Lie With Me (11 page)

She sat down next to me. ‘How was your meeting?’

I had water in my ears and was screwing up the corner of the towel to get to it. ‘Meeting?’

‘Yes. The American editor. What did she say? Did she like the book?’

‘Actually, yes,’ I said. ‘She did.’

‘Did she offer for it?’

Alice sounded so eager, I didn’t feel I had a choice. ‘Yes, she did.’

‘Oh Paul, that’s wonderful.’

It was one of those moments when, basking in her attention, I got carried away. ‘In fact,’ I said slowly, ‘she offered a very generous pre-empt – a high offer to stop my agent taking the book to auction.’

Alice put her hand to her mouth. ‘How generous?’

Andrew was lying on the other side of the pool. I didn’t know if he was listening, but there was one way to find out. ‘High six figures,’ I said.

I felt the lie grow and fill the air and settle. I tried to ignore a plunging sense of dismay.

Andrew sat up. Pearls of sweat collected between the sparse curly hairs on his chest. ‘So the Milky Bars are on you!’

His hands were gripping the sides of the lounger.

Chapter Eight

I didn’t hear Tina and the others get back, but suddenly there they were, at the pool: the two younger boys – Archie and Frank – stripping off their tops, kicking away trainers, plunging in.

Tina arrived more slowly, flashes of blue fabric through the bushes. When she emerged at the bottom of the path, she came the last few feet towards me with her arms outstretched. I stood up. ‘Paul,’ she said. ‘You made it! Clever, clever you. You found us and everything.’ She hugged me, recoiling at my wetness, and laughed, as the force of our greeting propelled an enormous straw hat backwards off her head. I was surprised by her warmth, and yet pleased. She was wearing a voluminous blue linen dress that covered her body like a tent. I never worked out why she was so unaware of her beauty. She was all about concealment – the only one among us who had no need.

‘You’ve got the same trunks as Andrew!’ she said.

‘They are Andrew’s.’

‘Ah . . . well,’ she bent forwards conspiratorially, her expression mischievous, ‘they look better on you.’

Andrew looked up from his book. ‘There’s loyalty for you. My loving wife.’

She had made lunch, she told us, and even persuaded Frank and Archie to lay the table before they came down.

‘Did Louis help too?’ Alice asked.

‘He was feeling a bit hot and tired.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘In the house.’

‘Gaming?’

‘I think so.’

The two women looked at each other and something ponderous and painful passed between them. I was vaguely aware that Louis had been becoming a problem. Alice shook her head; Tina smiled ruefully. Andrew, seeing it, stood up. ‘Listen,’ he said, walking over. ‘I’ll talk to him. We’ll sort it.’

He crouched down at Alice’s feet, so he could look into her eyes. Ugh. The self-importance of the man. The arrogance. Who was he to play parent to her children?

I remembered a snippet of wisdom I had picked up from Michael’s wife. ‘The conservation of gloom,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ Alice asked, looking up at me.

‘The rule that there always has to be one member of a family in a bad mood. Life would be too easy otherwise.’

Alice half laughed and said, ‘Oh, that’s quite good.’ She stood up, treading carefully around Andrew, and hugged me. ‘The conservation of gloom. I like that.’

‘As a parent, you’re only ever as happy as your least happy child,’ Tina said.

‘Yes,’ Alice said. ‘But in my case it’s always Louis.’

Andrew stood up from his crouch and awkwardly rubbed her shoulder, half pat, half massage.

Tina was still smiling: nothing about his behaviour or body language seemed to concern her. ‘Right then, you lot,’ she said. ‘Lunch. Paul – you must be starving. These days they don’t give you anything to eat on planes.’

‘You have no idea,’ I said.

She and I had reached the bottom of the path when she squeezed my arm. ‘I’m glad you’re here.’

‘New blood?’ I said.

‘Maybe. Or maybe I enjoy your company.’

We ate lunch on the long table in the shade. Tina had made a salad with tomatoes, onions and olives, and plated up a selection of cheese and spinach pastries from the bakery in Trigaki. It wasn’t a particularly appealing spread (for all her qualities, cooking turned out not to be Tina’s strong point), but it was a perfect opportunity to gauge the dynamics of the group. Andrew took the head of the table. He had clearly taken on the role of patriarch, ‘organising the troops’, as he put it, telling everyone where to sit, making sure Tina and Alice were on either side of him like vestal virgins. In my pique, I almost stropped off to the far end, but Alice meaningfully tapped the seat next to her. Her feet rested on the bar of my chair, her hand on my thigh. She clinked her glass and made a toast to my success: ‘To Paul – for finally getting what he deserves.’ I couldn’t help smiling after that. Suck that up, I wanted to say to Andrew. Eat
my
shorts.

For all the beauty of the view, the mood was fractious. Family life: my idea of hell. Wasn’t that what Ann had said? She might have had a point. There was an edge to the proceedings. We were under attack from insects – tiny black ants moving in formation on every crumb, larger red ants creeping up chair legs, and wasps. Who knew Greece was home to so many wasps? The teenage girls were sulky, ‘not hungry’, either fiddling with their phones or leaping hysterically from the table (‘it’s a fucking hornet!’). The two younger boys, Frank and Archie, both pale and etiolated in their colourful board shorts, all pointy bones and pent-up energy, ticked off for throwing olives, kept asking what we were doing that afternoon: ‘Could we go to the beach? Could we go windsurfing? Could we go to the water park at Elconda?’

‘For goodness’ sake just enjoy this,’ Tina snapped eventually. ‘Don’t keep going on about the next thing.’

It was Louis, though, who cast the biggest cloud. He had bulked out recently; in one of those sudden growth spurts that seem to affect children, his jaw had jutted forward, and his brow had become heavier. He sat at the end opposite Andrew, shovelling food into his mouth, his fork in his left hand. He was wearing black tracksuit bottoms and a black hoodie, which he was refusing to take off. I knew Alice worried about him – he had been in trouble for bullying at school. Perhaps I should have been paying more attention. Perhaps I should have been doing something to help.

‘Why can’t I have a beer?’ he grunted. ‘
He’s
on his third.’

Alice laughed. ‘Paul’s an adult,’ she said. ‘You can have one this evening. I’m not having you drinking at lunch.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘It’s just stupid,’ he said. ‘You have these insane rules. It’s just irrational. You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Don’t talk to your mother like that.’

Andrew‘s tone of voice was pompous. Louis glared at him, eyes dark, and then threw back his chair and walked into the house.

‘Do you want me to get him?’ Andrew said.

‘I don’t know.’ Alice looked unsure, both defensive and apologetic.

‘He’s on the Xbox again.’

‘I know. Oh dear.’ She looked over her shoulder, twisted her face from Andrew. ‘He’s very . . . I know he’s rude.’

‘It’s a difficult age,’ I said. ‘Everyone always goes on about your school days being the happiest time of your life, but it’s hard being sixteen.’

‘Thank you,’ Alice said softly, turning back.

Of course I thought Louis was a little fucker, but I was happy to stand up for him if it meant putting Andrew back in his box. ‘Don’t you remember,’ I said, turning to address him with a sanctimonious smile, ‘how angry you feel at that age? How frustrated. All those hormones surging round your body and nowhere to put them.’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, I suppose I do.’

‘It gets so much easier,’ I added, ‘when you find an outlet.’

‘An outlet?’

‘When you start having sex. That’s what Louis needs. Sooner the better.’

Alice went to our room for a rest after lunch. I planned to join her but I helped Tina with the washing-up first and then had a quick cigarette at the far end of the terrace on an Indian day bed. It was peaceful. I watched a group of swallows swooping in and out of a nest in the eaves, a multitude of small white butterflies bother a geranium, a line of ants leading to half a dead beetle. I felt oddly anxious. At lunch I had said some of the right things, but also some of the wrong things. It was all much harder than I’d anticipated. I cared more too. It was disconcerting. It made me feel out of sorts, not quite myself.

Alice was lying on the bed, reading
The Great Gatsby,
when I went to find her. The main shutters were still closed, but she had opened the smaller window on the side of the house and a triangle of sunlight slanted on to her pillow. It was hot and sultry in there; the air thick with itself, with the scent of jasmine and quince. Alice’s bare limbs were pale against the silky grey bedcover.

She was stroking her neck absent-mindedly.

‘Oh, don’t,’ she groaned, as I slipped under the mosquito net and pulled her towards me. ‘It’s too hot. Isn’t it? I mean. Don’t you think?’

‘It’s never too hot.’ I ran my hands under her kaftan, felt the warmth of her stomach, the damp of her bikini. I buried my face in her neck, toying at the drawstring with my teeth. ‘
You’re
too hot.’

She laughed, pulled gently away. ‘I can’t believe you said that thing about Louis having sex.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Was it awful?’

‘Just a bit off colour, maybe – in front of the younger boys.’

‘Oh God. I’m crap. Sorry.’

‘I forgive you.’ She groaned. ‘I don’t know what to do with him. I’ve tried jollying him along. I’ve tried being cross. I’m running out of ideas. He’s obviously driving Andrew mad. He doesn’t get him. Archie is such a different sort of boy . . .’

‘And younger,’ I said, working out what she wanted me to say. ‘And a bit goody two-shoes if we’re honest – a bit lacking in character?’

She laughed, and then bit her lip as if she shouldn’t have. ‘I think Louis misses his father, or misses
having
one. Andrew means well, but . . .’

‘I’m sure it will be fine. Maybe you just need to stop worrying and think about your own needs for a bit.’

‘Do you think?’ she murmured, closing her eyes.

‘Yes. Beginning now.’

I lowered my head again, taking her closed eyes as encouragement, kissing her neck and working down. She moved her hips, bringing her pelvis to meet mine, and for the next half an hour, as far as I was aware, neither of us thought about Andrew or Louis while we concentrated on our own needs. Or certainly on mine.

Alice slept afterwards. I tried for a while, but failed. She was snoring very quietly and I was restless, in need of further stimulation, as one often is at the start of a holiday, so I slipped out of bed, careful not to wake her, and went down to the pool.

Tina was painting on a stool in the shade, the skirt of her tent pulled low over her knees. Daisy and Phoebe were on sunbeds, apparently asleep, and Frank and Archie were huddled in the barbecue area, heads together over an iPhone. No sign of Louis. Or Andrew.

I lay on my stomach, my eye on the girls, drawing comparisons for my own pleasure. Phoebe was more voluptuous than Daisy, but too plucked and dyed for my taste. She didn’t like me: I’d worked that out. Daisy, with her hazel eyes and olive skin, had a sort of gamine grace. (Did I stand a chance there? An idle, but enjoyable question.) Mostly they both lay supine in the sun, though they roused themselves now and again to cool themselves in the pool, stepping past me, tiny bent shadows dancing at their feet, and on their return, re-anointed themselves with sun cream. It fascinated me, their relationship with their own bodies, the way they studied their limbs as they rubbed in the lotion, an intense look on their faces that conveyed either love or disgust, or perhaps both, combined with a potent curiosity as if they were noticing every inch of themselves for the first time.

Alice joined us after an hour or so. She lay down on an empty bed next to me. ‘Hello, you,’ she said under her breath. And then, more loudly, ‘Construction hasn’t started again, then?’ to no one in particular.

‘Siesta,’ Tina answered. She held her paintbrush out to judge a distance. ‘Maybe still too hot.’

Nobody was in the mood for talking, too languid and somnolent. I dipped into the pool once or twice, when the heat overcame me, rescued a giant bee I found drowning in the shallow end, read a few chapters of
In Cold Blood
, and at about 5p.m., volunteered to climb up to the house to fetch some drinks.

Andrew was sitting on the terrace with his glasses on, poring over some papers, tapping on a calculator. ‘All right, old chap?’ he said as I passed him. ‘Hot, isn’t it?’

He didn’t seem to need an answer. I found beer and cans of Diet Coke in the fridge and a tray and carried it past him down to the pool, where I made a show of hand-delivering each drink to each person, with a small obsequious bow.

When I reached Phoebe, she didn’t bother to raise her head so I laid the cold can carefully in the scoop of her naked back. She jack-knifed with a squeal and jumped to her feet. ‘You fucker, Paul.’

The can rolled to the ground and she picked it up and shook it. I leapt backwards and darted away. Daisy and the boys were laughing. Frank shouted, ‘Push him in, Dais!’

‘Oh, leave him alone,’ called Tina.

‘Poor Paul,’ Alice cried.

Phoebe was grappling with me now, arm-to-arm combat, her right leg twisted around one of mine. I was so much stronger, I had to tense up in order not to flip her over and throw her in.

‘You’re a fucking fucker,’ Phoebe said in my ear.

I let her gain her advantage, my hands slipping down along her arms. I felt my balance begin to go and released a war-cry, vanquished, defeated, but as I did so I tightened my grip, hooked my feet through hers. She toppled after me, powerless, and we met the surface together. As the water rushed and surged, seething and gurgling in my ears, as I was brushed and kicked by her legs and hands and face, I felt a swell of pure happiness.