The Gift of Shame (16 page)

Aware that she had been subtly reminded that Jeffrey had the last word in the arrangements, Helen felt a surge of bitterness. ‘Well, at least,’ she said with deliberate sarcasm, ‘you’ll have the bed to yourself tonight, won’t you?’

Annabel opened her mouth as if to say something but settled for an inscrutable smile which infuriated Helen even more. Turning on her heel, Helen went to her own room and closed the door with noisy emphasis.

When, later, Annabel called through the door to ask if she should order a room-service dinner, Helen told her she wasn’t hungry and settled in for a grumpy night, not caring that she was behaving badly.

Jeffrey’s promised call didn’t materialise and so it was an even more unsettled Helen that faced Annabel the following morning.

In answer to Helen’s somewhat forlorn enquiry, Annabel told her that the only call had come from the airline to confirm that they were holding tickets in the names of Helen Lloyd and Jeffrey Hacking.

Not wanting to leave the hotel in case she again missed Jeffrey’s call, Helen waited impatiently throughout the morning until, close to two in the afternoon, she finally heard Jeffrey’s voice.

‘Hi! I’m sorry about this. There’s more red tape than you can
imagine
. I’ve had to hire a local lawyer to try and fight my way through it but he hardly speaks English and my German is atrocious. I’m afraid this could take longer than I thought. There’s talk that they will have to hold the car as evidence until the smugglers come up for trial.’

‘But that could take weeks!’ Helen protested. ‘Surely you don’t intend staying there that long?’

Her heart sank as she heard Jeffrey’s sigh. ‘Well, no, but I think I should stay at least another couple of days and see what can be done to speed things up.’ As if trying to cheer her up, he added, ‘By the way, I’ve seen the car and it’s totally undamaged. That’s something, don’t you think?’

Helen didn’t think it was much and let that into her tone as she answered. ‘I feel pretty silly sitting in Paris on my own. The best thing I can do is go back to London – but I’m not sure how to settle the bill.’

‘Don’t worry about that. Let me talk to Annabel …’

Handing over the telephone Helen felt even more out of place than before Jeffrey’s call.

She heard the efficient Annabel assuring Jeffrey that she would take care of everything, and then, without offering Helen the chance for a last word with Jeffrey, hung up.

‘Nothing’s easy,’ smiled Annabel. ‘I even told him not to expect too much before he left. He’s crazy about that car.’

‘To the exclusion of all else it seems,’ murmured Helen.

‘What a shame you didn’t accept Qito’s invitation,’ Annabel said brightly.

Reminded that she hadn’t even thought to mention the invitation to Jeffrey she asked, ‘You don’t imagine I had any serious intention of going, did you?’

Annabel looked bemused. ‘How many chances at immortality are you going to get?’ she asked. ‘I know what I’d do,’ Annabel added.

Looking up, Helen saw a strangely thoughtful looking Annabel handing her a drink. As she gratefully reached for it she had little idea that her, already shaky confidence was about to be totally shattered.

‘You do know he’s married, don’t you?’ asked Annabel.

Helen smiled. ‘Qito? Of course. Carla was right here.’

‘I meant Jeffrey,’ said Annabel.

10

TO BE CONFUSED
was one thing. To be confused about why she was confused was demeaning. She had run away. That fact was clear in her mind even as she had blundered out of the hotel and taken a cab to the airport. They had the ticket and, since nothing could be too much trouble for anyone connected with Qito, she found herself caught up in a highly efficient process which demanded nothing of her but her presence. She had given no thought to where she was going but only to what she was leaving behind.

She felt emotionally violated. She had opened herself completely to Jeffrey, more so than any other living being and he had betrayed her. She remembered him saying that there were things he had yet to tell her, but thought the basic fact of his being married left unsaid was unforgivable, and it was this that was the source of her confusion. The issue of marriage had never been mentioned and, indeed, given the short time they had known each other, it would have been ludicrous. However, given that, in little more than a week, they had explored each other’s sexuality with such complete abandon, she did consider that it entitled her to believe that a bond of trust had been formed, which Annabel’s news had totally shattered.

Now, riding in this plane to an unknown future, she could not wipe away the image of Jeffrey as she had seen him in arousal, and the knowledge that behind that face, during all those excursions, had been this other man who had kept a secret.

It was this that confused her. She had been made foolish in his eyes, which was demeaning enough, but there was also the knowledge that, somewhere in this world, was a woman with a greater claim to him than her.

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! These two syllables repeated endlessly in her mind, blocking out any attempt to rationalise what she was really doing by flying in this aircraft to an unknown and, until yesterday, unheard-of destination.

When the meals had been cleared away and the duty-free trolley wheeled down the aisle she realised the flight was going on for what seemed an inordinate length of time for a domestic flight. It was only then that it occurred to her to check her ticket. The 24-hour clock system always confused her but she was still able to work out that the scheduled flying time was four hours and, she thought, that must include some time-zone reduction – maybe an hour or so – so, having been already in flight for two or more hours they must, surely, be almost there. Could it be that it was possible to fly for three hours and still be in France? It was then she realised she hadn’t the least idea where Guadeloupe was. She had imagined it might be some off-shore possession in the Mediterranean like Corsica, but even with her limited knowledge of geography she didn’t imagine Corsica to be more than two hours flying time from Paris, yet her video display showed them gaining height.

She cornered a passing attendant and asked her for an explanation.

‘But, madame, the explanation is in the time zones. The flight only appears to be four hours because those are local times. To that you must add the five-hour time difference.’

‘
Add
the time difference?’ a bewildered Helen asked. ‘But surely if we are flying east the time difference is deducted?’

‘But we are flying west, madame,’ the girl explained in patient tones.

‘West? You mean across the Atlantic? But I thought this was a domestic flight.’

‘It is. Guadeloupe is a
département
of France, but it is in the Caribbean. Our flying time will be a little over eight hours.’

The smiling girl moved off, little realising that her words had left a corpse in the shell of Helen’s body. She who had, but moments ago, felt herself betrayed was now herself a betrayer. She was flying into the ocean that had killed Kenneth. Before her eyes lay his pain-wracked death mask, which now stared at her to ask what she thought she was doing.

Why was it she had never once in her life ever asked the obvious questions? Sometime, in the few quiet moments she had known with Jeffrey, there had been room to ask why a man of his age and affluence had not married. Surely, before so precipitously fleeing that man, she might have taken a moment to ask where Guadeloupe was? Had she known it lay in the same ocean that had taken Kenneth she would never have come. She felt totally lost in a nightmare of her own making and, but for the almost sepulchral dignity and quiet of her fellow passengers, she might have broken out into a primal scream. Instead, she sat in her seat numbed with the thought that she had already died.

She felt trapped. Once more committed to an insanity because she had failed to ask the right question. Catching the arm of the passing attendant she asked for more champagne. If there was no physical way out of this sealed cigar in the sky she would seek escape from herself and the self-loathing that was suddenly welling inside her, and champagne seemed as good an anaesthetic as any other.

Two or three glasses of their excellent champagne later, the movie she had chosen to watch seemed to be getting duller and more out of focus. It was a welcome relief when the flight attendant came back to lean in on her confidentially.

‘Madame, the Captain asked if you would like to visit the flight deck?’

Thinking that one of the best ideas she had heard in a long time, Helen got to her feet and was surprised to find the plane’s floor seeming so unstable. The attendant even took her arm as she led her forward and through a door into the capacious cockpit.

This was a totally different world to the passenger sections. Here was a confusing array of different coloured lights, dials and switches, most of which seemed to be displayed on monitors. It looked like a video-game player’s heaven.

From out of the left-hand seat a shirt-sleeved man in his middle forties was smiling at her as if from a toothpaste ad.

‘Welcome to our workbench,’ he called in a warmly accented voice. A younger man rose and came to lead her even further into the alchemist’s kitchen of confusing technology. With the champagne singing in her blood, Helen was gently edged towards the right-hand seat.

‘Would you like to sit there?’ the younger man asked.

He helped her into the extremely comfortable control seat and she was thrilled by the thought of sitting before the controls of a powerful machine, but terrified of touching anything in case she caused a sudden disaster. The younger man was meanwhile fitting a headset over her hair and arranging it about her ears. Suddenly the Captain’s voice was a whisper in her ear.

‘Have you ever been taken up front in a plane before?’ he asked. The question struck her as extremely funny and she went off into peals of laughter. ‘What’s funny?’ he asked as she fought to control her giggles.

‘No,’ she said. ‘But I’m willing to try anything once.’

It took a moment for the Captain to translate his own double
entendre
but when he did his voice became a great deal warmer.

‘Well, in that case, we must see what we can do for such a lovely lady.’

Helen looked across at the man’s face, lit as it was by the green glow of the electronic instrument panel, and decided he was extremely attractive. ‘My name is Lucas,’ he told her. ‘My First Officer is Hubert.’

Helen turned awkwardly in the seat to shake the hand of the younger man. Hubert was even more attractive, she decided.

‘Are you going to Guadeloupe on vacation?’ asked the Captain’s voice close in her headset.

The question, confused as she was about her own motivations, stilled her for a moment. Rather than launch into a long explanation she decided it would be simpler to agree.

‘Alone?’ was the next question.

‘As you see,’ she told him.

Aware that a meaningful glance had passed between the Captain and the First Officer, Helen felt a surge of returning confidence. The questions, and the revelation that the Captain already knew she was travelling alone, made it clear to her that she had been ‘targeted’. Obviously the Captain had sent his cabin staff to scout for an attractive woman travelling alone, and she had been selected. Helen found she didn’t mind one bit!

‘We have a two-day stop over in Guadeloupe,’ the Captain was saying. ‘Maybe I would be lucky enough to have dinner with you one evening?’

While looking across at his chiselled profile, Helen realised that ten days ago she would have fled, embarrassed, from such an open pass but Jeffrey had taught her differently. That, and the generous amount of champagne she had drunk, seemed
suddenly
to have fired up her blood and she found nothing wrong in answering the Captain boldly. ‘It might be that you could get
very
lucky,’ she told him. His answer came as a confident chuckle into her ear.

It was then, keenly aware of a glow in her loins, that she noticed something missing from the area immediately in front of her. There seemed to be no control stick. ‘Excuse me,’ she asked. ‘But shouldn’t there be something here to steer the plane by? What do you call it … a joy stick?’

‘Not any more,’ the Captain told her and, pressing himself back into the leather of his seat, indicated a tiny lever by his left hand. ‘These days we have only this.’

‘It seems very small,’ Helen murmured, then hurriedly added, ‘I mean to control such a huge machine.’

‘Size is not everything,’ smiled the Captain. ‘Mind you,’ he added in his warm French voice which was, by now, insinuating through her like warm treacle, ‘we still carry joy sticks in case of emergency.’

‘You do?’ asked Helen innocently.

‘Of course,’ he smiled and, turning round, called to his First Officer. ‘Hubert will be happy to show you his …’ The Captain broke off and Helen, turning to see what had caused his hesitation, saw that they had been joined by one of the flight attendants – a somewhat subdued-looking, pretty young woman.

The Captain greeted her. ‘Ah! Of course – our
nouvelle
.’

Helen, realising that the Captain had spoken in English for her benefit, turned to study the newcomer with some interest.

The girl had fine blonde hair and fine china-blue eyes which flashed uncertainly from one to the other of the three but finally centred on the Captain, whose voice continued to whisper into Helen’s headset.

‘Michelle is newly graduated from our training school. This is her first operational flight. We have a tradition of initiating our new girls in a particularly interesting little ritual. Would you be interested in witnessing it?’

Her interest even more aroused, Helen turned fully in the seat to study the stewardess even more closely. She saw the young woman’s lips parted in an uncertain smile with the lower lip visibly trembling. Helen clearly read aroused sexual excitement, barely repressed, in Michelle’s expression. She not only saw it but began to feel it herself.