Hide and Seek (19 page)

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 wish 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.

It’s not that I gave up. That’s not why I got a private detective. It’s because I know best. I know that if I’ve spent hours on the internet searching for someone and I still can’t find them, it’s because they’re not there. Not on the internet. Shocking as that sounds. It was like she didn’t want to be found, our Sophie Reigate, née Travers. Not so much as a picture on-line. However many combinations I put into Google, Sophie wasn’t there. But then, obviously, 1984 was pre-internet (at least for normal non-geek people). She never created a digital footprint. And she obviously never did enough to make herself super-famous. So as far as Google is concerned, she doesn’t exist.

But because I know best, in my pre-mum state, I realised that the internet is not the only source of knowledge. Realised that what I needed was a foot soldier. With the little snippets of knowledge I owe to Miriam, the right person, in the right place, would be able to unwrap Sophie Travers from whatever Parisian anonymity is cloaking her. And when I told him, Monsieur Dufort, about the information I had, he told me it was more than enough to go on. A teacher, about sixty, also a musician, brunette with dark red lips. And a name: Sophie Travers.