Marc? Back early. Forgotten his keys.
But Helene was ever security conscious. ‘Who’s there?’ she called through the door. ‘Qui est la?’
‘It’s me!’ shouted Alexis. ‘Let me in. Let me in, please!’
He was making such a racket, Helene was afraid the woman upstairs would march vengefully down. She opened the door and Alexis fell through it. No need to ask how he’d got through the lobby door. Helene remembered him spying on her putting in the code.
Alexis staggered to the sofa. He was wearing a loose turquoise shirt, and jeans. ‘Omigod. You’ll never believe what’s happened.’
‘What? What’s been going on? ‘
His eyes were wild. ‘Have you got any vodka?’
‘No.’
‘Could we – could you – just nip out and get some?’
Helene gave him a look that said, What did your last slave die of? Overwork?
‘I, er, I’ve crocked my knee.’ Alexis rubbed his knee. ‘And I’ve had the most awful day. Wait till I tell you.’
‘You’ve got a bloody cheek, Alexis! Barging in here –‘
‘Please! I’ve had the most awful day. When I tell you, you aren’t gonna believe. Please, get some vodka will you?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Helene grabbed her bag. What had been going on? Of course she needed to know.
‘And tomato juice,’ Alexis called. ‘I could just kill a Bloody Mary.’
Helene was away twenty minutes. When she got back, she found Alexis peering at the screen on her laptop.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Hastily, he snapped it off. ‘I wasn’t prying. Honestly. I just wanted to, to put my address and phone and stuff for Les Corbières. That’s all.’
He took the bag of bottles from her and went off to the kitchen to find ice, tabasco, lemon juice and Worcestershire sauce.
‘Omigod! Potato salad. It’s my favourite.’
‘It’s Elodie’s favourite too. And you’re not invited.’
He was picking at it. She slapped his hand away and slammed the dish into the fridge. He took the Bloody Marys and paused to sip his in the hall.
‘Hey, where did you get this? It wasn’t there before.’
He was looking at the Ripping Velcro poster.
‘No. I found it in a cupboard.’
‘You want to hang on to it. It’s vintage, babe. Valuable. Good grief, they’re actually smiling. And look, the original keyboard player’s on it.’
I know, thought Helene. We sleep in the same bed. And nothing ever happens.
‘He dropped out,’ Alexis informed her, ‘so they’ve got a new one now. Not bad. Saw them here not long ago. Malveen was wetting herself, of course.’
Malveen. Helene steered Alexis away from the poster. ‘How is Malveen?’
Alexis gulped down all his Bloody Mary, and took Helene’s. ‘It’s all right. I made a jug.’
Helene waited. She sat on the sofa and watched him pacing up and down.
Then he blurted: ‘I gave her away this morning.’
‘Gave her away?’ Helene echoed. ‘You mean – you can’t mean she got married?’
He nodded. He couldn’t keep still. His hands were so much in his hair, Helene worried that he’d got nits.
Helene demanded, ‘Who to?’ Who on earth would want to marry Malveen?
Alexis was very pale. ‘She – she married Harry Moscow.’
‘What! I didn’t know they were seeing one another. I didn’t think they even liked one another.’
‘I know. It was her. I was there, I heard her. She was at the bar one night, Bellinied up and bored. So she said to him, Harry, I’ve done most things in my life, but I’ve never been married. So how about it?’
Helene could just imagine Jean-Paul’s reaction to that one. Talk about the proposal of the year.
‘And Harry said, okay Mustang, but just make sure you don’t get your claws clipped.’
‘Hardly sounds like a love-match. Couldn’t you have talked her out of it?’
‘Come off it. Malveen?’
They finished the jug of Bloody Marys and used the rest of the vodka to mix up some more. Helene caved in and served the potato salad and Assiette Anglais she had intended for Elodie. Obviously, she just had to hear the rest of the story.
She learned that there had been just the three of them at the Mairie for the ceremony. Christie had cried off, saying he wasn’t having anything to do with it. Harry had worn black. The bride was in a red taffeta ballgown. Once the formalities were completed and the certificate signed, Malveen had let it be known, in the most blatant way, that she was wearing no underwear.
Helene said, ‘What is it about Malveen? Did she have a terrible childhood? Some tragedy?’
Alexis’s laugh was manic. ‘Don’t go there, Helene. Just don’t. Forget Freud, Jung, psychobabble. She’s Russian. They’re not like Brits. A lot of them don’t understand about queuing or saying thankyou. They don’t think it’s necessary. And Malveen’s mother, our mother, was from a wealthy St Petersburg family. The money came from Siberian salt mines, originally. She was very beautiful, very wayward, and she died four years ago.’
‘Where?’
‘St Petersburg. I had to take Malveen to the funeral. What a performance. Bloody freezing. Afterwards, we went skating on the Neva. That was the first time I met my stepfather. Malveen is, of course, the apple of daddy’s eye.’
Helene wondered how daddy would react if he knew his stepson had been screwing his daughter.
‘Most people,’ Alexis was hugging the tumbler of Bloody Mary, ‘most people have to work to get to the top and see the view from the crest of the hill. It’s why they climb things like the Eiffel Tower. But Malveen, Malveen was born at the top of the hill. She’s never worked. She’s never had to. She just torpedoes from sensation to sensation.’
Unprompted, he took the dishes into the kitchen. When he came back, he said, ‘Helene, can I stay the night?’
‘It won’t be the same. I’m -I’m seeing someone.’
‘Oh yeah. That married guy. You told me.’ His glassy eyes strayed to the photograph of Jean-Paul. ‘He won’t marry you, you know. They never do.’
She didn’t answer.
‘Please, Helene. I could sleep on the sofa.’
‘You’re too long for the sofa. Anyway, haven’t you got a home to go to?’
‘Helene, it’s been one hell of a day. And my knee’s giving me gyp. I just need to be with someone I know. Please.’
In the bedroom, she watched him throw off his clothes and collapse, in his Calvins, into bed. She hardly went within breathing distance of him. But as far as she could judge, there was absolutely nothing wrong with the knee that had been the reason for her buying the bottle of Absolut vodka that they had drunk all of.
She slept fitfully, as often happened when she was tired out and wrung out. That was the trouble with Alexis. If you weren’t feeling up to speed, he exhausted you. She and Noel had once had a long talk about fatigue:
‘Helen, remember Princess Diana?’
Well who could forget? And who could forget, when Noel was invited to watch her presenting children with awards at Royal Brompton Hospital, the drama over what he should wear.
Helen had trailed round Covent Garden and the West End with Noel and his latest acquisition, a devastatingly handsome black guy, assessing outfits. Noel had rejected Paul Smith, ‘too Establishment these days,’ so the black hunk had steered them into a shop where he used to work. Noel had rucked up. ‘For Christ’s sake, Helen, this stuff’s for black jocks presenting phone-in game shows on TV. Those colours! That shine! And that cut! My equipment just wouldn’t fit those pants. I’d burst out.’
Helen had refrained from pointing out that these clothes were mainly designed for black guys and traditionally, black men were supposed to be remarkably well hung because at this point they had reached No 1 Savile Row and Noel was swooning over a navy blue Gieves and Ha
wkes blazer.
Helen and Noel’s new friend fell about.
‘A blazer?’ Helen said, when they reached the pub. ‘Is that quite you, Noel?’ At the time he was wearing retro striped flares which the black Adonis was obviously keen on getting his hands on.
‘A blazer like that is a timeless classic,’ Noel insisted.
Helen, with aching feet and feeling surplus to requirements, said testily, ‘Noel, stop coming on like you’re the crown jewels. Let’s face it, Princess Di is going to be the one wearing the crown jewels. You are a hospital porter. She won’t expect you to turn up looking like Prince Charles or Elvis in drag. Why don’t you wear your white uniform and those rubbery shoes they make you hush around in?’
She knew it maddened Noel that the only people allowed to wear leather shoes were the consultants, so the noise would alert the ward that the great man was approaching down the corridor. Helen agreed with Noel that any uniform was a pain. He had confessed that under his white hospital trousers, he wore Agent Provocateur frillies, and Helen had shared with him the information that in court, under their mandatory black robes, many of the female barristers favoured red underwear.
Finally, to meet the princess, Noel had worn his weddings and funerals suit, with a borrowed silk tie. He had returned from the Royal Brompton raving:
‘Oh, she was adorable! Cool as cool in fresh mint-green. She made a speech and afterwards I congratulated her and she said to me –‘
How bloody typical, Helen had thought. Princess Diana must have been mobbed, but of course, Noel, you had to insinuate yourself.
‘…written it herself! Then I commented on how much the children loved her and what a strain it must be on her, with such a stressful workload, arriving dead on time, looking so gorgeous, with a generous, giving word for everyone and she said to me she said, Noel – well, she’d read my name badge –‘
Helen thought it, but she didn’t say it.
‘Noel, in my job, people, especially children, expect to see a princess. I can’t walk in here looking frazzled. So however exhausted I am, however disappointed in my personal life, when people, you know, let me down, I can never let the children down.’
‘So I said, well, Marm – that’s how you address royalty, Helen, not Mam but Marm – I cannot tell you how much we all admire…’
*
At this point the black boyfriend, clearly heaving at such a swamp of sycophancy,defected, no doubt, Helen suspected, to go round the corner and throw up in a convenient gutter.
But Noel and his new friend Princess Di had a point about tiredness. If you came home and said you were whacked, hard day at the office, working late, vile boss, no one was interested. They just switched off, or competed with how completely exhausted they were – unless you could fight back with the sexually arresting time you’d had achieving your crash course to a retirement home.
Helen recalled the women solicitors at Carstair Cain having enormous respect for a famous barrister called Peter Carter-Ruck.
‘I often pass on to my clients,’the female solicitor had told Helen, ‘the ones who’re dickering about whether or not they want this divorce, or should they go down the counselling route, I tell them what Carter-Ruck said about what never to do when you’re tired. Don’t drive, don’t have that third drink and above all, don’t get into an argument with the person you live with. Such sage advice, and really, I thought it most unfair of Private Eye to call him Carter-Fuck.’
Helen sensed the tension here, because solicitors didn’t get paid when clients took themselves off down the road doing one-to-one counselling, dual counselling, group counselling and, Helen wondered, did they take their dog along as well?
The van driver was apoplectic. He rushed up to Helene. ‘Did you see that? Did you see who it was?
Helene had left Alexis in bed and forced herself to get up at first light on Sunday, to go to the deli and the market for Elodie’s replacement lunch. And because she was so early, she witnessed what happened.
She saw Malveen rocket through the door of Odile’s and race onto the street. She was wearing the thigh-length suede boots, a black mini smothered in studs and around her waist slithered a belt the colour of a silvery fish. Her hair was now tinted to resemble a pink grapefruit.
I must ask Alexis about the wedding pics, Helene reminded herself. What a riot. Red taffeta dress and her hair looking like a discarded breakfast. And what’s Malveen doing? Where’s Harry – where’s her husband?
Outside the Presse, the delivery driver had dumped the Sunday papers on the door step, and was chatting to the proprietor. For speed, he had left his engine running.
Malveen shot into the van and accelerated away, driving, Helene thought, like a woman with her legs crossed. But if you were sitting on two dozen dress studs presumably it was a miracle you could drive at all.
‘I’ll lose my fucking job,’ the van driver shouted at Helene. ‘You must have seen. You were standing right there!’
Helene backed off. ‘No. Sorry. Haven’t got my glasses.’
She edged guiltily away, but told herself he had the Presse proprietor as a witness. With her shopping completed, she hurried back to tell Alexis the latest about his sister. But he had gone, leaving a scrawled note of thanks. In the hall, Helene looked at the Ripping Velcro poster, and regarded the engaging keyboard player. Shoulder length wavy bleached blond hair, aged nineteen.
‘Did you hear what Alexis said, Marc? You’re vintage, babe!’
Chapter Fourteen
‘Cellulite? O you pore thing! Listen, the only female I know who doesn’t have cellulite is Megan. I’ve had it for ages. Friday afternoon I was whacked out, had a bath with the gorgeous Chanel goo you sent and collapsed face down on the bed, starkers. So that little beast Megan crept in and painted my bottom orange. Amusing or what?
‘Then she informs me that Miss Elwyn-Jones, the Headmistress, is on her way round to see me. I chuck on some clothes, furiously interrogating Megan, convinced she’s about to be expelled. I think they call it ‘excluded’ these days. The point is, Heads don’t normally pay social calls. The parent is summoned to the school and ushered by the school secretary (Administration Executive) into the Presence.
‘Anyway, there was the Presence in my sitting room talking to a mum with an orange bum. And guess what? She wants Megan to go to summer stage school!
‘Evidently Rory’s pics of the witches reached the Eastern Daily Press, who ran a story. The stage school in Norwich then contacted Miss E-J to say they had a summer scholarship to offer and could she recommend someone?
‘Megan doesn’t know yet – I had sent her over to the Dragon’s Den – and I’ve told her Miss E-J came to discuss her holiday assignment. But I needed to speak to Ol, as he’s the one who’ll have to drive her to and fro from Norwich every day. He says he doesn’t mind. He says anything, anything to get out of having to take her go-karting.
‘Miss E-J left the stage school prospectus. It sounds such fun! There’s modern dance and tap and, God help us, make up lessons. I know I said I wished she were more girly, but make up when you’re aged nine is not on in my book. Mind you, knowing Megan, she’d want to be transformed into Cruella de Vil. Then at the school you can learn to play an instrument and of course, there’s acting. Even Shakespeare gets a mention – a trip to see Kiss Me Kate.’
Stage school! Helene could see Hilly was deeply envious and Helene was right with her twin on this one. How different our lives could have been. A few lessons in the morning, probably, then the rest of the day singing and dancing and learning how to slap on the Leichner … instead of battling with ox-bow lakes and boring Bunsen burners.
Helene closed her laptop. Then she snapped it open again as something occurred to her.
Alexis. Had he really been keying in his Corbières contact details like he’d said? Or was he snooping?
*
She got her address book up on screen. Aha! As she suspected. Nothing new under Alexis. Just his usual mobi
le number. Helene was about to ring him up and chew him off when she thought, surname. Might be under that. What on earth was it? Could she remember?
Yes she could. Tate. Alexis Tate. Like the sugar barons.
And there it was. No address, but an email and landline phone number.
She picked up the Guardian, changed her mind and threw it back on the coffee table. She enjoyed Odette’s rant far more if she read it all with Marc. She was missing him. Missing his easy company, his ready sense of humour, the charming, slight diffidence that made her want to -
‘Any progress?’ Elodie had asked over lunch.
‘Nope. Restraint, modesty at night and girl-next-door by day, that’s me.’
She had wanted to phone him, just to say Elodie was there and they were having champagne and Elodie says hello –
‘You can’t possibly!’ Elodie protested. ‘He’s having lunch with his family.’
Elodie had outlined what was most likely the scene chez Cordier, Chantilly. A long table on the terrace, an antique damask cloth, the silver forks prongs down to reveal the family crest.
Madame at the centre of the table, probably still in black. Marc promoted to Jean-Paul’s old place at the head of the table. His aunts, their husbands, all the children, the grandchildren, godchildren, there would be at least fifteen sitting down, Elodie said. The children would not leave the table without permission and would not start their lunch until Madame indicated that they may.
The food would be delicious, the courses endless, the wines of the finest and served in thimblefuls in crystal glasses. For Madame’s birthday, a cake would be brought with a discreet number of candles which one of the children would help her blow out. Then Champagne with Marc proposing the toast, which Madame would gracefully accept.
‘What will they talk about?’ Helene asked.
‘Well, family obviously. But apart from that, there’s bound to be a lot of snobbery – Oh, I couldn’t bring myself to acknowledge him. How could I possibly shake hands with a man who was sitting down?’
The Price of Love Page 17