Chapter Twenty-Two #2
God, what an appalling woman. Even if I could not bring myself to take her seriously, I winced at the thought of the shameful little scene that had just passed.
She was lying, of course. I could scarcely credit Luc even knew her, let alone believe that he had asked her to marry him.
Jules had been right all along. Caroline was a piece of work.
And I’d actually been idiotic enough to defend the woman!
Breathing deeply in and out, I fixed my thoughts on Luc to dispel the ugliness.
And that’s when from nowhere, unbidden, unwanted, like a false note in a delightful arpeggio, a seed of doubt took root in my mind.
What if she was telling the truth?
Jules had told me Caroline and Luc were engaged. If he was right about her being a piece of work, why should he not be right about them getting married? Jules had no axe to grind, nothing to gain by lying. What if it was Luc who was lying, lying to me the way Giancarlo had lied, lying by omission?
I sat very still on the cold marble step, carefully thinking over the night I had just spent with Luc.
It wasn’t simply that the sex had been good.
Sex had been good with Giancarlo, amazing even.
Yet, back then, after we had been together for a while, I had begun to notice something oddly detached about Giancarlo’s love-making.
It was almost as though he was giving himself marks out of ten for performance.
Oh, he was enjoying himself all right, but he wasn’t making love.
He was going through the motions in order to observe the effect.
Luc wasn’t like that. Luc had made love to me.
Luc had been eager, passionate, tender, but actually a bit clumsy, as if he were out of practice.
We both had been. It had made us giggle.
But was that precisely the point? Had it all been only for a laugh?
Yeah, a quick bit of how’s-your-father with Alix the demon cook is the best joke.
What was it Tom had called me? Fancy-pants Cradock. Even Tom found me a clown.
Scrabbling in my shirt breast pocket, I pulled out the note Luc had left me that morning.
I had kept it there as… as what? A souvenir?
A talisman? On the creased piece of paper, I read the words again, the last words, the postscript written in capital letters: DON’T GET SERIOUS!
I had taken them to refer to my guilt-ridden wailing when Luc told me that Tom had been killed.
I had said that it was high time I stopped playing the fool.
What if instead Luc had meant those words to be taken literally?
He had meant, okay, Alix, so we’ve been to bed together, but don’t you go getting the wrong idea.
It was merely a hook-up, a one-night stand, a casual screw that was never for one moment intended to be serious.
I could not bear it. I could not face Luc. I could not bear to see the contempt in his eyes when he saw that it had meant so much more to me. Because I would not be able to dissemble. I would not be able to pretend it was only a fuck between friends. There was only one alternative.
I had to leave there and then.
I called a taxi to go to the station using the number on the card Luc had given me that first morning at the Villa Matisse.
It seemed a lifetime ago. Typically, the taxi arrived within minutes, the way they always do when you’re not in a particular hurry.
If you are, they take centuries. But I was in a particular hurry, wasn’t I?
I had to be gone before Luc returned. Scooping together all my belongings, I shoved them anyhow into my suitcase and charged downstairs.
On the table in the kitchen I left the remainder of the euros Luc had given me with the Villa Matisse entrance key card, debating briefly whether to leave a note.
But there was no point. Luc wouldn’t care that I had gone, and I was never coming back.
For me, the Villa Matisse was done, over, finished forever.
The taxi driver turned out to be very friendly, the chatty sort.
Typical again how you always get one like that when the last thing you want to do is talk.
He was English as well, which meant I couldn’t feign ignorance of French.
His wife was French, he told me, une Nicoise.
He had met her when he had come on holiday to Nice.
He knew the Villa Matisse well; he knew Luc very well.
They often went out for a drink together.
Had I known Luc long? Oh, I was working for him?
That was nice. Luc was a nice guy, a good man. Everybody liked Luc.
He chattered on, asking me this and that, apparently oblivious to my strangled responses.
I was finding it difficult to speak, my voice blocked by a lump in my throat so huge it was threatening to choke me.
And an insidious little whisper in the back of my mind kept distracting me, warning me that I was leaving behind something vitally important, cutting off an essential part of myself which, like an amputated limb, would continue to hurt long after its excision.
‘Which train are you catching?’ the taxi driver then asked, quite reasonably, because who goes to a station without knowing which train they are intending to catch?
Did I know? I wasn’t quite sure. But before I could even attempt a reply, however, he suddenly reached forwards and turned up the volume on his car radio.
It had been playing faintly in the background.
‘Oh, sorry!’ he cried. ‘But this is good; this is the best.’ And immediately filling the car came the sublime, soaring notes of Jennifer Rush singing ‘The Power of Love’.
The lump in my throat fractured, breaking into a thousand million pieces as I started to weep.
We arrived at the station. Somehow I got out; somehow I paid, blinded by the torrent of tears now coursing down my face.
‘Hey, are you okay, love?’ the taxi driver asked, peering at me in concern.
The announcement board said that the slow train to Milan standing at Quai 4 would be departing in ten minutes.
I sat down on a bench. It was cold on the platform.
The sun had gone in, and a chilly wind sprung up.
Unzipping my case a little, I stuck my hand inside, ferreting around for my jacket.
But I’d packed in such a panic that the contents were all over the place.
The case felt oddly empty. And then I realised why.
My washing was still in the machine at the Villa Matisse.
I had one of my sudden mental visions, this time of Caroline in the years to come, presiding over the Villa Matisse dinner table, telling witty little anecdotes to the company at large.
‘Do you know, my poor husband, Luc, once employed a temporary cook? A simply frightful woman. Hardly had to do a thing yet cleared off without a word leaving her knickers in the washing machine.’
I shivered. Might as well get on the train. Hoisting my suitcase up the steps, I was about to heave myself on board when somebody grabbed me from behind and spun me round.
‘Alix! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Freeing myself, I looked at who it was. It was Luc. ‘I’m catching the slow train to Milan.’
‘So I see, but why?’
‘There isn’t a fast one until tomorrow.’
His mouth twitched. ‘No, I meant why are you catching a train at all?’
We were standing facing each other on the platform, people carrying bags and trundling suitcases on wheels now beginning to stream steadily past us on their way to boarding the train.
‘It’s not Carl, is it?’ Luc asked urgently. ‘Carl’s okay, isn’t he?’
‘Carl’s fine.’ I considered him. He seemed genuinely concerned. ‘Thank you for asking,’ I said with stilted courtesy.
‘Then what… why…?’ He spread his hands, looking bewildered.
‘Why am I leaving?’
He nodded, his eyes searching my face. I averted my gaze.
‘Let’s just say I think I’ve outstayed my welcome.’
‘Don’t be bloody ridiculous. Come over here for a moment out of the way. I’ve got something to say to you.’ Taking my arm, he propelled me through the throng of people who were now irritably pushing their way round and between us. We sat down on the bench I had occupied earlier.
‘What is it you want to say?’ I asked coldly, not looking at him but addressing a point somewhere beyond his right shoulder. ‘Say it quickly, please, or I’ll miss my train.’
‘Good. Because you’re not getting on that train.’
‘Oh? And how do you propose to stop me?’
‘I’m going to tell you something I forgot to tell you last night.’
I looked at him then, looked him straight in the eye. ‘And what might that be, I ask myself? Could it by any chance be that you forgot to tell me you are getting married to Caroline?’
‘What?’
Well, if it was an act, it was a good one. To give the man his due, Luc looked totally poleaxed.
‘You heard me,’ I said.
‘Alix, what on earth are you talking about? Where have you got this from? Who said I’m getting married to Caroline?’
‘Caroline did.’
‘Caroline told you she and I are getting married? When?’
‘When are you getting married? I haven’t the remotest. Surely you know?’
Again, he almost smiled. ‘No, you noodle. I meant, when did she tell you?’
‘This morning. While you were out this morning she paid me a sociable little visit to inform me of your engagement.’
‘Jesus.’ Looking away, he frowned very suddenly and very deeply. ‘I don’t believe this. Tell me what she said.’
I shook my head. ‘No, I’m not going into that. Suffice it is to say I would not describe her as my number one fan.’
We were both silent for a moment, sitting there, our eyes on the seemingly endless stream of people flowing past. We might have been watching paint dry. Then Luc turned and seized my hand, the one nearest to him.
‘Alix, look at me, please,’ he said. ‘Look at me.’
Very slowly and deliberately, I turned my head. ‘I’m looking.’