by Susan Lewis
As the front door closed behind him she picked up her drink and downed it in one. Then, refusing to give in to the self-pity that was swamping her, or even to think about what he’d just said, she walked out into the shady courtyard and started to help Cara with the barbecue.
It was a difficult evening and the children, sensing the tension, were for once easily persuaded to go down to their room. Except Robbie hung back for a while and in his own four-year-old way tried to offer the comfort he seemed to sense she needed. She held him close, kissed his hair and smiled into his worried blue eyes, before taking him downstairs to the others and staying with them while Cara read a story. Later, she and Cara returned to the sitting-room and sat talking for a while, but Michelle was so dispirited and distracted that in the end they locked the doors, turned out the lights and descended the circular staircase to their own separate bedrooms.
It was in the very early hours of the morning, as Michelle lay awake on her tousled bed, that she first heard a strange noise somewhere outside. Though her heart jolted, she lay where she was, all her senses alert as she listened for it again. It was impossible to say what it had been, but there was something about it that had somehow jarred with the other night sounds.
Minutes ticked by and though she heard nothing unusual again her heart continued to thump as the ocean roared over the rocks fifty or so feet below her window. She turned her head to look at the moonlit blind and watched the shadow of an overhanging vine as it bobbed in the breeze. Suddenly a rogue dribble escaped the tap in the bathroom and her heart leapt to her throat. Her eyes moved to the open bathroom door and she could just make out the frosted glass of the shower and glinting brass frame of the towel rail. She wasn’t sure why, but her heart was thudding so hard now it hurt. Then suddenly her head spun round as the quiet clatter of loose stones right outside her window lifted her from the bed and sent her racing down the hall to the nursery.
The door was open and in the generous moonlight she could see all three beds, the bunk where the boys slept and the divan where Larisa’s soft toys were spilling on to the floor. Going to pick them up, she set them gently back on the pillow, then looked down at the child’s peacefully sleeping face. Her eyes darted across the room as she heard another noise, and realizing it was Tomasz stirring in his sleep, she went to check on him too. Like his sister he was dead to the world, and after smoothing his hair she stooped to the bottom bunk where Robbie was sprawled out on his back, arms and legs akimbo, his little white undershorts appearing too big for his tiny tanned body. She stared at him for a while, still listening to the silence and trying to contain the emotion that was sweeping through her chest. Then, knowing nothing would wake him, she leaned over to kiss his cheek.
After checking on Cara and finding her sleeping too, she made her way back to her bedroom and sat down on the edge of the bed. Almost instantly she was back on her feet, spinning round to look at the window. Her heart was pounding, her entire body shaking. She could hear voices outside. A shadow moved across the blind and she opened her mouth to scream. No sound came. Her throat was dry. Her limbs were frozen.
‘Michelle.’ The voice was a shouted whisper.
A bleat of terror escaped her lips as she pressed a hand to her mouth and stared at the window.
‘Michelle! It’s Antônio.’
‘Oh my God,’ she sobbed, relief rushing so fast to her veins she felt herself go dizzy. But why was he at the window, not the door? It didn’t make any sense.
‘Michelle,’ he said again.
Her legs were almost too weak to move, as reaching for a robe she slipped her arms into the sleeves.
‘Please, Michelle,’ Antônio urged. ‘I must speak with you. If you can hear me, don’t be afraid. Just open the window.’
Michelle took a step forward, but she was shaking so hard she could move no further. Sweat was running down her sides, the sheer fabric of her nightgown clung to her skin.
‘Michelle! Wake up!’ Antônio called. A note of desperation had crept into his voice and as though spurred by it she crossed quickly to the window. But still she didn’t raise the blind.
‘Antônio?’ she whispered. ‘Why are you there? Why don’t you use the door?’
‘Because we’d have to go past the security guard and I have someone with me who mustn’t be seen,’ he answered.
‘Who is it?’ she asked, standing to one side of the window and trying to peer out through the edge of the blind.
‘It’s Chico, one of the boys Luiz told us about. Luiz is here too. He’s down below in a boat, he couldn’t make the climb.’
‘Luiz is here? He’s alive?’ she said, the joy of it rushing like a drug through her veins, and without giving it a second thought she let up the blind and pushed open the window. ‘How did you get him?’ she said. ‘Where did …’ She stopped suddenly and the blood drained from her face as she looked past Antônio to the man who was with him. ‘Oh my God,’ she breathed, unable to tear her eyes from Marcelo. ‘Oh, Antônio, I can’t believe you’re doing this.’
‘No, listen, I know what you’re thinking,’ he cried, ‘but you’re wrong. He wants to talk. He knows everything there is to know about Pastillano and he’s prepared to tell us.’
Michelle continued to stare at the gang leader, whose mean, arrogant face was swathed in silvery moonlight, and whose presence was guarded by two gun-toting sidekicks. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Why would he tell us?’
‘Because he’s not in Pastillano’s pay,’ Antônio answered. ‘And because Márcio was one of his.’
Michelle’s eyes hadn’t moved from Marcelo. ‘Where’s Luiz?’ she asked.
‘Down below,’ Marcelo answered. ‘If you like, I’ll take you to him.’
Long minutes ticked by as Michelle’s eyes bored right into him, while doubt and indecision raged through her mind. But if they were going to harm her they could have done so easily by now, and if Antônio trusted them maybe she could too.
‘Just hear what he has to say,’ Antônio urged, ‘it can do no harm.’
In the end, as though acting with no will of her own, she stood back and allowed them to climb over the window-sill into the room. As they followed her quietly past the children’s room and up the stairs to the sitting-room she was praying silently to God that she hadn’t just made the very biggest mistake of her life.
To test it she turned on the lights, waited for them to assemble in the room, then, looking straight at Antônio she said, ‘I’ll have to call Tom,’ and braced herself for the response.
‘Michael! No! Michael!’ Ellen squealed. ‘Please, no. Stop. I swear I’ll never do it again.’
‘Are you sure about that?’ He laughed, rolling her over and squirting more cream in her face.
‘Yes!’ she spluttered, catching a mouthful as she gasped with laughter. ‘Michael, I swear, I’ll do anything, just don’t … No!’ she screamed as he began tickling her again.
The struggle went on as they shrieked and laughed and rolled around the floor, trying to pin each other down and spray more cream in the other’s face. It ended with Ellen sitting astride him, her hair matted and wet, her T-shirt soaked right through and her long, tanned legs gripping his waist.
‘No more,’ she gasped, holding his arms at a distance. ‘I can’t … No!’ she cried, as he pressed the nozzle again.
His face was alive with laughter as he looked up at her, his hair and two-day beard flecked with foam, his bare chest rising and falling as he panted for breath. ‘Did I hear you say you’d do anything?’ he challenged.
A new light shot to her eyes. ‘Anything,’ she vowed.
‘Absolutely anything?’
Her smile was widening. ‘Absolutely anything.’
‘Are you sure?’
She hesitated. ‘Almost,’ she answered.
He shook his head. ‘Uh, uh,’ he said. ‘I want unconditional surrender with amends on my terms or …’
‘Just a minute,’ she interrupted, ‘I’m the one on top
here. OK, OK, OK,’ she laughed, as he easily drew in his arms and started to get up. ‘Anything, I swear it, just don’t tickle me again.’
‘Then get off me, woman,’ he demanded.
‘Do you promise you won’t tickle me?’ she said, keeping hold of his hands.
‘Promise.’
She was laughing again and shaking her head. ‘No, I don’t trust you,’ she said, then yelped, as quick as a flash he tipped her over and covered her body with his own.
‘Ow! ow! ow!’ she cried. ‘Your buckle’s digging into me.’
His eyebrows went up. ‘Is that your way of getting me to undress?’ he enquired drolly.
‘Anything, just … ah, that’s better,’ she said, as he adjusted his weight. His face was very close to hers now and she was simmering with laughter as she gazed up at him, waiting to see what he would do next.
‘You know, there’s still some cream left in that can,’ he said, nodding to where it had rolled against the foot of a chair.
‘Is there?’ she said, looking from his eyes to his mouth and back again.
He nodded. ‘And do you know where I’m going to spray that cream?’ he asked.
She looked at him, ready to burst into laughter.
He nodded again. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly where I’m going to spray it and guess what you’re going to do?’
‘No!’ she cried.
‘But you gave me your word, remember. Absolutely anything.’
She was laughing too hard now to answer, for she knew precisely what he was saying and knew too that she was perfectly happy to go along with it. So lying right where she was, she watched him as he rolled over and began to unfasten his shorts.
‘Bring me the cream,’ he commanded.
Obediently she reached out for the can and passed it over. Though she was still laughing, her pulses were quickening.
‘OK, over to you,’ he said, a few minutes later.
They were in the sitting-room of his Barbados home, a small, single-storey villa with quaint brick arches that separated each room from the other and huge picture windows that looked down over the hillside to the glorious sparkling-white beach below. A cluster of magnificent date palms soared over the red-tiled roof, while the soothing murmur of the sea drifted on the breeze into the cool, shadowy interior of the house. On the patio outside were the remains of their lunch, sheltered by a white canvas parasol and two thickly padded loungers, strewn with towels and stained with oil. There were only two other houses in the bay, neither of which were visible from the niche in which Michael’s sat, so their privacy was total.
As their passions rose, fusing together like the waves in the bay below, Michael raised Ellen’s T-shirt and lowered the skimpy bikini bottom. They had been here for almost two weeks by now, so their bodies were beautifully tanned and so blissfully attuned to each other that their love-making just got better all the time. The playful fight that had led to the urgency that was overwhelming them now had started with Ellen creeping up on him while he was asleep and decorating him with a beard of cream. That had been in retaliation for the ice-cold water he’d poured over her back while she was sunbathing earlier, which in turn had been a payback for something else. In fact the entire vacation had been such a madhouse of fun and laughter, relaxation and exploration that neither of them was ready to give it up in five days and return home.
They had yet to discuss the future, but she knew they would before they left and because of how close they had become these past couple of weeks she had little problem persuading herself that there was no reason to be afraid now. Though he hadn’t told her again since that night in New York that he loved her, she knew from other things he said, from the way he looked at her, touched her and shared so much of himself with her, that he did. It was true she wouldn’t mind hearing it again and maybe even have him look into her eyes when he said it, rather than at her reflection in a mirror. But he would when he was ready and though she had to confess to occasional tremors of unease if ever she thought of Michelle and how he never willingly mentioned her name, she had only to think of the way he held her and made love to her to realize how deeply he felt.
Much later that evening she was sitting alone at the edge of the sea, letting the gentle, translucent waves lap around her ankles as she sipped the last of a Martini and gazed contentedly out at the golden blaze of the sun. Michael was back at the house, throwing together some kind of concoction a beautiful, fat, ebony-faced woman had given him the recipe for at the market that morning. It amused Ellen no end the way he flirted with the locals and even took samples of his cuisine back to the market for them to taste. It had got so even the men were pleased to see him and the women’s unabashed bawdiness, which was no less subtle than their huge, ripe melons and long, sturdy bananas, was so infectious that Ellen couldn’t resist joining in and teasing him too. Every day they came away with cartons of luscious fresh fruit that they would never be able to eat themselves, so they invariably ended up stopping further along the road to give most of it away to a bunch of cute kids who had got wise to them by now.
Sighing softly she smiled to herself and took the olive from her drink and ate it. It was such a wonderful, balmy night and the tangy scent of the sea mixed exotically with the gentle aroma of the many shrubs and wild flowers on the hill. The high-pitched chafing of insect life chorused around the bay, while the hypnotic rhythm of an old jazz tune drifted lazily from the radio up at the house. She guessed that sooner or later one of them would bring up the subject of going home and what would happen after, but she had to admit that for once she was in no real hurry to get to it. She had already resigned from ATI and would be leaving at the end of next month, and from the way Michael was taking such delight in making jibes about her unemployed state she strongly suspected he was going to ask her to go to London.
She felt a small lurch in her heart at the thought of what she was going to say if he did, for though she’d more or less decided she would go, she didn’t want to think about how her parents were going to take it. It was bad enough her being in LA, but London was probably going to kill any chance of her father ever speaking to her again. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, what was she going to do about her career? She was in no doubt about how much she loved Michael, but he couldn’t be her entire life and the entertainment industry in London was like a puppet show when compared with the panoramic stage of Hollywood.
‘Hi,’ Michael said, coming to sit down behind her and kissing the back of her neck as he wrapped his legs around her.
‘It’s so beautiful here,’ she sighed, leaning her head on his shoulder and watching the sun’s final, fiery rays fan across the horizon. ‘I wish we could stay for ever.’
‘Mmm,’ he murmured, putting his drink to her lips as he noticed her glass was empty.
‘Do you think we’d get bored?’ she asked.
‘Maybe, after a couple of years,’ he answered.
She smiled and turned to kiss him. ‘How’s dinner coming along?’
‘OK. Ready in about half an hour.’
They sat quietly then, listening to the eclectic sounds of the night as darkness spread through the cove and their thoughts moved peacefully through the contentment of being in each other’s arms.
‘I love you,’ he whispered, staring out at the sea.
Ellen’s heart swelled and putting her head back to look at him she said, ‘Say that again.’
Though he smiled, his eyes remained serious as he gazed into hers and said, ‘I love you.’
‘I love you too,’ she said softly.
He continued to look at her, his eyes searching her face, until finally he said, ‘So what are we going to do?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I was hoping maybe you had the answer.’
‘What do you want to do?’ he asked.
‘You mean, like if the choice were all mine?’
He nodded.
‘Then I guess I would want you to come to the S
tates.’
His eyes moved away and wandered to the dark, invisible distance. ‘I thought that’s what you might say,’ he responded.
‘But it’s not going to happen, is it?’ she said, feeling her insides starting to tighten.
It was a long time before he looked at her again, but before he could speak she said, ‘I’ll come to London. I’ve thought about it and …’
He looked down at her and slowly shook his head. ‘No,’ he said. ‘It won’t work. And I don’t want you to come.’
The shock of his words hit her so hard she couldn’t speak. Then she started to break away.
‘Ellen, listen,’ he said, trying to pull her back.
‘No, I don’t want to listen,’ she replied, getting to her feet. And staring down at him, her eyes bright with anger and pain, she said, ‘I don’t know what’s happening with you. First you tell me you love me, then you say you don’t want me …’
‘Just listen,’ he said, getting up, ‘I said I don’t want you to come to London, that’s not the same as saying I don’t want you. I love you, for Christ’s sake, and I don’t want us to carry on the way we are either, meeting up for the odd days here and there, a vacation or two a year, but we’ve got to be realistic, Ellen, and try to find a solution that’s going to work for us both. Shit,’ he seethed as the phone started to ring inside the house. ‘Can we ignore it?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘I asked my mom to call tonight, she’ll worry if I don’t answer.’
‘OK,’ he said and stooped to pick up the glasses as she started up the path to the house.
‘Hello?’ she said into the receiver when she got there.
‘Hello. Can I speak to Michael please? It’s his brother, Cavan?’
‘Yes, yes, of course,’ Ellen replied, a strange buzzing starting up in her head at the urgency in Cavan’s tone. ‘I’ll get him,’ and going to the door she called out to where Michael was, half-way up the path. ‘It’s your brother,’ she told him, as he came on to the patio. ‘He sounds upset.’
With a haste that surprised her he thrust the glasses into her hand and grabbed up the phone. ‘Cavan?’ he said. ‘Is everything all right?’