by Michael Ross
When I arrive at the hotel, I go straight to the lifts and find her room. I hadn’t been sure if she would be in or whether she would even answer the door, so I had previously composed a handwritten note to push under the door to let her know it was me.
She opens the door. My first sight of her takes my breath away, but not in a nice way. She looks shattered, like an animal that has been locked away from the sun for a long time, lost and utterly vulnerable.
Holding her as she cries, that vulnerability is communicated through her breathing. It stutters and starts, like a car engine that just doesn’t want to tick over. She is also physically exposed; she is dressed only in her underwear, has no make-up on and is barefoot. She is smaller and lighter than I had thought.
I don’t care if the timing is all wrong; my body screams at me to say it.
“I love you, Jessica.”
When I feel that she is more settled, I whisper in her ear,
“Here’s my plan: you go and have a nice, long shower, get changed, and then you can show me around Paris and buy me some coffee from your favourite Parisian cafe. Go, go, but take as long as you like. There’s no hurry.”
It feels indecent to look at her as she walks away, so I study the room. It’s not exactly a mess, but it feels out of sorts. On the coffee table is what is left of Jess’s phone. The lid of her laptop is raised and I’m sure if I wiggle her mouse, I will get some missing information from her history. But I am not in the slightest tempted. All I want is to give her a nice day, a day to enjoy after a night to forget. Although the screen is cracked, the phone might be usable, so I search for the back of the phone and find it under the chair. I always carry a sticking plaster in my credit card case, and I use it to bind the two pieces together. It looks hideous, but it seems to work. I turn it off and plug it into the wall charger behind the chair, leaving it out of sight for the present. I decide to lie down on the bed. I haven’t slept for more than a couple of hours out of the last twenty-four, so despite my best efforts, I fall asleep.
I wake up and instinctively know Jess is not here. I get off the bed and go to look in the bathroom, which is spotless. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a note leaning on top of the dressing table. I hesitate before picking it up.
Hi, my knight in shining white armour.
You were so fast asleep I did not dare to disturb you. I have things to do, but I should be back before two and then you can have me and Paris all to yourself.
Love, J
P.S. I heard what you said this morning. x x
It has already turned midday. Brilliant knight in shining white armour, me! More like a bumbling Don Quixote. May as well have a quick shower myself. I remembered to grab a toothbrush and a change of underpants when I left, and that is it. I’m in and out and drying my hair when Jess returns. She looks ravishing, and for some reason I feel embarrassed to approach her.
She walks over to me, plants a kiss on my mouth and says, “Come on, I’ve got the whole day planned.”
Did something bad happen last night, or did I imagine her phone call? I’m happy to tag along, but have no intention of letting her sweep events under the carpet. It is important that I am not excluded; I do not want to be excluded. We head off down some side streets and come to a pavement cafe in what looks like, to my untutored eye, a rather rough part of the city.
Jess points to a table.
“Sit. I will be back with the best breakfast you have ever eaten.”
Damn it, is she ever wrong? She has come back with two large cups of cappuccino and four of the largest almond croissants I have seen. They taste heavenly. I know that sounds a bit over the top, but they are delicious. I go back inside for two more coffees. I want these croissants to last, and they need company. I place them on the table.
“Okay, Jessica Bethan Roberts, no more delaying tactics. I need to know everything about last night, and I mean absolutely everything.”
***
“Edwin Pedlar.”
“Hello, Edwin. It’s Gemma here. Gemma Barrow.”
“I only know one or two Gemmas. Are you the one with the nasty, aggressive nature who likes destroying men’s egos or the patient, listening one?”
“I’m the worried one. Do you know if Danny has any way of getting in touch with Jess?”
“Why?”
“She’s not answering her phone and there are some wild rumours circulating around here that she attacked one of the senior board directors last night in her bedroom.”
“As if. Whoever is going to believe that?”
“Well, not me, for one.”
“Don’t panic, Gemma. She will be in touch. All I can tell you is that Danny left a message on my mobile last night to say he was going over to Paris to sort a problem out. I could give you his number, but let me ring him first. Don’t worry.”
Gemma does not get a chance to respond. Well, Danny is no heavyweight boxer, but there is no doubt he could more than pummel Paul Clement into the ground if he so wished. Wouldn’t that be nice to hear about? Her internal line rings. “Miss Barrow, could you come up to the third floor please?”
She will, but not until Edwin rings back.
***
“Paul Clement is—was my boss’s boss,” Jess begins. “He’s a French Canadian who has advanced through the company ranks on his ability to speak English and French flawlessly and his predator’s eye for an opportunity. Over the years I got to know him, and he has always been friendly and chivalrous, but last year he started making his advances more obvious. Our meals out together started to be accompanied by small and then more generous gifts.”
“He seemed to accept with good grace that I liked him as a friend, but no more, and as he backed off, I strangely found myself becoming more attracted to him. He could be most charming, and so I made a conscious decision to see if there was a more meaningful relationship possible. Gemma was horrified when I told her, which in turn drove me on. I was her boss, I knew better than her, that type of thing.”
“So when he came back to my hotel room last year, I was prepared to have sex with him. I wasn’t excited about it, but he was so charming; maybe I was being too selective. When we entered the room, he started undressing me and then, when we kissed, I knew instantly that this was nonsense. Not only did I have no feelings for him, I was repulsed by his mouth, by his hands, by his face. It all seemed like madness and as I pushed him away, he did not grasp that a change in me had happened. Maybe he thought I was role-playing, because what started as a simple shove in the chest turned into a fight, and if I hadn’t screamed at the top of my voice, he only had one thing in mind. The following day he apologised, said he’d had too much to drink and he would never force a lady to do anything she did not want. I have spent a year keeping as far away from him as possible.”
I need some time to assimilate the information. On one hand I want to corner this Clement fellow and attack him with a baseball bat, but on the other I am mystified that Jess could manoeuvre herself into such a position. It does not seem to be the sort of thing I would have expected from her. Have I misjudged her? How do I respond?
“What are you thinking?”
“Sorry, my head is slightly swimming. I’m trying to get my brain around it all.”
“You feel I’ve got myself to blame.”
This is not going to go well. Words—where are you? I have got to say this right.
“I made a promise to you that I would never lie to you, and it would be wrong of me to start lying now. Yes, it sounds as if in some way, in some small way, you could have averted what happened.” Well, that’s screwed it all up. But how can I believe in a long-term future if I start avoiding the truth?
Tears are forming in her eyes. “I didn’t want you to say that.”
“I know, Jess. I didn’t want to say it, but it’s how I feel.”
“Do you mind staying here while I go for a short walk?” As she walks away, she takes a tissue from her pocket and brings it up to her face.
<
br /> ***
“Gemma Barrow.”
“Hi, Gemma,” says Edwin. “I’ve spoken briefly to Danny. From what I can gather, Jess’s boss attacked her and she fought him off. Now, this is going to affect you: she has handed in her resignation and is sending a letter detailing the facts to the board. But she is adamant, regardless of any internal review, that she will never work for the company again.”
“I told her not to go. To stay well clear of that snide twat. How could she be so stupid?”
“You don’t mean that, do you?”
“Of course not, but he is such a creep. I have to go upstairs now, where no doubt I will be fed some concocted story that he has fabricated. If they do, I’m giving in my notice.”
“Shouldn’t you wait until you speak to Jess? I’m not saying you should stay regardless, but at least talk it over with her first. Take a deep breath and suck it in. Jobs aren’t that easy to find. See what Jess says, yes?”
“Yes, you’re right. That’s good advice which, unlike Jess, I will heed. Thank you, Edwin.”
“Ed. Let’s keep in touch for the next day or so.”
***
“Rob Palmer.”
“Hi, Rob. Danny here.”
“Hi, buddy. Are you all right? You sound a bit down.”
“I’ve been happier. That’s for sure.”
“It’s not a very good line, I can hardly hear you.”
“Is that better? I’m in Paris, but the signal should be the same.”
“Yes, I can hear you better now. Paris, eh? Are you having a dirty weekend in the mid-week?”
“Anything but. I think I’ve screwed up things with Jess big time. It’s too complicated, but I’ve just told her the truth about something when I think I should have lied—to spare her feelings, you know?”
Rob is a calming influence; I don’t rush him.
“Doing what I do,” he says, “spending much of my life in courts and interview rooms, where I know half the time people are lying to my face, I have come to realise that I fight harder for the truth-givers. I have respect for the men and women who come out and say ‘I’ve screwed up—can you help me?’ I still do my best for the liars, but not my very best if you understand what I mean. Sometimes in life you have to go backwards to go forwards. You can’t undo what you have said. Don’t vacillate, Danny. That will make things worse. You’re a good guy. If she doesn’t see that, well…”
“You’re the best, Rob. She’s coming back. I have to go—thanks.”
It is not easy to make eye contact as Jess sits back down at the table. She looks at me for a long time before she speaks. “My first reaction to what you said was disappointment. I thought we would be a team, and there is no chance of being a team if you are not here to fight my corner.”
She has been crying. All I want in the world is to rewind time, or even better, freeze it, so I can find some way for my words to match up properly with my feelings.
She pauses as a waitress takes away our cups and plates, then stands up, leans with both hands on her chair and says, “They stay open here until ten tonight. I need more time to think, so I’m going for a walk to clear my head. If you want to talk again, I will be back here sometime between seven and eight.”
And with that she is gone. Some sort of animal instinct tells me I can only make bad matters even worse if I chase after her.
Chapter
Forty-One
Jessica Roberts has visited Paris almost a dozen times over the years and has lost all interest in the usual tourist traps of the city. Today she wants to walk until her legs seize up, and a plan evolves in her head whereby she will walk along the Seine until she has left the hustle and bustle of the capital behind her.
She is outraged with herself as much as Danny. How had she allowed herself to get so emotionally involved with someone with such a shallow outlook on life? The more she thinks about him and his awful choice of words, the greater the anger that boils up inside her. But worse than that is the humiliation; Danny made her feel worthless. Within a few sentences, she was eight years old again and being chastised for events she had no control over. There is absolutely no doubt she will have to break off this relationship. She has no space in her life for someone who is not capable of being a friend at a time when she needs one so badly.
On checking her watch, she is surprised to find that three hours has flown by. Maybe it would be better not to return to the cafe. She could send him a text and not get involved in another meaningless conversation. She needs something stiff to drink and so heads for a pavement bar.
As she is ordering, she feels a tap on her shoulder. She turns to see a young girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen, holding out her hand. It seems a long way from the usual tourist traps, where begging would get better results than here, and for a moment Jess loses all the French vocabulary she had held in her head. She flings the girl a vague hand gesture and says, “In a minute—when I have change.” She pays the barman, then grabs her drink and sits down at one of the four empty tables furthest from the bar. This place is no goldmine, so the begging makes even less sense. She looks through her loose change and hands over three euros to the waiting girl.
“Thank you.”
“You’re English?”
“Yeah—why not?”
“Where from? Essex, Kent?”
“Colchester.” The girl starts to turn away.
“Hey, hang on.” The girl looks expectantly at Jess, who takes the opportunity to look the girl up and down. She is not badly clothed and there is nothing too shabby about her appearance. There is a lack of make-up, which would have covered up some acne, but her hair is clean and brushed.
“What the hell are you doing in the back streets of Paris begging?”
“It’s not the back streets.”
“You know what I mean. What’s your name?”
“Deborah.”
“So sit down and tell me.”
Deborah’s story is predictable, but it still breaks Jess’s heart. The girl had used all her savings to take her and her boyfriend on a weekend break to the “city of lovers.” She lost her virginity on the Saturday night, followed by constant rounds of sex for two days, and on the Monday she had woken up to find him, any money she had left, and her mobile phone all gone. She has a carrier bag containing her dirty clothes and not a clue how to get home, or how she is going to face her parents when she returns.
“You’ve still got your passport, I take it?”
The girl, exhausted, nods weakly.
“Okay. Don’t worry about this any longer. I’ll get you home—today. Now it’s time for you to listen to my story. Maybe, who knows, you can help me.”
***
Danny had thought that by going up to the top of the Eiffel Tower and looking down on the world, he would find answers, but in the end all he finds are more questions. Why had he not kept his thoughts to himself, or even delayed them for a while? Because now, only two hours later, he could not understand his behaviour. Jessica was more than thirty years old. Of course she had a history; he hadn’t fancied her when they first met because she looked good in a nun’s habit. She hadn’t filled out a form stating the nature of all past relationships, and the fact that this Clement chap had beguiled her—was that the word? Did that not make her more vulnerable and consequently more loveable? She had not withheld information from him; they had not known each other anywhere near long enough to know everything about each other. The initial anger that had got the better of him has now turned to shame…and fear. Fear that he might have lost the best chance in life he had ever been given. His mobile phone rings. Jessica. He checks his watch; still an hour until they are meant to meet. She is going to end it this way rather than doing it face to face.
“Hi.”
“Danny, I don’t want you to think too long before you answer this.”
“Okay.”
“I need your plane ticket back to UK for someone else. Can I have it?”
Ne
ed…need?
“Yes, of course.”
“Can you leave your plane ticket in the room and take your stuff and check in somewhere else for the night? I have someone else who needs to share the room.”
Needs—again!
“If that’s what you want.”
“Good—I will see you in a couple of days’ time back at home.”
The phone went dead. Anger and shame has turned into confusion.
Within an hour Danny has returned to the hotel, packed his case, left a note and is in a taxi heading for the train station. The Channel Tunnel will do; he is in no hurry to get home.
***
“Wow. This is, well…posh!”
“Sorry, did you say something?” Jess is distracted by reading Danny’s note.
“I said I’ve never been anywhere like this in my life. You must be rolling in it.”
“Money isn’t everything, Deborah.”
“That’s really funny, ‘cos it’s only rich people you hear saying that. Is that a letter from the boyfriend?”
“Mm—yes.”
“Can I read it?”
Jess shrugs and hands it to her. “Why not? You know everything anyway.”
Deborah is obviously one of those people who can only read out loud, but it helps Jess to hear Danny’s written words spoken.
Jessica, here is the ticket. I am so sorry about my reaction. It is unforgivable. I’m not going to even attempt to make excuses. There must be something involving jealousy in my actions and words, because I do not understand them in retrospect. Take care. Love, Danny.
“What do you think?” Jessica genuinely wants the young waif’s opinion.
“Well, all men are worthless shits, aren’t they?”
Jessica shrugs her shoulders.
“But he seems like a nice worthless shit, if you ask me,” the girl adds.
Jess smiles and says, “I’m going to take a sleeping pill and catch up on my sleep. Watch the TV if you want, but don’t dare to even think about leaving the room. I want to hand you back to your mum and dad safe and sound.” She is fast asleep within ten minutes.
