Page 43 of A Sky Painted Gold

“Mmm,” I choke.

“I actually rather liked him,” Robert continues silkily. “Poor fellow’s probably misunderstood. Just after a bit of peace and quiet…”

I can’t fight the laughter any more, and it erupts from me as I finally look up. His green eyes are laughing too, I think, though he is much better than me at keeping it held in.

“Not a very flattering portrait, thank you, Louise.” He tries to sound disapproving.

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say innocently. “Did you see something of yourself in Lord Marvell?”

He says nothing, only treating me to another stern look.

“How was London?” I ask.

Something sad passes over his face now, and he raises a hand, rubbing his forehead in a gesture of weariness. “London was…” he breathes out “… exhausting.” He says it quietly, like a confession. It is unlike him to sound so … vulnerable. I still find him very hard to read, and like his sister he has yet to confide in me. At times I feel like I know him a bit better now, that he has unbent just a little towards me over the weeks, but at others it’s as if he’s still a stranger – shut off and remote.

I lean forward. “Is something wrong?” I ask. I want to reach out and touch his hand, but I don’t.

He looks at me, and for a second I think he is going to open up, to tell me the secret sorrow that he is carrying, but then he smiles. It is not a real smile, just a curling of the lips. “Oh, no,” he says lightly. “Just too many late nights, a lot of boring parties.”

I nod, pretending to believe him. It is clear to me – it has been for some time – that the Cardews are hiding something. There is something dark that sometimes flickers around the edges of this golden daydream that we’re living in. Something that makes Caitlin hum like a bulb about to shatter, something taut in Robert’s eyes when he looks at her. Part of me wants them to trust me enough with whatever it is, but another cowardly part of me chooses to ignore it, to add it to the list of troubles that I am casting aside. It is, I realize, what they are doing too, carefully removing anything that doesn’t fit into the world we are making, one lit by pleasure and indulgence.

At that moment Caitlin and Laurie step in through the open French windows, arm in arm and deep in conversation about a mutual acquaintance who has evidently been up to something scandalous.

“Robert!” Caitlin comes to a halt, a smile splitting her face before she rushes to embrace her brother. He wraps his arms around her, and over her head he glances at Laurie. Laurie nods her head just a little. Then she notices me intercepting the look, and her smile widens to include me.

“And Lou’s back as well,” she says. “The whole family together again.”

“And now that you’re finally all here, shall we go and have drinks on the lawn?” Caitlin asks, tucking her hand into mine and pulling me along in her wake. I follow her into the sunshine.

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

Two days later, I am still here on the island. The day is one of the hottest so far and I am sitting out on the beach. Robert disappeared again this morning, and Caitlin is off making long, gossipy phone calls in the cool of the house. The others have been coming and going, but I am feeling lazy, weighed down by the heat. It is the kind of heat that wraps itself around you, and that shimmers in the distance, sending ripples through the air. There isn’t even a whisper of a breeze coming in from the sea, and I pull my hair away from my sticky neck. Even in my thin summer dress my body feels hot and sleepy. I am toying with the idea of throwing myself into the water, or of getting up in search of a cold drink which, on the one hand, will stop me from dying of dehydration, and on the other involves me actually moving, when I hear a voice call my name.

I turn to see that Caitlin is skipping down the steps towards me. She stops in front of me, and the close-fitting straw hat on top of her blonde head is one that I haven’t seen before. Pale blue silk flowers adorn the brim, matching her cobweb-light dress.

“New hat?” I ask, looking up at her. She stands in front of the sun, and the relief of the temporary shade that is cast over me is immediate. The light flares gold around her silhouette, and she scrunches up her nose in appreciation of my comment.

“I had Robert bring it back from London,” she says. “You always notice when I’m wearing something new. It’s so nice.”

“It’s easy.” I wince as she moves to the side and the harsh light nearly blinds me again. “You’re always wearing something new.”

“You sound just like my brother.” Caitlin rolls her eyes and slips down beside me. “Next thing, you’ll be telling me off for my extravagant spending.”

“No!” I exclaim, surprised. “Does he really?” I’ve never heard Robert mention money before. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of them mention money. And he’s always happy to indulge his sister – to indulge all of us, I suppose; after all, Agatha Christie novels don’t grow on trees, and he rarely fails to bring back a book he thinks that I will like when he returns from the city. It’s the sort of gesture that threw me at first, but over the last few weeks I’ve noticed that, just as Bernie told me, Robert can be surprisingly thoughtful: remembering throwaway comments, asking after Freya’s theatrics or Tom’s cricket match, anticipating what his sister or her guests might need in his absence so that Caitlin doesn’t have to worry.

Caitlin bares her teeth in a grimace. “Such a bore,” she says, her toes burying themselves in the sand.

We sit in companionable silence for a minute. Caitlin leans back, tipping her face towards the sunshine, and I pick up my notebook, reading through what I’ve written.

“Are you really not going to let me read it?” Caitlin asks, and her mouth is a rosy pout.

I shake my head. “Not a chance.”

Caitlin huffs. “You let Robert read them! I can’t believe you let Robert read them but not me.”

Nor can I. I shrug to cover my own confusion at this mysterious situation. “He didn’t give me much choice,” I say mildly. And that’s true enough … at least about the first chapter. After that I don’t really know how it’s happened. All I do know is that the writing is like a fine, silvery thread that connects Robert and me. It’s special and it’s private, and it feels like it could be easily broken.