by Clare Curzon
Leila stood with the phone cradled in her hands listening to the dialling tone purr after he’d rung off. She supposed there’d be a smidgen of truth in what he said. Probably one finals student, female, had gone weepy over the likelihood of getting a low grade. He’d find a way of consoling her. As he’d done to others before.
He knew she knew the truth, and still he handed out these fictions. So why hadn’t she the courage to snarl, ‘Tell me another!’ and slam the phone down on him?
Would it come to that some day? Or if she let the years drag on without real protest could she believe that with age he’d finally come to his senses? But suppose someone special came on the scene, very attractive and more determined than most; he might want to move on permanently - or think that he did. Then where would she stand?
She’d be free to pick up where she’d left off her real life. But it might be too late by then to resume as a student. And with divorce it stood to reason she’d lose Eddie and Chloe, because his was the blood link with them.
She wasn’t as daring as she’d once been. It would take courage to stand alone, stripped of the daily domesticity she’d used as her armour.
She’d become a coward by habit. She had to stop the process, make a decision, opt for something she wanted to do for itself. Dammit, for a start she’d accept Pascal’s invitation to Wimbledon. It would be a gesture of defiance, and no harm to anyone in it.
It even seemed a kind of joke. While she felt the warm blood of rebellion coursing in her veins she would strike her midget blow for freedom. She propped Pascal’s card against the phone and dialled his number.
Aidan was away for two days. Then he came back mid-morning on the Sunday in a bustle of organization, showered, changed, packed an overnight bag, collected his mail and read three messages off his answering machine.
‘There’s a lot of clearing up to be done before I’m finished there,’ he said shortly, ‘and I can’t waste time or energy commuting.’
Leila served him a cold lunch and no warmer a reception. After an hour’s nap on his study couch he left at 4.30pm.
He hadn’t asked about the children. Out of sight they might be, but Leila was left feeling doubly responsible. There was that suspicion that Eddie had again been touching Uncle Charles for money.
And Chloë - where was she? Supposedly with Granny at Nice, but old Mrs Knightley’s last letter had as ever been full of complaints that she never saw the children and none of the family had time for her. So Leila had rung her twice since then and discovered that the old lady’s grumble was just the same. Clearly Chloe had never arrived, nor even informed Granny she intended to come.
Arthritis might reasonably have prevented her meeting her granddaughter at the airport, but Chloe had been insistent that Granny’s hired chauffeur was to be there instead. The girl claimed to have arranged it all by phone. None of which could be true.
When Leila drove her to Heathrow for the flight Chloe had brusquely ordered her to drop her and go: such a hoohah with parking there and anyway she loathed sloppy leavetakings.
Her phone call on arrival said that all was well, but it could have been made from anywhere. So far as Leila knew with hindsight, she might still be in England, or indeed anywhere within four hours’ travel of Heathrow.
There were reasons for not having shared her unease with Aidan. If he cared at all he would blame Leila herself for Chloë’s being out of control. And there would be terrible recriminations when the girl did return. Chloë wasn’t a bad person, just wilful as fifteen-year-olds felt was their right.
The truth would be that she’d planned a more interesting alternative which she didn’t care to share with her stepmother: some venture involving schoolfriends. Leila understood the bid for independence, hurtful though it was, and basically she trusted her. Aidan wouldn’t.
And yet shouldn’t she do something? Although what could be done without alarming Granny and causing Chloë awful embarrassment by raising a hue and cry? She wished there was someone she could share her concern with. She had missed the opportunity when Janey was here with Charles, just as earlier she’d bottled out of approaching that comfortable senior detective who came into the shop. Not that she’d expect anything of him but an outsider’s suggestion of how she might discreetly trace Chloe.
Tomorrow, she decided, she would again ring her mother-in-law for a general chat. If she learned that Chloë had finally arrived there, all well and good. If not - she didn’t know what she could do.
She still hadn’t decided after making the call, during which Mrs Knightley senior had asked after Aidan and both children.
Pascal was to pick her up at twenty to twelve on the Friday of Wimbledon. They would have lunch en route: much better, he promised, than in one of those corporate hospitality tents at the All England Club. And it was superb, because he made a detour to Marlow and they ate at the Compleat Angler with the dazzling Thames streaming slowly past, festive with little boats and graced by swans.
Although curious she didn’t enquire which company lunch he’d opted out of, and Pascal didn’t inform her.
At Wimbledon the men’s singles had breathtaking moments, running to five deuces in the final game of the fifth set. Their seats were in shade until mid-afternoon when Pascal produced a tube of sun barrier cream and offered it for her bare arms. She was aware of him watching and smiling as she spread the cream on.
Their shared excitement as the match approached climax had created a new familiarity. ‘Have I missed a bit?’ she challenged him, and it seemed quite natural that he should take the tube from her and cover what he chose to see as bare patches.
Keen to stay watching play, they couldn’t spare time for the celebrated Wimbledon tea. Instead they broke their journey home at a country pub where Leila refused anything to eat. ‘My eyes have been devouring all day,’ she protested. ‘I have really enjoyed myself so much, Pascal. Thank you.’
She thanked him again as they stood at her front porch before she let herself into the darkened house. For a moment there had recurred that long-forgotten teenage uncertainty about asking him in. But he solved it for her.
Pascal simply took her face in both hands, bent and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I’ve had a wonderful time too. Goodnight, Leila. Take care.’ He left without looking back.
It was only as she undressed by the shower that it struck her how he had spoken. With an English Oxbridge voice. And without a hint of the Inspector Clouseau accent.
The following day, after she had worked a shift at the Mardham shop, and since there had been no message from Aidan about the weekend, she rang to invite Pascal to lunch. They spent the afternoon together, talking and lazing in hammocks in her garden. When Leila thought to listen for the way he spoke it seemed that sometimes he still sounded French. At others she couldn’t be sure. Perhaps she was becoming more accustomed to his voice.
She learned that he had a serious side, loved classical music, had once studied art and exhibited in London and New York. His age made him only four years her senior, but there were decades of experience separating his life and hers.
It was on their third outing together that he drove her to Henley-on-Thames and they boarded a small cruiser to sail upriver. While she took over the helm he performed masterly moves in the galley, producing omelettes stuffed with creamed ham, and a dressed salad of mangetout, spring onions, olives, cucumber and mixed peppers.
When they’d moored she went below to where he’d set the square table and opened wine from the miniature fridge. He’d known where everything was kept and hadn’t hesitated over the basic cooking facilities. So if it wasn’t his own boat, at least he’d had use of it before.
‘There is no sweet,’ he announced, carrying off the used dishes. ‘Except you.’
He came back from the galley carrying two globes of cognac and sat beside her on the padded bench. ‘To us,’ he said, put down his glass and kissed her. Kissed her properly this time, deliberately, drawing away once to challenge
her eyes.
‘No,’ she said weakly.
‘Oh, but I think yes. You think so too, don’t you? It is time you took a chance with me. I know you want to.’
They made love tenderly and exploratively, and talked until the sky darkened from primrose to purple. Then he let her steer the boat back to where they had found it, relocked the cabin and led her back to the car. When they neared home she knew she would be staying with him, whether there were lights in her own windows or not.
It was the first time she had seen where he lived. Unlike the trim little river craft the cottage was old and almost tumbledown, one of the two original flint and red brick labourer’s dwellings from before the village was gentrified. Since it was built there had been infilling for the full stretch of the long lane, with a mixture of Victorian villas, thirties’semis and postwar detached four-bedroomed houses. Amongst them this pair of ancient cottages was as eccentric as Pascal’s own appearance when they first met, with his battered panama hat and cream flannels stopping two inches above his ankles.
She found it endearing. Indoors she ran her hand along the uneven whitewashed brick, smiling as Pascal bent to avoid the beam before the narrow doorway and showed her the minuscule kitchen and bathroom beyond. Colourful daubs covered the living-room walls, some mounted and framed, others curling with heat and casually attached by blu-tack. Perhaps there was no electricity, because he lit an oil lamp, turned up the wick and said, ‘Behind that curtain you’ll find a crooked staircase. At the top is the bedroom.’
She held the lamp high and went up in front of him, stumbling a little at the steepness of the irregular wooden steps. She found the bed already turned down, and the linen was fresh. Pascal had put a bottle of chilled Sancerre and glasses to hand.
‘You knew I would come,’ she accused him.
‘Of course. Welcome, Leila, to my country retreat.’
Next morning he showed her how to operate the shower from an overhead tank with a hand-held release chain. She dressed again in the pyjamas he had lent her, waiting in the sitting-room while Pascal fried bacon over the kitchen’s wood-burning stove. The dream quality of the previous day continued. She had no thought for a possible awakening. As she finished towelling her hair there came a rattling outside and the sound of steps receding over flagstones.
‘That will be the post,’ Pascal called. ‘Would you mind fetching it in?’
She found a handful of letters thrust into a horizontal drainpipe fixed at waist height just outside the front door. It was junk mail mostly; also a wrapped newspaper; three business envelopes and one duke size, hand-written, with a foreign stamp.
Her heart lurched at sight of the writing. She must be mistaken, but there was that curious capital G for his surname Gregory. There was only one person she knew who slashed the letter through with that extravagant curlicue. And there below was her ornate capital B that began the county.
How on earth did Chloe come to know Pascal? And be writing to him from abroad?
Leila held up the envelope to the window’s light to make out the postmark. The stamp was a Swiss one franked in Montreux.
And Chloë had done her vanishing trick almost two weeks back, on a supposed trip to southern France.
Chapter 7
She should have remained there and faced him out. It was too late by the time she knew that.
So much had already happened in the last twenty-four hours, such an emotional upheaval in her drab life, forcing passion from her, shaking her concept of what she stood for, that she couldn’t take in this new shock. It had struck alien into a warm experience of being awakened after coma. Her mind seemed to fall about inside like one of those equilibrist dolls which you push one way and it keeps swinging back at you. Totally overcome, like a hunted beast she had instinctively run for home.
All her misgivings now revolved about Chloe. At least the girl had been able to write and post that letter, so at least she was in control of her own actions. This was something to hold on to. But the connection with Pascal remained inexplicable.
Leila blamed herself bitterly that she’d allowed her fascination for him to smother her unease over Chloe. Since the last negative phone call to Mrs Knightley she’d taken no steps to discover where her stepdaughter might have gone. Now, in view of the letter, she was little wiser, except to know from which town and country Chloë had written. If the girl was bent on travelling through Europe she could well have moved on by now.
She’d had Chloë’s letter in her hands and left it behind. Why? From scruples because it was addressed to Pascal? That was stupid. She should have hung on to it and insisted that he explain. Or concealed it, taken it away to open in private. Which could have given her time to think before she faced him over it.
And Pascal - surely a stranger - clearly more in the child’s confidence than she was herself! Where did he stand in this? When she fled from his cottage he hadn’t run after her.
So what had he thought when she suddenly vanished? He had been preoccupied in the kitchen, cooking breakfast, still talking to her through the open doorway. Eventually he would have come out to see why she didn’t answer.
Then he’d have picked up the mail which she’d dropped. He’d have seen Chloë’s writing on the envelope and surely he’d know she’d recognised it.
So now he would realise her shock, would surely follow her here and offer some explanation.
She thought of the morning she’d found him on her doorstep with the empty teacup. It seemed months ago. Amused at his fake excuse, she’d invited him into her home, where he’d picked up the photograph. He’d remarked how alike they were, stepmother and stepdaughter.
All this time he had known Chloë and he hadn’t let on. That was deliberate deceit. What need had there been to keep their association secret? The deception was scary.
As for herself, this - this tenderness she’d thought she felt for him, and his pretence of interest in her - she could see now he’d been playing her along for some ulterior reason. To what purpose? How would he expect to use her? Was he intimate enough with Chloë ever to confide to her that her father’s wife had slept with him? Was that his intention? - to shame Leila in the child’s eyes, widening the gulf between her parents?
Deliberate entrapment. That much was clear now. Even at their first meeting, out on the cricket field, he must have known who she was, and on some whim he’d set out to charm her. Why her? It hadn’t been for her brains or beauty: she couldn’t fool herself she was something special.
What she’d taken for interest - fondness even - was deliberate mischief-making. The reason had to be that she was Chloë’s guardian. In some way he hoped to get at the child through her.
And Chloë only fifteen!
If Leila herself, supposedly adult, could be so easily hoodwinked, what chance against him had a schoolgirl with even less experience?
I have to keep a cool head, she warned herself. Whatever else, I’ve put myself in a position to be blackmailed. But I won’t cover up for him. I’d rather it all came out and Aidan blew his top, than allow that fiend to get anywhere near my daughter. Anyway, why should I be afraid of what my husband thinks, with him the pathetic womaniser he is?
She went through to the kitchen and put her face under the cold tap, letting water dribble over her hair. Her underlying fear was that she was too late. Perhaps the Frenchman already had the child submissive to him. Chloe seduced? But if so he would surely have been abroad with her now. No, maybe she was sent on ahead and he would be joining her later. There might be a chance yet to keep them apart.
Certainly Chloe concealed secrets Leila had never suspected. It was vital she find out more. Perhaps upstairs Chloe had left behind a diary or an address book. There must surely be some way to get in touch and warn her off the man.
Normally scatterbrain with her belongings, the girl had taken some pride in her new room. It was twice the size of the one in Caversham and she had chosen the decoration herself. One wall was painted bright
yellow, one dark blue and the other two terracotta. Leila had gone with her to choose the bedcover and curtains of wildly patterned indigo.
As a parent she had never invaded Chloë’s privacy and it shamed her to be reduced to it, but as she cautiously went through her stepdaughter’s clothes and papers she told herself it was for protection rather than invasive.
The room’s tidiness seemed unnatural, although Leila knew the girl was almost obsessively meticulous when it came to her schoolwork. She’d be an academic perfectionist like her father, although still a scatty teenager.
The written exercises, stacked and tied in subject bundles, were stored on the floor of her wardrobe behind the four mirror-fronted sliding doors. There was no private correspondence there.
She wasn’t on the internet but the work station for her word processor had been set up in the window’s bay so that she could sun herself over her revision. Floppy disks, all neatly docketed, were boxed on a lower shelf. Leila helped herself to the one labelled Personal. A quick skim through revealed no more than girlish correspondence with her friends.
Chloë at only fifteen was bright enough to have tackled several GCSE subjects a year in advance, but these letters revealed a childish innocence only thinly masked by a pose of sophistication. Young and silly, her mild adventures would have been recounted with a superior smirk and read with giggles: childish opinions on adult eccentricities; the occasional snide poke at someone who’d briefly offended. But no passion; no angst; no real duplicity.
Finally Leila went through the drawers of the tallboy. Again nothing unexpected, except that the lowest drawer jammed as she shut it. The runners were slightly warped and she had to force it back in place. That was perhaps why the drawer contained only leftover Christmas wrappings, glitzy paper, gift tags and satin ribbons provided by Leila herself from PARTY FUN stock.
