Without Looking Back (8 page)

‘
Ouais
?’ Pierre’s voice sounded very distant.

‘It’s Louis – guess where I am?’

‘What’s going on? Where are you?’

‘England! Papa took us on holiday. We’re in a place called the Lake District, it’s really cool, I’m not coming back to school till Monday—’

A series of loud beeps muffled the sound of Pierre’s voice. Then the line went dead. Louis hung up, disgusted that the phone had swallowed up a whole pound in a matter of seconds. Then he straddled his bike again, pumping the pedals furiously to catch up with Max.

The late-afternoon sun was beginning to turn golden and touch the tops of the trees. They left the town behind them and Max set the pace, taking a winding road that led down towards the lake. It stretched out like a vast sheet of turquoise glass, the warm sun giving it a golden hue. Dramatic peaks towered all around them beneath a vast white sky. The wind blew strong,
whipping tears from their eyes. Louis stood up on his pedals, looking out across the water. Ahead of him, Max skidded to a halt on the stony verge, threw his bike down on the grass and looked down at the jagged hillside. ‘Reckon we could climb down there?’

Louis laid his bike down and tested the ground with his foot. It felt reasonably firm. ‘Don’t see why not.’

They began their descent, turning sideways and digging the edges of their trainers into the earth, using their hands to stay balanced, and for a while the only sound was the scrabbling of feet and the rasping of breath, until Louis reached the bottom first and splodged through the wet mud at the edge of the lake. Moments later, Max followed him, and the two of them stood looking out across the vast expanse of water. The wind had dropped, and apart from the lazy chirping of a swallow, the air was eerily still.

Max bent down to look for stones, his cheeks flushed pink from their hasty descent. He found some flattish ones and began skimming them one by one across the water.

Louis picked up a stone and tried to skim it too, but it only disappeared with an irritating plop. ‘Why can’t I do it?’

‘You need to get flat ones, like this.’ Max handed him
a stone. ‘Then imagine you’re throwing a tiny little frisbee. Like this . . .’ The stone skimmed the water three times.

Louis tried, with a disappointing result. ‘Pfff.’

‘Nearly,’ Max said. ‘Try again. But turn your hand inwards when you throw, like this.’ He demonstrated.

Louis tried again. A sort of half-skim, before the stone disappeared again.

‘Better,’ Max said encouragingly.

Louis bent down to look for some more flat stones as Max skimmed another across the ripples.

Louis had another go. This time there was a definite skim. ‘Whoa!’ he exclaimed.

Max threw another stone and said, ‘So what d’you think about the farmhouse?’

Louis glanced at him. ‘It’s a bit run down but I like it.’

There was a pause. Then Max suddenly said, ‘Dad’s not coming back to France – you know that, don’t you.’

Louis felt his heart judder. He looked sharply at Max. ‘How d’you know?’

‘It’s obvious,’ Max said, sounding as if he didn’t really care. ‘Dad might have savings but he’s not that rich. He wouldn’t be going to all this trouble to furnish the house if he was only going to use it for the holidays.’

‘You mean you think he’s going to live here?’

‘Of course,’ Max said.

Louis felt his eyes narrow. ‘You don’t know that,’ he tried.

Max shot him an exasperated look. ‘Oh, come
on
.’

‘OK,’ Louis reluctantly agreed. ‘So maybe he is planning to stay here for a bit. That doesn’t mean he’ll never come back to France. And it’ll mean
we
get to spend all our holidays
here
. Heaps better than horrid summer camp, if you ask me.’

Max looked at him darkly, his hands dug deep in his pockets. ‘You really think Maman’s going to let us fly out to England and spend the holidays with Dad?’

Louis could feel his chin jutting out defensively. ‘She might—’

‘Oh,
come on
!’ Max exclaimed angrily. ‘She doesn’t even want us to spend a weekend with him once a month in Paris!’

Louis threw a stone as hard as he could. It skimmed the water three times. He didn’t want to look at Max. ‘So what are you saying?’

‘What I’m saying is – Dad must have lost the court case.’

A sliver of shock shot through Louis’ stomach. He threw another stone.

There was a long silence. Max stared at Louis’ face. Then, ‘Oh my God, you knew,’ he breathed.

Louis scrabbled around for more stones. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about—’

‘Oh my God, you
knew
!’ Suddenly Louis felt himself shoved backwards and slammed down against the hard ground, Max’s fingers twisting the collar of his T-shirt, his fist against Louis’ throat.

‘Tell me everything, right now, or I’ll swear I’ll punch you—’

‘OK, OK!’ Louis held up his hands. He had never seen Max so angry. For the first time in his life, Louis actually felt afraid of his older brother.

With a furious shove, Max let go of Louis’ collar and Louis sat up, breathing hard. ‘Jesus, Max, there’s no need to—’

‘You tell me everything, right now, or I swear to God . . .’ Max’s eyes were flashing, the colour high in his cheeks.

‘You’ve got to promise not to tell Millie. Dad made me promise not to tell either of you, and—’

‘OK, OK!’

Louis took a deep, shuddering breath. The sun had disappeared behind a cloud. ‘You guessed right,’ he said in a rush. ‘Dad lost the court case and Mum won. He’s only allowed supervised visits with us from now on. But he’s going to—’

Max had grabbed him by the collar again. ‘How do you know? Who told you?’

‘I overheard Dad on the phone!’

‘When?’

‘The night before we left!’

Max whistled under his breath, slowly remembering. ‘So that’s when you . . . when we were playing Cluedo, and you came out of the kitchen and you’d been crying—’

‘I wasn’t crying,’ Louis said quickly, but Max didn’t appear to hear him. His face darkened.

‘So that’s why Dad’s moving to England? Because he lost the court case?’

‘I don’t know,’ Louis said. ‘It doesn’t make sense. He said he was going to appeal. He promised, Max! Maybe the farmhouse really
is
just a holiday home. Maybe he wants to do it up so he can prove to Mum that he’s not ill any more and she’ll trust him to look after us . . .’

But Max was looking away, shaking his head in disgust. ‘Don’t be so bloody naïve. He won’t be appealing if he’s moving to England. He must just be hoping to start his life over and meet some new woman—’

‘You don’t know that!’ Louis felt his voice rising. ‘He wouldn’t do that! He would never give us up! He promised me – he said everything was going to be all right!’

‘Those are just words,’ Max scoffed. ‘You were blubbing like a baby and he just wanted to shut you up—’

Louis jumped to his feet and started to climb back up the hillside towards the bikes.

Max started to follow him. ‘Hey, Louis, I’m sorry. Come on, calm down.’

Louis ignored him and kept on going, digging his nails into the soft earth to aid his ascent, the growing burn in his calf muscles a useful antidote to the pain inside his mind.

The next day, the beds arrived, and Louis and Millie helped Dad erect them in the bedrooms. They did Millie’s first, and when it was done, she was so pleased with it that she turned somersaults on the fresh bouncy mattress.

‘I want to paint my walls pink,’ she declared, stretching out over her Barbie duvet cover.

‘I think that could be arranged,’ Dad replied.

‘Really? Oh, yippee! I want to call Maman and tell her about my new room. Can I call her now, Daddy?’

Dad appeared not to have heard; he was collecting up his tools, ready to move on to the next room.

‘Can I call
Mummy
?’ Millie repeated, appearing to
think her use of the French word was the reason Dad hadn’t replied.

Dad picked up his toolbox and went next door to the boys’ room. Louis followed him, Millie skipping behind. ‘Can I, Daddy, can I, can I?’

Dad put down his toolbox on Louis’ bed, the colour high in his cheeks. ‘Not now, Millie, she’ll be at work.’

‘But Mummy’s always at work. She lets me call her at work – I’m allowed.’

‘Only if it’s for something important,’ Louis reminded her.

‘But this
is
important. I want to tell her about my new room! Oh please, Daddy!’

‘We can’t call her yet, we haven’t got a phone installed,’ Dad told her.

‘But on your mobile—’

‘No, Millie, it’s too expensive.’ The tone of Dad’s voice signalled that the discussion was over.

For a moment Millie looked upset, hurt even. Then she quickly recovered, remembering her new bed, and ran back to her room.

Louis and Dad got to work on the second bed, Louis cutting open the cardboard boxes while Dad pored over the instructions. Louis lined up the wooden panels according to size and knelt on the carpet opposite his
father, following his lead with the first set of screws. Louis used the electric screwdriver while Dad took the manual one, and once the screws were in place, they returned to the instruction leaflet, studying it together.

‘I think we have to hammer in the dowels next,’ Louis said, picking up the handful of wooden pegs.

‘OK, you do that while I screw the bolts into the blocks,’ Dad replied. ‘Where’s the electric screwdriver?’

‘Here. Can you pass me the hammer?’

‘Here.’

For several minutes they worked in silence, the pounding of the hammer filling the air. When Louis sat back and looked critically at his handiwork, Dad glanced over and said, ‘Good job. You’ve got them in nice and deep.’

‘D’you want a hand with the bolts?’ Louis asked him.

‘Yes please.’

Louis picked up the manual screwdriver and got stuck in. There was another silence. Then Dad said, ‘Louis, do you like it here?’

The screwdriver slipped sharply away from the bolt. Louis swore. He put the tip back into place and raised himself on his knees for leverage. A moment passed. ‘Yeah.’

‘
Really
like it? More than Paris?’

‘It’s different,’ Louis said.

‘But where would you prefer to live? If you had the choice, I mean.’ Dad was sitting back on his heels, watching Louis carefully.

Louis picked up the discarded electric screwdriver. ‘Can I use this then?’

‘Go ahead.’ Another moment. ‘Louis?’

‘Mm.’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

‘I don’t know.’ Louis narrowed his eyes in concentration and watched the screw whirr noisily into the wood. ‘Is that in far enough?’

‘That’s fine . . . I mean, if you had the choice. Would you prefer to live in a big city like Paris or out in the countryside somewhere like this?’

‘Both,’ Louis said.

‘Both?’ It clearly wasn’t the answer Dad was expecting.

‘Yeah, term time in Paris, and then holidays here in England.’ Louis leaned forward to look at the instruction sheet. ‘OK, so now we have to position the slats between the side rails. Look, we’re almost done!’

SATURDAY SEEMED TO
creep up on them completely unexpectedly; they were sitting around the breakfast table amidst the crumbs and the croissants and the pots of jam when Millie caught sight of the date on Dad’s newspaper and suddenly declared, ‘We’re going home tomorrow.’

There was a silence and Louis exchanged glances with Max and Millie. He knew what they were thinking. It still felt like they had just arrived: the farmhouse was only beginning to feel comfortable and their bedrooms like proper bedrooms. It seemed crazy that they had gone to all this trouble making the place nice, only to have to leave it again. And who knew when, if ever, they would be allowed to come back? If Maman had her way . . .

Millie stretched her arm across the table to rustle
Dad’s newspaper. ‘Oh, Dad, please can we stay . . .?’ she said, in a voice that had already accepted defeat but wanted to have a go anyway.

‘Yeah,’ Max chipped in. ‘School breaks up in three weeks. Can’t we just stay here for the summer?’

Dad glanced up sharply. ‘Would you like to?’

Max looked taken aback. ‘What?’

‘Stay,’ Dad said. ‘I dunno – an extra week perhaps . . .’

‘Really?’ Millie clapped her hands, her eyes bright.

‘Are you serious, Dad?’ Max looked disbelieving.

Dad shrugged. ‘Why not? Missing the last bit of school won’t hurt—’

‘We can’t,’ Louis said.

They all looked at him. ‘Why not?’

‘Because . . .’ He floundered for a moment. ‘Because we still have school, Max. I have two tests next week, and if I miss them I’ll get zero. And because you have football practice and Millie has art club and I have dance classes and I can’t miss them two weeks in a row—’

‘Oh, I might have guessed!’ Max rolled his eyes dramatically. ‘This is just because you’re worried if you miss your precious
ballet
lesson you won’t be top of the class any more—’

‘It’s got nothing to do with that!’ Louis suddenly
shouted. ‘You know very well that Maman’s not going to let us stay here for another whole week!’

‘Stop being such a baby!’

‘It’s called being realistic!’

‘OK, calm down, everyone,’ Dad said, folding the paper. ‘Let me speak to Mum and see what she says. I’m sure your teacher will understand if I write you a note, Louis. And wouldn’t it be good to spend a few more days in the farmhouse now that we’ve worked so hard at getting it nice?’

‘Oh yay!’ Millie cried. ‘Thank you, Daddy, thank you, Daddy, thank you, Daddy!’

Max shot Louis a look across the table. It was a look that said,
Don’t you even
dare
try and protest
. And Louis felt that strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. The feeling that something wasn’t right.

That afternoon they had a very windy lakeside picnic and then Dad hired a bike from the village shop and they all went cycling. On the way home they picked up some DVDs and ate pizza in the living room in front of the TV. Halfway through the film, Dad came in, a big smile on his face. ‘I’ve spoken to Mum and managed to persuade her. She’s going to let the school know and so we’re all set for another week.’