Chapter Thirty
‘Shhh!’
‘What is it? Oh, God, it’s a bloody peacock! Did you know there was a bloody peacock?’
‘I think Margo might have mentioned one . . .’
‘It’s stalking me!’
‘I swear it’s not, Leo. Peacocks don’t stalk. They’re far too aloof.’
‘I don’t like the way it’s looking at me. What if it does its thing?’
‘What thing?’
‘That swooshing thing, when the feathers go up, like in Jurassic Park.’
‘You’re an idiot!’
Two rather half-cut people were attempting to walk up the cobbled stone driveway to Villa Margo, a large peacock standing on the grass to their right, watching them.
‘I’ve just never cared that much for birds . . .’ said Leo. They staggered past the peacock, Leo staring at him suspiciously. ‘. . . since a damned seagull stole a bag of frites from me on the Riviera in 1992.’
Olivia laughed. ‘How continental! You never told me this.’
‘I was ashamed,’ said Leo, which for some reason made Olivia howl with laughter. ‘Hush,’ he admonished, ‘or you’ll make him do his thing.’
The peacock stayed tightly composed, his little crown like a tiny hang-gliders’ hammock, but the two creeping past him did not, and Leo tripped somehow on something – a stone, a twig, his other foot – and before Olivia knew it, he was lying on his back on the grass to the right of the driveway, feet in the air like a startled beetle, laughing his head off.
‘Shhh! You’ll have Margo out here!’ She had no idea where the other writers were. In bed, probably. They had not been on the terrace of Nico’s when she and Leo had eventually come down from the hidden balcony at the party.
‘Clumsy idiot!’ Leo muttered through his laughter. ‘What a bloody clumsy idiot!’
She flopped down next to him on the grass, tried to put a hand over his mouth before she collapsed in giggles, too, and there they both were, helpless on the grass.
‘I do have fun with you, Olivia,’ Leo said eventually, and they got to their feet and made their way to the terrace, and then to the side of the pool – Olivia shoeless, Leo with his tie slung over his shoulder.
He flopped on to one of the loungers, his face half in shadow, half-lit gleefully by the pool room light.
‘Sit down,’ he said. ‘Let me look at you.’
‘You’ve been looking at me all night.’
Olivia fell on to the other lounger. They both lay there, their heads turned, staring at each other.
She wanted him, she thought. Yes, she was a little drunk, but something about Italy and this night and her desire for a connection with somebody made her feel he had the answers to all of her questions.
That he could be her salve, her stay, her succour.
She didn’t want to be flopped on loungers with Leo by the pool, as lovely as the night air was, and the sound of the cicadas in the bushes and the full, ripe moon overhead.
She wanted to be in his room, his bed – or hers.
She wanted to remember every small detail about him.
She wanted to learn still more. She didn’t care about the past and she didn’t care about the future.
She only cared about now – this moment. And she wanted to spend it in his arms.
‘I need water,’ she said. ‘And I don’t mean getting in the pool.
I have water in my room.’ Neither of them moved.
Leo’s eyes were as languid as the pool. She could feel her blood, her heart rising and falling in her chest, the soft pulse at her neck, her wrists.
‘You’ll come to my room?’ she asked him, the very heart of her loud and clear.
‘OK.’ Leo stood up and held out his hand. This time, it was not the soft touch of once-lovers, nostalgic and hesitant, but the urgent contact of the here and now, as he slid his fingers to interlock with hers and held on tight.
In the villa, in her room, when they were standing close together, he made a sound, almost a groan.
It came from somewhere deep within him and, in her, it stirred something she had not felt since they were last together.
The touch of him was like a small fire; the way she gave into him with such immediacy a revelation, although it wasn’t a surprise, as she knew it would be like this should they ever come together again.
That it had to be this way between them.
He was caressing her chin. Her hand was at the back of his head, in his hair.
Her other hand was gently undoing the buttons of his shirt, from the top to the bottom, until it was at the concave scoop of his stomach above the waistband of his trousers, and now he was unzipping her dress slowly at the side – how did he know?
– and fiddling for the tiny mother-of-pearl button that fastened the teardrop cut-out at the nape of her neck, careful not to break it for it was delicate, like she was.
He abandoned it for a moment, to place his thumb within the drop and rub small circles on her skin.
And then the mother-of-pearl button was dealt with, and the dress simply became a piece of fabric that disconnected from her and fell away to the floor, and she was in her underwear, and she was unzipping his trousers and it was time to have her heart try to catch his again, like a swinging trapeze artist reaching for another in the dark, with just the dim light from the auditorium below to guide them.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t,’ he said. He was tracing his forefinger over her collarbone and down into the soft hollow beneath it.
‘Maybe we shouldn’t what?’ she murmured.
‘Sleep together.’
‘No?’ she murmured, then kissed him once more, deeply, longingly.
He groaned again. ‘No,’ he whispered. ‘Maybe it’s better if we don’t. If I get into that bed with you, who knows if I’ll ever get out again.’
‘Would that be such a bad thing?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’ He pulled away from her, and she was so surprised, so disappointed, she wanted to cry out. What was he doing?
‘Leo?’ He was frowning. He was running his hand through his hair. He was stepping back from her. ‘Leo? What’s happening?’
‘I don’t know if this is the right thing to do,’ he said. ‘I feel we’re rushing into this. You’re drunk, I’m drunk. I don’t want to take liberties.’
‘You’re not taking liberties! I want this. I want this, Leo. Hey!’
His hair was all mussed up. He had taken another step back. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No. Let’s not do this. It’s too . . . monumental. It’s getting us in too deep.’
‘Why? It can mean nothing. It can mean nothing at all.’
She didn’t believe that, but let him do so if it would let them continue.
‘It won’t mean “nothing”. I can’t. I can’t . . .’
She knew it was over.
‘You want to see how we both feel in the morning?’
She stepped back, too, now. Rejected, accepting.
She inadvertently gave a little hiccup and they both smiled bashfully.
The moment was truly over, the mood gone.
Maybe it was for the best. She was drunk, and so was he.
Perhaps this was unwise. Perhaps in the morning everything would look clearer and she would see this for the mistake it was.
Perhaps he was right. It was too monumental. It could only lead to trouble.
She tried to steady her breathing. She tried to be sensible. She walked over to her desk and started randomly ordering her pens.
‘You’d better go,’ she said. ‘See you in the morning.’