Significance (31 page)

‘Okay,' Vivier said, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. ‘Let's get moving.' And with that all three set about their respective tasks. They worked with few words exchanged amongst them, until the bag and all of the spilled items beneath it had been photographed, stored in clear plastic bags and carefully labelled.

Whenever Sabine Pelat happened to catch Lamy's eye he avoided her gaze. There were no more hard stares as before, but something was up.

She would be wary of Lamy now. She would be guarded around him and study him at a distance. And if the problem continued she would talk to Inspector Vivier who did not like personal dissent amongst his staff.

‘We live or die as a team,' he'd once said, and that was true and yet in other ways, Sabine thought, Vivier was a loner. Then she remembered their earlier laughter, how easy and almost flirtatious it had been. But she had forgotten seeing Lamy staring at them as they laughed together in the car. She had blinked and he was gone.

Punishment

‘What were you doing with that prick, anyway?'

Florian was lying on his back, smoking a cigarette. The bed sheets covered his lower body leaving his chest bare. Suzette lay beside him propped on one elbow as she traced her fingers over his chest and shoulders. At his words her hand stopped moving.

He was staring at the ceiling, attempting unsuccessfully to blow smoke rings.

‘Does it bother you?' she asked.

‘What do you think?'

‘Does it change things?'

‘Maybe.'

She thought about this and considered what she could say or do to amend it. Nothing, it seemed. The thought made her feel that she was being condemned twice for the same crime. ‘Unfair!' cried a small voice inside her. ‘This is just not fair.' She withdrew her hand from Florian's chest, uncertain if this was done to punish him or herself.

Half an hour ago they had been making love. She had watched his face; his closed eyes and the almost anguished expression that had overtaken him as he came. How happy that had made her. Then afterwards that bliss of lying together, bodies still entwined, saying hardly a word.

Then the cigarette and the question that came out of a clear blue sky; the intense blue sky which almost seemed to vibrate against the open window. Florian leaned over the side of the bed and away from her, stubbing out his cigarette in the saucer on the floor beneath the bed. His skin looked like gold against the cerulean sky. She watched his muscles ripple under his skin, the smooth plane of his back, the diminishing slope from his shoulder to his waist, the coffee
-
coloured moles sparsely scattered like distant stars.

What she felt at that moment must be love, she thought, real love.

Or perhaps it was only desire?

Not that the definition mattered at this point. He would get out of her bed, dress without looking at her. Pick up his keys and loose change from the table where he'd put them last night, then say grimly, ‘I'm going now.'

He would say these things, act in this cold way because, ironically, he had experienced the same rapidly developing feelings of affection or desire or love or whatever it was, that she felt for him. And now because she had let herself be used by that filthy lying
flic
, Florian would no longer want her – he would shut out whatever feelings he might have had. And there was no consolation in that. None at all.

She rolled over so that she was lying on her side with her back to him. He would go, but she would not watch him. She felt the bed tip as he sat up, then spring back as he got up off the mattress. Heard the sounds of his bare feet move softly away over the rug, then the change in sound as he walked on the floor boards. A door creaked on its hinges; the one to the bathroom, which she should oil. Then the watery echoing sound of his pissing.

Then he would come back; search the room for his clothes, jeans by the table, one shoe by the front door, the other a few yards away, t
-
shirt over the back of a chair.

She closed her eyes, faking sleep.

Why had he asked her about the cop if he hadn't wanted to hear anything about it? Why ask when he already knew, as everyone in that damn bar knew, that she was the cop's mistress?

It had seemed right to answer his question, to confess her sins, her stupidity, her weakness.

She stared at the wall and replayed their conversation of minutes before. She had told him how much she now she regretted it. That she could not even recognise herself as the woman who had allowed herself be treated in that way. How the cop had hurt her when he fucked her and had even seemed to relish the fact. How he had lied to her.

She'd said all that while Florian listened in silence. She'd stopped speaking, waited for him to respond, but instead he'd lit a cigarette, taken two slow puffs, then said with unmistakable disgust, ‘What were you doing with that prick anyway?' And now he was leaving. For good.

She heard the toilet flush, then as that sound diminished the gush of the tap, the swish and slap of hands moving in the half
-
filled sink.

Yes, take a piss, wash yourself, then find your clothes, dress and leave.

Leave in silence.

Look, I'll pretend to sleep. Hear my breathing? Deeper, slower. See my shoulder rising and falling? I'm not even dreaming.

If you could listen to my thoughts, you would hear this over and over in a whisper: I love you, I love you, I love you.

Here come the footsteps again, crossing over the wooden floorboards, the scratchy slaps of naked human feet moving nearer, then the altered sound as once more he gains the carpet.

Then he stops somewhere near the bed.

Hear my breathing? See my closed eyes? I'm making it easy for you. But please don't linger or I will give myself away by crying.

In my imagination I thought we would be happy. That life would begin again with you. That the past was only the past. He is long gone. He no longer even lives in this town. What if he were dead? Would that make it better for you, for me, for us?

I'll wish him dead if you like.

Oh, Florian. Now I'm almost sorry that this ever happened.

Then a miracle, the mattress tips again, and sinks slightly as behind Suzette a warm body stretches itself on the bed. It moves closer and closer until it has tucked itself against her back. Then an arm loops over her shoulder and a hand holds her hand, as a mouth, with slightly cool lips, finds her neck, kisses her.

‘Mm,' he says, ‘you're warm this morning.'

She twists around quickly until she is facing him.

‘Hello!' he says. ‘I thought you were sleepy.'

She shakes her head quickly, no. Then gazes at his face as he gazes back at her. Then she dips her head and they begin to kiss once more in earnest.

After a few minutes he stops and pulls back, squinting at her, in order to focus on her face.

‘Did he ever tell you anything about his work?'

‘Who?'

‘That cunt, Severin.'

‘No, only that he hated the authorities and his superiors for keeping him back. Because they were jealous of him, afraid he would show them up. That sort of thing. He was an angry man.'

Florian snarled at this, then shook his head.

‘What?' Suzette said.

‘I always fancied you, you know,' he said. ‘But…'

He stopped speaking, stared at her face thoughtfully.

She waited, then spoke when it was clear he wasn't going to elaborate. ‘But now you don't. Because of him.' Her tone was reproachful, yet weighed down with resignation.

‘What!' Suddenly he turned her onto her back and rolled with her so that he now lay above her. His arms were wrapped tightly under her back and neck, he squeezed her and pressed meaningfully against her with his hips. ‘Of course, I still fancy you. Are you nuts?'

‘Oh.'

‘You're hot. Who wouldn't fancy you?'

She shrugged. This was news to her.

‘A couple of years ago I was talking to one of the guys at the bar and I said something about you. You know, I asked who you were, what your name was or something, and he said, point blank, no hesitation, that you were off limits.'

‘Off limits?'

‘Yeah, like do not trespass if you like your body the way it is, if you don't want it rearranged by a good kicking from a certain member of the local gendarmerie and a few of his carefully selected colleagues. Or better yet, why not get sent down for a few years on account of some serious drugs you didn't even know were in the boot of your car, and so with my record…'

‘I'm sorry,' Suzette said.

‘Sorry for what? Nothing happened, I backed off sharpish.'

She sighed. ‘So did everyone. Maybe that's why I kept seeing him.'

‘But you're not seeing him now,' Florian wriggled his lower body so that he was lying between her legs. ‘And you're not feeling him now.'

She could feel his penis hardening against her.

He cupped a hand around one breast and then brought his head down and nuzzled her nipple.

‘And he's not doing this now.'

‘No. Oh, that feels nice.'

Florian grinned and brought his face close to hers, staring at her with frank appraisal.

‘You're too fucking good for him.'

Then he kissed her and she kissed him back and it all felt so different from that thing which she and the cop used to call lovemaking, but was nothing of the sort.

How had she been so deceived?

Florian's fingers were now working between her legs. In her mind's eye she pictured humming birds captured in slow motion, beaks delicately dipping into an open flower. Nectar.

‘Oh,' she said and opened her eyes as he entered her and found him gazing intently at her.

‘Florian,' she said.

‘Suzette,' he replied.

Written in the Contract

It had been nearly ten days now. Thom had rung Lucy's flat, her mobile number. The latter went straight to voicemail, so she must have switched it off. He'd left several messages on her home machine and in the last of these he'd pleaded with her to at least talk to him, to tell him whatever it was he had done wrong. Or if it was over, if she had no more feelings for him, to at least have the decency to let him know.

He'd sent her a couple of emails too, but as she only used her email at work and as no one had seen her at the college, he doubted she had got these. In one of the emails he'd written some probably ridiculous and pompous statements about the unspoken rules of a relationship, about mutual respect and honesty and trust.

His emotions changed by the hour, by the minute. Now sad, now angry, now worried, now guilty. He wanted to yell at her and tell her she was acting like a kid. Then he wanted to tell her that he knew he was a selfish arsehole at times, but that didn't mean he didn't love her. Then he imagined her with other men; that young photography lecturer, Damon for example. He was always sniffing around her. Hadn't she said something about modelling for him. She'd said she couldn't decide.

‘What do you think, Thom?' she'd asked.

What had his reply been? ‘Nothing to do with me, it's up to you.' Then a dismissive shrug.

So maybe that was it, they'd have done the photos and something had started between them.

He'd go to her flat, get there good and early in the morning, at seven or eight o'clock. If Damon whatshisname or whoever was there at that hour, then the meaning was inescapable.

The anger rose up in him again, he imagined with a sort of glittering pleasure how it would feel to punch that effete bastard, Damon, in the face. Damon with his lank black hair, his Ian Ashcroft lope, his cooler than cool demeanor.

The punches Thom imagines do not stop. His hand does not hurt. He pounds his rival's face to a bloody pulp, without grazing a knuckle, without suffering a bruise. A movie pounding. A denouement in which only anger wins.

Cut.

The movie in his mind stops.

He tries another take.

This time the character he plays is aloof. He is in her flat. Don't ask how he got in (he doesn't have a key) but there he is moving through thick silence. Through the hallway, into the empty living room, the kitchen, down the corridor to the bedroom. At the closed door he pauses momentarily. Listens. There is no sound, no indication of anyone in the room. Quietly, he opens the door to find them in bed. He does not discover them in flagrante, but instead finds a moment of perfect stillness and unaccountable beauty.

Lucy, her head fitted into the apex of her lover's arm and body, lies asleep.

No sound, except for the lovers' measured breathing.

He sees.

His hand trembling on the door handle. He sees and retreats. In silence. Then, pulling the door shut quietly, he leaves.