‘Do you mind if I have those?’
‘Have what?’ he asked, perplexed.
‘The croissants. Our hotel doesn’t lay on breakfast – or any meals at all. It hasn’t got a restaurant, and the bathroom’s a disgrace. In fact, it’s the crummiest hotel I’ve ever seen.’
He wasn’t listening, just watching in incredulity as she sat down on his chair, split the croissants open, larded them with butter and then jam, wrapped them in a paper napkin, and transferred them to her bag. Next, she up-ended the sugar bowl, tipped out all the little cubes and crammed them in on top.
‘Pippa likes them, and they help to fill her up. We’re trying to manage on just one meal a day. You see …’ She glanced over her shoulder, to make sure the child was safely out of earshot. ‘My husband’s left, walked out on us, so money’s very tight.’
Daniel sank down on the other chair, lit a cigarette. He had just stubbed out the last one, but this was clearly a crisis. He offered the packet to Penny, but she shook her head, pulled her chair towards his, speaking in an undertone so Pippa couldn’t hear.
‘I know it sounds stupid, but I’d no idea Paris would be so big. I thought I’d find Phil fairly easily – and his rotten woman. Well, I didn’t think, to tell the truth, I just went raving mad. I mean, I never knew there was another woman, not until three days ago, and then it all came out. An Arab girl, of all things, with a cosy little pied-à-terre in Paris, and a husband and three children of her own – though they live somewhere else. Why does it have to be so complicated?’
Yes, why? Daniel echoed silently, picking up his knife and drawing neat straight lines with it, up and down the tablecloth. If she took him for a marriage guidance counsellor, then she had chosen the wrong man. He’d had no experience of marriage, had always felt it safer to avoid solemn ensnaring vows. And anyway, this was hardly the right setting for a therapeutic session. He’d be back here in the morning, and shuddered at the thought of a cross-examination from the inquisitive Pierre. What had happened with les jeunes rousses? Were they acquaintances of his? Had they come to look for him?
No, he mouthed to no one. They’re strangers, total strangers. Yet how could he say that when the girl seemed so damned trusting, and even the child was sidling up to his chair, as if she too was relying on him to be a sort of instant Santa Claus?
He put the knife down, kept his own voice low. ‘Have you no idea at all where your husband might be staying?’ He ought to take some interest, show he was concerned. I mean, this pied-à-terre you mentioned – did he give you any clue as to where it was?’
‘Not the faintest, no.’ Penny retrieved one of the sugar-lumps and crunched it in her teeth. ‘Look!’ she said to Pippa, who was now pulling at her sleeve. ‘There’s something shiny on the floor, under that big table by the window. Go and see what it is.’ The child scurried off obediently, and Penny used the respite to blurt out another rush of words, keeping one eye on her daughter all the time.
‘He just said Paris – and Khadisha. What a name! I ask you. I mean, it would be bad enough if she was common-or-garden English, and working in his firm or something, but at least he wouldn’t have rushed off across the Channel. Well, I expect he flew – it’s quicker – but it also costs a bomb. We came the cheapest way – overnight coach and ferry – which is probably why Pippa caught cystitis. The ferry was delayed, you see, and she was sitting on the deck for half the night – I mean, right on the wet wood. All the seats were taken, and every time we went inside, she started to feel sick.’
He swivelled on his chair to appraise the child again. She had just crawled from under the table with a gold foil wrapper in her hand, which she rushed to show her mother. Despite her pleasure in the find, she did look ill, and fragile – sparrow-boned, with pale translucent skin, eyes too big for her face. ‘Well, we’d better get her medicine,’ he said. Best to deal with the matter in hand and leave Phil to the divorce lawyers. It was too difficult, in any case, trying to talk, frankly without her overhearing, and it was beginning to make him edgy, concerned on her behalf.
He pushed his chair back, checked his watch. There was a pharmacy three streets away, which opened early and was on his route to work. Penny didn’t seem to realize he was pressed for time. She was still rattling on (though now about the Channel ferries), and had both legs hooked around her chair-leg, as if she was entrenched there for the morning. He cleared his throat, suggested that they move, then tried to steer his protégées in the direction of the door. Never, in eight months, had he roused such lively interest; all eyes in the café following his progress. He couldn’t even make a hasty exit, since Pippa held them up by peering under every table in search of further treasure.
Once they reached the street, Penny stopped to take her shoe off, balancing on the other foot while she examined it with a frown. ‘Damn! The heel’s coming loose. I only hope it lasts.’
Daniel glanced from mother to daughter. Neither of them seemed adequately shod. The child wore flimsy sneakers, and one of her white laces was half-undone and trailing. ‘Won’t she trip?’ he asked.
Penny knelt to do the lace up, her skirt straining over her thighs. She wasn’t overweight, but her clothes seemed skimpy on her, as if they had shrunk in a hot wash. She gave her daughter an affectionate kiss on the nose, then pretended to bite the nose off. The child didn’t smile, just pulled miserably at her clothes.
‘Mummy, my shorts is wet.’
‘Yes, I know, pet, it must feel really horrid. We’ll go back and change them in a sec, but we’re going to get your medicine first.’
‘I don’t want any medicine.’
‘Yes, you do. It’s only like a drink – a glass of fizzy stuff.’
Daniel tried to slow his usual rapid stride. They were walking three abreast, though the child kept lagging behind, still tugging at her shorts. Thank God the sun was shining – it would help to dry her clothes, prevent her going down with something worse. She seemed worryingly vulnerable, too small and frail for such a hectic city. They had reached the crossroads and a van was rattling past; someone else’s hooter blaring out a warning; buses blowing hot breath on their legs. They waited for the pedestrian signal to change from red to green.
He raised his voice above the din: ‘There’s a pharmacy just past the next lights. We’ll be there in a few minutes.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, smiling. It was the first time he had seen her smile, and it brightened her whole face. He suddenly longed to be Canute, to step out and halt the traffic for her, push back the pounding waves of motor-bikes and cars.
They crossed at last, and continued down the street through the tide of stone-faced office-workers; the delivery-men with their trays of downy peaches, crates of knobbly cauliflowers. Shopkeepers were cranking back their shutters, arranging wares in windows; an overweight pâtissier washing down his narrow strip of pavement with steaming soapy water. A waiter in a long white apron ambled from his restaurant to pin up the day’s menu, nodding to the customers who were breakfasting outside. It was the last week of September, but warm and almost summery; the striped umbrellas still in place on the wrought-iron pavement tables; a few men in their shirtsleeves sipping café crême. Daniel glanced down at his own grey suit and sober dark-toned tie. They must look a strange trio: one formal, two in deshabille. The carrot-heads were already attracting notice, people’s eyes lingering, the odd surreptitious smile. Did they imagine he belonged with them, his wife and little daughter? He quickened his pace, as if to distance himself from both the thought and the dependants. Penny trotted to keep up, but the child was dragging at her hand, and finally shuffled to a stop.
‘I’m tired, Mummy. My legs hurt.’
‘We’re almost there now, darling. It’s just a skip and a jump. Okay, okay, I’ll carry you, but you’re not to cry, you promise? Here, have a sugar-lump.’ She unwrapped one from its paper, popped it in the open mouth, then picked up the fretful child.
Daniel tensed, uncertain of the drill. Should he
offer to carry the kid himself? The idea wasn’t exactly appealing. Suppose she made a scene, saw him as a bogeyman? Though she didn’t seem too happy as it was, drumming her feet against Penny’s rucked-up skirt, dribbling sugar-spittle on her neck. But he couldn’t turn up at the office with his shirt stained (or worse, smelling of stale pee) when he was due to give his quarterly report to the agency which was funding his research. He knew from past experience that its director, Jean-Claude Benoît, was often highly critical, and had to be handled with diplomacy. Yet it seemed uncharitable and churlish to let Penny soldier on, encumbered as she was not only with the squirming child, but with a bulky carrier-bag.
‘Shall I … er …?’ He opened his arms, indicating his willingness to do what was required. Duty again. His mother would have carried the entire unlettered Tonga tribe in her staunchly zealous arms – probably had done in her youth.
‘I’m not sure that she’ll go to you,’ Penny murmured dubiously. ‘And I’m afraid she’s rather damp.’
‘That’s okay,’ he lied. He was more concerned about frightening the child. Absurd to fear rejection from a mite of three or four, but it somehow seemed important that Pippa didn’t shrink from him. That unnerving grey-green gaze was fixed on him again as he transferred her to his arms. He was doing it all wrong. He could feel the child’s discomfort – her unease and apprehension added to his own. He tried to settle her less awkwardly, even dared a word or two. ‘Is that all right? You comfy?’
Pippa nodded timidly. She hadn’t made a sound, hadn’t screamed or struggled. Wasn’t that a sort of triumph in itself? He walked on slowly, with a crazy sense of achievement. He was carrying a child, the first time in all his thirty-one years; experiencing the same relief as if an unknown and risky-looking dog had licked his hand and wagged its tail, instead of biting him. There were so many things he had never done, or deliberately avoided. He had no siblings or even cousins, so had never been confronted with nephews, nieces, other people’s offspring. His friends and colleagues were mostly fellow bachelors, and the married ones with children rarely invited him to their homes.
He let go of his frown, only now aware of how he had been tensing all his muscles. He must get things in proportion. It was hardly a big deal to carry one small child for five minutes of his lifetime. All the same, he tried to do it well, move as carefully as possible, without jolting her unduly. The poor kid had lost her father, needed no more shaking up. Damn, he thought, I’m already getting involved; must extricate myself. I’ll see them to the pharmacy, sort them out some medicine, then put them in a taxi straight back to their hotel.
The second set of lights were green. He strode across, feeling a new confidence as Pippa put both arms around his neck. He was irrationally elated by the gesture, its combination of trust and tenderness. Or was she simply clinging on for dear life? He realized that he’d unconsciously speeded up again; had never really noticed till this morning how rushed his normal pace was, as if he were permanently late for something – perhaps for life itself. In fact he was a punctual man: obsessively punctual, so some of his friends complained.
‘See that big green cross?’ he said to Pippa, pointing out the pharmacy, which was now only two doors down. ‘That’s where we get your medicine.’
‘Come on then, Miss Lazybones,’ said Penny, reaching up to take the child, who was staring at the neon cross in anxious fascination, as if she expected some green medicine to come bubbling out of it. ‘You can stand on your own two feet now and give this poor man a break. What is your name?’ she asked him. ‘You haven’t told us yet.’
He was surprised and disconcerted. Could he really have been so secretive? Yet, even now, he was reluctant to reply. Names were very intimate, invited other questions, and he might never get away. His report this morning was vital, the culmination of three months’ solid slog.
‘Daniel,’ he said tersely.
‘Oh, nice! I used to know a Dan once, and he was a really super guy.’
‘I’m Daniel, not Dan.’ The remark was a slap in the race, he realized, when he saw her hurt expression. He backtracked hastily. ‘It’s just that I don’t like shortenings – not for any name.’
‘Well, you won’t approve of ours, then: Penny, Pippa, Phil.’
‘All Ps.’
‘All Ps,’ she repeated. ‘And pee-pees! Are you okay, Pippa, or d’you need to go again?’
The child shook her head, her face pressed close against the window of the pharmacy, absorbed by a display inside: two cardboard children rocking back and forth as they sucked the juice from gigantic oranges.
Penny gave him another grateful smile. ‘Perhaps you’ve worked a miracle,’ she joked. ‘And we won’t even need the medicine!’
‘Best get it anyway.’ Daniel ushered them inside, relieved to see there were only two customers waiting to be served. With any luck, he would be sitting in his office by 9.30. The fellow here was good, didn’t waste your time. He’d used him before, when he’d gone down with some strange bug, and had followed the French habit of consulting a pharmacien, rather than a doctor.
He waited his turn, then explained the child’s symptoms, breaking off now and then to ask Penny for more details, or translate the questions for her. It was all a bit of a rigmarole – switching from one language to the other, repeating the instructions and advice – but it was finally sorted out, and the medicine entrusted to him. He felt a nudge from Penny and looked round to see her handing him a battered scarlet purse.
‘The money’s double Dutch to me, but just help yourself from here.’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it.’
‘No, really, that’s not fair. You’ve already given up your time, so I can’t possibly expect you to pay, on top of everything else.’
He laughed to hide his embarrassment, loathed discussing money. ‘My good deed for the day.’
‘But you’ve already done one good deed.’
‘Well, my good deed for tomorrow, then.’ He picked up a jar of vitamin C, the brand on display in the window, asked the man to take for that as well. If the kid was existing on sugar-lumps, then she could do with what they were advertising as a tonique anti-infections.
He passed the package to Penny, pocketed his change. ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to leave you – I’m late for work as it is. But I’ll put you in a taxi, so you don’t get lost again. What’s the name of your hotel?’
Extraordinary how her face could change. There was panic in it now, not just disappointment, and he could see her mouth trembling; the eyes beginning to brim again. Oh God, he thought, don’t cry.
‘It’s … it’s called the … the Manchester,’ she said, her voice dangerously unsteady. ‘I can’t think why, in Paris. But that’s where Phil comes from – Manchester, I mean. I thought it was a good omen and that it might help to bring him back.’
‘Well, let’s hope it does,’ he smiled. He must harden his heart, find an empty cab. His mother had always taught him to put the general good before the individual. His report concerned the fate of several thousand illiterates, not two feckless females.
‘Taxi!’ he shouted, flagging down a white Mercedes, and handing Penny a clutch of twenty-franc notes. The morning was proving expensive, and jobs like his didn’t pay that well. Still, money was so relative, and these two were truly skint.
He asked the driver if he knew the Hotel Manchester, received a surly nod in reply. Pippa at least seemed thrilled by the prospect of a taxi-ride: she climbed in with alacrity, and started bouncing on the seat. Penny followed slowly, still trying to detain him. Did he work round here? How would she repay him?
‘There’s nothing to repay.’
‘But …’
He blessed the discourteous driver, who was already pulling away, cutting off her words. He stood waving from the pavement, watching the cab manoeuvre through the traffic. Framed in the back window, two pale faces gazed at him, the larger one dabbing at her eyes.
Oh hell, he thought, she is cryi
ng. He fumbled for his cigarettes, lit one angrily, then turned on his heel and strode towards the office.
Chapter Four
Daniel closed his office door and walked briskly down the stairs. His report had been extremely well received. Even the pernickety Jean-Claude was clearly impressed, and had actually lingered afterwards to offer his personal congratulations on all the time and effort he’d put in. And his mother was much better: up and dressed, and working herself, or at least catching up on her post. All her work was voluntary now: beavering away for charities, sitting on innumerable committees. He’d phoned twice to see how she was, warning her not to overdo it, and saying he’d be round there in the lunch-hour. The weather was still glorious; the sun throwing golden swathes across the stair-carpet, burnishing the yellow leaves outside. He paused a moment to look out of the window, admire the row of chestnut trees at the far end of the square. He was lucky to have an office which overlooked a green oasis, in contrast to the rackety roads on two sides of the building. His mother was less fortunate. The only view from her poky flat was of other bricks and mortar. But she did have a minuscule balcony, which she had enlivened with some flowering plants and a primitive wooden sculpture she had brought back from Lusaka. Perhaps it would be warm enough to sit out there at lunchtime – pretend it was July, forget the sombre fact that the days were drawing in.
‘Hey, Daniel, it’s us again!’
Abruptly he swung round, returning from July to late September. There, in the foyer, not a dozen feet away from him, stood the two English carrot-heads. He stared in disbelief. How in God’s name had they traced him to his office? Nervously he carried on downstairs, stopping three steps from the bottom, as if afraid to come too near.
‘I’ve brought your change back,’ Penny said, diving towards him with a wad of grubby notes. ‘You gave us far too much, and I shouldn’t have taken it anyway, when you’d already been so decent.’
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