A Sight for Sore Eyes (15 page)

turned back, pushing his way past the table that stood beneath his mirror, past Kelly's painting, James's wrought iron, searching the crowd for her, frustrated by bodies, legs, arms, heads, buttocks, bulk, getting in the way. And then suddenly she was in front of him. Alone, if you could be alone in this crowd, Holly and the twins somewhere else. He and she were alone, facing each other in this swell and press of people, an island of him and her in a sea of humanity. So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows, As yonder lady o'er her fellows shows. It was what he felt if he didn't know the words. He didn't know the words in which to put his question either, so he said it straight out. 'What's your name?' She put up her hand, but not quite to her lips. 'Francine. Francine Hill.' What did you ask next? Phone number, of course. He asked, she answered, he repeated it over and over, imprinting it on his mind. 'My friends are waiting for me,' she said gently, almost apologetically. She could go now, he didn't care. It was too much for him, anyway, it was killing him. Her eyes were eating him up, so that he felt faint, sick. 'Goodbye,' he said. 'Did you mean that? About giving the mirror to - someone?' 'Yes.' 'Oh. Well, goodbye.' By the time he got home half the number had gone from his mind. He had had nothing to write with or write on and his head was spinning. He didn't know if the last part was double nine three two or double three two nine, but he remembered the exchange number. The phone book had Hill, R., and nine two double three. What to do with it now he had found it he didn't know. He lay on his bed, still the same camp-bed his parents had consigned him to when he was four, and thought about her. The most beautiful thing he had ever seen. The perfect object made flesh. Better than anything a man could make or shape or paint. He imagined having her here with him, in this room, but it was unimaginable, this was no place for her, it would be like the diamond ring mixed up among his parents' rubbish. 'Francine,' he said aloud, 'Francine.' He had never heard the name before but it was beautiful, like her. Francine. If he had money and a beautiful place to live he would like to build a plinth for her and drape it in white and seat her on it in a white-and-gold chair. He would put the diamond ring on her finger and tiny white orchids from a florist's shop in her hair and dress her. A dress like Marc Svre's Harriet wore in Orcadia Place, a floor-length tunic of fine pleats, but white, not red, the purest white of her skin and the orchids. And she should look at her face in his mirror and worship it as he would, as he did. Francine. The evening sun glinted on the fins of the Edsei and suddenly, as clouds parted, made a blinding flash there so that it hurt the eyes to look. It was as if flames licked along the boot lid and seared the rear windscreen. He buried his head in the pillow. Francine.

Chapter 17

'Well, my dear, you have a job!' Julia said it with one of her bright and somehow conspiratorial smiles, hands clasped, shoulders hunched. She might have been talking to a child whose parents have made a compromise with its bad behaviour. If you must be naughty, let us direct your naughtiness into useful channels. Francine returned the smile, not very enthusiastically. 'In Noele's shop. You'll be helping Noele sell her gorgeous nearly new designer clothes. Three days a week, she won't need you more than that, and the marvellous thing is she's going to pay you. Not very much, but she will pay you. Now I think you said Holly isn't getting paid, so you can pull rank over her. So what do you say?' Francine remembered from childhood that when the grown-ups asked you what do you say, they meant, 'Why haven't you said thank you?' She resisted doing that now. Why would she want to have an ascendancy over Holly? She nodded, said, 'All right, Julia, I'll try it. I expect I can do it.' It would get her out of the house, she thought. 'Of course you can do it. Standing on your head. And I expect Noele will let you have all sorts of lovely things at a discount.~ Francine didn't want second-hand Jean Muir and Caroline Charles designed for forty-five-year-olds but she didn't say so. Imagining herself serving customers at Noele's standing on her head with her hair trailing along the floor and her feet waving in the air made her smile. Julia took this for pleasure and even excitement. 'And the beauty of it', she said to Richard, 'is that she'll only be a stone's throw from home. I mean, right up at this end of the High Street. If I look out of the front upstairs window at the side I could almost see her going in at Noele's door.' Richard nodded. At least Francine would have a job, she would have an occupation for her gap year. He could tolerate Julia, even revive fondness for her, when he saw her only for two or three days at a stretch. And he could teach himself to be easy in Francine's company when he had presents to bring her home and questions to ask her about her activities, things to tell her about places she had never visited. No longer seeing her on a regular basis, he was distanced from her, able to convince himself she was learning what all people of her age must learn, to grow away from the family home and adjust herself to the outside world. For Julia as guardian and guide he had no misgivings. Or none he wanted to bring to the forefront of his mind. In her care, as he told himself over and over, Francine could come to no harm, Francine would be the safest girl in London. He had begun planning for the move to Oxford. Now he could work from home while in this country, now he spent so much time travelling to and from Heathrow, Oxford would be just as convenient a place to live in as Ealing. More convenient. Francine would be safe and Julia would be pleased. But safe from what? When that question arose in his mind he quelled it. If he told himself often enough that Julia knew best, he could stop worrying. About anything. Clothes held little interest for Francine. This may have been because they interested Julia very much and since Francine was twelve she had been trying to dress her in jumpers and skirts with pearls and pretty cotton frocks. But Francine had her own dress allowance from her father and, when she was allowed out with Holly or Miranda or Isabel, spent it on jeans and leather and old army greatcoats and Doc Martens. Like the others did. She had two black dresses and a white dress - the one she had worn at the Private View - and bits and pieces that had taken her fancy, odd-shaped little jackets and skinny tops and miniskirts. That was the extent of her wardrobe. Noele looked her up and down rather grimly when she arrived for work in jeans and an endangered-species T-shirt with leopards on it, and suggested she change into 'something from the Moschino rack'. Willing to compromise a little, Francine looked for plain black trousers, but nothing she found fitted. 'I'm afraid they're miles too big, Noele.' The proprietor of New Departures was herself a scrawny, taut-bodied woman, a hook-nosed white-blonde, brimming with nervous energy. She said rather unpleasantly, 'I hope you're not going to take an insensitive attitude towards our clients.' Noele had clients, not customers. 'Normal-sized women don't feel very happy having adolescents flaunt their size-six bums at them, you know.' As it happened, Francine had little opportunity to flaunt anything, for most visitors to the shop were received and feted by Noele, who did all the showing and persuading herself. Francine spent most of her time in the workroom. There she received garments brought to be sold and her function was to examine them for flaws and wear. The slightest blemish disqualified a dress or suit for New Departures. If anything seemed perfect to Francine Noele had to be summoned to fix the price. Even though the garment had to have been dry-cleaned and still in its plastic bag, this was always very low, allowing Node to make an enormous profit of something like two hundred per cent. Occasionally, if the hem of a dress or skirt was coming down it would have to be repaired. Noele was appalled when Francine said she couldn't sew. 'What on earth did they teach you at that expensive school of yours?' 'Maths and French and English literature and history,' said Francine. She said it politely, though her patience was tried, and she smiled. 'There is no need to be sarcastic,' said Noele. When she arrived at the shop in the mornings she looked back at the window from which Julia watched her. Julia's face she couldn't see, it was too far away, only the movement of the curtain. And when she left Noele's at five she saw the curtain move again. Julia was on the watch for her and would be waiting. Julia asked Francine how she had got on at work in much the same way as a mother questions a child newly started at primary school. Francine must be tired, on her feet all day, she would want an early night. It would be unwise to go out in the evenings during the week and, in fact, said Julia with a certain triumph, none of Francine 's so-called friends had phoned to make arrangements to meet her. 'I am afraid you must be prepared for some of those people to drop you now you've left school and aren't seeing them on a daily basis. It's the way of the world, Francine.' 'It's down to me to phone them just as much as for them to phone me. Julia's smile was sympathetic, a little rueful. 'I wonder if they think themselves a cut above you socially? I wouldn't be surprised. School is a great leveller and when it's past. Outwardly, Julia seemed serene. She showed nothing of her inner anxiety. If Richard were at home she would have told him everything, but Richard was in Brussels till the weekend. It had begun with the phone call. A voice, a young man's, with an accent Julia dubbed Brent Cross, had asked to speak to Francine. With no preliminaries, no pretence at courtesy, more abrupt than one could imagine. 'I want to talk to Francine.' 'Who is that?' Julia said in her icicle tone, long drawn-out and cold. 'Can I talk to her?' 'My stepdaughter is not available,' said Julia and put down the phone. Probably there was no connection between that call and the car. Their street, of course, was always full of cars, parked cars and passing cars - what street is not? But this was a bright-scarlet sports car with no top, or with a soft top that folded down, a two-seater and very speedy. It sped along the street with its radio blaring. Down the street it cruised at ten in the morning and up again at eleven. Back it came at four in the afternoon, rock music throbbing from its open windows and roof, but it had disappeared by the time Francine returned home. The phone call wasn't repeated and the car didn't come back. Julia might have thought no more of it, but for the appearance of the man. Again, she had no reason to connect him with the phone call. He might have been the driver of the red car, for that driver too had been young and dark, but of that she couldn't be sure. She first saw him on the opposite side of the road at about midday. Almost direcdy opposite the house was a bus-stop with a shelter. He was sitting in the shelter, reading a book. Or pretending to read a book. Julia happened to be looking out of the window when he arrived and sat down in the middle of the seat. It had occurred to her, ten minutes before, that she had no idea what Francine did about lunch on these working days. She could ask her, or Noele, but it might be just as satisfactory to observe the shop door from her window. It was possible Francine went out alone and ate in some cafe. Anything could happen to her, she might meet anyone. She didn't see Francine, but she saw the young man. And in that sight Julia's world turned over. In the past she had thought of men in connection with Francine, but only the man and other vaguely conceived psychopaths who might want to harm her physically. Now a terrible thing occurred to her, that Francine sooner or later might attract a man and be attracted by him. In her eyes Francine wasn't attractive. She was too thin and too dark, too unlike Julia's own ideal of beauty. And she was too young - or so Julia had thought. Now she realised that Francine was by no means too young, she was eighteen, an age which many people would call too old to have a first boyfriend. Hot tides of pain and panic surged through Julia. She broke out into a sweat. Francine as a young. woman with a lover was a prospect she knew she couldn't face. Even contemplating it made her feel sick. And the horrible thing was that Francine was probably highly sexed. Damaged or disturbed people often were. 'It will destroy her,' said Julia aloud into the empty room. 'I will lose her,' she whispered to herself. The young man on the seat looked dangerous. He was too handsome and too casual. As if he cared about nothing except getting what he wanted. Julia stared at him, willing him to go away, to prove her wrong. Two more people came to the bus-stop. One of them sat down and a third looked as if she would like to, but the man wasn't going to shift along, not he. He sprawled over half the seat with his right leg crossed over his left above the knee. Julia thought of going over there and speaking to him. She would go up to him and tell him off, ask him why he hadn't the courtesy to let an old lady sit down. She was considering doing this when the bus came. The other three people got on it, but he didn't. He remained where he was. Julia hated that. It frightened her. But what could she do? He had a perfect right to sit there if he wished and as long as he wished. She kept returning to the window throughout the day, but by four he was gone. There was no reason to suppose a link between the phone call, the red sports car and the young man in the shelter, but she did suppose one. She supposed, too, a link with Francine and longed for Friday when Richard would come home. On the following afternoon he was back. Julia felt sick with apprehension. He was sitting there reading, occasionally glancing at the house. At last, half an hour before Francine was due to leave New Departures, she went across the road and accosted him. He looked up and fixed on her dark, cold, expressionless eyes. 'What exactly do you think you're doing here?' 'Sitting,' he said. 'Reading.' 'I can see you're sitting and reading, I'm not blind. Why are you doing it here? You're not waiting for a bus, I've watched you. Haven't you got a home to go to?' The stare he fixed on her was unnerving. She had the strange incongruous impression that he was an actor and one who has mastered the art of timing. He was not afraid to be silent, to create a long enduring pause. At last he said, 'Go away.' Julia couldn't handle it. She said, with bluster, 'If you're still here in half an hour I'm calling the police. Walking home, Francine saw no one, heard nothing. She was deep in thought. If she stuck Noele's for another month that was about all she was going to manage. Yet she had to stick it, for if she told her father how much she hated New Departures and how bored she was, Julia would say that went to prove what she always said, that Francine wasn't fit to be in the outside world and couldn't cope with even a little part-time job. Now she wished she hadn't acquiesced in that gap-year plan. It was really only because Holly was taking a year out, she had somehow thought she would be with Holly and they would do things together and enjoy themselves, while in fact Holly was so busy working for her MP and going about with Christopher that they hardly spoke and seldom saw each other. Thanks to her own weakness and impulsiveness she had fallen into Julia's trap and was due to pass another year of her life in tedium and near-imprisonment. She refused to look up in the direction of that window, from which Julia would certainly be gazing, smiling and probably waving, and even stayed on the other side of the wide street. She didn't want to tease Julia, she had never done that, though she had been tempted, but she wasn't above walking along behind the row of parked vans and delivery trucks that would conceal her from Julia's view. Eventually, of course, she must cross the street and she decided to do so on the pedestrian crossing, a few yards along from the bus-stop. There was someone waiting for a bus. She wasn't sure afterwards if she recognised him first or he her. Perhaps recognition was simultaneous. 'Hi,' he said. 'Oh, hi, hallo.' 'Do you...' he tried and then he tried again, 'do you remember me?' 'You're the mirror maker.' 'Yes.' He stood looking at her. She couldn't recall anyone looking at her so intensely before. It was as if he were studying her, learning her, to store up for future use. 'Do you', she said tentatively, 'live round here?' He shook his head. 'I came to see you. I've seen where you work and I've been waiting here to see you. 'Have you?' She felt the blood come up into her face. The heat of it embarrassed her. 'That woman in your house is staring at us out of the window,' he said. 'She came out and asked me why I was here.' 'Why are you?' 'I told her to go away. Can I come in with you for a bit?' Her horror must have shown. He stared intensely at her, not smiling, his face hard with concentration. Then, in that moment, the bus came. If he realised she didn't know, but she knew at once that the bus would cut them off from Julia's view. A man got off it, then an old woman, taking her time. 'If I write down my number,' he said, 'will you give me a phone?' Before she knew what he was doing he had taken her left hand in his and turned back the sleeve of her cardigan. It was then that she noticed the mutilation of his little finger, how it had been cut off at the first joint. He began to write in ballpoint on her wrist. She held her hand stiffly for him, extending