and the absinthe it wasn't long before everything began to lose its edge. I was grateful for it: I wanted to be drunk, to numb my unease around Lucas. I'd felt it all day but most keenly when he'd caught Greg and me coming back from our tryst in the woods. He had gone back to the house at the same time as the others and had been watching from the balustrade as Greg and I had come stumbling out of the trees together about twenty minutes later, laughing as I picked dead leaves out of my hair. I'd felt the weight of his stare even from that distance and I'd moved away from Greg at once. By the time we reached the house, Lucas had disappeared, as if I'd imagined him there.
Danny turned up the volume on the stereo so that the garden was suddenly full of music. It seemed to reach as far as the wood. The walls of the house bounced it back at us and it filled the sky, right up to the stars, which seemed especially bright. We got up and danced, the stones warm under our bare feet. The music was faster now but the woman's voice still reached through my chest wall to my heart. I could feel rivulets of sweat running between my breasts and Danny took off his T-shirt and danced bare chested like a beautiful sort of savage. My feet, soft after a winter in shoes, became sore but I couldn't stop. It was as if the music and the alcohol were a sort of spell and I was safe inside it as long as I kept going. I think the others felt the same: although it was fun to dance, it also felt necessary. We paused only to drink. Lucas was in a world of his own. I could see the tip of his cigarette whirling in the darkness as he spun round and round.
I remember how still it was beyond the whirl and noise of the terrace, with the sky free of cloud and just a faint breeze that seemed to move the leaves of the trees in time with the shimmering music. I remember Lucas being exceptionally drunk, even more than the rest of us. Suddenly he darted out of the loose circle we had been in and jumped on to the narrow balustrade. The rest of us stopped dancing immediately.
'Look at this,' he said, taking three quick steps along the top. The stone wasn't wide enough for his feet side by side: he had one in front of the other, Egyptian-style.
'Lucas, for God's sake, get down.'
'Calm down, Joanna.' He took another two steps forward. He was coming up to the corner where the terrace began to run sideways along the edge of the lawn and the steps descended into the garden.
'Mate,' said Danny. 'Get down.'
'I'm going to walk along to the end. Watch this.' He cut across the corner and walked reasonably steadily for about ten feet.
Danny marked him as he went along, but kept his distance, not wanting to provoke him into any sudden movements. Lucas's eyes were bright with the effort. 'Come down before you hurt yourself.'
'Oh ye of little faith.' He managed another stretch but the strain was beginning to show. On the last few steps, he wobbled and out his arms to balance himself. I thought of the fifteen-foot drop into the garden. Would he survive that, if he fell?
It looked like he was going to make it. About five feet from the end, he was going well and planting his feet carefully. But as he took what would have been one of his final steps, one of the top stones moved under him, the cement worn away, and his balance was lost. He spun his arms but although he tried to tip his weight towards the house so that he fell on to the terrace he went the other way instead.
We stood stock still in horror, unable to believe what had just happened. The music was still playing at top volume, the emotive voice piercing the night air. We ran to the edge and looked over. Lucas had fallen not into the garden but on to the stone steps, six or eight feet below us. He lay on his back motionless. All of a sudden, he opened his eyes. 'Ow,' he said, and laughed.
The next day Lucas's bruise covered the whole of his lower back, from the cleft of his buttocks to where his ribcage came in at the front. It was a vicious purple-black. He had taken his T-shirt off and was leaning forward to let Martha apply witch hazel with a big pad of cotton wool. Its sweet smell spread quickly through the noon air. He winced, even though she was touching him as gently as possible. The area looked swollen and must have taken the full brunt of his fall. He was extremely lucky not to have damaged his back.
'You should get this looked at,' Martha told him. 'It's huge, Lucas, and you're obviously in pain.'
'It's just a bruise, Marth. I'll be OK.'
'You might have hurt your kidneys.'
'Honestly, it's fine.' He flinched again as she started on a new area.
The sun was directly overhead and nothing cast a shadow. If I had had to guess, I'd have put the temperature in the mid-eighties. I watched the ice in the water jug melting, the cubes becoming smaller and smaller until they vanished completely. A couple of cabbage white butterflies rose from the flowerbed below and danced above our heads, their wings bright against the deep blue of the sky. Among us there was the subdued atmosphere of people with churning hangovers. Greg was lying down inside, preferring the cool.
Martha finished doing Lucas's back and handed him his T-shirt. 'Put this on or you'll burn, too.' He drew himself up carefully and very slowly lifted his arms to pull it over his head. Gingerly he stood and went inside the house. Five minutes or so passed and he returned, elbowing the side door open and carrying two bottles of wine, glasses held in bunches between his fingers like inverted tulips. I couldn't believe my eyes. He sat down slowly on his cushion and took a corkscrew from his pocket. He opened the first bottle and emptied it into four of the glasses. 'Martha?' He held one out.
'I couldn't,' she said. 'I'm so dehydrated.'
'Jo? Wine?'
'Not for me.'
Danny put up his hand in a halting gesture. 'Not today, mate.'
'You've all gone soft on me. Are you really the friends I had at university?'
I looked out over the garden for a moment, knowing I was about to step into dangerous territory. 'Lucas, I thought you were taking it easy for a couple of weeks.'
There was silence for a moment or two. No one said anything.
'We got wrecked last night,' I went on. 'Why not wait till later?'
He moved the three remaining glasses of wine into a line, picked up the first, swallowed the contents, then smacked it down again. The stem snapped. He picked up the second, then the third and drank them, too. His Adam's apple plunged in his throat and he gagged. 'Because I don't want to. All right?' He got to his feet. 'Don't you think it's hard enough for me, watching you with him, knowing what you're doing, in the woods, in my house?'
I looked down.
'Just leave me alone.' He went down the steps and on to the lawn. When he was far enough away from the bottom of the terrace to be visible again, he turned to face us and flung his arms open. 'Piss off, all of you.' He walked as fast as his back would allow in the direction of the wood.
We watched him until he vanished into the trees. 'What do we do now?' I said. 'Should we go after him?'
'I think you're the wrong person to do it, either way,' said Michael.
'What if he's gone to the river and falls in?' Martha said.
'It'd take more than a bottle of wine these days,' Danny said. 'This happens a lot. He flies off the handle and disappears. He'll be back in a couple of hours, acting like nothing happened.'
'I've never seen him get angry like this. I don't like it.' Martha began to collect the pieces of broken glass.
'None of us do.' He stubbed out his cigarette.
'I think he should reconsider about the counsellor,' I said. 'It would do him good, even just to talk.'
'Lucas doesn't need a counsellor, Joanna,' said Danny, his voice full of poison. 'I'm here for him all the time and that's all he needs.'
Lucas was gone for more than two hours and, when he did return, he was not alone.
The girl was tall, almost as tall as he was. She was wearing a black bikini top and a scarlet sarong that tied tightly around her hips and ended just above her knees in a fringe of tassels. Her black hair was gathered into a ponytail that reached halfway down her back. She moved with long, confident strides, keeping pace with Lucas's quick walk, the swinging of hair and tassels lending her the lilting, easy appearance of a gently rocking boat. They disappeared from view as they came up the side and we composed ourselves casually on the rugs.
'Hi,' called Lucas from the top of the steps. They came over and stood in front of us, blocking out the sun. 'This is the most amazing thing. Look who I found down by the river.' We peered up at the girl against the sun and she smiled down at us. There was something familiar about her face but none of us had met her before. When no one said anything, Lucas explained, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. 'This is Diana.'
I had heard the name before but couldn't think where. Suddenly my mind supplied the answer: Diana, Elizabeth's daughter. That was why she looked familiar: the long dark hair, the height, the pale, full lips on the tanned face.
He introduced us, going round the circle. 'Hey,' she said.
'Would you like a drink? There's wine. Or some orange juice?'
'Juice would be great. Thank you.' Lucas went inside and she sat down, folding her slim legs to one side. The fronts of her flip-flops each bore a red fabric rose.
'I love your shoes,' I said, to break the silence. None of us had said anything but she didn't seem fazed. She was looking at us with open interest. There was something not quite English about her confidence and unmasked curiosity.
'Thanks,' she said, smiling at me. 'I bought them in Cape Town. I've just got back.'
'I was in South Africa at the end of last year,' said Greg, who had rejoined us now, looking slightly improved. 'What did you think of it?'
'I've never been anywhere like it.' She took a packet of cigarettes out of a canvas bag printed with a pattern of horses chasing each other, nose to tail. She lit up and exhaled, blinking away the smoke that got in her eyes. 'It has so much energy. And then you drive out and there's that coastline and you realise there's nothing between you and Antarctica.'
'Did you go to the parks? Just open sky and bush for miles.' Greg was getting animated. I felt a little put out that he'd never spoken to me about it like this. 'Sometimes out there, I felt like I was the first person to see it.'
Lucas returned with orange juice and a bottle of wine running with condensation.
'What are you going to do now you're back?' asked Martha.
'Well, I don't have to work just yet. Patrick left me a bit of money, as you know.' She looked at Lucas. 'So I thought I'd take time and try to find the right place to start. I want to be a photographer.'
'Right,' said Martha, her tone sounding genuine but revealing its slight edge to those of us who knew her well. Danny waved Lucas away and poured Diana's orange juice himself. 'What I don't understand,' he said, 'is how Lucas found you in the wood.'
'I was swimming,' she said.
'It was like something out of a dream,' Lucas cut in. 'I went down to the river for a swim myself. But it was so cool underneath the trees I sat down for a bit first and fell asleep.'
None of us said anything about the way he had stormed off. It was exactly as Danny had predicted: he was acting as if nothing had happened. I could imagine him falling asleep, though; the combination of lack of sleep, the pain of the bruise and the best part of a bottle of wine would have been a knockout.
'Anyway, God knows how much later I woke up and I heard this splash. I couldn't believe it. Diana was diving off upstream - you know, Greg, where you went in yesterday. I didn't recognise her at first - it's been years since we saw each other. I really did think I was dreaming.'
'Diana and the nymphs bathing,' I said.
'It was embarrassing for both of us,' said Diana. 'I thought I was alone so I'd stripped off. Something so liberating about swimming naked.' She raised her eyebrows. It was an unusual expression, I thought. Someone as beautiful as she was couldn't help but know it and yet this gesture made her momentarily - and knowingly, it seemed - down like. It was so unlike her mother's self-conscious poise.
'Isn't something bad supposed to happen to people who catch Diana bathing? The virgin goddess, untouched and unseen by men?' asked Michael.
'Well, it's not ideal,' I said. 'Look what happened to Actaeon. Artemis - same goddess, different name - changed him into a stag and he was ripped to pieces by his own dogs. And when Teiresias saw Athena bathing, she blinded him. Yes, Lucas, you'd better watch it.'
'It's not all bad. He did get the gift of prophecy and immortality.'
'Yeah, and spent his whole deathless existence roaming around from city to city in beggars' rags with nobody listening to a word he said.'
'Emphasise the positive, why don't you?'
Diana laughed. 'Well, I'll do my best not to make you blind, Lucas.' She took a sip of her juice and looked at him over the edge of the glass.
'I'd appreciate it.'
'I tried to get Lucas to swim,' she said to the rest of us. 'But he wouldn't.'
Of course not, I thought. He wanted to keep his back hidden.
'You look very like your mother,' said Danny. 'Every bit as beautiful.'
'Thanks,' she said, looking a little uncomfortable. 'I never used to be able to see it myself but they say people get more and more like their parents, don't they?'
'God help us,' said Martha.
'So how long is it since you've seen each other?' asked Danny.
'Years. I was eight, I think,' said Diana.
'Childhood sweethearts - that's adorable.'
'Oh nothing like that,' said Lucas. 'We used to play together all the time but after my dad died Diana went to boarding school and we were away in the holidays a lot. We always seemed to miss each other.'
'It was a bit rude of me, wasn't it, just pitching up for a swim, having not seen you for so long. I rang the house at lunchtime and there was no answer. I thought you were probably out. Mum was sure you wouldn't mind.'
'Of course not,' said Danny. 'You should come up whenever. You should come for dinner. Bring Elizabeth; she must be back from Rome now and I promised her a lunch. We could substitute a supper here.'
She smiled softly at Lucas. 'That'd be great, and I'll ask Mum.'
'What did you think of her?' asked Greg, winding down the window to trail his hand in the car's cool slipstream. Long golden grass and cow parsley flashed past us in a lacy blur. 'She was pretty confident, wasn't she? Especially since she hadn't met any of us before. On the plus side, though, if she and Lucas become big pals again, it might take the heat off us.'
'Let's hope so,' I said. I had mixed feelings about her. There was no reason for me to dislike her, of course: she had been friendly and open. I couldn't deny, though, that I felt challenged by how quickly Greg had responded to her. The idea that he might find her attractive made me nauseous. At times I had such an appetite for him that I thought about taking bites out of him, sinking my teeth into the flesh of his upper arms or his buttocks. I didn't think I could stand it if he fancied her. A little voice spoke to me now from a dark chamber at the back of my mind: he left Rachel for you; what's to say he wouldn't leave you for someone else? I slammed the door on it quickly.
'I think Danny was pretty taken with her.' He indicated to turn right on to the main road. 'He was drooling like an old spaniel. Every bit as beautiful as your mother - I mean, honestly.'
I thought of Martha. She would have noticed it as well, if Greg had. And probably Michael had, too. Danny's sexual appetite was close to being out of control; at least when he'd had a job, there had been restrictions of time. With Diana not working and around in Stoneborough during the week, he could run her and Martha concurrently and probably derive huge satisfaction from the intrigue. It would be one way of redeploying his intellectual energy, currently without an outlet, as well as ensuring a double supply of ego-boosting attention. Poor Martha. My heart contracted with fear for her.