The Lover

by Amanda Brookfield

  ‘I don’t know what you think you’re doing,’ Frances hissed.

  ‘I thought you were trying to see me,’ Daniel murmured, his tone apologetic, but his eyes gleaming.

  ‘We ate dinner in your hotel – Daisy had booked it. There was nothing I could do. I do wish you hadn’t got yourself invited up here.’

  ‘It would have looked rude to say no.’

  ‘No it wouldn’t.’

  ‘Or odd then. It would have looked odd.’

  Frances shook her head. ‘Meeting acquaintances on holidays is a known horror. Nobody likes doing it. Accepted practice is for all parties to issue a few polite exchanges and then walk on.’

  ‘Fuck accepted practice,’ he growled, bending towards her and whispering, ‘I couldn’t resist you.’

  At which point Daisy returned with their coffee, causing Frances to spring back to her corner of the sofa. ‘I was just telling Daniel that his hotel has one of the best restaurants in the area – he had no idea—’

  ‘You mean you’re staying there and you didn’t know?’ exclaimed Daisy. ‘Where on earth did you have supper?’

  ‘I had a sandwich and a beer round the corner,’ Daniel confessed meekly. ‘Still, there’s always tomorrow.’

  ‘Be sure to book. Even hotel residents have to.’ She poured coffee into three delicate porcelain cups that Frances did not recognise. ‘So how long are you staying in Paris?’

  ‘Just till Sunday afternoon.’

  ‘Like Mum then,’ replied Daisy easily, kicking off her shoes and tucking her long legs up into her armchair. ‘She nearly ran you over, did you say? What a weird way to become friends.’

  ‘I know, isn’t it? But weird things are sometimes the best.’

  ‘Aren’t they?’ She leaned forward eagerly. ‘What do you do…Daniel, was it?’

  ‘History of art. I’m a lecturer at Sussex university.’

  ‘But that’s where Felix is,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘So I gather.’

  Frances sat watching them, taking small sips from her coffee which was lukewarm and flecked with granules that looked like chocolate and tasted of wood. After getting up from the sofa to help with the tray she had relocated herself to an armchair several feet away from Daniel. While the pair of them talked, leaping from subject to subject with charming illogicality and ease, she felt not only excluded but afraid. Every so often Daniel did make a point of trying to get her to participate more fully, but each time she kept her response to monosyllables, hoping to communicate enough discomfort or displeasure for him to see that it was time to withdraw. But when the dregs of their coffees were cold Daisy fetched a bottle of wine and a bowl of fruit, placing them on the table in front of Daniel’s knees.

  ‘Would you do the honours?’ she asked, handing him a corkscrew, ‘corks disintegrate at the sight of me.’

  ‘Speaking for myself,’ Frances protested, ‘I’m not sure I really want another drink.’

  ‘Oh go on, why not?’ retorted her daughter, clapping in unnecessary congratulation as Daniel popped the cork from the bottle. ‘You’re on holiday, remember? Let your hair down, Mum.’

  Frances sank back into her chair, inwardly recoiling at the tone of her daughter’s voice, feeling suddenly like an ancient relative on a day’s excursion from a nursing home.

  ‘Hmm, nice wine,’ remarked Daniel, taking an initial sip and trying to catch Frances’s eye.

  ‘Oh, I just go on whether I like the look of the labels,’ replied Daisy breezily, reaching for her cigarettes and the large pewter ashtray, which she balanced on the arm of her chair.

  Frances watched the beam of her lover’s smile illuminate her daughter’s face. The more fluently they talked, the more she shrank into her chair. Her glass remained untouched on the table. Deep in the nape of her neck she could feel a headache stirring.

  ‘Cigarette?’

  Daniel shook his head. He turned to look at Frances. ‘Are you all right?’

  She smiled tightly. ‘A little tired. In fact,’ she stood up slowly, ‘if you don’t mind, I think I’ll turn in for the night.’

  Daniel was on his feet in an instant. ‘It’s really very late – I must be going—’

  ‘Finish your wine at least,’ commanded Daisy. ‘Mum won’t mind, will you Mum?’

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Frances dryly, her eyes barely leaving the floor as she muttered a farewell and slipped from the room. Behind her she heard Daisy saying, ‘So who is it you’re writing this thing about?’ Then she closed the door, shutting out the scene, feeling like an actress leaving a play in which her role had been snatched away.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Frances woke early the next morning, roused by the window panes rattling in protest at the Saturday traffic already streaming through the street below. At first disoriented by her surroundings, it took a few moments for the unsatisfactory events of the previous evening to flood her consciousness, ruling out either peace of mind or a return to the blissful oblivion of sleep which had finally claimed her in the early hours of the morning. After retreating to bed, she had lain awake in the dark for what felt like hours, straining through all the unfamiliar noises to discern the door-slam that would signify Daniel’s departure from the flat.

  Having accepted that she was in no frame of mind for a lie-in, Frances pulled on a jumper over her nightie for warmth and crept along the hall. All was silent as she passed the door of Daisy’s bedroom. The sitting room looked grimy in the ivory light of early morning. The remains of their small party were still scattered about the room, three coffee cups ringed with brown stains, a heap of cigarette stubs, an apple core, cushions in disarray. Her own full wine glass remained at the opposite end of the table from the two empty ones, a bitter reminder to Frances both of the fact and justification of her sense of exclusion. And the wine bottle was clearly empty, she noted grimly, starting, out of habit to tidy up and then hurling a cushion across the sofa instead. It bounced once and landed

  silently on the floor next to Daisy’s abandoned shoes.

  Sexual jealousy – particularly with regard to her own daughter – was a novel and entirely unwelcome experience. Though it was reasonable to assume that during the course of two decades Paul must have felt the occasional twinge of attraction for other women or other lives, he had never once given Frances grounds for suspecting as much. Neither, for her part, had she. A crush on the doctor who had been so kind during their first summer in the country, when Daisy broke her collar bone falling off a fence and Felix had so many ear infections they thought his hearing might be impaired for life, was not something Frances had ever felt the need to act upon or confess to. That the doctor liked her had been as evident as the impossibility of anything coming of the situation. When, a few months later, he and his family moved away, Frances had breathed a sigh of relief, glad to be able to readjust her focus to her husband without the inconvenient distraction of so futile an infatuation.

  Retreating to her bedroom, Frances began tugging on her clothes, thinking with some longing of the sometimes dull, but reliable solidity of her marriage. What she shared with Daniel felt like a tornado in comparison. Having tied the buckles of her boots, she flopped back onto the bed, suddenly exhausted by the see-sawing of her emotions and the new despicable envy burning in her heart.

  Leaving a note to say that she had gone in search of fresh pastries for breakfast, Frances took Daisy’s keys from the hall table and let herself out of the flat. She would walk and think she decided, setting off with a determined stride in the opposite direction to Daniel’s hotel. After only a few yards however, she spun round to retrace her steps, her handbag swinging wildly round her hips. A few minutes later she was at the hotel reception asking a young man with pimples sprinkled on his cheeks for Daniel’s room number, too fired up to care what conclusions he might draw. Then she was outside the room, banging her fist on the door. It swung open so suddenly she almost punched him in the face.

  He was clutching a towel rou
nd his waist, his face and hair crumpled from sleep.

  At the sight of him Frances could feel her anger dissolving into longing.

  ‘I was so hoping you’d come,’ he exclaimed, forgetting the towel and pulling her into his arms. ‘Last night I nearly…’ ‘About last night,’ she began, struggling to extricate herself from his embrace. ‘How dare you – I was so – I felt so – flirting like that—’

  He broke off at once, retrieving the towel with as much dignity as he could muster and knotting it tightly round his waist. ‘Flirting?’ He scowled. ‘I was not. I was being friendly. I want your daughter to like me – is that such a crime?’

  ‘Like you?’ Frances’s tone was sneering. ‘Staying up like that all cosy on the sofa after I’d gone to bed—’

  ‘She gave me little choice, if you recall. And we weren’t cosy on the sofa. And Daisy finished off the bottle virtually single-handed. And she did practically all of the talking. It might interest you to know that she doesn’t seem very happy—’

  ‘Oh, so now I’m going to get a detailed character analysis of my own daughter, am I?’

  ‘Jesus, Frances, I thought you’d come here to see me.’ Slumping down on the bed he squinted at his wrist watch. ‘Fuck, it’s only seven o’clock. Far too early to be attacked by anyone, let alone you.’ He dropped his head into his hands and rubbed his face. ‘I’m sorry about last night,’ he muttered, ‘hijacking your evening and so on, but when things scare me I’ve always had this habit of running at them instead of away from them. Clumsy, no doubt, but that’s my style.’

  Frances looked for somewhere to retreat and regroup, but the room was so small and cramped that the best she could do was lean against the wall, and fold her arms. ‘I thought you fancied her,’ she whispered, trying to cling onto her anger but aware only of sounding absurd – and so pitiful she blushed from the shame of it.

  Daniel chuckled, shaking his head. ‘I’m in a real no-win situation here. If I say Daisy is not attractive you’ll jump down my throat and if I say—’

  Without meaning to and much to her horror Frances burst into tears, overcome by the realisation that she had lost her judgement entirely; that such was the intensity of her feelings towards the man on the bed that she could no longer trust herself to know anything relating to him with the remotest degree of wisdom or impartiality.

  ‘Come here.’ He reached out his hand, drawing her to sit next to him. ‘Daisy is lovely. Too thin, too mixed up, too…basically, she’s not you.’ He put his arm round her, squeezing her shoulders hard. ‘I’m sorry if I upset you last night. When she asked me back I just couldn’t resist it. And then the situation just sort of evolved – you saw for yourself. I think she liked me – I hope she liked me – like I said, she did most of the talking. I left as soon as I could. About eleven o’clock I think.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Frances whispered. ‘I didn’t get much sleep.’ She stood up and blew her nose on a few segments of starchy toilet roll. ‘Better go. I’m supposed to be buying breakfast. Daisy doesn’t know I’ve gone.’

  ‘Nor will she for a while, no doubt,’ he replied, an impish grin spreading across his face. He took Frances by the hand and pulled her back onto the bed. ‘I’d give her another two hours at least.’

  ‘Two hours?’ murmured Frances, trying to focus on the conversation rather than on Daniel’s fingers which had started working their way down her shirt buttons.

  ‘At least,’ he whispered, shifting in the narrow bed so that there was room for her alongside.

  *

  Letting herself back into the flat and finding Daisy still fast asleep, Frances felt as guiltily jubilant as a truant schoolgirl. After bustling quietly round the sitting room, clearing up the debris and opening windows to remove some of the stale smell of tobacco, she managed to negotiate both the microwave and the cafetière in order to prepare herself breakfast. Licking warm croissant crumbs off her fingers and seeing that it was nearly half past ten, she decided to surprise her daughter with a similar feast.

  Knocking briefly, she entered the bedroom, pushing the door open with her shoulder because of the tray, laden not only with warm croissant and coffee but also a small glass of freshly squeezed orange juice.

  ‘Come on sleepyhead,’ she called softly, sliding the tray amongst the jumble of toiletries on the dressing table and smiling to herself at the general disarray of the room, glad that it was no longer her role to remark on it. The curtains, which were heavy and far too long for the window, took some wrestling to open.

  ‘Daisy – wake up now.’

  The heap of bedclothes moved, causing another stirring of Frances’s heart. She sat on the bed and stroked the section of head visible above the edge of the duvet. ‘Sleep well?’

  Thick with the after-effects of wine and the four analgesics she had swallowed at five o’clock that morning, Daisy groaned and turned onto her back, still registering nothing beyond a reluctance to open her eyes. If her short hair had not been so flattened against the pillow Frances might not have noticed the trace of yellow and violet curling round her right eye. As it was she had several seconds in which both to observe it and to register that it was not leftover make-up as she had first supposed, but the remnants of physical damage.

  ‘Daisy?’ She patted her shoulder. ‘Wake up, I’ve brought you breakfast. What happened to your face?’

  Although Daisy kept her eyes closed, the question fired her into immediate and intense consciousness. In the same instant she managed a quick appraisal of her options. Her body was under the covers. Only her face needed defending.

  ‘Walked into the edge of the cupboard in the bathroom,’ she said carelessly, manufacturing a deep yawn that became real half-way through. ‘Half asleep one morning – bloody stupid.’ ‘Why didn’t you tell me about it?’

  Daisy sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. ‘Mum, it was ages ago.’ She shrugged her shoulders impatiently. ‘There was nothing to tell. It doesn’t hurt at all and is hardly noticeable. Did you say something about breakfast?’

  Frances fetched the tray.

  ‘Daniel whatshisname was nice.’

  ‘Yes, isn’t he?’ Frances straightened the section of the duvet nearest her. ‘Funny who you bump into – I hope you didn’t mind him coming back like that.’

  Daisy shook her head, her mouth full of croissant. ‘We could meet up with him again if you like.’

  ‘No,’ put in Frances hurriedly, ‘I don’t think so – I mean, it’s nice just being the two of us. What I’d really like, if you could bear it, would be to play at being a tourist. I’ve never been up the Eiffel Tower, or taken a boat down the Seine, or—’

  Daisy let out a good-humoured groan. ‘OK, OK, I get the picture. And thanks for this Mum,’ she gestured at the tray on her knees, ‘it’s lovely to be spoilt sometimes.’

  ‘Nice for me too.’ Frances paused at the door, thinking how vulnerable and young her daughter looked, propped with her sore face amongst the pillows, and fearing suddenly that she might have been neglecting her.

  Chapter Thirty

  A brown puddle – whether of tea or coffee Sally wasn’t sure – lapped round one side of the foil ashtray. Inside the ashtray was the yellow cork of a cigarette butt, tipped with pink. Felix was standing in the queue with a tray, studiously not looking at her. Even when he met her at the school gates, he had kept his head down, beckoning her to follow him down the street with ugly haste. Clumping after him in her now not so new weighty-soled shoes, her school bag heavy and her violin banging uncomfortably against her thigh, Sally had felt undignified and indignant. Only when they were several streets clear of the school and the immediate possibility of familiar faces, did he slow and wait for her to catch up.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fucking marvellous, how do you think? Could you carry this please?’ She thrust her violin at him and swung her satchel to a more comfortable position. ‘I’m supposed to be in Combe Road having a music lesson. I’ll be in deep shit for m
issing it. Where are we going?’

  ‘To talk. Somewhere we won’t be seen.’

  ‘So you got my letter then. I was beginning to wonder.’

  ‘Yeah.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I got your letter. Not the greatest of news. Not the friendliest of communications either.’

  ‘Oh, excuse me.’ Behind the shield of the scathing tone she shrivelled with unhappiness. ‘How am I supposed to feel? You pissing off like that – after what I'd been through – and now this—’

  ‘I tried to see you,’ he snapped. ‘I was refused admittance, if I recall correctly.’

  ‘I was ill. And anyway I knew already you didn’t love me,’ Sally wailed, forgetting all her resolve to remain cool, too weary suddenly to care.

  The silence from Felix felt dark and unbridgeable. He led the way – walking so quickly she had trouble keeping up – down several more unfamiliar streets and then ducked into a poky café that smelt of onions.

  At least he looked as bad as she felt, Sally observed now, studying Felix as he delved in his pocket for money to pay the girl at the till and noticing for the first time the stoop in his broad shoulders and the greyness in his cheeks. When he set the tray down she saw that there was a cluster of angry pink spots on his forehead, half screened by the lanky shelf of his fringe.

  ‘Look Sally – of course, I’m really sorry about the…’ He broke off, unable to see through the ordeal of completing the sentence. ‘I mean, I know it must be awful for you.’ He unloaded the bottle of water she had asked for and a cup of muddy tea for himself. ‘But Christ, you were the one who said it was safe.’ The complaint burst out of him on a wave of outrage, erasing the feeble mask of empathetic composure which he knew was expected of males in such circumstances.

  ‘I thought it was safe,’ she whispered.

  ‘And you don’t even look – I mean I’d never have guessed—’ Although his expectations had been ill-defined to say the least, Felix was quite unprepared for the subtle changes in Sally’s appearance. She did look larger, but somehow more attractive too, fuller and more curvy, as if she had been too thin before. ‘I mean, you’ve done the proper tests and so on have you?’