Loving Amélie (21 page)

“So I’m a diversion?”

“Yes.”

“I’m flattered!”

“Oh, Sara, don’t be idiotic,”
he said. “And no more stunts like sending flowers: that will just piss me off.”

“Believe me, we are going to
have
to talk
sometime…”

She grumbled at him a little
more, before they both hung up.

He decided it would be
heartless to dump the flowers in the bin, and so he put them in the sink, where
they wouldn’t annoy him, but might benefit from a secondary sympathetic
watering while he was filling the kettle or washing a plate. He felt sad for
Sara; but it was a sadness numbed by anger and frustration at her flippant
abuse of his feelings for her.

As the evening wore on, he had
nothing else to do but trawl through the baby’s remaining possessions: his flat
was sparsely furnished and unadorned by wall hangings of any kind, or
photographs, or ornaments. (Amélie had made him buy a rug and some scatter cushions
some time ago; but that was about it.) A woman who had made it to his flat once
in the past – despite his efforts to dissuade her on the grounds he had
drunk two bottles of wine with her and still found her boring as hell –
set the seal on his dislike of her by lecturing him for half an hour on the
dire psychological ramifications of living in such barren surroundings. It was
the lack of family photos that inflamed her drunken sensitivities the most.

“I know what they all look
like,” he said, indifferently, sussing her as the odd sort of woman who would
rail at him without mercy, making him feel generally unworthy, before pawing at
him for needy sex.

“I do have one particularly
nice picture that I keep for special visitors, though,” he added, steering her
into his spare room and locking the door briskly behind her.

She had sworn for a few moments
and thrown her shoes about; but emerged intact for a swift breakfast the
following morning before going meekly on her way.

He established that Linda was
away from
Skinner’s
for a couple of days, visiting her folks in Surrey, so he told Peter he
would come in to work to help out: Peter was pleased to give Gaston the evening
off and Chris was equally pleased to occupy himself with something other than
folding baby clothes and traumatising himself with the thought that he had
forgotten to take Amélie’s little pink elephant to her mother’s.

The bistro was lively and
welcoming: Steve and Trudy were in, drinking lager and eating cassoulet; and it
was good to see them, exuding the confidence of uncomplicated lives that
revolved around outdoor sports, travelling, and making lots of casual, cheerful
friendships.

Peter was, as usual, immersed
in the business of creating and perfecting the evening’s menu; and it was a
familiar predicament for Chris to be labouring alongside his brother, inwardly
marvelling at his dedication, but feeling himself falling a little short of the
task in terms of both his interest and the overall result. Chris was a good,
instinctive chef; who had learned a lot from his older brother’s and Linda’s
classical training: however, it rarely occurred to him to be anything other
than the “third man”.

Peter would have been a great
dad, Chris mused; with his confidence and ability. What was
he
going to
be able to pass on to his daughter? The blueprint for being an also-ran? It
suddenly seemed to matter that she should look up to him and want to learn by
his example; and it was a hollowing feeling that his example might be living in
the shadow of her uncle and auntie’s ambition.

He applied himself with gusto
to the evening service; and was determined he would be the last to leave the
premises that night. Peter looked dead beat.

“You are looking your age, old
man,” said Chris, when they had a lull in the proceedings and he joined his
brother outside on the cobbles where Peter and a couple of the staff were
taking a smoking break.

“He slept here last night,”
said Neal, the kitchen helper, desperate to be telling a tale. Neal was loyal
but a little slow on the uptake; and if ever Chris felt like classifying
himself as an observer of life rather than a partaker, Neal was a person who
would merely sneak a peek at the observers. His hands were enlarged and red raw
from being continually immersed in steam or very hot water; while the rest of
him was, in contrast, a little shrunken and seedy. He enjoyed gossip –
the more salacious the better.

“When did Linda go?” asked
Chris; acknowledging that in spite of his commitment to the place, it was
highly irregular for his brother to actually spend the night at
Skinner’s
.
There were no spare rooms, as such, aside from storage; and when he and Linda
had last slept over during heavy snow, they had huddled together on a roll up
mattress on the kitchen floor.

“Yesterday,” said Peter,
nonchalantly ruffling his own hair, causing it to stand up in spikes that were
malleable with grease and moisture. His apron was a canvas of food stains,
secured loosely round his middle by thin ties engrained with dirt. Like Neal,
however, his hands were almost painfully clean: the nails ground –
probably bitten - down to finger coloured nothingness.

Chris waited until Neal was no
longer a threat to their privacy and asked:

“Is everything OK, Big
Brother?”

“Of course, Little Brother. Just
didn’t fancy going back to an empty flat. She’s back tomorrow.”

“Then come back to mine: it’s
closer,” said Chris. “We can have a few beers.”

“What about your little one?”

“She’s staying with her mum.”

“Of course, I remember,” said
Peter. He scrutinised the dessert orders that were clipped on the bar above his
hot plates. “Fucking
iles flottantes.
Over to you, Chris: they’re woman’s work.
Two cheese
plates!
” he barked at the waitress Alison, who was making coffee. “And
watch out for the grapes. Some of them are seriously shit today.”

“I can come in again tomorrow,”
Chris suggested. “I know I’m not exactly a reliable member of the team at the
moment...”

“No need,” said Peter. “I’m
closing.”

“You’re what?” said Chris,
applying himself to the task of making floating islands: infusing a large pan
of milk with the seeds from a vanilla pod. He tossed the spent pod aside, like
a desiccated insect. “Are we in national mourning? Have I missed something?”

“It’s just for one day,” said
Peter, defensively. He had a tray of ready prepared
crème brulée
that he set about blasting
with a blow torch, transforming the crumbly brown sugar crystals into a film of
molten sweetness. “Besides, you need to get your act together with Amé and the
baby. You’re dragging your feet.”

They strove on, until the last
customers had gone and the staff had hung up their aprons.

“How about that beer, at mine?”
suggested Chris.

His brother declined:

“I’m happy here for tonight,”
he said, clearly never intending to do anything other than sleep on the
premises of his business while his wife was away.

“I’m knackered, Chris. Honest.
Another time?”

“I thought maybe we could chat
about this place in the Alps that Linda mentioned.”

Peter weighed this up briefly,
then shook his head:

“Wait till she’s back,” he
said. “I’m sure she would be delighted for us to talk it through. She has put
together quite a plan! But it may well be just
a plan
. We’ll see,” he added.

They embraced; and Chris left,
certain – and a bit miffed - that he wasn’t going to be able to persuade
his brother to join him elsewhere for even one nightcap. He turned in the
direction of his bus home, and the lonely environs of high rise Battersea,
where he might, at least, anticipate a good night’s sleep. The evening air was
fresh with the promise of a change to autumn; and he zipped up his jacket. He
re-routed his journey in the direction of Queens Gardens; and didn’t even think
about what he might say – let alone what the consequences might be
– when Adrienne opened the door of her daughter’s flat.

“I’m sorry I missed you,” he
said, guessing by the French woman’s expression that he probably looked and
smelled like the filter above a cooker. “I didn’t thank you for the delicious
lunch.”

Amélie moved in the darkness
behind her mother, and switched on a lamp. She was wrapped in a nightgown.

“It’s alright,
Maman
,” she
said. “Let him in. He has been working.”

“The baby is sleeping,” said
Adrienne, between them. They stood in defence of their positions as guest and
receiver; so she said: “I will find you a robe, Chris. We really must wash
those clothes.”

“She is perfectly content,”
said Amé, before he had a chance to ask, while her mother went in search of
something for him to wear. “Fast asleep. I am sure she is missing you, though.”

“I am missing her, too.
Dreadfully.”

Chris’s childhood friend Stuart
had owned a border terrier called Scamp who used to accompany him on his visits
to Chris’s house. His mum used to insist he remained on the doorstep and had
his paws wiped before he was allowed in: this was how Chris felt as he took the
white robe from Adrienne, changed out of his jeans, sweatshirt and socks, and
returned with the laundry for her.

“And under things?” she
ventured.

“
Maman!
” Amélie exclaimed, but laughed
with him as her mother raised her arms in dismay and disappeared to the washing
machine.

The robe was on the short side;
but decent.

“I don’t want to spend the
night on my own,” he said.

Chapter Twenty Two

He was woken at three in the morning
by movements in the kitchen: Amé was up warming a feed for her daughter:

“Ssh, ssh, ma petite; tu vas
réveiller ton pere…Hush, you will wake up your daddy.”

It thrilled them to hear her
words: and to hear her talking to Amélie in both French and English. Sleeping
on the sofa - that Adrienne had made up as a bed for him – had been a far
from restful experience, and he stretched out his cramped muscles with an
accompanying crack of his ankles and wrists. He was, however, deeply satisfied
to be under the same roof as his two girls (daring to think of them privately
as such); like he was nourished to his bones by the warm food of love and life.

“We woke you,” said Amélie, at
her kitchen counter with the baby in her arms: she had weighed down her
mother’s robe over her breast; the silky material crumpled and damp.

“I was hardly asleep,” Chris
replied, taking his daughter. “I am happy to be here, awake.”

“She is getting hungrier,” said
Amé. “She needs more to eat, I think.”

They sat on the covers on the
sofa, and Amélie took her feed with watchful eyes and playful hands that were
keen to manipulate her bottle.

“How can something so beautiful
be so hard?” Her mother looked drained in the early light; her delicate limbs
and neck appearing diminished and feeble next to the baby’s bonny radiance: as
though one had siphoned off the health and strength of the other. Chris
couldn’t doubt Adrienne’s good work in attempting to feed and care for her
daughter; but Amélie was clearly far from thriving. She was naturally petite;
so anxiety and weight loss had ravaged her more than most.

“It is easier if we do it
together,” he said.

“If only it were that simple,”
she replied, earnestly.

“I want to take care of you,”
said Chris. “Both of you.”

Amélie spread her daughter’s fingers
on the palm of her own hand, observing the miniscule fingernails with their
square white tips.

“She needs us both to be
strong, somehow,” he continued.

“That isn’t language that I
find helpful,” she said, candidly.

“OK, then let me be strong for
both of us. You trusted me to take care of her; and to bring her back to you.
Trust me to take care of you, too.”

“Do you love me? Do you love
her?” she said, tears quickening her words.

He raised his eyes to the
ceiling, where the rose was beginning to gleam white with morning.

“More than you could
ever
believe,” he said, containing the rising pain in his throat. “And I can’t
embellish that with other sentiments to impress you, Amé…”

The door from the spare room
whined open, and Adrienne appeared in her elegant night attire, with the type
of eye mask that was issued on an aeroplane flight pushed high into her sleek
grey fringe. It was pale pink, decorated with tiny flowers.

“Would an Englishman drink tea
at this time of the day?” she enquired, sleepily, as though this quandary had
been keeping her awake. “And would it be with milk or lemon?”

She made for the kitchen,
expecting his answer would be forthcoming after she had switched on the kettle.

“I must lay her down,” said
Amélie. “Or she may get used to these night time chats!”

Chris covered her hands with
his: