“I expect you to acknowledge his existence,” said Johnny. “You could meet him in London.”
“I couldn’t. I haven’t got time.”
“You haven’t got time.” Johnny’s voice was scathing. “Well, perhaps Zara has got time.”
“She can’t meet her father yet! She . . . she isn’t ready! She needs to be prepared!”
“And you’re going to do that, are you?”
There was silence.
“OK, Fleur, have it your own way,” said Johnny at last. “You let me know when Zara’s ready to meet her father, and I’ll keep putting him off for the moment. But that’s all I’m doing.”
“Johnny, you’re a doll . . .”
“No more funerals,” said Johnny. “No more invitations. No more arriving out of the blue and expecting to use our spare room.”
“Johnny!”
“I’m not pleased with you, Fleur.”
And as she stared disbelievingly at the phone, he’d rung off, and a cold chunk of dismay had descended into her stomach. Everything was suddenly going wrong. Richard wouldn’t give her a Gold Card; Johnny was cross with her; Hal Winters was in the country.
Hal Winters. The very name irritated her. He’d already caused enough trouble in her life; now here he was again, turning up out of the blue, threatening to ruin everything, turning her friends against her. Turning Johnny against her. A pang of alarm ran through Fleur. If she lost Johnny, who did she have? Who else was there for her?
Never before had Fleur realized quite how much she depended on Johnny and Felix. For twenty years, Johnny’s flat had been at her disposal. For twenty years she had confided in him, gossiped with him, shopped with him. She had thought nothing of it. If asked, she would have described their friendship as casual. Now that it was under threat, it seemed suddenly far more than that. Fleur closed her eyes. She and Johnny had never disagreed before over anything more significant than the colour of a sofa. He had scolded her often enough in the past, but always with a twinkle in his eye. Never seriously, never like
this. This, he was taking seriously. This time he meant business. And all because of a man named Hal Winters.
Fleur stared angrily at her reflection. She looked a sophisticated, elegant woman. She could be the consort of an ambassador. A prince. And Hal Winters was . . . what? A drugs salesman from Scottsdale, Arizona. A cheap drugs salesman who fourteen years ago had coupled nervously with her in the back of his Chevy and then brushed his hair carefully back into place so that his mother wouldn’t notice anything awry. Who had asked her to keep her distance in public and please not blaspheme in front of his family.
Bitterly, Fleur wondered again how she could have been so stupid. How she could have mistaken that sulky diffidence for gauche charm. How she could have allowed him to invade her body; plant a piece of his second-rate self in her own. She had let him into her life once; never again. A man like Hal Winters could not be recognized as part of her existence. Could never be permitted to claim a piece of her life. And if that meant losing Johnny, then so it would have to be.
Fleur lifted her chin determinedly. Quickly she took off the veiled hat and replaced it with another. A black cloche; a smart, serious hat. She would find a memorial service to wear it to next week. So Johnny refused to feed her any suitable funerals. Well, what of it? She didn’t need Johnny. She could survive very well on her own. On the dressing table in front of her were three newspaper clippings. Three London memorial services. Three chances for a fresh start. And this time, she wouldn’t sit around for weeks, letting her life slip away. She would pounce at
once. If Richard Favour wasn’t going to make her a rich woman, then somebody was.
She bit her lip, and quickly reached for another hat; another distraction. This was made from black silk and sprinkled with tiny violets. A very pretty hat, thought Fleur, admiring the picture she made in the mirror. Almost too pretty for a funeral; almost a hat for a wedding.
As she turned her head from side to side, she heard a knock at the door.
“Hello?”
“Fleur! Can I come in?” It was Richard. He sounded flustered.
“Of course!” she called back. “Come on in!”
The door burst open and in came Richard.
“I don’t know what I was thinking of this morning,” he said in a flurry. “Of course you can have a Gold Card. You have whatever you damn well like! My darling Fleur . . .” Suddenly he seemed to see her for the first time, and broke off. “That . . . that hat,” he faltered.
“Forget the hat!” Fleur tore it off her head and threw it on the floor. “Richard, you’re a poppet!” She looked up, a dazzling smile on her face. He was standing completely still, staring at her as though he’d never seen her before in his life.
“Richard?” she said. “Is something wrong?”
He really hadn’t expected her to be in her bedroom. He had planned to go and see how the two young people were getting on with the food ordering, then ring the health club and ask whether Fleur was there. But as he’d passed her door, it had occurred to him, at the back of his troubled
mind, that he might as well knock on the door, just to be sure. He’d done so perfunctorily, his thoughts elsewhere, swirling uneasily around this new, undigested fact about Emily.
Emily had been unkind to Gillian. He found it painful to frame the thought in his mind. His own, sweet timid Emily, unkind to her own sister. It was an astonishing accusation; one which he found it difficult to believe. But not—and it was this that troubled him the most—not impossible. For even as Gillian had told him there had been, amongst the immediate protestations and shouts of denial around his brain, a small, sober part of him that was not surprised; that perhaps had always known.
As he’d left the kitchen, a pain had begun to jab at his chest and he had felt a renewed grief for Emily—the Emily he had loved. A sweet, remote creature with hidden qualities. Qualities he had been desperate to unmask. Was unkindness one of those qualities? You wanted to find out, he told himself bitterly, as he walked up the stairs. And now you have found out. All the time, underneath that mild exterior had been a secret unkindness, from which Gillian had suffered in uncomplaining silence. He could hardly bear to think about it.
And suddenly he’d wanted, above anything else, to see Fleur. Warm, loving Fleur, with not an unkind bone in her body. Fleur, who made Gillian happy and him happy and everybody happy. When he’d heard her voice unexpectedly answer his knock he’d felt an almost tearful love rising through him; an enveloping emotion which propelled him through the door, forced speech from his lips.
And then he’d seen her, sitting in front of the dressing table in a hat. A hat just like Emily had worn on the day of
their wedding; a hat just like the one she’d been unpinning as he discovered the first of the cold, steely gates that would forever lie between them. Part of him had expected Fleur to do the same as Emily had then. To unpin her hat, and lay it aside carefully, and look straight through him, and ask, “What time’s dinner?”
But instead, she’d thrown it aside in a whirl, as though contemptuous of anything which got in the way of them. The two of them. Him and Fleur. Now she was holding out her arms to him. Warm and open and loving.
“Fleur, I love you,” he found himself saying. “I love you.” A tear fell from his eye. “I love you.”
“And I love you.” She caught him up in an exuberant hug. “You sweet man.”
Richard buried his head in Fleur’s pale neck, feeling tears suddenly stream from his eyes. Tears that mourned the loss of his perfect Emily, the discovery of her fallibility; which marked the passing of his innocence. His mouth was wet and salty when he eventually raised it to Fleur’s; began to pull her closer to him, suddenly wanting to feel her warm skin against his own, wanting to break down all barriers between them.
“Why did I wait?” he murmured as his hands feverishly roamed the body she had been offering him for weeks. “Why on earth did I wait?”
Struggling out of his clothes, feeling her bare skin in patches against his, was an agony of frustration. As her hands ran lightly down his back, he began to shiver with a desperate anticipation, almost frightened that having pitched over the edge he would never make the other side.
“Come here.” Her voice was low and melodious in his ear; her fingers were warm and confident on his body. He
felt unable to reciprocate, unable to do anything but shudder in a paralysis of delight. And then, slowly, she took him into her mouth, and he felt a disbelieving ecstasy which he couldn’t begin to control; which he couldn’t begin to measure; which made him whimper and cry out until he suddenly fell, spent and exhausted, into her arms.
“I . . .”
“Sssh.” She put a finger against his lips and he fell silent. He lay against her, listening to her heartbeat, and felt like a child, naked and vulnerable and accepting.
“I will give you anything,” he whispered at last. “Anything you want.”
“All I want is you,” said Fleur softly. He felt her fingers twining in his hair. “And I’ve got you, haven’t I?”
A few days later a package arrived for Fleur through the post. Inside was a shiny golden American Express card.
“Cool!” said Antony, as she opened it at breakfast. “A Gold Card. Dad, why can’t I have one of those? Some of the blokes at school have got them.”
“Then their parents are very stupid as well as very rich,” said Richard, grinning. “Now, where’s a pen? You should sign it straight away, Fleur. It wouldn’t do if it fell into the wrong hands.”
“I’ll be very careful,” said Fleur, smiling at him, She squeezed his hand. “It’s very good of you, Richard. Now I’ll be able to get something really super for Zara.”
“Zara?” Antony looked up.
“It’s Zara’s birthday this week,” said Richard.
“Her birthday?” echoed Antony.
“On Wednesday. Is that right, Fleur?”
“Yes,” said Fleur, signing the Gold Card with a flourish. “I’ll go into Guildford this morning.”
“Would she like it if I made a cake, do you think?” enquired Gillian.
“I’m sure she would,” said Fleur, smiling warmly at Gillian.
“How old is she going to be?” said Antony.
“Fourteen,” said Fleur, after a moment’s hesitation.
“Oh right.” Antony frowned slightly. “Because I thought she wasn’t fourteen for a while yet.”
“Lying about her age already!” said Fleur, and gave a peal of laughter. “Antony, you should be flattered!” Antony coloured slightly, and looked down at his plate.
“What about . . .” Gillian hesitated, glanced at Richard, then continued. “What about Zara’s father? Will he want to . . . visit her?” She flushed. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I just thought, if it’s her birthday . . .”
“Gillian, you’re very kind,” said Fleur. She took a sip of coffee. “Unfortunately, Zara’s father is dead.”
“Dead?” Antony’s head jerked up. “But I thought . . . I thought Zara’s dad lived in America. She told me . . .”
Fleur shook her head sadly.
“Zara found it very difficult to come to terms with her father’s death,” she said, and sipped again at her coffee. “In her mind, he’s still alive. She has many different fantasies about him. The current one is that he’s living somewhere in America.” She sighed. “I’ve been told that the best thing is just to play along with her.”
“But . . .”
“I blame myself,” said Fleur. “I should have talked to her more about it. But it was a painful time for me too.”
She broke off, and looked at Antony with wide, sympathetic eyes. Richard took her hand and squeezed it.
“I didn’t realize,” said Antony feebly. “I thought . . .”
“She’s coming,” interrupted Gillian quickly. “Hello,
Zara,” she exclaimed brightly as Zara entered the conservatory. “We were just talking about your birthday.”
“My birthday,” echoed Zara, stopping still in the doorway. Her cautious gaze swept the scene and landed on the Gold Card, glinting among the paper packaging on the table. She looked up at Fleur, then back at the Gold Card. “Sure,” she said. “My birthday.”
“We want Wednesday to be a really special day for you, darling,” said Fleur. “With a cake, and candles, and . . .” she spread her hands vaguely.
“Party-poppers,” said Zara tonelessly.
“Party-poppers! What a good idea!”
“Yup,” said Zara.
“Well, that’s settled,” said Richard. “Now, I have some calls to make.” He got up.
“If you’d like a lift into Guildford,” said Gillian to Fleur, “I could do with popping in myself.”
“Lovely,” said Fleur.
“And what will you two young things do?” said Richard to Antony.
“Dunno,” said Antony. Zara shrugged, and looked away.
“Well,” said Richard comfortably, “I’m sure you’ll think of something jolly.”
As Zara ate her breakfast, she stared straight downwards and avoided Antony’s eyes. An angry disappointment was burning in her chest; she didn’t trust herself not to burst into tears. Fleur had got hold of a Gold Card. Which meant they were going to move on. As soon as Fleur had cleaned up, they would be off.
It was just like bouncing a ball, Fleur had explained to
her a couple of years before, as they sat in some airport restaurant, waiting for a plane.