Out of My Depth (31 page)

It was oppressively hot outside. Amanda unlocked the car and sweltered in its interior. Typically, Patrick could have parked it in the shade but hadn’t bothered. He had parked in the full glare of the August sun, and the car was a furnace. She knew she wasn’t insured to drive it, but got behind the wheel anyway, pulled the seat forward, and adjusted the rearview mirror. She had rarely driven on the wrong side of the road, but she imagined she would manage. She reversed out onto the road without any problems, and drove slowly, remembering to stay on the right, getting a feel for the car.

After two hundred yards, she saw Roman at the village recycling bins, chatting to some swarthy looking Frenchman with a moustache. Awash with relief and excitement, she slowed to a halt. Exactly the person she wanted. She located the correct button, and buzzed down the passenger window.

‘Hey, gorgeous!’ she shouted. ‘Need a lift anywhere?’

Roman turned, surprised, and smiled at her. He said something to the man next to him. ‘Where are you going?’ he called.

‘Anywhere you like.’

‘OK.’

He disposed of the last few champagne bottles, and parked his wheelbarrow neatly at the edge of a field of sunflowers. Within seconds he was sitting next to her, in the passenger seat, looking at her expectantly with that arrogant face of his.

‘Wow,’ he said. ‘You’re all dressed up. Where’s Susie?’ ‘That kid got some sting, and they’ve taken him to hospital.’ Her voice dripped with disdain, which she imagined Roman would share.

‘That kid?’ he said, mockingly. ‘Meaning the one that isn’t yours, presumably?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘Is he all right? I saw Susie hurtling through the village at three hundred K an hour. She got some stern stares from the villagers for that.’

Amanda shrugged. ‘I missed all the excitement. Patrick told me what happened. Everyone’s gone except him and my kids, and they’re all swimming, so I’m having a little explore.’

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s do it. We’ll go somewhere good. I don’t suppose you’re up for a surf, so we’ll go for a drink.’

He directed Amanda through country lanes, past interminable fields of maize, interspersed with cows and occasional seas of sunflowers that were all decidedly past their prime. Whenever a car came towards them, he reminded her to drive on the right. The rest of the time everyone seemed to bumble along happily in the middle of the road, so it was immaterial. They had the air conditioning on at full blast, and Roman soon located a radio station that was playing Frank Sinatra.

‘This is cool,’ Amanda remarked. She listened. “‘My Way” in French. Is it a direct translation?’

Roman listened for a second. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not I did it my way at all. As usual. It sounds better in French. I’d have taken my iPod with me to the bins, if I’d known. Played you some real music.’

Amanda nodded and hummed along. She felt her mood lightening, aware that a large component of what she was feeling was a rather delightful malice. She was being naughty, and now that she was an adult, nobody could stop her. She was overjoyed to be away from Susie’s house. It was pretty enough, but the atmosphere was heavy.

She had always got more pleasure than the others had from breaking the rules. She had adored their Slackers’ Society meetings in the crappy café, not least because she was generally the centre of attention. She’d loved mitching off school and cheating in exams and copying essays, and she had happily let her essays be copied in return, whenever she had done them. In her married life, she had been the archetypal bored housewife. She had never driven off in a car for which she was not a legal driver, very slightly tipsy, dolled up to the nines, with a man who was not her husband. No, she had never done anything remotely like that. Although she had driven drunk more often than not, but she tried not to think too hard about that.

‘What would you have done,’ asked Roman suddenly, ‘if you hadn’t met me?’

She was incredulous. ‘What would I have done if I hadn’t met you? I’ve only known you five minutes, you wanker. Oooh, I wouldn’t have abseiled out of the window. My life would have been meaningless.’

He was laughing. ‘I didn’t mean that! I meant, right now. Where were you going to go, on your own, with all that lipstick and all?’

She smiled. ‘Oh. Nowhere. Somewhere. Wherever. I don’t know. I was just going to drive around and see where I ended up. I’m sure me taking off on my own wasn’t on Susie’s agenda, but since she’s out, I thought I was probably allowed.’

Roman smiled. ‘She’s been very nervous about having you all here. I’ve never seen her like it before. Every moment accounted for. There’s a certain military precision to it.’

‘Why?’

Roman shrugged. ‘No idea, really. She admits it’s partly to show off, or rather to “share our good fortune”. But I’m sure there’s another agenda going on and I haven’t the faintest idea what it is. Which is unusual because normally I can tell exactly where she’s coming from.’

This made Amanda nervous and she changed the subject.

‘You know, I had to get out because I was alone with Patrick, and . . .’ She took a breath. ‘He was doing my head in, and I hate my marriage and I can’t think of a single thing to do about it.’ She stared at the road. A purple Peugeot came speeding around a corner towards her, and she swung the wheel abruptly to the right. They were almost in a ditch as the car flew past. Amanda gasped and then laughed.

‘Fucking hell,’ she said. ‘Do they all drive like that? It’s worse than London.’

‘It’s not, actually,’ said Roman, lazily. ‘That was a boy racer. You can tell because he was about twenty, he was driving a purple car with a spoiler. He had two exhaust pipes and a low trim, and of course he was driving like he had a death wish. But he was just having fun, on his way to cruise one of the towns, no doubt. The thing here is that the roads are probably more dangerous than they are in the UK, but you don’t have the rage. Round here, at least. Paris is different. Here, everyone stares at you as you pass and that’s because they’re trying to see if you’re someone they know, so they know whether or not to wave at you. Then, if they don’t know you, they keep the stare going to try to work out who you might be. A lot of people have no idea it looks rude. They don’t mean to be rude.’ He thought about it. Although they equally wouldn’t particularly care. And they drive round corners too fast, and they drive right up close behind you, which is the thing that Susie hates. But for all that, it doesn’t get personal like it does in Britain. No one would dream of chasing you and winding down their window to scream abuse. The worst you’re likely to get is a shrug.’ She looked at him as he performed the exasperated gestures of a frustrated French driver. ‘Not “you fucking wanker cunt I’m going to fucking shove your head right up your arse . . .
."'

Amanda wasn’t sure whether to admit to it. ‘Mmm,’ she said non-committally. ‘I must admit, I drive the kids to school and back every day and I have been known to have a spot of road rage myself. I may have uttered the c-word to a perfect stranger on occasion.’ She saw that he was unimpressed and changed the subject. ‘Doesn’t it drive you mad, all this quiet? I mean, what in God’s name do you do?’

He looked at her slyly. ‘Oh, we make our own entertainment.’

‘You mean, Susie paints her nice little pictures and gets paid a bloody fortune and keeps you in the manner to which you have become accustomed?’

‘While I try all the dangerous sports going to try to entertain myself in a pathetic and risible manner? Yes. I bake biscuits too. And I drink wine. So, are you going to leave your husband?’

Amanda shook her head. ‘Nu-huh.’ She looked at him, sideways, unsure whether to ask. ‘What do you think of Patrick, Roman?’

Roman rocked back and forth in contemplation. ‘Turn right over this bridge, yeah? Then follow the road round. I’m sure he’s a nice guy. I think you’ve got the worst marriage I’ve seen in my entire life. We have divorced friends who are happier in each other’s company than you and Patrick are. I mean, you’ve got a spark to you, and Patrick’s obviously a good guy, although I think I’d struggle to find common ground with him if I tried. But together, you seem . . .’ He looked at her, and she nodded curtly for him to continue. ‘Well, you seem to hate each other. You obviously want someone more challenging, and he’d probably be happier with someone less challenging, because let’s face it, Amanda, you are pretty fucking challenging.’

Amanda was unexpectedly torn. This was the very first time she had hinted at marital difficulties to anybody, ever. She had hoped, and assumed, that she and Patrick put on a united front, but clearly they didn’t.

That’s a bit nasty,’ she said, as mildly as she could. ‘I’m allowed to moan about it, and you’re supposed to gasp in astonishment and say we seemed the perfect couple.’

‘No, because if I did that I’d be a woman. I’m a man, so I can’t manage the pretending part. But if you don’t want me to say anything, I won’t. That’s fine.’

‘No, you can say what you like.’

All right. While we’re being honest, why do you and Patrick both drink so much?’

Amanda glared. ‘I’ve noticed you like a drink or two as well, Mr Perfect. You just said so yourself.’

‘Oh, I have never claimed to be Mr Perfect, have I?’ Roman looked across at her, and then back at the road. ‘If I was Mr Perfect I wouldn’t be here.’

‘Wouldn’t be where?’

‘In your car, directing you to a nice little bar by the river. Helping you storm off from a marital row. What would Patrick say? What will he say? What would Susie think about us heading off together? OK, you stormed off because you’re having your little crisis. But me? I was talking to Serge by the bins and then I jumped in your car. The village will know about it already.’ He looked at her with a sly smile. ‘I may as well take you to a hotel and be done with it.’

She stared. ‘You’re joking.’

‘Of course I am. But you know, everyone’s going to think we were up to no good. So in that sense, I really shouldn’t be here.’

She tutted and went down a gear to overtake a tractor. The acceleration scared her, and the corner was closer than she had thought. She cut back in as quickly as she could, praying that no car would appear around the corner at the crucial moment.

‘Jesus, Roman,’ she said, suddenly angry. ‘You do talk some fucking crap, don’t you?’

‘You think so?’

‘You know it as well as I do. Arsehole.’

Amanda speeded up, eager to leave the heavy tractor far behind. She was angry with Roman and, suddenly, exhausted. She was tired of being angry, angry with being tired. Speeding recklessly around the edges of maize fields and past fat white cows and through tunnels of trees, she decided that she had had enough. Something was going to change.

‘Slow down?’ Roman suggested, lazily.

She put the brakes on and performed an emergency stop. To her satisfaction, her passenger banged his nose on the dashboard. He rubbed it and looked at her quizzically.

‘Are you all right to drive?’ he asked. ‘You’re fucking drunk, aren’t you?’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Probably. We’d better go back.’

Roman pulled a hurt face. ‘You mean you don’t want to pursue our little adventure?’

‘I’ve had enough of it all.’

‘Oh, come on. You owe me a drink now. We’re nearly there.’

‘I think I want to go back.’ Amanda’s mind was blank. She had no idea what she wanted, except for a drink.

‘Well, make your mind up. We go onwards, and soothe our nerves with one small drink before heading home before we’re missed, or we wimp out and go back. Bearing in mind that Susie and the girls are out anyway.’

Amanda frowned.

It was a cold evening. Spring had not yet arrived, even though it was April. The sky was cloudy but at least it had stopped raining. The pavement outside City Hall was slick and damp. Tamsin stopped to savour the city smells. Chief among them was exhaust. Cars were roaring by on the roads all around, rushing into town, or out of it. As well as that, she could dimly smell fast food, from far away. There were distant voices, a laugh.

She sighed and followed her mother into the building. They had found a parking space just outside, which, she supposed, was good. Leaving this disco was going to be the best part of the evening.

She insisted on thinking of it as a disco, because it was wildly pretentious to call it a ball. Balls were from fairy tales. Cinderella’s ball was a real ball. Balls were Viennese, or royal. At a ball, beautiful people danced to waltzes played by string orchestras dressed all in white. If this was really going to be a ball, Tamsin thought she might quite enjoy it. She could carry an engagement card and allow young men to book her for particular dances. She would learn to quickstep and foxtrot.

A real ball would not involve anybody slow dancing to the Righteous Brothers. It would not be peopled by teenagers on heat. Nobody at Cinderella’s ball would have sex under a table, or vomit all around a loo. There would be nobody rushed to hospital to have their stomach pumped. The correct name for the party she was reluctantly attending was a disco, so that was what she was going to call it. Izzy was the only one who concurred.

The ball, the disco, the event, was a source of feverish excitement for everybody but Tamsin. Izzy had been hand-stitching her dress for months, as a distraction from revision. Amanda and Suzii had taken the more conventional shopping route and, although Tamsin had heard about their dresses in the minutest detail, she had not yet had the pleasure of seeing them. She pulled her grey mac tightly round herself and feared the worst.