A Heart Bent Out of Shape (24 page)

‘What if I hurt you without meaning to?’ he said.

‘You wouldn’t,’ she said. And it really did feel that simple.

‘I’d never want to,’ said Joel.

‘Then you won’t.’

Outside, the snow was falling quietly and heavily. Hadley closed her eyes and opened them again, and everything was just the same. Hissing logs. Shifting shadows. Snow banking at the window, the pane misted. Joel’s hand was in hers, and it was warm and rough-edged, as real as anything else.

‘Tell me a story, Joel,’ she said, ‘tell me something about you that I don’t know.’

‘What kind of a story?’

‘A true one.’

So he began to talk. He told her how he fell in love with books when he had just turned ten, plundering his grandparents’ bookshelves and finding a copy of
Grimm’s Fairy Tales
. How he spent the summer holidays lying in the parched grass of their lawn, reading of frog princes, lost children and shoes that wouldn’t fit. How afterwards he had still tossed baseballs, spun his bicycle along the boardwalk, chased his brother in and out of the orange groves, but all the time his head was full of stories.

He told her how one day when he was twelve he’d hidden on the roof of a barn and smoked his way through half a pack of stolen cigarettes. He’d coughed and spat and his feet skittered on the uneven tiles. He fell and broke his arm, smashing the bone in three places, and he took hold of Hadley’s fingers, then, and made her feel the slight bump beneath the sleeve of his shirt. He said he could still remember the moment of falling, the ground flying towards him at the strangest of angles, as though the world itself had tilted, and the waving heads of the angry nettles that instead of cushioning his blow stung him through his clothes, from top to toe.

He told her how one day, in the sorry wake of Winston – his brother who would always be fourteen and freckle-faced and laughing just before they spun off the road in a no-good truck – a hard-edged, seventeen-year-old Joel discovered Ernest Hemingway. And his heart, bent out of shape as it was, beating with life but not much else, lifted once more.

Hadley watched him, and in the end he looked back at her.

‘I wish I’d always known you,’ she said.

‘I’d have been better, if you had,’ said Joel. He smiled for her, but his eyes stayed far away. ‘Now it’s your turn. You tell me a story.’

‘I only have one,’ she said.

‘Well, I want to hear it.’

‘You know most of it.’

He settled himself in the armchair. Hadley stayed sitting on the floor and wrapped her arms around her knees. She watched the fire.

‘It’s a love story,’ she said.

‘I don’t think I do know it.’

‘I came here without expectation or design,’ said Hadley, turning to him, holding his eye. ‘I hardly knew anything about Lausanne. But I fell in love with it, right from the very beginning. Do you remember how we saw each other, on my first night?’

‘Do I remember?’ he shook his head. ‘Hadley, of course I remember.’

‘I was walking back to Les Ormes, through all the streets of the old town. At one point I turned round and looked back and saw the lights glittering on the other side of the lake. And I realised that I knew exactly how that scene looked by day as well, with the mountains rising up behind; it was like a painting, like nothing real. And I couldn’t believe any of it, Joel. I couldn’t believe that I was there, on my own, in a foreign city. That this life was mine. Then, well, it only got better. I met Kristina. And we started doing everything together. I’d never had a friend like her before. She was Danish, but she seemed so exotic to me; it was like she didn’t come from anywhere, she came from everywhere. Isn’t that a silly idea? But being here, something changed. I guess I felt something I’d never felt before.’

‘What was that?’ he said quietly.

‘Like anything was possible.’

He was out of his seat and Hadley thought he was coming to her, but instead he bent to the fire. He had the poker in his hand and jabbed at the logs, the flames shooting up into the darkness.

‘Joel?’

He didn’t turn. And when the fire roared and embers scattered over his bare feet, he barely flinched. Hadley stood up and wrapped her arms carefully around his shoulders.

‘You couldn’t have done more. I hope you know that. Because it matters, that kind of thing, the way people are when . . . disaster strikes. When you were telling me about Winston you said I’d be in my own private hell. But you’ve been right there with me. You’ve never made me feel alone in any of it. And you’ve given me something else too. Something I didn’t even know I was looking for. That was what I really wanted to tell you.’

He faced her, and she saw that his eyes were burning. In that particular light, he almost looked as if he was crying. She reached out her finger to brush his good cheek but he caught it and held it lightly in his.

‘Your love story,’ he said, ‘I just wish it ended differently.’

‘But it’s not over yet,’ she said, ‘is it?’

twenty-eight

On New Year’s Eve they dined in a
chalet-style restaurant
in the village, a place that was all dark corners and sloping wooden ceilings. Their table was crowded with a giant pot of fondue, and they ate as the locals did, never allowing the forks to touch their lips, deftly skimming the cubes of bread from the bubbling cheese. Hadley had only thought about a Lausanne New Year once, earlier, as she’d pulled on her fur-topped boots and hunted for her gloves. How might it have been? She and Kristina crowding into the bathroom together, jostling for mirror space, marking their lipstick and flicking their hair. They would have been bound for somewhere dazzling. Or would Jacques have lured his girl away, instead? Quick kisses on the cheeks and a florid wave, and Hadley left wishing she had someone too. Now she did, and he was right there with her. She drank champagne and let it fizz on her tongue.

‘This is perfect, Joel,’ she said. ‘Just perfect.’

‘Let’s never go back to Lausanne,’ he said. ‘Let’s stay here always.’ His cut and bruised cheek gave him a roguish air. His smile was more lopsided than ever. Their evening had begun with mountain-frosted whiskies. Joel had snapped ice spears from the roof of the porch.
Fire and ice
, he’d said, opening his palm and revealing the glittering shards. After their second glass, Hadley had stopped trying to match him.

‘You know, we’re not so far from the places where the Hemingways used to stay,’ he said. ‘Chamby, Les Avants, I haven’t been yet but I will, in the spring. Maybe if they’d stayed in the mountains they’d have been happy always.’

‘You really think that?’

‘No.’

‘So you’re just being romantic?’

‘Wilfully so.’

‘Well, I wish we could stay and be just like them, however misguided.’

‘We’d be nothing like them,’ he said.

He refilled their glasses, the champagne fizzing all the way to the rim. He drank his back, thirstily.

‘Actually, I don’t think I’d even want to stay,’ said Hadley, ‘not for too long, anyway. I’d miss the bustle, the people. You could live here, in a tiny snow-filled bubble, and forget that the rest of the world exists. Your life would never collide with anyone else’s.’

‘Exactly its charm,’ said Joel.

He looked at her, and his gaze was hot behind the eyes. The candle between them was guttering and the wax blobbed on the table. He pressed its edges, kneading it flat with the tips of his fingers.

‘What would you want to be, if you weren’t a professor?’ she asked suddenly.

‘There’s a question. I honestly couldn’t tell you.’

‘So you really like teaching?’

‘I really do.’

‘You like teaching me, that’s for sure.’

‘Well, you’re a gifted student.’

‘So have there been other gifted students?’

‘Hadley . . .’

‘It doesn’t matter, I’m just curious.’

‘No. No one like you.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘This is a career-threatening move, Hadley. I’d be stupid to make it too often.’

‘But you have before?’

Joel took hold of her hand. ‘No, Hadley. I haven’t. I’m in Lausanne for one year only, just like you. I’m not fleeing a scandal in the States. I haven’t left behind a string of broken hearts. Okay?’

‘I was only teasing you,’ said Hadley, her smile ringing with obvious pleasure.

‘Well, tease away, Hadley Dunn. That’s your prerogative.’

‘I’m just so glad you came to Lausanne too. I can’t imagine the alternative.’

‘You’d have found one.’

‘I don’t go for just anyone, you know. I am, actually, very choosy.’

‘Then how the hell did you end up with me?’

‘It’s a puzzle, isn’t it? I guess I dropped my guard.’

Joel topped up their glasses then kicked back in his chair, his brow crinkled.

‘Last term I wasn’t all that happy in Lausanne,’ he said.

‘But, I thought you loved it. You said so in your first lecture, how all the literary greats came here, escaping too-crowded Paris, the stifling Riviera; you said they walked and skied and stayed in glamorous hotels. You made it sound like we were treading in all the best footsteps.’

‘I don’t know, maybe it’s just me, but I feel watched here. There’s no imperfection.’

‘I thought California was like that too.’

He picked up his glass again but he’d already emptied it. He turned it in his hand and stared, mesmerised.

‘Yeah, but it’s all artifice there,’ he said, ‘you can see the set design, hear the lines being spoken. Everyone goes along with it and that’s the fun. Here, it’s real. Everything’s real.’

‘Hugo Bézier said it’s not so very perfect. Scratch the surface and it’s just the same as everywhere else. Just sharper suits. Better watches. Prettier views.’

‘This Hugo Bézier, what’s the story there?’ he said, looking at her, his glass set down. ‘Do I need to challenge him to a duel, or something?’

‘Joel, he’s over seventy.’

‘And what did you say he was, some kind of crime writer?’

‘A
retired
crime writer.’

‘That kind of mind never stops turning, does it, though?’

‘Oh, I think his has, a long time ago. It’s funny, you know, I can’t work out if he cares about everything, or nothing. If he’s lonely, or perfectly content.’

‘Does it matter?’

‘I don’t know. I guess not. It’s not like I could make a difference, anyway.’

‘You’d be surprised, Hadley, you’d be surprised.’

‘I’m grateful to him, I know that much. If it wasn’t for all his “stay and fight” talk, I’d probably be back home now. I wouldn’t be here with you. Imagine that.’

Joel rubbed his eyes. When he moved his hands away his pupils were bleary.

‘We need to get something else to drink. Shall we change it up? Red wine?’

‘I’ve still got a full glass,’ said Hadley.

‘Well, you drink that and I’ll get us some red.’

He called out to a passing waiter, and exchanged quick words.

‘Your French is even better when you’re drunk.’

‘I’m just getting started. You know, I thought about leaving too, Hadley,’ he said.

‘What? When? You never told me that.’

‘Around the time I got to know you.’

‘So what made you stay?’

‘A less than compromising boss and a nice salary.’

‘Oh.’

‘No. Actually it was you.’

‘You’re just saying that.’

‘I didn’t feel like my life was here and I didn’t feel a lot like me.’

‘I guess a lot of people feel like that, when they go to another country.’

‘You didn’t.’

‘I made a great friend.’

‘Yes. You did. I wanted to go home, start the year over. And then, suddenly, you made me feel needed. As though I could actually do something good, after all.’

‘Kristina brought us together, didn’t she? I like the idea of that. She thought I was strait-laced, you know. She wouldn’t tell me anything about Jacques because she was sure I’d disapprove. But an affair with my tutor? Well, she’d have loved that.’

‘Hadley, we’re not only here because of Kristina,’ he said.

‘But don’t you think it’s true, in some ways?’

The wine came and Joel poured two glasses. The wine ran down the stems, pooling on the pale cloth.

‘You know, part of why I wanted to find Jacques . . .’

‘Hadley . . .’

‘No, listen, I’m not dwelling on it, I’m not. It’s actually romantic. I wanted to tell him just this one thing.’

‘What one thing?’

‘It was something Kristina said to me once. When she talked about Jacques she left so much out but she did say this one thing, and I loved it.’

‘Come on, Hadley, what was it?’

‘That when she first met him she thought he was the most handsome man in the world.’

‘She said that?’

‘And that he made her feel like the most beautiful woman. I just think that’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard.’

Joel took hold of her hand. He caught her ring like he always did, and turned it on her finger, round and round.

‘Don’t you think that’s beautiful, an amazing thing to say? I wanted Jacques to know that. I wanted him to have it to hold on to. I think people ought to know things like that.’

‘You’re a romantic, aren’t you, Hadley? I always knew you were. I like that about you, it’s a nice way to be.’

‘I don’t know what I am. A quitter, maybe. I stopped looking, I stopped bothering the police. Hugo didn’t say it but I know he thought it. But then he’d run out of ideas too.’

‘You moved forward. You started something new. Isn’t that better?’

As he spoke Hadley saw how, in the candlelight, his eyes blazed. She wanted to be back in the cabin, suddenly. She didn’t want New Year to be anything else, or anyone else. Was that moving forward? Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn’t, but she knew that she wanted the countdown to be hot whispers, and closed walls, their two bodies moving in time; only that.

The waiter came then, bringing them shots of syrupy
eau de vie.

‘
Bonne Année!
’ he said, as he set them down.

Joel looked at his watch then held it up to her. Midnight had come and gone and they had missed it.

‘Hadley, it’s a New Year.’

‘We didn’t count down. Is that bad luck? That we missed it?’

He took her hand. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said.

They spilled out into the sharp mountain night. Joel’s steps were ragged. He’d finished the last of the wine and hers too, swilling it down after their celebratory liquor shots. She laughed at him, and slipped her arm through his. Around them, revellers kicked through the snow, shouting and calling. Fireworks exploded in the valley. Hadley felt someone pull at her arm and she spun around, smiling, ready to cry
Bonne Année
, Happy New Year, to anyone she met. But her expression changed instantly as she looked into a face she knew. For a moment she struggled to place him – the curling dark hair, the plump lips. Her mind went blank. Then she put it together. She dropped Joel’s arm.

‘Luca, what are you doing here?’

‘Same thing as you,’ he said, looking past Hadley and on to Joel. ‘Or maybe not exactly.’

‘Loretta said you had a place in the Italian Alps . . .’

‘My
parents
have a place in the Italian Alps. I’m here with friends. So are you, by the look of it.’

Hadley glanced at Joel. She began to shape a quick answer.
Oh, we just ran into one another too,
but Luca stopped her.

‘I saw you in the restaurant,’ he said. ‘My friends and I came in for a late drink. We were in there at midnight.’

‘I didn’t see you.’

‘You were busy,’ he said. ‘With Professor Wilson.’ Luca turned to him. ‘A friend of mine, or should I say, another friend, for Hadley and I have been friendly too, is in your class. She’s always talking about you. She thinks you’re the best. Evidently, she’s not the only one.’

‘Yeah, and who are you?’ said Joel.

‘Luca, listen,’ said Hadley, ‘I know this looks bad, but . . .’

He turned to go, flapping his hand dismissively.

‘Luca, wait.’

‘Hadley? Is he bothering you?’ said Joel, the words falling messily.

‘Happy New Year,’ Luca said, over his shoulder, ‘to both of you. Oh hey, and stay out of fights,’ he added, nodding at Joel. ‘You don’t want to damage your looks.’

Hadley watched him swing off into the crowd. She turned to Joel. He had one hand held to his face, and was feeling his bruise as if he had forgotten it was there.

‘What now?’ she said.

He shrugged, with exaggerated casualness.

‘Joel, what now?’

‘I’m sobering up,’ he said. ‘I know that much.’

‘Oh God, what are we going to do?’

‘An old flame of yours? Seemed like a man walking wounded.’

‘Is that all you can say?’ said Hadley. ‘Anyway, no. Not really. I . . . kissed him. The night Kristina died. Before we knew.’

‘You were with him that night, were you?’

‘It was my birthday. He’s a friend of a girl I know at Les Ormes. It was a bad idea.’

‘Only a kiss, Hadley,’ he said. ‘What’s a kiss? Nothing.’

‘Luca said that it’s always the start of something, and at the time I wanted to believe him.’

‘Because you did like him?’

‘No. It was just after Geneva. When we’d kissed in the car. That’s why.’

Joel looked down, and kicked his feet in the snow.

‘And now he’s seen us,’ he said, ‘but that kid won’t do anything. He’s spineless.’

‘You don’t know that,’ said Hadley. ‘Why . . . hang on, are you jealous?’

‘I couldn’t give a rat’s ass if you kissed half of Lausanne,’ said Joel.

‘You’re jealous,’ said Hadley. Then, ‘I like that.’

As they walked, their footsteps crunching, the clamour of the resort fell behind them and moonlight showed the way home. The mountainsides were empty; the night workers, the hulking machines that bashed the snow and groomed the slopes all ready for morning, must have stopped early. It was beautiful and eerie all at once. Underfoot there was ice and drifted snow and their feet skittered in different directions. Hadley led the way home.

‘What I think we should do,’ said Joel, ‘is get away from here altogether. I thought the mountains would be far enough, but I was wrong. What we need, Hadley, is an island, some place exotic. How’d that be?’

His words were a little slurred, but she liked the feel of his hot breath on her cheek, and the weight of him pressing against her. She felt as though if she stepped away, he’d trip and fall.

‘That’d be just fine,’ she said, ‘perfect.’

‘You and me and no one else, as far as the eye can see.’

‘Sounds pretty great.’

‘It’d be hot, of course, so there wouldn’t be any need for clothes. No clothes, at all, not a stitch.’

‘Naturally not.’

‘Coconuts. Rum, lots of rum. Monkeys in the trees. We’d grow our hair long.’

‘You don’t like my short hair?’

‘What? I love it. Of course I love it. But I’ll grow mine. Or maybe just a great old beard, just like Hem’s. Would you still kiss me, with a beard like that?’

‘On our island, I’d do anything.’

‘Castaways, we’d be. Tanned, drunk and happy.’