He ignored the money, confounded by a flash of cleavage. She had changed her clothes and was now wearing tight blue jeans and a low-cut top in a violent shade of cyclamen which quarrelled with her hair.
‘I hope I’m not being a pain, but I felt I had to come and thank you. I mean, not many men would have taken all that trouble. ‘Pippa! Blow, don’t sniff.’ She rummaged for a hankie, wiped her daughter’s nose, then planted herself at the bottom of the stairs, effectively blocking his getaway.
‘We watched you as the cab drove off,’ she told him. ‘But then you disappeared – turned the corner out of sight, and I felt so … well, just terrible. I suppose it suddenly dawned on me that the only person we knew in the whole of Paris had just vanished into thin air. So I shouted to the driver to turn round and catch you up. He didn’t understand at first, and by the time he’d done a U-turn and crawled through all the traffic, I’d resigned myself to losing you again.’ She paused for breath, sounded puffed and flustered, as if still dashing in pursuit of him.
‘Then clever Pippa spotted you, running up the steps and through this door. I banged on the taxi window, but you didn’t seem to hear, and though we scooted across the road and straight into this building, there was no sign of you at all. I knew you’d told us you were late, so I didn’t like to ask if they could find you.’ She inclined her head to indicate the receptionist, sitting in her cubbyhole further down the foyer. ‘That lady there speaks almost perfect English, and when I said a tall good-looking Englishman called Daniel, with brown eyes and dark straight hair, she said oh yes, Daniel Hughson, and you’d just that minute gone into a meeting, which would probably last till lunchtime. We were back here on the dot of twelve – and didn’t even get lost. Well, I bought a map this time, and made a special effort to notice all the places we were passing, and actually it’s not that far, so Pippa had a sleep first, and she’s already taken two lots of her medicine …’
‘It was yuk,’ the child put in, screwing up her face. She was sprawling on the floor beside her mother, a gap of naked flesh around her midriff. She too wore different clothes: scarlet leggings with a blue and purple jersey. These two seemed to go in for colours as eccentric as their lives.
‘Yuk maybe, but it did the trick. You’re much better, aren’t you, pet?’
‘Good,’ said Daniel lamely. He was still reeling from the flood of words and from the shock of seeing them again. He had assumed it was a one-off meeting, and had dutifully removed them from his mind, so as to devote his full attention to educational programmes in Kakuma. But now he was confused – on his guard, self-conscious, yet experiencing a peculiar excitement. ‘A tall good-looking Englishman,’ she’d said. Had she really meant good-looking, and why should she notice his looks at all when she was so preoccupied with her husband?
He fought an urge to retreat back up the stairs. Her body was disturbingly close, and it was more or less impossible not to look down between her breasts when he was standing directly above her. The tiny buttons on the hot-pink top were straining at their fastenings, the top two undone, unnerving.
She ran an anxious hand through her hair, then slumped against the banisters. ‘I know it sounds awfully sort of pushy, but I wondered if you could spare us any time? I mean, if you’re free for lunch, perhaps you’d let me buy you a sandwich. You see, I’ve made a list of things I need to say in French, and if you could possibly write them down for me, then all I’ll have to do is pass the piece of paper across and point to the right one.’
He was taken aback, unused to women inviting him out and invariably disconcerted when he had to change his plans. He stalled and played for time. ‘But … but how will you understand when people reply?’
‘Oh, shit! I hadn’t thought of that.’
And anyway I’ve got a prior engagement with my mother. Somehow he couldn’t say it. She looked too crestfallen as it was.
‘Well, all right,’ he offered hesitantly. ‘I suppose we could have lunch … I’ll have to make a phone-call first, but I can do that from the restaurant.’ He didn’t want to leave them with the receptionist. If they’d arrived here on the dot of twelve, then they’d already been waiting an hour for him, and Penny had probably regaled Marie-Thérèse with the whole elaborate saga, Arab girl and all. He dismissed thoughts of errant husbands and turned his mind to lunch instead; running through the names of nearby restaurants and trying to come up with one where he wouldn’t meet his colleagues and where the food would suit a four-year-old, yet still impress her mother. Though why the hell should he care about impressing her? Earlier that morning, on their way to the pharmacy, she had spotted a branch of McDonald’s, and her spontaneous whoop of delight had revealed her as a Big Mac fan. No, he drew the line at burgers, eaten with their fingers out of a polystyrene coffin, amidst the smell of grease and onions. After the exertion of his meeting and the paean from Jean-Claude, he deserved to lunch in style. He’d had nothing for breakfast beyond a gulp or two of coffee, and it would be a snack meal this evening with his mother.
‘Gosh, thanks,’ the girl was saying. ‘You are an absolute angel!’ She suddenly lunged forward and gave him a brief impulsive hug. It threw him totally. Her private smells of breath and sweat were jangling at his senses, clashing with the whiff of strawberry hair; his whole body stirred by this contact with her own. She pulled away, rubbed her nose, made some odd remark to Pippa in a casual tone of voice. How the devil could she sound so cool? He glanced down at his suit, amazed that it looked no different. Those two startling seconds pressed against her breasts should have left some imprint, surely?
‘And please do take this money,’ she urged, brandishing the notes again.
His embarrassment was doubled now. He mumbled something fatuous, and managed to squeeze past her to the doorway, where he pretended to be checking on the weather. ‘The … the sun’s so bright, we ought to make the most of it. Let’s get out of this dark hall and find somewhere to eat.’
They followed with no further prompting, Pippa gambolling down the chipped stone steps, then racing to the top again, so she could jump off the last two.
‘It’s left here,’ he informed them as they turned into the street. Gradually he was recovering his composure; his flushed cheeks sallow-pale again, his voice less agitated. And he’d just had a brainwave. There was a Café Pénélope which had opened only recently in the square behind his office. The food was good, by all accounts, and Penny would be tickled by the name, yet it was not the sort of place to attract either Georges or André – too offbeat, too lively.
He slowed for Pippa, who was collecting fallen leaves. ‘There’s a new restaurant round the corner which might be worth a try.’
‘Oh, we don’t want a full-scale meal,’ said Penny. ‘I’m afraid I can only run to a sandwich, and it’s not fair for you to pay again.’
He saw her reaching for her purse. She had just put those wretched notes away, but any minute he would be refusing them a third time. ‘No, please, that’s quite okay,’ he said, forestalling any argument by adding, ‘You can always buy me a drink, if you insist. And then let’s call it quits.’
‘Can I have a drink?’ asked Pippa, discarding her leaves and pulling at her mother’s hand.
‘Yes, ’course you can,’ said Penny. ‘I’m so rich you can have two!’
‘Something fizzy?’
‘Yes.’
Let’s all have something fizzy, Daniel thought, as he turned the corner and Penny’s arm brushed his. He couldn’t explain it in the slightest, but instead of being irritated that his lunch-hour was disrupted, he was almost willing to celebrate the fact.
‘Another P,’ said Penny, lolling back in her chair and surveying the crowded café. Every table was full; the pink walls barely visible beneath posters, pictures, playbills; the steamed-up windows mobbed by climbing plants.
“What is?’ Daniel asked.
‘That blonde girl at the bar. I just heard the waiter call her Pascale. D’you think there’s a real Penelop
e as well?’
‘Bound to be – a fat Madame, oozing cream and garlic, who bosses all the staff about.’
‘I want my drink,’ wailed Pippa.
‘Well, you’ll have to wait, they’re busy.’ Penny watched the waiters charging to and fro; other frustrated customers trying to catch their eye with no success. ‘What d’you fancy – orange?’
‘No, Pepsi.’
‘P for Pepsi!’ Penny opened the menu, exclaiming at its length – a list of fifty-odd dishes scrawled by hand in purple ink. ‘I know!’ she said suddenly, leaning forward and raising her voice above a snort from the espresso machine. ‘Let’s have all Ps. I mean, everything we eat and drink has got to start with a P, okay?’
‘Why, Mummy?’
‘Because today is P-Day, isn’t it, Dan?’
Daniel nodded, hardly objecting to the shortening. Her previous Dan had been ‘a really super guy’, and yes, it was a P-day: peculiar, preposterous, and really rather puzzling. He couldn’t understand why he was actually enjoying being in a restaurant where the service was deplorable, the noise level horrendous, and the menu looked both pricey and pretentious. Two more Ps, he noted wryly, scanning the wine list for a drink which fitted Penny’s rule.
‘Well, I’d better have a Pernod, I suppose.’ He hated the stuff, especially before a meal. But the alternative was Perrier, and he needed something stronger than mere water. He was nowhere near relaxed yet; felt overdressed among this casual crowd, and aware that they were still attracting glances. There was no doubt about it: neither he, nor most of the people here, had ever seen hair quite so flagrant.
‘I’m having Pineau de Charentes,’ Penny said, pronouncing it all wrong. ‘I don’t know what it is, but it’s a different P from yours and Pip’s, and that’s one of the rules. We’ve all got to have different Ps, right on through the menu.’
Daniel found to his surprise that he was willing to obey. He usually made the rules himself, at least on matters of food. ‘Ps in French or Ps in English?’ he asked. Whoever made them, rules always needed clarifying.
‘Ps in French,’ said Penny, ‘since the menu’s all in French. But you’ll have to do the translating.’
‘Well, we could all start with potage,’ he suggested. ‘But each have a different kind.’
‘What’s potage?’
‘Soup. And as it happens there are three soups on today – fish soup, vegetable, and leek.’
‘No, that’s cheating,’ Penny said. ‘They’re still all soup. I want pâté anyway, and Pip won’t have a starter. She’ll never manage three courses.’
‘I will!’
‘I’ll give you some of my pâté, then.’
‘What is it?’ Pippa up-ended the pepper-pot, showering pepper over her hands.
‘Sort of liver-sausage stuff.’
She made a face. ‘I hate liver.’
‘It’s not liver. It’s cold, not hot, and squidgy.’
‘Can I have chips with it?’
‘No, they don’t begin with P.’
‘Yes they do,’ said Daniel. ‘Pomtnes frites. And you can have peas as well – petits pois. And do you like fish?’
Pippa shook her head, still nervous when he spoke to her.
‘That’s a pity. Because fish begins with P.’
‘No it doesn’t,’ she corrected him. ‘It begins with F.’
‘Yes, F for fish. But P for poisson. When you want to order fish in France, you ask for p–p–poisson.’ He stressed the initial Ps, remembering how he’d been taught himself, at his nursery school in Lusaka – well, hardly a real nursery school, just a group of other children’s mothers, who’d had less to do than his.
‘P–p–poisson,’ Pippa repeated solemnly.
‘That’s right! You’ve got a really good French accent. Now say chips.’
‘Chips.’
‘No, in French. P–p–pommes frites.’
‘P–p–pommes frites.’
Daniel lit a cigarette, reached out for the ashtray. The child was a natural, or at least a skilful mimic. What other talents might she have, he wondered, and would they ever reach fruition? It was like his Africans again: potential going to waste. ‘You ought to get someone to teach her, Penny. She’d pick it up in no time.’
‘Someone is teaching her,’ Penny retorted with a grin. ‘And perhaps you could teach me, while you’re about it. It’s so frustrating being in France and not understanding a word.’
‘Right. Jump in at the deep end and have a go at ordering the drinks – un Pepsi, un pastis, et un Pineau de Charentes, s’il vous plaît.’
‘Hold it! You’re going far too fast! I’ll never remember that lot.’
‘I want to do it,’ Pippa shouted. ‘Let me, let me!’
‘Okay.’ He slowed his voice. ‘Un P–P–Pepsi, s’il vous plaît.’
Pippa’s brow was creased in concentration, the pepper-pot forgotten, her whole attention focused on his lips. ‘Un P–P–Pepsi, s’ il vous plaît.’
‘Perfect. Now all we have to do is find a waiter.’ He waved his arm, annoyed when no one noticed. He preferred the sort of place where his drink arrived without him even asking.
‘I’ll wave!’ Pippa clambered up on her seat and started semaphoring wildly with both arms. She seemed to have lost her initial shyness, though she subsided pretty quickly when a swarthy man strode up to her and bowed in mock-servility.
‘Qui, mademoiselle?’ he drawled.
‘P–p–poisson,’ struggled Pippa.
Daniel and Penny laughed. ‘No, that’s fish,’ said Daniel. He noticed how the child’s face was as expressive as her mother’s. She looked totally deflated, her triumph turned to shame. ‘Don’t worry,’ he assured her. ‘You were very clever to remember the word at all. Now start again, okay? Un P–P–Pepsi, s’il vous plaît.’
‘Un P–P–Pepsi, s’il vous plaît.’
Penny sat fidgeting with her bracelets, cheap plastic bangles in shades of pink and mauve. ‘They’ll go mad at her nursery school if she keeps repeating all her Ps like that. They’ll think she’s started to stutter.’
Daniel didn’t answer. He had stuttered himself as a child, though not until the age of seven, when he’d been sent away to boarding-school. He banished the dark memory, ordered his and Penny’s drinks, then began rehearsing conversations in his head. He ought to be making an effort to entertain this girl, but was unsure where to start. It wasn’t easy to embark on idle chit-chat, with the shadow of her husband’s desertion looming over them both. And anyway he’d never had the gift of the gab, nor André’s knack for polished opening gambits. He could ask about her life, perhaps, but questions might sound nosy – a form of inquisition – and they’d probably all lead back to Phil, and cause her more distress. He often felt uptight himself when people started closing in with their ‘Where do you live’s?’ and ‘What do you do’s?’; usually felt his answers were inadequate. But why should he assume that Penny was like him, when she was patently a different type entirely: much more free and forthright, more inclined to open up. She might jump at the chance to talk about herself, especially now, when she had no other adult company.
‘Er … do you work at all?’ he enquired. Jobs were fairly safe, and she’d just mentioned Pippa’s nursery school, so she might well work, with her daughter off her hands.
‘Actually, that’s rather a sore point. You see I’ve been doing really dreary things like dishing out the pizzas in a takeaway, and cleaning my sister’s house for her, then feeling sort of restive and frustrated. I’m not qualified for anything much, so I suppose I shouldn’t complain. But I can’t help wishing I could find a job that’s – you know – more inspiring. I’ve always wanted to go to art school, but Phil says it’s too late.’
‘Too late?’ he echoed. She looked about eighteen, though with a child of four, that wasn’t very likely.
‘Most people go straight from school, so I suppose he’s got a point. The maddening thing is, I was accepted myself when I w
as only sixteen and a half – offered a place on the foundation course at Wimbledon School of Art. I was over the moon about it. I’d spent all my spare time drawing, filling loads of sketchbooks to impress them at the interview, but …’ She shrugged, slipped one bangle off her wrist and started twisting it round and round between her fingers. ‘I’m afraid the interview was as far as it ever got. The course itself never happened – like a lot of other things. I mean, you probably won’t believe this, but I’ve never been abroad before.’
He did find it hard to believe. Surely everyone went abroad these days, if only on package tours? He’d spent half his childhood traipsing from pillar to post, and still travelled for his job: long-haul trips to Kenya at least three times a year.
Penny removed a second bangle, laid one on top of the other on the table. ‘My mother was widowed in her thirties – left with four small girls, but not much else. So we never really went away, except to stay with relatives, or odd trips to the seaside. Then I married very early, and Phil had this thing about the Norfolk Broads. He’d stayed there in his childhood, you see, so it had very happy memories for him, and he liked playing at being a ten-year-old again. He also bought a share in a boat, which tied us down, in a way, prevented us ever going anywhere new. I wonder if Khadisha likes boats,’ she added, with an unconvincing laugh.
‘I like boats,’ said Pippa, grabbing the two bracelets and slipping them on her own wrist.
‘Yes, I know you do, pet. Remember that day you fell into the river and ruined your new shoes?’
‘I’m hungry,’ the child said fractiously, dismissing boats and shoes.
Daniel opened the menu again, reminded of his duties. They hadn’t even ordered yet and he’d been remiss about the translating. ‘Well,’ he said, flicking swiftly through the entrées. ‘There seem to be a lot of Ps to choose from for the main course. Poulet – chicken. Pot-au-feu – that’s a sort of casserole with beef and vegetables. Pore, pigeons, pieds de cochon.’
‘What’s that last one?’ Penny asked.
‘Pig’s feet.’
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