She looked at him. “But it was always you. You never wanted to talk about her. You packed all her things away. You couldn’t bear it.”
“I still can’t.” He gestured, helpless. “It wasn’t easy when when she died – it wasn’t easy when she was alive - and God knows I wasn’t much use to you. Neither of us has been very good at coping.”
She understood. “We shut it out.”
“We did. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry. We just coped with it in the same way, that’s all.” She fingered a brooch she’d picked up from the jumble on the satin, clipping and unclipping its pin.
He watched her. “So what now? Do you want to carry on, or put it all away?”
She rubbed her palm across her forehead, back and forth. “I’m a grown-up now. I should be able to deal with it.”
“She was still your mum, no matter how old you are. The relationship and all the feelings that go with it don’t change.”
“It’s the same for you.”
He said nothing.
She looked over the edge of the trunk at a selection of records, an orange triangle of stained glass, a miscellany of china ornaments. After a little while she scooped up the corners of the satin, making a hammock for the jewellery. The rest of the material and the suede bag she put back into the trunk. “I’d like to keep these,” she told him, the hammock in one hand, the diaries in her other.
Alex nodded, his concern undimmed. “All right.”
I could measure out my life, Cecily thought, with parties at Patrick’s. At least this time she knew whose it was: a couple who had met two years ago at a beach barbecue she and Gil had thrown together and who were tonight celebrating their engagement. They had festooned Patrick’s with streamers and created champagne glass fountains as though it were already their wedding. People were making speeches. Cecily groaned audibly into her drink and allowed herself to be entertained by the Buz’n’Radar show. She hitched up onto a bar stool and flirted for a while with the bar guy. Chatted with Lucy. She watched with amusement Henry attempting to disentangle himself with chivalry from a skinny and very inebriated girl possibly half his age. And she danced. The music rescued her from the boredom and irritation she could see fast becoming her default setting. It filled her heart and freed her mind. She danced alone and she danced with strangers and when finally she returned to her table she felt as though all her aching, mean-spirited thoughts had been exorcised from her.
It didn’t last.
Radar and Buz drummed their hands on the table to welcome her back. “Way to go Cecily!”
“You should go on one of those shows.”
She laughed. “I was in shows.”
Henry said, “She likes dancing with strange men.”
His resentment-concealed-as-humour struck a bum note. She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Who was the child attaching herself to your crotch, Henry?”
“She came on to me, all right?”
“All right. I was only teasing you. I didn’t seriously think the two of you’d be sneaking off into the sand dunes.” She realised as the words left her mouth that her tone made them less than complimentary, that Buz and Radar were laughing and that it was already too late to retract.
Henry, insulted into a u-turn, said, “Why wouldn’t you think that?”
“Well … ” Unforgivably she began to laugh too. Oh God, she thought.
“Because I don’t look like fucking Gil?”
“No,” Buz snorted, “because you don’t act like fucking Gil.”
“Or like Gil fucking.” Radar was inspired.
Cecily said, “Because you have integrity.”
“Shit,” Henry said. “I’m sorry. I’m pissed.”
“No really?” She smiled, rubbed his back. “Lighten up.”
Another round of drinks arrived on their table. Buz’s head swivelled. “Christ, where did they come from?”
Henry looked glum. “I think I might have ordered them in a previous life.”
Cecily laughed. The bar was packed, as ever, and being friends with the staff their only advantage. The heat today had been British summer at its best. The heat in here tonight was almost unbearable. Dancing like a whirling dervish for the best part of an hour hadn’t helped. She fanned herself with a beermat.
“Do you want to sit outside?” Henry asked.
She turned her head in the general direction of the pier. “There won’t be any tables. It’s okay.”
“Can you believe,” Buz was saying, “Karl and Lauren are getting married?”
“No kidding?”
“No, but they’re like, what, twenty-two?”
“But they’re in luuurve,” Radar drawled. “Can’t put an age tag on luuurve.”
Buz tipped his glass towards his mouth and missed. An inch or so of beer spilled down his chin and onto his t-shirt. Radar and Henry cackled.
Well here’s a turn-up for the books, Cecily thought. Everyone’s drunk except me. She said, “Does the thought of marriage scare the shit out of you, Buz?”
“Sure.” He wiped his chin on the back of his hand. “All that having to – wash up, and have sex with the same person for, like, ever.”
“Wash up?”
“Yeah and shelves and stuff.”
“Washing-up, shelves, sex. Anatomy of marriage.”
Radar said, “You ever been married, Cecily?”
“No. Have you?”
More laughter. “Fucking hell,” Buz roared. “Who’d marry him?”
“I don’t know. Can he do shelves?” She grinned. “Have you ever been close to it, any of you?”
They looked blank.
“There was this girl,” Henry said unexpectedly, “in my oboe class … ”
Anything he might have added was lost in the immediate hysteria. “In your oboe class?” Cecily wiped her eyes. “Oh Henry.”
He said, “Have you?”
“No.”
“No?” He was frowning at her, Buz and Radar distracted by spilt beer and helpless laughter and someone mooning outside on the pier.
She said quietly, “Not been close to marriage, no.”
“Why?”
“I’ve just never been in that kind of relationship.”
“But that’s not true, is it?”
She thought she must have misheard him. “What?”
“I’ve given you a lot of opportunities to tell me over the last few weeks. And now I’m asking you directly you’re actually lying to me.”
“Lying to you? Jesus, Henry.” She didn’t know whether to be more incredulous or offended. “What is it you think you’re accusing me of?” And then suddenly she could see it coming. Her skin was clammy. Suddenly she understood what all the questions this last week had been about.
“You had … ”
She stared at him. She was going to be sick. “I had … ?”
He said, “You had a baby.”
She felt very cold. “How do you know that?”
“I saw the bracelet in your drawer.” That he recognised he was making a terrible mistake was visible in his face. She didn’t care.
“You went through my things?”
“No! It was open. You left it open. I saw the … shit.”
She had to escape. The bar was so packed there was barely standing room; they were fenced in by the thighs and hips of sweaty bodies. She rose, felt a rushing in her ears, swayed. Henry said, “I’m sorry. Cecily, don’t, wait. I didn’t mean … ” She shoved her way through the crowd, pushing, slopping drinks, ignoring protests, ignoring Henry, at her heels.
Outside, in the crush of smokers and the cooler air, he caught her dress. She lifted her hands – don’t touch me – and yanked away. He was contrite. They walked a few yards. She was shaking.
“What happened?”
“He died,” she said coldly. “My baby died.”
“Oh Christ. I’m so sorry.”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“Well no – I … ” Sh
e was walking away fast now and he hurried to draw level with her. “Does Gil know?”
She turned on him. “Oh my God. I tell you that and that’s all you care about – ”
“It isn’t – ”
“Of course Gil knows.” She held his gaze for a minute, her own steely with rage and withheld tears. “And even we don’t talk about it. But of course he knows.”
Chapter Fifteen
We are in a small coastal town between Toulon and Cannes, on our way to Nice. So much has changed in our fugitive flight and knowing where we are isn’t the least of it. Gil’s driving echoes his mood – less frantic, less angry. He’s slowed our pace: we linger over meals; while away hours in bars. I’m itchy to press on but he’s easier to be with when he’s chilled, like the old Gil, and he doesn’t know, he has no idea, about the car with the smiley face.
We’re sitting in a bar now, the cool autumn sunshine slanting across polished table-tops, hitting the rows of coloured glass bottles, the gold handles of the pumps. Gil is talking to the barman and a young English couple. I can hear their French and Home Counties accented voices, his peal of laughter. I sit alone, running my finger around the edge of my glass, sour and sick inside. Thoughts of home, and my father, hack away at my peace.
Gil returns, his smile the residue of lively conversation with normal people. “We’ve been invited out tonight.”
I stare at him. “Are you mad?”
He looks irritated. “It’s called hiding in plain sight. When are we more suspicious, chatting and clubbing with people our own age or skulking in dark corners glowering at each other?”
“Clubbing?”
“A little place over the road, apparently. Indie music, cheap drinks.”
I lower my forehead to the table with a thud.
“Fine,” he says.
After a minute I look up again. He’s still there. “What’ll happen to the house?”
“What house?”
“My house. Dad’s house.”
“I don’t know. Why are you thinking about that now?”
“I think about it all the time. I think about all of it, all the time.”
He sighs, relents. “It might be good for us, you know, to have a night off from thinking.”
“You said we can’t escape from what’s in our heads.”
“I didn’t say we couldn’t try.” He smiles, conciliatory. “Then tomorrow we can drive on to Nice. And after that – ”
“To infinity and beyond.”
He frowns, recognising the phrase. “What’s that from?”
“Toy Story. Buzz Lightyear.”
“Ah yes.” He starts to laugh. I do too, and we laugh like we do these days, on the edge of hysteria. It’s better than crying.
By the time we descend into the black pit of the club, we’re both pretty well-oiled. Me because I know it’s how I’ll survive the night, Gil because … well, it’s one way of escaping what’s in your head. The Indie music he promised me pumps through the dark, ricocheting from floor to ceiling, bouncing off the neon lights behind the bar. Helen and Craig, the English couple he befriended earlier, are already here, cool and sophisticated like they’re in a Martini advert. Gil and I look as if we’ve spent the last six months hitching round the third world. No one seems to mind. The boys order drinks while Helen and I claim one of the booths. They have curtained entrances, u-shaped sofas with woven cushions which make me think of Moroccan harems; I half expect to see a hookah in the middle of the table. Helen asks me questions and I lie to her, fantasies spilling from me as readily as facts. Gil and I have had this conversation and he will be lying too. It’s heady and liberating, pretending a different truth. She tells me she works in London in PR and Craig is an IT consultant, that they have a tiny flat right at the end of the Central Line but that when they want to start a family, which they will in the next couple of years, they’ll move out to a proper house in the countryside and Craig will commute. I can’t believe she’s giving me so many details of her life so fast. They could be lies too of course but somehow I doubt it.
When Craig and Gil breeze through the curtains with a pitcher of what turns out to be a lethal cocktail, some edge returns to the proceedings. It takes me a while to identify it. Gil is all effusive charm, his voice a little louder, his gestures more expansive than I have seen for oh God, so long. And Craig matches him shout for shout, his stories as rambling, his humour as infectious. His hand rests while he talks on the inside of Helen’s thigh. She strokes the back of his neck and when she leans across him in her diaphanous silk top we are all aware of her tits swinging free. Gil’s knee presses against mine. It doesn’t need to; there’s enough room on the sofas for us all to stretch full-length. Which Helen does, her feet in Craig’s lap. He takes off her shoes and massages her soles, her calves, his hand sliding beneath the hem of her skirt. Later it’s me stretched out, in the u bend of the sofa while she is somehow sitting beside Gil and I watch the way she touches his arm while she’s talking, the crinkling around his eyes when he smiles in response. He’s mine, I think, wanting him. I imagine myself getting up, pushing her away from him, lowering myself into his lap. I can feel his heat, taste his mouth. The pulse of desire is so strong it must surely be visible through my skin.
When Helen goes to the loo and Craig is at the bar buying another pitcher of Death By Alcohol, Gil comes to sit beside me. Wordlessly he lifts back my hair, tilts my chin, kisses me with an urgency and passion I had thought belonged to another time. I’m so drunk, so greedy, I want to unzip him there and then and he, well he’s more than ready to be unzipped. Then simultaneously we remember where we are and break apart, breathing hard. Craig and Helen are on the dance floor, his hands squeezing her bum, her breasts. We stare. Gil says, “You all right?”
“Mm-hm.”
“You want to go somewhere and fuck?”
Outside we slam up against the deserted terrace wall behind the club, between baskets of still sweet smelling flowers and vines of clematis. “Do you think it’s okay? Out here?”
“It’s France,” he mutters. “It’s probably compulsory.” His hand is inside my pants, his jeans around his knees. He licks my throat, nips my neck. I suppress a cry, his hair in my fist, my back scraping against the plaster. It’s fast and hard and fierce and as soon as the world spirals away from me we’re done, clinging to each other, his breath harsh, chest heaving. “Ah God.” He kisses me.
“We should – ”
“Mm.”
We make ourselves decent, lurch out into the street. Music vibrates still from the club but beneath the periodic glow of streetlamps no one passes, nothing stirs. Gil’s arm is around my shoulders as we stumble in the direction of our hotel. “There’s another way to survive,” I tell him. “Drinking and screwing till we can hardly stand.”
He laughs. “Gotta tell you, it’s working for me.”
I laugh too, while I can, because tomorrow we might be teetering again on the brink. He kisses my temple, cuddling me to him as we walk. I burble about our journey to Nice tomorrow, longing just to fall into bed with him, to fall asleep with him, now that the taboo of sex, or lack of it, has been broken.
He has stopped, so suddenly I almost trip. “What?”
He’s staring ahead, at the road in front of the hotel. At a car parked a dozen yards away.
The car.
“Shit,” he says under his breath.
“Gil … ”
The taillights come on.
He belts towards it, as if he would heave the door from its hinges and haul the driver into the road. The car reverses fast with a screech and I cry out, sure it will hit him, but then as soon as he’s leapt out of the way it’s speeding forward, a shadowy squealing rush between the rows of parked cars and palm trees, disappearing into the night.
He gives a great yell of frustration, spins back towards me. “You know who that was?”
I nod.
“Fuck.” He claps his hands to his head. “They’ve found us.??
?
Chapter Sixteen
Gil walked along the rocks high above the north beach, stepping over pools and seaweed, treading easily from sharp ridge to slanting plane. The light was fading and soon it would be foolish to remain up here alone, watching the sea grow blacker than the sky, risking a slip and skid in the dark. He and Jem had spent the day apart in order to work, their first whole day without each other since their meeting on the pier. It had been her suggestion and he had reluctantly agreed, reminding himself that she did not have another source of income; it was unfair to expect her to spend her every waking minute with him. Besides, he had wanted her to be surprised and impressed by the progress he made in her absence; proof of his industry and vision. But instead he found himself bored and uninspired, frustrated and mocked by a block of wood. He turned his back on it, sent her a series of increasingly erotic texts, to which she had replied with such tantalising promises he had been unable to think about anything else. As dusk fell he had broken out of his self-imposed cage and walked to the beach, striding up onto the jagged rocks, standing so close to their edge that the crashing and swirling tide seemed to crash and swirl against him. And he saw, as though it had risen from the depths of the sea itself and were hovering on the horizon, his perfect tree, dark and bare and reaching its stark branches into the skies.
It was always the case that when an idea finally seized it took up residence within him, growing stronger and more focussed until his final commitment of it to material was done. He hurried back to the square, keen to face the hunk of wood with some degree of triumph, to call Jem and describe to her his Eureka moment before describing to her, in precise detail, what he would like to do to her. Though it was late now lights and customers spilled from pubs and restaurants, the square was still buzzing and he saw, as he approached and through the knots of holiday makers, Cecily at her door.
Well this was good timing, he thought. Both of them alone, the night not yet over. An opportunity maybe to put things right. “Hey,” he called softly, closing the distance between them, and she turned towards him and he saw to his dismay that she was crying. “What is it?”