Free Rocks, The by Peter Nichols Page B

started up on the second kick. His mother’s gardener always filled the tank and cleaned the carburetor and plugs when Luc was expected for a visit.
    He tore out of town. The warm night air blew his shirt open and felt cool on his chest, a sensation he remembered from so many long ago nights in Mallorca, on his way to where he believed some answer might be found—as now.
    They would hear the whine getting louder, so he only drove halfway up the long drive. He got off and laid the bike against a carob tree. But the house was dark as he approached. There was no car. He could see from below that the doors to the terrace were closed. He walked up the steps. Still no sound or light. He tried the kitchen door and it was locked. But Charlie was here; she must be too.
    He knocked.
    Then he called. “Aegina?”
    He walked through the scrub around the house looking up at the closed windows.
    “Aegina!”
he yelled up at the empty house.
“Aeginaahhhh! I’m sorry!”
    •   •   •
    A
fter parking the motorcycle
back in the garage, Luc walked around the house and across the patio to the bar. It was deserted, no Sally. While he helped himself to a bottle of Perrier from the fridge, he became aware of a woman grunting, straining, as if pushing a boulder up a hill or having a despairingly difficult bowel movement . . . then a man sounding as if he was urging on a reluctant horse . . . Fucking. It wasn’t loud, but it was oddly clear. Luc couldn’t make out where it was coming from. Not the barracks, too far away; not the house. Then he remembered that Bronwyn was always saying there was this strange St. Paul’s Cathedral effect: from her room she could hear everything that was being said in the bar at a conversational tone. The fucking was coming from Bronwyn’s room, along the wall, up by the pool. “Come on!
Come on!
” the man was exhorting now. Luc recognized Dominick’s voice. It made perfect sense. Solace where you find it. Or as Somerset Maugham had written about impromptu sex: you can dine every night if you’re willing to eat turnips.
    He took the bottle of Perrier and went up to his room. April was lying with her back on the floor, her feet raised against the wall above her, toes aimed at the ceiling.
    “Where have you been?” she complained, in perfect counterpoint to her balanced pose. “I looked everywhere for you.”
    “I went for a ride on my motorcycle. Are you okay?”
    She didn’t answer.
    “What?” said Luc.
    “I just got off the phone with Aaron.”
    “Ah.”
    “He really wants me back.”
    “He always did, didn’t he? I thought it was you who broke up with him.”
    “It was.”
    “But now you’re going back to him.”
    With exquisite yogic abdominal muscle control, April lowered her legs, swiveled on her buttocks, then rose into an erect-backed lotus position, pulling her feet onto her thighs.
    “You see, the way you say that,” she said, “I don’t think you care about me at all. I mean, like, I get the feeling if I said that—I’m going back to Aaron—you’d just say okay. I don’t think you’d even want to talk about it. I think you’d prefer to just go to bed and read a book.”
    Luc sat down on the bed, stretched his legs out, and looked at April. “But you did just say that, didn’t you?”
    •   •   •
    C
harlie and Bianca
had danced too. They revolved slowly on the dance floor, their bodies pushed closely together. When he changed the records, she came into the music room with him and they kissed.
    At midnight, she said, “I’ve got to go.” They kissed again, as if they hadn’t been doing it all night.
    “I should probably stay until Lulu says I can go,” said Charlie. He was staying at Bianca’s house while his mother and grandfather were in London. “See you later . . . well”—he grinned—“in the morning anyway.” And Bianca left for the short walk home.
    Twenty minutes later, Lulu came into the music room and said: “Leave