Authors: Clem Chambers
Jane sat bolt upright in bed. “No,” she said. “Eurostar.”
“Jet,” Jim insisted.
“Definitely not. We go on the Eurostar.”
Jim admired her back as he sat up next to her. “Jet.”
“The train’s more practical and infinitely cheaper.”
“It’s just a phone call to the pilot.”
“We don’t need to call anyone to get the train.”
“Then a taxi to the airport.”
“Which is further than a taxi to the station, right?”
“A little bit of paperwork at the airport.”
“Tickets at the station,” she countered.
“Fifty minutes’ flight time.”
“Plus fifteen minutes’ taxiing and queuing at each end making it one hour twenty minutes point to point.”
“Then a taxi to Paris,” said Jim.
“From somewhere miles away from the city, rather than getting a cab from wham-bang in the middle of town. The train will take about the same time and cost nothing in comparison.”
He slumped back on his pillows. “You’re right,” he said.
“And then there’s the environmental impact.”
“Stuff the environment.”
She lay back and toyed with the long scar down his right
side. “I agree, stuff the environment,” she said, “but it’ll be more relaxed. Hey, I never get to ride a train.”
“You’re tickling.” He wriggled.
“Great,” she said. “It must have knitted up good.”
They stood in the lengthy taxi queue at the Gare du Nord in Paris.
“Where, in your calculations, was waiting in line for an hour?” said Jim, grumpily.
“You should have booked a cab through the hotel,” she advised him.
“Now you tell me.”
“We could walk.”
“You know the way?”
“Sure I do.” She smiled. “By the time we get a cab we could have been there a half-hour.”
He grasped her kitbag, which held all their stuff.
“Hey,” she said, “I told you to cut that out. And, anyway, you’ll need all your strength for later.”
“Oooh,” she squealed, “a steam room. This is like Vegas but with class.”
The Ritz suite was a Louis XIV palace in miniature with all mod cons hidden away.
She came out of the bathroom naked and began to strip him off. “Let’s see if you’re fit enough for manoeuvres in an extreme environment.”
Later, when they were getting ready for bed, Jane’s mood seemed to have changed: she was drying her hair furiously with a towel. “So, what does this place cost?” she asked somewhat tersely, as he brushed his teeth.
He spat out toothpaste. “A bit,” he said.
“Come on spill the beans.”
“Six.”
“Six thousand for the weekend?” She frowned.
“Per night.” He put the brush down and turned. She had gone back into the bedroom. He spent a few minutes applying his dressings, then turned off the light and followed her.
She seemed to be asleep when he slipped between the cool linen sheets. “You awake?” he said hopefully, wrapping his left arm around her.
She rolled on to her back. She looked sad, and he wondered why. “Let’s get some sleep,” was all she said.
The next morning, after a leisurely breakfast in their room, they decided to do a little sightseeing. They started at the Louvre, where Jim discovered that most other visitors were Dan Brown fans, there to retrace parts of
The Da Vinci Code
. He could tell the Americans among them by the glaring whiteness of their trainers, and the size of their arses.
Jane spent a long time studying a Leonardo terracotta sculpture of five ragged infantrymen taking down a cavalry rider. One man was jamming two fingers up the horse’s nostrils while three held the legs of the struggling beast, and the fifth man vaulted at the rider to knock him out of his saddle. “I’ve never seen a training manual done in sculpture,” she said. “Fantastic.”
“Yes,” said Jim, who was bored with it.
“A cavalry officer was the tank of his day,” said Jane. “All that dressage stuff with the horses prancing about, it’s battlefield manoeuvres.”
“Never paid attention,” said Jim.
“The kicking out’s meant to take out infantry guys like these – fascinating, huh?”
“I guess.”
She must have caught his tone because she spun round suddenly. “OK, let’s go.”
As they walked on, she pointed out the Caesars who punctuated the long corridors and detailed the sticky ends to which they’d come. “While the Roman guys were real bad asses they did just great ruling the world. When they went soft it all fell apart.”
“The women all have big hair,” Jim commented, “but the guys don’t seem to have much in the way of hair at all.”
“Well, the guys were probably military.”
“Thought they were Caesars. Look, that guy’s got some.”
“He’s an Assyrian.”
“So they must have had barbers. That’s a seriously plaited beard.”
“Very dangerous in battle,” said Jane. “The Israelites shaved so the other guys couldn’t grab them and get an advantage in grappling. If someone got you by the beard you were toast.” She changed tack. “Look at that sword.” She skipped over to a display case. “Jim, that’s just amazing. It’s, like, four thousand years old.”
“I prefer the gold jewellery,” said Jim, peering at a fat ring with a big red stone in it.
“It’s pretty,” she said, “but I like the bronze. When they ran out of it civilisation collapsed. The population of Europe shrank by seventy per cent. That’s like the credit crunch but for human life. No bronze, no tools, no food. It wasn’t till they cracked steel that humanity made a comeback. Of
course, they used mainly stone in the Americas, but when we showed up with steel, we wiped them out.”
Jim was pulling a face at his reflection in the glass of the cabinet.
“The history of weaponry goes claws and teeth, wood and stone, bronze, steel, plutonium, silicon, tungsten and ceramic.”
He’d moved to a Greek urn – ceramic, he thought. He imagined someone getting hit over the head with it. “All this war stuff’s a bit grim.” A couple of earnest-looking Orientals were snapping away at the Venus de Milo, positioned further down the gallery. “At least she’s ’armless.”
Jane glanced at the statue and then at him. “Was that a joke?”
“Yes,” he said. “From about the stone age.”
They found a heaving crowd in front of the
Mona Lisa
. “What a load of hype,” said Jim. He looked at Jane to gauge her reaction and as he did so Mona Lisa smiled at him. He looked back at her. She wasn’t smiling. He looked at Jane and the painting smiled again. “The picture’s smiling at me when I look at you, but when I look at it, it’s not.”
“Sure,” said Jane. “The edge of your vision is more sensitive to certain things. You’re seeing under the glaze to a smile that’s been painted out. It’s like movement – you can see it from the corner of your eye even when the same object is invisible when it’s stationary.”
She squeezed up by his side. “Imagine my finger’s someone who’s going to frag you. Now, you can’t see him when he isn’t moving, but suddenly he moves.” She wagged her finger and Jim suddenly saw it at the edge of his range.
“So, when you see that movement, you’ve got a fraction of a second to respond. Cool, huh?”
“Are you saying that if Mona Lisa smiles at me again I should take her down?”
“No point,” she said, laughing. “She’s behind bullet-proof glass.”
He looked at Mona Lisa again and then at Jane. They were both smiling.
The Hemingway bar at the Ritz was small and full. Jim’s Platinum Bullet was by far the best martini he’d ever had. Jane had ordered a glass of water with a slice of cucumber in it but after a little encouragement she had a Kir Royale. The bill arrived. She tried to pick it up but Jim grabbed the silver plate.
“Let me see,” she said, snatching the piece of paper. Her jaw dropped. “A hundred bucks. That’s ridiculous.”
“No shortage of ridiculous things in the world,” said Jim.
“One hundred bucks!” she said quietly, but her face registered shock and a hint of anger.
“For fuck sake,” he snapped, “we’ve been apart for months and you’re worried about a bit of money. Can’t you just enjoy us being together? Isn’t that more important?”
“OK.” She put the bill back on the plate. “OK.” She threw her hands up apologetically. “It’s your money. You’ve got plenty. I’ll stop complaining.”
“Great,” said Jim. He kissed her and she put her hands on his legs and played his lips with hers. “I’m glad we’ve got that straight,” said Jim, “because,” he lowered his voice, “the restaurant in this place costs a packet.”
*
It had been a hot, stuffy night of passion and the outside world felt good to Jim, but Jane was holding back. “Aw,” she said, “I’d rather just go for a walk.”
He’d suggested shopping. “Come on,” he said. “We don’t have to buy anything.”
“Jewellery’s not my thing,” she protested, lagging behind him as he headed around the square. “I don’t like things on my fingers or my wrists.”
“How about a tiara?” he said, pointing at one in the window of Van Arpels.
“Nice,” she said. “That would look good on me at work.”
“Want it?”
“Not enough diamonds,” she said. “It must have one the size of a goose egg.”
Jim was looking at gold watches in the window of a store called Zera. There was a chronograph big enough to contain a small steam engine. “Let’s go in here.”
The shop was empty, but when they buzzed at the door it clicked open. They went in.
Jim realised he might look a little scruffy but the assistants greeted them cheerfully. He glanced at his wrist and, sure enough, his gold Rolex Cosmonaut was poking out from beneath his leather jacket.
Jane was clearly uncomfortable – her nose wrinkled as if there was a bad smell under it.
“Let me choose something for you,” he said.
“No way,” she said, and added to a man who appeared to be the manager, “How much is that?” She gestured at a necklace, displayed around a black marble neck.
“Five million euros,” he said, with a little bow.
“Do you want it?” said Jim.
She glared at him. “Don’t you dare.”
“Let’s sit down and look at a few things, then.”
“I don’t want anything.” She flushed bright red and her short black hair seemed to bristle.
“It’s OK! We don’t have to buy anything.”
“I don’t want anything,” she repeated.
“That’ll be cheap, then,” he said, and sat in front of a display case. He pulled a funny face at Jane.
Reluctantly, Jane took the seat beside him.
“What would you like to see?” said the manager, in refined and slightly formal tones.
“Ladies’ watches.”
“Certainly, sir.”
“What’s your name?” Jim wanted to know.
“Henri.”
“I don’t need a watch,” Jane insisted.
She was starting to wind Jim up.
The manager came back with a tray of variously coloured gold watches.
Jane seemed only interested in their weight and price. “That’s like fifty thousand bucks,” she commented on the first.
“Would you like to try it on?” asked the manager.
“No thanks, Henri,” said Jane. “Forty K,” she said, when the next was dangled before her. “Ha!”
“Got anything more expensive?” said Jim, with more than a hint of irritation.
“Not in plain ladies’ watches. Gentlemen’s, yes, and in gem-encrusted ladies’ timepieces we have much more expensive items.”
“No, thanks,” said Jane. “Bling’s a bit
passé
.”
Henri smiled. “Let me bring you a few interesting things.”
Jim was looking disgruntled and Jane’s expression matched his. “Can’t we just have some fun?” he said.
“Sure,” she said. “Outside.”
Jim was just about to say, “What’s wrong with having fun here?” when Henri was suddenly behind the counter with a tray of sparkling baubles. He placed it in front of them. Among the golden bangles lay a huge diamond solitaire ring.
Jane’s hand went out and she picked up the massive rock. Yellow flashes sparkled in her eyes and a spark of joy ignited in her face.
“You like that,” said Jim.
The magic evaporated. She looked at him as if he was some kind of idiot. “That’s an engagement ring.”
As Jim said, “Ah, right,” the buzzer sounded. There was a click as Henri released the door and it opened. Suddenly four figures were in the shop and there was a burst of shouting.
“Shit!” cried Jim, rocking back in his seat.
“Stay calm,” said Henri, stiffening. “These things take moments.”
A short man in his mid-twenties ran up to them, screaming in French and brandishing an automatic pistol. He was wearing a black nylon bomber jacket and jeans, with clear tape across his face that pulled his features out of synch.
Another man was shoving a bag in the face of the shop assistant, while the two accomplices moved quickly to the display cases embedded in the walls. One pulled out a device from under his coat and placed it against the thick glass protecting the multi-million-dollar necklace. It cracked open.
Jane was glaring at the robber as he watched the manager
fill his bag from the display case in front of them. The robber caught the contempt in her eyes and fumbled with his pocket. With a triumphant smile he took out a grenade.
Jim’s eyes were trying to tell her ‘no’ but she was looking at the grenade.
The robber waved it under her nose, grinning.
“Oh, no,” she whimpered.
Jim hadn’t expected to hear fear in her voice. It shocked and relieved him. At least she wasn’t going to do something stupid.
Then she did.
She grabbed the grenade out of the man’s hand in a stiff yank and pulled out the pin. She stuffed her hand, with the grenade, into the robber’s trouser pocket. “Now what you going to do?” she spat.
The three other men froze – then turned on them. The first man was screaming in terror as Jane yanked the pistol out of his hand, tossed it, and caught the butt. By now a second man was aiming at Jim. Jane turned the gun on him and, without a moment’s hesitation, shot him. The robber with the gadget ran for the door and the third stared at Jane in horror. He dropped his aim but not his gun.