Better Than Easy (37 page)

I stand outside in hesitation for a few seconds and then I turn and head back into the terminal building.

By the time I get back through the doors Chantal is nowhere to be seen. I scan the check-in counters, and then move far enough into the hall to see the seating area of the coffee bar. I turn and peer at the queue for the security checks, but she isn't there. For a split second I think that I see not Chantal but Ricardo – in uniform – a momentary lapse of reason. It isn't, of course, Ricardo; in fact it's not even a
pompier
but a security guard. I cast around for Chantal again and am just starting to wonder if I'm imagining things when I glimpse her again, this time a hundred meters away coming out of the toilets and speeding off towards the other section of the building.

I start to walk briskly, but she's moving so fast that without jogging I am merely keeping up with her. I almost start to run, and then realise that I don't really know why I'm chasing her anyway. She pauses, hikes her daughter up a little higher, stares at a notice board, and then spins ninety degrees and crosses briskly to an empty check-in desk.

As the gap starts to narrow – I can see her now lugging her case onto the conveyor belt, placing her passport on the counter – I wonder what, other than,
“Hi,”
I am going to say to her. And then I realise I can ask her for her mother's phone number. Slightly breathless, I reach her side, but busy with the check-in girl and her view to the right blocked by her daughter, she doesn't see me.

“Un seul bagage?” the girl asks her … – “A single bag? Do you have any of these prohibited items? Did you pack your bag yourself? Has anyone asked you to carry anything?” And then she notices me and frowns over Chantal's shoulder. “Vous êtes ensemble?” she asks. – “Are you together?”

For a moment, Chantal thinks the girl means her daughter, and replies aggressively, “Of course we're together!” but then she realises and turns to face me.

I smile at her. “Bonjour!” I say.

She frowns, and opens her mouth and then closes it again. Then she turns back to the check-in counter and says, “Non.”

The girl frowns at me, shrugs, and returns her attention to the computer screen.

Chantal half turns again. “Why are you here?” she casts over her shoulder.

I shrug. Something in her tone makes my smile fade. “I was here,” I explain. “I brought a friend – the guy you met yesterday actually. Ricardo. He's flying to Paris.”

Chantal frowns at me. She doesn't look happy to see me at all and I wonder why this should be. She turns back to the check in girl who slides her passport back across the counter.

Chantal reaches for her passport and closes it so quickly that she actually makes a slapping noise on the counter, and that gesture makes me suspicious – it makes me look at the document. I'm too late to see the inside, but just quick enough to see the Arabic writing on the cover before it vanishes into her pocket.

Chantal glances sideways at me as the girl slides her boarding card to her and launches, in a bored tone of voice, into the home-run of her check-in spiel.
“L'embarkement est à dix heure dix …”
she says, ringing
10:10
with a flourish of her biro, then
Gate A24
. I step forward and glance at the boarding card. I read the word,
Shenouda,
and wonder where that is. I glance up at the display board above our heads and see that it says, “AF340 CAIRO.” I look back at the boarding card a second before Chantal swipes it away, and see that
Shenouda
is the surname.
Shenouda
, is
her
surname.

“Wh …” I say vaguely.

“Merci,” Chantal thanks the girl. Then to me, as she sweeps away, she throws, “I'm sorry, I'm late.”

The girl calls her back. “Vous avez oublié …” she says.
–“You forgot …”

Chantal leans back, snatches her daughter's boarding card from the counter and then struts off towards the security gate.

I frown at the check in girl.

“Are you travelling sir?” she asks me.

I shake my head slowly.

“Then please step aside,” she says, nodding to indicate the people behind me.

I nod. “Yes,” I say. “Sorry.” I turn to see Chantal already thirty meters away joining the short queue for security. I glance back at the sign again, checking that it really does say CAIRO, and then, still not quite sure what I'm doing, I start to follow her. When I reach the queue, she is fumbling in her flight bag. She sees me in her peripheral vision but turns her back to me. I pull a face and tap her on the shoulder. “Chantal!” I say. “What's wrong with you?”

She half turns her head; just enough to
almost
look at me. “Va t'en,” she says. –
“Go away!”

I frown in surprise. “Oh,” I say. “Why are you being like this?”

She looks at me now and I realise that she looks scared. “I'm sorry,” she says. “I … I don't have time.”

I glance at the clock. “No …” I say, working out that she has plenty of time. “So, Egypt …” I add thoughtfully.

“Pourquoi vous ne vous occupez pas de vos propres oignons?” she asks.
– “Why don't you mind your own onions?”

It's not the welcome I expect from someone to whom I'm about to give two hundred thousand Euros.

“OK …” I say, thoughtfully. “You have an Egyptian passport …” I'm still working this out here.
I feel like my brain is stuck in first gear. “Your boarding pass says
Shenouda …
” I say, wrinkling my nose.
“Why
does your boarding pass say
Shenouda?”

“Excusez-moi,” she says sharply addressing the people in front.
“Je suis en retard … je peux?”
They nod their acquiescence and she moves two places forward in the queue.

Muttering a, “Sorry – I'm not travelling,” to the same couple, I queue jump with her.

“Excuse me,” she says again. “Could I?”

I glance to the front of the queue. In three more hops she will be at the metal detector. In three more moves they will ask me for my own boarding card and turn me away. And any opportunity will be lost – but any opportunity for
what
exactly? I don't know what I'm doing yet, but I do it anyway. I shout, quite loudly,
“Chantal!”

She glances at me in a ratty, rodenty kind of way, and then she scurries forward another place in the queue.

I cast around, and see a security guard twenty meters away. I stride over to him. “Excusez moi,” I say loudly. I glance at Chantal and see that she is watching me.

“Oui?” the guard asks.

“Cette femme. Avec l'enfant,” I say loudly, pointing at her theatrically. –
“That woman with the child.”

I see her break out of the queue and walk briskly, then run towards me.

“Is she in the right place for boarding?” I ask just as Chantal reaches my side. She grabs my elbow, and starts to drag me away.

“Tout va bien?” the guard asks me, now frowning. –
“Is everything OK?”

I smile at him broadly. “Yes, sorry,” I say, as I am led away. Chantal's fingers are digging into my arm. I prise them off.

“What are you doing?” she hisses.

The truth is that I have absolutely no idea. “What are
you
doing?” I retort.

“It's none of your business,” she says. “Please … this is none of your business.”

“Tomorrow I'm supposed to be handing over a cheque for the gîte. I'd say it
is
my business.”

“Please,” she says, indicating that I should lower my voice. Her daughter, who has been staring wide-eyed at me, starts at this point to cry. Chantal jiggles her and scans the hall nervously. “I don't know what you're talking about,” she says, hopefully.

I frown at her. “A flight to Egypt, a false passport, a false name …” I say, checking it through as I say it. “A missing husband too.”

“And?” she says.

“Reminds me of Anne Darwin,” I say. I think that she will have no idea what I'm talking about, and am about to explain, but those final two words make her freeze. The colour drains from her cheeks. In fact, I have never before seen quite such a sudden and marked shift of a human complexion from pink to grey-green. I think,
“Bingo.”

She stares at me, silently chewing the inside of her mouth. She has a cold glassy expression – a look, I realise, of hatred. “I don't have to stand here and listen to this,” she says, unconvincingly making as if she is going to walk away.

“You can talk to me, or you can talk to security,” I say, nodding at another guard, this one carrying a gun.

“What do you want from me?” she whispers.

And I have no idea what to answer. What
do
I want from her?

“Well?” she prompts.

I stare at her.
“I don't like her.”
That's my first thought. I think that I have, up until now, got her completely wrong. Then I think that no matter what I'm supposed to be buying from her, I don't want to give her my money. I don't want to give her any of it.

“Tell me what you want,” she says again, her tone more friendly this time.

But I don't know what I'm doing here. I don't know why I'm holding her up, other than that something is wrong.
“What's wrong with this picture?”
as the Americans say. I don't even know quite what I
don't
want. Except that maybe I don't want to pay two hundred thousand Euros to a dodgy woman with a false identity who looks like she's in the process of fleeing the country. That strikes me as a clever thought, a useful thought. I hang onto it.

“I can't buy it …” I say, more to myself than to her. “I
can't
buy your gîte.”

“What do you mean?” she asks. “Why not? You
have
bought it.”

“No,” I say. “I can't.”

“It's too late,” she says. “You signed the agreement.”

I nod and think about this. “With who though? With Chantal Ancey or with Mrs Shenouda?”

She glances nervously around the hall again and then looks back at me with narrowed eyes. Hatred again: she looks like she would happily eradicate me like the rats she shoots with her shotgun. “You want a discount?” she asks, her tone somehow sly. “Is that it? How much?”

I shake my head slowly. “No,” I say. “I want … No … I don't want it.” And as I say this I feel a weight slip from my shoulders. Just saying that sentence for some reason feels good, and I realise where this is heading, and it feels like escape.

“I don't understand,” she says. “Why now?”

“Because I can't,” I say. “Because I don't trust you. I have no idea who you
are,
even.”

She wrinkles one side of her nose at me and then, amazingly, she smiles icily. “I see. That's what you want then? You want me to pull out of the sale?”

I frown at her and nod. “Yes,” I say flatly.

“You want the twenty thousand?” she says. “The
cancellation fee? Is that it?”

I push out my lips. “No,” I say. “Not really. That's not the point.”

“But if I cancel …”

I nod. “Yes,” I say. “I know.”

“I can't,” she says. “I can't afford it.”

“No,” I say vaguely. “I suppose you must decide what's best for you.”

She gasps and stares at the ceiling. She rubs one hand over her mouth. When she looks back at me her eyes are still filled with loathing, but they are glistening with tears too. “OK,” she says. “But you let me go. When I get to … when I get there, I will phone the notary. And you don't contact anyone about this.”

I smile thinly and pull my phone from my pocket. “Yes,” I say. “But you had better phone him now.”

“I don't have time,” she says. “My flight …”

“Ten past ten,” I say quietly as I find the number for the notary and hit the call button. “It
boards
at ten past ten. You have ages.” I hand her my iPhone.

“I don't have time,” she says again.

“Oh give it a rest …” I say, my patience wearing thin. “If I have a word with security you'll have loads of time. Is that what you want?”

“But …” she says, shaking her head, then shaking the iPhone at me. “I don't know how to use this anyway.”

“It's easy,” I tell her. “You talk into it and the person on the other end talks back.”

“There won't be anyone there yet, it's too early,” she says.

We both hear the voice of the notary's secretary answering. Chantal raises the phone to her ear. “Maître Damiano s'il vous plaît,” she says. “What do I say?” she asks me. “He doesn't know … he doesn't know anything.”

I shrug. “Tell him you changed your mind,” I say.

She gasps at me and shakes her head in disgust,
then speaks (actually, for some reason shouts) into the phone. Her voice trembles as she says, piercingly, “Oui, Maitre Damiano, oui … Chantal Ancey de Chateauneuf d'Entr … Oui, voila … Je me retire de la vente.” – “I'm pulling out of the sale … yes … I know … yes … I'm sure … yes … the paperwork? OK you can send it by email … yes … I can't, I'm going away … Unusual, yes, I know … I'm sure … Disappointed, yes, I'm sure. Yes. Yes please do. Your fees, yes, I know. It's not a problem … Of course. Thank you. Yes, I'm sure. Thank you.”

As I listen to all of this, I wonder if I'm doing the right thing and I wonder if I have any choice. It feels somehow like destiny, only I don't believe in destiny. Bumping into her today surely isn't
nothing
though. Perhaps through this chance meeting, I am to be saved from something, fraud maybe; maybe from a life with Tom in the gîte – maybe it would have been that bad.