Lie With Me

by Sabine Durrant

  Andrew took over. He braced and leant in, then staggered back with the weight of his load.

  Louis. Semi-conscious. Ill? No. Paralytic.

  They battled for a few moments, struggling for purchase, and then managed to hoist the boy between them, Alice tiny, pushed down under his bulk. They half pulled, half dragged him out of sight, round the corner of the house.

  I was torn. I didn’t particularly want to help. I’ve always had a problem with vomit – the smell tends to set me off. Also I needed my sleep and we could be up all night. And yet, and yet. Was I turning down an opportunity to put myself further in Alice’s good books? An opportunity to show Andrew up?

  Leaving the bathroom, I tiptoed across the bedroom and pushed open the door. The terrace was empty. A few clatters and mumbles, an isolated moan, from the far side of the building. They must have taken him into his own room. I hesitated, took a step forward and then back. Maybe I was already too late. Maybe he was already asleep.

  ‘Paul?’

  Alice was standing in the shadows. A darker figure against the dark.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘I was looking for you,’ I said. ‘I woke up and you weren’t there.’

  ‘Well, here I am.’ She was standing very still, in that ballet pose she had, shoulders back.

  ‘I just woke up and heard voices,’ I said, trying to make my voice sound sleepy. ‘Everything all right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I took a step towards her so I could see her face. She was frowning, as if she had caught me doing something I shouldn’t. ‘Why are you dressed?’

  ‘I never undressed,’ I said. ‘I fell asleep with my clothes on. And then when I woke up a minute ago you weren’t there.’

  ‘I got up to check Louis was back safely.’

  ‘And is he?’ I said.

  ‘He’s fine. Fast asleep. I’m going back to bed now. You coming?’

  She walked past me, taking my hand as she did so, and I followed. Clearly, she didn’t want me to know about Louis. She was embarrassed. This could only be a good sign. It showed she cared more about my opinion of him than I realised.

  Chapter Ten

  I slept late. Alice was already up. I put on Andrew’s trunks and a T-shirt, found my book, and wandered out on to the terrace. The air was seriously warm, the sun dappling through a vine from which grapes hung almost indecently heavy. The table was laid for breakfast – cups and plates, a jug of coffee, butter and honey. One of the glasses had been upturned to trap an insect. I studied it carefully; a prawn with wings. A still, silent cicada.

  I lifted the glass to free it, but it didn’t move. It looked mournful, one leg crooked at an angle. I wondered if it were dead. Using the cover of In Cold Blood as a stretcher, I carried it over to a pot of lavender and gently scooped it on to the earth. It sat there, still motionless.

  ‘What’s that?’ Tina was standing in the door to the kitchen, wrapped in a pink linen dressing gown.

  ‘Oh. Nothing. Just rescuing one of earth’s precious creatures.’ I sat down at the table, and flapped a napkin on to my lap. ‘This is rather lovely. Have you seen Alice?’

  ‘Gone to get bread.’

  She stepped out on to the terrace and pulled out a chair. Her breasts were heavy and loose beneath the slubbed fabric. Mascara was smudged under her eyes, and her hair, unusually, was loose and tumbling.

  ‘Isn’t this heaven?’ I said, waving my arms at the view, at the laid table, at the pot of coffee. ‘Aren’t we lucky?’

  She laughed. ‘Someone’s in a good mood. Yes, we are.’

  ‘We should have got up earlier to make the most of it.’

  ‘I almost did. I was woken by a crowing cockerel at dawn.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate.’ Andrew’s voice from the kitchen. ‘It wasn’t dawn.’

  I made a face, and said conspiratorially, ‘Probably was dawn. It being a cockerel. It’s in their job description.’

  Tina let out a gurgle of laughter and I poured us both a cup of coffee from the jug. Andrew emerged from the kitchen and stood in the doorway, his head bent over his BlackBerry. He was wearing khaki shorts and a navy polo shirt – brand new; it had two symmetrical creases where it had been folded in the packet. He let out an exasperated groan – and began to tap frantically.

  Tina passed me a carton of milk, which I rejected with a wave of my hand. Long Life by the look of it. ‘How did you sleep?’ she asked.

  ‘Fine.’ I looked at her carefully. Did she know about Louis? ‘I woke up a couple of times.’

  Andrew put his phone in his back pocket and came to join us. He pulled out a chair. ‘Did that dog wake you?’ he said. ‘It must have barked all night.’

  ‘Don’t exaggerate,’ Tina said. ‘Not all night.’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ he said. ‘It made a pretty good stab at it.’

  We talked for a bit about the Greek attitude towards animals, their lack of sentimentality. Tina, who claimed to have slept through it, wondered if the poor mutt were being fed, if it ever got a chance to sleep. I speculated on whether it took its responsibility as a guard dog seriously and was alert to every approach, or whether it was just barking desperately into the abyss, hoping someone would come. ‘The problem,’ Tina said, ‘is that the noise isn’t just disruptive, it’s also distressing: that’s probably what kept Andrew awake. It’s like when the neighbours are having a late-night party. The noise wakes you but it’s the lack of consideration that keeps your mind whirring.’

  ‘The emotional component of noise,’ I said. ‘Discuss.’

  Andrew put his coffee down and stood up. He tapped his phone in his palm with an air of self-importance. He said he might try and find out whoever was responsible for the dog – the contractor, perhaps – and have a word with them. ‘It’s not on really, is it?’ he said. ‘It’s bad enough that they’re digging up our land in the day. I don’t see why they should ruin our nights, too.’

  Our land: I noticed, but only idly.

  My arm was caught in a shaft of sun and I could feel the heat of it, the skin burning. It was going to be a scorcher. I bent to scratch a bite on my ankle, and then was immediately aware of others, on my neck and arms and face. ‘Damn,’ I said, inspecting with my fingers. ‘I’ve been eaten alive.’

  ‘It’s only the females that bite,’ Andrew said. ‘Did you know that? The males settle for nectar. It’s only the females that go for blood.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I said, one man to another, and he laughed.

  We heard the car bumping up the drive, the high rev of the engine as it negotiated the last steep bit of hill. Then silence, the slam of the driver’s door, and Alice rounded the side of the house. She was in shorts and a vest top over a bikini. She was frowning.

  ‘Hello, darling one,’ I said, hoping to make her smile.

  She didn’t answer, just walked towards us very quickly. When she reached the table, she put down the paper bag and said to Andrew, ‘The police are all over the port. Something happened at the club last night. A girl was attacked.’ She was gripping the back of my chair, but not looking at me. ‘Where are Phoebe and Daisy?’ she said to Tina.

  ‘They’re still in bed,’ Tina replied. ‘Asleep. How awful.’ She had emptied the paper bag, and laid the contents, nine nectarines and a flat, rather grey, loaf of bread, carefully on the table. ‘Sit down.’ She patted the chair next to her and reluctantly Alice perched on the edge of it. Andrew was standing on the terrace, his arms crossed behind his head, staring at Alice.

  ‘Was it a sexual attack?’ he said.

  A muscle twitched in Alice’s jaw but her voice was calm. ‘I don’t know the details, only that there are police everywhere. The woman in the bakery said they’ve been there all night. She didn’t know much either. Just that it was a young girl. She was found in the water, covered in bruises, incoherent – upset, drunk, her clothes ripped. I think she might have been raped.’

  ‘Poor thing,’ I said. ‘I hope th
ey find the bastard who did it.’

  I reached for the bread. It didn’t look much, but it smelt delicious, yeasty, still warm. As surreptitiously as I could, I tore a corner off and popped it into my mouth.

  ‘The girls didn’t say anything, did they?’ Alice said to Andrew. ‘They didn’t see anything?’

  ‘I haven’t spoken to them.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Tina said, ‘if they’ll have to give statements.’

  ‘What about Louis?’ I said, finishing my mouthful.

  Alice turned to face me, frowning. ‘What about Louis?’

  ‘I just wondered if he’d seen anything, that’s all.’

  She shook her head, looked at Andrew and then back at me. ‘He wouldn’t have. He came back early, much earlier than the girls.’

  ‘Oh.’ So that’s how she was spinning his little misadventure. ‘If you say so. OK.’

  Andrew was fiddling with his phone. ‘Shall I ring Gavras?’ he said. ‘See if I can get a heads-up.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Alice looked at him and then away again. She was flicking her fingers, as if trying to dry them. ‘Yes. No. Don’t. It would seem as if we were interfering.’

  ‘Who’s Gavras?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s the head of the police in Pyros,’ Andrew said. ‘Number two when Jasmine went missing. He speaks good English. We’ve rubbed up against him quite a lot over the years.’

  I took Alice’s hand, to try and still it. ‘I would have thought definitely keep out of it. At least Daisy and Phoebe are safe.’ She smiled gratefully, and gave mine a squeeze. ‘I’m sure the whole thing will have blown over by the end of the day. For all we know, she knew her attacker. That’s usually the case, isn’t it?’

  A grim silence settled.

  ‘They’ll catch whoever did it,’ I continued. ‘And lock him up.’ I was just trying to put Alice’s mind at ease, to reassure her that her own daughter was not at risk, but then I began to enjoy the sound of my own voice. I didn’t self-censor. ‘You know, the kind of girl who gets herself in trouble, swanning around in a different culture, dressed inappropriately, drinking too much, flirting probably, flashing her body.’

  Tina said, ‘Oh dear, Paul. Are you saying this girl was “asking for it”?’

  ‘No. Of course not.’ God, it was so hard negotiating this stuff, at the best of times. ‘I just mean . . . it might not be what it seems. More complicated. Less complicated. We’re all jumping to conclusions. Was she actually raped? Come on, Andrew? You saw the kind of girls I mean, the ones parading themselves at the port last night.’

  He looked at me sideways, out of the corner of his eye, like someone approaching a dangerous animal. ‘No,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Oh come on, I saw you watching them! The ones in tiny skirts. The ones that were dressed like slappers even if they weren’t.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Yes you do.’ I glared at him.

  ‘Slappers? It’s not a word I’d use. Er . . . I don’t think so.’

  Alice stood and crossed the terrace to where a towel was hung over the back of a chair. She picked it up and walked down the steps in the direction of the pool.

  Neither Tina nor Andrew looked at me.

  Tina said, ‘I’ll get the kids up and then I ought to get dressed. I can’t believe it’s almost eleven and I’m still in my dressing gown.’

  Andrew said something about putting on a wash.

  I cleared the table and then took my book and my cigarettes over to the ornate bench I had begun to think of as my ‘fag seat’. The dog had shut up at last. My forehead was beaded in perspiration. I knew I had gone wrong there. I was livid with Andrew for not backing me up, but I was also aware that I had said things I hadn’t meant, or that were, at least, easily misunderstood.

  I lay as far back as the wooden bench allowed, closed my eyes.

  When I opened them, Alice was standing in front of me. I hadn’t heard her coming. The sound of her bare feet, up the steps, across the terrace, must have been swallowed by the ticking of the cicadas. She was wearing a swimsuit, a functional navy Speedo with racer straps. Her hair was wet and pulled back. My coat was dangling between her finger and thumb, like a damp rag. ‘You left this by the pool,’ she said. ‘Artan hosed it by mistake. It’s soaking.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Damn.’

  ‘It’ll dry in seconds in the sun.’ She spread it over the arm of the bench and sat down next to me. Her expression was unreadable but she moved her knees quickly together and apart and together again and I took the gesture, along with her decision to sit down, as conciliatory.

  ‘If it doesn’t shrink,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know why you brought it with you. It’s 35 degrees.’

  I looked at her, gazed deep into her eyes. ‘Insecurity,’ I said. I told her how kids from the local Dr Barnardo’s children’s home used to come and spend a day at my primary school every year, and how they never took off their coats. ‘That’s how I feel here,’ I said. ‘A Dr Barnardo’s boy.’

  She studied me seriously. ‘I don’t understand. Do you feel insecure?’

  ‘That stupid comment earlier. Yes, maybe in this company I am a little out of my depth.’

  ‘Do you feel out of your depth?’

  Suddenly, I had an urge to tell her the whole truth: to admit I had lied about my life, my novel, my flat, to tell her I was a fake, that I wanted to be a better person, that I wanted to change. Things might have worked out differently if I had. The course on which we were set could have changed. But the moment passed and was gone.

  In the distance, behind Alice’s head, the sea gleamed silver. A couple of sailing boats leant sideways. I stretched, with a small yawn, rested my hand on her neck. I wanted to say something to make her happy. ‘I’ll have a look at that van of yours today,’ I said, ignoring her question, ‘when it cools down a bit. If all goes well, perhaps I’ll even get it on the road by tonight.’

  She turned her head and kissed my arm. ‘Kind,’ she said.

  I took her hand and turned it over gently to kiss the palm. Two livid red scratches ran across her wrist. Had she got them when Louis lashed out? I traced them with my fingers. She pulled her hand back and got to her feet, with an air of completion. ‘I’m going to have another swim. Coming?’

  ‘In a minute.’

  About to turn, she picked up a sleeve of the splayed coat, then dropped it. ‘Paul, I’m sorry, but it’s gross. It’s like a flasher’s mac.’

  ‘It’s tweed,’ I said, pathetically.

  Construction started up shortly after that, the sound of large amounts of earth being moved, and of even larger pieces of machinery cranking and grinding. It wasn’t just the noise, which was loud, or the vibrations, which were strong enough to make the ground tremble, it was the sense not of construction but of destruction that was disturbing. It made you feel watched, encroached upon. It put your nerves on edge. I left my bench, no longer a relaxing place to be, and walked across to the main part of the terrace where I found Louis sitting at the table. He was wrapped in a towel, but naked from the waist up; his chest pale and spotty, with red stretch marks just above the line of the towel and patches of sunburn over his shoulders. His head was resting on one hand, sweat on his forehead, his hair damp. A bowl of cereal sat untouched on the table in front of him.

  ‘You look a bit rough,’ I said.

  His eyes were glassy, with dark rings beneath. His mouth was hanging open, but he didn’t answer – even words were too much effort.

  ‘Late night?’

  He made an incoherent sound, a semi-grunt, lifted his cereal spoon and then, thinking better of it, put it back down.

  Down at the pool, Phoebe and Daisy were asleep on loungers, their arms crossed above their heads, each naked back as smoothly curved as a musical instrument – a violin, say, or an expensive guitar. Artan was sweeping the pool area with large regular movements of a rubber broom, turning his head to look at them. Daisy lift
ed her head and saw him. ‘Artan, chuck me my suntan oil, will you?’

  He picked it up from the table and brought it over to her. ‘You’re a doll,’ she said.

  Alice and Andrew were standing on the far side of the lower terrace, gazing at the sea and talking quietly.

  ‘Louis’s up,’ I said, walking over to them.

  They both spun round at the sound of my voice. ‘Yes,’ Andrew said. ‘I woke him, but perhaps that was a mistake. He’s still a bit tired.’

  ‘He can have an early night,’ Alice said.

  Andrew looked at his phone. ‘I’ll check on him again,’ he said. ‘Make sure he’s had something to eat.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ I said.

  ‘Thank you,’ Alice said to Andrew. ‘Maybe encourage him to have a shower?’

  ‘Wilco.’ Andrew gave a small salute and lolloped off, back up the path.

  The racket, which had stopped for a few minutes, started up again. ‘Oh God,’ Alice said, facing the sea again. ‘It’s awful, awful. They’re much closer than they were yesterday. They’re practically on our land. They’ll be up to the copse tomorrow.’

  ‘You’d have thought they’d have the courtesy to wait until the end of our holiday,’ I said.

  ‘You would.’ She half smiled.

  ‘What’s worse? The digger or the dog?’ I said, trying to make her laugh.

  ‘They’re both bad.’

  ‘I think the digger is better. At least you don’t have to worry about it feeling hungry or abandoned. At least the digger isn’t digging desperately into the abyss.’

  She smiled again, swept a strand of hair away from her mouth, and then walked to the barbecue area and sat down on a metal chair. She stretched out a leg and bent to inspect her ankle – a mosquito bite, or an ingrowing hair.

  I found a spare bed and lay down with a sigh. I would ignore the noise, I decided. I opened my book.

  Time passed. Frank and Archie appeared, dive-bombed into the pool, and then raced up and down, turning the water to foam. Tina arrived with her box of paints and finally, taking the steep part of the path very slowly, Louis. He stood under the fig tree at the bottom of the steps, not looking at anyone, and then shuffled slowly towards the other end of the pool, head bowed. He lay face down on a sunbed, his arms trailing.