by Amy Bird
“Everyone said terrible things about her, all these rumours, when it happened. I never believed it. I stuck up for her.”
“Sophie?” I ask, in case we are talking about a different her. A Gillian her. The fervent nod of the head confirms it is Sophie. In fact, I imagine that in that head there is only one ‘her’.
“Here, take this,” she says. She pulls a tatty piece of paper from her blouse pocket – the breast pocket – and thrusts it into the pocket of my coat. Whatever it is nestles against my bump. “She made me promise not to tell anyone where she was. But that was anyone bad. You’re good, aren’t you? I can tell.” And she stares into my eyes. I haven’t been stared at like that since the time I made Will look me in the eyes and promise me it was over between him and her. A different her. It’s just as significant a moment.
“You know where she is?” I ask in a whisper.
“Is everything all right out there?” comes the call of my non-friend. The taxi hoots as well, so I have to move.
“Just look at it!” hisses my new friend again. “And give her my love.”
And with one last look of devotion, to me, to Sophie, to whatever it is she slipped in my pocket, she closes the door.
When I’m settled in the taxi, I pull the gift out of my coat pocket and take a look. It’s not, as I thought, a piece of paper, but an envelope. Addressed to Ms Miriam Spence. That must be old Miriam I met just now. Figures. She looks like a Miriam. I open the envelope and pull out the contents. Gently, because they are fragile. If I unfold the paper too quickly, it will disintegrate in my hands. It has probably been held next to this Miriam’s bosom for years.
I look at the top of the letter for an address. Nothing. Nor at the end of the letter. Just a big, bold ‘S’. For Sophie, one presumes. I read through the letter in case it tells me where she is. Nothing. Just emotion, no facts. ‘Thank you for believing in me, for understanding,’ it says. ‘You are one of the special ones. I know you will keep my destination a secret. I only ask that you tell no one. Or they might find me, too soon, before I have become invisible. But I know you will always see me for who I am.’
If I didn’t know better, I’d say it was a suicide note. The ‘keep my destination secret’, and ‘find me too soon’, and ‘before I have become invisible’. Oh, God! Perhaps it is a suicide note, and poor mad doting Miriam has been convincing herself all these years that it just means Sophie is far away, somewhere this side of the curtain. And has just given me her most treasured possession to no end.
I look down at the envelope again. And then I see it. How could I have missed it? Par avion. And a post-mark. Miriam, you little genius. Sophie, I have found you. Or at least you in 1986, when this is dated. When it was sent, from Paris. To be precise, from ‘Ave. de l’Opéra’. Travers is not the old English version I thought; it is the French. You don’t sound the ‘s’. Will, you are going to be so proud. You are going to look at me with so much love. Or even just look at me. When I bring your mother home.
Chapter Fifteen
-Will-
Shame. Shame, shame, shame. That is what I feel as I sit opposite Flick in the Café Royal hotel bar. Shame as I take a sip of my whisky. Shame as I notice the long, crossed thighs that appear from the slit of her dress. Shame as I see that her cleavage is date-low. Shame as she caresses a flute glass and takes a languorous sip of a very pink drink. What am I doing? When can I go home to my Ellie? Or at least back to the office, to my piano?
“So, Will,” Flick is saying, running one manicured hand in a studiedly luxurious way through that beautiful black hair of hers. “Be honest. What is it that made you get in touch again, hey?” She kicks one leg up slightly, taps me on the knee. I can see stocking tops. I want to unsee them. I don’t want to be seduced. Sophie, I think. You are here because of Sophie.
“Well, if we’re being honest, Flick,” I say, throwing her words back at her in a way that may be described as flirtatious, “I was really after a favour.”
“Go on,” she says, now circling the rim of her glass with a burgundy talon. Or perhaps not a talon. That is unkind. Her fingernails are quite nice. But predatory. Certainly predatory.
Sophie. Think Sophie. And sympathy. Get the sympathy vote.
“What it is, Flick, is that I just found out I’m adopted.”
There is a gasp from her, and then the not-quite-talons appear on my arm. And there we have it. The sympathy.
“Will, that’s… You must be, well…”
She doesn’t know the right emotion, you see. Wants me to go first. As unsure of herself as ever. Despite the nails, the legs, the cleavage, the hair.
“I know,” I nod, bravely. “It really turns everything on its head. Gives you a whole fresh perspective on,” I pause, look at her, “everything.”
She gives a coy little smile.
“And the thing is, it’s not just that. I discovered that my birth father, he’s dead.”
This time, she knows how to respond. A hand flies up to her mouth. “Will, I’m so sorry. That’s horrible. Poor you!” The hand comes back to my arm again. “God, and there’s me, on the way here thinking, Christ, that bastard, calling me up after all this time, thinking he can just you know, click his fingers and I’ll come…running.”
“So why did you come here?” I ask, managing not to rise to her innuendo.
“I guess I must have known you needed me, mustn’t I? An old friend, to talk to.”
“Except we never were just friends, were we, Flick?”
She gives me a little smile. The lashes flutter down, brush against her cheek. The red lips go into a little pout. Sophie. It’s all for Sophie.
“Tell me about your father. What you know of him,” she says. It’s the seduction of kindness.
So I tell her. “He was a pianist. This amazing pianist. I’ve been listening to his music non-stop. And I tell you, those rhythms, those amazing rhythms – ”
Then I remember what rhythm probably means in this context. In this bar. On this apparent date. It means sex. Shit. I’m escalating it too much. Unless… Unless that’s where this has to go. To get what I need. I start to build a sense of the rhythm in my head. Or rather, it starts to build itself. Like blood drumming in my ears.
Flick puts down her flute and takes my non-whisky hand in hers.
“Let me see these hands, Will,” she says. She gestures for me to give her the other one. I pause for a moment, then put the whisky glass down. I give her my hands. She begins turning them over, stroking the fingertips gently. “Yes, those are pianist’s hands.”
“Do you think?” I ask, forgetting for a moment why I’m here. Is it for some reason other than to be told I have the hands of a pianist?
“I do think so,” she says. And she gazes down on them. I think for a moment that she is going to kiss them. But instead, she folds them up very gently, cups them inside her own, then presents them back to me. Like she is releasing a butterfly, or something. They are changed now. Blessed. Validated for playing the piano. Validated for being Max’s son. And his avenger. Of course. That is why I am here.
“And do you know what else I found out?” I continue. “I found out that my dear departed father lived near you. Or at least where you used to be, when you were at Paignton.”
“And you thought me being here would make you feel close to him?”
“Maybe,” I say. “Maybe.”
“Well, I’m here, Will. As close as you want me.”
And suddenly she is. She’s uncrossed herself and moved towards me, so that our knees are touching. Hers, encased in the most delicate black stockings, almost as smooth (if I leant out and stroked them) as the skin of my piano. But I don’t touch them, of course. Not yet.
“Same hospital trust,” I say. “He would have been admitted to Torbay, maybe, when he died.”
She nods. “I hung out with some people there.”
“Know any of them particularly well?” I ask.
There’s a little raise of the eyebrow
.
“Jealous?” she asks.
“Why would I be?” I ask back. “After all these years?”
She waggles her head a little, and leans in more closely to me, her face over her knees.
“You know why, Will. Because I’m the best medicine you ever had!”
I laugh in acknowledgement of her old joke, the old tag-line. Still remembered over the years, by both of us.
“He would have been in the intensive care unit,” I say. “For his head.”
She smiles a little, then the face comes closer. Her voice goes all low and husky, so I have to lean in to hear her. “You haven’t forgotten how to talk dirty, have you?” she says. It’s a little joke, I guess. But it doesn’t lighten the mood. It intensifies it. Suddenly, her finger is against my jawbone, and then she’s running it very gently towards my mouth. Her nail scratches me. I just need one more question. I’m one more question away from finding who I speak to about Max.
“So tell me,” I ask. “Any particular friends in the head trauma unit I should have been jealous of? Any of the senior guys take your fancy?”
There’s a little pause in the trajectory of the finger. Maybe I’ve pushed too far. Been too blatant.
But then it continues, the finger, until it’s at the edge of my lips.
“I don’t think you’re allowed to be jealous yet, Will. You don’t have the right.”
She’s moving towards me. It’s all about Sophie. I must make Flick give me answers. The answers that will take me to Max’s doctors, who’ll confirm how he died, and I’ll have the proof I need to confront Sophie. When I find her. When I do what I need to do to her. Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. Her name matches the rhythm of the blood in my ears. I’m so close. So close to what I need.
Still the face moves towards me. The dark hair is brushing my face, the red lips are almost touching mine.
“Sophie,” I murmur, before she makes that final move forward, that will make our lips meet. “Sophie.”
Chapter Sixteen
-Sophie-
“Sophie, Sophie, Sophie. Je veux dire ton nom toute la nuit, toute ma vie.” That’s what Alan said to me last night; that he wanted to say my name all night, all his life. I smile again now to myself as I replay it, stroking Alain’s hair as he lies next to me in the bed of my apartment. Classic pepper and salt, his hair is, like the perfect blend of seasoning from his kitchen. The early morning sun is streaming in through the shutters. If I lift my head I can look out over Canal Saint-Martin. It is all perfect.
Even more perfect because nobody knows we are here. OK, some people know. The post office knows. The école knows. And Alain’s son knows. But nobody who matters. Nobody who could threaten to disrupt this way of life.
Alain’s eyes open slowly. I watch as they find their focus: me. Immediately there are extra crinkles around them as he begins to smile.
“Sophie,” he says. “Ma chérie.”
He reaches up to kiss me. Not a deep kiss – a morning kiss. But after our lips move apart, we stay close together, noses rubbing, like two loved-up twenty-somethings. Not two people pushing sixty. Still – that’s Paris for you. Then he is separating himself from the covers, feet on the floor.
“Alors, ce matin, c’est le petit-déjeuner ‘Alain’ au lit.”
I try to protest, tell him not to bother, that I don’t need breakfast in bed. I even get as far as putting my own feet on the floor. But he insists, nudging me gently back.
“Il faut que tu voies mon trait de génie,” he says.
I joke back that I’ve already seen his stroke of genius – felt it, rather, last night. He tuts at me lovingly and leaves the room.
Sweet that he thinks of himself as a genius. I’m so glad he’s not. That sounds horrible. But I’ve done genius. Loved, lived and mourned genius. Now, I’m happy with a moderately talented human being who takes pride in his passions. I don’t need to be in awe any more. That doesn’t make a marriage. It makes a silent hell filled with noise. Mealtimes with no conversation, every other time a noisy dialogue between two hands, neither of them mine. After a while, however much awe there is, it’s not enough. You snap.
I wonder what they’d think, if they could see me, the ones who matter. The ones who could shatter this, like one of Alain’s decorative sugar figurines. They’d think that I’d somehow betrayed everyone – Max, Guillaume, myself. But they thought that anyway. Apart from Miriam. Little, loyal Miriam. I must have been a flash of excitement in that drab life. I hadn’t even realised until it was time to go. Every morning, she’d said hello to me, every day waved goodbye. Came to all the school concerts, when I conducted. Even got me to autograph the flimsy little programme that the kids designed. And that day, when I went to the school to collect my things, she opened doors and carried boxes. While everyone else stood around and stared. And whispered. There was little Miriam scurrying along beside me. And what did she say when I left, got into that taxi? “I understand, Sophie. Good luck.” There were tears in her eyes, and I even felt them prick in mine as the taxi moved away. It felt like a true friendship, lost and yet utterly fulfilled. That’s why I’d written to her. I felt I had to. To show it had affected me, that show of affection, at such a time. I didn’t send the letter from my local post office though – I’m not stupid. You couldn’t trace me to the area round Opéra. And Miriam won’t have shown that to anyone, not my biggest fan Miriam. No, she’ll have kept that letter safe, as her secret, all these years. And always will. I’m sure of it. No one else knows I’m here. Not even Gillian and John. The debt of gratitude I owe them is too great to be repaid by a letter. Even though they might have guessed I came back to France, they don’t know where.
And now he is back again, Alain, my génial not-quite-genius. He’s looking a little nervous, but proud too. Like he’s brought me something really quite special on that tray he’s carrying. And he’s even put a cloche serving dish over the food. Must have brought that with him – I don’t have one. Fancy moving in your cloche before you’ve even moved in your toothbrush, I want to say. But he is looking at me all earnestly, so I don’t.
Instead I sit up in bed, and let him put the tray down on my lap. Then he sits down next to me on the bed. With a slight bow of the head, he whips off the cloche and says “Madame, je vous en prie!”
So I look at the plate to see what delight he is asking me to eat.
And I see that he’s not asking me to eat at all.
On the plate is something much more sparkly than his finest sugar-coated pancakes.
It is a ring. He wants to marry me. He wants to cement this new existence.
“Oui! Oui, oui, oui!” I cry as I kiss him, deeply this time, and put the ring on my finger. My second life. My second husband. He doesn’t need to know there was a first. Or how he died.
Chapter Seventeen
-Ellie–
I guess there are times in motherhood when you just feel like giving up. When your toddler just becomes too much to bear. That it would be easier just to leave them screaming in a pushchair than try to rationalise or bribe them out of a tantrum. Not that I got that impression from Mum. Mum never seemed like she wanted to give up. Even as the last bit of life bled out of her in hospital, she was clinging on to me.
Maybe it’s a bit too early to be thinking it. When your child isn’t even born. And Leo, hello there Leo, in my belly, please don’t take it personally. I love you already. I’m very much looking forward to when you appear. But I’m thinking the whole motherhood package. The bit where there is also a father. Or at least supposed to be.
He is interested in Leo, I know. I know he is concerned about finances, as all new parents-to-be are, particularly when they’re the sole breadwinner (if we don’t count my new fictitious maybe-job in children’s publishing). I know he told me to cancel the antenatal classes, and to learn for free from the internet or get some help from the NHS. And I know he doesn’t know I didn’t cancel them. But I wish he’d been there, at the class today. I really wis
h he’d been there rather than being stuck in the office, again. I wish he was driving me home, rather than me coming back on this bus, alone.
Because the other couples, they seemed to enjoy it. They had a giggle when they had to snuggle up close to each other. They looked earnest when told how to breathe through the contractions. They looked indignant at the idea that the little one might reject the lovely breast at first. They did everything together. And I was alone. I told them about Will. Said he was busy. You should have brought someone else, said the course leader. Who? My mum? I doubt coffins coached down from Newcastle are welcome. Put a bit of a dampener on a course about new life. My fake mother-in-law? As if! I can hardly imagine a worse person to be your birth partner than Gillian. She’d probably steal the baby as soon as it was out. And Sophie isn’t yet found.
Although it’s Sophie, actually, who can help me through this. Through this feeling of why the fuck should I bother if Will is going to prioritise work over my ability to breathe properly. Or finances over life. Because it’s always mothers who pull you through in the end. Just like I will have to. Yes, little belly-Leo. I have to pull you through, one day. Or rather, the midwife will at first. But I’ve got to put aside my Ellie qualms and use my mummy-shield to blat away all that might harm you. That’s the mantle I need to take on. Not just yet. In a few months. I still have time. But I will do my best for our family. You, me, Will. We’ll have to assume, for now, that my best will be good enough. That I’ll become the sort of mother you see in all those antenatal videos: doting, capable and composed. And yes, Sophie, your new grandmother, my new mother(-in-law). She’ll be there to help. Even if Will’s head is somewhere else. I don’t know where. But it’s not here, with me. I hope it will come back, post-birth. Sophie might even bring it back. But if not, I’ll just have to rely on Sophie instead.
Because I’m expecting my Sophie news any minute. The first email report. From Monsieur Dufort. My own French private detective. Sounds very murky, I know. All frosted-glass doors, cigars, and cracking peanuts in cars. But actually it’s pretty slick. They’ve got a website and everything. I just filled in a form and got a free quote. Shame the actual work isn’t closer to free. Bit pricey, actually. But the way I look at it is this: I’m buying a mother. I know that as a mother I will be priceless, eventually. And so Sophie must be too. So getting her for ready money, however much of it, is a bargain. Even if she did abandon Will. But I can teach her how to be a good mother again. And I’m sure she had her reasons for leaving. Gillian was probably one of them. Oh, but seriously, I cannot devote any more brainpower to Gillian. I thought about phoning her, after the field trip, to tell her she couldn’t frighten me, and that she wasn’t going to stop me finding Will’s mum, or her own dirty little secrets. But do you know what? Let her sweat. Let her come looking for me. I’ll be armed, with my knowledge, and with a steelier weapon if necessary.
