Lara arrived at work early the next morning. Her eyes resembled something a bullfrog might be proud of, but she sat in her darkened room and dusted, wrapped and catalogued until her brain hurt. Somehow, reading the notes made by a man in hiding whose words betrayed a naked fear for his life, consoled and reminded her of her mission. This was her calling, to document the truth about history. It wasn’t her problem what the council decided to do with the knowledge after she’d finished.
Angela visited Lara with enquiries about her progress. She didn’t understand the processes required to heal such precious things and frowned as she concentrated.
“Look,” Lara said, handling the oldest diary with gentle, gloved fingers. “I’ve got rid of the dust. Can you see the detail in the pages better now?”
“Yes.” Angela pursed her lips and exhaled. “What’s next?”
“I’ve documented each of them, dating them by the events they describe. There’s a company in London which specialises in scanning artifacts. They have a special cradle which hangs beneath the copier, so they don’t need to crack the delicate spines. I thought I’d take them there.”
Angela’s eyes bugged. “Heck, yes. You’ll need to take them personally. We can’t risk sending them with a courier.” She flicked a red nailed finger towards the flaking leather on one manuscript. “Can they fix that?”
Lara winced. “We don’t fix things because it destroys their provenance. The rule is to do no harm. That’s what I’m working towards; cleaning them enough to make them readable, but not damaging them more than the rain already did. This one isn’t as bad as the one we found on top. It protected all the ones beneath it, but took the brunt of the damp through the sack cloth.”
“How expensive is this London company?” Angela winced. “The councillors gave me a secret budget, but it’s limited. They’re hoping to recoup any investment through publicity and exhibitions.”
Lara cocked her head. “I should advise you again to contact the National Archives. These manuscripts are a treasure for the whole country. We may have already contravened the legislation relating to the Queen’s Treasure Trove.” She bit her lip, knowing her advice fell on deaf ears.
Angela dismissed it with a predictable wave of her hand. “We will,” she promised. “But not yet. Get me a quote from the company and I’ll allocate a purchase order.” She lifted a finger to her lips to assert her request for confidentiality. “You’re sure this company can keep a secret?”
Lara nodded. “I can vouch for them. We used them all the time at the Tate.”
“What will you do with that one?” Angela pointed to the sorriest exhibit.
Lara’s eyes widened. “I can’t do anything with it. I’m an archivist, not a restorer. When I take the others to London, I’ll drop into the Tate and see if my old colleagues have any suggestions. It’s just an extra stop on the Underground.”
The fragility of the manuscript deterred Lara even from parting the binding to peek inside it. She suspected it continued the story which began in the first journal and forced herself to curb her curiosity. The priests’ tale would keep for another time when she could savour it without damaging the relic.
Working on the manuscripts satiated her dreadful ache for emotional closure, helping her to push her own private agonies to the back of her mind. Lara expended all her energy on their care, leaving herself with nothing available for despair at the end of each day. As Christmas marched nearer, Kerry involved herself in the annual nativity play and relieved Lara of the torturous Monday art class. Her evenings involved entertaining a new male colleague who seemed enamoured with her. Lara caught sight of him once from the bedroom window and spied the wine bottles in Kerry’s recycling bin on rubbish day.
Lara may have experienced a sense of abandonment, had numbness not occupied her soul. She walked from work to home, wasted the time in between, and then returned to work again. When Kerry cancelled their Monday art class, she worked for free on the manuscripts instead.
Arama left two weeks earlier and didn’t make contact. Lara watched him leave the house the day after her screaming fit. He used the back entrance from Nithsdale Avenue, crossing the car park towards Welland Park. She hadn’t seen him since. She wondered if he’d returned to New York and intended to stay away until after she’d left the town. Part of her hoped so, while the other part grieved.
The slam of Arama’s front door one Saturday morning sent her shooting from her armchair. A man and woman left through his front gate after glancing up at the windows. Concerned, she phoned Kerry.
“Hey.” Kerry yawned and Lara heard her shuffling around as though still bed. A male voice rumbled in the background and she cringed.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to wake you. It doesn’t matter.” Lara prepared to end the call.
“Don’t be daft.” Kerry yawned again. “We had a late night making scenery. I should have asked for your help. My donkey looks like a mutant. What’s wrong?”
Lara exhaled. “I just saw a couple leaving Arama’s house. Both in their early sixties, maybe. The woman wore a long coat and her white hair in a bun. They must have had a key. I didn’t know whether or not to call the police.” Another thought occurred to her, and she groaned. “Oh, don’t worry. I just realised he might have put the house up for sale. Maybe they’re prospective buyers.”
Kerry tutted. “No, don’t worry. It sounds like his parents. I’ve met them. They’re far too nice to have produced someone as horrid as him. I think they picked up the wrong baby at the hospital.”
“But they’re white,” Lara said. She winced and added, “Not that their skin colour matters.”
Kerry snorted. “Like I said, they must have grabbed the wrong baby. Somebody else has their nice, respectable son with the good manners and generous spirit. Arama would behave like an idiot regardless of his skin colour.”
“Ok, thanks. Enjoy your Saturday.” Lara ended the call and went back to her novel. The door slammed again later, and she ignored the sound of occupancy next door.
Aunt Catharine expected to arrive home in early April. Lara’s temporary contract at the museum ended just after Christmas, but the speed at which she worked predicted she’d finish much sooner. “I can’t keep living from week to week,” she told Marble as he jumped into her lap with a mewl. “It might be time to move on. Maybe Kerry will take responsibility for you if I secure a job before Aunt Catherine gets home.”
Lara planned her business trip to London for the second week in December. It seemed a foolish time to immerse herself in the capital’s Christmas frenzy, but she took advantage of her friend’s downturn in workload to trust her with the digitisation of the manuscripts. Lara looked forward to seeing the Christmas lights, but with nobody to buy presents for she planned to avoid the busy commercial parts of the city.
“You’re only going for one night?” Kerry frowned as she accepted the spare door key and instructions for feeding Marble. “It hardly seems worth it. Why don’t you visit Harrods and some of the boutique stores.” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back on her shoulders. “I just love London at Christmas. My favourite are the lights on Oxford Street.”
Lara smiled and gave her a wave. Her tiny suitcase skittered behind her on the pavement, containing the manuscripts and her overnight clothes.
It took fifty minutes for the fast train to travel from the station at Market Harborough to London, St. Pancreas. But Lara experienced a culture shock as she fought her way through dense foot traffic to the to the Underground line she needed. Jaunty Christmas music blared from every speaker and London heaved with milling bodies. A burly man tripped over Lara’s case and swore at her as he tried to overtake her in a queue. She maintained her grip on the heavy bag, hoping he hadn’t damaged the artifacts.
She arrived at the Tate Gallery moments before the agreed time. The huge stone steps up to the entrance filled her with mixed emotions. She paused to run her fingers down one of the wide bricks next to the front doors. Memories of her father rose in her inner vision, bringing with them pain and overwhelming loss. She’d run to New Zealand and back again, but the image had remained on the steps waiting for her.
During his cancer treatment, her father often caught the Tube to meet her for lunch. He’d bought a variety of sandwiches from different cafes on his way back from chemo, enjoying the food by proxy once his appetite abandoned him. Lara had eaten and chatted, believing he’d recover long past the point where the evidence foretold a different outcome.
She missed him with a heartrending ache and pressed her fingers to her lips to contain the wail of misery. She beat it back, the buried emotion and sense of loss retreating for now. Then she walked up the wide, familiar steps and into the gallery, bumping her suitcase behind her.
The fading spectre of her father turned to watch, his eyes sad and his olive skin pale.
Once inside the gallery, Lara breathed out a sigh of relief. As familiar to her as Aunt Catherine’s lounge, it felt like coming home. For the first time in a long while, Lara smiled.
A new member of staff worked the ticketing desk and greeted her with a smile. “Are you here for the Matisse exhibition?” she asked.
Lara shook her head. She swallowed and forced a brusqueness into her tone. “I’m here to see the curator,” she said. “Please can you let him know Lara is here?”
Paul Rochelle appeared at speed, his impeccable black suit rustling as he made his way down two levels to greet her. “Lara,” he cooed, embracing her. He kissed both of her cheeks and held her at arm’s length so he could appraise her. “Beautiful and talented as ever,” he said, his voice breathy.
The youngest curator the City of London had ever appointed, Paul Rochelle was a decade shy of his equals. He arrived at the gallery with impressive credentials after a career in France. He kept a possessive arm around Lara’s shoulders as he led her towards the lift. “Oh, let me take that,” he offered, clasping the suitcase handle in manicured fingers. He towed it along behind him as Lara’s high heels clicked along the corridor. “Did that woman from the back blocks pass on my message?” he demanded, eyeing her sideways. They paused at the end and he punched a button on the wall. A muffled whirring began as the lift responded to the summons.
“Back blocks?” Lara frowned.
Paul waved his hand, long fingers cutting through the air. “Somewhere in the north of the country. I can’t remember the place. Did she tell you what I said?”
Lara blinked and faltered. She remembered Angela mentioning her references but not her exact words. “I can’t recall,” she said, her words spilling out too fast.
Paul tutted. “I said I wanted you back here!” His protest held an element of pique. “I asked you to get in touch as soon as possible.” The lift doors opened, and he waited for another staff member to move out of the way. “Why would you want to work for a council library doing some menial archiving job when you can work here?” His nose wrinkled with disdain as he dismissed Market Harborough without thought.
Lara’s look of instant confusion satisfied him. His arm slipped back around her shoulders. His familiar aftershave enveloped her head, safe, exotic, and demanding. Lara’s mind whirled as he contemplated her near miss. Angela hadn’t mentioned her New Zealand referee, or her inability to find the executors of Hone’s estate. Lara crossed her fingers behind her back and thanked fate for her lucky escape. It seemed Paul’s desire to reemploy her had been enough to satisfy Angela of Lara’s pedigree.
“It’s in Leicestershire,” Lara offered. “It’s in the, not the north.”
“Ah, but is it north of the Watford Gap?” Paul grimaced when Lara nodded. He gave a dramatic shiver. “It’s still off the social grid. I went north once.” His tone inferred an expedition through a desert tundra. “I couldn’t understand a word anyone said.”
“Where did you go?” Lara followed him out of the lift and followed him past the first of many exhibitions. She already knew the answer, but Paul loved the telling of his tale. She nodded in all the right places as Paul recounted a dreadful weekend in Northampton. A thirty-minute train ride from London, he told it like he’d crawled on his hands and knees from the borders of Scotland.
Lara struggled with her heavy bag, banging it against her calves and making her tired.
Paul trailed the suitcase, bumping it against his heels as he stopped in front of a Turner. “What have you got in here? Geological rocks from the far north?”
Lara laughed, unable to reply as he gasped with enthusiasm at the next archway. “Oh, my goodness! You must see this. We acquired it as a throwaway. Builders found it in an attic in Soho.” He whirled her towards an oil canvas depicting the Madonna and child. The length of his forearm and surrounded by a gilt frame, it had the detail of a Da Vinci. “Took a bloody age to clean. The National Gallery is purple with rage they didn’t accept it now. It’s worth an absolute mint.”
Lara smiled. “Same old Paul. So, the rivalry isn’t dead yet then?” She linked her arm through his elbow and matched her step to his as they made their way through the exhibits.
Upstairs in his office, he poured her coffee from a percolator and then sat on the edge of his desk while she sipped the heady brew. “I’ve missed you,” he admitted. “I hate how we parted.”
Lara stiffened and stared down into her cup. No words presented themselves which hadn’t been said before she left.
“Have you finished with your running away now?” Paul dipped his body, stroking a length of hair away from her face and placing it across her shoulder.
Lara sighed and shook her head. “I’m returning to New Zealand.” The sentence spilled from her lips, born of desperation as an excuse but growing in attraction with every moment it remained in the air.
“When?” he demanded. His shoulders rounded and his lips turned down into a pout. He exhaled, flicking at imaginary specks on his expensive pinstriped trousers. “I’ll come with you. There must be something I can do over there. Herd sheep or something.”
Lara snorted. “That’s hilarious, Paul. You’d hate it. People walk around museums in their bare feet. I can imagine your scandalised expression at all those toes trotting next to the exhibits.” She sighed. “You think anything without silver service is primitive. I can’t see you lasting five minutes.”
“Bare feet?” Paul screwed his features into a grimace. “I’d do it for you, Lara. I’d give up everything and follow you. You only have to ask.”
“Thank you,” Lara said. Her smile lost its humour and became wistful.
“Aw sweetheart,” he breathed. His arms encircled her and he wrapped her in his exquisite haze. The suit jacket disguised muscles hewn at the gym and Lara allowed herself for a moment to relax into his embrace. Thoughts of Arama rose unbidden into her mind, filling her with confusion and a spark of anger.
“Is New Zealand in the north?” Paul released her and crow’s feet appeared in the corners of his eyes. “I’d hate you to make a liar of me, but I really couldn’t go north.”
Lara rolled her eyes and sipped her coffee, relieved at having dodged the awkwardness of their reunion. He slapped his thighs and a silver bracelet clanked on his wrist. “Let me take you to dinner tonight. My treat. We can go somewhere plush or somewhere low key. What do you say?”
“Thanks. I’d like that.” Lara set her cup on the corner of the desk and leaned forward. “But first, I need some advice about a confidential manuscript.”
*****
Lara agreed to meet Paul at a restaurant in China Town later that evening. Armed with a guest pass to the staff areas of the gallery, she trailed her suitcase into the archives. Old colleagues greeted her with enthusiasm and they studied the manuscripts after she swore them to secrecy.
“Have you seen this new chemical?” Lottie asked. She reached across her work bench and retrieved a bottle of mixture which moved like silk when she tipped it. “Why don’t you try it on a tiny corner with a bud? It might stop the spread of mildew on the worst of them. You’re doing the right thing keeping them at a reduced temperature, but the spores still spread like a wildfire.”
Lara hissed through her teeth. “Write down the name for me please. I’ll see if the client will source some.” Lottie turned the bottle over and jotted down the name of the supplier. Lara caught sight of the price tag and winced. She couldn’t imagine Angela sanctioning the exorbitant cost.
“Why doesn’t the council pass these onto us?” Lottie asked. She stuffed her pencil into her pocket and handed Lara the note containing the details. “Why employ an archivist and try to keep it in house?” She blinked in horror and winced. “No offence, Lara. You’re amazing at what you do. But this job is massive. What do they intend to do with the collection once you’ve restored it?”
Lara exhaled. “That’s above my paygrade,” she admitted. “I’m grateful for the work but I’ll move on soon.” She stroked the uppermost manuscript with her gloved hand. “We all have to let our babies go eventually.”
Lottie cocked her head and wrinkled her nose. “Not if you come back here. My babies stay on the walls and come back to Mummy once a year for cleaning.”
“Yeah.” Lara twisted her lips. “I miss that aspect of it.”
Lottie slid her stool from beneath her workbench and slumped onto its worn seat. She picked up a piece of gauze stained with a sepia solution which stank of meths. “Paul would take you back like a shot,” she commented as she lost herself in her art again.
At the professional copiers, Lara watched as expert hands lifted the manuscripts one at a time into a suspended cradle. The young man who worked the scanner wore cotton gloves as he worked, parting each page with care. Clear images flew from a printer, packed full of Market Harborough’s missing history. “I’ll pop copies onto your portable hard drive,” he promised.
When he’d completed the task, he helped her to place the manuscripts back into her suitcase.
Lara rode the Underground to the Museum of London at London Wall. She asked for her university friend at the reception desk.
Cilla met her with a delighted smile and led her back into a busy workroom. “I’m so excited to see these manuscripts,” she confessed. Red curls swirled around her face and she waggled her eyebrows. “It all sounds a little cloak and dagger though.” She watched as Lara lowered her suitcase onto a bench and released the lock holding the zipper closed. “Isn’t this something for the Treasure Trove people?”
Lara sighed and pursed her lips. “That’s what I keep telling the stakeholder. They don’t want to hear it.” She lifted the lid of the suitcase to reveal the manuscripts wrapped in their protective cloth. “This is why I need your help.” She drew on her gloves and unwrapped the worst of them. “Mildew is affecting the pages. I can’t open it any further without causing damage. I’ve treated the others as best as I could. The Tate staffer suggested a tincture, but it’s expensive and I doubt the owner is interested in paying for it. I’ve reached the end of my limits with how much more I can do for them.”
“Are they digitised?” Cilla bent her knees to survey the black spores nestling in the grooves between pages. She didn’t reach out to touch the manuscripts.
“Yes,” Lara confirmed. “But not this one. I don’t want to damage it by hauling it open while it’s in this fragile state. I got Hendry’s in Fleet Street to scan the others.”
“Awesome.” Cilla walked three considered paces to the right and then back again. She exhaled and tutted. “I have some ideas, but you’ll need to leave it with me.”
Lara groaned. “I’ll need permission to return without it.”
“Give them a call.” Cilla jerked her head towards a desk in the corner of the workroom. “A conservative estimate is at least a month to open the pages and treat the mildew. You should tell them the bad news.”
Lara nodded. “I suspected as much. She won’t be happy.” She shrugged. “I guess it’s her problem now, anyway. Can I give her your contact details? She’ll need to arrange retrieval once you’re finished.”
Cilla jerked her head back in confusion. “Why? Where are you going?” She brushed loose tendrils of red hair away from her face with her gloved hands and then sighed. Stripping them from long fingers, she dumped them in a box beneath the desk. “Where did you disappear to, anyway? You weren’t at the last conference. For what it’s worth, I never believed the rumour about the alien kidnapping.”
Lara laughed. “Dad spoke with such fondness about New Zealand that after he died, I just wanted to visit. I saw an opportunity and took it. I have a few wrinkles to iron out and then I’m heading back there after Christmas.” She swallowed as an image of Hone’s possessions called to her from Catherine’s safe. Her throwaway comment grew wings, and the idea gained more permanency in her mind.
“Well, good for you!” Cilla squeezed her shoulder and gave her a sad smile. “I wish I had the courage to just get up and go.”
Lara grinned. “You should have heard Paul ranting on about the north.”
Her friend laughed. “Not the motel story again? Or was it a camping trip? It changes with each retelling, doesn’t it?”
She led her back to the entrance, and they hugged before parting. Lara promised she would stay in touch, but they both knew she wouldn’t.
London welcomed her with clear skies and Lara drew comfort from the familiarity of the hustle and bustle. But it seemed so impersonal after the closeness of Market Harborough where even the barista in the cafe opposite her office acknowledged her with a smile in the supermarket. The supercity lost its excitement as she battled through crowds, towing the valuable artifacts behind her. As rush hour approached with a vengeance, her suitcase caused multiple pile ups on the Underground. The Harrod’s security guard ejected her after demanding to view its contents, behaving as though she’d towed a live bomb into the store.
Lara wished she hadn’t opted to stay overnight as the city lost its excited vibe and gave her the cold shoulder. Sadness touched her soul as she fought her way through busy streets and train carriages to her hotel.
After a shower, Lara changed into her evening dress. She secured the manuscripts in the room safe, struggling to fit them all inside the box intended for a laptop and a few personal items.
“We’ve never lost anything before,” the desk clerk assured her. “As long as you set your own code, only our master key can unlock it.” She leaned forward and bugged her eyes. “The royal family stay here often.”
Lara smiled and turned away to hide her smirk. “Not in the last two centuries,” she muttered to herself. She waited with the doorman as her taxi pulled up alongside the front steps and gave the driver the address for her destination in China Town.
Paul had already arrived and clutched a merlot in his manicured fingers. He rose as Lara approached. “I took the liberty of ordering our starter,” he said. “I hope you still love fried seaweed.” He pressed a kiss to each of her cheeks and waved the server away, holding onto the back of her chair until she’d seated herself. “Haven’t you missed this?” he demanded, indicating the restaurant with a wide wave of his arm. Lara smiled without answering.
Outside, China Town bustled as though daylight still commanded the sky. A cosmopolitan version of an Oriental city recreated itself in the sprawling English metropolis. Coloured lights twinkled in the inky darkness and crowds thronged in the street outside the restaurants. Escape called to Lara from another continent, offering her a second chance at healing. But palm leaves and not paper lanterns whispered her name.
She averted her gaze from the windows to find Paul studying her expression. “Stay,” he begged, seizing her hand from the tablecloth and stroking her fingers.
Lara pulled her hand from beneath his as the server appeared with their starters. She fought the urge to run screaming from the restaurant and her failed second chance in Harborough, catching the next plane leaving Heathrow.
As Lara savoured an exquisite portion of crispy aromatic duck, her chest prickled with anxiety. Every time she looked up, she found Paul’s gaze boring into her face. Their short lived and ill-advised relationship had failed because his affection for himself surpassed anything he’d felt for her. She controlled a sigh of irritation and set her knife and fork together on her plate.
“Aren’t you hungry?” His lips turned down into a practiced pout. A strand of blonde hair escaped from his slicked back fringe and he frowned at Lara from beneath it.
“I’ll just visit the ladies’ room,” she said, her heart pounding in her chest. A quick glance around the restaurant revealed satisfied diners tucking into their meals and she rose with a stiff, jerky movement. The server dashed back and hauled away her chair. Lara felt as though everyone turned to observe her. Paul half rose in his seat and gave her a polite bow.
“Shall I order dessert?” he demanded.
Lara floundered. “I’m not sure,” she stammered. “Back in a minute.”
She steered herself towards the bathroom sign, swerving around tables and avoiding chairs stuck too far into the aisles. Blood pounded in her ears at the realisation if she didn’t escape soon, she’d become trapped in a life she no longer wanted. Coming here was a big mistake, she chided herself. There’s nothing left for me. Lara moved across the floor in a lurching motion, halting as a server appeared from the kitchen bearing a platter of steaming rice. She dodged sideways and the tiny hairs rose on the back of her neck, alerting her to an imminent danger. Someone watched her with frightening intensity.
Lara glanced back at Paul as the server passed. Head bent over his plate, he lifted his chopsticks to his lips with expert fingers. He didn’t glance in her direction. The other diners had returned their attention to their food, ignoring her as soon as she headed for the bathroom.
“Excuse me, madam.” Another server waited behind her, carrying a tray of dirty plates and glasses.
“Sorry,” Lara gushed, preparing to move back into the flow of the busy thoroughfare.
Then she glanced up towards the packed mezzanine floor which overlooked the restaurant. Larger tables accommodated the corporate customers and their business parties. A man in a pinstriped suit threw his head back and laughed, a glass of red wine slopping its contents over his fingers.
Lara gasped as the hard, steel rungs of a chair hit the side of her leg with force. Its occupant gaped at her with his mouth open. He’d shot his chair back as he rose to spoon rice from a bowl in the centre of a table. An elderly gentleman leapt from his nearby seat and seized Lara’s forearms, apologising on behalf of the embarrassed boy. Seeing the tears begin in the child’s eyes, Lara ignored the ache in her thigh and shook her head.
“It’s fine, no harm done. Thank you, no, I’m ok,” she protested. She wriggled free of his grip and continued her journey towards the bathroom.
She side stepped a raucous group who reached the bottom of the stairs from the mezzanine. They milled around her as loud male voices argued over the bill.
“Lara.” She frowned at the sound of the voice and spun, her eyes widening at the sight of Arama waiting on the fringe of the group.
Good sense failed her and she shot him a wide-eyed glance filled with fear, before bolting for the bathroom. Her blood seemed to gutter and choke in her veins, causing light-headedness to wash over her. A heady mix of passion, fury and loss ran through her mind as she burst through the heavy door.
Inside the bathroom, she blew her nose and composed herself. Her fragile equilibrium seemed further away than usual as she considered her reflection in the mirror over the sink. She hardly recognised herself. Flawless makeup masked her pretty features, and she’d lost too much weight in the last year. The emerald evening dress had lost its former snugness, the straps tipping from her slender shoulders like discarded spaghetti. Dark curls tumbled around her face to cascade down her back like a waterfall. Mum, her heart cried to her reflection. When did I become you?
Forcing the tears back with difficulty, Lara applied lipstick from her tiny clutch bag and pulled her mother’s comforting black shawl around her shoulders.
She exited the bathroom, sighing with irritation to find Arama waiting for her. He leaned against the wall as though waiting his turn and blocked Lara’s way through the narrow passage. His touch was gentle as he reached for her waist and she registered the faintest tremor in his fingers. “We need to talk,” he whispered.
“Leave me alone!” she hissed. She slapped at his forearms and clutched her bag tighter. He dipped his head, and she held her breath, sensing he wished to kiss her. Naked fear flashed in his irises, holding him back from the edge. Lara’s heart hammered like a child’s toy drum.
Arama’s dropped his hands, balling them into fists. He reached for her again and then thought better of it. He performed the same action four times before narrowing his brows into a series of tortured lines. “You don’t understand,” he began. He took a step backwards and Lara dug her fingers into her ears to block out his words. The simple handbag listed forwards beneath her arm and threatened to fall.
“Please, just listen to me, damn it!” Arama seized her wrists to pull her hands away from her face. “I need to tell you what happened.” He ignored Lara’s shaking head as he persisted. “I spent the first seven years in foster care, bouncing around the system until my parents adopted me. Why won’t you listen to me?” His sentence finished with a plaintive edge.
“Because I don’t care!” Lara lied. Her lips parted to spit venom which countered the longing in her heart. But she didn’t get to say any of those things.
“What’s going on here?” Paul’s raised voice echoed along the corridor. He stood behind Arama in his fitted Armani suit, bristling with indignation.
“Who are you?” Arama shot the question in his direction without turning to face him. He dismissed him with consummate ease. “Go away,” he bit, not waiting for an answer. “This is a private discussion.”
“It looks more of a lecture than a discussion.” Paul’s hands rested over his hips. It appeared he didn’t plan to rescue Lara by traditional means. He frowned and looked back along the corridor as though seeking assistance from someone else. “You need to let her go.” He swallowed and took a step closer, calming his expression into one of placation. “She’s with me,” he said, adding an awkward cackle at the end of the sentence.
Lara seized the opportunity to bat Arama’s long fingers aside. She shoved her way between the two men. “I’m leaving,” she hissed. “Neither of you should follow me.” The clutch bag fell to the tiled floor, and she sighed and retrieved it.
Arama turned his body to face Paul, fury setting his hazel irises on fire. “What are you to Lara?” he demanded.
Paul shrugged and spread his arms. “Well, nothing now, thanks to you.” He slapped his thighs in an expression of irritation. “I guess you’re the reason she’s no longer interested in me. Thanks for driving her back to New Zealand!” He brushed imaginary dirt from his lapels, perhaps convinced the battle in his head had taken place.
Arama’s lips parted, and he followed Lara along the corridor. “Please, come back!” he protested. “I need to speak to you!”
Lara dipped her head and stared at the floor. She stomped from the restaurant, her high heels clicking against the tiles. A server approached her, and she waved him away, guilt prickling in her chest at having run out without settling her share of the bill. “He’s paying.” She waved her hand towards Arama, exacting her revenge in a passive aggressive protest. She promised herself she’d shove the cash through his letter box back in Market Harborough.
Arama’s words chased her out into the frigid London night air. “No, Lara, please. I need to make this right!”
Paul caught Lara as she hailed a taxi. “What the hell was that about?” he demanded. Glancing around him at the busy street, he smoothed the bottom of his jacket over his hips and cringed at the stares. He tilted his head and pursed his lips. “Can we do our dirty washing in a less public setting?”
Lara groaned. “I was right the first time,” she acknowledged, her tone sad. “You didn’t care enough, Paul. I wish you well for the future.”
She piled into the back seat of a black London cab, leaning her head back against the seat and closing her eyes.
“You okay?” the driver asked her, his cockney accent vibrant and jovial despite the late hour.
“I’m fine,” she admitted. Her fingers fluttered over her heart and her shoulders relaxed. “I’m always fine.”