Free Love Falls by Esther Freud Page B

clean, ironed cotton. May tugged at a lower drawer which sagged almost to the floor, and after rifling through she found a pale-blue vest and a pair of shorts. Gratefully Lara pulled them on, kicking off her wet things, rearranging the towel round her shoulders for warmth.
    ‘Right,’ May said, and led her out along a narrow corridor, past a bathroom into which she slung her wet clothes, down several steps until they passed the half-open door of another bedroom. There were plates and books strewn across the floor, clothes and magazines and torn packets of Marlboro jumbled on the bed. ‘Actually, hang on,’ and running in, May pulled an ash-grey jumper off the bed. ‘Kip won’t mind,’ and she hurled it to Lara.
    It was soft as satin and crumpled, but the creases fell out when she put it on. Lara folded the sleeves over and watched it fall against her thighs.
    ‘Thanks,’ she said, but when she looked up May was watching her. ‘What?’
    ‘Nothing.’ It was as if she was shaking out some thought. ‘You just reminded me of someone,’ and frowning May flung the towel into another bathroom as she led Lara out of the house.
    The party by the pool had broken up and everyone along the candlelit table had changed places again. A plate of chocolates was being passed around, and Kip, who was sitting in his father’s old place, legs draped over the edge of the table, grabbed at it, taking as many as he could before it was passed on.
    ‘I’m so sorry.’ Roland’s wife Tabitha sat down beside her. ‘I hear my dreadful husband’s been up to his old tricks again. Anyway’ – she smiled sweetly – ‘you look ravishing in that outfit. Rollo,’ she called, ‘you’re an absolute disgrace.’
    Of the three sisters that she’d met Tabitha looked the most like Kip, with dark hair falling silkily against her face, a wide mouth and those blue eyes, so clear, the whites with a shimmer of blue too. She was wearing a cotton dress, gathered below the bust to fall over the mound of her stomach, sticking out so separately from her it seemed rude not to acknowledge it was there.
    ‘When’s the baby due?’ Lara asked, and Tabitha took her hand and placed it on her belly. It was an odd sensation, so hard and hot, but pleasant, so that Lara had to force herself to let go.
    ‘At the end of the summer, six more weeks,’ and Tabitha glanced over at her husband, talking to Caroline, bending close in to her, his eyelids lowered, using all his skills to draw her in.
    Lara noticed an empty chair beside her father, and before it was taken she sidled along the table and sank down.
    ‘Hello.’ He looked at her quizzically, unsure what it was about her that had changed, and seeing them together Caroline stood up, leaving Roland unceremoniously mid-sentence, and asked if they were ready to go home.
    ‘Yes,’ they said together, and not wanting to break up the entire party they murmured their goodbyes to Pamela only and walked slowly to their car. Caroline, her face white in the moonlight, stumbled a little on the step and Lambert took her arm and held her close as they climbed through the door in the wall.
    ‘Shall I drive?’ he offered when they reached the car, but she turned on him fiercely.
    ‘I’m perfectly all right.’
    Back in her room, Lara looked at herself in the mirror, swathed in the soft grey cashmere of Kip’s jumper. She pulled it up to her nose and breathed. It smelt faintly of cigarettes, of chlorine and the damp dust of stone. She breathed in deeper, pressed the cuffs against her face, and still chilled from her unexpected dip she climbed under the covers with it on.
    She woke in the early hours of the morning, her heart racing, the terror of an unremembered dream pulsing through her blood. It’s just because I’m too hot, she told herself, unpeeling the jumper, and she got out of bed and went to the window for air.
    She didn’t notice it at first – she was too taken up with the lingering fear of her