A Death in Time, page 10
‘Maman, she will recognise me?’
‘I hope so.’
When the moment came, the outcome was not as either had anticipated.
‘Inès!’ the old lady said, setting down her champagne glass. ‘Give your sister a kiss! It’s been so long. How lovely to see you, darling!’
‘No, Auntie,’ Zoë said. ‘This is my Inès, your great-niece.’
Perhaps it was out of habit, Inès reflected, that her mother checked Fabulous was not in earshot before using Inès’s preferred forename.
‘Of course!’ Odette shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Inès. What was I thinking? Let me look at you, sweetheart.’
“Let me look at you, sweetheart.” Accompanied by a beaming smile, Odette had greeted Inès with these words for as long as she could remember. As a child, she never once had to work at securing her great-aunt’s love; it had been given freely and it pleased her to recognise that whatever dislocations were confusing the old lady’s perceptions in the here and now, seeing her great-niece once more was still a happy moment for them both.
Quite unselfconsciously, Inès stood back, performed a pirouette and then curtsied. ‘There. See? It’s me.’
‘Yes! But I’m not surprised I mistook you for her. Zoë, isn’t she like your auntie?’
‘In some ways.’ Zoë smiled. ‘Her eyes, definitely.’
‘But my, what a fine bosom you have, darling.’
Inès grinned. ‘Bless you.’
‘My Inès was flat-chested, wasn’t she, Zoë? Like two fried eggs! And so was our mother. And so, come to that, are—’
‘Yes, that will do, I think,’ Zoë said, her eye drawn to the kitchen, suddenly. ‘Coming! Annette needs me.’ Muttering “fried eggs”, she took her leave.
Inès took her great-aunt’s arm and for the first time since her father had met her at the airport, she wished Sue had come along, after all. ‘Do you know what FaceTime is, Auntie?’
‘Of course!’
‘You do?’
‘It’s how long it takes to put your make-up on.’
‘You adorable old thing. Let’s go into the garden. I want you to meet someone who isn’t actually here.’
‘Oh, that would be nice.’
As the day wore on, the three principals experienced the party in different ways. For Gilles, things picked up considerably when friends and selected neighbours began to arrive and, with the day’s two major set-pieces still to come, he began to enjoy himself thoroughly. Glass in hand, Zoë felt a sense of deep contentment as she circulated around the groups, sometimes like a bee gathering pollen, sometimes feeling as if she were scudding high above them on her own personal cloud nine. Inès had taken an existential position on Odette mistaking her for her long-dead sister on two further occasions, but when Gilles’s former distance-running star Dr Muhammad Al Zeriya had arrived, Inès’s existentialism failed to come to the rescue when the old lady cheerfully enquired: “Who’s that handsome little darkie with your father?”
‘My glorious great-aunt, I love you to bits but just so you know, the word you used beginning with D? Not acceptable.’
‘What – darkie? It’s better than—’
‘Let’s leave it there.’
Phase Four was due off at 6.30 and, never late on the start line, Muhammad wheeled in the anniversary cake with some ceremony. To a second round of applause, he then invited the happy couple to cut it into “32 exactly equal segments or risk a ban from the French Pâtisserie Association.”
A voice rose from a thicket of cousins. ‘But there are 31 of us.’
Inès half expected her father to suggest all was well since his daughter would happily volunteer to scoff two pieces. I was joking! But he refrained and it was soon time for Phase Five – the exchange of gifts.
‘Have you all got a glass of something fizzy?’ Gilles asked.
The feeling of the meeting was that everyone had.
‘Excellent!’
Their gifts safely concealed, he and Zoë took up places with their backs to the open patio doors and as a breeze ruffled the bunting and bumped the balloons, the pair grinned at one another so charmingly, it brought tears to some. The exchange itself though, would have to wait. At the moment, dry or damp, all eyes were on Inès’s own gift to her parents sitting beautifully wrapped on the antique poseur table set between them.
Zoë’s voice faltered slightly as she read aloud the accompanying card, words Inès had intended for her parents only. The paper was peeled carefully away and the gem of the ceramicist’s art that was a Moorcroft vase made Zoë gasp.
‘It’s beautiful, darling. Gorgeous! Is it English?’
‘It is, yes.’
Zoë examined the base and recited the maker’s name in such Gallicised tones, it made Inès smile.
‘I’ll treasure it, always. We’ll treasure it.’
Inès blew her a kiss.
‘If we had known, we would have ordered a few flowers to put in it,’ Gilles quipped, drawing laughs. ‘No, seriously, Jackie has always had an eye for beautiful things. Thank you, indeed, darling. And for your loving words.’
Great Aunt Odette’s short-term memory may have been threadbare; her voice was not. ‘Who’s this Jackie?’
‘And now,’ Gilles said, moving swiftly on. ‘Our turn. Ladies first.’ He treated the audience to his best speech smile. ‘Sorry if that offends anyone.’
A chorus countering the notion went up and as Inès sank into her shoes, Zoë handed over her gift, the last-minute substitute for the set of sports books she had originally bought.
‘Just what I always wanted,’ Gilles said, grinning as he opened it. ‘An envelope!’ It contained two enclosures. The first was a card written in Zoë’s hand which he read to himself. ‘No one’s that wonderful a husband,’ he declared drawing more laughs and earning a mock ticking-off from Zoë. The other was also a personal message, one written on paper headed Gianluigi Vera, Nice’s premier tailor. Gilles appeared genuinely astonished as he began to read aloud : ‘ “A Gianluigi Vera suit is not simply tailoring at its finest, it is a work of…” ’
A Vera suit, no less? Inès thought to herself. Maman has really… She recalled Sue’s expression… pushed the boat out. Pushed it out big style.
‘That is what I call a gift!’ one of the cousins called out, and it was a view shared by most.
‘I know you’ve always wanted a Vera suit,’ Zoë said, just loud enough for Inès to hear as Gilles took his wife’s hand. ‘And because your measurements haven’t changed a millimetre in the whole time we’ve been married, you can pick up the suit itself tomorrow. It’s ready and waiting for you.’
Inès couldn’t hear her father’s response but it was clearly not the kind of easy one-liner he had been favouring all day. The way the couple embraced gave Inès an unfamiliar thought. Maybe he really does love her.
Someone bellowed shhh! and the room quietened. The moment for the inevitable Gilles speech had arrived.
‘As you all know, indeed many of you were present at the time, Zoë and I married 30 years ago to the day. And because there’s nothing more important to me than the promise of sharing the next 30 with the woman I loved then and love more now…’ He turned to her. ‘I thought this little trinket might mean something.’
Odette had a thought on the matter which struck a chord with many. ‘I thought he’d go on a lot longer than that.’
And so it was against a backdrop of laughter as well as expressions of sentiment both heartfelt and mawkish that Gilles produced a small, be-ribboned, box-shaped item from his pocket. Before he handed it over, Zoë reached for her left wrist, Inès noticed. She had strained it recently, she knew. Untying the bow with one pull, Zoë was aglow with anticipation as she removed the paper, flipped open the box and there it was… A watch! The light in her eyes dimmed. Yes, it was a watch but it was not the watch. It was nothing like it. She turned it over. Where was the inscription – the poet’s reflection on the world and time and their life together?
‘Make sure your glasses are brimming, everyone!’ As the partygoers did the needful, Gilles turned anxiously to Zoë. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Yes, yes.’ She essayed a smile as he hugged her. ‘It looks expensive. All these dials and so on.’
‘You’ve mentioned needing to get fitter. This gizmo has numerous functions that will help. And that will help safeguard our future together, darling.’
‘Yes. I see.’
He’d changed his mind about the gift, she realised. As she herself had. Yes, the watch she had found in his kitbag was far prettier and while its inscription was doubly meaningful, this one went beyond meaning, addressing issues practically that were only reflected upon in the other. What with her degrees in computer science and her years of hands-on experience, she was usually all for such an approach. So – as with her gift to Gilles – the replacement was actually superior to the original, wasn’t it?
‘I… love it,’ she said.
‘I’m so glad. I wasn’t quite sure if it was the right thing.’
Gilles poured champagne for them both and, in the absence of their best man from 30 years ago, he asked Inès to lead the toasts.
‘Jackie? Would you?’
‘Oh, I think our beloved Odette should have that honour. Auntie?’
‘What?’
Laughter.
Inès whispered a few words in her ear and she nodded.
‘That’s right. To the happy couple! Zoë and… her husband. The happy couple!’
With the toast safely, if uniquely, negotiated, Gilles Laborde ticked off another box in his head and the party rumbled on. From Phase One – Meet and Greet – the party had been a resounding success, he thought. Now, only one set piece remained, and that, he knew, would be the greatest success of all.
TWENTY
Beyond the door, the muffled thuds of a high b.p.m dance track were as nothing compared to Julien Baille’s own pulse rate. But that detail alone didn’t concern him. In his burgeoning career as an athlete, he had learned that the more important the event, the harder it was to calm his nerves beforehand. On a mission to secure the greatest prize of all, it was hardly surprising he was so wound up. Shaking out his muscles, he took several deep breaths and rang the bell.
Borne on the flood tide that was Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’, Dilip Padar was still moving to the music as he opened the door. The feeling didn’t last.
‘You bastard! You show up at my apartment? This is not your party.’ He moved to close the door. ‘Fuck off!’
Julien surprised him, and himself, by shoving the door so hard, Dilip was left grasping at thin air.
‘I know this is not my or Samira’s party, Monsieur Padar. I’m going there immediately after I tell you that if you threaten her again…’ He darted glances in both directions along the corridor – still empty – and then in a quiet voice, said: ‘I will kill you. Do you understand? I will kill you.’
Dilip was a good 25 kilos heavier than Julien but nothing softened the sinews quicker than laughter and as he threw back his head, he took a kick in the crotch which dropped him to his knees.
‘Now you can close the door,’ Julien said, turning on his heel.
‘You don’t know,’ Dilip moaned, clutching his groin. ‘You don’t know who you’re dealing with! You will die!’ he screamed down the corridor, the commotion opening a couple of neighbours’ doors. You! Do you hear me? I’ll see to it! You will die!’
Hips swinging in time with Donna’s love, a woman emerged from the party. ‘Dilip!’ She bent to tend him. ‘What happened?’
Heads appeared along the corridor. Mugging fear, Julien caught their eyes as he hurried past.
‘You’re dead, Baille! Hear me? Dead!’
It wasn’t until no one could see him that Julien finally cracked a smile.
TWENTY-ONE
There was no sign of Donna Summer at Maison Laborde but Françoise Hardy was casting a spell in its way every bit as potent.
‘Cut the music, Jackie,’ Gilles said, glancing at his watch as he finished a slow dance with Zoë. ‘It’s almost time.’
No clarification was needed. The link to the announcement party at the Department of Letters and Human Sciences building had already been set up and routed to the lounge TV.
‘Everyone got a drink?’ Gilles asked, brandishing a fizzing champagne flute. ‘Gather round, gather round.’
Inès had never seen her father wielding such an assortment of glasses as he had today. It was a subterfuge, of course. On several occasions, she had seen him take a couple of small sips then surreptitiously jettison the rest.
Several cousins had maintained a different approach. One, a ruddy-faced man wearing a natty shirt and cravat combo, invited Inès into his boozy orbit with a discreet gesture and a loud ‘Psst!’
She joined him. ‘Michel?’
‘Jackie, Jackie – listen. Supposing, right? Supposing Gilles’s progétées, No! Pro-té-gées – that’s it – didn’t get picked for France? Eh? Could happen. Be a damp uh… thing, wouldn’t it?’
‘No need to worry,’ she said, backing away. ‘You’ll see.’
The announcement itself had been leaked several hours before and there had been no unfortunate surprises. Her glass refilled, Zoë nestled against Gilles’ chest and both were beaming at the TV as it fizzed into life. On the screen, Captain Emil Arcot had already assembled the team around him, each member wearing their celebration T-shirt and raising a glass in mute expectation. Faces lit up at the moment of connection and as toasts were made and cheers went up and died away, a slightly out of synch exchange of congratulations and thanks began.
It was then Zoë saw something that made her look harder. It couldn’t be…
But it was. Her blood ran cold and with it, the cocoon of warmth and happiness and promise and hope in which she had wrapped herself during the past 24 hours froze around her.
In the bedroom later, Gilles begged off fulfilling the commission Zoë had encouraged him to accept that morning.
‘I’m sorry, my darling,’ he said, en route to the shower. ‘I’ve had far too much to drink. Not used to it. Another time, eh?’
She was going to claim a headache as an excuse but his reneging on the agreement obviated the lie. She closed her eyes, feigning sleep. But she could still see it clearly; the gift she had assumed had been intended for her; the token of love that bore their special inscription, a sexual carpe diem; the gift adorning the wrist of another woman right there in plain sight on the screen.
Questions began to pile in: almost clichés of the situation in which she now found herself. She felt their barb and sting, nevertheless. It was clear how the lovers had met. But how did they fit having sex into Gilles’s full-on work schedule? There had been world enough and time for that, it seemed. Where did they go to do it? How long had it been going on? Had there been others before her? Would it be better or worse if there had?
Hearing Gilles step into the shower, Zoë opened her eyes but found no respite from her dark thoughts. It occurred to her that if this were a scene from one of those Technicolor Hollywood melodramas she used to enjoy watching with her grandmother, the camera would have dollied slowly in to her dressing table until the gift she had been given filled the frame; the watch that was less a timepiece than a performance-recording and target-setting device; a symbol of her failure to keep properly fit; a lifestyle mea culpa. But this wasn’t a movie and the so-called gift had been left downstairs.
The key question for Zoë was what to do about the situation. She could have it out with him there and then but with Inès, yes Inès, Gilles, you arsehole, in the adjoining bedroom, it would not be a good idea. Tomorrow was a normal workday. He would leave early and wouldn’t be home until after the training session he was leading in the evening. Inès was returning to Cambridge on Friday. That would be the obvious time. If, that was, Zoë could wait that long. And a bigger doubt: if she could muster the courage.
Monday, March 17
TWENTY-TWO
Joining her mother for breakfast in the garden was one of Inès’s favourite things about being back home, especially as it was always just the two of them. Her father made a point of being up and running at his desk by 7.30 every morning, an example his loyal PA Monique followed unquestioningly. This morning, he had left a note by the juicer. Would Zoë be a darling and pick up his new suit from Gianluigi Vera? Ciao, bella.
It was a blazing morning and both women were wearing shades, a double boon to Zoë who was turning in quite a performance as the contented wife when in her heart and mind she felt betrayed, ridiculed, lost.
‘There are more peaches, darling.’
‘Could but shouldn’t, Maman.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘They are wonderful but two for breakfast is quite enough.’ Feeling the breeze freshen a little, Inès turned to the Alpes Maritimes, a bulky-shouldered massif flattened into overlapping planes by the low morning sun. ‘Architecturally, Cambridge is of course glorious. On the whole, anyway. And the way the river winds its way through the heart of the city is beautiful.’
‘Between the colleges and so on. Yes, it’s lovely.’
‘And not just for us college types. There are acres of green space in the city accessible to the public. There are some particularly wonderful avenues of trees. All quite special.’
‘I didn’t realise. There wasn’t really time when we… for your ceremony.’
‘But the landscape beyond?’ She swept a hand across the panorama. ‘It’s not this, put it that way. This, I love.’
‘I’m glad,’ Zoë said, her words flat as Inès’s forsaken fens. ‘I never tire of it.’
‘I’ll tell you what I tired of by the end of last evening.’ Shaking her head but smiling despite herself, Inès turned back to Zoë. ‘My beloved Great Aunt Odette. She is fabulous but her position on any number of things is so way off…’ It was only then that Inès caught the mood her mother was trying so hard to conceal. ‘Something is the matter, Maman.’
‘I hope so.’
When the moment came, the outcome was not as either had anticipated.
‘Inès!’ the old lady said, setting down her champagne glass. ‘Give your sister a kiss! It’s been so long. How lovely to see you, darling!’
‘No, Auntie,’ Zoë said. ‘This is my Inès, your great-niece.’
Perhaps it was out of habit, Inès reflected, that her mother checked Fabulous was not in earshot before using Inès’s preferred forename.
‘Of course!’ Odette shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Inès. What was I thinking? Let me look at you, sweetheart.’
“Let me look at you, sweetheart.” Accompanied by a beaming smile, Odette had greeted Inès with these words for as long as she could remember. As a child, she never once had to work at securing her great-aunt’s love; it had been given freely and it pleased her to recognise that whatever dislocations were confusing the old lady’s perceptions in the here and now, seeing her great-niece once more was still a happy moment for them both.
Quite unselfconsciously, Inès stood back, performed a pirouette and then curtsied. ‘There. See? It’s me.’
‘Yes! But I’m not surprised I mistook you for her. Zoë, isn’t she like your auntie?’
‘In some ways.’ Zoë smiled. ‘Her eyes, definitely.’
‘But my, what a fine bosom you have, darling.’
Inès grinned. ‘Bless you.’
‘My Inès was flat-chested, wasn’t she, Zoë? Like two fried eggs! And so was our mother. And so, come to that, are—’
‘Yes, that will do, I think,’ Zoë said, her eye drawn to the kitchen, suddenly. ‘Coming! Annette needs me.’ Muttering “fried eggs”, she took her leave.
Inès took her great-aunt’s arm and for the first time since her father had met her at the airport, she wished Sue had come along, after all. ‘Do you know what FaceTime is, Auntie?’
‘Of course!’
‘You do?’
‘It’s how long it takes to put your make-up on.’
‘You adorable old thing. Let’s go into the garden. I want you to meet someone who isn’t actually here.’
‘Oh, that would be nice.’
As the day wore on, the three principals experienced the party in different ways. For Gilles, things picked up considerably when friends and selected neighbours began to arrive and, with the day’s two major set-pieces still to come, he began to enjoy himself thoroughly. Glass in hand, Zoë felt a sense of deep contentment as she circulated around the groups, sometimes like a bee gathering pollen, sometimes feeling as if she were scudding high above them on her own personal cloud nine. Inès had taken an existential position on Odette mistaking her for her long-dead sister on two further occasions, but when Gilles’s former distance-running star Dr Muhammad Al Zeriya had arrived, Inès’s existentialism failed to come to the rescue when the old lady cheerfully enquired: “Who’s that handsome little darkie with your father?”
‘My glorious great-aunt, I love you to bits but just so you know, the word you used beginning with D? Not acceptable.’
‘What – darkie? It’s better than—’
‘Let’s leave it there.’
Phase Four was due off at 6.30 and, never late on the start line, Muhammad wheeled in the anniversary cake with some ceremony. To a second round of applause, he then invited the happy couple to cut it into “32 exactly equal segments or risk a ban from the French Pâtisserie Association.”
A voice rose from a thicket of cousins. ‘But there are 31 of us.’
Inès half expected her father to suggest all was well since his daughter would happily volunteer to scoff two pieces. I was joking! But he refrained and it was soon time for Phase Five – the exchange of gifts.
‘Have you all got a glass of something fizzy?’ Gilles asked.
The feeling of the meeting was that everyone had.
‘Excellent!’
Their gifts safely concealed, he and Zoë took up places with their backs to the open patio doors and as a breeze ruffled the bunting and bumped the balloons, the pair grinned at one another so charmingly, it brought tears to some. The exchange itself though, would have to wait. At the moment, dry or damp, all eyes were on Inès’s own gift to her parents sitting beautifully wrapped on the antique poseur table set between them.
Zoë’s voice faltered slightly as she read aloud the accompanying card, words Inès had intended for her parents only. The paper was peeled carefully away and the gem of the ceramicist’s art that was a Moorcroft vase made Zoë gasp.
‘It’s beautiful, darling. Gorgeous! Is it English?’
‘It is, yes.’
Zoë examined the base and recited the maker’s name in such Gallicised tones, it made Inès smile.
‘I’ll treasure it, always. We’ll treasure it.’
Inès blew her a kiss.
‘If we had known, we would have ordered a few flowers to put in it,’ Gilles quipped, drawing laughs. ‘No, seriously, Jackie has always had an eye for beautiful things. Thank you, indeed, darling. And for your loving words.’
Great Aunt Odette’s short-term memory may have been threadbare; her voice was not. ‘Who’s this Jackie?’
‘And now,’ Gilles said, moving swiftly on. ‘Our turn. Ladies first.’ He treated the audience to his best speech smile. ‘Sorry if that offends anyone.’
A chorus countering the notion went up and as Inès sank into her shoes, Zoë handed over her gift, the last-minute substitute for the set of sports books she had originally bought.
‘Just what I always wanted,’ Gilles said, grinning as he opened it. ‘An envelope!’ It contained two enclosures. The first was a card written in Zoë’s hand which he read to himself. ‘No one’s that wonderful a husband,’ he declared drawing more laughs and earning a mock ticking-off from Zoë. The other was also a personal message, one written on paper headed Gianluigi Vera, Nice’s premier tailor. Gilles appeared genuinely astonished as he began to read aloud : ‘ “A Gianluigi Vera suit is not simply tailoring at its finest, it is a work of…” ’
A Vera suit, no less? Inès thought to herself. Maman has really… She recalled Sue’s expression… pushed the boat out. Pushed it out big style.
‘That is what I call a gift!’ one of the cousins called out, and it was a view shared by most.
‘I know you’ve always wanted a Vera suit,’ Zoë said, just loud enough for Inès to hear as Gilles took his wife’s hand. ‘And because your measurements haven’t changed a millimetre in the whole time we’ve been married, you can pick up the suit itself tomorrow. It’s ready and waiting for you.’
Inès couldn’t hear her father’s response but it was clearly not the kind of easy one-liner he had been favouring all day. The way the couple embraced gave Inès an unfamiliar thought. Maybe he really does love her.
Someone bellowed shhh! and the room quietened. The moment for the inevitable Gilles speech had arrived.
‘As you all know, indeed many of you were present at the time, Zoë and I married 30 years ago to the day. And because there’s nothing more important to me than the promise of sharing the next 30 with the woman I loved then and love more now…’ He turned to her. ‘I thought this little trinket might mean something.’
Odette had a thought on the matter which struck a chord with many. ‘I thought he’d go on a lot longer than that.’
And so it was against a backdrop of laughter as well as expressions of sentiment both heartfelt and mawkish that Gilles produced a small, be-ribboned, box-shaped item from his pocket. Before he handed it over, Zoë reached for her left wrist, Inès noticed. She had strained it recently, she knew. Untying the bow with one pull, Zoë was aglow with anticipation as she removed the paper, flipped open the box and there it was… A watch! The light in her eyes dimmed. Yes, it was a watch but it was not the watch. It was nothing like it. She turned it over. Where was the inscription – the poet’s reflection on the world and time and their life together?
‘Make sure your glasses are brimming, everyone!’ As the partygoers did the needful, Gilles turned anxiously to Zoë. ‘Do you like it?’
‘Yes, yes.’ She essayed a smile as he hugged her. ‘It looks expensive. All these dials and so on.’
‘You’ve mentioned needing to get fitter. This gizmo has numerous functions that will help. And that will help safeguard our future together, darling.’
‘Yes. I see.’
He’d changed his mind about the gift, she realised. As she herself had. Yes, the watch she had found in his kitbag was far prettier and while its inscription was doubly meaningful, this one went beyond meaning, addressing issues practically that were only reflected upon in the other. What with her degrees in computer science and her years of hands-on experience, she was usually all for such an approach. So – as with her gift to Gilles – the replacement was actually superior to the original, wasn’t it?
‘I… love it,’ she said.
‘I’m so glad. I wasn’t quite sure if it was the right thing.’
Gilles poured champagne for them both and, in the absence of their best man from 30 years ago, he asked Inès to lead the toasts.
‘Jackie? Would you?’
‘Oh, I think our beloved Odette should have that honour. Auntie?’
‘What?’
Laughter.
Inès whispered a few words in her ear and she nodded.
‘That’s right. To the happy couple! Zoë and… her husband. The happy couple!’
With the toast safely, if uniquely, negotiated, Gilles Laborde ticked off another box in his head and the party rumbled on. From Phase One – Meet and Greet – the party had been a resounding success, he thought. Now, only one set piece remained, and that, he knew, would be the greatest success of all.
TWENTY
Beyond the door, the muffled thuds of a high b.p.m dance track were as nothing compared to Julien Baille’s own pulse rate. But that detail alone didn’t concern him. In his burgeoning career as an athlete, he had learned that the more important the event, the harder it was to calm his nerves beforehand. On a mission to secure the greatest prize of all, it was hardly surprising he was so wound up. Shaking out his muscles, he took several deep breaths and rang the bell.
Borne on the flood tide that was Donna Summer’s ‘I Feel Love’, Dilip Padar was still moving to the music as he opened the door. The feeling didn’t last.
‘You bastard! You show up at my apartment? This is not your party.’ He moved to close the door. ‘Fuck off!’
Julien surprised him, and himself, by shoving the door so hard, Dilip was left grasping at thin air.
‘I know this is not my or Samira’s party, Monsieur Padar. I’m going there immediately after I tell you that if you threaten her again…’ He darted glances in both directions along the corridor – still empty – and then in a quiet voice, said: ‘I will kill you. Do you understand? I will kill you.’
Dilip was a good 25 kilos heavier than Julien but nothing softened the sinews quicker than laughter and as he threw back his head, he took a kick in the crotch which dropped him to his knees.
‘Now you can close the door,’ Julien said, turning on his heel.
‘You don’t know,’ Dilip moaned, clutching his groin. ‘You don’t know who you’re dealing with! You will die!’ he screamed down the corridor, the commotion opening a couple of neighbours’ doors. You! Do you hear me? I’ll see to it! You will die!’
Hips swinging in time with Donna’s love, a woman emerged from the party. ‘Dilip!’ She bent to tend him. ‘What happened?’
Heads appeared along the corridor. Mugging fear, Julien caught their eyes as he hurried past.
‘You’re dead, Baille! Hear me? Dead!’
It wasn’t until no one could see him that Julien finally cracked a smile.
TWENTY-ONE
There was no sign of Donna Summer at Maison Laborde but Françoise Hardy was casting a spell in its way every bit as potent.
‘Cut the music, Jackie,’ Gilles said, glancing at his watch as he finished a slow dance with Zoë. ‘It’s almost time.’
No clarification was needed. The link to the announcement party at the Department of Letters and Human Sciences building had already been set up and routed to the lounge TV.
‘Everyone got a drink?’ Gilles asked, brandishing a fizzing champagne flute. ‘Gather round, gather round.’
Inès had never seen her father wielding such an assortment of glasses as he had today. It was a subterfuge, of course. On several occasions, she had seen him take a couple of small sips then surreptitiously jettison the rest.
Several cousins had maintained a different approach. One, a ruddy-faced man wearing a natty shirt and cravat combo, invited Inès into his boozy orbit with a discreet gesture and a loud ‘Psst!’
She joined him. ‘Michel?’
‘Jackie, Jackie – listen. Supposing, right? Supposing Gilles’s progétées, No! Pro-té-gées – that’s it – didn’t get picked for France? Eh? Could happen. Be a damp uh… thing, wouldn’t it?’
‘No need to worry,’ she said, backing away. ‘You’ll see.’
The announcement itself had been leaked several hours before and there had been no unfortunate surprises. Her glass refilled, Zoë nestled against Gilles’ chest and both were beaming at the TV as it fizzed into life. On the screen, Captain Emil Arcot had already assembled the team around him, each member wearing their celebration T-shirt and raising a glass in mute expectation. Faces lit up at the moment of connection and as toasts were made and cheers went up and died away, a slightly out of synch exchange of congratulations and thanks began.
It was then Zoë saw something that made her look harder. It couldn’t be…
But it was. Her blood ran cold and with it, the cocoon of warmth and happiness and promise and hope in which she had wrapped herself during the past 24 hours froze around her.
In the bedroom later, Gilles begged off fulfilling the commission Zoë had encouraged him to accept that morning.
‘I’m sorry, my darling,’ he said, en route to the shower. ‘I’ve had far too much to drink. Not used to it. Another time, eh?’
She was going to claim a headache as an excuse but his reneging on the agreement obviated the lie. She closed her eyes, feigning sleep. But she could still see it clearly; the gift she had assumed had been intended for her; the token of love that bore their special inscription, a sexual carpe diem; the gift adorning the wrist of another woman right there in plain sight on the screen.
Questions began to pile in: almost clichés of the situation in which she now found herself. She felt their barb and sting, nevertheless. It was clear how the lovers had met. But how did they fit having sex into Gilles’s full-on work schedule? There had been world enough and time for that, it seemed. Where did they go to do it? How long had it been going on? Had there been others before her? Would it be better or worse if there had?
Hearing Gilles step into the shower, Zoë opened her eyes but found no respite from her dark thoughts. It occurred to her that if this were a scene from one of those Technicolor Hollywood melodramas she used to enjoy watching with her grandmother, the camera would have dollied slowly in to her dressing table until the gift she had been given filled the frame; the watch that was less a timepiece than a performance-recording and target-setting device; a symbol of her failure to keep properly fit; a lifestyle mea culpa. But this wasn’t a movie and the so-called gift had been left downstairs.
The key question for Zoë was what to do about the situation. She could have it out with him there and then but with Inès, yes Inès, Gilles, you arsehole, in the adjoining bedroom, it would not be a good idea. Tomorrow was a normal workday. He would leave early and wouldn’t be home until after the training session he was leading in the evening. Inès was returning to Cambridge on Friday. That would be the obvious time. If, that was, Zoë could wait that long. And a bigger doubt: if she could muster the courage.
Monday, March 17
TWENTY-TWO
Joining her mother for breakfast in the garden was one of Inès’s favourite things about being back home, especially as it was always just the two of them. Her father made a point of being up and running at his desk by 7.30 every morning, an example his loyal PA Monique followed unquestioningly. This morning, he had left a note by the juicer. Would Zoë be a darling and pick up his new suit from Gianluigi Vera? Ciao, bella.
It was a blazing morning and both women were wearing shades, a double boon to Zoë who was turning in quite a performance as the contented wife when in her heart and mind she felt betrayed, ridiculed, lost.
‘There are more peaches, darling.’
‘Could but shouldn’t, Maman.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘They are wonderful but two for breakfast is quite enough.’ Feeling the breeze freshen a little, Inès turned to the Alpes Maritimes, a bulky-shouldered massif flattened into overlapping planes by the low morning sun. ‘Architecturally, Cambridge is of course glorious. On the whole, anyway. And the way the river winds its way through the heart of the city is beautiful.’
‘Between the colleges and so on. Yes, it’s lovely.’
‘And not just for us college types. There are acres of green space in the city accessible to the public. There are some particularly wonderful avenues of trees. All quite special.’
‘I didn’t realise. There wasn’t really time when we… for your ceremony.’
‘But the landscape beyond?’ She swept a hand across the panorama. ‘It’s not this, put it that way. This, I love.’
‘I’m glad,’ Zoë said, her words flat as Inès’s forsaken fens. ‘I never tire of it.’
‘I’ll tell you what I tired of by the end of last evening.’ Shaking her head but smiling despite herself, Inès turned back to Zoë. ‘My beloved Great Aunt Odette. She is fabulous but her position on any number of things is so way off…’ It was only then that Inès caught the mood her mother was trying so hard to conceal. ‘Something is the matter, Maman.’
