Harm's Way (26 page)

‘Not so good, actually, I …' but my mother's voice, imbued with that familiar note of controlled irritation, cut me off.

‘Yes, I'm just coming. Anna darling? Are you there? Listen, my cab's waiting outside but I'll hand you your father.'

The immediate concern in his voice pierced the protective skein that instantly formed over my emotions during each and every exchange with my mother, and I bit my lip, trying hard not to cry.

‘I've lost my job at the museum, Dad …'

And then there were questions, so many of them. How did it happen? When did it happen? Did I understand the trouble my uncle had gone to in order to get me that job in the first place?

Tired, and already feeling distanced from a city I was falling out of love with, I didn't even bother trying to find a suitable explanation. My mother would be disappointed, he was saying gently, but we would find a way to explain it to her. I watched three waiters out of the corner of my eye, elegantly shapeless in their pinafore shirts and drawstring trousers, converging around a large salmon that had just been delivered. Occasionally the youngest of the three threw a casual look my way, betraying a glimmer of concern that my jasmine tea was still untouched, wondering if I would ever order any food. My father had stopped talking.

‘Are you still there, Dad?'

‘You'd better come home. I'm afraid your mother and I can't just pay for you to be there without a job. That wasn't the idea.'

I hung up the phone and ordered a ten-euro menu I knew I wouldn't touch. It had just arrived when my phone rang again: it was my father.

‘I've booked you on Eurostar. It leaves first thing tomorrow morning, 7.16 a.m. from the Gare du …'

‘I know where they go from, Dad.'

‘What?'

‘I know where the train goes from.'

‘Your mother's at a conference in Frankfurt until Sunday night but I'll come and pick you up at Waterloo. Have you got much stuff?'

The fact that I had given up on a job my uncle had procured for me would quietly enrage my father. But my world had capsized so completely that I no longer cared, and it was only on my way back to the flat that I began to think about what I would say to Christian.

He was still at work when I pushed the door of the flat open, and I noticed that once again, neither one of us had bothered to make the bed. His crumpled T-shirt on the floor left me cold, and I began to gather up my affairs from around the flat: some clothes, a book I had just bought and a few toiletries. The sound of his steps on the stairs made me hasten my pace.

I must have looked guilty when he walked in, flushed and pale-lipped from the wind outside. He glanced at the bag on the bed and shrugged off his jacket.

‘
Tu pars?
'

Whenever we discussed anything serious, Christian retreated to French. I had early on ascertained that this was in self-defence.

‘Yes.'

He nodded slowly, unwinding the scarf from around his neck, and I noticed that he was wearing the same jumper he had worn on our drive to Normandy. A knock at the door interrupted the silence. Christian opened it just a fraction, and I recognised the voice on the other side as belonging to Saïd from across the hall. There followed an exchange that, in the circumstances, seemed surreal.

‘Sorry, mate. Have you seen the rubbish bags downstairs by the door? One of them's split open all over the stairs and it's a right fucking mess. Now I'm not pointing fingers but we all have to live here, right? And I don't want to come home to a pigsty. The bin men don't even come for another two days.'

As Christian explained that he had been at work all day and was sure the occupant of 3D was the culprit, I took one last look around the room to check that I had not left anything behind. I felt no regret: there would be other men, men with equally beautiful faces, men with sensuous bodies and soft words just like him. But Beth–

Saïd was laughing at something Christian had said. I could see that he was trying to draw the exchange to a close, yet still their patter continued.

I picked up my bag, and walked out between the two men.

‘I have to go now, Christian.'

A flicker of pain, visceral in its intensity, crossed his face.

‘Anna, for God's sake. Hang on a second. Saïd, we'll have to talk about this later. Anna, don't go. Come back here.'

It would have been funny if it hadn't been so absurd. There was Saïd, still babbling about the bins, muttering ‘No reason for it; there's just no reason for it' in his strongly accented French, frenzied Arab music drifting into the hallway from his flat, and Christian, stuck there, unable to say goodbye.

It felt liberating to have everything I needed in the bag on my shoulder. Not yet knowing where I would sleep, I was conscious only that it was necessary to get out of the neighbourhood quickly if I was to avoid the embarrassment of Christian coming after me. With this in mind I boarded the first métro headed anywhere central. Watching a gypsy woman and her three children work their way up and down the carriages, I fancied it might be poetic to spend my last hours in Paris bidding a personal farewell to every memorable quarter, like a departing lover who kisses their sweetheart's every limb before saying goodbye. But these were spoiled memories now, irrevocably entwined with Beth or Christian. The only area free of associations were the lugubrious streets around the Gare du Nord.

I checked myself into the Hotel du Voyageur, a two-star place above an oyster bar, without even asking to see the room, and sat on the edge of the bed. The mock gentility of the place was neatly illustrated by a Monet print above the desk: it had slipped in its glass frame so that a corner of brown cardboard was visible behind it. It was only eight o'clock. I wasn't hungry and felt tempted to spend my final night in Paris in that room, waiting for morning to arrive. But there was one last thing I had to do.

*    *    *

‘Yes, I know it's you: your number comes up on the screen.'

I hadn't expected Stephen to be friendly, but the grimness of his tone cowed me for a moment.

‘I just rang to say that I'm leaving in the morning. I'm going back to London.'

Nothing.

‘I'd really like to say goodbye.'

He exhaled hard down the receiver. I pictured him, too tall for everything in that room, leaning with one elbow against the wall by the phone.

‘When are you off?'

‘Very early.'

‘Are you going with him?'

‘No. He … that's over.'

‘Just like that?' He gave a sour laugh. ‘Of course it is.'

‘Look, it'll only take a few minutes. Can I come over now? Please?'

He looked better than he had since Beth had first disappeared. His complexion was clearer, and the mauve circles beneath his eyes had faded.

‘They've found her, haven't they?' I was convinced of it. In my life, nothing had ever stayed bad for long. ‘Where is she?'

‘No they haven't, Anna. What makes you think that?'

‘They have. Just look at you.'

‘Last night I slept right through, for the first time in weeks. But only through exhaustion. Nothing else. Come in.'

I followed him meekly down the hall into the kitchen, where he turned his back to me and began spooning coffee into the cafetière.

‘Instant is fine, you know.'

He turned with a dazed look.

‘I fancied some real coffee. That OK with you?'

‘Fine.'

‘So are you flying?'

‘Eurostar.'

‘Right. Better, I guess.'

‘Definitely.'

He placed the cafetière on the table, and we waited until it was time for him to ease the plunger down, as if it was a cue for me to speak.

‘Does it help if I say that I'm sorry?'

‘Not really, Anna. Does it help you?'

‘No. That's not why I'm here, to feel better about myself. I just thought… I don't know why … because of everything … that I should say goodbye.'

The coffee was insipid. ‘You're right: it does taste so much better.'

My smile was not returned. I wondered if there was anything left for me here, and whether I should leave.

‘I'm sorry. I've said that already, I know, but I'm sorry for being here too, for making you feel awkward. There's no reason why you should ever have let me into this flat again.'

As I said it the thought of the night I had spent trying to tempt Christian into Beth's bed came back to me. It now seemed crazy: someone else's act.

He made no attempt to keep me there, and as we walked past Beth's darkened room, I fancied I saw her through the doorway, remembering only after my heart missed a beat that it was her dressmaker's dummy.

‘I'll miss this place.'

We were standing by the door. I thought he might lean forward and kiss me on the cheek, but he made no motion towards me.

‘If I tell you that I slept well last night because of a phone call I received, do you promise never to try to contact either one of us again?'

Worried I would let out the sob crushing my chest, I nodded.

‘Goodbye, Anna.'

At six-thirty the platform of the Gare du Nord is one of the most desolate places one can be in Paris. I sat on my bags, watching a fleet of businessmen and -women with box-cases on wheels roll noisily on to the train, leaving a city that meant something quite different to them. I knew I would be back one day. But I also knew that it wouldn't be for a long time, and that even when I did return, the ghosts of that year would always be poised to jump out at me.

Though I longed to sleep through that three-hour journey, the monotonous noises of a video game at the back of the carriage and the clicking throat of the sleeping businessman beside me conspired to keep me awake. We sped quickly out of Paris into the suburbs, and I thought I recognised a housing estate in the distance as one Christian and I had driven past on our way to his brother's flat. Already the past three months had begun to take on a dream-like quality. To dispel it, I took my phone from my bag and deleted Beth, Stephen, Christian and Isabelle's numbers. The train gained momentum and I worked my way down the list, removing anyone connected with Paris, breathing more evenly as each person left my life for good.

The train shuddered to a halt and the businessman's head lolled on to my shoulder. I didn't move away, oddly reassured by this human contact. He awoke with a jolt.

‘
Pardon, Mademoiselle. Pardon.'

Just before we entered the tunnel I locked myself into the toilet, to be alone for a few minutes and to wash the ashes of Paris from my face.

My father was standing outside the arrivals gate with the same grim expression he'd worn when he'd come home early to find me partially clothed, aged fourteen, in bed with a sixth-former from the local boys' school. For days he'd found it hard to look at me, turning his face away from mine in an attitude of false distraction, just as he did now. After brushing his cheek awkwardly against mine he put my bags wordlessly into the boot.

‘Strap yourself in.'

‘So how are you, Dad?'

‘Your mother and I are both well. She told you, didn't she, that she's in Frankfurt until tomorrow evening?'

‘
You
did, yes. But what about you: did you miss me?' I donned my most childish face, mischievous but endearing, and looked up at him in a way I knew would melt his heart.

‘Of course I did. We both did. But we were rather hoping you could make this year in Paris work. I put a lot of effort into getting you that job, called in a few favours, you know.' He paused. ‘To be honest, I'm disappointed.'

How is it that parents know exactly the right phrase, the one sentence among thousands that fits the bill, and is guaranteed to skewer your heart with shame?

‘Dad …' Against my volition, there was already an apologetic, imploring quality to my voice. ‘I was really grateful for the opportunity. Honestly. But it wasn't really me.'

‘Oh well if it wasn't “you”, then I quite understand,' he said, his eyes firmly on the road ahead.

Sensing the futility of my words, I turned in my seat, feeling the belt pull across my already tight chest, and looked out of the window at the Houses of Parliament, which appeared hackneyed to me after the wonders of Paris.

I went straight to my room when we got home, hoping it might bring me solace. Instead, my A level revision notes and the heavy winter coat hanging up behind my door made my feeling of estrangement keener: they were objects I no longer recognised, belonging to someone who no longer existed.

‘Dinner will be ready in an hour or so.' It was my father, speaking from behind my door.

‘Come in, Dad.'

But already, I could hear his slow footsteps on the stairs. Jumping off the bed and pushing open the door, I shouted down to him.

‘What are we eating?'

‘Lasagne. I've just put it in the oven.'

There was no hint of jollity, not a whisper of forgiveness in that tone. It promised to be a long evening.

The kitchen was just the same: nothing had moved since I'd left, and yet I found it alienating, having remembered the spaces differently in my mind. The table was surely never so narrow, and why were the worktops so clear? Laying out the knives and forks restored a soothing rhythm; so engrossed was I in my task that I did not hear my father come in.

‘Is it ready?' he asked me.

‘Oh, I don't know, I haven't checked.'

‘Could you do that?'

‘Yes, of course. I'll have a look now.'

A little overdone, but I told him it was just right, and the two of us sat down with the polite courtesy of a married couple no longer in love with one another.

‘This is good.'

My father did not respond.

‘Have you ever gone away with Mum to one of her work things?'