Read Laying the Ghost for Free Online Page B

and left had been five years ago after her own birthday dinner when she’d thrown a lemon tart at him because he’d left the table three times to take phone calls and she’d found him sitting on the stairs, smiling and murmuring silly tendernesses at some unknown down-the-line slapper. ‘There’s a demon in every bubble,’ that was what Patrick used to say. Not that they drank much of it in their student days. Who did, back then? It was a big-occasion treat, not something you picked up in the supermarket for any old Friday night, like now. But she remembered being at his sister’s wedding, on one of those rare, hot midsummer nights at his family’s farm in Hampshire. Late in the evening, she and Patrick had drifted to opposite ends of the marquee. She was on the dance floor, mildly drunk and unused to endless supplies of Pol Roget, propped up in a crush of people against the warm, solid body of Patrick’s oldest friend Simon. The place was steamy hot and smelled of damp vegetation from the crushed grass underfoot and the swags of overripe flowers that were now dropping their exhausted petals.
    The Eagles’ ‘Desperado’ was playing – the slow, sensuous music doing its seductive tricks so that she didn’t pull away when Simon’s hand edged under her top and slid across the bare, clammy skin of her back, but instead relaxed closer against him and let the heat and the moment get to her. Even now, she remembered how his breath against her neck had made her tingle. She remembered wishing he’d bite her, just gently. Then the spell had abruptly shattered as Patrick pulled her away, viciously kicking at Simon with casual, warning spite. There was drink spilling, someone shouting, ‘Oy, watch it, pisshead.’ Her arm hurt – Patrick was hauling her out of the marquee, not saying a word, and he didn’t let go till they’d crossed the garden and reached the orchard, far from the range of lights. Without a word he’d pushed her to the grass and pinned her down, gripping her wrists above her head as he kissed her, too hard.
    The things that stay with you, she thought now while she pretended to be interested in Isabelle from no. 14’s battle with the council over cardboard recycling. She remembered the sound of the hens fussing and shuffling in their night-time lock-up, the uneven, tussocky grass pressing into her back, the syrup scent of the stickily ripening plums on the tree above her as Patrick fucked her till she screamed. She’d cried after that, overwhelmed by excess pleasure, not from misery. That was something else champagne did. Made you all emotional, all unnecessary. Now she looked at the inch of bubbly drink left in the glass and decided that tonight, from here on, she’d stick to water. It wasn’t really the ideal day to indulge in champagne memory games. All the same … she wondered if Patrick ever thought of that night. If she ever found out where he was, and if she spoke to him, mentioned the word ‘orchard’, would he look at her blankly and wonder why she was talking free-range fruit, or would he smile and remember the tender circlet of bruises on her wrist?
    ‘You were mugged by a ginger boy called Callaghan? How do you know? Did he swop his schoolbag for your Mulberry one? Was his name all over his homework? How amateur!’ Kate’s voice sounded too bright and shrill for Nell, who braced her muzzy head in her hands as she sat over steaming coffee at her kitchen table. How obviously rude would it be to cover her ears, just lightly? She felt very much as if she was hearing all this with an echoed delay, like watching a TV film with badly synchronized sound. Jet lag. She and Mimi had only been away for a week – hardly any time at all. Because it was such a short break, and so Mimi could get back easily into early-morning school time, they had deliberately not tried hard to adjust to the Caribbean time zone, and yet after only twenty-four hours at home she felt as if it would take days and