by Fiona Gibson
He emerges from the bathroom, dressed in a crumpled cream linen shirt and yesterday’s jeans. ‘Are you sure everything’s all right?’ he asks, rubbing at his hair with a towel.
Ah, a touch of hangover fear. ‘Yes, of course it is.’
‘It’s just …’ He fixes me with a quizzical look. ‘You’ve changed.’
‘Well, I did bring two outfits with me …’ I look down. ‘I thought this would be best for sightseeing, as it’s not so warm today.’
‘More sightseeing?’ Charlie scowls. ‘Didn’t we do enough of that yesterday?’ I prickle slightly, his petulance reminding me of Tom, whenever I’d gently suggest that he might consider applying for jobs instead of lying about the flat all day.
‘Our flight’s not until three,’ I say with a smile, ‘so we have all morning.’
He sighs. ‘Okay. Let’s have a think over breakfast – that is, if there’s any left.’ He pulls on his jacket as we leave the room.
‘Will you need that?’ I ask.
‘Need what?’
I laugh. ‘Your jacket. It’s just, we’re only going down for breakfast …’ I stop abruptly under his bemused gaze. ‘God, take no notice of me. I’m so used to trying to cajole my boys into wearing the right kind of clothes—’
‘I am thirty-seven years old, Alice,’ he says hotly. ‘I’m capable of dressing appropriately.’
‘Yes, of course you are.’ I grit my teeth. This time, we don’t kiss in the lift. It’s filled with his breath, sour from yesterday’s wine, and we ride to the ground floor in silence. In the hotel’s dining room, which overlooks a leafy courtyard, breakfast is laid out buffet-style. The room is half-filled with middle-aged couples and a couple of lone businessmen installed behind newspapers, and the atmosphere is muted as we peruse the goodies on offer. Why did you mention his jacket? I ask myself, cheeks blazing as I pour myself a glass of orange juice. You’re not his mother. You’re a fully fledged adult woman in Paris and you’re one small step away from screwing this up.
I blink at the enormous selection of pastries on offer: dainty tarts decorated with fresh berries, and every kind of croissant imaginable. There are oozing pains aux chocolat, and tiny pastry twists dusted with cinnamon and sugar. I select a couple of mini croissants, plus some fruit, and glance over at Charlie just in time to see him drop two pains aux raisins into his jacket pocket.
No, I must have imagined that.
A man with a neatly clipped silvery moustache peers over his newspaper and narrows his eyes at him. Charlie’s hand hovers over the chilled buffet selection. Calmly, and making no attempt to conceal his actions, he drops two yoghurts, plus a handful of individual cheeses, into his other pocket. He then glances around, frowning slightly, and stuffs in a handful of croissants too.
Horrified, I step away, wishing to distance myself from his antics. I’ve always considered myself a tolerant person; fisherman porn I could handle, that didn’t faze me at all. If anything, it boosted his appeal – interesting past, up for anything. I like that in a man. But not this. Not breakfast thievery. I can’t bear it. He’s over at the fresh fruit now, nicking a banana and two apples and stuffing them into what I now suspect are special thieving pockets, leading to pillowcase-sized pouches stitched to the inside of his jacket. He scans the room before plucking a bunch of dried flowers from a vase, and slips the now-empty vessel into his pocket. It’s a small white porcelain vase with fluted edges. What the hell does he want that for? There’s more food, too: several packets of muesli, plus a small bunch of grapes, which are bound to get squashed in his pocket. Or maybe that’s his intention and he’s hoping they’ll turn into wine? What is he thinking? Just as well it’s not a cooked breakfast buffet or he’d be shoving sausages and handfuls of scrambled egg in there as well.
I have stomped back to our table where a bored young waiter pours our coffees from a silver pot. ‘Thank you,’ I mutter.
He gives me a sly smile, then turns to look pointedly over at Charlie who’s still prowling around the buffet like a child at a pick ’n’ mix counter. The waiter clears his throat ostentatiously. I force a big, bright smile which I hope conveys the message: Yes, I am fully aware of what my companion is doing. But let me also make it clear that it is nothing to do with me.
‘That’s all you’re having?’ Charlie is back at our table now, setting down his own generously loaded plate.
‘Yes,’ I say curtly.
He frowns. ‘Thought you said you were starving.’ He takes a big swig of coffee and chomps into a pastry.
‘Why were you filling your pockets, Charlie?’ I hiss.
‘Huh?’
‘You were nicking food, and a vase, I saw you …’
‘Oh, everyone does that.’ He pats a bulging pocket and grins.
‘That’s why you put your jacket on.’ Charlie nods and tops up his mug from the coffee pot. ‘But … why d’you do it?’
‘For lunch,’ he says simply.
‘What about the vase?’
He shrugs. ‘It’s got the hotel emblem on.’
‘So what? You travel all the time, surely you don’t feel the need to steal souvenirs …’
He tries to reach for my hand across the table but I snatch mine away. ‘Don’t you ever take the mini shampoos and stuff?’ he asks. ‘Or the shower cap or the little shoe shining thing?’
‘Yes, sometimes, but that’s different …’
‘No, it’s not,’ he cuts in. ‘Sounds like you’ve got a packed itinerary worked out for us today so we’ll need some sustenance.’
‘But we could go to a cafe,’ I insist, aware of the moustache man casting amused glances in our direction. ‘We could stop off for coffee and a baguette. Isn’t that what Paris is all about?’
He chuckles softly. ‘As far as you’re concerned it’s all about galleries and churches …’
‘That was Sacré-Coeur! Not just a church. God, Charlie. You sound like my sixteen-year-old son …’
‘Hey …’ He smiles and tries again to reach for my hand.
‘I just don’t feel comfortable about stealing from a hotel buffet,’ I growl.
‘I told you, everyone does it.’
‘No, they don’t. I never met anyone who does.’
‘Oh, come on,’ he goads me, ‘you must’ve been tempted …’
‘No!’ It comes out far louder than I intended.
Charlie shoots me a bemused grin. ‘Goody-two-shoes.’
I glare at him. ‘Because I haven’t crammed my pockets with pastries? Because I haven’t grabbed the coffee pot and stuffed it down my knickers?’
‘Don’t do that, you could scorch yourself …’
‘God, Charlie.’ I exhale loudly. ‘I just think it’s so cheap, and anyway, do you really want to be sitting on a park bench eating a flattened croissant five hours from now?’
He looks at me for a moment, and then he does it – he rolls his eyes, in precisely the way Logan does. What remained of my wilting libido has now shrivelled up into the tiniest ball, and is about to disappear forever.
‘I might,’ he says grumpily, ‘if I fancy a snack.’
‘Or tipping a yoghurt straight from the jar into your mouth because you forgot to steal a spoon?’
Charlie shrugs. ‘That would be all right.’
‘All right for you, maybe.’
He turns and stares pointedly through the glass doors towards the courtyard. ‘I don’t mean I expect another posh lunch,’ I start to explain, ‘and I know you’re not mean, Charlie. You’ve been incredibly generous since we left Edinburgh. You keep saying it’s all on expenses but they’re still your expenses, not mine, and I appreciate that …’
Charlie yawns without covering his mouth. ‘It only goes to waste, you know.’
‘What does? A vase?’
‘No,’ he huffs, wafting a hand in the direction of the depleted buffet, ‘all that.’
We slump into ill-humoured silence, and I’m sure the moustache man is laughing at us now; he ke
eps leaning across the table towards his wife, and the two of them are chortling away. I sip my cool coffee, wondering if this is to be a feature in my life: the business of food becoming a thing not of pleasure, but of disappointment and stress. Like the amuse-bouche with Botox-Anthony, and Mum’s stinky burgers, and now this: breakfasty things, re-presented hours later, because you never know when you’ll be hit by the urge for a sweaty cheese portion plucked from your pocket.
We start to make polite chit-chat, but it’s no use – everything has changed. Even as we head out to explore the Jardin des Tuileries, the mood fails to lift. While I buy a crêpe from the kiosk, Charlie says he has ‘plenty here, thank you’, having parked himself on a bench in order to pick at his spoils from the buffet. ‘Like one?’ He waggles a squashed pain au raisin at me.
‘It looks delicious, Charlie, but no thanks.’ In a fit of petulance, he rips it to bits and throws it down for the pigeons.
By the time we’re heading out by taxi to the airport, we have used up our final dregs of conversation, and when our plane touches down at Edinburgh airport Charlie has descended into barely speaking mode. Sulking, I suspect, because the only action he’s had is a measly snog.
‘Well, thanks again,’ I say, pecking his cheek as the taxi pulls up outside my flat.
‘It’s been fun,’ he says unconvincingly.
‘Yes, it has.’
‘Er … got much on this week?’ That’s all he can muster, conversation-wise.
‘Well, my boys are back tomorrow.’
‘Oh.’ He glazes over. ‘That’ll be nice for you. Hope Felix likes his dog.’
‘Fergus,’ I say. ‘He’s called Fergus.’
‘Oh yeah. So, uh …’ He bends to unzip the bag at his feet and pulls out the small white vase. ‘I nicked it for you, you know.’
‘No thanks,’ I say, conscious now of disappointment pooling in my stomach.
‘Suit yourself,’ he says, stuffing it back in. ‘Bye then. I’ll call you.’ We both know he won’t, and I don’t want him to either. I meant it when I said he’s clearly not tight, in that he invited me on the trip, and has lavished me with fabulous food and wine. Yet part of him must be, in that small, mean-spirited way. And somehow, petty meanness seems worse than stinginess on a grander scale, like my mother refusing to heat her house properly, or to have the septic tank seen to. It’s penny-pinching, and it sucks all the joy out of life.
Oh, I know I should focus on all the fun we’ve had these past twenty-four hours: the screaming with laughter over his riverbank shoot, and giggling like kids in the toyshop. Being far away from my shrunken little world has been lovely. But I also know I could never love a man who takes his good fortune for granted, not pausing for a moment to reflect on how lucky he is.
I climb out of the taxi, glancing back to wave goodbye. Charlie is staring gloomily ahead and, as the car pulls away, he extracts a mini cheese from his pocket and devours it in one bite.
Chapter Twenty
The boys are dropped off at lunchtime on Friday. The handover is brief and a little awkward; Tom seems distracted, and in a terrible hurry to ‘get on the road’, while Patsy and Jessica don’t even get out of the camper van. ‘Is everything all right?’ I ask in a general, addressing-everyone sort of way.
‘Yeah, it was great,’ Fergus says with genuine enthusiasm, while Logan zooms straight for the living room.
‘What’s wrong with him?’ I hiss at Tom as Fergus wanders off to join his brother.
He shrugs. ‘He’s fine, I think. Maybe just tired after the drive.’
‘He doesn’t seem in a particularly good mood …’ I glance in the direction of the living room where the TV is already blaring at old person’s volume.
Tom blows out air. ‘He’s been fine, they both have. Anyway, I’d really better be off. Bye, boys,’ he calls through.
‘Bye, Dad,’ they both reply.
‘Boys,’ I call out, ‘come through and say goodbye to Dad properly.’ They appear in the hallway, each bestowing their father with a brief hug before hurtling back to the TV.
‘I’ll be off then,’ Tom says briskly, bounding downstairs as if he’s just delivered a fridge.
That was weird. While Fergus seems fine, and appears to be the picture of health – face flushed and hair lightened by days spent outdoors – Logan appears anxious and even paler than usual. He has barely looked at me since they came home. I consider trying to quiz him further, but that’s always impossible when the TV is on. I could turn the telly off, but that sends out the signal that this is a Massive Deal requiring everyone’s full attention, and I don’t have the heart for that when they’ve barely been home ten minutes. No, I’ll leave them be and hopefully, if anything is wrong, I’ll be able to coax it out of Logan when he’s in the mood to talk.
Having gathered that the boys have eaten nothing since breakfast, I set about rustling up a favourite lunch of stir-fried prawns and noodles. Lured by the aroma of garlic and soy, Fergus appears in the kitchen. ‘Mmm, that smells great, Mum.’
‘I thought you’d like it.’
‘And I see you got Rex back from the charity shop.’ I smile stiffly, waiting for him to add, but he looks and smells different, despite the fact that the first thing I did when I got back from Paris last night was to grubby him up and attack him with a nail brush – thus achieving an authentic ‘worn’ effect – then put him through a hot wash cycle.
‘Er, yes,’ I say.
‘You put him on my bed.’ He chuckles. ‘That was nice of you. I’m not going to sleep with him, though—’
‘No, I know, darling. It was just a joke.’
He grins and slides an arm around my shoulders. ‘I know it seemed a bit stupid but Jessica wants him. In fact, maybe I’ll keep him. She’s probably forgotten anyway. Remember that holiday with Dad, where was it again …’
‘Devon?’ I suggest, trying to squash a flurry of guilt.
‘Yeah, that was it. And we did that mad thing of putting Rex in every single photo, remember? Like, he was at the table in that pizza place and sunbathing on a flannel on the beach, and …’ He stops, trying to think of further examples.
‘And you tied him to the bow of the boat when we went on that mackerel fishing trip—’
‘Yeah, that was great. He was our figurehead!’ Fergus laughs and rakes back his growing-out hair.
‘I’m amazed you can remember so much,’ I tell him. ‘You were only seven, you know.’
He taps the side of his head. ‘I’ve got a good brain. Grandma’s brain.’ Fortunately, he hasn’t recalled – or perhaps he’s chosen not to mention – that that was our last holiday as a family of four; one I embarked on filled with hope that two weeks together, in new surroundings, would help to fix things between Tom and me. However, despite wonderful highlights – building a fire on the beach, and feasting on paper cups of cockles as the sun slipped down – by the end of the trip, my reserves of patience had run out.
I clear my throat. ‘Could you fetch me three big bowls please?’
Fergus obliges, adding, ‘The great thing about stir-fry is it’s so fast.’
‘Yep, it’s one of the handiest things ever. You’ve probably had it at least once a week your whole life.’
He watches as I throw fat prawns into the wok. ‘D’you remember we were saying, instead of meringues, you should start making something that’s quicker?’ I frown, uncomprehending. ‘You know,’ he adds, ‘that doesn’t need the oven on for hours and hours?’
‘Oh, that.’ I chuckle. ‘The thing is, Ferg, stir-fry has to be served straight away, and the only way I’d be able to do that is to set up a cafe or a little kiosk or something.’
‘Well, you could …’
‘No thanks,’ I say briskly, whirling everything around in the wok and dolloping it into three bowls.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I already have a job, remember, and I enjoy it and have no plans to give it up. Whereas meringues can be fitted around work
and done at night, or whenever I have a bit of spare time … they’re flexible.’
‘Actually,’ he says, grinning, ‘they’re crumbly and stiff. They’re about the least flexible thing there is.’
I laugh and call his brother. ‘Logan! Lunch is ready …’ He lumbers in and we all take our seats at the table, with Fergus making it clear that he’s not letting me off the hook just yet.
‘I just think we should be more green,’ he murmurs, spearing a prawn with his fork.
‘Hon, there’s nothing I can do about the oven thing, okay? We need the meringue money. I mean, I’d sit for hours, breathing warm air on them if I thought they’d cook that way, but I don’t think the kitchen inspector lady would approve of that.’
‘Dad and Patsy are really green,’ he adds slyly, at which Logan shoots him a warning look.
‘Yes, I’d imagine they are.’
‘Yeah,’ Fergus continues, ‘they’re getting this thing where they’ll collect rainwater in tubs and it’ll be piped into the house.’
‘That sounds good.’ I try, with difficulty, to swallow a noodle.
‘That eco-house on TV had a special toilet,’ Logan reminds me, ‘where all the stuff – the sewage – gets turned into—’
‘Odourless bricks that can be burnt as fuel,’ I cut. ‘Yes, I saw it too, but I’m afraid we’re not getting one of those.’
‘Why not?’ asks Fergus, looking crestfallen.
‘Because the residents’ association wouldn’t like it. Anyway, maybe the two of you could think about being green in other ways.’
‘Like what?’ Logan growls.
I set down my fork. ‘Like walking more and not using your Xbox so much.’
He looks aghast. ‘What would I do instead?’
‘I’m sure you could think of other, non-fuel-burning ways to amuse yourself,’ I tease him.
‘Like reading,’ Logan groans.
‘Yes. Or drawing beards on the ladies in the Boden catalogue.’ I grin as the two of them stare at me, then get up and wash out my bowl at the sink. When I glance back at Logan, his face is set in a frown. ‘I’m joking,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t even get the Boden catalogue.’