Windfallen

  She paused. Realized her mouth was already open.

  The flesh was smooth and sweet. It tasted perfumed. She closed her mouth cautiously around it, then let it melt slowly on her tongue, losing herself in the succulence of it, shutting her eyes to better imagine warm, foreign climes, places where people wore red and yellow and bright blue, places where they carried the sun on their backs.

  When she opened her eyes, he was still looking at her.

  He had stopped smiling. "I liked them," he said eventually.

  Lottie was the first to break their gaze. It took some time. She stood, straightening her skirt. Then she turned and walked back toward the house, feeling deep within her the first easing of a long-endured storm.

  She turned before she got to the back door. "I knew you would."

  FIVE

  It may simply have been a way of keeping some semblance of sanity. But Lottie preferred to believe there was a kind of inevitability to it from then on. Like she knew that after she discovered the Merham "salon" invite unopened still in her pocket, that it would be Guy who suggested they return, on the pretext that there was a gentleman there who wanted to talk about his father's business. (Mrs. Holden would never dare object to anything concerned with business, after all.) Like she had known, too, that Guy would somehow choose a time when Celia had gone off on some other beautifying mission: to look at shoes in Colchester or new stockings in Manningtree--the kind of jobs a man, even a fiance, couldn't possibly be expected to attend. Like she knew that he now saw her differently. She might not be wearing emerald, but she had at least taken on some of the qualities of Adeline's precious jewel, and in return she glowed from within and drew his eye, like a brilliant catching the light.

  None of this was acknowledged, of course. In the same way that Lottie had found means of avoiding Guy, now she simply found him walking alongside her toward the municipal park. Or that it was his arms holding the washing basket as she pegged up the sheets. Or that he had already volunteered to walk Mr. Beans as she left for some errand down at the Parade.

  And more quickly than she could have predicted, Lottie lost her shyness around Guy, found the exquisite pain of being near him replaced by a flickering anticipation, an uncharacteristic desire to talk, a welling belief that she was in the place where she was always meant to be. ("She's dropped some of that moodiness. Less mulish," Mrs. Holden observed. "Susan, it'll be in the family," said Mrs. Chilton. "I'll lay money the mother is a Grade-A sourpuss.") She tried not to think about Celia. It was easy when she was with him; then she felt enclosed by invisible walls, sheltered by her belief that it was her right to be there. It was when she was alone with Celia that she felt naked, her actions exposed to a distinctly murky light.

  Because she couldn't look at Celia in the same way. Where once she had seen an ally, now she saw a rival. Celia wasn't Celia anymore; she was an amalgam of elements against which Lottie had to compare herself: a helmet of stylishly cut blond hair against Lottie's straight, dark, schoolgirl plait; a glowing, peachy complexion against her own honeyed skin; long, chorus-girl legs against her own. Were they shorter? Dumpier? Somehow less shapely?

  And then there was the guilt; at night she blocked her ears to the sound of Celia's breathing, wept silent tears at her desperate desire to betray the girl she thought of as her sister. No one had been closer to her. No one had been kinder to her. And this wretched sense of duplicity made her resent Celia even more.

  Occasionally she got a glimpse of their old relationship, like clouds parting to reveal a stretch of endless blue, but then they regathered and Lottie couldn't view her without reference to Guy. If Celia blew him a kiss, Lottie fought the urge to throw herself irrationally between them--a human block against his receiving it; a casual arm draped across his shoulder filled her with thoughts little short of murderous. She swung between guilt and a raging jealousy, the pendulum most often settling at a low depression somewhere in the middle.

  Celia didn't seem to notice. Mrs. Holden, now in a frenzy about the prospective nuptials, had decided that none of her daughter's clothes were worthy of her impending position in society and was determined to buy her a whole new wardrobe. Celia, after confiding to Lottie that she was sure she'd be able to sneak something new for her, too, had thrown herself into the task with only the faintest backward glance at her less well dressed "sister." "I'm going to pick up some brochures this afternoon for the honeymoon," she said. "I think a cruise would be just perfect. Don't you think a cruise would be perfect, Lottie? Can you imagine sitting up on deck in one of those bikinis? Guy is desperate to see me in a bikini--he thinks I'll look simply marvelous. All the Hollywood stars go on cruises these days. I heard in London--Lots? Oh, sorry, Lots. Thoughtless of me. Hey, look, I'm sure when you get married you'll go on a cruise, too. I'll even keep the brochures for you if you like."

  But Lottie didn't feel envious; she was just grateful for the extra time with Guy. And tried to imagine, as they strolled apparently coincidentally down the road again to Arcadia, that Guy felt that little swell of gratitude, too.

  THE CHILDREN SAW JOE BEFORE HE SAW THEM. IT wouldn't have been hard; he was thrust deep under the bonnet of an Austin Healey, wrestling with a distributor cap. Frederick, walking past on his way back from picking up groceries with Sylvia and Virginia, ran up behind him and thrust a hand still sticky with some unidentified sweet up under Joe's shirt.

  "Celia's going to have a baby!"

  Joe emerged, rubbing his head where it had hit on the underside of the hood.

  "Frederick!" Virginia, casting an anxious look out onto the road, dived into the open-fronted garage and began hauling her charge away.

  "She is! I heard her and Mummy talking about how to make one last night. And Mummy said she's got to get Guy to take care of his matters and then she won't have to have a new baby every year."

  "Frederick. I'll tell your mother you've been spouting nonsense! Sorry," Virginia mouthed at Joe as Frederick wriggled free of her usually iron grasp.

  "Why don't you come anymore?" Sylvia stood in front of him, her head tilted to one side. "You were going to show me how to do Monopoly, and you didn't come the next day like you said."

  Joe rubbed at his hands with a rag. "Sorry," he said. "I've been a bit busy."

  "Lottie says it's because you're cross with her."

  Joe stopped rubbing. "Is that what she says?"

  "She says you stopped coming because she's going out with Tommy Steele."

  Joe found himself smiling despite himself.

  "Is Lottie having a baby, too?" Frederick was peering into the engine, reaching in an exploratory plump pink arm.

  "Sylvia. Freddie. Come on."

  "If Lottie has a baby, will you teach it how to play Monopoly?"

  "If you have an eraser, you only have to have one baby."

  Joe, retrieving Frederick's hand, had begun to shake his head. Virginia, beside him, started to laugh despite herself.

  Freddie, sensing their mirth, began to gather pace. "Lottie is having a baby with Tommy Steele."

  "You want to watch what you're saying, Freddie. Someone might believe you." She turned to Joe, giggling. She liked Joe. He was obviously wasting his time mooning over Lottie. The silly girl thought she was too good for him by the looks of it, too important, seeing as how she lived with the Holdens as one of their own. But she wasn't any better than Virginia. She had just got lucky.

  "It'll be Elvis Presley she's stepping out with next, according to these two." She smoothed her hair back, wishing she had worn a bit of lipstick this morning, like she'd intended.

  But Joe didn't seem to notice. He didn't even seem to think Elvis Presley was funny. He'd gone all serious again.

  "You out much lately, then, Joe? Been over to Clacton at all?" Virginia moved a little closer to him, positioning herself so that her slim legs were directly in his view.

  Joe looked down, and shifted a bit on his feet.

  "No. Been kind of busy."

  "Freddie
's right. We haven't seen you around much."

  "No. Well."

  "I got a thumbnail. Look." Frederick thrust his hand at Joe.

  "A hangnail, Freddie. I told you. And it'll go soon. Stop waving it around at people."

  "I can make a hydrogen bomb. You can buy hydrogen at the chemist. I heard Mr. Ansty say."

  Joe glanced over at the clock, as if waiting for them to go. But Virginia pressed on.

  "He means hydrogen peroxide. Look, Joe, there's a few of us going to the new dance hall over on Colchester Road on Saturday. If you wanted to come, I'm sure we could get you a ticket." She paused. "There's this band from London. They're meant to be really good. They do all the rock and roll numbers. We'd have a laugh."

  Joe looked at her, blushed, and wrung at his rag.

  "Think about it, then."

  "Thanks, Virginia. Thanks. I'll . . . I'll, er, let you know."

  IN THE YEAR 1870 AN AMERICAN SEA CAPTAIN CALLED Lorenzo Dow Baker docked at Port Antonio, Jamaica, and, on taking a leisurely stroll through one of the local markets, discovered that the natives were particularly fond of eating a strangely shaped yellow fruit. Captain Baker, an enterprising soul, thought the fruits looked and smelled inviting. He bought 160 bunches of them for a shilling each and stored them down in the hold of his ship. When he returned to port in New Jersey, the United States of America, eleven days later, the local fruit merchants leaped upon the fruit, paying him the grand sum of two dollars a bunch.

  "Not a bad profit," said Julian Armand.

  "For a few bananas. The locals went mad for the new fruit. Those that could see past the strangeness to the sweetness . . . they were the ones who got the reward. And that was really the start of the fruit-importing industry. Old Baker became the Boston Fruit Company. And the company that grew from that company is one of the biggest exporters today. Dad used to tell me that as a bedtime story." He paused, grinning at Lottie. "He doesn't like telling it anymore, as the company is so much bigger than his."

  "A competitive man," said Julian, who was sitting with his bare feet up on a stack of books. He had a pile of lithographs on his lap and was sorting them into two smaller piles, one on each side of him on the sofa cushions. Beside him Stephen, a pale, freckled young man who never seemed to speak, picked up those Julian had discarded and examined them closely, too, as if it were a matter of courtesy. He was, apparently, a playwright. Lottie had added the "apparently," in the manner of Mrs. Holden, as it had recently occurred to her that none of them, except Frances, seemed to do anything at all.

  "And his business is successful?"

  "It is now. I mean, I don't know how much money he makes or anything, but I do know that since I was a boy our houses have got bigger. And our cars."

  "Competitiveness has its rewards. And your father sounds very determined."

  "Can't bear to lose at anything. Even to me."

  "Do you play chess, Guy?"

  "I haven't in a while. Do you fancy a game, Mr. Armand?"

  "No, not I. Useless, I am, as a tactical thinker. No, if you are any good, you should play George. George's mind is pure mathematics," said Adeline. "Pure logic. I often think he is half man, half machine."

  "You mean he's cold."

  "Not cold, exactly. George can be terrifically kind. But not a man to love." The apparently gentle conversation belied the fact that there was an edge to the air that afternoon that had little to do with the imminent onset of autumn. Lottie had not sensed it at first, a barely perceptible vibration between the people in the room, a charge. Adeline paused, lifting a strand of Lottie's hair. "No, not a man to fall in love with."

  Lottie sat silently at Adeline's feet, trying not to blush at Adeline's use of the word, roused from a reverie of cargo ships and exotic fruits. Adeline was dressing her hair with tiny embroidered roses that she had rediscovered in a cushioned box. "I had them sewn on my wedding dress," she said. Lottie had been horrified. "It was just a dress, Lottie. I like to keep only the best of the past."

  She had insisted on sewing them into Lottie's hair, "just to see." Lottie had refused at first; she wasn't entirely sure what Adeline would "see" with a load of fabric buds in her hair. But then Guy had said yes, she should. That she should allow Adeline to untangle her long plait, that she should sit quietly while it was brushed and then ministered to. And the thought of having Guy's gaze upon her, no matter for how long, was so delicious that Lottie, with the requisite protestations, had finally acquiesced. "I'll have to take it out before we go, though. Mrs. H would have a fit."

  Adeline paused as Frances walked through from the terrace; Lottie felt her hands still on her hair and Adeline's faint intake of breath as she passed. Frances had not said a word in the hour and a half that they had been there. Lottie hadn't noticed at first; all her senses were trained on Guy, and it was quite common for Frances to be outside these days, working on her mural. But then Lottie, too, had become aware of a certain froideur, the way that Frances refused to answer Adeline's repeated inquiries about whether she would like a drink, a new paintbrush, some of Guy's delicious fruit.

  Lottie, glancing up as she passed, had seen Frances's long jaw tense and tighten, as if barely containing some violent response. Her square, bony shoulders were rigid, and she bent forward over her tray of paint as if daring anyone to obstruct her path. It would have looked almost aggressive had it not been for the soft pink blur to her eyes, the way her eyelashes had separated wetly into the points of little stars.

  Julian has upset her, Lottie thought suddenly. She was never like this before he arrived. Somehow Julian's mere presence had altered her demeanor; this was her discomfiture made explicit.

  "Can I help with your painting, Frances?" Lottie said.

  But Frances, disappearing into the kitchen, did not respond.

  There were four more days until Guy's parents arrived to meet the Holdens, and Lottie, conscious that this would likely spell an end to their time together, was intently memorizing and storing up each moment of their time there, like a small child hoarding sweets. It was a problematic task, as often she became so focused on trying to imprint it all on her memory that she appeared distracted and vacant to those around her. "Lottie has left us again," Adeline would say, smiling. And Lottie, several minutes later, would jump, suddenly aware that she was the focus of attention.

  Guy said nothing. He seemed to accept those parts of her character that other people felt the need to remark upon. He didn't question them anyway, and Lottie, who was heartily sick of having her character questioned, was grateful.

  The Bancrofts would arrive on Saturday and would stay in the Riviera Hotel, where they had booked the best room, the one with a huge private terrace overlooking the bay. ("A little flashy," said Mrs. Chilton, who was rather put out that Uplands had not been called upon to accommodate the visitors. "But then I suppose they are practically foreigners.") And since Guy had announced their imminent arrival, Mrs. Holden had dissolved into a domestic frenzy, leaving the overworked Virginia furious.

  "I think I should like to meet your parents, Guy. Your father sounds a very interesting man," said Julian.

  "He . . . I'd say he's a bit of an acquired taste," said Guy. "He's a little more direct than some Brits are used to. I think some find him a touch American. A touch brash. Plus, he's only really interested in business. Everything else he finds a bit of a bore."

  "And your mother? How does she cope with living with such a force of nature?"

  "She laughs at him a lot. In fact, I think she's the only person who does laugh at him. He's rather explosive, you see. It's quite easy to be . . . intimidated by him."

  "But you are not."

  "No." He paused and glanced sideways at Lottie. "Then, I've never done anything to upset him."

  The unspoken "yet" hung in the air. Lottie felt it and was faintly chilled by it. She looked away from Guy down at her shoes, which were scuffed from running around on the beach with Mr. Beans. Mr. Holden had remarked that he had never known th
e dog walked so often.

  Adeline, meanwhile, got up and left the room, apparently in search of Frances. There was a silence, while Julian continued to sort through his lithographs, occasionally holding one up to the light and "hmphing" in either an approving or a derogatory manner. Stephen had uncurled from beside him and stretched, his thin cotton shirt lifting to reveal a pale belly as his arms reached for the ceiling.

  Lottie glanced at Guy, blushing as she met his eye. Wherever he was in a room (sometimes outside a room), she was acutely aware of his presence, as if she could pick up tiny vibrations on the air, and she found herself quivering in response. As she looked back at her shoes, letting the weight of the rosebuds pull her hair down in a sheet to hide her face, she was conscious that he did not look away.

  They both jumped slightly at the sound of shouting. It was Frances's voice, muffled, so that it was impossible to hear what she was saying. The tenor, however, was unmistakable.

  Adeline's voice could be heard underneath it, sweeter, reasoning, before Frances's voice exploded again--an exclamation that something was "impossible!"--and then a loud crash as some piece of kitchen equipment hit the flagstone floor.

  Lottie stole a look at Julian. But he seemed remarkably unconcerned; his head lifted for a moment, as if reaffirming something he already suspected, and then he returned to his lithographs, muttering under his breath about print quality. Stephen glanced over, pointed something out on the surface of the paper, and they nodded together.

  "No, you don't, because you choose not to. You have a choice, Adeline, a choice. Even if it is easier for you to pretend you do not."

  They didn't flinch. It was as if they couldn't hear. Lottie felt mortified. She hated to hear people argue; it set her nerves jangling, made her feel five years old, vulnerable and impotent again.

  "I won't have it, Adeline. I won't. I have told you, so many times. No, I have begged you . . ."

  Go and stop them, Lottie willed. Someone. But Julian didn't look up.

  "Want to go?" mouthed Guy when she finally braved his eye.

  Julian lifted a friendly hand in greeting as they exited. He was chuckling at something Stephen had said. In the kitchen all was silent.