Every Vow You Break

by Julia Crouch

  ‘I need to sit down,’ she said to Bella and Olly.

  So the wife and children of the Wayland family sat on the disabled ramp at the theatre entrance, waiting for the husband and father to be free. They watched the audience leave, then, in effervescent groups, the cast. They waited the best part of forty minutes.

  Twelve

  JAMES AND BETTY’S FARMHOUSE STOOD A COUPLE OF MILES OUTSIDE the village. James had said that the Google directions were useless, so he provided them with a sheet written in his own inimitable style.

  They first managed to overshoot the correct turning, travelling as far as a reservoir penned in by a rusty dam so vast it was quite out of proportion with the surrounding countryside. At this point – James would surely have mentioned such a landmark in his endlessly annotated instructions – they realised they had gone too far, so they doubled back. Coming from the opposite direction the turning was plain to see. They got on the right road, which swept out to the west and curved round the bottom of a hill. Then, as directed, they turned along an unmetalled track that climbed slowly upwards. They passed a couple of houses, but mostly they were surrounded by trees and bushes.

  A deer bounced across the dusty road ahead of the car. Marcus slowed down.

  ‘Where there’s one, there’s often … ’ As he spoke, a second, smaller deer scurried in front of them. ‘… another.’

  ‘It feels like we’re going into the deep, dark forest,’ Bella said. ‘I’m not sure I like it.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Marcus said. ‘This is nature raw in tooth and claw, that’s all.’

  ‘Red,’ Olly said from the back.

  ‘Eh?’ Marcus said.

  ‘It’s “nature red in tooth and claw”. Tennyson.’

  ‘Well, guys. That makes me feel so much better,’ Bella said, squinting out of the car window.

  ‘It should be along here, just after that yellow post, in the clearing,’ Lara said.

  ‘Where all the cars are parked? For the party?’ Olly said.

  ‘My, you two are on whip-cracking form with the old sarcasm,’ Marcus said.

  They drew up at the far end of the twenty or so cars which, in their variety – from a dented red pick-up truck to a brand new Porsche Carrera – signified the mixture of fortunes embraced by actors’ lives.

  ‘Verrry nice,’ Olly said as they passed the Porsche.

  They turned up the driveway and came across one of the most beautiful houses that Lara had ever seen. Hidden from the road, it was, like most of the buildings back in the village, constructed in the Greek Revival style. But, unlike the village houses, this had been beautifully cared for, painted an immaculate powder blue with cream windows and soffits. A wide veranda skirted the visible part of the house and, in the setting sun, it appeared to float on the vast meadow they had to cross to get to it. But most thrilling was its position on the top of a hill that swept down along an expanse of grass, flower and vegetable beds to a pond at the bottom, with forest lurking beyond that. At the far side of the garden, listing as if it might collapse any minute, was a tumbledown barn.

  ‘No one goes in there, OK?’ Lara said.

  ‘Wild horses wouldn’t drag me,’ Olly said.

  There was quite a crowd. People milled around a fire pit or lolled on blankets on the ground, drinking wine and talking. The sound of laughter and the smell of meat on charcoal carried the hundred or so feet to where the Waylands were making their way across the front garden.

  ‘How did they all get here so quickly?’ Marcus said.

  ‘You were ages, Dad,’ Olly said. ‘We thought the old dears had eaten you up.’

  ‘You have to charm ’em.’ Marcus winked.

  ‘WAYLAND FAMILY!’ James burst from the crowd like a giant sail, wearing yet more floating white. The chatter stopped and everyone turned to look up at them. Then they broke into a round of welcoming whooping and applause.

  ‘Bloody Americans,’ Olly said.

  ‘Damn theatricals, you mean,’ Bella said. She was scanning the crowd, probably, Lara thought, looking out for that Sean boy.

  ‘Zip it, you two,’ Marcus said. Putting his public smile on, he led his family to James and the mêlée.

  ‘Darlings,’ James said, again encircling Marcus with a bear-hug and sweeping them on towards the house. ‘What on earth kept you?’

  ‘Dad had to meet his public,’ Olly said.

  ‘And we got lost,’ Lara said. ‘This is amazing.’ They had approached the fire pit, a coffin-sized hole in the ground full of white-hot cinders and covered by metal grilles laden with sizzling fish and meat.

  ‘Isn’t it?’ James said. ‘Betty dug it last year, and we’ve had so many parties around it. We have scallops, shrimp, buffalo wings, burgers and sausages. And of course, the corn is high, so we have our local seasonal delicacy.’ He pointed to a vat full of water and sweetcorn, complete in its husks. ‘Soaking means we don’t burn.

  ‘But oh my, what am I thinking, introducing the food before the people? Have you met June and Brian, my two fabulous stars for the musical? And here’s Frank, Josh, Shelley, Dana, Nicholas, Dave, Dave and Dave, Sarah, Anne, Tony, Ed, Tot, Peter, Martha, Sylvester, Madonna – no, not that Madonna. And Nancy, Darius, Oleanna, Jose, Sol, Johnny, Helene, Janette and Brianna; then there’s Cara, Stacey, Tipper, Madison, Megan, Taylor and Selina.’

  ‘I’m not sure if I’ll remember everyone’s names straight off, but pleased to meet you all,’ Marcus said.

  ‘Hi!’ The crowd chorused, holding up their glasses.

  ‘As you were, everyone,’ James said, steering them towards the porch. ‘They’re mostly musical cast. A few are in the Scottish Play but we’ve got a new lot coming up in a day or two for that. We like to mix it up.’

  ‘Where’s Betty?’ Lara asked.

  ‘Oh, she’s inside with Trudi, fussing over the salads. Now then, Waylands,’ James said, ‘are you ready for your surprise? I can’t contain myself any longer.’ He opened the fly-screen door to the kitchen, which was mostly taken up by a table laden with bowls of salad and baskets of bread. Betty was over by the sink, slicing a watermelon. She wore a long lurex halter-neck that could have been worn by Bianca Jagger at Studio 54, but had covered it with a floral fifties pinny.

  ‘Darlings.’ She put her knife down, took off her apron and hugged and kissed each one of them, a rather stiffened Olly included. ‘Is it time, then?’ she asked James.

  ‘It’s time,’ James said.

  ‘Trudi, honey, we’re going to need that champagne now,’ Betty said, and for the first time Lara noticed the woman over the other side of the table. Bulky and dark-haired, she had a scar across her face as if someone had sliced open her right cheek from the corner of her mouth to her ear. Trudi nodded a silent welcome to the Waylands, put down the cutlery she had been wrapping in a napkin, then went over to the walk-in fridge, from where she extracted a silver tray set with a bottle of Dom Perignon, tall, slim flutes and four cans of Diet Coke.

  ‘Thank you Trudi my darling,’ Betty said, taking the tray from her. ‘Could you just finish wrapping up the silverware, my sweet?’

  ‘You don’t want me in the parlour?’ Trudi asked, her accent and timbre almost exactly the same as Betty’s.

  ‘We’re fine, thank you honey,’ Betty said.

  After a moment’s hesitation Trudi nodded then returned to her task. She had strange eyes, Lara noticed. Like a lizard’s.

  ‘Right then, Waylands. Are you ready?’ Betty said. ‘Come this way, mesdames et messieurs.’

  She led them across a cool, echoing hallway to a set of double doors which James, who was slightly ahead of them, flung open to reveal a huge living room. The blinds were drawn against the dusk, but, thanks to the light of a large fish tank running down almost the entire length of one wall, Lara could make out the figure of a man sitting, legs crossed, in a chair on the far side. Betty put the tray on a side table and James shut the doors behind them.

  ‘Hello Marcus. Hello Lara.’

>   And at once, Lara’s stomach turned and lifted itself somewhere into her throat. She didn’t need the man to stand and unfold himself to his full height. She didn’t need him to come forward into the pool of light spilling into the room from the hallway. She didn’t need to see the still razor-sharp cheekbones, the deep-set eyes that seemed to look out from somewhere else, the dark hair that curled around them.

  She knew him.

  Bella gasped.

  ‘Fuck me,’ Olly said under his breath.

  ‘Stephen Molloy!’ Marcus yelled into the hiatus. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

  ‘Shh, shh.’ James fluttered around turning on a couple of lamps. ‘We can’t let them all know he’s here.’

  Lara breathed in and out slowly, trying to force her heart rate down. Her runner’s trick. Time was bought for her by her husband, who now had his arms clapped around Stephen Molloy, holding him in a bear-hug, his face against his chest he was that short against him.

  ‘Fuck me,’ Olly said again. ‘Is that really Stephen Molloy?’

  ‘It is,’ Lara said in a small voice.

  ‘The one Dad knows?’

  ‘What does it look like, moron?’ Bella said, her eyes like saucers.

  Stephen Molloy was still clasped in Marcus’s embrace but he was looking at Lara. She forced her knees not to buckle. The room, which she had initially thought to be air-conditioned, seemed to have become unbearably hot.

  ‘Lara.’ Finally released from Marcus, Stephen went over to her and took her hand. ‘It’s been a long time.’ His touch was like a homecoming to her.

  ‘I know Stephen and Marcus go back a long way,’ James said to Lara, putting his arm around her and enveloping her in a cloud of Halston for Men. ‘But I think you met him back in the day too?’

  ‘Yes, we knew each other,’ she said, glad of the excuse to break eye contact with Stephen.

  ‘It’s been a hell of a long time, though, eh?’ James went on. ‘I mean, you’ve seen Stephen, obviously, we all have. But he hasn’t had a sniff of Wayland for, what is it now?’

  ‘It must be seventeen years,’ Marcus said, reaching his hands up to Stephen’s shoulders, examining his face.

  ‘So you haven’t met the children, then?’ James said. ‘Let me then acquaint you with the three lovely Wayland offspring: Bella, Olly and little Jack.’

  ‘You must be the twins,’ Stephen said, shaking hands first with Bella then an uncharacteristically silent and awestruck Olly. ‘I think last time I saw your parents they had just got the happy news about you. I didn’t know about this little chap, though,’ he went on, bending and holding out a hand to Jack.

  Unlike James, Stephen had hung on to his British accent: a thick Mancunian streak ran through his vowels. This surprised Lara. For the last few years she had only seen him doing American parts, and had somehow thought his celluloid voice an extension of his own. She wondered whether the rest of him had remained the same, too.

  ‘Our happy accident,’ Marcus said, ruffling Jack’s hair, and Lara wished he would shut up. ‘My God man, it’s great to see you. Small world.’

  It was strange how pleased Marcus was to see Stephen. He had followed the other man’s stellar career in a borderline obsessive way, joking off-handedly about how Stephen must be fucking the right sort of people, or that it was down to the luck of the Oirish. Lara had even overheard him roaring to his actor cronies, when they had gathered round to watch one of Stephen’s early films on afternoon TV, that he had more talent in his little finger than Stephen Molloy had in his entire body.

  Not true, Lara had thought from her Apple Mac in the corner of the room.

  ‘I’ve got a place nearby,’ Stephen said. ‘A sort of bolt-hole. I know James and Betty from LA, and I give a bit of support to the theatre company.’

  ‘A bit!’ Betty said, wedging the champagne bottle between her thighs and popping the cork. ‘It’s somewhat more than a bit.’

  ‘And when James told me you were going to be his Thane, well.’

  ‘This is for you, Stephen.’ James handed him one of the Coke cans. ‘And I’ve got some for the kids – or are the twins OK with a drop of champers?’

  ‘Of course they are,’ Olly said.

  ‘It’s great to see you all,’ Stephen said. He seemed genuinely happy – not a look he tended to wear in his work, where he was generally cast as the dark and brooding hero.

  ‘To old friends!’ Betty said, holding her glass high.

  ‘Old friends,’ the Waylands said, clinking glasses with Stephen’s can.

  ‘Such a coincidence,’ Marcus said.

  ‘Small world indeed,’ Stephen agreed.

  They all drank, then looked around at each other, lost for words. Bored, Jack wriggled away and went over to investigate the fish tank.

  ‘Well then,’ Stephen said, smiling and breaking the silence. There was something about him that seemed to draw everyone’s breath. Perhaps it was fame, Lara thought. But she remembered him having this effect even before, in the Stratford days. Certainly on her.

  ‘I’m afraid I have to go and prepare the kitchen for my guests,’ Betty said. ‘James, would you give me a hand?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Honey.’

  James sloped off after his partner. Again there was a silence in the room, set against the chatter and murmur of the people outside. Someone was strumming a guitar, and a woman sang an improvised melody around the chords. Stephen sipped his Diet Coke, looking at each one of them in turn, but his gaze kept returning to Lara. She noticed he was bouncing on his feet slightly, jiggling like a racehorse just before the off.

  ‘Shall we go outside?’ Marcus asked Stephen. Lara knew that, apart from anything else, he must be dying for a cigarette.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Stephen said, smiling. ‘I like to keep a low profile.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Lara said, looking up at him and realising she had to tilt her head at exactly the same angle she used to speak to Olly.

  ‘It’s just no one – other than James, Betty, Trudi and yourselves now – knows I’m here. I’m sort of tucked away.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ Olly said, pointing a finger at Stephen. ‘You had that breakdown and went into hiding.’

  ‘Olly,’ Bella hissed. ‘Uncool.’

  Stephen smiled and looked down. ‘It was a bit like that. But I wouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers.’

  ‘You had that stalker,’ Olly said, as if he had scored a goal. Stephen looked up and smiled straight at him.

  ‘I did. Well remembered.’

  ‘Olly, that’s enough mate,’ Marcus said.

  ‘No, no. It’s OK. It’s better you know why I need my presence here to be secret. Not even my agent knows where I am. I was getting too much unwelcome – and quite alarming – attention back in LA, so I’m taking some time out, until things settle down. There was a stalker, yes, and it was very frightening. I needed a break, so James and Betty helped me out by suggesting that I come here.

  ‘I appreciate it’ll be hard to keep this quiet,’ he went on. ‘Especially for you guys,’ he said to Bella and Olly. ‘But I know your folks from way back and that kind of friendship is a rare thing for me these days. I had to come by here after the show and say hello. But I must ask you not to mention me to anyone. If you don’t, I’m sure we can have a great time together this summer. I’ve got a really nice place out in the forest, a swimming pond, woods. It’ll be fun. If you do let it out though, well, it could be rather awkward for me. I need to know you can keep my secret.’

  Lara saw the challenge of this request register with her elder two children. She wished, for their sakes, she had been given the opportunity to decide whether they would be able to deal with the situation before they were plunged into it. There was no going back now, though; she hoped they were mature enough to cope.

  ‘Sure, man,’ Olly said at last, high-fiving Stephen. Bella nodded, still wide-eyed. She hadn’t blinked once since Stephen had re
vealed himself.

  ‘Well, that’s great, then,’ Stephen said. ‘Look. I mustn’t keep you guys – they’ll be wondering where you’ve got to.’ He nodded towards the garden. ‘I only wanted to stop by and say hello – the champagne and that is down to James and Betty. They’re such soft hearts. But please, come over for dinner on Monday night. It’d be good to have company. I’ll email you directions.’

  ‘That’ll be great,’ Marcus said. ‘But you can just give Lara the address, and she’ll Google it.’ He had his tobacco out and was rolling a cigarette.

  ‘You can’t Google my place,’ Stephen went on, draining his can. ‘Like I said, it’s under the radar.’

  ‘Wow,’ Bella said. ‘I thought you could Google anywhere.’

  ‘It takes a bit of organising, but it can be done,’ Stephen said. ‘Anyway, good to see you all again. Lara, do you want to give me your email address?’

  ‘Sure,’ Lara said. ‘You lot go on ahead; I’ll be out in a minute. You go out with Daddy, Jack.’

  ‘I haven’t finished looking at the fishies, though,’ Jack said from over by the tank.

  ‘You’re all right with the little ’un?’ Marcus said, cigarette to his lips.

  Lara nodded.

  Grateful to be signed off, Marcus led Bella and Olly outside. The double doors slammed shut behind them.

  ‘Do you have a pen?’ Lara said, looking up at him.

  ‘Lovely family,’ Stephen said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I haven’t got any myself. Kids.’

  ‘No. I sort of know that.’

  ‘Yes. I’m pretty much public property.’

  ‘But you must have had an amazing life.’

  ‘It’s been a ride. But in the end, it’s just a job. Well paid and interesting. But still just a job. And it takes over every aspect of your life.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, holding his gaze.

  ‘I envy Marcus,’ he said.

  ‘You do?’ The dim light in the room hid the hot blush that sprang to her cheeks.

  ‘I’m lucky. I know that. I have a house here, a house in LA – lovely, up in the hills, you should see it. A brownstone in Manhattan and a house back home, near Manchester. But none of these places is home. The house back in the UK – I’ve owned it for thirteen years. Bought it with my first big pay cheque, with some sort of idea that I wouldn’t lose touch with my roots. I’ve spent probably thirty nights there in total. I still have stuff in boxes there, waiting to be unpacked. Two years ago I had some guys round to do some decorating – paint the hallway, that was it. They thought I had just moved in. And now I’m hiding on my own out here in the middle of nowhere. Why wouldn’t I envy Marcus?’