Love Falls by Esther Freud Read Free Book Online Page A

glanced back along the way they’d come.
    ‘Shall we?’ she said, shuffling to a stop, and with renewed energy they turned and hurried towards the cool retreat of the house.
     
     
    That evening Lara curled herself into the cream sofa, flicking through a magazine while Caroline and Lambert talked.
    ‘Do you still see Henry?’ she asked.
    ‘Why would I?’
    ‘Well, you used to like him.’ Caroline shrugged.
    ‘I did bump into him once,’ Lambert said, ‘on a bus.’
    Lara looked at her father, unable to imagine the circumstance under which he’d ever caught a bus.
    ‘Actually, he was on rather good form. He suggested I borrow some money off him and when I asked why, he looked surprised. “So that I can spend the next ten years trying to get it back, of course.” I thought that was quite inspired.’
    ‘He obviously misses you.’ Caroline curled her slim legs under her, hiding a dark bruise that spread up from her ankle.
    ‘Well, maybe, but I imagine he’s got over it. That was about fifteen years ago now.’
    For a while neither of them spoke and the only noise in the room was the flicking of the pages of Lara’s magazine. It was a Spanish magazine – ¡Hola! – with pictures of European royalty, interspersed with the occasional racing driver or Hollywood star. The entire middle section was devoted to speculation over Lady Diana’s wedding dress, with a series of photo-fit possibilities attached to her smiling head. Lara ran her eyes over the options, slinky, puffed-sleeved, spaghetti-strapped, layered in satin, sheer with lace. There were dresses in ivory, cream and lemon, rose and icing-sugar white, but in each photo Diana herself had the same feathered wedge of hair, hanging shyly down, obliterating half her face.
    ‘Were you terribly disappointed?’ Caroline was addressing Lara now. ‘To miss the big day?’
    ‘The big . . .?’ She looked up from a great froth of peachy-coloured netting. ‘The wedding, you mean?’
    ‘I hear people have already started setting up camp along the route, but I wasn’t sure how you young people felt about it.’
    ‘Us? Well . . .’ How to put this politely. ‘We’re not really very interested, at least not the people I know.’ To strengthen her stance she shut the magazine. ‘It just seems a bit tragic, I suppose.’
    ‘Really?’ Caroline was eyeing her with disbelief. ‘I’d have thought it was the answer to a young girl’s dream. Marry a prince. Live at Buckingham Palace. Meet rich and powerful people, travel the world.’
    It seemed so clear to Lara that this was not the case, that this would not make any young girl happy, but the only evidence she had to fuel her argument was that the prince in question, Prince Charles, wore his parting too far over to one side. Lara had to bite her bottom lip to stop herself laughing. Hair was obviously her only criterion for making judgements about people. She should write a thesis on it. She should give up A level history and take up work instead on the psychology of hair.
    ‘It all just seems so old-fashioned,’ she said instead and then instantly regretted it.
    Caroline lay back on the sofa, lighting a cigarette, while Lambert picked up a day-old copy of The Times , bought at great expense that morning in Siena. On its front page it had the photograph that had sent the nation into a frenzy – Diana, standing outside the nursery school at which she taught, her legs silhouetted, thanks to the sun, and seemingly naked, against the thin material of her skirt.
    ‘She is very handsome, it must be said.’ Caroline had her head on one side and Lambert craned round to look. ‘He got the wrong one apparently.’ Caroline blew out a soft white plume of smoke. ‘At least that’s what everyone’s saying.’
    ‘But wasn’t it all arranged?’ Lambert was squinting at the paper.
    ‘Well, yes, but people think she got it wrong. Pointed him in the wrong direction. He was going for one of the other sisters . . . is