Leonie’s period arrived bang on time a fortnight later. The familiar stomach cramps made her shift around in the car seat as she drove to pick up Stella from the airport. She had taken a couple of days’ holiday herself so they could spend time together. Although fewer of Gaby’s rental properties were occupied in mid-October, there was still plenty of work to do. Inventories had to be checked, repairs organised, recalcitrant owners persuaded to refurbish. Photographs and other details on the website needed to be updated and costings revised, all before the new booking season opened for the following year.
The autumn colours of the landscape chimed with her dragging sense of regret, of life passing too quickly. She couldn’t wait to set eyes on Stella, the one person in whom she could confide. Leonie had to admit that she was exhausted, strung out. Life was full of intensity and novelty, which was wonderful, but there were too many nights when she and Patrice didn’t sleep until after midnight, when his bed was ridiculously narrow for the two of them. Too many nights when, alone in the more spacious bed in her own apartment, she stayed awake, hoping past all reasonableness that he’d call. She had imagined she would feel more settled by now, more entitled to his consideration, though she wasn’t sure she would care to admit that even to Stella. Besides, this obscure dejection must surely just be hormones. She should buck up and make the most of her friend’s brief weekend visit.
‘Lennie!’ Stella, a big, graceful woman wearing untidy clothes, hugged her fiercely. ‘I can feel your ribs. I hope you’re eating!’
‘I’m absolutely fine. But oh, I’ve missed you!’ Finding relief in the effortless expression of a simple emotion, Leonie bit back the insidious reminder of how she still felt the need to be guarded with Patrice: neither had yet used the L-word, for example, though sometimes it hung in the air between them.
‘Well, I can’t tell you how good it is to be here. I’m shattered.’ Stella surrendered possession of her carry-on case and let Leonie lead the way out of the terminal.
‘But you’re still glad you took the job?’
‘Oh yes. The more I get into it, the more fascinating it is. I’ll fill you in, don’t worry! But first, how soon do I get to meet the man?’
‘Tomorrow probably.’ Waiting for the automatic doors to open, Leonie avoided Stella’s glance. ‘He’s not a great one for arrangements,’ she added, making light of Patrice’s rather trying and, if she was honest, hurtful refusal to be nailed down on when he’d come over to meet her oldest friend.
The women postponed the big topics until they were on the road to Riberac. ‘If I tell you all about work now, then it’s out of the way and I can forget about it ’til I go home,’ said Stella. ‘But I am so pleased I made the change.’
Stella’s previous job had been to match children in care to optimistic couples who tended to have little idea of the problems they were taking on, and who, despite her best efforts, seldom wanted to be told. Stella had watched helplessly as some adoptions broke down under the stress of extreme behaviour which comprehensively trashed both parties’ dreams of happy family life. Leonie could only admire Stella’s pragmatism and fortitude when she’d had to step in and send already damaged children back to inadequate children’s homes or temporary foster families, and she’d seen how Stella’s close involvement in such guilt and disappointment took its toll. She had hoped her friend’s new role would carry less emotional attrition; now Stella assured her that it did, as well as teaching her unexpected detective skills in tracing birth parents and other lost family members. Not every story ended well, Stella explained, but she spoke enthusiastically about the rewards of negotiating the boundaries of first reunions, and the joy and relief to which she was often witness.
‘It’s so great, what you’re doing.’ Leonie was hotly proud of her. ‘Makes me question what the hell I’m up to being a glorified holiday rep.’
‘Is that all it’s turned out to be?’ asked Stella, disappointed for her.
‘No. Actually I love it. Much more than I expected.’
‘Really?’ Stella sounded sceptical.
‘Yes,’ answered Leonie robustly. ‘I like being out and about, and it’s great having to use French so spontaneously. And what more innocent pleasure than ensuring people enjoy their holiday?’
‘Think you’ll stay another season?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Burying yourself out here … is any man worth that?’
Leonie ran through several attempts before formulating her answer. ‘It’s not just Patrice. I like the rural life. Even if I came back to England, I’m not sure I could face living in London again, especially not in the winter.’ She kept her eyes on the road, but couldn’t escape awareness of Stella’s steady gaze.
‘If you stay away too long, it’ll be tough getting back in.’
‘Into what?’
‘Publishing. Translation. Academic research. Jobs are scarce.’
Leonie shook her head. ‘I don’t miss any of it. Truly. I enjoy it here.’ She caught Stella’s doubtful look, and laughed. ‘I won’t throw myself away. Honest.’
‘So go on. Tell me all about him.’
‘He’s like no one else I’ve ever met. So much going on beneath the surface, so much still to understand. Though no wonder Romeo and Juliet were teenagers. Once you get to our age, this stuff is exhausting!’
‘You do look a bit haggard, I must say.’
‘Oh, time of the month, that’s all. I couldn’t be happier. Honestly.’ Leonie fought the urge to pull the car over and weep.
To Leonie’s delight, Patrice rang that night to ask if he could join them the following evening. He arrived freshly shaved, with flowers and a bottle of wine. He had never given her flowers before, but she quickly replaced the disloyal idea that he had done so now in order to make a favourable impression on Stella with the conviction that, an undemonstrative man, he wanted to display his affection in front of her friend. Throughout the evening, he was charmingly solicitous of them both, encouraged them to reminisce, to talk about the subjects that flowed naturally between them, without seeking to insert himself unnecessarily into the conversation. After insisting gallantly on helping to clear up, showing himself to be at home in Leonie’s kitchen, he took himself off, wishing Stella all the best for the remaining two days of her visit.
After a lingering farewell kiss, Leonie watched him cycle away then returned to grin at Stella. ‘Well?’
‘He’s certainly intriguing. And very beautiful – I can understand why you’re so hooked!’
Leonie waited for more. Stella licked her lips. ‘He’s pretty self-possessed, isn’t he?’
‘He knows his own mind,’ she agreed. ‘It’s one of the things I love about him. If he doesn’t want to do something, he doesn’t do it. You always know exactly where you are with him.’
‘Off on your bikes together?’ Stella teased.
‘It’s fun!’
‘Making vegetarian food?’
‘He’s very principled. I still eat meat.’
‘And since when did you start buying into homeopathy?’
‘I’m not saying it’s serious science, but I reckon there’s a role for it. Even if it is just a placebo effect.’
‘You’re really besotted, aren’t you?’
Leonie tried to laugh but she couldn’t help being offended by Stella’s lack of faith. ‘Patrice is a good man. He helps people because of who he is, not necessarily because of what he does. That’s what alternative medicine is all about, isn’t it? Treating the whole person, not only the disease.’
‘But why does that mean he has to denounce hospital medicine? What’s “allopathy” when it’s at home?’ Stella saw she’d gone too far. ‘Sorry, Lennie.’ She went to give her a hug, which Leonie halfheartedly returned. ‘Go on, fill me in. What’s the rest of his story?’
‘I told you. He spent quite a bit of his childhood here, and came back when his grandmother died, after his marriage broke up.’
‘He’s a Euro-brat, right? If his folks were multinationals.’
‘Yes, I suppose he is.’
‘He’s only mentioned his ex-wife.’
‘But there must have been other relationships. He hasn’t been on his own all this time, surely?’
‘He’s never really said.’ Leonie blanked Stella’s look of disbelief.
‘So what happened to the marriage?’
‘I think there was someone else. Didn’t last long, anyhow.’
‘You’ve Googled him, obviously.’
‘No! Why would I?’
‘You’re kidding? Come on, let’s do it now.’ Stella went and lifted the lid of Leonie’s laptop, sitting down in front of it.
Leonie didn’t move. ‘Don’t, Stella. Please. It’d be like I don’t trust him or something.’
‘No, it’s not. Everybody does it.’ Stella was already typing in Patrice’s name. ‘We’re not hacking into his private stuff. Just a little innocent cyber-stalking, that’s all. I’ve got good at this in the new job.’
‘Please don’t.’
‘What’s wrong with it? You do trust him, don’t you?’
‘He’d hate it.’ Leonie tried to make a joke of it. ‘He’s hardly going to be on Facebook, is he?’
Stella looked at her seriously. ‘Lennie, if you’re afraid you’ll find something, that’s all the more reason to look.’
Leonie relaxed. She had no fear of any terrible secret being revealed, and she could accept that her friend was merely looking out for her. ‘I’m not afraid of anything. I’d just rather he told me about himself in his own way, in his own time, that’s all. I don’t need to have read every line of his CV to understand who he is.’
Stella remained sceptical. ‘How much does he ask about you? I mean, I don’t care whether or not he’s curious about me, but I imagined he might’ve been a bit more interested because through me he finds out about you.’
Leonie conceded: ‘Okay. I did mind at first that he didn’t ask more questions, but now I like it this way. He’s very instinctive, and there’s no rush. I know where I am with him. And it’s good sometimes not to have to dredge up the past.’
‘So long as he cares about you, cares about what you want.’ Stella closed the computer unwillingly.
‘He’ll move at his own pace. My theory is that it’s from when he was a kid, packed off to boarding school or to stay with his grandmother. She sounds like a real refrigerator type. Left him a bit closed up. If anyone gets what that must’ve been like for a child, you should.’
‘Sure I do. And look what happened to some of the kids I had to deal with.’
‘He needs to take his time, that’s all.’
‘Damaged goods aren’t always happy ever after.’
‘But what about those who do get past their fear of being abandoned again?’
‘Well, okay …’ Stella didn’t hide her misgivings. ‘But don’t be too patient. Remember, you have your own stuff that’ll come seeping out between the cracks the minute you really let yourself be vulnerable. You need someone capable of being there for you, too.’
‘You’re right, of course. And it is scary. But what’s wrong with being scared? I’d rather feel too much, and risk getting hurt, than not feel anything.’ She laughed at herself. ‘Oh, Heathcliff! We were taught at school that love is bigger than any of us. And I swallowed it, hook, line and sinker.’ When Stella remained concerned, she reassured her. ‘Please don’t worry about me. I’m over Greg, and I feel alive again. That’s what counts, surely?’
Stella gave Leonie’s arm an affectionate rub. ‘I do like Patrice. What’s not to like about a man who brings flowers?’ she joked. ‘And if anyone can nurture a rescue dog and be rewarded with loyalty and devotion, it’ll be you!’
At the airport two days later, as they hugged goodbye, Stella whispered into Leonie’s ear, ‘I have no idea how you can bear to go through all that pain and ecstasy again, but I’m bloody envious!’
After Stella’s departure, Leonie tried to explain to herself her weepy exhaustion; to rationalise the instant, wild compulsion to run after the retreating figure of her oldest friend, climb onto the plane with her and go home. Why this sudden powerful urge to turn her back on her full and pleasant life here, to run away from further entanglement with Patrice? He had done nothing to provoke such a need to escape. It must be, as Stella said, that falling in love had left her raw and exposed in a way she hadn’t been for years – perhaps had never been, given how young and unformed she was when she met Greg. Maybe it was that Stella had brought with her some fleeting sense of comfort and safety that had disappeared again the moment she went through passport control.
With a jolt, Leonie asked herself whether this meant that she had no such sense of comfort or safety with Patrice? In answer to the question, she had reluctantly to admit that she did not. But, she told herself, they were still new to one another. And besides, there must surely be mutual trust, or how could they be so wonderfully physically intimate? No; all that was actually at risk was her familiar comfort zone, and that she’d gladly lose. After all, if she was too much of a coward to dive into uncharted waters, what was the point of living? She might as well give up now.
When Leonie returned to the office after her long weekend break, Gaby repeated an invitation to bring Patrice to dinner. It was an idea Gaby had floated several times before, but she had always tactfully retreated when Leonie made vague excuses. This time Leonie accepted. She had let herself become too accommodating to Patrice’s foibles: if she was to regain her equilibrium, she must be a little more pro-active about winkling him out of his shell.
She resolved to ask him to Gaby’s dinner face to face, rather than on the phone. To fortify her confidence and calm her agitation, she showered, washed her hair and dressed with care before going over to his house. Even then she waited until they sat down with plates of steaming pasta puttanesca before telling him of her employer’s invitation.
‘Would I like her?’ he asked. ‘You said no one moves around here without Gaby knowing, right?’
‘I’ve told you lots about her,’ protested Leonie.
‘Doesn’t sound my type, I have to say.’ Though he spoke lightly, she glimpsed in his eyes the bright blue implacability behind his words.
‘It would mean a lot to me if you came.’
‘I’m no good at dinner parties.’
Leonie perceived that this was a hurdle that would have to be jumped if she were to escape getting somehow mired into a submissiveness she did not believe he truly intended. It was a test for both of them. She had to be sure that, in respecting his reticence, she didn’t deny him opportunities to do things for the sole reason that they mattered to her, that she mattered to him.
‘Well, if you won’t come, then don’t go asking me to slink over here into bed with you afterwards,’ she said, aiming to sound light-hearted.
He laughed a little guiltily. Normally she would have backed straight off rather than discomfit him, but she kept her promise to herself and persevered. ‘Please come. For me?’
He looked at her in surprise, but picked up the pleading in her eyes. ‘Okay. So long as it doesn’t become a regular fixture.’
Reassured and emboldened by this success, once they had turned out the lights and gone upstairs she tackled him about the other change she wished to make.
‘Wouldn’t it be more sensible for us to move into a room with a bigger bed?’
‘I couldn’t sleep in Josette’s bed. Way too spooky.’
‘Doesn’t have to be hers, but this is far too small for the two of us. The one in the spare room is twice the size.’
‘A slight exaggeration.’ He had his back to her, unbuttoning his shirt.
‘I could help you renovate one of the other bedrooms.’
‘Finishing the hall will take a while yet.’
‘Yes, but—’
‘Come here.’
He turned to her, cupped her face in both his hands, fastened his lips on hers, and walked her backwards onto the bed. He was tender and thoughtful, his mouth roving her skin, but though she surrendered, the rebellious notion persisted that this sensuous kissing and stroking was to stop her asking anything else of him. Was to shut her up.
Leonie had butterflies about Gaby’s dinner all day. Patrice had made it plain soon afterwards that he regretted his acceptance, and dropped heavy hints that he expected Leonie to let him off the hook. With an effort, she had resisted. Then there was the issue of how to get there. Gaby and Thierry lived a few miles outside the centre of town and Leonie had no intention of cycling there and back in the dark this late in the year, especially not when all dressed up for an evening out. But Patrice refused, as she expected, to go in her car. She couldn’t help being annoyed that they would have to arrive separately: how could it hurt the planet if, for once, he were a passenger in a car that was making the journey anyway? But there was no point arguing against his ecological integrity, he was too stubborn. And so, aware of the awkwardness if he were to get there before her, not knowing anyone, she would have to make sure she arrived first – and then have the anxiety of wondering whether he’d find the house, how edgy he’d be when he did turn up, whether he’d come at all …
A woman as overtly prying and curious as Gaby was easy to misjudge: from the moment Leonie entered the Duvals’ house, her boss was full of discreet solicitude and encouragement, and Leonie blessed her for her kindness and tact. Leonie was fond of Thierry, too, a small, wiry man, every bit as shrewd as his wife and full of an energy that was generally, and instinctively, directed at assisting others. Leonie greeted his sister Sylviane and her husband, Jean-Paul, whom she had met before, but her heart sank when Gaby introduced Sylviane’s school friend Catherine and her husband Philippe, reminding her that it was Catherine who had for a long time remained in touch with Patrice’s mother, Agnès Hinde.
‘Gaby told me she has Alzheimer’s,’ said Catherine. ‘So very sad. All the same, it’ll be good to hear news of her. I hadn’t realised Patrice was living here again until Sylviane explained who he was.’
The door bell chimed. ‘That’ll be him,’ announced Gaby. Leonie made haste to follow Thierry out to the hall so she could make the introductions between Patrice and his host, and perhaps manage a private word to warn Patrice about Catherine’s link to his mother. Only now did she realise, too late, how it would be sickeningly revealed that she and Gaby had been discussing him behind his back. As Thierry took Patrice’s coat and turned away to hang it in the hall closet, she held his arm. He looked down at her. ‘No need to look so scared. I said I’d come!’
She had no chance to say anything before Thierry ushered them into the drawing room, made the necessary introductions and gave Patrice a drink. As everyone sat down on low grey sofas around a glass coffee table, Sylviane helped herself to a morsel of Melba toast dotted with foie gras.
‘Mmm, delicious. What a treat!’ She pushed the plate towards Patrice.
Leonie had forewarned Gaby that Patrice was vegetarian, and now sharp-eyed Gaby was there before her, proffering a dish of olives so that he could decide for himself whether to declare his principles. With a conspiratorial smile at his hostess, he silently accepted an olive. Leonie saw from Gaby’s response that, far from scrutinising him for potential flaws, Gaby was ready to be charmed by his courteous reserve. Relaxing enough to pay attention, Leonie noted that Patrice had dressed with care, and was lankily elegant in black jeans with a black linen jacket and a soft green shirt he had not worn before. She began to feel a little less discouraged about the evening.
‘So you’re Agnès’ son,’ Catherine addressed him. ‘You won’t remember me, but I knew you as a little boy. Sylviane and I were both at school with your mother.’
‘Though she and I lost touch long ago,’ added Sylviane.
‘But I do remember,’ laughed Patrice. ‘I taught your son to play cricket, which, as I recall, he turned out to be rather too good at. And you used to feed us bread with delicious home-made plum jam.’
Catherine was delighted. ‘Fancy you remembering that! I’d completely forgotten, though I still make jam. I must give you a jar.’
‘Please do!’
‘Now, tell me, how is your mother?’ asked Catherine.
Leonie silently thanked her for not blundering in with illicitly obtained information and reminded herself to have greater confidence in these women’s social finesse, essential to the maintenance of harmony over lifetimes in a small provincial town.
‘I saw her at your grandmother’s funeral, but since then—’ Catherine ended with a polite Gallic shrug.
‘She’s not been well, I’m afraid,’ answered Patrice. ‘They say it’s not Alzheimer’s, but … did you see much of her in recent years?’ His expression as he awaited the reply held a curious watchfulness.
‘Yes. Whenever she visited her mother, we’d meet. Except the summer just before Madame Broyard’s death she didn’t come – or didn’t tell me if she did, anyway – and the year before that, I was away; my daughter was unwell and I had to look after the children.’
Patrice nodded. ‘Then you’re aware of how anxious she could become,’ he said quietly. ‘Now it’s overwhelmed her, I’m afraid.’
Leonie thought he looked as sad and bleak as she had ever seen him, and her heart went out to him.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Catherine. ‘We always wrote, and sent birthday and Christmas cards. But these last years, nothing. You must give me her address. I’d hate Agnès to think I’d forgotten her.’
‘She’s in a nursing home. I’ll write it down for you.’
‘That would be kind.’
‘She’s unlikely to reply, I’m afraid. It’s a while since she was able to write a letter.’
‘All the same. Such a sweet woman. I’ve always been very fond of her.’
‘Yes,’ said Patrice. ‘Very loving. She tried so hard to be brave. And who knows, hearing from you may bring back happier times.’
‘Tough on your father, too, I imagine,’ put in Philippe.
‘Well, of course,’ agreed Sylviane. ‘Both your parents are still young. Only sixty-five, the same as us.’ She made a little moue at Patrice and Leonie. ‘Though that might not appear so young to you!’
‘Agnès usually came alone to visit her mother,’ Catherine probed, clearly hoping he might shed light upon his parents’ marriage.
Patrice responded with a fixed smile – from which Leonie concluded he had been quizzed on this topic more often than he liked – before saying, ‘Dad never had an easy time. I suppose poor Maman was nervous right from the womb. Josette was eight months pregnant when her husband was shot dead, remember?’
‘Oh, too far back for me!’ laughed Catherine. ‘But in recent years, I think I only saw Geoffrey when he came for the funeral.’
‘He gets along as best he can.’ Patrice was sitting upright on the low sofa, his hands flexed and rigid on his thighs. ‘It’s not his fault. Nothing is his fault.’
‘Leonie, I hope you’ve not had any more trouble from that strange client?’ Thierry diverted the conversation. Even as Leonie turned away to answer, she could still detect Patrice’s heart hammering in his chest. Whatever had happened in the past was still very much with him now.
‘Actually, another postcard arrived yesterday,’ she told Thierry.
‘At the office? He doesn’t have your home address?’ He was sharp with concern.
‘No, no. Though he did his best to trap me into revealing it.’
‘Well, we’ll never accept another booking from him,’ said Gaby. ‘And I’ve requested other agencies that cover the area to do the same.’
‘Good.’
‘What happened?’ asked Jean-Paul.
‘A client got rather obsessed with Leonie,’ explained Gaby. ‘Turned into a bit of a stalker. Father of five, wife a dowdy little mouse.’
‘Horrid for you!’ said Catherine.
‘Just a sad little man. It’s fine.’
‘It’s the pathetic ones you need to watch,’ warned Philippe.
‘You didn’t tell me,’ protested Patrice to Leonie.
‘I did mention the postcards. And I’m sure he’s harmless.’
‘You should take it seriously, Patrice,’ admonished Philippe. ‘Nothing more dangerous than an inadequate man.’
Patrice glared at Leonie’s self-appointed champion before turning to her. ‘These were the views of the Lake District?’ he demanded.
She nodded, rather flattered by Patrice’s prickliness. ‘He sends two or three cards a week. Quotes bits of Wordsworth, or Wainwright. Could hardly be less sinister. And he’s safely back in Yorkshire now.’
‘Mid-life crisis,’ decided Sylviane, and all the women agreed.
‘Let’s eat!’ announced Gaby.
As they all rose to go through to the dining room, Leonie linked her arm through Patrice’s. She could feel his muscles clenched and hard through the sleeve of his jacket, and he looked straight ahead, avoiding any physical contact with Philippe as they went through the door. It struck Leonie that, like an angry, fearful dog, its hair bristling along its back, he too expressed his vulnerability physically.
Gaby served smoked fish as an hors d’oeuvre, then roast partridge: Thierry, Leonie knew, regarded any meal without meat as a snack. Without comment, Gaby handed Patrice a dish of large and succulent cèpes in place of the game, passing him the other vegetables in turn. Philippe leant forward across the table to peer at Patrice’s plate, then turned away with a dismissive laugh, saying nothing. Leonie saw Patrice’s jaw tighten. She had not met Philippe before this evening, and she was beginning to dislike him intensely. She looked around the table. Thierry, Jean-Paul and Philippe were discussing the wine, a good Crozes-Hermitage purchased on a past tasting trip to the region – evidently a regular event shared and enjoyed by the three men. They made no attempt to include Patrice, who in any case was listening sympathetically to Sylviane’s tale of her granddaughter’s eczema, and suggesting she bring the girl to him for a homeopathic consultation.
As Leonie agreed idly with Gaby and Catherine’s complaints about new parking restrictions around the market square, she found herself speculating about the three couples. She looked at Thierry, Jean-Paul and Philippe, noting the dry grey hairs sprouting from their ears and nostrils, their balding skulls and the sagging skin of their necks, and couldn’t imagine any one of them making love to their wives. Granted they were all a generation older, but she pitied them their passionless existences. Sunk in their companionable habits, she doubted whether they had ever comprehended the knife-like ecstasies that awaited her and Patrice later that night. At that very second, Patrice caught her eye, and she had to stop herself laughing aloud.
As if he read her mind, his eyes narrowed as they did when he was aroused, and involuntarily she inhaled sharply. Distracted from her conversation, Gaby glanced over to check she was all right, and Leonie had to nod reassuringly and sip at her water to disguise the erotic images writhing inside her head. She caught a glimpse of Patrice over the glass, but he was talking once again with Sylviane. Leonie watched the older woman warming in unconscious response to his raised level of desire, and thought to herself hilariously, ‘If you only knew!’ She glowed with satisfaction at being the woman who – alive, full, trusted – Patrice had chosen as his lover, taking pleasure in the possession of such an identity.
Over the cheese, Leonie overheard Catherine talking to Patrice again about his grandmother, and endeavoured to listen in as Catherine asked what his childhood with Josette had been like.
‘It didn’t help that my mother had abandoned her by marrying a foreigner,’ he replied. ‘And Agnès giving me her dead father’s name was a reminder of Josette’s earlier loss, as well.’
‘Yes, that was hard. And of course it all meant that Agnès was far too close to her mother, growing up.’
Patrice nodded. ‘I expect that’s partly why Josette could never allow herself any real affection for me – in case she lost me, too. Which of course meant I never offered her any.’
‘Such a shame.’
‘Yes. She could be rather cold, but I do believe it wasn’t really a lack of emotion, just that she’d battened it all down so tightly. She can’t have been entirely without feeling.’
‘Not much comfort to you!’
‘She wasn’t able to offer a child much in the way of sympathy, but at least she was consistent. I appreciated that.’ He toyed with the crumbled cheese biscuit on his plate. ‘My parents moved around a lot.’
Patrice’s arm rested on the table, his fingers touching the stem of his glass. Catherine reached out to pat his hand in friendly concern. Surprised by her touch, he jerked, knocking over the glass and spilling the wine. In the small commotion that followed – apologies, mopping up, refilling his glass – he looked over at Leonie, casting his eyes to heaven and shaking his head in self-mockery. She hoped her return gaze was eloquent of the love she felt for him, and was glad when he smiled back and, his shoulders dropping, seemed to relax a little.
Suddenly the door-handle rattled and a child’s voice called out from the hallway. Gaby looked indulgently to Thierry, who got to his feet and went to open the door.
‘Our grandson. He’s sleeping here tonight to save our daughter a babysitter,’ Gaby explained. ‘He’s learnt how to climb over the side-bar we put up.’
Thierry came back with the little boy cradled in his arms.
‘Didier! You should be asleep!’ Gaby reached up and tickled her fingers against the toddler’s rounded, sleepy body. Didier nestled down further into his grandfather’s embrace while covertly surveying the up-turned faces, shrewdly judging the limits of their fondness.
‘You have a son, don’t you?’
Leonie looked around in confusion, then perceived with amazement that Catherine had addressed Patrice. ‘Me?’ He was wide-eyed, taken aback.
‘I was sure Agnès had written to tell me you’d had a baby, a little boy.’
‘I have no children.’ Patrice’s eyes flickered wildly towards the door.
‘Oh, my mistake. Excuse me. All our friends are so busy acquiring grandchildren these days, that I probably muddled up the messages in the Christmas cards.’
‘You don’t want to leave it too late,’ murmured Philippe. Though Leonie assumed that Philippe meant well, Patrice stared at him murderously.
Didier held out his arms for Gaby, and Thierry set him down carefully on his feet. The pyjama-clad little figure lurched towards his grandmother, but landed up beside Patrice where, to keep his balance, he gripped Patrice’s thigh and held on tight, looking up into his face. Patrice froze, his nostrils flaring in distress, but everyone was concentrating on the child, laughing as Thierry scooped him back up.
‘Come along, little man, you don’t belong here,’ he joked. Didier, recognising defeat, put his thumb in his mouth, drawing exclamations from the women on his adorableness. ‘Let’s get you out of here right now!’
Only then did Leonie notice how pale and clammy Patrice had become. He blanked her look, concentrating on getting his breathing back under control. She felt horribly afraid, but of what she couldn’t say.
As Thierry went off with Didier, the party took the opportunity to break up. For the next ten minutes, the guests clustered in the hall waiting for Thierry to come downstairs so they could say goodnight to their host. As the women fetched handbags, wraps and coats, the men dug in their pockets for car keys, and thanks, kisses and promises to meet again soon were exchanged. Patrice managed to evade all eye-contact. Leonie worked her way around to stand beside him. Gingerly she stroked his arm. He turned to her and she was shocked by how his eyes were exhausted, drained, the eyes of a dead man.
Outside in the dark, she was glad to find that her car had been blocked in by the other two. As if by tacit agreement, Patrice lingered beside her, going to retrieve his bike only once the others had driven off.
‘Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?’ she asked gently. ‘You don’t look well.’
He shook his head, made sure his lights were working, and mounted the saddle.
‘You’ll come to my apartment?’
‘I don’t want you to have to wait up.’
‘I don’t mind.’
‘If you’re sure you want me.’
He looked so lost and dejected that she summoned up all her courage. ‘Patrice, do you have a son?’
He was leaning forward, fiddling with the flickering front light, and she couldn’t make out whether he had heard her or not.
‘You don’t have children, do you?’ she repeated.
He straightened up, and shook his head. ‘Before we married, Belinda always said she didn’t want to give up her work.’ He met her gaze quite calmly. ‘She’s a musician. It means a lot to her.’
Leonie was flooded with relief. Her fear earlier at the table, that he had failed to tell her something so important, her terror that she might not know this man at all, melted away. He leant over and touched his lips to hers.
‘See you later.’
He cycled away, and when her headlights picked him up later on the road, he raised a hand and waved as she drove past.
It was five o’clock the following afternoon before she heard from him. He rang to say that he’d had a puncture and by the time he’d managed to mend it in the dark it had been too late to come to her apartment. He was tired, he said, and would see her later in the week.