November 2016
As Genevieve’s visits to the bar tail off, Emma is disappointed but stoic. She really thought ‘Eve’ was her friend.
“I suppose she has other things to do. Helping me with Mollie must have delayed her house hunting.”
“I’ve emailed her details of a few new properties but not heard back,” Henri says.
“Perhaps she’s gone back to England?” I venture, wondering if I can make her disappear and slowly dissolve from their memories.
I’m the only one who knows that she’s waiting at home for me. I’ve warned her I can’t commit to visit every day. I have to build my alibi, work on the house, be around for the school run and drop into the bar.
The hired mechanical digger arrives and the Bergers return to dig three pits for the new septic tank and then sign off, leaving me on my own to fit the flooring.
The day the materials are delivered, I’m up at Les Quatre Vents to greet the delivery driver and, together, we unload and stack the heavy packs in the barn. The kitchen units arrived weeks ago and are still in their flat-pack boxes, gathering dust. After the driver has left, I carry two packs across to the main house, slit one open with a Stanley knife, and then lay out ten planks across the open expanse of floor. The elm boards warm the space and, when the sun falls on them, the stark light alters to a mellow glow. With my mobile phone, I take some pictures to show Emma.
I consult my hand-drawn plan, smoothing it out on the floor in front of me and lay more boards. Time zips by and when my phone rings, I jump. It’s Genevieve and she’s angry.
“Where are you? I’ve been waiting in all day.”
My watch says it’s three o’clock.
“Sorry. I’m at the house. Flooring’s been delivered.”
“I made lunch,” she hisses. “Langoustines. Fresh from the market.”
“Sorry,” I repeat. “But I can’t make it today.”
“What did you say?” Her voice bristles with anger.
“I’ve work to do here and I’m collecting Mollie from school.”
“Don’t do this to me, Paul. I’ve warned you. If I don’t see you by noon tomorrow, you know what will happen.”
She’s twisting the knife. Feeling sick and trapped, I down tools and set off for Limoges.
*
In France, the prelude to Christmas is more muted and starts later but gathers pace. We’ve heard nothing from the Brownings about the house sale and I try to reassure Emma it won’t happen until next year.
Smoking blunts my anxiety, but Emma gives me a hard look when I sneak outside. I’ve noticed she’s bitten her fingernails down to the quick—perhaps smoking would calm her nerves.
Every day I juggle, harder and harder, faster and faster—setting off early to Les Quatre Vents, cutting floorboards to size, scraping my hands, nicking my fingers with the Stanley knife. At around eleven, I drive into Limoges: lunch, drinks and steamy sex with Genevieve and race back in time to pick up Mollie.
“What happened to that English woman?” People often ask us in the bar. Genevieve seems to have got to know many of the regulars and her French was fluent, on a par with Emma’s.
“I didn’t know she was invited for supper at the Gaspards, did you?” Emma asks Henri when Pierre, our neighbour from the pheasant farm, drops into the bar to enquire after Eve. When he learns we’ve not seen her, he slouches off without even buying a drink.
“How does he expect us to know? She wasn’t living in our pockets, was she?” Emma remarks when he’s gone.
I can’t tell if she’s cross because she’s missing her friend or because ‘Eve’ was on first name terms with the Gaspards.
Henri nods sagely. “She had a full social calendar—joined a film club in Limoges and she asked me if there was a bridge club.”
Genevieve playing bridge? So many things I don’t know about her.
“Eve chatted to everyone,” says Emma. “She probably made loads of friends. I was too busy working to notice.”
I slide my glass towards her for a refill, but she shakes her head and sets down a glass of water in front of me.
“I’ve thought about ringing her,” she confides, drying her hands on the cloth we use to wipe the bar. “But the odd thing is—she never gave me her number.”
“I have her mobile number,” says Henri. “But she never picks up or returns my calls.”
Emma’s eyes light up. “Do you know where she lives?”
I hold my breath, imagining Emma turning up at the apartment and finding me there—that would be the end of me and of our marriage.
Henri takes out his mobile and scrolls through his contacts, with Emma looking on. The silence in the room thickens.
“I thought I had her address, but I don’t,” he says, laying his phone down on the bar. I exhale. “Of course, I never met her in Limoges. She always drove out to me in that Merc of hers.” He takes a gulp of beer and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “I can let you have her mobile number, Emma, if you want to call her.”
“No, thanks.” Emma gives a tight smile and slips away to help Lilianne in the kitchen.
“She was a time waster,” Henri confides to me once Emma is out of earshot.
“What makes you say that?”
He shrugs. “You get them all the time in this business. They come out here on a whim, have a little dabble. After a while they get fed up. Wouldn’t be surprised if she’s packed up and left for England.”
He swigs the rest of his beer and reaches for his jacket, hanging on the back of a chair.
“She had me driving all over the countryside to show her properties, but she never liked travelling in my car. Probably worried the seat was dirty and might stain her Chanel trousers.”
Thinking of the condition of his thirty-year-old Renault 4, I’m not surprised. Those cars became extinct in Britain years ago.
“Perhaps she was worried it might break down.”
Henri gives a lop-sided grin. “And she’d find herself stranded up some rutted farm track with a dodgy bloke like me.”
This view of Genevieve, through the lens of another man, is enlightening. He has a pulse and an eye for a good-looking woman but something about her leaves him cold.
Since my recent no-show and Genevieve’s veiled threats during our phone tiff, I’ve been treading cautiously. When I visit her, half of my brain stays on high alert, one eye on the door plotting my escape route. Genevieve works harder and harder to reel me in. She couldn’t be more charming. She embraces hedonism, pushes the boundaries of sexual adventure and indulges my fantasies.
*
A shaft of afternoon sunlight filters through the slatted shutters and makes a pattern of monochrome stripes on Genevieve’s white bedcover—like a prison window. The bedroom walls are painted soft grey. Genevieve tells me it’s called Elephant’s Breath and very fashionable, but it plays tricks with my brain. Is it day or night? Is it fine or murky outside?
I prop two pillows behind me to protect my back from the struts of her iron bedstead and lie back, sated. Genevieve stretches out beside me. I reach under the sheet and stroke her breast. She wriggles in contentment and gazes at me, eyes luminous in the condensed daylight. She yawns. Perhaps she’ll fall asleep and I can sneak away but she rouses herself and rolls across the vast bed to take something out of her bedside drawer.
With a slow smile, she uncurls her fingers and shows me.
I recoil. “Where did you get that?”
Some things I am seriously not into.
She giggles. “Come on try some. It’ll give you energy. You can lay me all afternoon then run home and lay your blasted floorboards all evening.”
Genevieve saps my resolve, dilutes my free will. I go along with her. I tried cocaine once in my early twenties and I’d forgotten the rush of blood to the head, the explosion in my brain. Suddenly Genevieve is more luscious, more desirable. Sex is scorching, searing pleasure and pain. Afterwards I lie back stunned. She kisses my face, nuzzles my neck, nibbles, bites, sucks, pulls.
“Ouch. What the?” I rub my neck.
The drug masks the pain but there’ll be a hell of a bruise. How am I going to explain?
Genevieve finds it amusing. “My mark is on you now, Paul. You’re mine.”
As I drive away from Limoges, dusk falls and the oncoming headlights swim towards me. Traffic lights loom brighter, silent ropes of Christmas lights swing from lamp posts and trees beckon me to stop and dance in the street. My reactions are muddled; my breathing heavy. I should slow down, but I drive faster.
Reaching Sainte Violette, I speed along the main street, passing the bar under camouflage of darkness, and drive on to Les Quatre Vents. As the Volvo jolts to a halt, nausea hits me—wave upon wave. I slump forward over the steering wheel, close my eyes and wait for it to pass. In the side pocket of the car I find a blister pack of paracetamol and swallow two tablets with a gulp of bottled water.
I stagger from the car and unlock the barn. Using my phone as a torch, I fumble my way through eerie packages towards the stacked bathroom fitments and the item I’m seeking. It resembles a framed picture. With urgent fingers, I tear the bubble wrap off the mirror and peer at my neck. The phone light flickers but it’s too weak so I stow the mirror under my arm and carry it across to the house, propping it on a windowsill. I switch on the lights.
Instinctively I squeeze my eyes shut but, when I open them, I reel. The bruise has bloomed to the diameter of an egg cup and its brownish-purple tint is decorated by visible teeth marks. Panicking, I scan the empty space and find the solution in front of me—my floor laying tools.
I grit my teeth, pick up a hammer and grasp the handle in both hands. With the claw end pointing towards me, I heft it, swing it back and smash it against my neck.
Pain shoots through my neck and spears my skull. Head throbbing, I sink to my knees and lay my cheek against the cold concrete floor. How have I been reduced to this? I allow my eyes to close.
After a while, I stumble to my feet and check in the mirror again. My aim was on target. Fresh blood oozes beneath the skin, tinting the purple mark red. The claw end of the hammer has left scratches and cuts, obliterating Genevieve’s teeth marks.
So, what’s my story? Head swimming, I concoct an explanation—my aim ricocheted, my poor DIY skills led to my industrial injury—and pray that Emma believes me.