‘Oh, your father mentioned, when he was courting her –‘
Marc cracked out laughing. ‘When he what? Look, my father was actually very shy when he was young. So my mother was the one who did the chasing.’
‘Are you sure?
‘It’s a family joke. Her two sisters were pissed off because they had boyfriends but couldn’t marry until my mother was married. That’s the tradition. The eldest girl gets married first. She’d known my father from childhood, and she targeted him. She waited while he was at university and while he did an art course. Then the sisters were really starting to clamour, so she pounced.’
The things I didn’t know, Helene realised as they walked home. The things Jean-Paul didn’t tell me.
What Odette-Odile was outlining to Guardian readers that week was Vernon’s attempt to make a star feature of the Mermaid menu. Not just the food, but the presentation of the menu itself.
‘It all started with a new waitress. ‘Hopeless,’ I told Vernon. ‘Practically chucks the grub at them. Knows no etiquette – how the waitress should move round the table clockwise, never the other way.’
‘Don’t panic,’ said Vernon. ‘I shall wait at table myself. Give me a chance to talk the guests through the menu.’
‘What?’ I thought I’d misheard above the rumble of the dishwasher.
‘It’s done at all the best places nowadays. What you do, you go to the table and describe each dish to the guests.’
‘It’s already described,’ I pointed out. ‘I did it. In French and English. Terrine de legumes aux coulis kiwi. Vegetable terrine in a kiwi sauce.’
Vernon frowned. ‘Couldn’t we say Spring Vegetables?’
‘It isn’t spring.’
‘Garden, then. Garden Vegetables. And what you need is to bring it to life for the guest. You make it sound so inspirational that the meal stops being a meal and is transformed into an event.’
‘Okay, tell me how you make veggy terrine into an event.’
‘Tonight!’ announced Vernon, ‘we present for your delight Terrine de Legumes Jardin aux Coulis Kiwi, a jewel-like mosaic of morning-fresh vegetables, lapped by a sauce … by a lake –‘
‘I had to remind him that most of our clients were honeymooners, hot pillows or businessmen with their ‘nieces.’ Did these people really want Vernon butting in when they were holding hands across the table and performing skilled sexual manouvers with their feet?’
‘Feet?’ said Marc. ‘Zoe didn’t tell me about that one.’
‘I’ll show you later. Tell me more about what Zoe did.’
‘Helene, when do you think we’ll ever stop talking about sex?’
‘When we stop wanting to do it.’
*
And then came La Rentree. Early September when the children returned to school and the adults sobered up and got back to work. There was a nip of Autumn in the air. A scent of change, with Parisians losing their summer langour and revving up into a nervy state once more. For Helene it was a busy time in her new counterspy role, wearing a succession of hats and wigs to conceal her distinctive titian hair.
One Saturday, Marc came home with a new suit, from the Italian shop. He tried it on, and she ran her hands over it appreciatively. Grey, very light wool, beautifully cut.
‘Special occasion?’ she asked.
‘Pete. My mate from the band. He’s getting hitched. Wants me to be best man.’
‘When?’
‘Don’t know. I’m having lunch with him Tuesday.’
On the Tuesday, Marc wore white jeans and a stone-coloured linen jacket. Of course, Helene reasoned, you wouldn’t wear a new Italian suit to have lunch with someone from Ripping Velcro.
‘How was lunch?’
‘Oh, he didn’t show.’
‘For heaven’s sake! You were supposed to talk about the wedding.’
‘Well it’s probably all off by now.’
Later that week, Helene came out of the shower-room to find Marc wearing the new suit and ransacking his cupboard. ‘Where’s my tie? I can’t find my tie.’
‘We threw it away,’ Helene reminded him. ‘You got butter down it.’
‘Shit. I’ll have to buy another one.’
He was sprinting to the door. Gone. He didn’t even kiss me goodbye, Helene thought, washing up the breakfast things. She had her massage from Elodie, called in on Valerie for Marc’s shirts and, after lunch, checked her emails.
‘You will never believe what I’ve agreed to do. Write a play!!!! This is to be a Dragon Production. She has appointed herself queen bee of the drama group at the Women’s Fellowship. Now she finds there’s an absolute dearth of plays suitable for six or seven women, and none of them want to play a man.
‘So I’ve got to write one. Trouble is, a lot of the Fellowship biddies turn up at the hall for a cup of tea, a kip and the raffle. The raffle is endless and the Dragon sulks for days if she doesn’t win anything. So basically, what I had to do was come up with an idea that would keep the biddies awake and not shuffling round the raffle table eyeing up what goodies they wanted.
‘Ideas zilch. So I emailed mum. She said why not do something with a gun – that should keep them alert. After that, I had it! Jewels, a burglar, see future Oscar-winning actress Megan racing round the hall in her balaclava. Not that she’ll be allowed to fire a gun, make a real noise. We don’t think Health and Safety would let her. So it’ll go:
‘Look, there’s a burglar climbing through the window.’
‘Watch out! He’s got a gun!’
‘And then the Dragon, offstage, can shout BANG!
‘Whaddya think?
‘I don’t think I told you, but before she went off to stage school, Megan suddenly got all clingy. I thought it was because she’s started her periods, but it went on and on You do love me mummy? You do love me daddy? (no point in pestering the Dragon of course. She dotes on Megan.) Finally I got it out of her. She said, in a very small voice, I know I’m a bit naughty sometimes, mummy. But you’re not sending me away, are you?
‘Turns out she’d read some book about a girl who gets taken to this boarding school and then the parents never come back for her. Honestly, I think some of these authors should be taken out and shot.’
*
Helene was fresh from her shower, lying on the bed in a silk negligee she felt confident of wearing now she knew Marc found it alluring. When she heard the scrape of the front door she placed her paperback prominently on the bed and told herself to stay cool. Something was clearly up, but Marc had gone rushing off this morning without bothering to tell her. So she damn well wasn’t –
He was at the bedroom door. Laughing as if a cascade of champagne was fizzing through him. She couldn’t not share it. Not when he looked so elated, not when, quite obviously, he was burning to tell her the whole story.
He threw off his new tie and sat on the bed. Revisited the lunch when his mate Pete didn’t turn up.
‘But his uncle did. I thought Pete had sent him along to smooth things over. Nice guy, about forty and turned out we’re in the same line of business. So he was very interested in what I’ve done, my ideas.
Helene ran her hands through his hair. ‘You noodle. You were being headhunted.’
‘Have you ever been headhunted, Helene?’
She wondered if it counted, Jean-Paul stalking her in a pub. ‘Me? Don’t be daft, Marc.’
‘Well they don’t exactly flag it up. You think you’re having the social-work chat, where you surf from one topic to another. And then suddenly, instead of a fruit tart, there’s a deal on the table.’
‘You didn’t tell me.’
‘I couldn’t. Had to meet the Big Boss today. Grown-up lunch.‘ He named the Michelin starred, famous-chef restaurant and Helene said, ‘Christ.’
She had been there with Jean-Paul and he had told her it was where politicians came to plot. Discreet service, fussy food and a colossal bill.
‘And he liked me! He knew everything about me, fr
om uni, what I’ve done, practically knew the colour of my pants. He even knew about you working for me. Thought it was a great idea. You probably swung me the job.’
Helene doubted this. Oh, Jean-Paul, if you could see him now, this son of yours. You’d be so proud of him.
‘It’s all confirmed. I’ll be joining them next month, and heading up a big market research department. But they want me to really get stuck into the marketing side as well. Learn everything I can.’
Helene said, ‘They’re going to fast-track you.’
‘Don’t know. What I do know is I get wads of money, bigger car, bigger expense account.’
‘You’ll certainly need the salary after what you paid for that suit.’ Helene reached into her bedside drawer for her contraceptive pills. Every day, at six thirty pm. an alarm went off in her head – Take Pill. ‘So that lunch with Pete. It was a set up? He never intended to show.’
‘No. I spoke to him this afternoon.’
‘What about the wedding?’
‘Off. Hello won’t pay enough.’ He went on in a rush, ‘Helene, have you ever thought of packing that in?’
Helene was swallowing the pill with some water. She held the packet against her, like a crucifix to ward off a vampire. ‘Oh yes, Marc. And get pregnant.’
‘Is that such a bad idea?’
‘Marc, there’s a story about a woman walking down Oxford Street on a summer’s day and a policeman says to her, Excuse me, Madam, I think I should warn you there are serious penalties for that. He pointed to her left breast. Completely exposed. And she exclaimed, Oh my God! I left the baby on the bus! Now, I could be that woman. She’s me.’
‘No, you’re wrong. You’re not that woman. I’m not saying you’re overtly motherly in a smothery, milky, breast-feedy kind of way. But you’re caring, you’re kind and you’re nurturing. And you wouldn’t be doing it alone. It takes two.’
‘I might have twins!’
‘Good. I want a family, Helene.’
Oh grief, he really was serious.
‘But you’re only twenty-three.’ And I shall be thirty eight next birthday.
‘I shall be twenty-four in November. That’s the same age my father was when they had Elizabeth.’
‘You should be playing the field, Marc.’
‘Look, you don’t want a substitute when you’re sleeping with the star player. I want you, Helene. I want you to be my woman and my wife.’ He put his arms around her. ‘Will you think about it? Just think about it.’
Helene looked at him, this man she loved. She didn’t need to think about it. She knew already what she had to do.
Chapter Sixteen
Her brother-in-law met her off the train at Darsham. Because it was bound to be late, they had arranged that he would wait in the car.
She was wearing a new outfit, an Italian cropped one-piece pants suit with the waist cunningly carved to fit. Over it she had on a knitted jacket, with wide sleeves held back by glossy dark leather straps.
Walking to the porridge-coloured people-mover, Helene wondered quite what to call her brother-in-law. When he and Hilly became engaged, he had been introduced to the family as Oliver. Over the years, Hilly had abbreviated this to Olly and now it was Ol.
Helene solved it by throwing her luggage in the back, sliding into the car and muttering, ‘Hi. Train. Sorry.’
He didn’t kiss her, and he didn’t say a word about her ensemble. A Frenchman wouldn’t have been able to resist it. Where did you get it, look at the seaming, it’s impeccable at the back, the jacket’s Gucci, I can tell…
‘Aren’t you hot in that cardigan?’ asked Olly as they drove off, and Helene thought, oh well, welcome to England.
Olly wasn’t really paying attention. He was listening to Critics Forum on the radio:
‘… following a noble tradition from, well from Shakespeare to Star Wars. No, Marina, no, there is a connection. Shakespeare, I think we’d all agree, was rarely original with his plots. And if Shakespeare were writing today it’s likely he would have devised something like Star Wars, which of course was far from an original concept. Star Wars, in fact, was based on a series of B-movies about Flash Gordon…’
As Olly jabbed it off, Helene said, ‘How’s things back at the ranch?’
‘Okay. But Hilly’s a bit miffed you’re not staying with us.’
‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine at the Swan. When you live on your own, you get out of the way of family life.’
Helene felt she couldn’t say it was all about the bathroom. Hovering in her nightshirt at the bedroom door, waiting for Olly to get out of the bathroom, then dashing in before Megan came hurtling down the corridor.
‘Well you will come round for supper? Hilly’s doing her special stuffed cabbage.’
Oh God. Helene had tried this once on her gay friends in London. Brown rice, green pepper, spring onions, cayenne. All morning sewing everything into unwieldy raw cabbage leaves. All evening receiving gushingly effusive and completely insincere thank-you calls about how divine it had all been.
When they reached Southwold, Oliver took her on a memory-lane tour. The harbour, Gun Hill, South Green. Helene wound down the window, smelling the malt from the brewery, the salt from the sea.
Passing a characterful house painted Suffolk pink, Helene said, ‘Funny place, Southwold. Every time I come here I see a house I hadn’t noticed before.’
‘I know. I’ve lived here all my life, but it’s always changing. Sometimes I think those cottages spring up overnight –‘ He broke off as they approached the lighthouse, strikingly situated right in the town. He murmured, ‘Four by twenty. Four by twenty.’
‘What?’
‘I’m learning to sail. Well, Megan wants to, so I thought I’d better learn first.’
‘So what’s this –‘
‘The lighthouse. It flashes four times every twenty seconds. You can only see it out at sea. And when you’re cold and tired and soaked through and you see those lights it makes you feel, you know, choked up with relief, because you know you’re coming home. Sometimes Megan cycles down to the harbour to meet me. I like that.’
Helene was so surprised, she couldn’t say a word. Good heavens. There was more to her sister’s husband than she’d ever imagined.
In the morning, Helene walked down to the tea-hut on the beach and ordered a buttered teacake. In Helene’s estimation, it was a proper tea-hut, simply constructed of white-painted wood. And the cups were proper seaside teacups, slightly triangular and a distinctive broad bean colour. Round white cups would not have done at all.
She munched her teacake and sipped her tea, enjoying the surrounding chatter, the way the English had the ability to talk in code:
‘Terrible, isn’t it?’
‘Worse yesterday.’
‘What d’you think it’s going to do?’
‘Well. Reckon we might have had the best of it.’
Helene laughed. Such a conversation would, she knew, completely defeat the verbose French.
She gazed across the gun-grey sea at the boundless Suffolk sky. It would rain in a while. She’d better get a move on.
Half an hour later she was knocking on the door of what she guessed was an old coastguard’s cottage. She tried the door. As she had anticipated, it was unlocked. It led straight into a cosy kitchen dominated by a blanket-covered armchair and an enormous dog bed. There was a lingering smell of turps and oil paint, so she was not surprised to find that the sitting room had been turned into a studio.
And on the easel, the portrait of Megan. She was wearing a striped T-shirt with yellow shorts and she was in an apple tree, hanging upside down.
Helene was still smiling as she stepped outside onto a small wooden deck overlooking the garden. Except it was unlike any garden Helene had ever seen, because it was part of the shingle beach. Helene thought it was lovely, massed with pinks, purples and silvery things. Against the odds, the sun had come out, attracting the blue butterflies her mother used to tell her wer
e dancing bits of sky.
On the deck table was a copy of the Waveney Gazette, held down by a bowl of pebbles. She had just opened the paper, when suddenly her hand was all wet. A bright-eyed black and white Border Collie, about a year old, was lapping enthusiastically at her outstretched fingers.
‘Hello, Tweed,’ she said.
Rory McEwen came up from the beach a few moments later. She saw immediately why he had such a startling effect on women. Dark good looks, broad shoulders, sexy smile.
‘I hope you don’t mind,’ Helene said. ‘I borrowed your paper. I’m Helene Brook, by the way.’
‘I know,’ he said, shaking hands. ‘I’ve seen your photograph at Hilly’s.’
She felt as if she’d known him forever.
‘I was just admiring your garden.’
‘Isn’t it great! It was here when I came, so I’ve been learning what everything is. We’ve got artemesia, purple hebe and eleagnus. I love the silver leaves. And there’s lavender, of course, and some borage I use in Pimms. I don’t think of it as a garden. It’s more a landscape for anyone to enjoy as they walk up the beach.’ He paused. ‘Would you like some tea? Or something stronger?’
‘Something stronger,’ Helene said. ‘I had an awful journey up yesterday. No food on the train and someone had made off with the key to the bar. After that, the train stopped for ages. No information, of course. You just look at the other passengers, working out which one you’re going to have to eat. Then I went to Hilly’s for supper and they always drink sweet wine.’
She followed Rory into the kitchen where Tweed was spark out, not in his bed, but on the rag rug.
‘Gin and tonic all right?’ said Rory, poised over a wooden trolley painted the same glossy green as the seaside teacups. ‘I hear things have been rather eventful in our little coin of Paris.’
Ah. Valerie Laverie. The mouthpiece of the sixth arrondissement.
When she said nothing, she felt as if Rory was listening to her silence. Was that what artists did? Had he managed to do this with Megan?
There were no anwers.
He said, ‘How do you like the Paris apartment?’
The Price of Love Page 21