‘I couldn’t find the dratted thing,’ she said, brandishing the thermometer. ‘I turned the bathroom cupboard inside out, then I remembered I’d left it in Pippa’s room.’ Her face altered quite perceptibly when she mentioned her daughter’s name, becoming older and subdued. ‘I suppose I’d better phone again and see how she is today. God! It’s awful with you both ill.’
‘I’m not ill.’ He no longer believed his own denial. His head was throbbing, and every time he swallowed, the pain stabbed to his ear.
‘Well, you don’t look all that marvellous – sort of grey around the gills. And you must be boiling in that dressing-gown. Here, put these on instead.’ She passed him his pyjamas, helped him do them up. ‘You’d better stay in bed all day and keep the curtains drawn. I suspect we’re in for another dose of flaming June. It’s pretty close already, and it’s only half past eight.’
Daniel subsided on the bed again, cupping his hand round his throat, as if to comfort it or shield it. The early morning sunlight was glaringly intense, a sign that there would be no let-up in the hot spell. It seemed perverse to be ill in the summer: almost a form of ingratitude to find oneself near-mute when everybody else was waxing lyrical over the bounty of the weather. Or was it really bounty? The office was stifling in a heatwave, and though he couldn’t see the front garden from the bed, he was well aware how parched it was – the soil cracking in the flower-beds; the scrap of lawn a faded thirsty-brown.
His mouth felt dry at the thought. He leaned down for Penny’s cup of tea, still untouched on the breakfast tray, though tepid now and scummy.
‘No!’ she ordered, slipping the thermometer deftly under his tongue. He had watched her do the same with Pippa; the child irritable, rebellious, trying to push her mother’s hand away. He submitted gratefully. It would save him having to speak for a further couple of minutes – longer if she went downstairs. She was putting on her gingham robe, a tatty thing with half its buttons missing. (Juliet wore an immaculate silk kimono.)
She grabbed a slice of toast, the butter glazed and congealing; munched it while she hunted for her slippers. The earrings didn’t suit her. They were the wrong colour for her hair, and too long for her chubby, childish face. There had been a booklet at the jeweller’s, listing the symbolism of all the different stones. Pearls, it said, were the emblem of fertility, but also of virginity and innocence, which meant they were wrong for Juliet as well – wrong on all three counts.
Penny took a second piece of toast, her fingers slicked with grease. ‘Shall I save you some?’ she asked.
He shook his head and pointed to his windpipe, indicating that it hurt to eat.
‘Well, I’ll make you some lemon and honey, nice and hot.’
He grunted his thanks through the thermometer as she departed on her errand. Would she be going out later, he wondered, to Salisbury’s, or to work, or to do her stint for Pippa, so he could phone and cancel lunch? He couldn’t leave it too long. Juliet’s schedule was always hectically busy, and she hated interruptions once she was closeted in a meeting. Actually, it would be best to catch her before she left for work. Dare he try now? It should be safe enough, with Penny in the kitchen, clattering cups and plates. He removed the thermometer and picked up the phone, glancing nervously around, as if she possessed some magic eye which could see him from downstairs. He dialled Juliet’s number slowly; mentally undressing her as he pressed each digit, running his hand across her sinuous haunch; his fingers exploring the inside of her thigh.
He slammed the receiver down again before he reached her bush. Christ! He was incorrigible. His faithful wife was waiting on him, making him hot drinks, yet here he was slavering over his mistress once again. Juliet was dynamite – in all senses – and could blow his marriage to bits. Cancelling the odd lunch with her was neither here nor there – he had to cancel her entirely. That was the harsh truth he had been refusing to confront ever since Pippa had stopped speaking. Finally, reluctantly, he had given up smoking, but he knew deep down that it was only a half-measure, a pathetic sort of substitute. Something more was being asked of him, if he wanted his daughter well again – something which would really cost. Depriving himself of nicotine was nowhere near as painful as ending a relationship with a bewitching woman like Juliet. Not in his wildest fantasies had he imagined such a woman actually approaching him and making the first overtures. And even after he’d admitted he was married and therefore sadly unavailable, she had swept his scruples aside, told him with an intriguing smile that theirs could be a marriage of minds.
He heard Penny coming up the stairs and hastily put the thermometer back in his mouth, closing his eyes and pretending to be dozing.
‘Okay?’ she asked, easing it from under his tongue. ‘You should be good and done now.’ She held it up to the light and peered at it, mystified.
‘You’re way below normal. You didn’t take it out, did you?’
He made a noncommittal sound, though Penny wasn’t listening; more concerned with his low temperature. ‘Maybe low’s as bad as high. D’you want me to phone Steadman?’
‘Christ, no!’ He’d seen quite enough of their GP in the last few anxious weeks. He and Penny had traipsed round to the surgery to discuss their ‘problem child’ – twice with her, once without. The doctor had been sympathetic, but could he really understand what it was like to live with a child who refused to speak beyond the briefest monosyllables? Her silence put a damper on the house; made his and Penny’s conversation seem strained and almost tactless; roused in him a fury at his inability to help. Sometimes he would let fly at her, then immediately regret it because her silence wasn’t petulant or sullen, but seemed to spring from an inner wretchedness which left him wretched in his turn.
‘Penny …’
‘What?’
‘You know Pippa’s lost her watch?’
‘Oh no!’
He nodded, listened despondently to her explosion of annoyance. True Pippa seemed to keep losing things just recently, but he didn’t feel it was a matter of mere carelessness – rather that she no longer had much interest in material possessions, and was narrowing her world to a bleak and silent emptiness. He picked up the thermometer case, chewed its plastic end: better that than another cigarette. The list of problems was becoming just too onerous – his daughter first and foremost, but also the constant inner turmoil over Juliet, and now another fiasco in bed.
Penny was still fretting about the watch, asking where Pippa had lost it and whether they could claim it on the insurance.
‘Maybe,’ he said briefly, then stroked a finger down her cheek. ‘Let’s not talk about Pippa.’
‘You started it.’
‘I know I did. I’m sorry. I suppose she’s on my mind a lot. But I suggest we have one day’s moratorium, for our anniversary.’
‘Some anniversary!’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, you at death’s door and her so bloody miserable.’
He winced. Penny rarely swore. She was probably still resentful, though she had shown no trace of it. It wasn’t her nature to sulk. ‘Look, I’ll take you out to lunch,’ he offered, suddenly realizing how lucky he was to have a good-natured cheerful wife. He wanted to repay her; make some restitution for his own infernal grouchiness; lavish her with gifts.
‘But you can’t go out to lunch darling, if you’re not well enough to go to work.’
‘That’s the sort of priggish thing I’m supposed to say.’
‘I know it is. Well, can you?’
His ‘yes’ was so emphatic, it came out like a growl. ‘To hell with “shoulds” and “buts”!’ he rasped. ‘I’m going to be a hedonist for once. I’ll loll around all morning and rest this scratchy voice, then we’ll amble down to Freddie’s and celebrate in style – and just pray we don’t meet anyone who’ll tell on us!’
She sat down on his feet, her forlorn expression changing to delight. ‘No, a French restaurant, not Freddie’s. It’s got to be a French restaurant.’
‘Yes, of course, a French one!’
They laughed. His laugh was real this time. She was crushing his feet, but who cared? He felt close to her again, truly thankful he’d married her. To hell with his mother. Concerts didn’t matter, and wine snobs could be boring, not to mention ruinous.
‘We’ll order P … P …’ Pernod.’
‘And P … P … Pineau de Charentes.’
‘With pâté for our first course.’
‘And palette de pore to follow.’
‘And profiteroles for pudding.’
‘And Perrier-Jouet, to wash the whole lot down.’
‘All the Ps.’
‘Yes, all the Ps.’
‘Oh, Daniel, darling wonder-man, I’ll never forget that lunch.’
‘Nor will I.’ He drew her down towards him, kissed every missing button on her robe.
Chapter Three
‘Bonjour, Monsieur Hughson.’
‘Bonjour, Pierre.’
‘Comme d’habitude, m’sieur?’
‘Oui, s’il vous plaît.’ Daniel slumped back in his chair, unfolded his Figaro, tried to concentrate on the headlines. There’d been an earthquake in Armenia (three hundred feared dead), yet his own concern was focused on his mother. She had phoned him late last evening and he had rushed to her apartment in a taxi, driven her on to the hospital, waited there two hours. It proved to be a false alarm – they hadn’t taken her in – but he had stayed with her all night, watching by her bedside while she dozed. Then she’d confounded him by sitting up in bed at dawn and declaring she was starving.
He had lost all appetite for his own breakfast, though Pierre had just set down his customary café complet: the silver jugs of coffee and hot milk, the two warm croissants embracing one another in their small snug wicker bed, the unsalted butter and apricot preserve. He poured a cup of coffee, strong, and lit a cigarette. Should he be sitting with his mother now, instead of on his way to work? She had rarely been ill before, never been a trouble to him – nor he to her, for that matter. He had hardly known her, actually, until she’d reached old age. In fact, he sometimes suspected he had only taken this Paris job to have his Mummy near – a luxury, a rarity. And it was a venture they’d approve of – his mother and his father. His father had died five years ago, but his approval was essential still. Both his parents had always opposed mere money-making, or selfishly advancing one’s career. Service to others was the all-important criterion, commitment to a cause. He had never let them down: had slogged away at school (five thousand miles away from them), stayed on at Cambridge to do his PhD, then worked in educational research, even choosing a field which was related to their own, if not perhaps as worthy and demanding.
He broke off a knob of croissant, crumbled it to flakes. Yes, he had made the right decision. His mother wouldn’t want him skiving off work, or paying more attention to some minor malfunction of her lungs than to the major problem of the illiterates in Africa. Anyway, he could call in at lunchtime, spend all evening with her – would welcome the chance, in fact. They were still strangers to each other, still far too stiff and formal; needed time for the relationship to thaw. After all, they were making up for twenty years of absence.
‘Tout va bien, m’sieur?’ The waiter hovered, glancing at his untouched plate with a just perceptible air of reproof.
Daniel picked up his knife, spread butter slowly, thinly, on his croissant; regretting, as usual, the lack of English marmalade – the classic bitter chunky stuff, glistening with rough peel. Still, he liked the Parisian habit of breakfasting in cafés, instead of in one’s flat. It made one feel less alone, more connected to the human race – or at least half a dozen members of it. He did a speedy head-count. Yes, seven fellow humans were sitting at the tables, mostly men on their own. A few he knew by sight, after eight months of daily breakfasts, though people rarely spoke to each other beyond a polite ‘Bonjour’. He had first chosen this particular café not only because it was a stone’s throw from his office, but because it was quiet and well-behaved. No music, no invasive chatter, no roar of rush-hour traffic, no hordes of tourists or squabbling raucous kids.
No kids? He looked up from his paper to see a small obstreperous girl suddenly dart in from the street, a child in fuchsia-pink shorts and emerald top, with an aureole of flaming orange hair – colours far too crude for this hour of the morning.
‘Pippa, come back here this minute!’
He was jolted by the voice – an English voice, female, young, and desperate, all but fraying into tears. He turned round to see a second shock of hair, exactly the same shade, but wilder and more wiry; the girl beneath it pale and drawn (though pretty); her eyes inflamed, as if she had been crying for some time.
The child began to cry as well, an ugly wailing sound, and he watched in horror as a stream of urine trickled down her legs and pooled on the brown lino.
‘Pippa, stop it! Don’t! Not here.’ The girl seized her daughter’s hand, tried to drag her back towards the door. The child pulled away, wriggling like a frantic fish determined to escape the hook. She dashed straight past her mother and veered sharply to the right, cannoning into a waiter who was loaded down with a tray of plates and cups. Daniel closed his eyes, heard the crash of breaking crockery; bewildered shrieks and sobs; a volley of remon-strations from the waiter. Then, above all the commotion, the indignant female voice rose in equal fury just behind him.
‘I don’t understand a single word you’re saying, so you might as well save your bloody breath!’
The waiter shouted back in French, and the two continued lambasting one another in mutual incomprehension, while the child howled its eyes out on the floor.
‘It was your fault anyway,’ the girl insisted angrily, breaking off a moment to pick up her daughter and start wiping her wet legs and face. ‘You weren’t even looking where you were going.’
Daniel took a deep drag on his Gauloise. Did they have to be English, for heaven’s sake, so that he was more or less duty bound to help? If they were Japanese or Polish, he could simply sit there as a mystified spectator. But, as it was, he found himself following every word – which was more than could be said for Jules, who was dim-witted, defiantly Anglophobe, and on trial in his first job. Two other waiters had joined him, and the cacophony was becoming quite intolerable; even some of the customers chipping in on one side or the other, in a mêlée of excited Franglais.
He rose to his feet, explained the situation to the waiters in a tone of what he hoped was quiet authority, translating what the girl said, but minus the hysteria. The child had a bladder infection, which meant she had to relieve herself every half an hour or so, and hadn’t much control. They’d been looking for a public toilet, but had got themselves completely lost, and were strangers to Paris anyway, with not a word of French. And probably very little cash, he added to himself, noting the girl’s cheap handbag and scuffed shoes, down at heel. She was wearing a creased denim skirt which stopped well short of her knees, and a tee-shirt blazoned ‘MUSCLE’. There was flesh beneath the tee-shirt, not muscle: plump curvaceous breasts. The outline of the nipples was showing through the fabric, two alluring little studs. He forced his eyes away, fumbled for his wallet, turning his back so she wouldn’t see the fifty-franc note he was passing surreptitiously to Jules. That should cover the damage, restore the shattered peace. He also settled his own bill, aware that it was getting late and he should be in the office.
But he had reckoned without the females, who were now closing in, preventing him from leaving, the child staring with huge whipped-dog eyes, while her mother trapped him in a lasso of grateful words.
‘Gosh! Thanks. You’re an angel. You deserve a medal, honestly. You’re the first decent human being we’ve met since we arrived here. Say thank you to the man, Pip.’ She pushed her daughter towards him, but the child shrank away, abashed. ‘It’s really not her fault,’ the girl continued confidingly, moving even nearer herself, so that he could smell her hair, which she must h
ave washed with some strawberry-scented shampoo. How odd, he thought distractedly, that carrot-coloured hair should smell of strawberries. He tried to put a word in, explain he couldn’t hang about, but the lasso was pulling tighter.
‘She gets cystitis quite a lot, you see, and when she has to go, she has to go. I’ve had it myself, so I understand the problem. Beyond a certain point you can’t hang on. There’s this stuff you can get from the chemist – I’ve forgotten what they call it, and maybe they don’t sell it over here. Hey, I couldn’t possibly ask you one more favour, could I? I mean, even if I found a chemist I wouldn’t know what to ask for, but if you came with us and acted as interpreter … Oh, I realize it’s a cheek, when I don’t even know your name. Mine’s Penny, by the way. And this is Pippa.’
‘Yes, I gathered that.’ Did he have to sound so insufferably scathing? He was embarrassed, for God’s sake – all that talk of bladders, ‘hanging on’ – and he’d never been much good with children, never knew what the hell to say to them.
‘We shouldn’t be here at all,’ the girl was now admitting. ‘In Paris, I mean. Pippa’s missing nursery school, and we had quite a job persuading them to take her in the first place. But I … I’m looking for my husband.’
‘Looking for …?’
She nodded. The blue eyes filled with tears. He watched her struggle to control them, blinking hard, biting her top lip. He was struggling himself between sympathy and selfishness, pity and annoyance. So it wasn’t merely a matter of tracking down some nameless English medicine, but of locating a lost spouse.
‘Look, let’s get out of here.’ People were still staring, not just the child, whose grey-green eyes had never left his face, but several of the customers and waiters, who were obviously intrigued as to what might happen next between les Anglais.
He mumbled a farewell to Pierre, doubling back to leave a tip beside his untouched breakfast. He heard a step behind him, smelt a whiff of strawberry.
Breaking and Entering Page 3
