A Heart Bent Out of Shape (18 page)

twenty

Anyone who dreams of a picture book
winter should
spend December in Switzerland. In Lausanne’s old town, felt-hatted merchants in leather aprons sold brown paper bags of hot chestnuts and cups of spiced wine. Sturdy, apple-cheeked men and women set up their tables in the Place de la Palud, laying out discs of hard cheese, and bouquets of lavender. At nightfall, the frost-licked shopping streets were swept with quiet, perhaps just a blast of music as the door of a cavern bar was pulled open by the wind, or the click of an elderly man’s tongue as he politely waited for his dog to do his night-time business. Christmas was approaching, and Lausanne glittered serenely, quietly.

By the weekend, Hadley was feeling better. She went out on to her balcony for the first time in days and stood in the biting morning air, her dressing gown wrapped around her, her slippered feet sticky on the iced floor. She looked out over the December city. It was a day for leaving two crisp trails of footsteps, for drinking rum-dipped hot chocolate in the corner of a café, for laughing by the water and your breath coming in white puffs. Whatever Joel said, it was impossible to imagine a new day without thinking about how it ought to have been Kristina’s too.

She had woken with resolution. After the weekend she would go and find him. She would say what she had done and where she had been, and how she had tried her best even though it hadn’t been good enough. She would slot back into his class, fall back into his world of Hemingway, a place of promise and hope and heartbreak. If he wanted to forget whatever else had passed between them, then that would be fine, because he was part of her Lausanne life and she didn’t want to lose him as well. That would be Monday, and every day thereafter, but first there was Hugo Bézier and his Jacques list. She had made resolutions about that too. It would be her last effort. Everything else had yielded nothing, and her amateur detective work, her creased photographs and tapping at the doors of strangers, all that was over now, whatever Hugo said, and whatever passions he tried to stir in her. Perhaps there would be twenty names on the list, or a hundred, but there couldn’t be too many more, surely. Jacques could be within her reach. She would do this useful, vital thing, for Kristina and for him, and then carry on. Not quite as she was before, but moving forward, step by step.

Hadley smiled involuntarily as she glimpsed Hugo at his usual table, and he looked up and caught it. There was reassurance in the stability of his patterns. He rose from his seat to kiss her on both cheeks and there was something courtly in the gesture. She saw the corner of his lip twitch with a smile as he drew back from her.

‘I’m sorry I’ve only come now,’ she said. ‘I was ill.’

‘You do have that look of one who is recently well again,’ Hugo said, his head tipped to one side. ‘You look newly washed.’

She smiled. ‘I feel much better. So, Hugo, did you manage to get the list?’

‘They’re terrible things, these winter colds. At my age, they can be the death of you. Literally. I wonder if I’m not placing myself in extraordinary peril by taking coffee with you.’

‘I don’t have to stay,’ she said. ‘If you give me the list I can take my vile body away and you’ll be quite safe again.’

‘You’re quoting Evelyn Waugh,’ he said, gleefully.

‘Well?’

‘Well,’ he removed the cloth napkin from his lap and folded it carefully back into a square. ‘I’m afraid it’s not quite what we were hoping for.’

‘How could it not be?’

The waiter came and poured coffee from a silver pot. Hugo waited until he had finished. Hadley closed her hands around her cup and waited too. Eventually he spoke.

‘Jacques, it turns out, is a common name in this part of the world, but then perhaps I should have warned you of that possibility. I was naïve too, and there’s no excuse for that.’

‘I thought it would be,’ she said. ‘But you don’t understand, Hugo, to have anything at all is great. I’ve been groping in the dark. I’d stopped trying.’

‘Even with your benevolent professor’s help?’ he said, and there was extra emphasis on the word professor, she was sure of it. Hadley ignored him. ‘Well, here it is then,’ he said.

He passed her a wad of paper, every page packed with minute type. Her eyes ran over it, attempting to make sense of the continuous flow of information.

‘It’s how it comes from the computer,’ said Hugo. ‘Mind-boggling, isn’t it?’

She turned the pages, and saw
Jacques Jacques Jacques
again and again.
Jacques Legrand. Jacques Arnaud. Jacques Petit
.

‘There are hundreds of them,’ she said. ‘Thousands, even.’

‘If you only had a surname . . .’

‘If I had a surname I wouldn’t need the list at all.’

‘That’s quite right.’

‘All I’d have needed was the phone book, or the internet, or . . . it would have been easy. So easy.’

She hung her head despondently, all of her morning buoyancy disappearing.

‘In grief . . .’ Hugo began, and then pulled back. ‘We never know how we’ll react. You wanted very badly to do something. To be helpful. You’ve done everything that you possibly could.’

Hadley looked up at him and her cheeks were flushed red.

‘And none of it was enough,’ she said, ‘was it?’

‘Shall we step outside?’ said Hugo. ‘A little air will help.’

They sat on one of the benches by the water, as in front of them a circle of ducks pecked at the lake’s edge. Hugo seemed slighter tucked inside his woollen coat; at his neck his tartan scarf was folded just so. He wore his fedora and the tips of his shoes shone with new polish. Sitting beside him she suddenly wanted to lean and rest her head on his shoulder, as she did with Joel that one time in his office. It was a different feeling but in some ways it was the same; that need for touch, for something solid amidst the uncertainty. She wouldn’t have minded if Hugo’s gnarled hand came down and for a moment patted her knee, a small gesture of comfort. In her hands she held the wad of paper printed all over with
Jacques Jacques Jacques
.

‘I should just toss it in the lake,’ she said, waving the pages, ‘watch it sink. Joel said we should stop looking and I should have listened. We spent hours, you know, looking in phone books and on the internet, even just pounding the streets of Geneva. Stupid, pointless hours.’

‘Joel? Oh, your professor again. Well, the very fact that he was willing to go along with it all should be a comfort,’ Hugo said. ‘It can’t have been time entirely wasted.’

Hadley glanced across at him and there was that wry smile creasing his lips. She pretended not to have seen it.

‘But you helped too,’ she said. ‘We never needed the list, did we? You must have known it would be a mile long. Was that just “going along with it” as well?’

‘I think not. And the fact remains, you don’t know if Jacques knows, and you feel bad about that.’

‘Yes, I do. We’re connected, we are, even if he doesn’t know it. Kristina mattered to both of us, and that should count for something.’

‘Well, I feel bad about you feeling bad.’

‘Hugo, why do you even care so much?’

‘Why does your professor care?’

‘I’m not sure he does any more. But he understands what it’s like to lose someone.’

‘Ah. That.’

‘Don’t you?’

Hugo furrowed his brow. His face was lined but only barely; he had the appearance of polished wood, and an expression that was just as impervious.

‘I’ve written loss, over and over. It’s a feature of every one of my books, I suppose. But do I understand it? No. I can’t claim that.’

They both sat quietly, their separate minds turning as they looked out over the water and across to France. After a while Hadley spoke, and her voice sounded thin and fragmented.

‘Hugo, listen, you’ve already helped me more than you’ll ever know. And we’ve tried everything, we really have. I don’t see what else we could have done. The police say the case is still open, so there’s still a chance they’ll turn something up, isn’t there? I just think that, maybe, I should leave things now. It’s time.’

‘With Jacques? Or your professor?’

‘Why do you keep talking about my professor?’

‘Because I distrust his motives, of course. I’m suspicious, Hadley. I expect he’s terribly handsome? It’s an age-old story. Has he tried to get you into bed yet?’

Despite his words, his tone remained one of airy detachment. She moved away from him on the bench.

‘Is your life so dull, Hugo, that you have to make up stories all the time? Oh, I’m forgetting, that’s your job. Or was, anyway. You’ve been enjoying all this, haven’t you? The twists and turns of an unsolvable case. I suppose you go home and write it up afterwards.’

‘I haven’t written in many years, Hadley. I gave it up long ago.’

‘Yet you can’t seem to stop yourself. You go on about Joel’s ulterior motives, but what about yours?’

‘I have none.’

‘Anyway, I’m done now. I’m done with looking for Jacques, and I’m done with trying to make sense of something that is, in the end, senseless. The police know it, Joel knows it, yes, that’s right,
my
professor
, and now I do too.
C’est fini
.’ Hadley swept her hand, taking in the hotel, the lake, the far-off mountains, and the tips of Hugo’s shined shoes. ‘How’s that for drama? Is that brightening your day?’

She watched him stand up and his arms were loose by his sides. The punch had gone from him.

‘Whenever I say goodbye to you, I wonder if I’ll ever see you again,’ he said. ‘Don’t look at me like that – I’m not that old, and I’m not that morbid, but the grace of your company has always felt like borrowed time. I could be wrong, of course, I often have been, but today feels rather like the end of our road.’

‘Are you breaking up with me, Hugo?’ she said, and she meant it as a joke but it came out tight-lipped.

‘Our mutual desire for truth is perhaps waning,’ he said.

‘I do want the truth,’ she shot back. ‘But you know what, I want a different kind of truth. I want to feel something different. Something that isn’t sad, or bad, or hopeless.’

‘I wish you luck with that too, Hadley.’

He doffed his hat and walked away before she could reply. His gait was slightly stiff. She thought she heard him whistling, but she might have been imagining it.

The Café Grand was different to the composure of the Hôtel
Le Nouveau Monde. The room was packed and conversation roared. Fur coats were slung over the backs of chairs with their hems trailing, and cutlery clattered against china. There was the fizz and pop of pouring wine and sparkly drinks as waiters performed a high-speed dance between the tables, silver trays held high above their heads. Bruno and Loretta were tucked in a corner table by the window, leaning towards one another with their noses touching. Hadley made her way over to them.

On her way out of Les Ormes that morning she had run into them, and Bruno had asked her to join them for a drink. They had been planning to spend the day shopping and he’d clasped his palms together pleadingly and said,
Please, dear God, give us a break from the shops, Hadley
. She had been non-committal, but after her exchange with Hugo, a meeting that had left her deflated for reasons nothing to do with the failed list, the thought of their company was appealing. She wouldn’t tell Bruno and Loretta what she had been doing recently, and she knew that in their desire for easy pleasure, they wouldn’t ask. Instead she would smile and drink glasses of whatever wine Bruno had chosen, and it would feel good to lose her edges, let the afternoon blur into the evening in a way that she hadn’t done in ages. Loretta would be wearing something pretty so she’d remark on it. And perhaps Luca’s name would only come up fleetingly; she’d make sure she adjusted her features to appear contrite as she said,
He’s just not right for me
.

As she approached their table she summoned a ‘hello’ and they both turned their heads and beamed at her.

‘Hadley! You came! Let me get you a seat.’

Bruno darted up and went in search of a third chair.

‘Hadley, sit down,’ said Loretta, ‘take Bruno’s chair. How are you? You don’t look so well. Is it your cold still? Poor thing.’

It was hot in the room and she set about removing her hat and scarf and gloves, saying that she was fine,
great
in fact. Bruno came back with a chair, making a show of not hitting people with it, muttering
scusi, scusi
. They huddled at a table that was really meant for two. Bruno poured the last of the Prosecco into Hadley’s glass, then looked around for a waiter to order another bottle. Loretta managed it with just the tip of her chin and a quick nod.

It was then that Hadley saw Joel Wilson. He was sitting at the far side of the room, just by the door. She had walked past him just moments ago, without even noticing. His leather jacket hung from his chair, and he was sitting forward, his elbows on the table, reading a newspaper. He was on his own, and despite his distance and posture of repose, she felt his blast of energy from across the room. Hadley stared at him. She hadn’t seen Joel in over a week and yet she felt an absurd sense of surprise that he looked just the same. It was almost as if she could saunter up and throw a breezy ‘hi’, just as she used to do. But something inside her tugged and she felt her cheeks explode with colour; she had been deceiving herself if she thought she could go back to how things were before. Desire didn’t let you off that easily. She watched him as he folded his paper, tucked it under his arm and slung his jacket over his shoulder. She saw his face then; his forehead was lined and his mouth set hard. He had what looked like a smear of grey newsprint on his cheek. She watched him go towards the door and throw it open, disappearing into the Lausanne afternoon.

‘Hadley? Did you hear any of that?’ said Bruno, snappily.

Loretta was watching her, her wide eyes agog with questions.

‘See someone you recognise?’ she said.

‘Yes,’ said Hadley, ‘yes, I did. Sorry, give me a minute, I just need to catch them. I’ll be right back.’