Mwah-Mwah

by Chloe Rayban

  I made my way down to the bridge. The water had subsided almost to its usual level. The frogs were back with their evening chant as if nothing had happened. So were the swallows, they were swooping back and forth skimming the surface of the moat. In the distance I could still hear the rush of water through the floodgate.

  The meadows had all but disappeared from sight under water. They were shining in the moonlight like a great sheet of beaten silver. The house seemed to float in the mist, as if cut off from the real world. It stood with its witch’s-hat towers silhouetted against the sky. I remembered how I’d thought it was so horribly spooky when I arrived. Now, with the lights from the windows casting long trails of brightness over the lawn, it looked quite simply magical.

  I leaned on the parapet staring down into the dark water, trying to record this moment in my mind for ever. The sound of the water rushing through the floodgate was strangely hypnotic. Suddenly, I felt the presence of someone behind me.

  ‘Rosbif !’

  I swung round to find Michel.

  ‘Bonsoir, Grenouille.’

  He leaned on the wall beside me, staring down thoughtfully.

  Abruptly he said, ‘H-annah. Can you keep a secret?’

  ‘Yes. Of course.’ My heart was beating in my chest. This was the point at which he was going to tell me about Caroline.

  But I was wrong. Instead he said, ‘I am leaving tonight.’

  ‘Leaving?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To Cannes. To the festival.’

  ‘What festival?’

  ‘The film festival.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘This is a chance. I will meet people.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Why not?’ he said stubbornly.

  ‘But you can’t just leave without telling anyone.’

  ‘If I tell, they will make me go back to the lycée.’

  ‘But how will you manage for money?’

  He shrugged. ‘I can play my guitar. At this restaurant. The boss ’ee say ’ee will pay me.’

  ‘But you can’t live like that!’

  ‘You don’t understand. I can’t go back to school.’

  ‘Michel, please don’t do this …’

  ‘ ’Annah. You won’t tell?’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Please, ’Annah.’

  ‘H-annah.’

  ‘H-annah.’

  I couldn’t help smiling as he tried, as ever unsuccessfully, to say my name. He put one arm on either side of me and leaned towards me, he was smiling too.

  ‘You won’t tell, will you?’

  The water swept by beneath us and once again I had that giddying freefall feeling. And for a moment I didn’t care whether he had a girlfriend or not. I glanced instinctively back towards the house to see if we were being watched. And, sure enough, Matthilde had come out of the barn with one of the boys. She was staring in our direction.

  I twisted myself clear.

  ‘Matthilde is watching us.’

  ‘Ah, Matthilde,’ said Michel. He looked round and saw her with the other boy. She turned deliberately and put her arms around him and they started snogging. It was at that point that Arnaud emerged from the barn. He took one look at Matthilde and went off in the direction of his car.

  Michel sighed with annoyance. ‘ ’Ow can she be so cruel?’ he said.

  I watched as Michel made his way towards the couple. Then Matthilde started gesticulating at him. They were having a row – as usual.

  Later that night I lay in bed wondering if Michel would really go through with his plan.

  I was going back to school. Next week I would be back in ordinary everyday life. For a moment, my head filled with the familiar sounds of school – the slam of locker doors, laughter and screams, shoes scuffing on the polished lino. And the smell of it; gym clothes and floor polish, the cabbagy whiff from the canteen, the stale-egg and formaldehyde pong from the science lab …

  Jess and Angie would want to know about the holiday in minute detail. I could just see Angie’s face when I told her I’d spent most of the time in the country. My mind was already busy fabricating a somewhat more glamorous version of my holiday, suitable for her ears.

  It was really difficult to sleep that night. I kept straining my ears for sounds of movement from the floor above. I hoped Michel had thought better of his crazy plan. I should have tried harder to talk him out of it. There was going to be the most almighty row if he did leave.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The following morning I lay listening for sounds of Michel getting up. I couldn’t hear anything. Maybe he was still asleep or perhaps he was downstairs already.

  I lugged my holdall down the stairs to find I was the first in the kitchen. Florence was busy making ham baguettes and heating milk for coffee and hot chocolate. The kitchen table was laid for four. I slid into a chair and helped myself to bread. Every nerve in my body was on the alert for sounds on the stairs. I heard footsteps and looked up hopefully – but it was only Matthilde. She came dragging her suitcase behind her, looking sleepy and grumpy.

  A few minutes later Monsieur de Lafitte arrived. He kissed us both and then sat down at the table.

  ‘Où est Michel?’ he asked.

  Matthilde mumbled something about expecting he’d be down in a minute.

  Florence filled Monsieur de Lafitte’s bowl with coffee. He took a slice of bread and spread it carefully with a layer of butter. I passed him the jam. Minutes ticked by as we ate in silence. I became incredibly aware of the slightest sound, the chink of metal on china, the scrape of a knife on bread, as my ears strained for the sound of Michel’s footsteps. I tried to act totally normally, but my mind was racing. What would happen if Michel had made off? How had he left? What kind of scene would there be?

  Monsieur de Lafitte kept looking at his watch and clearing his throat.

  Eventually Matthilde scraped back her chair.

  ‘Je vais le chercher,’ she said.

  She hurried out of the room and I heard her running up the stairs two at a time.

  I sat staring at my plate. The bread felt gooey in my mouth, I swallowed it in hard lumps. Monsieur de Lafitte got up from the table and started fiddling with his car keys. The sound jarred horribly on my nerves. After a couple of minutes Matthilde came racing down the stairs. She stood in the doorway, her eyes wide with surprise.

  ‘Il n’est pas là,’ she said.

  Her grandfather said something fast in an angry voice. Matthilde shook her head. She repeated, ‘Il n’est pas là. Ni ses affaires, ni sa guitare.’

  Florence stopped what she was doing and stood stockstill staring at Matthilde. I hoped no one would look at me, I could tell I was going scarlet from guilt.

  Monsieur de Lafitte slammed his car keys down on the table and made for the stairs. Matthilde and I followed. He strode up the stairs, along the corridor past my room and Matthilde’s and up the little winding stone staircase that led to Michel’s. The door was standing open. He went in and gazed around.

  From where I was standing in the doorway, I could see that the bed was unmade and the floor was still strewn with film magazines. But his clothes had gone, his trainers too and his guitar.

  Monsieur de Lafitte looked around as if searching for something – a note perhaps. His eye was caught by the photo of the blonde girl. It was still there, wedged between the glass and the frame. He took it between thumb and forefinger.

  ‘Qui est cette fille?’ he demanded.

  ‘J’ai aucune idée,’ said Matthilde with an angry frown. Taking the photo with him, Monsieur de Lafitte made off down the stairs. We followed. Monsieur de Lafitte picked up the phone in his study and started dialling. Matthilde stood beside him listening.

  The photograph lay on the hall table. I picked it up. Close up, I could see it wasn’t an ordinary snapshot. And the signature in the corner wasn’t just ‘Caroline’. It had been partially covered by the fram
e of the mirror. I could now see the name ‘Caroline Carr’ scrawled across the photo like a star’s signature beside the kiss. I turned it over. It was a publicity photo. On the back there was a list of the films she’d appeared in. All in the 1950s. I realised with a shock that if Caroline Carr was still around she’d be old enough to be Michel’s grandmother! Rival emotions fought inside me. Relief that this wasn’t his girlfriend. And confusion as to why he had the photo anyway.

  I strained my ears listening to Monsieur de Lafitte’s phone call. He was calling Michel’s mobile. It must have been on answerphone, because he left a curt message which I didn’t understand. Then he put down the receiver. He glanced at his watch and said, ‘Bon, nous avons raté le train.’

  We’d missed the train and apparently there wasn’t another for Paris until two that afternoon, which meant there was no way I could make my flight home that day.

  A perfectly horrid couple of hours followed. We all searched round for signs of Michel and soon discovered that one of the bikes had gone. Matthilde suggested he’d taken it into his head to go out for a late-night bike ride, though why he should have taken all his stuff she couldn’t think.

  Madame de Lafitte then went into a flat panic and phoned the police to see if there had been any accidents. There were several tense moments before they confirmed that there hadn’t. Everyone was coming up with theories of where Michel had gone. And why he had gone. I felt really uncomfortable. I made the excuse to go to my room and ring my parents to tell them I couldn’t get back that day.

  Mum answered. ‘Hannah, poppet. Are you on the train?’

  ‘No. That’s why I’m calling, we missed it. Which means I’m going to miss my plane too.’

  Mum then started fussing about the expense. I had a ticket that couldn’t be changed.

  ‘But it’s worse than that,’ I interrupted her. ‘Michel, Matthilde’s cousin – he’s disappeared.’

  ‘Michel? He’s a boy?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You mean Phillippe’s son?’

  ‘I don’t know what his father’s called.’

  ‘It must be Phillippe’s son. He’s a bit of a problem apparently.’

  ‘It sounds to me as if the whole family has problems.’

  ‘Oh yes, his mother! She’s a friend of Marie-Christine. I only met her once but …’

  I could tell that Mum was going to start on one of her big tedious reminiscence sessions, so I interrupted, ‘Look, I don’t know quite what’s going to happen. Monsieur de Lafitte says he’ll book me a new ticket. I’ll ring you as soon as I know more, OK?’

  Back downstairs I found Matthilde and Madame de Lafitte standing in the hall. I could hear Monsieur de Lafitte talking on the phone in his study.

  ‘ ’Ee eez calling my uncle. Michel’s father,’ whispered Matthilde.

  Monsieur de Lafitte put the phone down and came to join us. I could tell the news wasn’t good. Michel hadn’t been in touch with his father. He had no idea where he could have gone.

  At that point I heard the tap tap tap of old Oncle Charles’s stick coming down the corridor. Monsieur and Madame de Lafitte exchanged glances and I was sent back to the hall to fetch the photo as if it was a valuable piece of evidence.

  The old man took it, shaking his head sadly. He mumbled something and turned the photo over and showed the back. Monsieur de Lafitte listened with a look of impatience on his face. He’d obviously hoped it would be a lead and it wasn’t.

  After that everyone seemed to have a different idea of what should be done. Monsieur de Lafitte wanted to go off in the car and do a search of the surrounding roads. Matthilde was instructed to call up all their friends and see if they had heard from him. And Madame de Lafitte insisted she should check all the local hospitals in case there had really been an accident and the police hadn’t been informed.

  I was left alone with old Oncle Charles. He sat slumped in his chair lost in thought, gazing at the photo.

  ‘Who is Caroline Carr?’ I asked him.

  ‘She was an actress,’ he said. ‘I met her in Hollywood. She died very young. If she had lived, she would have been a great star.’

  ‘I don’t understand. Why did Michel have a photo of her?’

  ‘Ah,’ he said and paused. He leaned towards me and took my hand in his. ‘He asked me if he could have it because it reminded him of someone,’ he said, looking at me meaningfully.

  I felt myself flushing with pleasure as he said this.

  He added very softly, ‘You know where he is gone, don’t you, Caroline?’

  I nodded and whispered back, ‘Yes, but he made me promise not to tell.’

  He sat back in his chair. ‘It’s my fault. I told him to follow his star. I filled the boy’s head with dreams. I should not.’

  ‘No. It’s his father’s fault, for making him study what he doesn’t want.’

  ‘Per-aps, per-aps.’

  An hour or so later, Monsieur de Lafitte returned with the bike in the back of his car. Michel had left it abandoned on the side of the road at a junction that led to the motorway.

  The Lafittes stood around the bike staring at it, as if hoping it could tell its story. Madame de Lafitte was still convinced that some terrible accident had happened and I was starting to feel worried as well. What if Michel had been run down by a lorry? Or had hitched a lift with some murderer or something?

  The day continued with everyone jumping like mad each time the phone rang. But it was only friends and relations wondering if we’d had any news. The police didn’t seem interested. It seemed sixteen-year-old boys disappeared all the time and generally were found with some girl or a load of friends who’d gone off on some binge or other. They insisted there was nothing to worry about, he’d be back before the end of the day.

  I was in my room at around four in the afternoon when I heard a car swerve into the drive and come grinding to a halt outside the front door.

  A dark-haired man got out of it and as he stretched to his full height I instantly recognised him. Oh-my-god! It was Marie-Christine’s handsome stranger! What on earth was he doing here?

  I watched as Madame de Lafitte came out to the car and greeted him affectionately. She hugged him and held him really close.

  ‘Phillippe,’ I heard her say. ‘Comme je suis contente que tu es venu …’

  Phillippe! So this was Michel’s father! In the same instant I realised he was Marie-Christine’s brother – the one whose wife had left him. So what I had seen in the café hadn’t been a lovers’ rendezvous at all, but simply a sister comforting her brother. How could I have got it so wrong?

  When I went downstairs, the family was in the salon having a kind of conference. Michel’s father came over and shook me by the hand. I looked up to find an older face but eyes very like Michel’s looking at me gravely. As his eyes met mine, it felt horribly as if he could see what was going on in my head. I felt even more guilty. Should I keep the promise I’d made to Michel? Or should I go back on my word?

  I sat on a chair at the table trying to follow what was going on. Monsieur de Lafitte seemed to think that Michel had gone to Paris. But if so, why hadn’t he waited and gone up on the train with us and disappeared later? Matthilde seemed sure that he’d be found with some friend. Madame de Lafitte insisted that he’d gone in search of his mother.

  Suddenly Michel’s father turned to me and asked what I thought.

  I stared down at the table. A newspaper was lying on it. As luck would have it, the headline was about the ‘festival du film de Cannes’.

  I felt myself blush to the roots of my hair as I looked up and caught old Oncle Charles’s eye.

  ‘Le festival de Cannes!’ It’s early this year,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘C’est ça, n’est pas, Caroline?’

  All eyes turned on me.

  I nodded. ‘Oui.’

  I hadn’t really meant to give Michel away. It was a chance in a million that the newspaper should be lying there. But I felt terribly relieved that the
secret was out.

  Everyone started talking at once, asking questions. There didn’t seem much point now in holding back the rest. So I told them what I knew. That Michel had decided to go to Cannes where he planned to play his guitar at some restaurant in order to keep himself.

  Michel’s father got up from his seat and grabbed his car keys as if he was going to leap into his car and take off for Cannes right away.

  ‘Quel restaurant?’ he demanded.

  I racked my brain. Michel had mentioned the name but I hadn’t really taken it in.

  ‘J’ai oublié le nom,’ I said.

  Everyone in turn urged me to try to remember it. The shadow of a memory came back, the vaguest feeling of the word.

  ‘I think it was something to do with French history,’ I said slowly. ‘To do with a palace or royalty or something.’

  ‘Le Roi Soleil?’ suggested Monsieur de Lafitte.

  ‘Le Petit Prince?’ tried Matthilde.

  ‘Versailles?’ asked Madame de Lafitte. ‘Ou Fontainebleau?’

  ‘La Pompadour?’ said Matthilde.

  I shook my head. They were getting me totally confused. My mind had gone blank.

  ‘I think I’d remember it if I saw it,’ I said.

  ‘Voilà,’ said Phillippe, as if there was not a moment to be lost. ‘Then you must come with me. And Matthilde too.’

  Madame de Lafitte said something about us being due back at school. There was a lot of discussion back and forth. But she was overruled. It was decided that Matthilde and I should go with Michel’s father. In Cannes he would put us on the train back to Paris.

  All of a sudden I wasn’t going back to school. I was actually going to Cannes, and during the film festival. This was something to tell Jess and Angie. I had visions of sun-baked beaches, palm-shaded boulevards and glamorous yachts. Or night-time with bright lights and sleek limousines with glimpses of the stars inside. And better than any of that – I felt sure we would find Michel.