Eternity (23 page)

I have to re-apply my mascara twice after my shaking hands clump it badly and smudge it onto my eye lids. Styling my fringe as best I can to cover the stitches then gingerly applying cover-up around what’s left, so it’s not quite so glaringly obvious.

Carlos is nothing but amused by my hour long struggle, to achieve a casual, minimalistic look; his effort goes as far as changing into black trousers and a shirt.

“I love that dress on you, it reminds me of what we got up to last time you wore it” he says, coming up behind me and nuzzling my neck suggestively.

“Oh no you don’t” I exclaim, swatting his hand away from my breast “it’s taken forever to get ready, so I’m not letting you get me all ruffled up at the last minute”

“Aaww, but…” he starts to whine.

“No!” I cut him off, “you will just have to wait till later, like you made me do this morning”

He exhales exaggeratedly, “fine. Come on then, we might as well go now” he’s calling my bluff, knowing I’d rather do just about anything than relent to face his parents, but I’m not backing down on this one and undoing all my hard work, “Ok” I reply cheerily.

We are having dinner at his parent’s house, a ten minute walk from Carlos’s, again hidden behind a wall of trees; but this is no house, it’s a carbon copy of the main lobby. Glass fronted, with magnificent, white marble pillars. It’s easily three times the size of Carlos’s place and in much better condition, there is nothing sweet and rural about it; it can only be described as grand and imposing.

I wasn’t expecting this, I don’t know where I thought they lived, but I had no idea it would be a mansion, it does nothing to lessen my nausea.

Carlos leads me up the stone steps to the front door, which is opened for us before we reach the top.

“Diego” Carlos bows his head towards him in greeting.

“Mr. Carlos” he returns, bowing slightly from the waist. The foyer is majestic, high ceilings which make every step on the grey marble floor echo; from the centre, a sweeping staircase with thick, dark wood banisters which curve up alongside them, dominating the space.

Carlos leads me round to the right, through a heavy oak door; the room on the other side of it is light and airy. A long wooden table which could easily seat sixteen people decorates the centre of the room, and beautiful portraits of the family adorn every wall. They all look professionally shot and range from the parents with their young children, to what looks like as recent as a year or so ago.

I immediately recognise his sister, she was apparently just as stunning as a child as she is now; her hair raven black and impossibly glossy, the same piercing green eyes as Carlos, her perfect smile, her beauty frozen in time.

“That’s Julia, my sister” Carlos explains as he catches my studying her.

Alongside them, in one of the pictures of the whole family unit, there is another boy; Taller, but an almost exact replica of Carlos.

“Who’s this?” I ask pointing to the photo, being careful not to leave a smudge on the glass with my finger.

“That’s my brother, Marcus”

“Carlos and Marcus?” I asked amused.

“Yes my parents have limited imaginations.” He laughs back.

“How come you haven’t mentioned him before?”

“He lives in America, I don’t see much of him, guess it just never came up in conversation?” he is dismissive about it so I let it go, following him through the open French doors onto the veranda.

His parents are sat at the outdoor, glass table facing us.

“Kaitlin! Don’t you scrub up well, I barely recognised you with clothes on!” his dad chirps the second I step out, his mum swiftly elbows him in the ribs.

“Dad!” Carlos warns.

“Oh come on, she knows I’m only joking, don’t you Kaitlin?” by now my face is burning and my mouth dry, what can I say to that? I force a smile and nod staring at my feet because I can’t bare to make eye contact with them.

“Oh Tom, leave the poor girl alone.” Carlos’s mum glares at him, before turning to me, “Kaitlin, my name is Clara, it’s lovely to meet you, would you like a drink?”

“
Ye
s
, please” the yes comes out a little too strongly, but who can blame me. With a click of her fingers a girl appears with a tray already equipped with two glasses of Rosé for me and Carlos, oh how the other half live.

Carlos sits down opposite his Dad, distracting him with business talk, what functions are planned and possible ideas for new classes they could provide; while Carla sits in front of me, spinning the usual polite conversation, where am I from, what do I do, how did me and Carlos meet.

I explain to her that I work for an advertising company in Devon, the money is average, but there is opportunity for good commission, it’s all innocent enough, but I can’t shake the feeling that every word I say is being judged; it’s like an interview, I’m half expecting her to ask what my intentions with Carlos are, and where I see the two of us in five years.

When I explain meeting Carlos I gush about what a gentleman he was returning my sandals and how wonderful it was for him to have made the effort to do it; it’s a sure fire way to win round a mother, by complimenting the chivalry of their son. It works a dream and by the time we are onto our main course we are thick as thieves, swapping old recipe secrets and planning future shopping trips together.

Carlos is visibly un-nerved, periodically shooting us both questioning looks, to which neither of us respond, too busy chattering away with each other.

Over desert, Carla speaks to Carlos “Oh I forgot to mention, Marcus is coming down for a week on Thursday, I thought it would be nice if he stayed with you”

For a moment Carlos’s face falls and his eyes darken at her words, but he quickly regains his smile, “Of course” he says sweetly, although I can’t help feeling his acceptance tinged with distaste.

We leave shortly after, Carlos refused coffee for the both of us and made excuses for our departure; Clara and Tom both agreeing how lovely it was to meet me and insisting we do dinner again soon. Surprisingly I’m not in the slightest way repelled by the idea, having bonded so quickly with Clara.

On the walk back Carlos is silent and brooding, “What’s up sour puss?” I try and coax out the reason for his sudden grim mood.

“Nothing” he sulks.

“There’s clearly something wrong”

“No I’m fine, just tired, it’s been a long day” he says, plastering on his best fake smile. I’m plagued by the image of the nagging wife I so desperately wanted to avoid becoming with Jake, so I drop it before it can turn into an argument.

His mood doesn’t change for the rest of the evening; he’s quiet and withdrawn, giving only one word answers, making conversation impossible.

Eventually I give in, taking myself off to bed early, really just trying to provoke a reaction from him.

I spend what feels like hours, going over every part of the evening with a fine toothed comb, trying to work out why he’s acting so offish. I over think every last comment, searching for hidden meaning; I thought the night had gone well, but could I have unwittingly offended them in some way? I conclude that it can’t be me, but then why would he still be so angry when we’re alone now?

Eventually I fall into a restless sleep, waking once at 3am to notice Carlos’s side of the bed still vacant. By the time I surface the next morning the house is empty. There is a note on the breakfast bar, but it lacks any kind of care and warm fuzzy words that adorned his previous ones
–
‘I had to go to work, I’ll be back later, Carlos x
’
only one kiss and nothing sweet, this one will not be saved with the others.

So this is it, the beginning of the end; all the signs are there, he’s avoiding me, practically giving me the silent treatment when we are together. How could something so wonderful fall apart so easily? And why? I haven’t done anything wrong, that I know of, he didn’t seem too happy about his brother coming to stay, but that’s nothing to do with me. Maybe it was just meeting his parents, Mari had mentioned that they had never met any of his other women, that he never even spent more than one night with any of them. So it must have just got too real last night and now he wants to back out; it has moved very fast, I mean I know it’s not a permanent arrangement, but I am effectively living with him. I’ve only known him nine days after all, that’s moving fast by anyone’s standard.

God I should have just stuck to the three time rule, that way we could have both had our fun and then carried on as if it never happened; instead now here I am, five times later and destined for a heart wrenching break up and then another week and a half here, spent dreading bumping into him. That’s no way to spend a luxury holiday, I might as well just go home, maybe if I speak to Carla she will understand and let me have a refund for the last week?

I’m dwelling on morbid thoughts, I need to get out of my head, I call Blair and arrange to see her, today she is going to a towel origami class, while John goes on a fishing expedition. I smile, of all the classes she could do, she is spending the morning making animals from towels, brilliant. I agree to join her, it should be a laugh at least.

We meet at 10am in the same hall I did the Salsa lesson in, great start to my ‘not thinking about Carlos’ day.

We are split into pairs, I’m relieved when Blair clings to my arm, assuring that we are paired together and set up on tables that form a semicircle around where the instructor stands. Each table is laden with two stacks of towels in assorted sizes, stickers of eyes and mouths and a bunch of flowers tied together with an elastic band.

As we are being taken through the steps to create an elephant, I confide in Blair about my predicament with Carlos. She ponders on it for a while and then speaks gently, “Do you think that maybe, you might be overreacting, just a little? I mean, he could be moody about anything really, it doesn’t really sound like you have any basis to think it’s you?”

“I guess, it’s just the way he’s being with me, don’t you think it’s a bit weird?”

“Well yes, but when John has a bad day at work he can get like that with me, all insular and sullen for a few days, but then he soon gets over it. I tend to just leave him to it and when he feels better he can come find me, with flowers” she laughs and I join her, she makes it sound so inconsequential.

“I guess you’re right” I say, genuinely happier about it.

“You need to talk to him, just ask like you don’t care either way, say ‘if I’m getting in the way here I can go back to my room, it’s no problem’” she mimics my English accent badly.

“Ha-ha, OK, I’m not sure I can do an accent like that, but I’ll try”.

We are instructed to give the elephant making a go ourselves, but I’ve been so distracted by our conversation that I barely heard a word of the demonstration; Blair on the other hand has already started tightly rolling a medium sized towel, I feel like I’m at school, unprepared for an exam, so I’m copying the smart girl next to me.

After much fumbling and a few swear words muttered under my breath I produce a sorry looking elephant with disproportionate ears, a wonky trunk and eyes placed too close together. Blair’s is, of course, picture perfect, arguably better than the instructors even, earning her plenty of praise when she comes round to inspect our efforts. I am given a pitiful look and an unconvincing consolation, “Yes you do OK, very good first time” she says, patting my shoulder and moving on quickly.

Blair and I turn to survey our handiwork, seeing mine and hers side by side, hers standing tall triumphantly, next to mine leaning because two legs are shorter than the others and seemingly squinting back at us, we can’t help but laugh.

The rest of the class is much the same, although I do manage to create one passable turtle by the end, which I’m so proud of I’m allowed to take it away with me, much to Blair’s amusement.

We go to the bar to wait for John, who should be back in an hour and get stuck into a jug of cocktails in the meantime, gossiping about all things girly, in the way only Blair does so well.

When John finally arrives an hour and a half later, we are quite tipsy and have just ordered a huge amount of food, having suddenly become starving hungry at the bottom of the second jug. We eat together and polish off another jug of cocktails, leaving Blair and myself positively drunk.

John does a sterling job of herding us to some shaded loungers to sleep it off, while he sits nearby and reads yesterday’s paper from his home town.

It’s 5pm before I stir, looking over, Blair is still asleep on the lounger next to me and John has moved to reading a novel. I stretch out, yawning, the move making it apparent that I’m still a little worse for wear. I apologise to John for being a bad influence on his wife, getting her plastered in the middle of the day, to which he responds fondly that the peace and quiet has been wonderful. Then I make my way back to face the music with Carlos.

I push the front door open and call out, but there’s no response; I do a quick circuit of the house just in case, but it’s all just how I left it this morning. Deflated I sit on the sofa and turn on the TV, a mounting dread building in my chest. I had been re-assured by Blair, letting myself hope that I would return to find the usual happy Carlos, but this can’t be a good sign?