by Jane Holland
Near the marina, I stop to admire a man hand-mixing what looks like pistachio ice cream in one of the little artisan shops. He smiles when he sees me watching and comes to the door to offer me a taste, but I back away, thanking him. I’m not in the mood for something sweet.
I climb the steep street until I reach the walled road that runs around the old harbour. The way is narrow, but it’s quiet and shady, surprisingly few cars in sight. Further along the street, towards the old covered market, something is holding up the usual stream of traffic round the old port, some kind of incident.
I stop and look idly along the street. A man pushing a bicycle is leaning down, arguing with a driver through his car window in loud, idiomatic French. Behind them, someone sounds their horn pointlessly, their way blocked. No doubt the loud hooting noise makes them feel better, like they’re being pro-active, making their feelings known.
I turn away, shaking my head, and come face-to-face with a man.
He is black, with a bare chest and dusty dreadlocks, wearing long beach shorts worn low on his hips. He has an array of coloured tattoos on both arms, a jumble of wolf and big cat heads, entwined serpents, and what looks like flowing Arabic script along his left forearm that seems to leap across onto his belly.
The man grins at me, several front teeth missing.
‘Salut.’
CHAPTER NINE
‘Pardonnez-moi,’ I say, flustered by his intent stare, and step aside to avoid him.
But he steps the same way to block my path, smooth, deliberate.
‘Viens avec moi,’ he says.
His accent is very thick and lilting, as though he is Spanish or perhaps Italian rather than French. But even my French is up to deciphering that. Come with me. Using the familiar tu form as well, the singular form, not the politer plural. As though we already know each other. Which we don’t, I’m certain of that.
He must think I’m somebody else.
I shake my head, one hand clasping my bag firmly, and try to force my way past him.
‘Viens avec moi,’ he repeats, still grinning.
‘Non,’ I begin to say, but the man grabs my arm, and spins me round so my back is pressed against his bare chest.
I gasp in shock.
His hand clamps my mouth before I can scream. ‘Doucement,’ the man mutters next to my cheek. Quietly.
He drags me across the empty street towards the arched mouth of an alleyway so miniscule, I had not even noticed it before. Struggling in vain against his strength, I stumble over an uneven paving stone. He curses in French, dragging me upright.
This is happening for real, I think, trying not to panic. It’s a mugging, not a case of mistaken identity. He smells of stale sweat and musk, his breathing loud in my ear.
What the hell does he want?
My money?
Surely he would simply have snatched my bag and run, in that case.
To rape me, then?
The thought appals me. I am furious at his audacity, then terrified, then abruptly furious again. How dare he?
It’s all happened so quickly, I was confused at first, my mind grasping after basic self-defence strategies, moves I’ve read about on the internet but never had to put into practice. But as the reality of my situation hits me, I seem to steady, to feel less passive. My right foot gropes backwards for his, trying to hook round his ankle, to destabilise him. But my attacker understands at once what I’m doing; his knee comes up, hitting me hard in the buttocks.
I jerk upwards, then slump back against his hard chest, completely in his control, like one of those speaking dolls with a cord in its back.
He laughs.
I struggle more fiercely, moaning, ‘Non!’ under his hand, but he’s incredibly strong. I have no chance of getting away. Not on my own, anyway.
I stare wildly about instead, my eyes hunting for a witness, a casual passer-by, anyone who might help or at least call the police.
But already we’re in the alley, and there’s nobody about. The place is silent, deserted. The walls of the adjacent buildings rise steeply on either side, many windows shuttered against the afternoon heat, lines of laundry extending from one side to the other at intervals all the way up to the roof, to a dazzling blue sky.
He stumbles too, and the hand over my mouth loosens. I bite down hard, and he swears again, letting go entirely. I taste his sweat in my mouth, then I’m free.
I scream.
‘Help!’ I drag myself away from him as I scream, but only manage about two or three lurching steps back towards the road before the man grabs me again. ‘Help me, please!’
His hands come about my neck, as though he means to strangle me. I twist away, and we press up against the crumbling wall of the alley like lovers, thighs and knees jumbling together. His breath is fetid in my face. He is panting now, his dark eyes wide yet curiously blank, no emotion in them.
For the first time I wonder if he is on drugs. An addict, perhaps, not entirely sure what he means to do with me but in desperately need of another fix.
His long fingers tighten about my neck. My mouth is still free though.
Belatedly, I remember that I am in France, stupidly yelling for help in a foreign language.
‘Aidez moi!’ I croak over his shoulder, my throat burning. ‘Au … au secours!’
Suddenly I catch a glimpse of Robin’s face over his shoulder. The man is plucked away from me, sent spinning across the narrow alleyway to collide with the opposite wall.
The man hits his head and staggers sideways as though suddenly dizzy, plaster in his dreadlocks. He sees Robin’s face and blinks, then mutters something incomprehensible. It sounds like he’s speaking Arabic.
‘Get lost,’ Robin snarls at him in English.
The man stumbles backwards, staring at us both. Then breaks into a run, disappearing down the alleyway, his dreadlocks bouncing on his back.
I’m so relieved to see Robin, I can’t say anything for a few seconds. My gaze locks on the back of his dark head as he chases the man to the mouth of the alley, then stops there, watching.
I probably look dazed, but only because my head is still processing what just happened. How close I may have come to death. Both me and Emily, dead in the same week; Tamsin would surely not have survived such a shock.
Robin comes running back. ‘Are you okay?’
I manage a nod.
He holds me close a moment, and strokes down my bare arm. The brief contact is probably intended to be reassuring, not sexual. All the same, his touch electrifies me.
Our eyes meet, and he releases me.
‘Who the hell was that?’ he asks, his voice hoarse.
‘No idea.’ My voice sounds shaky. ‘French though, I think. He just grabbed me off the street. Thank you for chasing him off.’
‘A thief?’
‘Maybe.’ My heart is still racing. ‘My God, I can’t believe it. I should report him to the police.’
‘You look like you need to sit down.’
‘I need a stiff drink.’
‘Of course, you’ve had a shock. Look, let’s get out of this alley first. There’s a bar round the corner. A quiet place, not for the tourists.’
I am only now beginning to process what has just happened. If Robin hadn’t turned up, I might have been raped and murdered. I’m staring at him, I can’t seem to stop myself. He saved me. I had no defence against that man with the dreadlocks. Only my voice.
‘After that, I’ll walk you round to the gendarmerie myself,’ he continues, and strokes a warm hand down my arm again. ‘I know your French isn’t back up to speed yet, so I can do the translating if you want.’
'Thank you.'
'Better be prepared for some lengthy interviews and paperwork, though.’ He pauses, frowning. ‘Do you have your passport with you? They'll probably want to see it. Everything gets done in triplicate in this country. Even reporting a pickpocket.'
'He was hardly that,' I begin, then stop.
Lengthy inte
rviews and paperwork. Is that really how I want to spend the day of Emily's wake? Filling out forms and answering torturous questions in some stuffy municipal police station?
‘No, it’s fine.’ I shake my head, try to smile. ‘I was really looking forward to visiting the Musée de Picasso. Let’s not change our plans because of that creep.’
‘Only if you’re sure …’
‘One hundred per cent.’
‘All right then. Let’s go to the museum.’
Robin slips a casual arm about my waist as he escorts me back to the narrow street. The contact is so easy, so natural, it’s only when our hips bump that I notice how close we are. I glance at his face, but Robin is gazing out to sea, not at me, his brows contracted in a slight frown. Like some problem is nagging at him.
‘I’m still amazed he had the nerve,’ he comments.
We walk close to the wall, stepping in and out of shadow. The traffic is moving smoothly round the ramparts now, the angry cyclist gone. The stiff breeze from earlier has dropped away almost to nothing. Sun glitters on the water in the harbour below us, the air suffocatingly still.
‘I mean, you almost expect that kind of thing in Nice,’ he continues, glancing down at me. ‘It can be a dangerous city for tourists. But here in Vieil Antibes, and in broad daylight too?’
‘I thought he wanted my bag at first. My money and credit cards. Maybe my phone. But then he seemed more interested in me.’
‘Bastard.’
Robin’s voice is deep and angry. He cares for me, I think, and stumble as we hurry across the road in front of an approaching motorbike. His hand is quick to support me.
I’ve always thought of Robin as playing a game with me, the type of cruel game people play when they’re teenagers and love is still a blood sport. But for the first time, I see how we’ve both changed and matured over the years, and that what was a natural protectiveness towards me and Emily has grown into something more complex. It’s a kind of belonging, I suppose. As though the three of us had formed our own tribe back then, and even though Emily has gone now, that idea of the tribe is still in place, or its ghost essence at least, resonating through everything we say and do.
‘Robin,’ I say, wonderingly.
‘Yes?’
My smile almost gives me away. ‘If you hadn’t come along –’
‘Forget it.’ He rubs my back, and for a moment our gazes lock and hold. ‘It was fortunate I came along, spotted him dragging you away.’ He hesitates, then gives me a lopsided smile that makes the breath catch in my throat. ‘No, actually, that’s not true. I saw something out of the corner of my eye, I wasn’t sure what. But I knew it didn’t look right. So I ducked down the alley to check.’
‘I’m bloody glad you did.’
We slip across the road between slow-moving cars, and head for the entrance to the Musée de Picasso.
I glance over my shoulder a few times. There’s no sign of the man with the dreadlocks. Long gone, I imagine.
It’s cool inside the museum. The air conditioning is on in the entrance area, and I’m soon shivering after the heat outside. Robin notices as we move upstairs from the reception area, and puts his arm round me again.
This sudden intimacy between us is wholly unexpected. Yet welcome.
Robin was a contrary bastard when we were kids, of course, constantly blowing hot-and-cold with me and Emily. But he’s a man now, and I don’t know what to make of his behaviour. All the same, I’m not going to push him away. How could I? If this is a belated seduction, I’m no innocent fifteen-year-old now.
A dangerous thought.
As soon as I’ve thought about going to bed with him, it’s impossible to stop thinking about it. His closeness, his constant glances and smiles, provoke some kind of electric response in me. My mind keeps shying away from long-suppressed memories of the two of us in my attic room at the chateau, lying together on that narrow bed, his lips on mine, the sound of water lapping at rocks far below …
The wide-open, light-washed rooms are full of Picasso’s works of arts: paintings, murals, sculptures. I wander from piece to piece, admiring the stark, uncompromising lines of his artistic vision. Robin follows close behind, murmuring in my ear or pointing out the stunning views over the harbour from the first floor windows. He seems less interested in Picasso than in my company, which again surprises me.
‘Do you still paint?’ I ask as we make our way down into the sun-baked gardens.
Robin had quite a taste for the dramatic and artistic when we were kids. He used to sketch us, both me and Emily, at play on the beach or walking through the sunlit streets of the old town.
‘No,’ he says, with obvious regret.
‘That’s a pity, you were good.’
‘I’m not so sure about that. But thank you for the compliment.’
‘Perhaps one day you’ll take up painting again.’
He stops, studying me closely. Then puts a hand gently under my chin and turns from head from side to side, examining my profile. His look is distracted, sober. ‘Yes, perhaps,’ he agrees slowly. ‘I could paint you, if you’d sit for me.’
‘Me?’
‘Of course. Why not? You’re beautiful.’
I shake my head, suddenly embarrassed. ‘Don’t.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘I’m not beautiful.’
His searching gaze is troubled. ‘Caitlin, you’re a very beautiful woman. Has nobody ever told you that?’
It ought to be a corny line, something I can laugh at. But coming from Robin, someone with whom I was once so desperately, so wildly in love, it isn’t funny.
‘Is there no one back home in Cornwall?’ he continues without waiting for an answer. ‘A boyfriend, maybe?’
I turn, and am confronted by a totem pole-like carving, more than the height of a man. It stares down at me with strange, intense eyes as though seeing into my soul.
‘There might be someone,’ I lie, hiding instinctively behind my long-defunct relationship with my boss.
‘What’s his name?’
‘Maybe it’s a she,’ I tease him, surprising myself.
I’ve always been so uptight around Robin, so worried about making a good impression. But this new Robin, this friendlier Robin, is making me react in an entirely different way.
Robin looks taken aback, but quickly recovers. ‘Her name, then? I’m sorry, I always assumed –’
‘I’m kidding. His name’s Madern.’ I see his brows contract. ‘It’s a Cornish name. Very, very Cornish.’
‘Like you?’
‘Yes, we’re an odd bunch. Probably the lifestyle. Too much fresh air, not enough money.’
‘Unlike me and Emily. I sometimes think the two of us were cursed from birth.’ He is not looking at me. ‘It must have been our upbringing that did it. Too much money, not enough sense.’
‘Come on, that’s not true.’
‘Isn’t it?’
Again I catch the sneer in his voice, and feel upset on his behalf. Is Robin depressed? He seems almost to hate himself.
‘Robin, what happened to you?’
CHAPTER TEN
I touch his face, and feel him stiffen, his dark gaze meeting mine. He pulls away with a jerk before I can explore further, and I stammer, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, it’s okay,’ he says curtly. ‘It’s a natural reaction. You remember me as some good-looking Californian kid, and here I am now, just another guy the wrong side of thirty. I’ll tell you about my life one day. Not today though.’
‘You’re not just another guy.’ My hand is still raised, my fingers tingling from where they touched his skin. ‘Not to me.’
Robin stares, and his jaw clenches. ‘Caitlin,’ he begins, then stops.
Abruptly, he turns and walks away between the outdoor sculptures and neat formal flower beds. His shoulders are hunched, his head bowed. As though I have said something unforgiveable.
I watch him pause at the door back into the museum, waiting f
or an elderly couple to wander out into the gardens.
I catch him up. ‘Robin –’
‘I’m sorry,’ he tells me, inexplicably.
‘No, it was my fault.’
But he shakes his head. ‘Come on.’
Taking me by the elbow, he steers me back into the cool stillness of the museum.
I am very aware of his hand on my arm, the intimacy of that contact. I ought to be offended by the way Robin is handling me. I’ve always pushed away men who wanted to control me, to objectify me. Yet, contrary as it seems, I decide that I like Robin’s proprietorial air, the way he touches me with such authority, such a sense of ownership.
When we were teens, he would glance at me sideways, a knowing smile on his face, as though simultaneously acknowledging and mocking my desire. It was a look designed to humiliate me. All the same, I hungered for it. Any attention from him, however meagre, however cruel, served to demonstrate the invisible bond between us. He was not indifferent, his smile told me, and in those days that was all that mattered.
Now we’re older, the chemistry between us has shifted in my favour. It’s become about what he wants.
His desire is tangible.
I see it in his eyes, feel it in the way he touches me, one hand in the small of my back now, guiding me towards the exit with a swift word of thanks to the exquisitely made-up young French woman behind the counter.
‘Au revoir, madame, monsieur,’ she calls after us, a hint of curiosity in her voice.
I smile at the woman but can’t manage a reply. I’m tingling with a sexual awareness I haven’t felt in years, my body fully alive again, my face hot.
A puzzle still nags at me though.
I saw the heat in his face too. Saw and understood it as akin to my own. If he wants to get me into bed though, if he finds me sexually attractive, why did he walk away in the museum gardens?
It’s a miracle to be spending time again with Robin. To be touching and talking like lovers. But what isn’t he saying?
