About Last Night . . .

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘For old times’ sake? Well, excuse me, but for fuck’s sake. You are literally outrageous!’

  ‘Lucy, that’s enough,’ Henri said sharply. ‘You’ve no call speaking to your mother like that, this is none of your business.’

  ‘In my flat it most certainly is my business. And who do you think you are to tell me anything?’ She rounded on him, furious. ‘Isn’t it enough that you ruined our lives? Forcing us to move, which if we hadn’t, Daddy would still be alive – ruined my life by never going to university—’

  ‘What d’you mean, Daddy would still be alive?’ Minna’s eyes were huge. Scared.

  ‘Nothing. She means nothing by it. Lucy, stop it.’ I was trembling with emotion, but Lucy had already pushed past us and run to her bedroom. She slammed the door behind her and burst into noisy tears. There was a ghastly silence. Minna looked stricken.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Henri softly at length.

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered. ‘I think that’s best.’

  He turned sadly and went to the front door; opened it and then shut it quietly behind him. I stared at the door a long moment. Suddenly, in a flash, I’d crossed the room, wrenched it open and flown after him. ‘Wait! Just a minute!’ I cried. I ran up the basement steps and down the street to join him as he turned back.

  ‘Henri,’ I gasped, catching his arm, ‘it’s not just Lucy. You can see how difficult that would be, but I would overcome her feelings if I had to. It’s what I said to you just now. My feelings.’ I put a hand to my heart. ‘Of guilt. I’d never overcome those.’

  He gazed at me as I panted, searching his face earnestly with my eyes.

  ‘I know,’ he said. He did. His face was eloquent with pain.

  ‘And however euphoric we were to find each other again, just now,’ I went on, my breath coming in short bursts, ‘and be together again, they’d already come between us, those feelings, even just back then, in that room. And they’d return with a vengeance, I know they would. For me at least.’ I gulped at the thought. ‘Nasty stabs in the gut in the early hours. Waking up with my eyes wide open. A horrid taste in the mouth.’

  He hung his head. I took his hand. Shook it. Tried hard to explain. ‘It’s me, Henri, it’s not you. It’s how I am. Don’t look so ashamed. What we did wasn’t so terrible. It happens every day. Having affairs – it’s part of normal life. It’s just that in our particular case, its effects were catastrophic.’

  ‘Only if you believe in cause and effect.’

  ‘I do.’

  He nodded gravely. ‘And a greater power than us overseeing things, judging us?’ He jerked his head skywards.

  ‘Yes. As you do too, Henri.’ I knew he did. I’d lit candles with him. Knelt beside him. His mind flew there too. To Notre Dame.

  ‘So all we have are our memories.’

  ‘Yes. But at least we have those.’

  We regarded one another, two pairs of eyes searching out the other. At length, he held out his arms. I walked into them. For the second time in as many minutes we held on tight.

  ‘Paris,’ he whispered in my ear.

  ‘I know.’

  The traffic rumbled past: a pedestrian sidestepped us. I felt I was barely conscious. In time we drew apart. His eyes were full. Then he kissed his fingertips and placed them gently on my lips. With a last sorrowful, crooked smile, he turned and walked away. I watched him go, my eyes brimming as his familiar figure went down the street. I wondered if he’d turn when he got to the corner but he didn’t. I stared at the empty space for a long time. Felt myself rock slightly. After a bit, I collected myself. I turned and walked slowly back to the flat. Back to my life.

  Lucy had emerged from the bedroom when I shut the front door behind me. She and her sister were sitting side by side on the sofa, waiting for me in silence. I wondered if she’d told Minna about Henri. Her eyes told me that she hadn’t. And never would. I thanked her silently with mine and took a seat opposite them. She was in no mood to be conciliatory, though, and I knew I had to suffer the consequences.

  ‘Where were you last night?’ she began, tight-lipped.

  For one surreal moment I was transported back many years ago, to when I was younger than her, about Minna’s age, at the breakfast table with my own parents.

  ‘With Felix,’ I admitted. The truth, I’d decided, was my best policy, although I might temper it occasionally: the same ploy I’d used all those years ago, although I had a feeling Lucy was going to be a tougher adversary than Mum, who was always a pushover.

  ‘And is that what you were wearing?’

  I glanced down at my jeans. ‘No,’ I conceded.

  ‘So where’s your dress?’

  ‘In my bag.’

  Minna seized the carrier bag from the floor and rummaged through it with all the thoroughness of the Drugs Squad. She pulled out the offending article – a crumpled linen dress – plus a pair of wedged heels and placed them on the coffee table between us, like exhibit A.

  ‘She’s got a pack of knickers in here too,’ she reported, peering in. ‘And some Berocca.’ She tossed them both at me accusingly and I caught them. If this was good cop, bad cop I wasn’t quite sure who the good cop was.

  Lucy’s lips tightened. ‘So you stayed the night.’

  ‘Yes, I did actually, Lucy. And that, as I’ve told you, is my affair. I’m a grown woman.’

  ‘So you’re sleeping with three men.’

  ‘Of course I’m not sleeping with three men, don’t be ridiculous. Henri and I were close because’ – I glanced quickly at Minna – ‘because we’re old friends.’

  ‘He had your face in his hands!’ Minna said furiously.

  ‘And Paddy kissed me to annoy me, probably, and make me late.’

  ‘Again, unusual,’ Minna retorted.

  ‘And Felix is my own business, and frankly—’

  ‘Frankly, Mother, your behaviour reflects on us, and as Lucy so rightly says—’

  ‘All right!’ Lucy cut through the squabbling like the parent. We were silenced. ‘So it’s just this Felix jerk, right?’

  ‘Who says he’s a jerk?’

  ‘Everyone. Well, Robin, who knows him. By repute. Bit of a player, apparently.’

  ‘Oh.’ I clutched the pack of knickers on my lap. Suddenly I went hot. ‘Oh Lord.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘No – n-nothing.’ The document came flooding back, with all the force of a tidal wave. The wave broke and crashed right from the back of my brain where I’d rummaged tentatively only this morning, and on that tide, as the sea came in and then shrank away again, there it was, beached on the sand, marked ‘Lastow Mews’. I gripped my pants tighter. Had I signed it? I couldn’t remember. Did it matter if I had? What was that document? I felt Lucy looking at me.

  ‘What’s up, Mum?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘Nothing, nothing.’

  ‘You’ve gone all pink.’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’

  ‘Yes, you have.’

  ‘I haven’t.’

  ‘Shit.’ Her eyes sprang wide suddenly and her jaw dropped. ‘You’re not on the bloody Pill, are you?’

  ‘Oh! No.’ I blinked rapidly. ‘Well, at least …’

  ‘You are?’

  Christ. I really was back at my parents’ breakfast table, but hang on …

  ‘Did he use something?’

  ‘Oh yuck!’ From Minna.

  ‘Lucy!’ I was equally horrified, but had he used something? I rummaged in that addled old brain again. Couldn’t find anything. Couldn’t remember. Not a thing.

  ‘God, is it possible you’re pregnant?’ Minna said incredulously. ‘Is that why you’ve gone all red? Aren’t you much too old?’

  ‘Yes, she is, but still. Here. Go get. Just to be sure,’ Lucy said tersely, reaching for her bag. She handed Minna twenty pounds from her purse. Minna got to her feet and left, casting me a last appalled look.

  ‘Where’s she going?’ I asked, bewildered, as the door slammed.

 
‘Morning after pill. Just in case.’

  ‘Lucy,’ I licked my lips, ‘you didn’t tell her …’

  ‘No. You know I didn’t. I never would.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘One life in bits is enough.’

  ‘Darling, you can’t—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Blame me for ever.’

  She swallowed. ‘I don’t. As a rule. Only in my darkest moments.’

  I nodded, ashamed. ‘But you knew Henri’s marriage had broken up and didn’t trust me enough to tell me.’

  ‘No. I didn’t. And it seems under the circumstances I was right not to.’ She was very pale.

  I leaned forward. Gave her the steadiest look I could. ‘Lucy, I give you my word. He held me like that purely for old times’ sake. To say goodbye. We’d already agreed nothing could ever happen. What I said was true. I would never be with Henri, not now.’

  I saw a flash of trust flit across her eyes. A small light.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said in a much smaller voice. Like a little girl. She took a deep breath. Let it out shakily. ‘It would break my heart.’

  ‘I know.’ I leaned across and took her hand. ‘I know that, but, Lucy, mine too.’

  She gulped and nodded. I knew she believed me now. But her beautiful face was white and contorted with grief. The long pent-up emotion which she hadn’t always shown me was there, undisguised. Lucy was the eldest. She’d known her daddy the best. Had easily been the closest to him. I moved to sit next to her on the sofa and put my arm around her shoulders. She put her arm round my waist and I almost cried with relief. I said nothing, though. After a bit, she sighed, dredging it right up from her red canvas high-tops and from the depths of her soul. We uncoupled. She turned to look at me properly.

  ‘I’m really sorry I said what I did about this Felix guy. You have every right to some happiness, Mum. It’s just what Robin said, and I’m sure he was only trying to make me feel better. You go for it. Have a lovely time. If you feel he’s the one.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you, darling. I will.’

  I was uneasy, though. And a little unsure. Two people now. And Robin was a really good egg. Lucy knew as well as I did he was unlikely to make something up to appease her. She stood up.

  ‘Take the pill when Minna gets back. I’m going to have a bath. And get yourself sorted out, Mum. Chloe Frowbisher’s mother got pregnant and it was beyond embarrassing. Apparently the eggs can have some sort of horrific last hurrah even if you’re ancient, so it’s possible even you could get pregnant.’

  Even I. This washed-up, desiccated old bag. The thought was terrifying, though, and I gratefully gulped down the pill with a glass of water when Minna wordlessly handed it to me on her return, her eyes cold. And then I took another one for luck. It occurred to me, as she stood over me, that I hadn’t got a grip on Minna’s life. I had no idea what she was up to or with whom, but didn’t quite feel in the position to ask. Who was Adam? Had she been staying with him since that night when she’d had to, or was she back here now? At least she wasn’t with Toxic Ted.

  ‘Nico’s under quite a lot of pressure, Mum,’ she told me sternly. ‘I think you’d better go home.’

  ‘Yes – yes, that’s the plan. Although – it’s so late now, I might just ring him and stay one more night. There’s something I need to—’

  ‘No, Mum. You’ve had quite enough fun. Go home.’

  I gulped. ‘I wasn’t going to see any more – you know. Men.’ Well, I was. ‘At least, not for – you know.’ I badly needed to see Felix before he went to Vienna.

  ‘Sex?’

  ‘Minna!’

  ‘Just behave, OK? Is that too much to ask?’ She walked into her sister’s bedroom and shut the door behind her. She didn’t slam it, though. That was something.

  I sat on the sofa, knees clenched. Obviously I really needed to go home. But I also really needed to see a man about a house, too. I wondered how much time I’d got. I quickly texted Felix.

  ‘When are you off?’

  ‘Off where?’

  ‘Vienna.’

  ‘Oh, right! Imminently, my darling.’

  I stared. Imminently. Did that mean in ten minutes or this evening, or tomorrow, even? Hating my lack of cool, I asked.

  ‘Just en route to the airport now. So sorry not to see more of you but back in two weeks.’

  Two weeks. I thought he’d said next week. Damn. I lifted my eyes from my phone and sat staring at the botanical prints covering the cream woodchip wallpaper. I could hear one daughter running a bath and the other’s muffled tones, presumably on the phone. I got to my feet. Noiselessly I put all my things back in the carrier bag, found my overnight bag in the corner, plumped up the cushions, and left.

  Outside, I only had to walk a few steps before I saw a taxi. I hailed it, climbed in and off we trundled, my mind racing. Five minutes later I arrived at a familiar street corner and a familiar Italian café. I got out, paid the driver and took a seat on the pavement at my habitual spot under the green umbrella. The waiter recognized me and greeted me like an old friend. He offered me my usual cappuccino and I agreed that would be just the ticket. Then, feeling like a member of MI5, I put my sunglasses on, plucked an abandoned newspaper from an adjacent table and pretended to read it whilst simultaneously shooting surreptitious glances over it, down through the familiar brick arch to the cobbled mews beyond. At the end, on the right, a little black Mini was parked opposite the pink house but I knew if I sat here long enough, it would move.

  Sure enough, two cappuccinos and a slice of cheesecake later, a slight blonde figure in white jeans and a black T-shirt appeared through the front door of the pink house carrying a bin liner. She dumped it in the dustbin, stuck her head back through the door, called a cheery goodbye and left. She sashayed across the cobbles to her car, keys swinging from her finger. I gazed determinedly at my newspaper, heart thumping. The car came slowly up the mews towards me. In my peripheral vision I saw it pause under the arch, waiting for a gap in the traffic. Then, dark glasses on, and music playing through her open window, Camilla drove right past me, just feet away as I doggedly studied births, marriages and deaths, heading west.

  When she’d gone I raised my head. I left some money in a saucer and got to my feet. I was wearing soft ballet-style pumps through the soles of which, as I tripped across the road and under the arch into the exclusive cloisters of this expensive mews, I could feel every cobble. But I was glad of them. They added stealth, and since I was on a mission, I needed stealth. I also needed as much guile, subterfuge and tact as I could possibly muster, none of which, if my recent behaviour was anything to go by, were necessarily in my repertoire. But I could dig deep and find them. Oh yes.

  21

  With all the clear-headed, cognitive grey matter I could muster stacked between my temples and with one last exhortation to my mind to resemble a steel trap, I stepped up to the front door of the pink house and rang the doorbell. Robert answered after just one ring, which surprised me. I thought it would take him longer to potter from wherever he’d been malingering, reading in an armchair perhaps, dithering in the kitchen, to get to the door. He blinked a bit in the sunlight as he took me in. Did a slight double take, then the penny dropped.

  ‘Ah – of course! It’s Polly, isn’t it?’

  ‘Molly.’

  ‘Molly! That’s it.’ He smiled and stood aside, swinging the door wide. ‘Come in, my dear, come in.’

  He was wearing a well-pressed cornflower-blue shirt, a rather natty paisley cravat and red corduroys. His hair was freshly washed and slicked back.

  ‘You look well,’ I told him, as he shut the door behind me.

  ‘Oh I am, I’m in peak condition. Threw off that ghastly cold I had when you last saw me but, boy, it laid me low. That’s the trouble these days, anything I used to shake off in a jiffy hangs around like a bad smell. Now, I was just making some coffee.’ He bustled ahead of me, leading the way down the hall to the kitchen. ‘You’ll
have a cup?’

  I’d already had two but it seemed rude not to so I agreed, determining to sip only a tiny bit or I’d be bouncing off the walls.

  ‘I’d love one. And I’m really sorry if I’m intruding, Robert, I just wanted to ask you a couple of things about the house.’

  ‘Absolutely, absolutely, no problem at all. Ask away. Hang on, I’ll just get to grips with this machine.’ Yet another state-of-the-art cappuccino maker whirred into action in a corner of the kitchen and he gave it his full attention. ‘Still up in the bright lights, eh?’ he called over his shoulder and above its grinding din. ‘Not being seduced by them, I hope?’

  Luckily his back was to me. ‘Hopefully not,’ I said nervously, thinking this might rather neatly encompass things. I sat down at the table. ‘Um, Robert, I thought you had emphysema?’

  ‘Emphysema?’ He turned in surprise as he waited for his gadget. ‘Good Lord, no, just a touch of flu. Emphysema’s a hospital job, isn’t it? Whoever told you that?’

  ‘Felix.’

  ‘Heavens, what a fuss he makes! You’d think I was decrepit the way he talks.’

  ‘But you’re not?’

  ‘Decrepit?’ He turned again. ‘I should hope not, my dear. I still play bowls at the Hurlingham twice a week. I’m in the team, I’ll have you know. And until last year I swam in the pool there most days.’ He made a face. ‘I must admit, I find it a bit chilly now, even though they claim it’s a piping eighty-two.’

  ‘That’s amazing,’ I said as he put a cup of coffee in front of me. ‘I bet not many eighty-six-year-olds could say that.’

  ‘Eighty-six!’ he squealed. ‘Whatever gave you that idea? I’m seventy-eight!’ He looked aghast. ‘Good God, do I look eighty-six?’ He swept a horrified hand through his snowy locks.

  ‘No, you really don’t. As a matter of fact, this morning you look about sixty. I was totally joking, Robert.’ I sipped my coffee thoughtfully.

  ‘Pulling my plonker, eh? Why didn’t I get that? Too slow.’ He tapped his temple. ‘Now that’s not good. More Sudoku needed.’

  ‘Except I gather you do the pub quiz?’

  ‘Never missed a week, not even when I had that wretched cold, still made it to the pub.’ He frowned. ‘I say, I do apologize for my poor form that day, no wonder you thought I was past it. Believe I even retired to bed.’