Every Vow You Break

by Julia Crouch

  ‘Well then, ladies. Let’s try to be civil, shall we?’ James said. Then he stood up and addressed the room. ‘Is everyone ready to order? May I remind you we have six hours exactly until you are back on that stage. Do not overeat, dancers!’

  Leanne was joined by another woman who emerged from the kitchen door wiping her huge hands on her apron. The two of them worked the room, taking the orders. The second woman shuffled around, grey pop-socks wrinkled around her bloated purple ankles, stringy salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a ponytail, revealing a grey neck. Lara didn’t feel much like eating anyway, but the thought that this might be the cook put her off her macaroni salad altogether.

  ‘Olly, will you pull yourself together, mate,’ Marcus leaned forward and hissed at his ostentatiously bored and twitchy-looking son. A tiny vein bulged in his forehead and Lara was again reminded of Marcus’s father, who was equally red-headed and similar in stature. Her joke to friends was that he and Marcus were so alike she didn’t have any surprises in store for her. She always followed this, however, with a silent prayer that she wouldn’t end up like Marcus’s mother; a desaturated little mouse, thin as paper, run ragged by her overbearing husband.

  But of course she wouldn’t end up like Moira Wayland. She had none of that pale blood in her veins. Her own mother, though, made an even worse template for her older self. The thought that she had the power to make her own future, independent of either genetic legacy or other people’s expectations, hadn’t struck Lara until very recently indeed.

  ‘How are you liking our little village?’ Betty asked her.

  ‘It’s very pretty. The heat’s a bit of challenge.’

  ‘We’re building up to a storm. It’s like The Tempest here in August. Gets so you can’t bear it, then the rain and the thunder and the lightning come and you can actually breathe. Until the next one gets going.’

  ‘Let it come down,’ Lara said.

  ‘I like what you’re doing there, Lara dear,’ Betty said with a wink. ‘But let’s not get too carried away with our Scottish Play quotations. It’s not awful good luck. Now then. How’re the digs?’

  ‘Fine,’ Lara said. ‘A bit dusty, but we’re giving it a good scrub.’

  ‘Oh,’ Betty said, a note of disappointment in her voice. ‘We paid some guys to clean it just a couple weeks ago.’

  ‘I suppose if it’s standing empty the dust just settles quicker,’ Lara said. ‘I wanted to ask, though: could I get rid of the carpet in the hallway?’

  ‘Carpet?’ Betty frowned.

  ‘The one with the stain? I’d like to pull it up.’

  ‘I don’t remember any carpet in that house, honey,’ Betty said. ‘But then I’ve just been all about Set Me On Fire! for the past three months. I’ve barely noticed anything else. But sure, if it’s stained, just rip it up.’ She waved her fingers in the air. ‘The owner said we could do what we want with the place.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Lara said. ‘And,’ she hesitated a second, ‘thank you for the flowers. They’re beautiful.’

  ‘Flowers?’ Betty said, raising an immaculately shaped eyebrow. ‘Not me, honey.’

  Lara frowned, and pondered this.

  ‘How did you like our little musical, Olly?’ James put one elbow on the table, rested his chin in his hand and swerved into Olly’s personal space.

  ‘Um …’ Olly muttered.

  ‘He thought it was great!’ Marcus boomed. ‘Didn’t you, mate?’

  Olly mumbled an assent.

  ‘And Olly usually hates the theatre,’ Marcus went on.

  ‘Load of bollocks,’ Olly said under his breath. Lara hoped she was the only one to hear this.

  ‘How are you feeling after your little surprise last night?’ Betty asked Lara as the rest of the food arrived and Marcus and James settled into an animated discussion about staging ideas for Macbeth.

  ‘Fine,’ Lara said. Even if she trusted Betty, which she wasn’t quite sure she did, giving voice to anything right now would start to make it real, and she certainly wasn’t ready to do that.

  ‘When are you going to his place for dinner?’

  ‘Tonight,’ Lara said, wondering again just how much Betty knew.

  ‘It’s so delightful, getting old friends back together,’ Betty said, clasping her hands to her chest.

  ‘Of course, June and Brian are far too grand to step down to the diner,’ Tony was saying at the next table.

  ‘We’ll have none of this divisive talk, thank you, Mr Marconi.’ Betty wagged a red-taloned finger at him.

  ‘Well, Jesus, Betty. It’s hardly in the spirit of the thing.’ Tony looked down and admired his own tattooed bicep.

  ‘Really, honey. Do you blame them when you can’t find anything other than a wife-beater to dine in?’

  ‘Meow,’ the tousle-haired boy said.

  ‘June and Brian carry this show, and they need to take it easy in the breaks,’ Betty said with one eyebrow raised.

  ‘Yeah. Slooow and easy,’ Tony said, winking at Bella and once more making her blush.

  ‘Oh, Oh, Ohhh …’ The Natalie Wood lookalike did a slow, operatic rendition of an orgasm.

  ‘That’s quite enough now, young Nancy,’ Betty said. ‘If it was good enough for Dame Nellie Melba, it’s certainly good enough for our June.’

  ‘Who’s Dame Nellie Melba?’ Olly said. Even if he had wanted to join in this banter, he wouldn’t be able to. He was all at sea with it.

  ‘I’ll tell you about it later,’ Lara said.

  ‘You all set?’ Leanne took away the Wayland plates. ‘Didn’t you like the macaroni salad honey?’

  ‘It was lovely,’ Lara said. ‘I’m just not all that hungry.’ She noticed that Olly, too, had barely touched his food, which was quite remarkable. The heat must have killed his appetite.

  ‘Sure honey,’ Leanne said. ‘Now. Can I get you dessert? We’ve got apple, cherry or blueberry pie, with or without cream or ice cream: strawberry, chocolate or vanilla.’

  ‘Trout Island high five!’ Tony reached over and slapped Olly’s hand.

  ‘No dessert for cast and crew!’ James stood up and clapped his hands. ‘You have ten minutes exactly, ladies and gentlemen. And then we return. To doom or glory!’

  The woman in the tan baker boy cap at the back of the diner got up and walked across to the counter, where she paid her bill. Lara only caught a glimpse of her face as she turned to go – it was mostly hidden beneath the cap, a large pair of oval tortoiseshell sunglasses and a chequered tan and turquoise silk scarf.

  ‘Who’s that?’ she whispered to Betty, as the woman crossed to the door.

  ‘No idea. Never seen her before in my life.’

  But Lara thought she saw a tiny frown flicker across Betty’s pancaked forehead as her eyes followed the back of the woman and the glass diner door swung shut behind her.

  Eighteen

  AFTER THE HEAVY LUNCH, MARCUS TOOK JACK OFF FOR A NAP. WITH a little cajoling, Lara enlisted the help of Olly and Bella in clearing up the house. By the middle of the afternoon, every surface downstairs had been thoroughly washed and the front hallway carpet ripped up.

  ‘Think of all the dead bits of skin on it,’ Bella said as they lifted it, releasing a cloud of dusty stink.

  ‘All the dog shit that’s been trampled into it,’ Olly went on.

  ‘All the baby piss.’

  ‘Thank you, children,’ Lara said, carving at the stained middle section, which had stuck fast to the floor beneath. A bowelish tang seeped out as she worked on it, and it became so bad it made her gag. She ran out to the porch, retching.

  ‘Women are such sensitive creatures,’ Olly said, finishing off the job for her. He seemed to have brightened up now he was doing something disgusting.

  ‘Make sure you wash your hands afterwards.’ Lara held a tissue to her nose as she came back to oversee the removal of the carpet.

  ‘God, I wonder what that stain was,’ Bella said, wrinkling her nose.

  ‘I’d rather
not know,’ Lara said.

  ‘I bet someone was murdered here,’ Olly said.

  ‘Don’t,’ Bella said.

  ‘No, look. Blood goes all dark like that when it dries.’

  ‘Mum, tell him to stop.’

  ‘Oh do stop, Oll. You’re upsetting your sister.’

  ‘Diddums,’ Olly said.

  Lara got the twins to help her cart the stinking carpet round to the back garden, where they dumped it in a far corner. To keep them apart she sent Bella to work in the bathroom and Olly to the upstairs landing, then she got to her knees and scrubbed the hall boards with bleach until the fumes made her feel dizzy. She wondered, as she worked, whether Olly might not be right about the origins of the stain. Since she arrived in this house, something in this hallway made her want to pass through it as quickly as possible, with the hairs on the back of her neck standing up. It was all she could do to stay in it long enough to clean it. Now the thick, black murk that had covered everything swirled in her bucket, turning the water viscous; she hoped the place would feel lighter.

  The heat of the afternoon dried the floor almost instantly. With the front door still propped open from taking the carpet out, and the dappled sunlight filtering through the lush canopy of trees in the front garden, the hallway looked nearly crisp, like an advertisement for the New England lifestyle.

  But the illusion was instantly smashed by the bang of a mop being flung to the wooden floor upstairs and Bella’s cry of ‘Just leave me ALONE!’ followed by her footsteps thundering across the landing and the slamming of her bedroom door.

  ‘What’s going on up there?’ Lara climbed halfway up the stairs.

  Olly stormed out of the bathroom, a wet cloth in his hand.

  ‘She’s such a fucking—’ He paused, searching for the right word, his fists clenching and unclenching. Tears pushed at the corners of his eyes.

  ‘I can’t stand any more of this,’ Lara said. ‘Have you finished up there?’

  ‘More or less,’ Olly said, glaring at Bella’s door, wiping his nose on the back of his arm.

  Lara leaned on the banister and looked up at her fuming son. What on earth was going on between those two? For the past couple of years, their relationship had become increasingly strained. Since arriving in Trout Island, it seemed to have taken a quantum leap into near warfare.

  When she thought of Bella and Olly, it wasn’t as they were now, this battling two-headed beast. No, Lara’s image of the twins had the pair of them, aged six, holding hands, knee-deep in grass at some campsite or other, grinning up at her and waiting for the next bit of fun. They were so close back then, living as they did in each other’s pockets. What had gone wrong? She wondered whether the arrival of Jack and the subsequent diversion in her attention had anything to do with it. A more comforting thought was that all this tension marked a necessary step to adulthood – a growing apart, a separation from one another. But it was so disruptive; she wished it didn’t have to happen.

  ‘Oh, sod it. Take a break. Put the cleaning stuff away,’ she said to Olly, ‘and you’re free to go.’

  Olly picked up his bucket and mop and flopped down the stairs. As he passed Lara, she put her hand on his arm.

  ‘What is it, Oll? What’s the matter?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said, shaking her off.

  She followed him through into the kitchen.

  ‘Come on. I’m not an idiot. What’s up with you and Bella?’

  ‘She’s being a slut,’ Olly muttered, emptying the dirty water from his bucket into the sink too quickly, so it backed up and splashed down his front. ‘Shit, fuck, wank, piss.’

  ‘Because she likes a boy?’ Lara said.

  ‘You don’t know the half of it.’

  ‘Oh come on, Oll. Cut her a bit of slack. Look,’ she said, getting a tea towel and kneeling to wipe the pool of water from the floor round Olly’s feet. ‘If this is out of some absurd sort of loyalty towards Jonny, you’re wasting your energy. They couldn’t have gone on for ever. They were far too young. Believe me, it’s better to be as free as possible until you’re much, much older.’

  ‘You know that’s bollocks.’ Olly narrowed his eyes down at her. ‘You and Dad met when you were only a little bit older than us. You’re not going to say that was wrong, are you?’

  Lara stood up and cupped her lower lip to blow some badly needed air up to her perspiring face. ‘No, but …’

  ‘Anyway, it’s not fucking about Jonny.’ Olly put the bucket down on to the ground and kicked it. ‘He’s a creep, this Sean.’ He spat the name out. ‘He’s only after one thing.’

  Lara burst out laughing. ‘Oh, Olly, I didn’t have you down as such a prude. Don’t you think Bella’s able to look after herself?’

  ‘No. Not really.’ Olly levelled his eyes at her.

  ‘Aren’t you being just a bit sexist?’

  ‘I know what she’s like.’

  ‘Hah!’ Lara and Olly turned to see an indignant Bella standing in the kitchen archway, her arms crossed.

  ‘Shit.’ Olly dragged his hands up through his hair, pulling the skin of his face back and up like a tight mask.

  ‘Leave me alone, Olly. Just leave me alone,’ Bella said quietly – almost, Lara thought, as if she pitied her brother.

  ‘Perhaps I just fucking will, and then we’ll see what happens,’ Olly said. He stormed through the kitchen arch, bumping quite deliberately into Bella on his way, then he banged out of the front door, letting the fly screen slam behind him as he flew on to the street.

  ‘Be back by five,’ Lara called after him.

  In the silence that followed, the house seemed to sigh in relief.

  ‘Twat,’ Bella said, rubbing her arm where Olly had banged it.

  ‘He’s an angry boy.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘Just don’t do too much to provoke him, will you, Bella? Be kind.’

  ‘I’m going for a swim,’ Bella said, avoiding Lara’s eye. Then she ran upstairs.

  ‘Be back by five, remember, Bella. We’re going to Stephen’s.’

  Lara stood on the front porch watching her daughter head off along Main Street, swinging her swimming bag over her shoulder. Without Olly she seemed carefree, relieved even. Sunlight flashed through breaks in the canopy of trees, lighting her up, making her glitter.

  Lucky thing, Lara thought. To be so young, with everything in front of you. And, despite all she had just said to Olly, a tiny voice deep within her urged Bella to be careful, not to lose her head, and not to make the same mistakes she had.

  But wasn’t getting pregnant with Bella and Olly one of those mistakes – binding her as it did to Marcus, and forcing Stephen to do the honourable thing and step aside? Yet no amount of turning the clock back would have her scrubbing them out as she had her poor last baby. Life was so complicated. And she feared that the summer ahead, in a reversal of her initial hopes, wasn’t going to simplify anything.

  Lara took up her cloth again and started washing down the wooden panelling under the stairs in the hallway. Using her fingernail to get the dirt out from between the grooves, she noticed that one of the gaps was slightly bigger than the others. She got a knife from the kitchen and levered it down into the space. In a couple of minutes, she had prised open what she saw now was the door to an understairs cupboard.

  She opened the door wide and felt around inside for a light switch. Finding it, she flicked it up – the opposite to the European way and one of those tiny differences which made her feel like she was living in a looking-glass world.

  The light from the bare bulb revealed a flight of makeshift wooden steps leading down into more darkness. This surprised Lara. Earlier in the day she had checked the underside of the house to see if she could find out how the chipmunk had got in. There were no breaches or holes in the floor, nor in the yard-high skirt of rough wall that the building stood on. But, as she saw now, some sort of cellar lurked underneath the central section of the house.

  Holding o
n to the stone wall to her right, she edged down the steps. A welcome coolness greeted her after the heat of the afternoon, and it drew her in. As she descended, a sweet, cloying scent joined the earthy, mushroom smell of the cellar. Lara had caught hints of it before, in the living room, which was directly above her. Reaching round the wall at the bottom of the stairs, she found another switch and flicked it on.

  The earth-floored cellar was about the size of a double garage. The undersides of the floorboards upstairs served as a ceiling, and the walls were of the same rough stone as the chimney breast in the living room. An old worn armchair squatted on a filthy rag rug in the middle of the room, beside it a low table bearing a dirty glass and a plate. Lara went over to have a closer look and saw ancient crumbs on the plate and greasy fingerprints on the glass, which had reddish crystals inside it as if a drink had been left there to slowly give itself up to the stale air. A small bed covered in tattered blankets stood against the far wall, looking like someone had just got up and left it unmade. Tools – a shovel, a rusting saw, a collection of hammers and a large axe, hung from hooks driven into the stones, and, attached to a metal ring on the wall, two lengths of chain spilled across the floor towards the bed. Welded on the ends were what appeared to be manacles. The place stank of the grave.

  Goosebumps spiked Lara’s arms. She turned to get out, but her shoulder caught the corner of a low shelf she hadn’t seen, bringing a jar tumbling down to the ground where it smashed, splashing her legs with its contents of grey, vinegary pickles.

  The sudden noise and the unexpected wetness caught her in the throat and, with a rush, she found her legs carrying her up the stairs faster than she thought possible, out of the cupboard and towards the front door.

  ‘What’s the racket?’ Marcus stood at the top of the stairs, rumpled from sleep, his boxers gaping obscenely.