Out of Sight

by Isabelle Grey

But her head was bent over the shoes. ‘Patrick drops him off at the childminder,’ she said carelessly.

  ‘The childminder?’ queried Agnès. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘We should get on the road,’ chivvied Geoffrey. ‘Everything’s packed up.’

  ‘You leave him with a stranger?’

  ‘Hardly a stranger!’ said Belinda. ‘Her name’s Christine. Daniel has a good time there with the other kids.’

  ‘Go and powder your nose, or whatever you need to do,’ Geoffrey ordered his wife.

  ‘He’s little more than a baby!’

  Belinda straightened up to put an arm around Agnès, giving her a hug. ‘Honestly, Agnès, he’s absolutely fine with Christine. We’d never leave him if he wasn’t. Would we?’

  She appealed to Patrick, but he found it impossible to look at any of them. He longed to bend down and pick up his son, hug the child to him, but he was frozen.

  ‘You never told me he went to a childminder,’ cried Agnès, ‘to a woman you barely know.’

  ‘Time to go!’ Geoffrey put in desperately.

  But Agnès could not be distracted. ‘How can you be sure if he’s happy or not?’ Her voice rose. ‘You can never tell how your child is, if you are not there!’

  Geoffrey dived at Daniel, scooped him up from where he sat contentedly at his mother’s feet, and thrust him at Patrick. ‘Take him away! Get rid of him!’

  Startled, Daniel began to cry. Patrick cradled him, cradling himself, too, against the little body.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Belinda demanded of Geoffrey, but he was hauling Agnès towards the door.

  ‘Get in the car! We’re going now. We have to go.’

  ‘No, wait!’ Belinda’s words made Geoffrey pause in the doorway. ‘Please wait.’

  Patrick could hardly bear to look at Agnès standing distraught beside her husband. He knew what he would see: his mother was alternating between wringing her hands in a compulsive gesture that seemed almost comic and checking the buttons on her blouse. He sensed rather than saw Belinda’s mute appeal for him to say something, do something.

  ‘Stay and have another cup of tea. Don’t leave like this,’ Belinda begged, while he continued to stare fixedly down into Daniel’s soft, downy hair.

  Geoffrey now spoke more gently. ‘You can see it’s hopeless. Best we get off. Give you a ring tonight.’ He picked up the suitcase and shepherded his wife outside, leaving Belinda to follow them out to their car and see them off.

  Patrick stood in the hallway, rooted to the spot, holding Daniel, slowing his breathing as he counted each golden hair, until he heard the crunch of gravel as the car drew away and Belinda returned. ‘What was all that about?’ she asked, stroking Daniel’s head. Patrick said nothing. ‘Poor baby,’ she crooned. ‘Silly old them. Just silly-billies, aren’t they?’ Calmed, the child nestled his head in under Patrick’s chin, his thumb in his mouth. ‘He’ll probably sleep in the car,’ Belinda said to Patrick. ‘Maybe you should just go, then he can drop off. He’ll have forgotten all about it by the time you get to Christine’s.’

  Patrick’s next conscious action was turning his key in the lock beside the brass name-plate and entering his Ditchling office. The rooms already felt close and airless and he opened the windows before crossing to his desk to check his diary for the day. Seeing an extra name scribbled in, he remembered that a regular patient had rung the day before requesting an urgent consultation, and he’d agreed to fit her in over his lunch break. Two other appointments were with new people, which he always enjoyed. He looked at his watch, surprised to see he still had ten minutes to himself.

  He was mildly aware of a dragging undertow of distress but, determined not to let it rise to a point where it would disturb his interaction with his patients, he turned on the computer. He would chase a few late payers before the first arrival, when it would be vital to block out all personal distractions, all conscious self-reflection. It wasn’t that he didn’t listen to people’s actual words, but he needed simultaneously to attend to tone, hesitation, body language, in which he could perceive at an innate, intuitive level what they were striving to communicate. He always looked forward to entering the set phase of solid concentration which an appointment with a new patient demanded. He found the experience intensely calming. He once heard a heroin addict describe on television the sense of well-being that flushed through his system on taking the drug, and recognised the same cravings in himself: he thought how lucky he was to have discovered a way to self-medicate without opiates.

  The bell rang, and Patrick went to greet his first patient. Over the course of the morning, during which he saw three people, each with a very different ailment, he was aware that, as usual, there were several phone calls while he was occupied. Sure enough, at lunchtime the message light was blinking, but he only had time to grab an apple and a cup of tea before his extra lunchtime appointment, so he left the calls to deal with later.

  Meghan, who soon arrived, had been coming to him for a couple of years. She both amused and exasperated him. She often requested a last-minute consultation like this, presenting with some acute physical symptom, but the core issue to be resolved generally turned out to be something that she had said or done and now regretted. Meghan made him feel like a priest in the confessional, granting absolution; before she began coming to him, she had no doubt sought similar relief from her GP or her hairdresser. But he was willing to offer it because, while she might not be prepared to admit her faults directly to herself, she was nonetheless attempting in this roundabout manner to account for her sins. For that measure of self-awareness he liked her and was prepared to indulge the moral subterfuge. Today she’d come because she’d had a falling-out with a neighbour on some village committee – a sure sign, she told him, that she was out of balance and needed a new remedy.

  Patrick’s next patient was already waiting as he showed Meghan out. This stranger was his second new patient of the day, and he was carefully writing up his notes afterwards when, at three o’clock, he became aware of the sound of a siren. A moment or two later he glanced up to see blue flashing lights through the trim Venetian blinds, followed by the noisy bulk of a fire engine pulling up against the big shop window of his office. For a few minutes he went on with his notes, but now found it impossible to concentrate. He went to the door to investigate just as one of the fire crew came looking for him. The man was bare-headed; his face was white and his sweat looked clammy and cold in spite of the heat of the afternoon.

  ‘Is that your Renault parked round the back?’ he asked. ‘If so, we need the keys.’

  PART TWO

  France 2010

  I

  The pharmacist, whose crisp make-up and white tunic were pristine thanks to the fierce air-conditioning, indicated over Leonie’s right shoulder, ‘Mais, c’est lui-même!’

  Leonie turned to see a long-legged, tallish man with very blue eyes. The pharmacist, introducing him, took evident care to pronounce his name correctly. ‘Monsieur Hinde.’

  ‘You’re English?’

  ‘English father, French mother,’ he replied. ‘Patrice. Or Patrick. Take your pick.’ He smiled – an attractive smile – and held out his hand. She shook it happily.

  ‘Leonie Treadwell. I work for Gaby Duval, and one of our clients needs an English-speaking homeopath. How perfect is this!’

  He frowned slightly, looking to the pharmacist for clarification, but she was already attending to another customer.

  Leonie explained. ‘We do holiday lets – bastides and farmhouses – and we’re on call for any snags. There’s a six-year-old with an allergy to something in the house and the parents hope a homeopathic remedy might do the trick.’

  ‘More than likely.’ He fished in his wallet and handed her a printed card. ‘Here’s my number. I’ll do my best to fit her in quickly.’

  ‘Him, actually, but thanks. I’m sure they’ll call you straight away. They’re threatening to pack up and go home if the poor kid doesn�
��t stop wheezing.’

  He smiled down at her again, and Leonie found herself wishing there was more to say, something to detain her beside this man whose presence she instinctively liked. But, thanking the pharmacist, she said her goodbyes, left the shop and returned to the July sunshine.

  The phone rang as she was closing the office shutters at the end of the day: it was the parents of the allergic child, singing their praises for the homeopath’s prompt and effective help. They were sure the remedy he supplied would work, and they could now stay on for the full three weeks they had booked. Leonie added Patrice Hinde’s details to the database and all but forgot him until, a busy week later, she was crossing the square at lunchtime when the persistent ringing of a bicycle bell made her turn. Without thinking, she greeted him familiarly with a bisou. It was his infinitesimal recoil, like some wild creature too wary to approach, that instantly endeared him to her. Yet, despite that momentary flare of alarm in his eyes, it was he who suggested they take their baguettes and sit together on a bench in the shade of the medieval church.

  When they parted, he said nothing about meeting again, and during the course of the long, hot afternoon she recalled with shame how they had each talked about their work: he spoke engagingly of imbalances, stored griefs, chronic conditions and relieving distillations; she told of mice, blocked lavatories, extra pillows and where to buy baby food late at night. Why had she imagined such an apparently thoughtful man would be interested in the mundane concerns of her job?

  As she came outside at the end of the day, she found Gaby watering the pots in the courtyard. Gaby maintained a robust liking for people and revelled in, rather than despaired of, the peculiarities of some of their weirder holiday clients; her four children joked that the only reason she’d married the local notaire thirty-odd years ago was so that nothing could ever happen in this small town without her hearing of it first. Deciding to tell Gaby about her lunchtime encounter, Leonie lingered to hear whatever Gaby might have gleaned about Monsieur Hinde.

  ‘He’s popular, built up a fairly large practice,’ Gaby informed her readily. ‘Lives in his grandmother’s house. One of those ghastly ornate Belle Epoque villas near the river.’

  As a frequent guest in Gaby’s immaculately restored house, Leonie had observed how her employer’s taste veered towards minimalism.

  ‘He spent a lot of his childhood there, apparently,’ Gaby continued. ‘Came back when she died, about four years ago.’

  ‘Did you know him as a kid?’ asked Leonie. ‘If he grew up here?’

  Gaby shook her head. ‘Madame Broyard, his grandmother, kept to herself. Very correct, old-style bourgeoise. War widow, I think. Must’ve been coming up for ninety when she died. I heard he’s restoring the house, doing the work himself.’

  Seeing that Leonie appeared mildly intrigued by her thumbnail sketch, Gaby went on. ‘I’m not aware that there’s ever been a wife on the scene, sweetie. And if he has had women friends, he’s been very discreet about them.’

  For the past year Gaby had been encouraging her to find a new man, but Leonie refused to rise to the bait. ‘See you tomorrow,’ she laughed, waving, and making for her car.

  Her tiny rented apartment on the edge of town wasn’t far. The old Citroen had come with the job, and in the summer heat she was glad not to have to walk home. Nevertheless, she liked having something fresh to mull over on the familiar drive. She still regarded her stay in the Dordogne as temporary, even though it was well over a year now since she and Greg had broken up. Her French was pretty good, but discovering an unattached Englishman here was – what? Was she interested? The very notion of having her feelings entangled again was a possibility she couldn’t have imagined earlier in the year, and might even be a cheering sign that she was getting over ‘things’: Greg telling her that he didn’t want to get married or have kids with her; watching her pack and letting her leave after eleven years together, these memories were still too brutal to recall in any detail. He’d suggested once that he visit her in France but she put him off, and though Stella said he wasn’t seeing anyone else (too lazy, Stella said), he hadn’t asked again. So – Patrice Hinde. Should their paths cross again, who knew what might not happen?

  It was three weeks before Patrice rang her one morning at the office, offering no explanation for the arbitrary timing of his call. But she accepted his invitation to dinner readily, resolving on this occasion to appear less banal.

  They met, as Patrice had suggested, at the bench beside the church – an arrangement Leonie teased herself for already finding a touch romantic, as if this was to become ‘their’ bench. Not knowing where they were going for dinner, she had been indecisive about what to wear. Settling for a patterned summer dress that showed off her slender waist, but fearing it might not be dressy enough, she had added strappy heeled sandals, and wound her hair up into a coil, clipped with a bright artificial flower that Stella had given her. When she spotted him waiting with his bicycle and a rucksack, her heart sank. She must have misjudged the situation, and now she felt wrong-footed and awkward. Making no move to greet her with bisous, he nonetheless appeared friendly and relaxed.

  ‘I like your flower. Thought we’d have a picnic.’ He patted the rucksack, in which metal chinked against glass, and she noted a folded rug in the bicycle basket. ‘I know a perfect spot – if that’s all right with you?’ he added courteously.

  ‘Sounds perfect. Be a shame to sit inside on such a lovely evening.’

  He led the way downhill, and, as they turned onto a gravelled track, quickly noticed the unsuitability of her sandals. Leonie was mortified, though his laugh was kind. ‘Here, hop on. I’ll push.’ He hung his rucksack from the handlebars and held on as she clambered onto the bike; it was years since she had ridden one. With one hand on the back of the saddle and the other guiding the machine so she didn’t have to pedal, he strode on. As his shirt-sleeve brushed her bare arm, he smiled comfortably. His face was close to hers, and after a little while she found her attention dwelling on the narrow margin between the denim collar and his light brown hair. Leaning back slightly, she caught herself thinking inappropriately how nice it would be to stroke the sun-browned skin, to explore with her fingertip just a little way below the faded collar, and almost laughed out loud. He caught her look of private amusement, and smiled once more. She found his evident ease with their silence somehow touching.

  They crossed the bridge and headed along a path beside the river. Although only a metre or so deep, at its lowest mark now in late August, the brown water ran with quiet power between the wooded banks before opening out unexpectedly into a small sunny meadow.

  ‘Oh, how lovely,’ she told him. ‘I thought I’d explored the area thoroughly, but I’ve never been here before.’

  ‘What brought you to Riberac?’

  ‘I spent a few months here as a student. My degree’s in French. I had such a good time that, when I wanted to get out of England for a bit, I wrote to ask Gaby if there was any work going. Nothing moves around here without her knowing about it.’

  ‘I’ll remember that!’

  ‘Anyway, she offered me a job herself, so here I am. Didn’t exactly recapture my carefree student days, but I’m kept busy and Gaby’s incredibly kind.’

  He nodded; while rather frustrated that he wasn’t more curious, she liked the consideration he showed in not yet asking why she might have wanted an escape from England.

  There was further evidence of Patrice’s solicitude when he laid out the rug for them to sit on and unpacked the rucksack. He had not only brought cold white wine and local bread onto which he sliced for her tomatoes, artichoke hearts and Brie, but two huge linen serviettes, soft with age, to serve as plates and even a small citronella candle which he lit to discourage gnats and mosquitoes from the river. Leonie, enchanted, was plunged into tender and forgotten longings: she couldn’t remember when Greg had last shown such thoughtfulness, such delicacy of feeling. Pretending ignorance of the little that Gaby had told
her, she asked Patrice in turn what had brought him here.

  ‘My grandmother died and left her house to me. I came over intending to clear it up and sell it, but … I found I liked it better here.’

  ‘Were you close to your grandmother?’

  He shrugged. ‘In a way, I suppose. I used to stay with her during school holidays, but I wouldn’t say we were close. She was strict and old-fashioned. Doing what was right and carrying out her duty were what mattered most.’

  ‘Sounds a bit bleak.’

  ‘Not really. Besides, one doesn’t know any different as a child.’

  ‘I suppose not.’ It became clear he wasn’t about to volunteer more, so she prodded gently. ‘Do you have brothers and sisters?’

  ‘No, just me.’

  ‘Lonely, then, with your grandmother?’

  He shrugged once more. ‘A bit isolated, yes.’

  ‘You still have connections in England, though?’

  ‘Some.’ He paused, looking towards the water. ‘I was married briefly. Only lasted three years.’

  ‘Do you stay in touch?’

  He shook his head. ‘We’re divorced. I doubt she’d want to hear from me.’

  ‘What happened? Do you mind me asking?’

  He shrugged again. ‘I let her down. There was no future for us together.’

  Leonie wondered if he meant he’d had an affair, but she didn’t dare ask; not yet, anyway. Instead, she encouraged him to expand by offering information about herself: ‘My ex and I weren’t married, but we’d lived together for almost twelve years.’

  ‘You don’t look old enough!’

  ‘I’m thirty-four.’

  ‘A youngster!’ He topped up her wine, shooting her what she hoped was a flirtatious glance.

  Leonie waited for Patrice to ask her about herself; when he seemed content with silence, she ploughed on, wanting him to have a sense of her, to push through to some kind of intimacy, impatient to get something underway between them.