Pack of Cards

by Penelope Lively

  Her mother had stopped laughing and was talking again.’… the last thing anyone would have expected of you, lovey. You've always been such a prude. Ever since you were a toddler. Talk about modest! Honestly, Stan, she was hilarious, as a little kid – I can see her now, sitting on the beach at Camber clutching a towel around her in case anyone got a glimpse of her bum when she was changing. Aged ten. And when her bust grew she used to sit hunched over like a spoon so no one would notice it, and if she had to strip off for the doctor you'd have thought he'd been about to rape her, from her expression. Even now I can't get her out of that Victorian one-piece school regulation bathing costume – and it's not as though she's not got a nice shape …’ – ‘Smashing!’ said Stan, slurping coffee – ‘… spot of puppy fat still but that's going, good hips, my legs if I may say so. Which is what makes this such an absolute scream. Honestly, sweetie, I wouldn't have thought you had it in you. I mean, I've not been allowed to see her in the buff myself since she was twelve. Honestly, I've wondered once or twice if there was something wrong with the girl.’ Her mother beamed across the breakfast table. ‘Anyway, old Mrs Whatsit doesn't seem to be making a fuss. She just thinks I ought to know. More coffee, anyone? God – look at the time! And I said I'd be in early today … I'm off. Leave the breakfast things, lovey – we'll do them later. Coming, Stan?’

  Clara went on sitting at the table. She ate a piece of toast and drank her coffee. Her mother and Stan bustled about collecting her purse and his jacket and banged out of the house, shouting goodbye. The front gate clicked, the car door slammed, and then Clara began to cry, the tears dripping from her chin on to her folded arms and her face screwed up like a small child's.

  The French Exchange

  THERE WOULD be the Kramers, Tony and Sue, in their Volvo and the Brands, Kevin and Lisa, in Lisa's new Sprite. And Dad had decided to take the Renault not the Cortina because the hatchback would be better with the picnic things. And the forecast was good. They would go to this prehistoric fort or whatever, anyway it was a hill with a view, Tony Kramer said it was a gorgeous spot. Sue was bringing some new quiche thing she was frightfully proud of and Lisa of course, inevitably, would be stacked to the eyeballs with her precious home-made sorbets. And Kevin was doing some sort of wine cup.

  And oh, her mother went on, voice a notch higher, shouting up the stairs, isn't it a shame, Nick Kramer isn't coming after all. He's in France. On an exchange. The Kramers have got the Exchange so they're bringing him instead. He's your and Nick's age and he's called Jean something. Oh well, we'll just have to be nice.

  She stood in front of her mirror. She heard her mother clatter back to the kitchen. It didn't matter about Nick Kramer; he was duff anyway. What did matter was that the new jeans quite definitely made her look fat. She took them off and put on the blue skirt instead but then the stripy T-shirt was wrong so she substituted the pink embroidered top with the low neck and suddenly her collar-bones looked enormous. Deformed. She'd always known there was something wrong with her collar-bones, it didn't matter how much people she confidentially asked swore there wasn't. So the pink top was hopeless. That left the yellow shirt that made her look pasty, which was definitely out, so there was nothing for it but to start all over again with the jeans and the loose cream top that hid her bulge but made her bosom non-existent. And then her mother was shouting that they were here so in despair she had to stay like that and go down, bulging and bosom-less and discontented, and say hello to them all – Sue Kramer with tight white pants and one of those great baggy shirts and Lisa Brand in a short pink linen jacket and skirt thing and her hair done with silver highlights.

  Hello, hello, they were all saying, and her mother was wondering if the barbecue stuff should go in the Volvo not the Renault and her father was showing Kevin Brand the new ice-bucket. Hi there, Anna, Sue Kramer cried, Jean-Paul here's Mary and Clive Becket, and Anna, and the Brands you've already met, I say Kevin we were pursuing you all the way down the dual carriageway …

  He wasn't very tall and he wore glasses and had spots. Copious spots. Not even remotely good-looking. Oh well. He inclined his head neatly, five times, and said ‘Bonjour’. ‘English, Jean-Paul,’ scolded Sue. ‘You must try.’ And Jean-Paul said ‘Good day’ and inclined again. But everyone was busy now arguing about who should go in which car and her father was looking at Kevin's this year's AA Book of the Road with a new bypass on it.

  Eventually it was all sorted out. Jean-Paul would come in the Renault with them and the Kramers would take the barbecue stuff and follow and Kevin and Lisa would go on ahead because Lisa would want to go like the clappers once they were out of the speed limit.

  He didn't say much. He got in the back beside her and said ‘Pardon’ when their knees bumped and when her mother asked where he lived in France he told her and when her father asked if he was keen on sport he said no, perfectly politely. She took a look at him, sideways, without turning her head. Poor boy – it must be awful being so spotty. She could see half her own face in the driving-mirror; the new eye shadow was good, really good. Her mother was talking about Lisa and how she'd put on weight, did you notice, Anna? And then she remembered Jean-Paul and asked if he had any brothers and sisters and Jean-Paul said yes, he had one sister younger and one brother older, Solange and Stéphan, and that rather finished that off so her mother went back to Lisa and wondered if she'd like a copy of the F-Plan Diet.

  South London thinned out and became Surrey towns all joined on each other and presently bits of country appeared and villages. Jean-Paul gazed out of the window. Once they passed a church and he turned, watching it recede. He said, ‘C'est beau, ça. It is of when?’ ‘That's a church,’ said Anna's mother. ‘Yes,’ said Jean-Paul. ‘Of what time, I ask.’ ‘Oh goodness,’ said Anna's mother. ‘I'm no good on that sort of thing.’ ‘Pardon,’ said Jean-Paul. He must be Catholic, Anna thought. She looked down and saw that he had awful shoes on, not the sort of thing people wear at all, but presumably they were French. She felt a bit sorry for him. The next time he looked her way she smiled brightly, to make up for the spots and the awful shoes, and he smiled back. His smile didn't somehow go with the rest of him; it was somehow detached, as though perhaps he didn't realise about the spots, or the shoes, or the peculiar way his hair grew at the back. Oh well.

  Another village. A stretch of more open country. Jean-Paul leaned forward and said, ‘Excuse. I wish the toilet please.’

  Anna went crimson. How ghastly. Poor thing. Having to ask. If it had been her she'd have died rather, in someone else's car, people you didn't know. Actually Jean-Paul should have died rather, in fact. Waves of embarrassment and irritation came from the back of her parents’ heads. Her father said, ‘Oh … Yes … Sure thing. Soon as there's a likely spot, right?’ And after another minute he pulled in at a lay-by beside a wood and the Kramers’ Volvo pulled in behind and Jean-Paul got out and plunged off into the bushes.

  Anna's mother sighed. ‘I ask you! I mean, you can't tell a sixteen-year-old he should have been before we started.’

  Sue Kramer appeared at the window. ‘Sorry. But there it is – if Nick doesn't get his French O-level he'll have to take it again next year. Jean-Paul's been awfully little trouble, actually.’ And she began to talk to Anna's mother about the holiday the Kramers were going to have in Portugal and presently Jean-Paul came out of the wood and got into the car and Sue went back to the Volvo and they all set off again.

  Anna's cheeks still flamed. She slid a glance at Jean-Paul. He didn't, actually, seem embarrassed at all. He was looking out of the window and when they went through a place with a market square with old-looking houses he opened his mouth as though about to say something and then shut it again and smiled slightly, but to himself. Anna's cheeks went back to normal and she thought about their own holiday which would be in Greece and the awful problem was would she or would she not have lost five pounds by then and be able to feel absolutely all right in a bikini or would she have to spend all of every day on the b
each holding her tummy in. None of the barbecue today, definitely none, and only a sliver of Sue Kramer's quiche.

  Jean-Paul was saying something. She abandoned the bikini problem. ‘Sorry?’

  ‘I say, you should wear a hat of fur. Pretty – with black hair.’ He gestured, circling her head, an odd, rather stylish gesture.

  ‘A hat?’ She stared, perplexed. Actually, her hair was very dark brown, not black.

  ‘Karenina. Anna. For your name.’

  ‘Oh.’ She saw now; there was some Russian novel, the film had been on the telly once. ‘Well …’ She laughed, awkwardly. ‘It would be a bit hot, on a day like this.’

  Jean-Paul looked at her attentively, and then shrugged. ‘Tant pis.’ He gazed once more out of the window.

  And now they were turning off on to the B-road that would take them to this hill and her mother was saying let's pray the charcoal lights properly, I felt such a fool last time with the Kramers, and oh God did I put the avocado dip in? Down lanes and through a village and round a corner and there was the red Sprite parked on the verge and the Brands sitting beside it on folding chairs like film directors use with LISA and KEVIN stencilled on the backs in big black letters.

  There was a lot of shunting of cars to and fro to get them off the road and then a lot of unpacking and arranging of who would carry what and in the middle of it Anna's mother suddenly shrieked and pointed at the front of the Kramers’ car.

  ‘Tony! You got it! And we never even noticed!’

  So everyone looked and now Anna too saw the number-plate: AJK 45.

  ‘Oh, neat!’ said Lisa. ‘Your age too. I'm green with envy.’

  ‘How much did that set you back?’ asked Anna's father, and Tony Kramer grinned and said he wasn't telling. Jean-Paul was looking at Tony in a most odd way; he wasn't smiling but you felt he was somehow laughing. Everyone began to fuss round the picnic things and the folding chairs and the barbecue again and Jean-Paul said to Anna, ‘Why?’

  ‘Why what?’

  He pointed at the number-plate.

  He must be a bit slow on the uptake, she thought. ‘It's his initials. And his age.’

  ‘I know,’ said Jean-Paul. ‘But why?’

  She couldn't think, when it came down to it. ‘Well, it's a thing people do. There are lists in newspapers. Some of them are terribly expensive.’ Actually her parents had been looking for ages for MRB or CTB but for some reason she decided not to say so. Jean-Paul gazed thoughtfully at Tony Kramer and said, ‘Curieux.’

  ‘You're supposed to talk English,’ said Anna sternly. He was four months younger than her, it had emerged.

  ‘D'accord,’ said Jean-Paul, and grinned. Really, his spots were the worst she'd ever seen.

  There was a fuss going on now because Lisa had discovered she'd forgotten her sun-tan lotion and although Sue and Anna's mother had some they were the wrong kinds apparently, Lisa had to use this special one, but eventually she decided she might be able to manage with a hat, and they set off, through the gate and up the hill along a rough track.

  Everyone was carrying something: the men quite loaded with chairs and loungers and barbecue equipment, the women more lightly burdened with picnic hampers and coolers and ice-buckets. Anna and Jean-Paul were at the back of the procession. Anna had her mother's basket with paper napkins and plastic cutlery and garlic bread in foil, Jean-Paul bore the bag of barbecue charcoal and Kevin Brand's wicker wine-bottle carrier with four bottles wrapped in tissue paper. He padded along a couple of paces behind her; the rest of them snaked ahead, calling out to each other, Lisa slipping and sliding on high-heeled sandals.

  Jean-Paul said, ‘Very serious – le pique-nique.’

  She turned to look at him. Was he laughing? No, his expression was perfectly solemn. But something about his voice … Anna stared ahead at her laden parents, and their laden friends, at the glitter of chrome and the bright glow of plastic. She said – attack and defence together – ‘Don't your parents do this kind of thing?’

  ‘Ah yes. Absolutely. Also very serious.’

  She felt, now, faintly uncomfortable. It was as though you were playing a game with someone you knew was much worse at it than you and suddenly they started doing things they shouldn't be able to.

  ‘You enjoy yourself?’ enquired Jean-Paul.

  ‘Of course,’ said Anna firmly. After a moment she added, ‘Aren't you?’

  ‘Bien stûr,’ said Jean-Paul. He was, she saw, grinning hugely. He waved a hand at the landscape – ‘It is beautiful day. The sun shines. All is agreeable.’

  The track had petered out and they were walking on close-cropped turf up the hillside, which rose ahead of them in a series of bumpy terraces on which sheep grazed and small bright flowers grew. The leading group – Kevin and Lisa and Anna's father – had come to a halt and as the others caught up with them an argument arose about the appropriate point at which to pitch camp. Anna's mother wanted further on, at that flat place; Lisa wanted to be near a tree in case she needed some shade. Everyone disputed. Lisa said, ‘Oh never mind me, I'll manage somehow, at a pinch I can go back to the car,’ and Tony Kramer said, ‘Oh no, we're not having that, love. Right then, the tree has it.’ Kevin gave him a look that was sort of not quite as friendly as it might be and Anna's parents were telling each other that they needn't be so bossy in that joke-tone that, Anna knew, could topple over into not joking at all. And Sue Kramer wasn't joining in but gazed into the distance and tapped one toe on the grass.

  Jean-Paul said to Anna, ‘They enjoy themself too, do you think?’ Anna, ruffled, pretended to be doing up her sandal. She was sweating after the climb and suddenly had the most ghastly feeling she might have forgotten to use any deodorant.

  A decision, eventually, was made. Chairs, loungers, barbecue were disposed upon the bright grass. Lisa had loosened the heel of her shoe and Tony Kramer was trying to fix it with his natty miniature pliers on a key-chain and Sue Kramer was wishing loudly he'd get on with the fruit cup – everyone must be parched. Kevin was setting up the barbecue, in silence. Anna's mother was speaking to Anna's father in that bright, high voice that meant trouble.

  The barbecue was lit. The fruit cup was made. Kebabs sizzled. Sue Kramer arranged herself on a lounger, gazed skywards and said, ‘Bliss!’ Glasses were filled. Birds sang. The spare ribs and the chicken joined the kebabs. Glasses were refilled. Anna's mother uttered an awful cry – ‘Oh Christ, I've left the second barbecue sauce at home in the fridge!’

  ‘Oh, for heaven's sake …’ said Anna's father.

  There was a silence. ‘But there's this delicious-looking one over here,’ said Sue Kramer.

  ‘But just the one!’ cried Anna's mother. ‘There should be a choice!’

  ‘We'll manage,’ said Kevin Brand. ‘Forget it.’

  ‘Quelle horreur …’ said Jean-Paul, to the grass, shaking his head.

  And now the kebabs were handed round on the gay paper plates, and the spare ribs and the chicken and the one sauce and the bright serviettes, two apiece – for lips and lap. And everyone was saying how brilliant of Tony to know about this gorgeous place.

  ‘We are in the middle of a … what is it? … a field of battle?’ asked Jean-Paul.

  They all stared at him. ‘Some sort of camp, I think,’ said Tony. ‘Prehistoric’

  ‘Or thereabouts,’ said Lisa. There was general laughter. ‘Now, now,’ said Tony. ‘It's not nice to make fun of other people's ignorance.’ Lisa pulled a face at him and he aimed a spare rib at her, threateningly. ‘Don't you dare!’ cried Lisa. ‘These pants are sheer hell to wash, I'll have you know.’

  Jean-Paul watched, without expression. He turned to Anna and remarked, quietly, ‘There is a tradition, then, of picnic here.’

  ‘I suppose so,’ muttered Anna. She had this feeling that everything was getting out of control – not least, in some odd way, Jean-Paul. There he was, with his spots and his awful shoes, and four months younger than her and yet you had this peculiar sense of him being so
mehow much older and floating above and beyond the spots and the shoes. She stroked her armpits, surreptitiously; she was sure there were visible sweat-marks on the cream top.

  The quiche was being handed round now, and the salad, and the garlic bread, and more wine cup. Everyone was talking at once and Lisa Brand was shouting rather and Kevin was having an argument with Tony Kramer about something to do with the insides of cars, whether Tony's Volvo had a this or a that. Jean-Paul said to Anna, ‘You interest in cars?’

  ‘Not really,’ said Anna, after a moment's hesitation.

  ‘Moi non plus,’ said Jean-Paul.

  And now they were moving on to the dessert: the mousse and the sorbet and the little biscuity things Sue Kramer had brought. A different lot of gay paper plates; more bright plastic cutlery. There was debris all around now: heaps of plastic and paper and left-over food and bottles and glasses. A little way off a small posse of sheep stood gazing and chewing. ‘Don't look now,’ said Lisa, ‘but we're being watched.’ Tony Kramer laughed uproariously.

  Anna glanced at Jean-Paul, but not so that he would notice. He was looking at some little orange butterflies that danced above the turf, and then his attention switched to a bird that hung in the sky just above the brow of the hill, its wings quivering. And then, as Kevin circulated again with the wine cup and a few drops got spilled on Lisa's white pants, causing distress, he observed that, in just the same grave and attentive way as he watched the butterflies and the bird.

  The chatter decreased. Lisa was still dabbing at her pants, scowling. Kevin had wandered off a little distance and was lying on his back on the grass. Anna's mother was saying that of course it was heavenly here but what would be nice now would be a swim.

  Jean-Paul rose, stowed his dirty plate, cutlery and napkin neatly in Anna's mother's basket and strolled away over the grass. He squatted down beside a clump of flowers.