by Karen Swan
‘I can see you’ve got a degree, darling,’ Sam quipped.
‘Second word,’ Orlando murmured. ‘Third syllable.’
Kitty pulled a stroppy face and slumped her shoulders.
‘Moron!’ Sam cried.
‘Zombie,’ called Cat.
‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame!’ Orlando shouted, jumping to his feet.
‘That’s five words,’ Isabella reminded him.
‘Oh.’ Orlando sat back down again dejectedly.
‘Teenager,’ Alex muttered.
Kitty began stabbing her finger at him.
‘Teenager?’ Alex repeated, surprised to have got it right.
Kitty pushed her hands together, leaving just a small gap between them.
‘Teen?’ Rob asked.
Kitty nodded vehemently. It was clearly an agony for her to keep so quiet.
‘. . . Second word, second syllable . . . ’ Sam murmured, sitting on the edge of the seat, her competitive spirit well and truly awakened.
Kitty got down on all fours and began padding around, panting.
‘Dog,’ Isabella called out.
Kitty lifted her left arm and held it like a paw.
‘Sick dog! Poor sick dog! Lame dog!’ Rob called out, not pausing for breath.
‘Amputee dog!’ Sam hollered.
Kitty quickly stood up again and put on a serious face. She pretended to put something in her ears and then held an imaginary thing in front of her, moving it around and cocking her head.
‘Vet!’ Orlando shouted so loudly it could have set off avalanche warnings all through the resort.
Kitty, pointed at him delightedly.
‘Vet . . . teen . . .’ Rob murmured.
‘The Velveteen Rabbit!’ Laura blurted out.
Everyone looked at her in amazement, and then back at Kitty, who let the sounds explode out of her.
‘YES!!!!!’ she cried, running over and hugging Laura tightly as though she’d successfully answered the riddle from the troll who was going to eat her babies.
‘What is it?’ Sam asked Alex. ‘I’ve never even heard of it.’
‘It’s only, like, the most perfect children’s book ever,’ Kitty cried. ‘It completely defines my childhood. Cat and I used to read it together all the time, didn’t we?’
Cat nodded enthusiastically.
‘We liked the bit about him playing in the garden with the real rabbits best, remember?’ Kitty continued.
Cat held her breath, desperately trying to think back and recover the details, but it was fairly obvious that she couldn’t remember it. Kitty’s face fell.
‘Yeah, well, like I said – never heard of it,’ Sam drawled.
‘That’s because you were born twenty-one,’ Kitty muttered, taking a seat on the sofa. ‘Right, your go, Laura.’
Laura froze. Now she had to stand in front of all of them and mime? In The Dress? Oh, why had she answered? Why couldn’t she just have kept her big mouth shut?
She shuffled up to the fireplace, staring at the flames for inspiration. It had to be something literary and clever. She couldn’t come up with that Jilly Cooper she’d read in the Peak District last August, even though that was the last thing she’d read . . .
Sam was pouring herself another glass; David was pointedly covering the top of his glass with his hand; Isabella was talking to Orlando – who had crossed sides and was now sitting in Laura’s place – in what appeared to be furious Italian; and Cat was miming something to Alex. Only Rob was watching her intently, ready to play the game.
She turned to him, but Rob looked down at his feet as she did so. As Alex looked up, though, he met her gaze this time, and she felt her stomach flip as his eyes held hers. Something had changed. The chemistry between them had been obvious from the second she’d stepped off the coach, and he’d not squandered a single opportunity that had come his way to flirt with her. But this was different. The playful teasing had gone. Manners could hide a lot of things, but not desire, and somewhere she knew a clock had begun to tick.
‘Get on with it,’ Sam said restlessly.
Laura looked away, her pulse rocketing as she sensed the shift between them. Quickly she held up five fingers, feeling all her defences kick in.
‘Five words . . . song . . . ’ Kitty cried, enjoying herself immensely. ‘Second word . . . The.’
‘Fourth word . . . small word,’ Sam said through narrowed eyes. ‘The, and, if, of, me, you, it . . .’
Laura pointed at her suddenly.
‘It!’ Rob called.
Laura shook her head.
‘You,’ David tried.
Laura pointed to him, nodding.
‘Blank the blank you blank,’ Cat murmured.
‘Fifth word . . . small word again . . .’ David said, watching her hand movements keenly.
‘The, and, if, of, me, you, it, is, are, yes, no . . . No!’ Kitty cried as Laura pounced on her.
‘So blank the blank you no?’ Isabella asked Orlando. ‘I don’t understand this game.’
‘Me neither,’ Orlando shrugged. ‘The English.’
‘I’ve got it,’ Alex drawled, looking straight at Laura and reading her secret message clearly. ‘“Better the Devil You Know.”’
Laura nodded, clapping him feebly.
‘What? Kylie?’ Sam sneered snobbishly.
But Laura ignored the dig. Isabella was still in her place and she had to sidestep over Alex to take his place as he got up for his turn. There wasn’t much room between the sofas and the coffee table, and he placed his hands on her arms to steady her, gripping her with slightly stronger pressure than was needed so that she looked at him as he passed only inches away from her. She willed her eyes to clearly back up the point she had just made, but his stopped her with such giddying intensity that it made her heart gallop. Before his eyes had said, ‘Stop.’ Now they said, ‘Go.’
She sat down on the sofa, trembling, her eyes on her hands as everyone else started to decipher Alex’s own efforts: another song . . . five words . . .
Laura knew it just two words in: ‘Take a Chance on Me.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Dinner was formal, but the people eating it were not. Orlando, Kitty, Alex and Sam were fast getting screaming drunk at the far end of the table, playing a chaser drinking game with shots from the ice bar, and David was making Cat and Isabella laugh by wiggling an After Eight off his forehead and into his mouth without using his hands. A thin smear of chocolate down his face traced its progress like a snail’s track.
‘Do you have a party trick?’ Rob laughed, turning to Laura, sitting next to him, as it fell off David’s cheek and he had to begin all over again.
Laura hesitated.
‘You do!’ Rob cried.
‘No, I—’
‘The fatal pause,’ he argued. ‘It’s proven that when we’re about to lie, we inhale deeply to buy more time and get the story straight.’ He picked up his wine glass and drained it. ‘Come on, out with it. I’ll tell you mine.’
‘Promise?’
‘My word is my bond,’ he said solemnly, thumping his chest with a fist.
‘Mmm,’ Laura hummed, unconvinced. They had all been drinking for hours. In fact Sam and, to a lesser degree, Orlando had scarcely stopped since they’d got here, and there was hedonism in the air. The bass from the Arctic Monkeys was making the crystal glasses vibrate, and everybody was talking faster and louder, arms were gesticulating wildly, hair was being tossed like hay.
She felt emboldened. ‘Well, when I was at university, I could drink from a glass without using my hands.’
Rob shifted position, intrigued. ‘Show me, then.’
‘Show you? No! You said to tell you.’
‘Show me,’ he insisted firmly, and she wondered how she’d ever won that first argument in her studio.
Laura shook her head.
‘Don’t force me to play the “sing for your supper” card,’ he said slyly. ‘It wouldn’t be gracious.’
>
‘Oh God . . .’ Laura’s shoulders dropped. The pink velvet bedroom and private spa weren’t coming for free after all. ‘Well, I’d need a beer glass or high-baller.’
‘Gemma!’ Rob called.
Gemma, who was clearing the dishes in the kitchen, looked up.
‘Oui, Monsieur Blake?’
‘Could you bring over a beer glass, please?’
It was in front of Laura in under a minute.
‘What shall we fill it with?’ he asked. ‘Beer, cider, mulled wi—’
‘Beer.’
She watched as he filled the glass carefully. Then she positioned the glass on the inside of her right elbow, bringing her forearm in but keeping her hand arched back, so that the glass became wedged between her lower and upper arm. Slowly, she raised her arm. The glass wobbled precariously a few times and then tipped just enough for her to drink from it.
‘Ha-ha, bravo!’ Rob cheered as she drained it. ‘Very impressive.’
Laura burst out laughing, relieved to have pulled it off. It had been years since she’d done it last. ‘God, I’ve gone straight back to being a student!’ she moaned.
‘Not looking like that, you haven’t,’ Rob remarked.
The comment appeared to take him by surprise as much as her. ‘. . . Right, well, your turn,’ she said quietly, trying to cover their mutual embarrassment.
Rob stared at her intently and she wondered whether he was just trying to get used to her being blonde.
‘Go on!’ she said bossily, feeling herself begin to blush.
‘I just did,’ he grinned.
‘What? What did you do?’
‘Watch.’ He stared at her again.
Laura scowled. ‘You aren’t doing anything.’
‘Aren’t I? Watch my ears,’ he instructed, thoroughly amused by her indignation.
Laura looked at his ears and realized they were pulling backwards and forwards, without a muscle in his face moving.
‘Oh my God!’ she tittered. ‘That’s hilarious! How do you do that?’
He shrugged.
‘More to the point, how did you ever discover you could do it? How do you accidentally twitch an ear?’ she teased.
‘Prep school,’ he sighed, draining his glass. ‘A wonderful institution. Equips you with so many vital life skills.’
‘Hmm. Well, I can do better than that.’
‘Oh really? I find it hard to believe anything can beat my ears.’
Laura stood up, chuckling. ‘Watch this.’ Kicking her shoes off, she laced her fingers together so her hands were clasped behind her back. Then she curled herself forwards, shimmying her shoulders left and right, so that – slowly – her arms began to inch past her hips, over her bottom and down her thighs so that she was crouched into a small ball. Carefully, checking her balance, she lifted one foot, and then with a triumphant smile stepped back over her hands and brought them up to her tummy. ‘Ta-da!’
‘Right!’ Rob laughed, clapping at her enthusiastically. ‘It was a good effort. And I applaud your spirit, really I do. But it’s obviously time to bring out the big guns.’
He unlaced his shoes and stood up in his dress socks, shrugged off his jacket and threw it over the back of his chair, then took off his cummerbund too.
‘I’m not playing strip poker with you, Rob!’
He doubled over with laughter. ‘That’s later.’ Clasping his fingers together, he stretched his arms up; Laura was able to see the riff of his abs through his shirt but tried not to look. Then he rolled his head and pressed each ear down to each shoulder a couple of times as if he was warming up for a race.
‘Tch, in your own time,’ she muttered, inwardly dying to see what he was going to do.
He shot her a glittering look as he reached his right hand down to his left foot and brought it up so that his leg and arm looped diagonally across the front of his body like a loose strap.
He paused and looked up at the ceiling for a second.
‘What’s wrong? Chickening out?’
‘Just trying to remember the excess on my insurance.’
He inhaled slowly twice, and then, with a sudden burst of explosive power, jumped in the air, keeping his hand and foot connected but bringing the right leg through them.
Laura screamed with delight, jumping up and clapping wildly. ‘The human skipping rope! I tried to do that for years! I almost knocked a tooth out trying once.’
‘You need to be a prime athlete to do that.’
‘Oh! Like you, you mean?’ she giggled.
‘Exactly,’ he nodded, sitting down again, his thighs splayed wide on the chair as he relaxed, a freshly refilled glass – thanks to Sasha – in his hand.
‘As if! You’re just a namby-pamby broker boy.’
‘I’m not a broker,’ he said. ‘I’m a fund manager.’
‘Whatever. You’re still City soft.’
He glared at her in outrage. ‘Touch that!’
Laura looked down at a flexed thigh.
‘No, thanks,’ she said with a convincing look of distaste, but Rob grabbed her hand and planted it on his leg. It was indeed not soft. ‘And?’
He sat back, regarding her. ‘You don’t rise to the bait, do you?’
‘Huh?’
‘I just taunted you about not being a prime athlete. When actually you and I both know full well that you were.’
She froze. ‘And how do you know that?’
‘Mark told me.’
‘Mark’s got a big mouth, then.’
‘As well as a way with the ladies.’ He watched her closely.
Laura shrugged. ‘Has he?’
Rob leaned in closer. ‘Why would you tell him and not me?’
‘It was relevant to the moment. He’d tried to teach me how to do a snowplough. There have to be limits.’
Rob grinned. ‘Tell me about your skiing. I want to know. I demand to know,’ he added dramatically.
Laura looked at him for a moment. Why not? She’d already told Mark. ‘There’s not much to tell. I skied for my university—’
‘Which university?’
‘Bristol. I did well and was invited to try out for the British Juniors.’ She shrugged. ‘But I never got round to it.’
‘Never got round to it? How does that happen?’ he asked, incredulous.
‘I graduated, got a job and ran out of time. Work took over my life and I just couldn’t get the hours in on the slopes.’
‘You gave up a place in the British ski team to work? You must really love making jewellery,’ he said, sitting back and drumming his fingers on his glass.
‘Actually, I wasn’t a jeweller back then.’
His eyes flashed up at her. ‘No?’
‘I worked in corporate finance at Goldmans.’
Rob stared at her. ‘Corp. . . So then how have you ended up making charm bracelets for a living?’
‘They are very beautiful, very expensive charm bracelets,’ she murmured. ‘And I’m very proud of them.’
‘Indeed. But . . .’
‘I just wanted a life change, that was all.’
He shook his head. ‘And I thought my wife was enigmatic. You’ve got more secrets than Whitehall,’ he said, tapping the table between them.
Kitty suddenly launched herself into their orbit, landing on Rob’s lap with a thud. ‘Is this a private conversation or can anyone join in?’ she beamed, red-cheeked from necking vodka with Orlando at the luge.
‘Are you aware of the double life Laura leads?’ he asked Kitty.
‘It’s not a double life. I live one life at a time, thank you very much.’
‘Yes, right. So currently you’re a jeweller in Suffolk who lives with her boyfriend and does up beach huts on the side.’
‘Pretty much.’
‘And she’s got a dog,’ Kitty added helpfully.
Rob nodded. ‘I don’t buy it. That seems a little too quiet in my opinion for a woman who was an extreme skier and took on the biggest boys in the City.
’
‘Life change, like I said. Tried it, it didn’t work out. I much prefer my life as it is now, thanks.’ She looked down at her watch. ‘Talking of which, I’d better go check it’s all still running in my absence. I need to call Jack. I’ll be back in a bit.’
She walked over to the stairs, aware that the dress and drinking combined were making her wiggle, wondering if she was just imagining the weight of Rob’s stare on her. Or was it someone else’s entirely? She couldn’t forget the loaded look between her and Alex earlier either. Was he going to ‘accidentally’ burst in on her tonight too?
Skipping up the steps, she let herself into her bedroom.
Nine missed calls. She rang home, wandering over to the windows and staring out at the full, promising blackness. She opened the doors as the dial tone beeped in her ear and stepped out on to the balcony, welcoming the sobering blast of coldness on her skin.
It was a still night. Barely a ripple of wind rustled the trees and the snow lay where it had fallen. She leant on the railings, just making out the strains of music coming from the town over the bass beat from downstairs.
‘Laura?’
‘Hi, darling,’ she smiled, straightening up.
‘Where have you been? I’ve been trying you for hours!’ His tone was panicked and she picked up on his anger immediately.
‘I’m so sorry. I meant to call before dinner, but I managed to fit in an interview with someone, and then it’s been Orlando’s birthday party so it’s all been pretty full-on.’
‘Whose?’
She could well imagine what Jack would make of a name like Orlando.
‘You sound drunk,’ he added. It was more of an accusation than an observation.
‘Do I?’ she asked, enunciating with extra care and giving herself away completely.
‘You said this was a work trip!’
‘And it is. But it’s Saturday night, it’s someone’s birthday, and the interviews have to be a secret. The woman has no idea I’m speaking to all her friends about her. I have to make an effort to blend in, Jack.’ She heard the pleading whine in her own voice and winced. When had she ever whined?
‘Well, from the sounds of you, she’ll have no suspicions.’ Sarcasm wasn’t his strong point and was therefore all the more shocking when he did employ it.
Laura rolled her eyes impatiently. ‘Well, I don’t see why it has to bother you. I’ll bet there are a couple of beers on the table in front of you right now.’