Harm's Way Page 6

  ‘Ah, there she is,’ Vincent eventually said, smiling in what was meant to be an affectionate way, but which looked to me like more of a queasy sneer.

  ‘Here I am.’ I leaned in and kissed his cheek tenderly, to his surprise. ‘Hello, Christian.’

  I was beginning to enjoy the greeting kiss charade.

  ‘Where are the others?’

  ‘Inside, stocking up on nibblies.’ Vincent used words like that, fey diminutives which emasculated him even further in my eyes. ‘Shall we?’

  Christian said nothing, as was his wont. And once inside, the chorus of chatter from Stephen and Beth drowned out his silence. Forcing our little throng to sit in the correct order – with me in between Christian and Vincent, where I wanted to be – had not been difficult. People flail around helplessly when facing the most trivial decisions and are always secretly pleased to have someone take over. Vincent, in the last seat on the row, exhaled with satisfaction as he extended his legs into the aisle, while on the other side of me, Christian was reaching over Beth to help himself to Stephen’s popcorn.

  ‘Why are we here?’ I whispered, trying to detect even the faintest glimmer of tension in his demeanour. But his shrug and its accompanying mumble were lost in the dimming lights and inappropriately loud majesty of the opening credits. Ten minutes into the film I was still asking myself that very question.

  ‘I do this for a living, Mrs Van Den Broek, and the FBI know that I’m damn good at it. I suggest you have a drink: something strong. I’m going to do everything I can to get your son back.’

  I wanted to catch the scathing expression I imagined must be present in Christian’s eyes, but having him close had contracted the muscles in my neck so tightly I felt unable to move my head. I risked a glance at the hand, which lay on the arm rest, an inch away from mine, as though discarded by the rest of his body. Its stillness seemed a gesture of such defiance that I resolved to block him from my mind, and concentrate on the film.

  ‘I want this son of a bitch nailed and I’m feeling like I’m on a roll. Friday is pay day.’

  Four men had been shot, and Christian’s hand still hadn’t moved. The paralysis seemed to have pervaded the rest of his body, so that I wondered hopefully whether he might have fallen asleep. But no, nothing about those knees, the caps pronounced cleft domes beneath his jeans, could possibly be relaxed. Someone’s arm, Vincent’s, was winding itself around my neck now, lightly passing over my right shoulder before alighting on a curling strand of hair tucked behind my ear. Fingers, grotesque tentacles in my mind, filled the corner of my vision with a flesh-coloured haze. The knowledge that Christian was witnessing the whole scene caused me such a sense of mortification I could almost hear it in the darkness.

  ‘Stop it: you’re tickling me,’ I hissed, trying to keep the anger from my voice.

  ‘Am I, baby?’ He mistook it for teasing. ‘Do you want me to stop?’

  ‘Yes. I do. I’m trying to watch the film.’

  Giving me a final squeeze of the neck as he withdrew his hand, Vincent put both hands back in his lap and laughed suddenly, too loud, at one of the protagonists’ witticisms. Beth hadn’t so much as chuckled: having seen her kick off her shoes at the start, I imagined her seeking Christian’s feet with her own. During quiet moments in the film, when neither of the actors spoke and the incidental music was kept to a minimum, I could hear my neighbour’s shallow breaths punctuated by the occasional swallow.

  ‘This is surveillance, not narcotics. Shit like this is what makes people hate cops.’

  Around us was a plethora of movement: for the past hour people had been wriggling in their seats, sucking sweets, clearing their throats, rustling wrappers and sneezing. Christian and I were a static island, shadows frozen like Hiroshima victims. Finally, having contained itself too long, my discomfort came to the fore, manifesting itself in a hollow twinge down my left leg: cramp. I reached down to rub the offending calf, forgetting that this would instantly rekindle Vincent’s attention.

  ‘You OK, darling? You got cramp?’

  ‘Yes, just a little,’ I whispered, ‘but …’

  ‘Shhhh!’ came an imperious order from the row behind. It broke the paralysis. I turned towards Christian. Where was the harm in looking? But to look was everything. His face – bisected into a Pierrot-like mask by the screen lights – eventually succumbed to my unspoken plea. His soft sigh of frustration had just cemented my sense of victory when he leant abruptly towards Beth, whispered something in her ear, muttered ‘excuse me’ to Vincent and me, and left the cinema.

  ‘What was up with him?’ I asked twenty minutes later as, with that peculiar sense of disorientated despondency specific to cinema leavers, we trudged silently through the foyer.

  ‘Oh, he wasn’t feeling too great, so he’s gone back to mine. What did you think then? It wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be. In fact …’

  Our conversation, and that of the two men, was arduous. The evening ahead now appeared charmless to me, and I tugged Vincent’s hand discreetly.

  ‘Well, I’m going to get this young lady into bed,’ he responded obediently, kissing Beth on the cheek.

  My goodbyes were cut blessedly short by the arrival of our bus, but once aboard I heard Beth’s voice shouting after us: ‘Anna, I almost forgot to tell you: Ruth – Stephen’s sister – is coming to stay on Sunday for the week. I can’t wait for you to meet her…’ the rubber-sealed doors of the bus wheezed shut and the final part of her sentence reached me as if from under water, ‘… you’ll love her! Let’s speak tomorrow to arrange supper.’

  I took my seat at the back of the bus, unexcited by the information I had just received.

  ‘That should be fun – to meet her friend, this Ruth girl – shouldn’t it?’

  I hadn’t addressed a word to him since the credits had rolled, and took this as the pathetic attempt at mood-gauging that it was intended to be.

  ‘Why should it be fun? You’ve never met her, and nor have I. She could be a nightmare for all we know.’

  ‘Anna.’ He was smiling down at me complaisantly, my appalling behaviour apparently serving only to endear me further. ‘What’s all this about? Is it because of this girl, Beth’s friend? Are you jealous?’

  His face was close to mine, and I channelled my momentary dislike of him into the beauty spot which protruded, like a murky spent tear, from his left cheek.

  ‘For God’s sake, Vincent,’ I jeered, with a laugh that sounded sour even to me. ‘You just have no idea what you’re talking about – do you? Why would I be jealous of some middle-aged woman?’

  ‘I mean jealous because of Beth. Anyway I’m joking, baby. Why don’t you calm down?’

  ‘I am calm: you’re just talking rubbish, that’s all.’

  He wasn’t, of course. The very idea of this woman’s presence annoyed me – and I hadn’t even met her yet.

  * * *

  ‘La Péniche, that’s the name of it. It’s not far from where you are, just past the Musée d’Orsay as you go down on the right hand side towards the river and under the bridge. Christian suggested it.’

  ‘Can I borrow a pen, Isabelle?’ Clamping my mobile phone to my ear with my shoulder, I lost the second part of Beth’s instructions. ‘And it’s a restaurant on a boat? La Péniche?’

  Isabelle, sitting in her usual chair in the staff room, had put her book down the second my phone had rung, as though the conversation included her. She mouthed ‘Yes it is’, and gave me a thumbs up.

  ‘Great. But please don’t worry if you and Ruth fancy a night catching up together. I know it’s been a while since you last saw her.’

  Beth’s aptitude at saying the right thing was beginning to rub off on me. The only difference being that I didn’t believe a word I was saying.

  ‘Don’t be stupid, we sat up until 2 a.m. last night catching up after she got in,’ Beth assured me, ‘and she’s dying to meet you.’

  I ended the call and put my mobile in my bag.

&
nbsp; ‘It’s great fun – La Péniche.’

  I looked up absently at Isabelle.

  ‘The boat. You’ll love it.’

  ‘Oh. Yes, it sounds different.’

  She seemed to be waiting for something. Suddenly, I realised what it was.

  ‘Would you like to join us? I mean, you’re probably busy, but if not, well …’

  ‘I’d love to. Thank you.’

  * * *

  I dressed up for Ruth that night, not Christian or Beth, but a middle-aged doctor I had never met. It was she I thought of when I pulled the low-cut red silk dress over my head and belted it tightly around my waist. I thought of her, too, when I wound the cotton ribbons of my espadrilles around my calves. Surveying my reflection in the métro doors as we passed through a tunnel, I wondered why I was putting so much effort into making a woman instantly dislike me. The answer was obvious: so that I could be allowed to hate her.

  ‘Anna – what a lovely dress.’

  They were all standing to meet me, Christian looking embarrassed by such formality, as I walked up the gangplank on to the picturesque wooden boat moored to the bank of the Seine. Ruth was taller than I’d imagined, almost six foot in the sexless flat sandals she was wearing. As pale-skinned as Beth, she had neither her poise nor beauty. She had Stephen’s mouth, but her face, cut into sharp angles like a cubist painting, had as its centrepiece two triangular nostrils, which, hoisted high, gave her a permanently austere look, like a governess from a nineteenth-century novel. Beth was a decorative collection of organic shapes next to this ungainly string of limbs.

  ‘It’s a beautiful dress,’ said Ruth, with a touch of disapproval, ‘what’s it made of? Now, Christian, move out the way, I want Anna to sit right here, next to me.’

  She patted the chair next to her ominously, while he got up and seated himself beside Beth.

  ‘Anna is the pefect shape for my designs, Ruth. I’m always getting her to model things for me, aren’t I?’

  I noticed Isabelle, standing awkwardly by the bar.

  ‘Hey, Isabelle – I hope it’s OK, Beth, I invited this girl from work – we’re over here!’

  She had seen us, of course, but was too shy to come and introduce herself. Her leaf-coloured smock had been swapped for a brown linen dress, and her face was lightly but meticulously made-up.

  We were on the top deck, and the tables were quickly filling up before, at eight o’clock precisely, the boat loosened its moorings and began its gentle tour of the city. It was still bright, with the hum of summer exuberance drifting from the banks and bridges. An industrial-looking bateau-mouche sailed by noisily, spraying neon lights against the quais of Île St Louis as it passed, lighting up people’s dining rooms with a sudden flare as they sat down to supper.

  ‘We’re moving. Look!’ Flushed with excitement, Beth winked at me across the table and I felt my clenched hands relax beneath the table.

  ‘Great idea,’ I mouthed at her as the boat gained pace and Christian waved at a group of musicians setting up on the bank. But already, anxious to make Isabelle feel at ease, she was pouring her a glass of wine and asking her about herself.

  ‘Anna.’ On Ruth’s lips my name sounded like a reproach. ‘Beth tells me you work at the Musée d’Orsay. That must be fascinating. When did you decide that you wanted to work in the art world?’

  I turned reluctantly towards her.

  ‘Oh, I don’t. I mean, I don’t really know where I want to work yet, but I’m going to study art history at university next year, so this seemed like the best place to spend my gap year … I’m only eighteen,’ I added, by way of an explanation.

  ‘At your age I had already enrolled in medical school.’

  ‘Just like my mother – only she’s a lawyer. And do you have children?’

  ‘Two, yes.’

  ‘Two …’ I nodded, reaching for the bottle of white that had just arrived (Ruth must have ordered it before I arrived: Beth and I always drank rosé). ‘That must be difficult – having the time to see them, I mean. My mother seems to find it hard coping with just the one.’

  Conscious of the vulgarity of my gesture, I filled both of our glasses to the brim.

  ‘Ah, ah, ah. That’s plenty for me: I’m not a big drinker. But you seem to have turned Beth into quite the party girl.’

  We both looked over at her. She was telling a joke with both hands on her hips and the corners of her mouth twitched in anticipation of the punchline. Both Christian and Isabelle waited, spellbound.

  ‘I’m not sure I’ve “turned her” into anything – that woman has more staying power than I do most of the time.’

  ‘Oh she’s never been short of that. But I think she’s gone out more in the past few weeks than she has in a long while – since leaving Ireland really, and Johnny.’

  ‘Yes, she told me about him.’ I was determined to let Ruth know that I knew all about Beth’s past. ‘Sounds like it was a good thing that they didn’t go ahead and get married.’

  ‘It probably was. He was a great local lad,’ she added disparagingly, ‘but as it turned out, he hadn’t quite got all that fun out of his system.’

  Unwilling to show up any gaps in my knowledge, I turned towards Stephen, and was surprised to find him engrossed in conversation with Isabelle, who had taken her glasses off and put them beside her plate.

  Having nothing else to do but act out my role for Ruth as the immature little girl of her expectations, I turned the conversation to trivial matters, refilling my glass so often that, when Ruth went to the toilet, Beth laid a hand on my wrist and whispered, ‘Steady: there’s no rush.’ There was nothing lyrical about Ruth’s Irish accent: her questions were statements, her small talk openly judgemental. After Christian’s fourth cigarette downstairs (despite being in the open air Ruth had made her feelings on smoking quite clear), it became obvious that he, too, had taken a dislike to her.

  ‘So you’ve been managing this place for nearly three years now? And is that how you two met: Beth came to your restaurant?’ she’d asked with the smile one reserves for elderly relatives.

  Under the guise of politeness, her tone towards both of us had been consistently derogatory. She would know full well the circumstances of their first meeting, and be using this to make some kind of a point to Beth. I had little life experience but enough imagination to see that Christian would hardly conform to Ruth’s ideals for her best friend. As a result, I had temporarily absented myself to join in a toast to the birthday boy on the opposite table, and Christian’s seat was once again empty.

  ‘Well he’s certainly a looker Beth, there’s no doubt about that.’

  Beth shifted in her chair. ‘Yes, he is, but, Ruth,’ she had to stop her saying something irreparable, ‘it’s more than that. He’s snapped me out of a mood I feel like I’ve been in for a long time. Everything about him is just so fresh, if that makes any sense.’

  Beth was scared of her: it was pathetic to watch.

  ‘I’m off to get us another bottle of wine.’

  ‘Anna, wait, I’m not sure we really need one. Ruth, will you be drinking any …’

  It was too late, I was already squeezing past the handful of people cluttering up the narrow wooden staircase which curved down from beside our table into the underbelly of the ship. Downstairs, bordering a tiny dance floor, was a larger bar than the one on the top deck, and one without a queue. Christian was nowhere to be seen. I had felt myself losing sync with the others, the grown-ups, an hour ago, but was powerless to stop it. It was on my way back up the stairs that I heard a deeply familiar voice, cutting across the discord of a hundred others.

  ‘You’re quite wrong, Ruth. She’s a sweet girl.’

  Despite the Gypsy Kings from above curdling with some French rap from the deck below, despite a second rendition (French this time) of ‘Happy Birthday’ and snatches of five different conversations, all I could hear was Beth.

  ‘Headstrong is the word I would use.’

  ‘Yes she is. S
he’s a stubborn little thing and I think it’s great – I’d want any girl of mine to be just like her. Plus,’ there was a pause and I could hear her smile, ‘Anna’s just so bloody excited about everything – it’s wonderful. And I’ll tell you another thing: it’s catching.’

  I had known they were discussing me, of course, but hearing my name made me start.

  ‘Excuse me. You going up?’

  A waiter pushed past me, and I flattened myself further against the banister, waiting for something, I knew not what, to be said.

  ‘I can see that – and I love hearing about you doing all this stuff, sounding so … energised, I suppose. Look: she seems fine, it’s just that … does she care much about anything except having a good time?’ Beth snorted with laughter.

  ‘Probably not! She’s eighteen, Ruth. Can you remember what you were like at eighteen? I can, and God, it was a good place to be. And there’s another thing: she …’

  ‘What are you doing, Anna?’

  It was Christian, bringing with him a breeze of cold tobacco.

  ‘Jesus, you made me jump. I’m just checking out the music down here.’

  ‘You go first.’

  I made sure that Ruth knew, by my smile as I poured her a glass of rosé she didn’t want, that I had heard everything. Something had crossed her face when the two of us had appeared from below, and I felt confident that she would be less vocal with some of her opinions during the rest of her stay in Paris. I fell asleep that night wondering how Beth had ended her sentence, replaying her words in my head, and imagining the rise and fall of that lightly freckled shoulder beside me.

  The biggest celebration of the French year, Bastille Day, fell on the Saturday that Ruth went back to Dublin. My sense of jubilation was increased by the knowledge that I would be spending it with Beth and Christian, among others. The whole weekend was a fête nationale. The streets were lined with red, white and blue, and after the presidential parade down the Champs-Elysées, every bar in the city opened its doors to revellers, serving up trays of eau de vie.