‘Oh Mum, great, you’re here. Come on up.’
They hugged, Frances thinking that her daughter looked very skinny and French, while Daisy digested the fact that her impression from the window had been correct. Compared to the haunted, tremulous creature she had left after the funeral, her mother was virtually unrecognisable; glowing from her walk, her eyes shining, her movements brisk and confident.
‘I saw you from the sitting room…walking…did the taxi tip you out at the wrong street?’ she asked, leading the way into the kitchen and busying herself with filling the cafetière.
‘No, no,’ Frances replied quickly. ‘I asked him to drop me a little early on purpose. Such a nice day, I wanted a walk. But how are you – are you well? This flat looks splendid – and so central too. I’m sorry it’s taken such ages to see you. Are you well?’ Frances repeated, trying and failing to catch her daughter’s eye as she scuttled between cupboards.
‘I’m fine. I’ll heat some milk, shall I? Claude insists on us getting this really strong Turkish stuff – undiluted it’s a bit of a shock to the system.’ She opened the fridge and pulled out a tall carton of milk.
‘And how is Claude?’
‘Fine.’ Daisy tipped some milk into a small saucepan and began stirring it, somewhat unnecessarily Frances thought, with a wooden spoon. ‘Though I’m afraid you won’t catch him this time. He’s had to go away for a few days. New York again. Business is so good he says we might have to move there permanently in the summer.’
‘Really? And how would you feel about that?’
Daisy hesitated. New York had been partly responsible for the remnants of bruising on her face, and the more vivid purple patches still visible on her back and the tops of her legs. He had used his feet as well as his fists this time; immaculate suede leather boots, with neat zips to the ankle. Curling her legs into her chest as she lay on the floor, readying herself for the impact, there had been a still mad moment in which she found herself noting the beauty of the leather, acknowledging something like admiration for a man who could own such things for so many months and not create one discernible scuff mark. She didn’t want to go to New York. Her work at the gallery was going too well. And Marcel was being kind; not enough to justify any of Claude’s latest bout of suspicions, but sufficient to plant the hope that there might be a way out after all, a bolt hole from the tense uncertainty which had regained its stranglehold over life in the flat. Claude’s remorse, the calm after the storm, had been as intense as before, but this time Daisy did not – could not – trust it to last. The only way to find the courage to leave, she knew, would be if all Claude’s accusations were true, if she had someone else to go to, someone strong and successful like Marcel. Without that she knew she would continue to be crushed by her lover’s belief that everything she possessed and achieved was thanks to him, that on some level he had every right to drag her by the roots of her hair across the floor – or the Atlantic for that matter if he chose.
‘Oh, I think New York would be brilliant,’ she gushed, ‘everybody says it’s just the most exciting place to live. The only thing I’m not sure about is leaving the gallery. It turns out I’ve got quite a talent for selling paintings.’ She led the way into the sitting room. ‘At least Marcel – that’s the guy who runs it – tells me I have. Of course it’s all thanks to Claude that I got the job in the first place. He really couldn’t have set me up…better,’ she faltered, gesturing at the high-ceilinged room and fine views to give weight to the sentiment, but seeing only the walls of her incarceration. ‘But tell me about home,’ she continued quickly. ‘How is working with Libby going and what is Felix up to? I must say, Mum, you look incredibly…’ she hesitated, ‘…you look very well.’
It suddenly occurred to Frances that behind the gloss of this observation lay a seed of criticism. Looking well was hardly something that Daisy would find flattering to the memory of her father.
‘I still miss Dad,’ she said quietly.
‘I didn’t mean…’
‘I know you didn’t. But I want you to know that I’ve learnt to keep the sadness at bay, in a part of my mind where I can go if I want to, but which does not flood my life as it did at the beginning. For a while I found things very hard, very hard indeed, but I’ve…moved on. I had to Daisy. It was either that or go mad. Working in Libby’s shop was the start of it – she’s even been selling a couple of my drawings…’ Frances broke off, suddenly aware that alluding to such minor successes was hardly a tactful move given her daughter’s own thwarted ambitions.
‘Have you?’ said Daisy carefully, ‘that’s fantastic.’
‘And are you painting at the moment?’
She shook her head. ‘Don’t want to. I don’t miss it either.’ She stood up, as if to dismiss the subject, confirming Frances’s fears that she had blundered on every front. ‘I thought we could go for a stroll and then perhaps eat out, have an early supper somewhere. If that sounds all right to you?’ she added uncertainly.
‘It sounds wonderful. I’m in your hands. It’s just nice to see you darling.’
‘And you Mum,’ Daisy replied, slipping into her bedroom to re-powder her face.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lying on his hotel bed, his head resting on the palms of his hands, Daniel felt rather at a loss. It was too late in the day to consider heading off in pursuit of culture and he was in no mood to tackle any of the various tomes still residing in the bottom of his hold-all. The French were no good at luxury, he reflected gloomily, surveying the cramped ill-lit room and marvelling at the price he was being charged for it. For something to do, he flicked through the channels on the small television, set on a high shelf because there was no slot for it on the ground. There had been an avalanche at a resort in the French Alps, ten people killed and scores injured. French farmers were threatening to block the ports, again. A minister had been sacked for embezzlement. As with Italian, Daniel had little trouble comprehending the language, though his ability to speak it remained patchy at best. Turning the television off, he dropped the console onto the floor and closed his eyes in the vague hope of drifting off to sleep.
The thought of Frances just half a mile away was distracting. The way she had invaded his life still astonished him, confirming his view that the best things happened when they were least expected. While sympathetic to Frances’s apprehension about the difference in their ages, Daniel could not bring himself to regard the situation in quite the same negative terms. Not just because of grand schemes about living for the moment, but because her maturity was an integral part of why he loved her, why he felt that, romantically, at least, the central quest of his life had found fulfilment. After years of failed relationships with much younger, insecure and volatile creatures, being with Frances was little short of a revelation. There was a calmness at the heart of her which he found beguiling, and which he had the sense to attribute in part to the solid qualities of the man to whom she had devoted the previous twenty years. Though she spoke little about Paul, Daniel could feel her thinking about him sometimes, whether with longing or matter-of-factness he never knew. Nor did he succumb to the temptation to ask, powerful though it often was. He had found that if he waited long enough the moments receded of their own accord, passing like clouds across her face, making the glow of her full concentration all the more vivid when it returned. The destructive influence of the living worried him far more. Laughing about the fiasco of the Taverners’ dinner party had helped to put it behind them, but it had cast a shadow nonetheless, even after his infinitely re-written thank-you and apology had finally found its way to a post box. In spite of his protestations to the contrary, Daniel remained deeply anxious about being accepted by the key players in Frances’s life, simply because he knew how much it mattered to her. The haphazard circle of acquaintances on his own side filled him with far fewer apprehensions; not only because Frances’s manifold attractions were so irrefutably in evidence to him, but also because he had a reputation for going hi
s own way. His parents might raise an eyebrow or two, but that had never stopped him from doing what he wanted in the past.
Aware that he was growing, if anything, more wide awake, Daniel opened his eyes and rummaged impatiently in his bag, hurling items onto the bed. A few minutes later, kitted out in trainers and an old track suit, he made his way down to reception, his rubber soles squeaking on the polished linoleum floor. Outside the sun was already losing out to the pull of evening, returning buildings and streets to their true state of blackened decrepitude. Daniel shivered in the cut of the wind, pulling the zip of his top up to his chin and tucking his hands into his sleeves. Breaking into a jog, he set off down the street, dodging pedestrians and dogs, stiffly at first and then with more grace and enjoyment as he got into his stride. Passing what he calculated to be Daisy’s block of flats, he noticed a light on in a second-storey window, but no sign of any movement from its occupants. Reluctantly, Daniel returned his attention to the obstacle course of the busy pavement ahead of him, kicking up his heels to give more of a bounce to his stride. If he remembered the map correctly there was a large park a few blocks ahead and to the right. And there might be the reward of a message from Frances awaiting his return, he comforted himself, sprinting across a red pedestrian light and getting violently hooted at by a woman in a white Mercedes.
‘I know it looks like any other seedy Paris hotel, but it’s got this brilliant restaurant in the basement – or perhaps I should say wine cellar. You eat surrounded by walls and walls of wine bottles – it’s kind of spooky but nice. Lots of garlic, though, if you don’t mind that.’
‘No, I don’t mind that.’
‘Claude discovered it. His family knew the proprietor or something. Here we are.’ Daisy pushed her way through the revolving doors of Daniel’s hotel and led the way to a stairwell next to the reception desk. ‘I booked. You don’t get in otherwise, no matter what day of the week it is. Mum? Is everything all right?’
‘Yes…I…it’s just that we don’t have to eat anywhere too grand or expensive…’
‘Oh, but it’s not expensive at all. When the Michelin lot get their hands on it no doubt things will change, but for now you really couldn’t pay so little for such good food.’ Daisy frowned, puzzled by her mother’s evident reticence. ‘But if you’re not hungry, I guess we could just—’
‘No, it sounds wonderful. Let’s eat,’ Frances urged, tensing at the swish of opening lift doors behind her. Following her daughter down the stairs she glanced nervously over her shoulder; but it was only an old lady with lilac grey hair clutching a small terrier between the broad lapels of her coat.
The atmosphere down in the restaurant was even more impressive than Daisy had described. Every wall was stacked from floor to ceiling with full wine racks, artfully illuminated to cast long shadows and exotic glints of green and red glass. Overhead, flame-shaped light bulbs, strings of onions and dried flowers hung from the beams, creating their own dramatic circus of shapes on the surroundings. They were shown to a table for two in a far corner, sufficiently tucked away from the main body of the room for Frances to think about relaxing and enjoying the company of her daughter.
It was the first time they had ever eaten out in such a fashion on their own, she realised, wondering in the same instant if this lay behind the obstinacy of the awkwardness between them. Seeing her no doubt brought back vivid memories of Paul, Frances reasoned, studying her daughter’s expression, animated in conversation, and wondering what it was she found so unconvincing. Although too heavily made-up for Frances’s own tastes, there was no doubt that Daisy had learnt how to accentuate the striking features of her face, somehow made all the more compelling by the frame of messily cropped hair. Daniel would find her attractive, she decided suddenly, stopping with a snail half-way to her mouth, her heart leapfrogging at the thought.
Although Frances did her best to raise opportunities to talk about Paul – wanting to probe the most obvious cause of the sadness, or uncertainty, or whatever it was she detected behind the glassy smile in her daughter’s eyes – Daisy seemed far keener to talk about other things.
‘Is Felix quite all right do you think? Only I haven’t heard a thing from him all term. I know he’s not the greatest correspondent, but after Dad…after the funeral…we were…communicating more than we used to. Till Christmas anyway. I’ve written twice since then and got nothing back.’
‘Too busy having a good time, I expect. I haven’t heard a word either.’
‘I hope so,’ murmured Daisy, aware that her own secret sufferings had made her more alert to the possibility of unhappiness in other people.
‘He didn’t by any chance mention anything about Sally Taverner did he?’ ventured Frances after a pause, ‘only I gather he was having a bit of a thing with her during the Christmas holidays.’
‘Sally Taverner?’ The look of unabashed amazement on Daisy’s face struck Frances as the first truly genuine outburst of emotion since her arrival. ‘What sort of a thing?’
‘I don’t really know – Joseph Brackman claimed to have seen them together a few times, meeting in secret, poor loves. Anyway, my guess is that it’s all fizzled out. Felix got horribly grumpy towards the end of the holidays and poor Sally had that dreadful business of finding Mrs Brackman and then getting so ill – remember, I told you on the phone?’
But Daisy was shaking her head. ‘Sally and Felix,’ she murmured, ‘I just can’t believe it somehow. I mean Sally, of all people – she’s just a kid.’
Frances let out a short laugh. ‘She certainly isn’t. You should see her these days – almost as tall as Beth, filling out all over the place and being bloody-minded to everybody. Libby was really concerned about her at one point, but they seem to have sorted it out now. I never mentioned the Felix thing to her, by the way,’ she added, ‘because it was only hearsay and she’s had quite enough on her plate – the shop seems at last to be emerging from the doldrums but it’s going to be a long haul.’
‘Libby’s always been a bit of a worrier, I know it drives Beth mad.’ Daisy grinned, relaxing partly because of a third glass of wine and partly from the simple pleasure of talking about home. ‘It is good to see you, Mum. And I think it’s brilliant that you’re so…’ she struggled for the right word, ‘…together about Dad. Anyone else would have cracked up.’
‘Thank you darling, you’re very kind,’ murmured Frances, glad that she had managed most of her emotional disintegration in private. Looking back, she decided that the only truly visible sign of madness, had been agreeing to meet James Harcourt, kidding herself that he constituted some sort of rescue package designed by Paul from beyond the grave. Remembering the extent of her inner desperation and the unlikely, magical way in which Daniel had subsequently eased her out of it, Frances was briefly tempted to tell Daisy everything. But the moment passed, banished by the arrival of a dessert trolley laden with gateaux and fruit tarts.
Too full to do justice to such a rich selection, they decided to settle the bill and go back to the flat for coffee. After a show of resistance, Daisy let her mother pay the bill. Money was one of the cruder reasons for her state of entrapment. Her salary from the gallery was pitiful. Everything else came from Claude, whose early laissez faire attitude had lately been superseded by erratic and intense interrogation of every penny she spent.
Daniel never ate early anyway, Frances reflected cheerfully, seeing from a glance at her watch that it was still only half past eight. They emerged at the top of the stairs to find the hotel lobby deserted.
‘I’m dying for a pee,’ Daisy confessed, pausing at the main door and looking round for a sign to the toilets. She started to approach the reception desk to make enquiries but then changed her mind. ‘Oh what the hell, I can wait till we get home.’
Though minor, the delay was sufficient to ensure the encounter Frances had been so dreading. Daniel, returning from a beer at a café on the corner of the block, began pushing through the revolving door just as Frances and D
aisy were doing the same thing on the other side. Recognising him through the glass, Frances blanched and tried to mouth the word ‘no’. Once outside she started to hurry away, but the door continued to revolve, spilling Daniel out into the street like a ball from a roulette wheel. The gleeful expression on his face warned Frances at once that he had assumed she was trying to see him and had not yet made any connection with the tall blonde-haired girl at her elbow.
‘Daniel meet Daisy,’ she almost shrieked, instinctively putting out a hand to keep him at arm’s length while Daisy spun round to see what was going on. Daniel’s expression changed in an instant, shrinking from exuberance to formal pleasure.
‘Hello,’ he said, reaching out his hand.
‘A friend?’ enquired Daisy, hopping from foot to foot.
‘Yes, we…’ both Daniel and Frances began speaking and then broke off at the same time.
‘A few weeks ago your mother almost ran me down in her car — we’ve been firm friends ever since.’
Daisy looked puzzled but smiled. ‘Sounds fascinating…er…look, would you like to come back for coffee with us or something? Only I’m rather…’
Frances glanced sharply at Daniel, but he was already nodding. ‘That would be great. Do you live far?’ he added innocently, sucking in his cheeks to show Frances that he sensed her disapproval and was going to ignore it.
‘No, really close.’ Daisy trotted off up the street, keeping slightly ahead but not sufficiently out of earshot for Frances to say any of the things she really wanted to.
Their only brief chance to talk was after getting inside the flat, when Daisy bolted off to relieve her discomfort and attend to coffee.
The Lover Page 19
