A French Affair (5 page)

‘Not if I'm thinking about you sitting here on your own.'

‘I've got plenty to occupy me. I still haven't finished the reviews I started today, and I promised to have one ready by five tomorrow.'

Though he was looking at her anxiously, he was clearly keen to go. ‘Are you sure?' he said.

She smiled. ‘Of course I am. You'll enjoy it, and it'll do you good to chill out with the guys for a couple of hours. You work too hard, so you deserve some down time.'

He glanced at his watch. ‘Kick-off's in ten minutes so I should be going.'

She was about to answer when Harry came
bouncing down the stairs in his ink-stained pyjamas and a flowery shower cap. ‘I've done my revision,' he announced. ‘Will you come and test me, Dad?'

Charlie pulled a face as he looked at Jessica. ‘Son, I've just arranged to go and watch the game with Tom Kingsley's dad.'

‘Oh cool, can I come? We can have beer as well. I like beer, don't I, Mum?'

‘I've no idea, but I hope not,' she answered. ‘And I'm afraid it's too late for you to watch the match. You've got school in the morning . . .'

‘So's Tom and I bet he's watching it.'

‘Tom happens to be fourteen.'

Harry gave a shrug. ‘Then will you come and test me, Mum?'

‘Of course. Now, kiss Dad goodnight before he goes . . .'

Even before she could finish he'd rushed into his father's arms to embrace him brutally, then in response to Nikki's,
‘Harry!
What have you done with my shower cap?' he raced back up the stairs again.

‘Are you sure you don't mind?' Charlie said, going to the fridge to collect some beer to take with him.

‘Sure, just promise not to go on the rampage after the match,' she teased, and linking an arm through his she walked out to the back gate with him. As they stepped out into the lane she reached up to put her arms around his neck. ‘We're going to be all right, aren't we?' she said, looking up into his eyes. ‘You're not starting to think you want out?'

Meeting her gaze, his expression softened as he said, ‘You talk such rubbish sometimes. We're fine, and no I don't want out. I love you, remember?'

She smiled. ‘I love you too,' she said, ‘but you have
to talk about what happened. You can't keep carrying it around inside the way you are . . .'

‘Darling, I have to do this my way,' he interrupted. ‘I know you're not finding it easy to cope with, but not everyone's as able to open up as you are.'

‘I accept that, but maybe if you'd just listen to what I have to say . . .'

His expression instantly closed down. ‘I've heard it,' he said. ‘I know you can't accept the real version of events so you're trying to make your own, but whatever it is it won't be real. It can't be, because I saw the reports and spoke to the emergency teams myself, so I know what happened . . .'

‘But did you ask the right questions?'

He groaned and let his head fall back. ‘Jessica, please
please
let it go,' he implored. ‘You're just making it harder for yourself and I can't bear to see it.'

Swallowing her next words, she said, ‘I'm sorry.' Then she added, ‘The last thing I want is for this to come between us.'

‘It won't,' he promised, touching the tip of his nose to hers. ‘We'll get through it, it's just going to take some time.' Kissing her gently on the mouth, he started to turn away.

‘Pleasedon't mention anything to Melissa about the job tonight,' she said. ‘Not with everyone there.'

‘Of course not,' he assured her, and after kissing her again he headed along the lane to the Kingsleys' place, just four houses away, while she stood watching him until he disappeared through their gate.

As she wandered back into their garden she was thinking glumly of how many marriages broke down after the death of a child, and though she didn't really believe theirs was in too much trouble yet, she was all
too aware of the cracks that were starting to weaken it. She just wished Charlie wasn't finding it so hard to trust her instincts, or was at least prepared to listen to why she believed her mother was hiding something, but he was as resolutely determined not to indulge her on that as he was not to give in to his grief. It was as though he was shutting everything out, keeping it all at a distance, which was something that had never happened between them before. However, they'd never even come close to experiencing anything like this, so they really had no idea how to handle it, or one another – and though his withdrawal might be causing a part of their problems, she knew that her fear of some kind of cover-up concerning Natalie's death was only increasing the pressure.

‘Mum!' Harry called from his window. ‘Are you coming?'

Breaking out of her reverie, she abandoned the hose she'd started to unravel and shouted back, ‘On my way,' then after stopping to rinse her hands in the kitchen she ran upstairs to test him.

Everything was going to be fine, she told herself firmly. Like Charlie had said, it would take time, obviously, and there were probably many more difficult and unexpected phases for them to get through yet, so she should try to stop worrying so much and keep on reminding herself that come what may she wasn't going to allow her family to fall apart.

It was past midnight by the time Charlie came home. Jessica was already asleep, but as he clambered into his side of their six-foot bed she stirred awake and turned drowsily towards him. He smelled of beer and
toothpaste and the uniquely musky male scent that was him.

‘Did you win?' she murmured as he drew the sheet up around him.

‘Mm,' he responded. ‘Three–two.'

They lay quietly for a while, listening to the night and feeling the comforting presence of one another, even though neither of them made a move to close the small gap between them.

Soon she fell into the rhythm of his breathing and found her thoughts drifting back over the years they'd been together, how they'd been introduced at a student party, and how mad she'd been about him from the start. Within a week they were sleeping together, and a month after that she'd left the small flat she'd shared with Lilian to move in with him. He'd always sworn that even if she hadn't fallen pregnant with Nikki ten months into their relationship he'd have asked her to marry him anyway, and though she doubted he'd have done it quite that soon, she had no reason not to believe him. They'd always been good together, sharing the same kind of temperament as well as ambitions, supporting each other's careers and never seeing their children as anything other than the most wanted additions to their lives.

They still were, it was just that there were only two children now, instead of three.

She turned her head to look at him, then reaching across she felt for his hand.

As he took it he lifted it to his lips. ‘I'm pretty tired,' he said, ‘and I've got an early start tomorrow.' To her dismay he turned away, though keeping her hand in his so she was snuggling into his back.

This was another part of how things had changed
between them, because in the past they'd never shied away from making love. If anything, it had been one of the mainstays of their marriage, but now he'd become almost as resistant to it as he was to his grief. On a couple of occasions he'd actually been unable to work himself up to it, which hadn't so much surprised her as enraged him, particularly when she'd tried to explain how emotional issues could manifest themselves physically. She hadn't made the same mistake the next time the problem occurred, instead she'd done what she was doing now, holding him close wanting him to feel her love, while reassuring herself that was another phase that would pass. She didn't really crave the physical release herself, it was enough just to feel him there as she fell asleep, and to know he'd still be there when she woke up.

‘Mum!
Muuuum
!'

‘Natalie, no!'

Jessica came awake with a start. Her heart was pounding, her limbs trembling as sweat broke from her pores. The words had torn with such clarity through her dream that even though she knew she was awake now, their echo still resounded in her head. They were the last words she'd heard Natalie utter, shouting down the phone. ‘Mum! Mum!' And then had come her mother's voice yelling, ‘Natalie, no!'

After that there had been some kind of muffled banging before the line went dead.

She'd called back immediately, but there was no answer from Natalie's mobile, nor from the phone at the cottage where they were staying. She'd been about to go into the studio, the guests were assembled, the cameras were ready, so she'd had little choice but to
hand her phone to her assistant, telling her to keep trying until she got a reply. By the time the recording was over, an hour later, her assistant still hadn't got hold of anyone, so, worried – though nowhere near as worried as she now knew she'd needed to be – Jessica had called Lilian at her office in Paris to ask for Luc's father's number. He owned the cottage, along with the nearby
manoir
and surrounding vineyards.

As it turned out Luc himself was at the
manoir,
and had wasted no time in going to the cottage to find out what he could. It seemed an interminable time before he'd called back, and the instant Jessica heard the graveness in his tone her insides had turned to ice.

‘I am afraid Natalie has had a fall on the stairs,' he'd said, speaking fluent English with a pronounced French accent. ‘The police and paramedics . . .'

‘But she's all right!' Jessica cried, as though her words could make it so. ‘She's not badly injured.'

There was a pause before he said, ‘I am very sorry . . . her neck was broken.'

In all her life Jessica would never forget those words, or the terrible silence that followed them. It was as though the world fell away, leaving her stranded, unable to function. She tried to hold on, but there was nothing to hold onto. She told herself she hadn't heard correctly, that he'd got something wrong in the translation, but even if he hadn't, it didn't necessarily mean . . .

‘Is she . . . Is she . . .?' she'd whispered hoarsely.

His voice was cracked with emotion as he'd said, ‘I am afraid so.'

The next hours were blurred in her mind now – all she really remembered was the overpowering need to get to her baby, to make it all right, as though the
combined power of her will and her love could somehow bring Natalie back to life. Since Charlie was filming it had taken a while to reach him, but luckily he'd been in Paris, so he'd been able to get there much quicker than she could.

In the end Jessica hadn't arrived until the following day, taking Nikki and Harry with her, because they hadn't wanted to be left at home. All three of them were still in deep shock when Lilian collected them from the airport in Lyon. Charlie, accompanied by Luc, was at the local
gendarmerie
, dealing with the formalities surrounding the death.

When Jessica walked into the
manoir
her mother, Veronica, was sitting in a capacious fireside chair in the vast open kitchen appearing agitated and upset, but Jessica noticed right away that her make-up was unsmudged, and not a strand of her immaculate silvery blonde hair was out of place. A dangerous fire immediately leapt into Jessica's eyes, for she knew her mother well enough to see straight through the facade of a shocked and grieving grandmother to the nervous, guilty woman lurking behind.

‘What happened?' Jessica demanded, having to struggle for breath. ‘What did you do to her?'

Her mother's bewitching eyes grew wide with alarm. ‘I didn't do anything,' she cried, her hands fluttering upwards as though to ward off an attack. ‘It was an accident. She fell . . .'

‘She called me,' Jessica seethed. ‘She was afraid, and I heard you scream. So what the hell happened?'

‘She was on the phone,' Veronica sobbed helplessly. ‘I saw her going towards the stairs . . . There was a pile of newspapers . . . I realised she hadn't seen it and I shout . . . Shouted to her . . . But it was too late. I wasn't
quick enough . . . Oh God, Jessica, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry . . .'

She reached for Jessica's hands but Jessica slapped her away. ‘You're lying!' she cried. ‘She was afraid when she called me – something was wrong, so what was she calling me about?'

‘I don't know,' her mother insisted.

‘Who else was in the house?'

Veronica looked stunned. ‘No-one,' she cried in confusion. ‘There was only us. We'd been for a walk and got caught in the rain, so we were upstairs changing our clothes . . .'

At that moment the door opened and as Fernand, Luc's father, came in, Jessica saw her mother's glance in his direction and the little coquettish light that peeped into her eyes. That was when Jessica lost it completely.

‘What's the matter with you?' she screamed, grabbing her mother's hair. ‘Even now you can't stop flirting . . . You think it's all a game . . .'

‘No, no, let me go,' her mother protested, struggling to break free.

‘I want to kill you,' Jessica seethed. ‘You've taken away my baby . . .'

‘It was an accident! An accident!'

As Jessica's hands closed around her mother's throat, Lilian took her firmly by the shoulders, while Fernand prised her fingers apart.

‘Come and sit down,' Lilian said, leading her away. Then, whispering in her ear, ‘You're frightening the children.'

Jessica had forgotten Nikki and Harry, and seeing their pale, anguished faces she'd gathered them to her, and asked Fernand if he could suggest somewhere for
them to stay, because she couldn't remain under the same roof as her mother.

In the event Veronica had been the one to leave, moving into another of the nearby cottages, while Jessica, Charlie and the children had stayed at the
manoir
until they were able to take Natalie home.