A Hidden Life

by Adele Geras

  Instead, instead of everything he was expecting, he felt Dulcie’s arms go round him. Felt himself drawn close to her, hugged, and then she was kissing the top of his head and saying over and over: ‘I’ll look after you. I promised your mother. She’d want me to. You’ll be my boy. My son. I’ll take care of you. For ever. My son. You’ll be mine.’

  ‘I don’t want to be yours! How can I be yours when you killed my mother?’

  Dulcie laughed as she turned to the others and said, ‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying. Of course I didn’t kill her. How could I? I wasn’t here.’

  He knew it was pointless. Speaking was pointless. Telling everyone what had happened was quite pointless. Dulcie had turned away from his mother, walked away from her and left her to die. She knew – she must have known – how close her friend was to dying and she chose not to tell anyone. Dulcie was a murderer and his new mother. No one else was going to be a mother to him. Everyone else was dead dead dead and it was just him and Dulcie. She wanted him to be her son. He would be her son if that was what she wanted, but he’d never forgive her. Never.

  ‘That must have been,’ Harry said, ‘awful. Awfully hard, I mean. Poor old you.’

  Harry was holding her hand. He’d taken it in a casual way and they were walking, in the way that couples visiting Paris were supposed to walk, along the banks of the Seine in the evening twilight. The heat had gone from the day, but the air was still warm and fragrant with the special scent of Paris: a mixture of tobacco and French cooking and exhaust smells and some indefinable magic essence that made it so different from London.

  ‘She fell asleep but I didn’t mind,’ she answered, thinking, We’re holding hands, and I can’t even appreciate that properly because half of me is still thinking about what Mme Franchard said. Lou went on, ‘It’s one of the bits of the novel which leaves me feeling shaken. It’s so moving, and I’m usually in tears over it, but reading it aloud made it okay. I couldn’t cry, which I usually do. Because I had an audience I had to be in control. But it’s the most awful death, much worse than the kind of thing you get in thrillers sometimes – you know, the gore and mutilation. And what’s worse …’

  ‘You can tell me, Lou. Really. Tell me what she said.’

  ‘She’s convinced that it’s all true. She thinks Grandad was writing down exactly what happened. I’ve always assumed – well, I thought he’d used his time in the prison camp simply as background to the story.’

  ‘Maybe he did. Maybe Mme Franchard is wrong.’

  ‘But what if she isn’t? It means that my grandfather spent his whole life, almost, believing he was living with his own mother’s murderer. That’s – I can’t begin to think what that must have been like. I’ll have to tell my dad. He knew Rosemary had adopted Grandad, but he thought she’d rescued him, not killed his mother in order to steal him. He’ll be very upset.’

  ‘Yes, you have to tell him. But Lou, there’s nothing you can do about it from here. Right?’

  ‘I know. You’re right, of course. And I don’t want to spoil our time in Paris. I’ll be fine. Really. But Mme Franchard gave me a letter, too. I’m supposed to open it after her death. A bit morbid, don’t you think?’

  ‘Not at all. Very Victorian novelish, that’s all. She’s probably leaving you her jewels or something.’

  ‘Gosh, I hope it is jewels, because there’s nothing much in that flat I want, unfortunately.’

  Immediately, she felt disloyal to poor Mme Franchard. She remembered how thin and frail she’d looked, snoring quietly as Lou read to her. Harry hadn’t seen her, so of course he could make light of it. But she felt as though she’d been disrespectful and vowed not to talk so frivolously about her great-great-aunt again.

  Harry said, ‘You could open the letter, you know. See what’s in it.’

  ‘No!’ Lou was shocked. ‘I’d never do that. I bet you were the kind of nosy little boy who tried to find the Christmas presents your parents had hidden away, right?’

  ‘Of course. Weren’t you?’

  ‘No, I wasn’t. I waited like a good girl and I was about sixteen when I stopped having a stocking. My dad would creep into my bedroom and put it on my chair and I’d close my eyes and pretend to be sleeping if I wasn’t really asleep and I didn’t even look into that stocking till daybreak. I could have got the satsumas and chocolates out the minute he’d left the room, but I never did. Not once.’

  ‘Goody-goody,’ Harry said. ‘I’ve always known you were, you know.’

  They’d stopped walking and Harry let go her hand and took her by the shoulders and kissed her. Lou closed her eyes, thinking: It’s happening, he’s kissing me. She started to think through how and what and why and then lost it all, caught up in the kiss. She could feel herself stiffen at first, resist a little and then it was fine and she wanted him to go on kissing her and leaned forward, leaned into him and opened her lips under his and let her feelings run through her body. Something within her was unlocked all at once and a rush of desire made her feel weak. She pulled away from Harry and looked at him, and the mauve sky behind him and the shadow of the great cathedral over his left shoulder. Me, she thought. Me and Harry in Paris, kissing on the banks of the Seine.

  ‘Look at this,’ Harry smiled. ‘Kissing on the banks of the Seine … of all the cinematic clichés …’

  ‘I was thinking the exact same thing,’ Lou answered.

  *

  Matt told himself he should never have agreed to have a meal with Ellie in her flat. It was a mistake and he knew it as soon as the words left his mouth, as soon as he’d told her he’d be there at eight. As he drove to Brighton, he tried to find a decent excuse for his behaviour and there wasn’t one. He ought to have said no, sorry. She’d taken advantage of Phyl’s absence – that was the bottom line. Until he’d let on (was that some sort of Freudian slip?) that Phyl was up in London, there hadn’t been a squeak about dinner, and looking back on the conversation he knew it would have been easy for her to discuss whatever it was she wanted to discuss over the phone. If there was an excuse – and there wasn’t, not really – then perhaps it was this: she might have taken it into her head to come over to his house and install herself in his lounge and his dining room and … No, he wasn’t even going to think about the possibility of her entering his bedroom. His and Phyl’s. That was out of the question. Unthinkable. I’ll only stay for dinner, he told himself and then I’ll get out of there at once, as soon as I possibly can.

  His mind went briefly to Lou, who would probably already have seen Mme Franchard and be enjoying herself with this Harry person, whoever he was. Phyl had spoken about him but beyond getting the basics – that he was a man Lou worked with, practically her boss – he must have switched off from the rest of the conversation. It was something you fell into when you’d been married a long time. You couldn’t possibly attend to every single word, or you’d go mad. More than he wished for any other single thing, he wanted Lou to be happy. If this Harry could make her forget the ghastly Ray, he’d be delighted. More than delighted: thrilled to bits. Mentally crossing his fingers, he parked his car in a side street off Portland Place and walked towards Ellie’s house. He saw himself as some kind of gladiator about to enter the arena. His heart was bumping about rather uncomfortably in his chest.

  ‘Hello, darling!’ Ellie was waiting at the open door of her flat. She was wearing black trousers and a loose, blue blouse in a floaty sort of material that you could almost but not quite see through. ‘Come in and sit down. I’m so pleased you came … much nicer than being stuck in that big house all by yourself. Whatever is Phyl thinking of, running up to London at night?’

  ‘She’s babysitting for Lou, who’s gone to Paris.’

  ‘Goodness! Paris! How romantic!’

  *

  Matt leaned back against the rather too many cushions on Ellie’s sofa and realized that he couldn’t possibly do what he’d intended to do. He couldn’t leave. He’d meant to be very careful about drinking, but El
lie had spent most of the meal waving a bottle at him and urging him to have ‘just one more’. And he had. One more and then another and soon it became clear that he was not going to be able to drive. How many glasses had he drunk? Couldn’t remember. That, he thought fuzzily, had been her intention. She was sitting next to him now, with her head resting on his shoulder and he didn’t have the energy to move away. It was comfortable. He liked having Ellie curled up next to him. Where was the harm in that?

  ‘You need to sleep a bit, Matt. Come with me. I’ll cover you up and let you doze off a bit. Then you’ll be in a better state to drive home.’

  He followed her, and the next thing he knew, he was lying stretched out on her bed. She was pulling a silky cover over him, and as she bent over to tuck it in around him, her breasts touched his chest. He could feel the pillowy softness of them and his nostrils were filled with a fragrance he recognized; he put his arms out almost as a reflex.

  Ellie responded. How things would have turned out if she hadn’t, if she’d just drawn back a little, there was no way of knowing, but it was ridiculous to think of her pulling away. She’d engineered this. She wanted it. She’d choreographed it. He felt himself falling as she kissed him. I’m doing this, I am, I’m kissing her and I don’t want to stop went round and round in his mind on a kind of loop, and almost as though he were under anaesthetic, he could feel her undoing his belt, unbuttoning his shirt, kissing his chest, and manoeuvring her naked body (how? When did that happen? He hadn’t noticed her taking off her clothes) under the silky coverlet next to him. Suddenly, he was completely awake, and energy was fizzing in him … he’d been half dead a moment ago. How had this happened? He struggled out of his clothes, with Ellie helping him and murmuring in his ear and he was flat on his back and she was everywhere, all over him and he was engulfed in her, and she was nuzzling his neck and he was dizzy with wanting her and remembering her and wanting to move but pinned down and only able to lie there and feel her above him, her breasts pushed into his face, and he licked them and licked them and knew that he’d been wanting this and nothing but this. Soon, he heard himself groaning as she moved on top of him, unable to stop himself crying out and then falling into such sharp pleasure that he almost fainted.

  Later, how much later he had no idea, he became aware of a cheeping sound coming from the floor. What the hell was that? He lifted his head. What time was it? He glanced at his watch and sat up abruptly. Nearly one o’clock, so he must have been asleep for a couple of hours. Ellie was still lying there beside him, her mouth a little open, fast asleep. Her pale skin glowed in the dimness. The room wasn’t completely dark because a light was shining in from the lounge. Oh, God, what was he going to do about this? And there was that cheeping again. Now that he was properly awake, he realized what it was: his mobile. Someone must have sent a text. When had that come through? Usually, he heard the shrill signal perfectly well but there was a whole slice of time when the phone could have played the Hallelujah Chorus in his ear and he wouldn’t have heard it. He got off the bed as quietly as he could and scrabbled around for his trousers. He found the phone, and opened it. The message read: Where are you? PL text back when you get this. Phyl.

  Three kisses. Three ‘x’s. Not there. Where were the three kisses? She’d left them off and Matt wondered whether she knew where he was. No, how could she? She’d probably rung him at home … where would he say he was? What could he do? Play for time. He texted: Hope all’s well with Poppy. I’m fine. xxx.

  He walked into the lounge and sat down on the sofa. It felt smooth and velvety against his naked skin and the cushions behind him were like a caress. He tried not to go over what had happened with Ellie, and told himself that if he could have gone back and erased the last few hours from his life, he’d have done it without the slightest hesitation. Liar, said a voice in his head, you loved it. You haven’t had sex like that in years.

  The trilling of his mobile came at the right time. He’d been considering going back. He wanted to go into the bedroom, wanted to lie down again, longed to wake Ellie up and turn her to face him, and more than anything wanted to sink again into that rippling pool of pure pleasure. No, that’s madness, he thought. I mustn’t. He opened his phone, trying to ignore his erection.

  Phone me at Lou’s in the morning.

  Still no ‘xxx’, not even her name. She must know – but how could she? He’d deny it. He told himself that what he’d done didn’t matter quite as much as it might have done because it would never happen again. Never. This was the end of it. The beginning and the end. He had no intention of leaving Phyl, Ellie would probably run a mile if he suggested getting together … No, this was a one-off. A slaking of appetites, that’s all. He was quite determined about that. He had till morning to think of something plausible – perhaps a bridge game – he was a member of the bridge club and Phyl knew he played quite often; too much to drink, stayed the night with Paul. That was it. Would she check? Would he have to speak to Paul and warn him? Better had, just in case. He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate on composing a plausible message to send to Phyl. He sighed and punched the tiny silver buttons. Too much to drink at bridge. Staying with Paul overnight. Will ring tomorrow xxx.

  He watched the little blue envelope speeding across the screen of his phone and then snapped it shut, feeling released for the moment from any guilt, as though that virtual envelope had absolved him of any wrongdoing. He’d covered his tracks for now, and now was the only time that interested him. He walked back into the bedroom. Ellie was still asleep. Might as well, he thought, be hung for a sheep as for a lamb.

  ‘Ellie?’ He turned her towards him and took her in his arms.

  ‘Mmm?’

  ‘It’s me …’

  ‘Hello, you,’ Ellie said, and a laugh bubbled up from her throat. ‘How lovely to see you again.’

  Matt closed his eyes and his head was instantly emptied of every single coherent thought.

  *

  It had been, no contest, the evening she’d enjoyed most in the last two years or so since she’d left Ray. If you were designing, choreographing the perfect evening, this would have been it. Even the shock of what Mme Franchard had implied could not dampen her pleasure at being here, now, with Harry.

  Lou had no idea how long they’d sat on the bench on the river bank, snogging. Snogging – what a teenagey word that was. She hadn’t used it, had hardly even thought it since she was about fifteen. This was how it used to be: kissing and kissing as if you never wanted to stop; as though there was nothing else in the world except your mouths, your breath and the closeness and tenderness of having someone’s arms around you again. She hadn’t realized how much she’d been missing it.

  In the end, it was hunger that put an end to their kissing. They’d walked back from the river to a brasserie called La Coupole, which was famous, apparently. Harry was telling her about the artists who used to go there in the old days. When they walked in, he showed her the tops of the columns that held up the ceiling, decorated by this artist and that one. She gazed at them open-mouthed, but her thoughts were already racing ahead to later: to when the meal was over. They’d go back to the hotel and … what? Go to bed together. He’d make love to her, she knew he would. She wanted him to. That was such a strange feeling after such a long time of dreading sex, of shrinking away from any contact, that it quite distracted her from practical things, like the ordering of food.

  ‘I don’t care, really,’ she said, when Harry held out the menu to her. She waved it away. ‘I’ll have what you’re having.’

  ‘The choucroute here is fantastic … you know, lovely sausages and sauerkraut and bacon bits, etc. Sound okay?’

  She nodded, and watched him ordering the food and two pints of Stella and it was as though everything was going on somewhere far away from her. Later … that was all she could think about. What would happen. What they’d be doing. She was wearing her best underwear – that must mean something. It must mean I was sort of expecti
ng it this morning. Hoping for it, even. When she’d got dressed at about six o’clock, which was quite a normal getting-up time for Poppy, she certainly hadn’t been imagining anyone seeing the lacy bra and knickers set she put on. I chose the best ones because I was going on holiday and it was a special day, that’s all. Harry didn’t come into it … or maybe he’d been there at the back of her mind the whole time. Never mind … she could hear him speaking now, but part of her was still miles away, putting together a kind of scenario in her head. Perhaps he wouldn’t see her underwear in the end. Maybe he’d wait till she was in bed and then knock on her door and she’d call out to him and he’d be standing in the doorway with the light behind him and then he’d walk over to the bed and she’d hold back the duvet so that he could slide in next to her … She shivered.

  They ate. They talked. Harry had another Stella and Lou asked for a cappuccino. Then, all at once, he fell silent. The contrast between this and how they’d been, chatting and laughing – Lou couldn’t understand it, and she had no idea how to describe it. A shadow had fallen over the table, making everything dark. That was what it was like. Harry was too quiet. So was she. She couldn’t think of anything to say. Around them, at the other tables in the crowded brasserie everyone else seemed to be having a hilarious time. The laughter was raucous, harsh. The lights, up in the high ceiling, dotted over the walls, were suddenly much too bright and hurt her eyes. Earlier, when they’d sat down, it had occurred to Lou that their diamond brightness mirrored exactly the way she felt: sparkling, twinkling all over with happiness and excitement.