‘It’s been a pleasure,’ she replied enthusiastically. ‘And welcome to Hurlingham. Please come as often as you like. You’re almost family after all.’ She noticed Cecil pay special attention to Audrey before he and his brother started up the street towards the Club. She had been pleasantly surprised to see how well they both got on and it hadn’t escaped her notice either that while they were talking under the bird tree, Audrey had not once, but twice, cast her eyes across the garden to Cecil. She inhaled the sugary air and sensed the blossoming of young love.
That night Audrey lay in bed and brooded on the sudden infatuation that had, quite inadvertently, changed the colour of everything. She couldn’t sleep and she was too restless to read. She could hear the ghostly whistles of the policemen who patrolled the streets as they signalled to each other and a warm breeze now slipped in through the open window, carrying with it the scent of the orange trees and jasmine, but neither the sweet smells from the garden nor the reassuring whistling could soothe her tormented spirit. It was humid, too hot to find a comfortable position to lie in. So she threw off her covers and tiptoed down the stairs, across the blue shadows into the silent hallway. Once out in the garden she could breathe again. The dew seeped in between her toes, cool and wet and pleasurable. Following their earlier footsteps through the orange orchard she recalled the brief conversation with Louis that had so unsettled her. She conjured up his easy smile and the distant light in his eyes and dwelt on his frightening unpredictability and delicious impulsiveness. He seemed beyond the rules that everyone else lived by, following his desires with little regard for protocol and etiquette. Audrey was captivated by this man whose vague charm was in sharp contrast to his direct speech. She couldn’t work him out – there was no one else like him to set a precedent. In spite of her instincts that warned her against him she was unable to harness the cyclone that whipped her emotions into foam. There was something terrifyingly unstable about him but at the same time oddly familiar. She felt at ease with her fear.
When she returned to her bed sleep no longer eluded her but wrapped her in dreams so pleasant she longed to hold onto them. In the twilight gloom of her imaginings she danced with Louis across the old cobbled streets of Palermo. Their bodies were united, so close she could feel the heat of his skin through her dress and the warmth of his breath on her neck and they both knew the steps as if they had been dancing them all their lives.
Chapter 3
When the Garnet family returned to Buenos Aires at the beginning of March after six weeks in the Uruguayan resort of Punta del Este they discovered to their disappointment that while Cecil Forrester had continued to grow in everyone’s esteem his brother had done little to win people’s affection. Of course, his antics hadn’t escaped the notice of the Crocodiles, who were only too delighted to discuss them during their Thursday afternoon painting session in Diana Lewis’s overgrown garden.
‘He does play the strangest tunes on the piano,’ Diana said, dipping her brush into a jar of murky water before bringing it up to her mouth to lick it dry. ‘He goes into a trance with that serious look on his face. Most peculiar.’ Of the four Crocodiles she appeared to be the most innocuous, innocently making comments for the others to interpret and seize upon like hyenas, thereby distancing herself from the actual kill. But she enjoyed the ripping of flesh no less than the others. ‘Sky, I find sky so dreadfully difficult,’ she complained airily, waiting for the others to pick up the bait she had just laid. She could always count on Charlotte Osborne.
‘Diana, ever the queen of understatement. He’s positively loopy. The piano is the least of it, after all, he’s a gifted musician, there’s no doubt about it. It’s his whole manner I find disturbing. I don’t believe his mind is all there.’ She lowered her voice and hissed, ‘Loopy, quite loopy. He didn’t lose it in the war like all those brave heroes. No, Louis Forrester is mercurial and bohemian without good reason. I am not prejudiced against people who are different; poor Dorothy Franklin’s son is simple, born that way, and one has complete sympathy. But Louis isn’t simple, just arrogant. Yes, it is a form of arrogance not to wear a tie for dinner, for example, not to bother with one’s appearance. He displays an open disregard for convention and it’s convention that shapes our society and keeps us all civilized. Louis Forrester isn’t very civilized, is he?’ Charlo sniffed her disapproval. ‘You’ve got a blue mouth, Diana,’ she added curtly, observing her friend over her glasses with eyes as narrow as a serpent’s. ‘I just wash the sky in.’