The Forget-Me-Not Sonata(31)

Audrey smiled and sat up. ‘I’ll tell you everything if it means I can go on seeing Louis in secret,’ she said, climbing off the bed and slipping out of her clothes.

‘I’ll cover for you,’ Isla suggested enthusiastically, longing to be included. ‘Oh, what fun we’ll have hatching plans and fooling them all.’ Audrey hung her dress over the back of her chair. ‘You’d better get up early tomorrow and have a bath, you reek of smoke.’

‘Do I?’ she pulled a clump of curls in front of her nose and sniffed it.

‘Yes, you do,’ said Isla. ‘But I like it. It smells like forbidden fruit. Come on, get into bed and tell me how it all began. Did it start that first night when he came to dinner? Did you know he was The One then? When I engineered that drink with Cecil at the Club you weren’t in love with him at all, were you?’ Isla sighed in amazement. ‘I can’t believe I didn’t notice. Well, I’m not going to be kept in the dark any longer, am I?’ Audrey slipped between the sheets and curled up against her sister.

‘I lost my heart to Louis the first moment I saw him smile . . .’ she began, as if she were reading from a romantic novel. Telling Isla was a release. The unburdening of her conscience made her feel less guilty. It also enabled Audrey to relive each moment in vivid detail, setting it into the poetry of words and thereby making it more real. Isla listened to Audrey’s adventures without the slightest twinge of envy. Certainly she would have liked to be taken to dance in Palermo, to sneak across the garden at midnight for secret rendezvous, to lead a clandestine existence which ran parallel to everyone else’s without them having the slightest knowledge of it. But the very idea of love left her squirming with repulsion. Wet kisses, clammy hands, physical intimacy were enough to make her skin crawl with a hundred ants. The fun was in the flirt, the flattery and the flouting of rules. What fascinated her about Audrey’s romance was that it went contrary to everyone’s expectations of her. Audrey was the sensible sister; this sort of behaviour would have hung better on her shoulders. Not one to be overly sensitive Isla was aware of the role reversal and she couldn’t help but worry for Audrey if she got caught.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked after her sister had finished describing the dance in the square in Palermo.

‘I don’t know. I’m trying not to think of the future,’ she replied, but the future was all she ever dreamed about. ‘I’m going to spend the rest of my life with Louis, though,’ she said resolutely. ‘Whatever happens.’

‘Daddy won’t be too happy to give you away to him. I heard him talking to Mummy in the garden a few days ago, while you and Cecil were playing chess on the terrace. They think Louis is frighteningly unreliable.’

‘Just because he’s not like other people,’ she exclaimed in frustration. ‘He hasn’t murdered anyone. Goodness, people here are so narrow-minded and petty.’

‘I’m only preparing you, Audrey. They’ll be heartbroken. Mummy adores Cecil.’

Audrey breathed in deeply as a heaviness sunk upon her shoulders like a pair of invisible hands. ‘Give them time. I don’t care how long it takes. They’ll love Louis like I do in the end,’ she argued.

‘I hope so,’ said Isla.

Both girls closed their eyes, but neither found it easy to sleep. Finally, they both resigned themselves to Fate, relieved to step out of the struggle and leave to destiny what neither could control. Entwined like lovers they slept with their long, corkscrew hair spilling over the pillows like silk. That is how their mother found them in the morning. But because it was Saturday and there was no school she decided to let them both sleep in. As she closed the door softly and walked away she smiled to herself; Audrey and Isla enjoyed a rare bond. As well as sisters they were friends and the thought of them asleep like a pair of puppies delighted her. She made her way down the stairs towards the commotion of her three sons and husband eating breakfast outside on the terrace, under the vines.

The next couple of months Audrey and Louis were able to see so much more of each other, thanks to the shrewd plans concocted for them by Isla. While Henry and Rose harboured ill-disguised hopes for Audrey and Cecil, interpreting their increasing closeness as a sure indication of their affection, Isla helped plant the notes at the station, accompanied Audrey to the Club and covered for her so that she could be alone with Louis. She rode out with them across the plains and they didn’t ask her to leave because they enjoyed showing off their affection for each other and besides, they owed her so much. Without Isla their liaison would have been limited to the orange orchard. Isla was thrilled by their romantic night-time trips into the city and kept watch from the landing until they had disappeared round the corner into the shadows. Then she slept in Audrey’s bed with half an ear on the door, ready to spring up the minute she returned from Palermo, her eyes sparkling with excitement, the adventures of the dawn spilling out in dreamy words like poetry. Isla loved these moments best of all. She lived the romance through her sister without having to experience the horrors of physical intimacy. They’d lie in the pale morning light, their arms casually draped over each other, and whisper until their throats ached and their eyes stung with tiredness. This was an intimacy Isla treasured. An innocence she clung onto for fear of the adult world. That was one secret she couldn’t reveal to anyone, not even to Audrey. She didn’t want to grow up, ever.