Harm's Way Page 10

  ‘There’s definitely something creepy about him,’ Christian muttered. Beth looked smilingly at him as he spoke.

  ‘I think he’s quite lecherous,’ I said, seeking a reaction.

  ‘Why? Has he said something to you?’

  Both Beth and Christian had stopped walking and were looking at me, wide-eyed. My remark had been customised to provoke, but now that I had their attention, I felt unable to deliver the information they were expecting. At the far corner of the square, outside a café, I spotted the flaxen crown of Stephen’s head bowed over a newspaper.

  ‘Well, no, it’s just something you can tell. Look: Stephen’s over there. Beth, give me that bag, you always insist on carrying everything.’

  But Beth was excited by the subject now, and refused to yield it to me, even though the plastic handles were digging sticky white trenches across her fingers.

  ‘Leave these to me. Now go on: he must have said something. Or was there a midnight knock on your bedroom door last night?’ She raised an eyebrow.

  I tried to join in with their laughter, but it sounded hollow.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous. It’s just that he’s very, well… tactile,’ I attempted.

  ‘Poor guy,’ chuckled Beth, as we reached Stephen, ‘he probably can’t believe his luck having this nubile young girl around.’

  Thankfully, the thread was broken by the kerfuffle of appropriating chairs from neighbouring tables, and the conversation moved on to Stephen’s back; he was suffering a few twinges after his night on the sofa-bed, poor dear. No one seemed concerned about finding Pierre. We had all resolved to leave our mobile phones switched off for the duration of the trip, and I amused myself with images of him, red-faced and contrite, checking every sweltering alley of the market.

  He reappeared in exactly that state. Limping towards us in the midday sun, a tiara of perspiration adorning his hair-line, one arm unnaturally extended with the weight of his packages, and a look of boyish excitement on his face. We, meanwhile, had moved from coffee on to small glasses of pastis.

  ‘Ah, mes amis! I have some culinary surprises in store for you,’ he exhaled as he sank into the chair next to me, hastily provided by Beth.

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ pleaded Beth.

  ‘Oh no you don’t. You’ll see what’s in there later on. So, what have you all been doing?’ And, not waiting for an answer, ‘And what happened to you, Anna? One minute you were right behind me, then I turn around and you’ve disappeared into thin air.’

  I glanced at Christian, hoping he would not draw any conclusions from this, but he was ordering a drink for Pierre and hadn’t even heard the exchange.

  ‘I know! Well, where did you dash off to?’ I answered seamlessly. Making people think they were the ones at fault had always worked well for me at school. ‘I was completely lost. I didn’t know what to do.’

  ‘Oh, Anna.’

  Pierre leant forward and picked up my hand, raising it slowly to his bulbous, cracked lips. Beth and Stephen were leaning back in their chairs, watching the scene smilingly, but Christian’s face displayed only a mocking lack of interest.

  The journey back to the house was considerably jollier and I had decided that Pierre might be of some use to me after all. Our aperitifs had broken through the invisible barrier of tension that had been present ever since we had arrived in Deauville. Two bottles of rosé were uncorked one after the other as we unpacked greaseproof parcels on to the watermarked wooden table in the kitchen. We had decided to eat inside, as the mosquitoes were circling viciously in the garden, their heat-seeking radars whining through the air. Pierre had come to stand behind me as I separated layers of thinly sliced cured ham, strips of white fat undulating in parallel lines down the edge of each piece.

  ‘Just leave them like that, I would,’ he said, unnecessarily close, his breath tickling the inside of my left ear.

  ‘OK. What else can I do?’

  Opposite me, Christian was peeling an avocado to add to the salad Beth was silently making up beside him. With one ivory-tipped nail he slit straight across the emerald husk, holding the naked slick fruit in between his thumb and forefinger before sinking a knife into it.

  You may wonder that my constant observation of Christian was never noticed, but I assure you that when I did allow myself to watch him, I assimilated the superficial details discreetly. I knew all his tics, his behavioural patterns, but the intricacies of his personality were still a mystery to me. None of the others had any idea of my fascination with him, I was sure of it. And Christian, I assumed, was the most oblivious of them all.

  Lunch was a rowdy, four-hour affair. Stephen, having drunk a little too much pastis beforehand, descended into a full-blown rant about the thirty-five-hour week, eyes watery with his own convictions, which the rest of us gradually dropped out of one by one. In such instances women can sidestep political or social discussions if they feel inclined, as I certainly did, feigning housework to remove themselves from the table; just observe a bored hostess after dinner clearing the plates before people have even finished eating. I am amazed men fall for this means of escape so readily. Pierre was alone in trying, valiantly, to ensure that everyone stayed involved in the discussion until its conclusion. But by the time I brought the lemon tart to the table, even his protestations had withered into assent.

  Beth, I’d noticed, was quieter than usual. As the meal ended and each of us began to wander off in a satiated daze, coffee cups still in hand, I spotted her alone by the pool, fishing a rogue leaf from the water’s surface.

  ‘Hi.’

  I crouched down gently beside her, tucking in a corner of the sarong that had begun to unravel around her waist.

  ‘Hello.’

  The mellifluous quality of her voice seemed to be more calculated for other people’s enjoyment than ever. Was it hiding something?

  ‘Are you OK? You were very quiet at lunch.’

  She looked up at me, transparent blue eyes clouded with something akin to melancholy.

  ‘Oh, I’m fine. I just find Stephen exhausting when he gets like that. I often wonder if he even believes what he’s saying, or whether he just gets a kick out of making his point – any kind of point… It’s pretty selfish: no one else can get a word in. Still, it doesn’t matter.’ She broke into a forced laugh. ‘Pierre was pretty funny though, wasn’t he?’

  The backs of my thighs were aching. Beth’s joke gave me permission to sit down, interrupting whatever thoughts she was having. But as soon as I did, she yawned theatrically, passed a freckled hand over her face, and announced she was going inside for a nap. I wondered if Christian, whose brown ankles tipped with cream espadrilles were just visible on the patio, might follow her. But when she passed him, bending down to whisper something in his ear, he merely nodded and kissed her on the forehead.

  I slipped out of my shorts and top, extending my body on a sunlounger, and hoped Christian would join me by the pool. The heat of my flesh soon reawakened a powerful smell of suntan lotion from the towel beneath me, and I wondered hazily about all the bodies that had lain on it before me. Feeling my extremities become limp, I squinted into the sunlight for any sign of him. The effort, and the smacking white light of the sun, was too great, and I fell into an instant sleep.

  Why is it that, as a child, you are always advised against falling asleep in the sun? Is it the practical concern to avoid sunburn or sunstroke? Or is it to prevent the sense of vulnerable disorientation that greets you when you open your eyes? A dog barking in the distance, the groan of a door, the plaintive shriek of a bird above, and a gradually advancing bassline seemed, like an amateur orchestra, to be striving to harmonise me into consciousness. I focused on Christian; now lying on the next sunlounger, so close I could touch him. If only …

  Then I understood the source of the low thuds: there, coming towards us, from the depths of the garden, was a man so old that his skeleton seemed imprinted on the surface of his skin. The colourless overalls he wore only added to hi
s spectre-like appearance, and the advancing wince of his surgical stick sounded like a reproach, breeding discomfort in me. Through one half-open eye, I watched him advance, slowly and with a determination that seemed to demand greater and greater support from his cane. As he reached the tiled circumference of the pool, my heart missed a beat. He was coming towards me, looking straight at me. Turning my head quickly the other way, I saw that Christian was asleep. But when, filled with anxiety, I swivelled my head back around, I saw that the old man was crouching, a little further off, his overalls trailing through the dust as he fixed a hose-pipe to a rusty tap protruding from the ground.

  Fully awakened by the moment of panic the old peasant had provoked in me, I sat up stiffly, edged off the chair and slid to the bottom of the pool. In the water, my feet skating across the aquamarine tiles, there was nothing. All sensations reduced to an infinite coolness, I watched the slow movements of my newly pale and bloated body, like an embryonic moonwalker. A cloud above me turned the world dark green, my flesh a moribund grey. I let the trail of my own breath propel me back to the water’s dark surface. The sun, obstinately strong, broke through the clouds, gilding every hair on Christian’s brown feet as he stood by the edge of the pool. There was something threatening about his stance: the slightly parted feet, the shadow between his frowning brows.

  ‘I thought we’d lost you,’ he said, sitting down by the edge of the pool and submerging his calves in the water.

  ‘I thought you were asleep.’

  I fought the impulse to swim up to the open space between his parted knees. Inside the legs of his trunks I could see the whiter, more transparent skin of his upper thighs where downier hairs curled and stuck to the flesh like question marks.

  ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Beth’s asleep and so is Pierre, I think. I have no idea where Stephen is.’

  I got the impression that Christian didn’t like Stephen much. He suffered his presence, yes, but there was never any sense that the two had a connection. One would have thought that two men thrown together in such idyllic surroundings – if only for a few days – might end up finding some common ground. Perhaps the nature of their relationship with Beth made a friendship between them impossible. Christian’s air of indifference made it hard for anyone (except, apparently, Beth) to get close to him, and Stephen was too selfish to condone any liaison that affected his ties with Beth. Beth had created an entourage of dependants who refused to share her. She was the vortex around which we were all circling: because we all needed her – and I had never needed anyone.

  When Beth finally joined us by the pool, followed closely by Stephen, the sun was peering out shyly from behind the house, the brickwork patterned with its dappled glaze. Christian and I must have looked like companionable young lovers, lying, as we were, barely a foot away from each other, each (apparently) engrossed in a book. A sheet mark across Beth’s left cheek and a slight puffiness around the eyes were the only signs that she had been sleeping. Perching on the edge of Christian’s chair, she kissed him lightly on the cheek.

  ‘What have you two been doing?’

  ‘Just reading, and dozing.’

  ‘I know, I suddenly felt completely knocked out. How long was I asleep for?’

  ‘About two hours,’ replied Christian, placing a firm hand around the curved white stem of her neck.

  ‘Really? God. This heat just makes me want to sleep for ever,’ Beth added quietly, for a second looking like a lost child.

  Absenting myself to avoid any more signs of intimacy between Christian and Beth seemed like a good idea. On the way up to my room I came across Pierre, carrying a pile of children’s books down the stairs. I recognised the title on the first as coming from the bookshelf in my room, and felt surprised that he had been in there without asking me.

  ‘Oh, hi there, Anna,’ he said uneasily. ‘I thought I’d give you a little bit more room and move some of this old stuff down to the cellar.’

  He was hovering on the step beneath me, the pile of books propped precariously against his chest.

  ‘Don’t worry, Pierre: they weren’t bothering me in the least. Here, let me help you with them.’

  ‘No, no.’ He shook his head, pulling away from my outstretched hands, and proceeded down the stairs with a brave smile. ‘My daughter’s far too old for these now, anyway.’

  Entering my room I had the sensation that nothing was quite as I’d left it. I could feel Pierre’s hands everywhere: rummaging through my suitcase, riffling through my toilet bag. Extending the length of my body along my unmade bed, I folded my arms behind my head and allowed myself a few minutes of reverie. Replaying Christian’s face in the second before he kissed me gave me an easy hit but when my imagination tried to take it further – taking in those parts of him I had only seen in the past two days, as though the sun had left the imprint of the downward curl of hair leading south from his navel on my retina – something curious happened. My limbs became paler, more voluptuous and then it was not me in my fantasy but Beth and Christian. I awoke to a tapping on the door. It was Stephen.

  ‘Are you in the bath? It’s time for dinner.’

  ‘Just getting ready now,’ I shouted, surprised by the clarity of my voice. ‘Be there in a minute.’

  A second of dizziness as I stood up soon passed and I surveyed the contents of my suitcase for a suitable dress to wear. I decided on a simple lemon-yellow sundress. My reflection in the bathroom mirror exhilarated me: I was almost pretty. The sun had tinted the tips of my cheeks a burnt rose colour, and a sprinkle of wheat freckles had appeared on my nose. My eyes were even blacker than usual, the heavy dark curtain of my hair framing them perfectly. I parted my lips, softly at first and then dramatically, enjoying my own vulgarity.

  In the evening light, the drawing room had turned the colour of an over-ripe peach. The old fruitwood furniture and polished candlesticks created the illusion of a perfectly ordered family life, where in fact there was only a disparate group of people filled with untold tensions. Beth was laughing at something Stephen had said. Rested and luminous from the day’s sun, her placid beauty dwarfed my own efforts in an instant. Christian was enjoying the joke, but distractedly, seated in the corner and skimming through an ancient copy of L’Express with a glass of red wine in his hand.

  ‘Aha! And here she is.’ Stephen effected a mock bow as I entered the room.

  I gave him my finest sarcastic look, and, unable to conjure up any suitable witticism, sank into a wicker chair on the balcony.

  ‘Did you sleep well? That sun really knocks you out, doesn’t it?’

  Christian rarely spoke directly to me, and I wondered at the reason for these niceties. My self-absorption was so complete that I found it impossible to believe that he might, occasionally, talk to me out of simple politeness.

  ‘It certainly does. I’m still half asleep.’

  ‘And you’ve caught the sun. Hasn’t she, Steve?’ Did Beth always have to intrude into our conversations?

  ‘You have; look how brown you are. You look like an Italian film star.’

  It occurred to me from their simple-minded jollity and the relatively early hour that they must have been drinking since I’d gone to bed. Dinner promised to be fun.

  ‘Right, now everyone sit down,’ Pierre announced, pretending to stagger beneath the weight of an enormous cooked ham. ‘And will someone give that girl a drink.’ He angled the corner of his head towards me. ‘She looks parched – I’m assuming she’s on the rosé. It’s all you foreigners seem to want to drink.’

  I gulped down a few mouthfuls of the pale liquid, feeling it tingle against the back of my throat and suffuse my stomach with excitement.

  French meals go on for ever. Just when you think you are physically incapable of ingesting a single bite more, along comes another course. It stands to reason that after cheese there is dessert and after that, coffee and chocolates – not to mention cognac. The men all ate a great deal, but Beth picked at her food and did
n’t appear to be drinking as much as the rest of us. Pierre opened our third bottle of wine, and I laughed as, after two fruitless attempts to pull the cork out with an old-fashioned corkscrew, Stephen grabbed it from him and was instantly successful.

  The two sparred continually and I suspected that a closer friendship between them was to be the only real development of the weekend. Stephen had worked with Pierre for almost a year, but claimed the two had only ever spoken at office parties, where there had been an instant rapport. I found it odd that he would then invite a work colleague and three people he didn’t know to spend a long weekend with him, but as with anything that benefitted me, didn’t question it too deeply. After dinner a ten-year-old bottle of Calvados was brought out, and my already humming head knew that all was lost.

  The more Beth abstained from the general exuberance, the more I felt compelled to join in.

  ‘Let’s go and sit outside, by the pool,’ suggested Pierre, running his words into each other.

  The men began gathering up bottles of alcohol and ashtrays, while Beth and I were sent to a large engraved oak cupboard in the hallway to find two old quilted bedspreads to lie on.

  I can still remember the magic of that evening. It was so tangible, so genuine, that I felt any grievances dissolve in our apple-scented laughter. We lay out there, head to toe, staring at the moon and listening to Pierre become philosophical, in one grand life-affirming gesture succeeding in knocking over a half-full bottle of burgundy. As I watched the crimson stain spread like blood across the blanket, something inside me hoped that he would never be able to get it out. Perhaps it was because I knew, then, that it would be the only thing about this weekend to stand the test of time. Everything else, the setting, our friendships and our romantic entanglements, were transient and unreal. At some point in the not too distant future I would be back in London, a travelcard-wielding adult, efficiently carrying out a job I might even be good at. And I would remember with a smile that year in France. Beth, of course, was a different matter: I could no longer imagine my life without her.