They’d agreed the brief, the regions he would cover, the fee, and the deadline. He had two months to finish the job. Ten thousand words. Expenses. Travel, hotels, meals up to a certain budget.
Lizzie had pinched the extra flab on his waist and laughed. ‘Go easy, big man. Portion control.’
He’d prodded her back, playfully. Since agreeing to part, their relationship had settled into relaxed harmony. She had found someone to take on Daisy’s room – a fascinating bear of a man called Dave Grafton, a marine scientist who was studying some abstruse aspect of temperature change in the world’s oceans at a field base on the coast not far from Hailesbank. So far as Ben was aware, Lizzie’s relationship with him was still simply that of housemate, but he was comfortable in predicting that it would move on from that and maybe this time, Lizzie would settle for something more durable and lasting. He hoped so. Dave would be the perfect match for Lizzie, maybe offering her the kind of independence and respect she needed, but within the structure of a loving and monogamous relationship. Despite her assertions that she wanted to be in complete control of her relationships, he’d seen enough to know that underneath the protestations, she longed for more.
His mother moved gently out of his embrace. ‘Are you going to see Daisy?’ she asked.
He shrugged. Time for goodbyes. ‘I don’t know, mother,’ he answered as he turned and walked into the hall to pick up his bags.
‘Give her our love.’
Ben grinned and squeezed her in a bear hug until she squealed for release. If anyone in this world understood him, it was his mother, but he hadn’t been lying. He had no idea whether he would see Daisy Irvine – but he did know he wanted to.
The day was a glorious one, France lay ahead, and a new adventure was starting. Ben was on the ferry from Portsmouth to Cherbourg. His rucksack was safely stowed down below, his only encumbrance was a canvas satchel with his laptop and valuables – passport, wallet, cards, mobile. Sitting on the top deck in the bright sunshine, he threw back his head and closed his eyes, feeling the warmth on his face. He had two months to wrap it all up – do the research for the book, write the ten thousand words – and then head for Nice, where Daisy x was. What would happen then, he didn’t dare imagine.
Crossroads. It seemed to be something of a theme. Again he was at a crossroads in his life. Was this the third time in less than a year? First, leaving Martina and heading back up to Scotland. Second, starting an affair with Lizzie Little. And now, heading off once more into the unknown, no long-term plans, no ties, no commitments, only a goal of sorts to keep him headed in the right direction.
But was it the right direction? And had he taken wrong turns earlier? Splitting with Martina, that had hardly been a decision, more an inevitability. Lizzie? Lizzie had been a scenic route, a diversion from the main way, delightful, hugely pleasurable, but the kind of journey that wastes a lot of time and might cause you to miss the connection when you rejoin the road.
At crossroads you make choices. This time, his choice felt clear to him. Whether the outcome would be what he hoped for, only time would tell, but he had to try. Daisy Irvine. Little Daisy x, with the mist-blue, smoke-blue eyes and the mouth that twisted and turned and worried at things until he longed to still it with a kiss. This time he would tell her how he felt. He had to. He was prepared for rejection, but his fault last time had been that he hadn’t even tried. He’d read little signs and accepted them for their surface value, but Daisy’s reaction after he’d started seeing Lizzie had told another story. Or had it?
She’d tried to shut everyone out of her life, start over in France. Lizzie had shown him the note Daisy had sent her. Hope life’s a dream. Take care of Ben, have fun. No contact address. Her mobile was dead. Nothing.
Sharon had called. ‘You heard from Dais, Ben?’
‘Yup. Short note.’
‘She give you any contacts?’
‘Nope. Nothing. You?’
‘Only in a kind of a way. She’s got a new job.’
‘So I heard.’
‘Somewhere called La Musée Jaune in Nice.’
He gathered the information and stored it in his memory. It was all he had to go on. He was reluctant to let Sharon know how little Daisy had told him, so he took a blind guess. ‘As a photographer, yeah?’
‘Photographe-general is how she signs it, so yes, I guess. I’m going to write to her there. I hope it’ll find her.’
Photographer at a museum? That was different. Objects, not people. How would she deal with it? Ben envisaged a small store room somewhere with Daisy immured in the dark, communing with pots. She was hiding, wasn’t she? He sighed. Women. How the hell did you learn to read them?
A sudden breeze off the sea ruffled his brown hair. He opened his eyes and ran his fingers through it to smooth it down. At Lindisfarne, life had seemed full of possibilities. On the beach near Aberlady, he’d felt exhilarated by what lay ahead. Now, once more, he felt the same, only this time he was prepared to make a fool of himself, to test things to the limit. Wherever Daisy was at in her head right now, he was determined to be there for her.
‘You can reach her heart, Ben.’
Right.
Chapter Seven
Daisy was learning independence and patience and French. Le Figaro, a French dictionary and a chilled and quite passable bottle of Chablis made pleasant companions. Released from her duties at the Museum, she had spread everything out on the table on her balcony and was brushing up on her language skills.
‘Putain, I know that word,’ she muttered to herself as she found it in the dictionary and sucked her breath in. So that was what that story was about.
Music floated softly in the air. She became aware of it gradually. It slid into her senses as easily as a knife into hot butter, meeting no resistance, offering no difficulty. It was sweet, melodic, French in some ways, in others unlike any kind of music she had ever heard. She put down the paper, closed her eyes and listened. A guitar, accompanying a voice. Complicated, rhythmic harmonies. Very polished, very difficult. The voice had an amazing range. It was very special. Who was it? She had to find out, buy a CD.
Half way through a phrase, the music stopped. The phrase was repeated. Then again. Daisy opened her eyes. This was no CD, this was live music. And now she recognised the voice. It was Majik’s and it was coming from next door. She stood and went to the corner of her balcony. His doors were open just a fraction, but she couldn’t see him. The song ended. Softly, Daisy started to clap.
‘You like eet?’
Here he was. Majik Jamelsky, maker of music, maker of magic, leaper of balconies, kisser extraordinary. ‘I like it.’ She smiled shyly. He looked even more beautiful than she remembered, with a T-shirt the colour of a flaming sunset and a floaty shirt of the finest and whitest cambric, rolled up to the elbows to reveal the jingling silver bracelets. ‘Are you practising, or would you like a drink?’ She waved at the bottle on the table. ‘But only,’ she added hurriedly and in her firmest voice, ‘if you use the door.’
He came across to the edge of his balcony, leaned against the low railings and peered down. ‘Ouch,’ he said, and grinned disarmingly at her. ‘Een ze daylight eet looks more dangerous, huh?’
‘If you do it again, I’ll die,’ said Daisy, her expression stern.
He laughed. ‘Eet ees more likely I would die, non? Sweet Daysee, shall I visit you, hein?’
She had a glass for him in her hand by the time she opened the door, but as he pushed it closed behind him, he reached for the wine and laid it back on the dresser, circling her waist with his arm and pulling her close all in one single, fluid movement.
‘So pretty, so sweet, such eyes.’
Her eyes were level with his neck. She could see the vein near his throat pulsing under the golden skin. He smelt like damp earth and fresh cut grass and honeysuckle. He was too beautiful to be real, he was too beautiful to desire her and yet here he was. There was no time for wine. They needed no stimulus. Majik’s finger
s ran down her neck and he turned his wrist so that the back of his hand trailed down in the valley between her breasts. She caught his wrist. Looked down. His arm was deep brown against the white of her skin.
‘You want zees, my pretty Daysee?’ His voice was the faintest of whispers.
She didn’t answer him. With infinite slowness, she lifted his hand to her mouth and started to lick his hand, her tongue moistening the pale spaces between his fingers, her eyes holding his gaze.
‘Day–,’ he gave a soft moan, ‘–see.’
For the first time in her life, Daisy felt a quiver of power. She was holding this man in her thrall, building his desire, making him wait, though her own desire was threatening to overwhelm her. Smiling, she turned his hand back to her body and slid it under her shirt. Released from her hold, his hand found her nipple and she cried out softly, closing her eyes as the sensation intensified.
‘Day-see,’ he whispered again.
Then they were on the bed and their clothes were on the floor and Majik’s slim legs were twined round hers and Daisy knew that she had never wanted to make love to anyone so much in her whole life, not even Jack. Just as well, she thought, that she’d not stopped taking the pill.
Afterwards, as they lay next to each other, panting, she was embarrassed.
‘I’m not … I don’t usually … please don’t think I –’
He rolled onto one elbow. The band had come off his hair and the dark locks hung loosely round his shoulders. He looked strangely sexless, neither man nor woman, just unarguably the most beautiful being she had ever seen in her life.
‘You don’t what, sweet Daysee? Make love with strange men? But why not? Eet ees so lovely, don’t you theenk? And I am not so strange, hein?’ His hand smoothed its way down the length of her, across the swell of her breast and the roundness of her belly with all the sensuousness of a sculptor feeling the finish of his marble. ‘Ees thees not nice? Hein? You like? I like. Eet ees good. Never apologise, Daysee, for being a beautiful woman.’
Then, astonishingly, he found renewed energy and Daisy, who almost had a heart attack at Majik’s reckless balcony-jumping last week, thought she must have died and had floated to heaven.
Later, studying him as he lay, sated, she asked, ‘Do you really think I’m beautiful?’ It had been a long time since anyone had called her that. Jack, sure, when she’d been eighteen. Later, they’d fallen into the way of each other and the endearments had lessened. And in the last couple of years, her confidence and self esteem had fallen to such a low that she no longer believed she was attractive at all.
‘You need me to tell you thees?’ Majik’s eyes opened in puzzlement.
Daisy’s mouth was working from side to side, She caught her lower lip with her teeth, stilling it. Her insecurities, she realised, had not disappeared with her retreat to France, merely been submerged.
‘You are …’ he kissed her forehead, ‘the most lovely …’ he kissed her nose, ‘most delicious …’ he kissed her lips, ‘most ravishing …’ his mouth moved down her throat and between her breasts, ‘tastiest …’ his lips were fluttering across her belly, ‘most …’ and his words were finally lost as his mouth found the sweetest and most delicate part of her entire body.
Daisy was transported. Was this what Lizzie liked? Had she found this kind of bliss with all her lovers? Had she found it with Ben?
Ben –
But even the thought of Ben Gillies couldn’t divert her from the sweet sensation she was experiencing. Majik Jamelsky. Musician extraordinaire . Magician extraordinaire. Mythical, beautiful, fabulous creature. He said he found her beautiful. And – astonishingly – he managed to make her believe it.
She asked if she could photograph him.
He seemed pleased.
‘In bed? ’Ere? ’
Daisy studied him. ‘To start with.’ She drew aside the filmy muslin that was draped across the window and the light sharpened. She had been having problems with some lamps at the museum and had brought them home to practise with. Now she set them up and turned them on, watching carefully as the beam lit the dark smoothness of his arms. She adjusted the levels and played with them until he was in part backlit, the light throwing rich areas of contrast across his body, emphasising the strong, fluid contours of his chest. Majik’s hair was still loose, flowing round his shoulders. It gleamed and shone in the light. His face, shadowed, was enigmatic, the eyes bright but the lashes dark, the teeth brilliant, the lips rich and velvety.
She played with her camera for an hour, while he co-operated gracefully. She used the sheets like Greek robes, draped loosely round his body so that the folds led the eye to his nakedness, teasingly. She took some nude photographs, as he lay curled on the bed. He was comfortable with his own body and that came through in the images she captured. He loved the attention and was patient with her demands.
Finally, she fetched his guitar, dressed him in jeans and his loose shirt, open to reveal his gleaming chest, and captured the best images of all as he played for her, oblivious to her work as he lost himself in his music.
‘Enough.’ A sense of satisfaction and achievement swept aside her exhaustion.
‘You are content?’
‘I am content. Would you be happy for me to show these, Majik? If I ever got the chance of an exhibition?’
He laid down his guitar and stood, taking her face between his hands. At her ears, the bangles jingled. ‘Bien sûr. Of course. On one condition.’
‘Which is?’
‘That I can use zese ones also for my music, my album, when I am famous.’
‘I’d be honoured.’
They sealed the agreement in the best of all possible ways; with a kiss.
Chapter Eight
Ben’s journey was nearing an end. By bus, by train, and by bicycle he had traversed France, meeting with farmers and chefs, bakers and fishermen, local stallholders and rural shopkeepers, restaurateurs and housewives known for their cooking. The problem was not finding information, it was containing his research and making judgements about how he could pare it down into the ten thousand words he had been allocated.
What he lacked, he realised, was great images. His pocket digital camera had stood him in good stead, but Daisy … Daisy could have taken stunning images of everything he’d seen. In the lands around Paris there had been the fruits and vegetables that supplied the capital’s tables. Leafy spinach, baby leeks, onions, celery, tender young peas and mange-touts, carrots brighter than fresh oranges. In the Loire, earthy mushrooms from the caves and wetlands, their colours in the spectrum from a hundred different browns through reds to the sunniest of yellows. Fish, silver and gleaming, oysters from the offshore beds. Lambs and hams and beef, pig’s trotters and ears and unmentionables. The cheeses – Camembert, Brie and local cheeses in the north, the fantastically salty and addictive Roquefort in the Dordogne. And now, as he approached the south, hot red peppers and cherries, tomatoes and garlic and grapes by the vat load, for eating and for winemaking.
He had met amazing people. Farmers whose French was so strongly accented it was incomprehensible but whose love of their work shone through. Chefs whose fire and passion translated into dishes ranging from simple but delicious to subtle, complex and technically expert. Bakers, ruddy from the heat of their ovens. Fishermen, weather-beaten and sun-kissed.
Daisy would have loved it. And the more Ben thought about it, the more he wanted to have her by his side, to retrace his steps and to write a complete book on the subject, lavishly illustrated by Daisy’s skilful images. And after France – who knows? Spanish food? Portuguese food? Or maybe Thai, Chinese, Malaysian, Indian, Russian? The world had got smaller and people’s appetites for global cuisine had become insatiable.
One night, he sat outside a small café near the harbour in a small town called Collioure near the Spanish border thinking, inevitably, of Daisy.
‘You two love birds … Love birds. That’s funny.’ She hadn’t felt the same. How could he forg
et those words? She’d slipped away from him, wriggling out of his grasp. ‘I’d’ve hated to lose you as a friend and if we’d got it together, I probably would have.’ Had she been right?
No. Emphatically no. Surely? Their friendship was real and it was strong. On the other hand – Ben weighed the words again in his head and tried to be realistic. If they’d got it together as teenagers, could it have lasted? He had to be honest and admit that it was doubtful at best. Reluctantly, Ben had to acknowledge that Daisy had been right. For once, the words she’d spoken had been wise ones. But surely they’d both changed over the years? He should have persuaded her of that, snogged her stupid, made her realise that everything had changed.
‘You can reach her, Ben.’ Lizzie, so brave and so generous. ‘Reach her heart, I mean.’ He could cry when he thought of that moment. Lizzie didn’t deserve to lose Daisy’s trust and friendship – that was one fence he had to mend.
‘Monsieur? Désirez vous autre chose? Un café, peut être? Un cognac? Would you like a coffee, a brandy?’ The waiter was hovering, smiling, unhurried. Above him, the night sky was lit by a million stars, their light beaming to Earth across a trillion light years. Timeless. Beautiful.
‘Merci, rien. No thanks. Nothing.’
What was she doing now, Daisy Irvine? Was she happy or sad? Content in her new life or hiding from rejection and failure? As his journey reached its end, excitement and anxiety rose in Ben in equal measure. He needed to find her, tell her how he felt, persuade her that what he offered was real and lasting and built on rock, not sand. He needed to put himself on the line and pray that his honesty triggered the response he longed for. And if it didn’t, he needed to come to terms with it and move on.
He paid his bill and stood. Twenty paces away, the harbour wall stretched out, guarding the land from the lapping waves. For some reason he felt he needed to walk as far as he could into the darkness, to lose himself in the anonymous blanket of the night. Only the low yellow light of a few sparse street lamps were there to guide him but he stumbled out to the furthest-most point and found a comfortable part of the wall on which to perch.
Maximum Exposure: The Heartlands Series Page 20