Loving Amélie (25 page)

“Are you a drunken Englishman?”
she said. “Have you come to Paris to drink lager and talk stupid?!”

“I have come to Paris to work
out my future,” he said, with confidence. “I want a future that is fit for our
amazing daughter. I don’t want to be the third man at
Skinner’s
anymore. I want to be the main
man in my own restaurant.”

“Are you serious? Your own
place, away from your brother?”

“Yes. We aren’t joined at the
hip; whatever anyone thinks. And I don’t want you to be in some dreary job in
law just to please your father. I want you to paint and draw: maybe
teach
…”

“Oh, my God,” said Amé, seizing
him back, till her knuckles gleamed yellow. “I could teach children to paint. I
could take classes…”

“Children, adults, whatever you
liked,” he said, thrilled that his words were inspiring her, at last. “And you
would be free.
I
would be free!” He laughed, suddenly, at this notion like he had uncovered
a great secret.

Almost on cue at the whiff of
enlightenment, Bénard joined them with a bottle of red wine and three glasses
threaded in his fingers.

                                                           
***

He made love to her that night
for the first time in many months. She was willing, but frightened of pain and disappointment;
and he knew his deepest desire was to make her feel safe, satisfied and
self-assured. She wept with the intensity of her pleasure and relief; and clung
to him under their damp sheets like she would never let him go.

They had decided to return to
London; and to make an appointment to meet Pierre Bénoit. They would take her
father’s money.

They breakfasted at the Hotel
Bénard, with Amélie sitting up in a high chair with developing poise; and took
a taxi to the station for the
EuroStar
train home.

“You have messages,” she said
to him, as he pulled out his phone and passport and tickets.

“I expect I do,” he replied.
“I’ve hardly looked at that screen since we came away. Is it Peter?”

She held the phone to her ear
and began to listen to his voicemail: he bent down to fasten their child into
her pushchair. When he had righted himself, his face was flushed with blood:
hers was pale, and bleak with contempt.

The message was from Sara:

“
You know what; I have had it with you,
Chris. You treat me like I am toxic after one night of sex – and it was
bloody
good
sex,
too, and you know it. You think you are some kind of hero when you are just
like every other failure of a man I have ever met. I hope Amélie
is
shagging her
cousin because it’s what you fucking deserve!”

His heart, that was growing
accustomed to the joy of lightness, sank like a stone. She was weeping
silently.

“You
will
let me explain this…” he said.

“Which part?” she asked, the
bitterness rising in her voice with her phlegm.

“For God’s sake, it’s
Sara!
” he
pleaded. “You know what a head case she is.”

“So she’s lying?”

The baby’s legs, fastened into
the casing of her pushchair, raised up as one muffled limb: willing them to get
moving. But they were stock still, against the tide of travellers on the
platform.

“She’s embellishing the truth,
Amé,” said Chris, a flurry of images of his wild friend coursing through his
head, like the flicking pages of a magazine that he wanted to tear out and tear
up. “She has had a minor bust up with Rick, and she’s taking it out on me. And
now you.”

“So you didn’t have sex with
her? Do you think I am an idiot?”

“She
forced
herself on me...”

Amé laughed with such
indignation that she spat and made him blink:

“Can you hear yourself?” she
said.

“I swear, I will make her see
you, make her explain this to you,” he said. “Amé, I love you more than you can
fathom; I won’t let a stupid mistake ruin us again.”

“I don’t want to talk to your
cheap friend; or to you!” she hissed, wiping her face with the back of her
hands and pulling the belt of her mackintosh so tight it must have hurt her
insides. “I expect
I
was a stupid mistake too: and maybe having your
child
was a
stupid mistake!”

“Christ, Amélie, don’t do
this,” he said. A lady passed by and gave her a concerned glance; eyeing him
sharply as the likely villain of the piece. “How can you say that, after
everything we’ve been hoping for?”

“I thought you were an
honourable man,” she snapped at him, gripping the handles of the pushchair. “My
father thought you were an honourable man. You call
my
father a bully, when you are nothing
but a pig. You have lied to me, told lies
about
me to that tart. Did it make you feel
better about getting her into your bed by telling her I was sleeping with my
own cousin? You
disgust
me.”

She kicked off the brake of
Amélie’s pushchair and began to stride forcefully away, pulling sunglasses from
her pocket to cover her stricken face. He quickened his step to catch her up:

“I
won’t
let you go!”

She stopped for a moment, and
with her cheek turned away from him, said:

“Your daughter will live with
me in Queens Gardens. Someone will be in touch.”

Part
Three

One
Year Later

Chapter Twenty Seven

“
Well,
this
is a day
we
thought we’d never see,” said Tash close to his ear. She sat down next to him and
smoothed her skirt.

Chris had been waiting for his
friends - and some kind of spiritual awakening - as he took his seat on a hard
pew, made even more uncomfortable by the bunches of white ribbon fastened at
intervals along the back, so that there was nowhere to confidently place your
hand as you stood up to relieve your stressed buttocks. What did it remind him
of? The use of spikes on the tops of buildings to prevent birds from landing.

“How is it that you wear a suit
every day for work, and yet you still look like you should be standing in a
shop window with a price tag on your chest?” he said to Ian, who had been
outside checking on the baby.

His friend gave a small shiver
inside his smart clothes and shook his head:

“I don’t know, mate. Maybe it’s
something about weddings.”

“Mmmm, weddings and men,”
observed Tash, under her breath. “They really don’t mix.”

They gave a collective chuckle.

The church was the focal point
of a small Wiltshire village that had no shops, pubs or post office. It
remained the hub of the community, somehow, with its newly refurbished hall for
social gatherings; but the younger families clearly relied on their trusty four
by four vehicles to dash them off to ‘civilization’ for their schools, shopping
and wider entertainment.
Broadband
, as he understood it, from Fred, the kindly old gentleman
who had shown him to his seat and who had rehearsed a few witty lines for the
fancy London folk:
isn’t that a type of margarine?

It was Fred’s wife, Valerie,
who sat at the church organ and stirred the instrument into a relatively
tuneless, but not unpleasant, reverie as the ceremony awaited the arrival of
all the guests.

“So, have you seen the dress?”
asked Tash. She looked fresh and pretty in a silvery grey ensemble with a
fascinator in her hair.

“
Seen
it?” said Chris, with a little
grunt. “I think I tried it on myself once.”

“And white?” added Ian.

“I think so,” said Chris. “I
wonder where Peter and Linda have got to.”

“You
think
so?” said Tash.

“Well, yes. Aren’t all wedding
dresses white?” he replied, in his defence. “Maybe I was just suffering from
snow blindness by the end of it.”

It dawned on Tash a few hours
later that, in fact,
everything
was white. It was quite the theme. From the flowers and
ribbons in the church to the favours on the dining tables: and, of course, the
dress. The bridesmaids looked adorable in white taffeta and ballet pumps;
although she was rather aggrieved that her own daughter, Betsy, was not
“allowed” at the wedding as there was a strict no-children rule, aside from
those who were taking part in the ceremony. She had, fortunately, been able to
ask her sister to travel with them and take care of the little one at the
hotel.

Valerie’s hands came to rest
dramatically on the organ keyboard - issuing a crescendo that reverberated in
the chests of the congregation - as the flurry of activity at the back of the
church indicated that the wedding march was about to follow.

A few people could not resist
turning to see the bride, and gasp at how stunning she looked in the pearlescent
designer gown that was a simple, exquisite backdrop to her flame red hair. At
the front of the church, Rick turned to greet the woman who was about to become
the second Mrs Gale with a perfect smile.

“All we need now is a mucky
chimney sweep,” hissed Ian; who received a sharp dig in the ribs from his wife.

Chris looked past Sara, in her
glory, to where his brother and his wife were being belatedly ushered in:
Linda’s head wrapped in a headscarf – almost unremarkable in the sea of
women’s hats – but, on any other day, the badge of her battle with
cancer.

 
Fred steered them noiselessly, like an old pro, to Chris’s
pew.

It was a testimony to the folk
of the rural village where Sara had grown up that they were determined to give her
her dream wedding. Her parents were still very much part of the community, and
were well respected; and the vicar had been delighted to join their youngest
daughter in marriage, having done the same for her sisters several years
earlier. The fact that the ink on Rick’s divorce papers was barely dry seemed
to be of no consequence on the day: with his children seeming happy and
attentive – whatever they may have been feeling – and the bride
appearing as demure as a woman half her age.

Chris had witnessed much of the
wedding planning, and knew it would run like a military manoeuvre in the sense
that, although there would be no lives lost, there were sure to be casualties.
Shortly after he had returned from Paris with Amé and the baby, Sara had given
Rick an ultimatum, to which he had responded by filing for divorce from his
wife on the grounds of his own adultery. Chris knew nothing about the first Mrs
Gale – and Sara refused to enlighten him in any telling way on the
grounds of her own discomfort and guilt - but she clearly had her own reasons
for not putting up a fight for her hairless, faithless husband.

The three children, Laura,
Rebecca and Ricky junior, remained living with their mother, while Sara and
Rick moved into their own smart apartment in South Ken.

Apart from the obvious human
sadness, Chris had also been mindful of the florists who were berated for not
being flexible enough and the caterers who were accused of being too bland and
even Tobias got a tongue-lashing for not wanting to travel to the sticks to
titivate old women’s hair. He was sure that most women became harridans to some
degree when faced with the yawning chasm of a wedding day to fill with
non-negotiable perfection; but Sara seemed to take the biscuit. Maybe it was
because she had been planning it for too long, he told himself, and had too
much money to spend.

But he couldn’t help wishing
her well; and feeling a small sense of triumph on her behalf as she reached up
into her man’s arms at their exchange of vows and gave him the most rib-cracking
embrace. He even choked back an annoying urge to cry.

They sat on bales of straw
later that day, drinking the local cider and listening to a band of lively
young musicians, who had dressed themselves with a sense of irony in checked
shirts and denim, but were determined to rattle out their set of both old and
new music, but nothing remotely resembling a barn dance line up.

Sara had done a very good job
at combining her need for glamour and refinement with a traditional family
wedding. He felt rather proud of her, in spite of himself; a sentiment helped
along by the cider that no doubt clouded his judgement along with his beer
glass.

“I wish I had done this years
ago,” she said to him, making her first unofficial approach to him that day,
where he wasn’t just another guest to be kissed and thanked.

“Well, it suits you,” he said,
graciously, and tipped his drink in her direction.

“Did you hate the ceremony?”
she said with a coy smile. “All that bible stuff usually sets you off on one.”

“I put my earphones in during
that bit,” he said, and indicated the black wire that hung around his neck.

“You’re a shit,” she said,
twisting her lips with glee.