Rachael's Gift (27 page)

In the back of a taxi, I took out my compact mirror. I was a mess. I tried wiping the make-up from under my eyes and fixed my hair. I had to make myself a little presentable. How would I explain my sudden absence from the exhibition? I sprayed some perfume on my wrists and behind my ears and saw that the taxi driver was watching me in his rear-view mirror.

‘
Très jolie
,’ he said.

I muttered a thank you.

‘
Vous êtes mariée?
’

I shrugged my shoulders, pretending I didn’t understand him.

‘
Vous avez un copain?
’

I shook my head and raised my hands in the air, ‘Sorry, I don’t speak French.’

‘Lady, you want a boyfriend?’ he said in heavily accented English.

‘No, thank you.’

‘Lady, you want a date? Very pretty.’

‘I’m going to see my husband. Thank you.’

He shrugged this time, and I shouted, ‘My husband,’ and showed him my ring.

He snorted in the rear-view mirror. ‘
Je sais. Je sais ce que vous êtes. Une salope.
’

I pretended I didn’t understand. Sleazy bloody taxi drivers. I turned on my phone and it bleeped with messages – no doubt from Rachael and Francine, wondering what had happened to me, even though I had sent Rachael a text. ‘
Camille, it’s me
,’ Wolfe’s voice bellowed down the receiver. ‘
I’m coming to Paris. See you in two days
.’

Landing in Paris, I legged it through the airport with a thousand other passengers, dodging trolleys and bolting towards the taxi stand. The queue was a shambles. The drop-off area had been sectioned off for road works and my first view of Paris was a set of orange and yellow barricades, a backhoe loader and a bulldozer.

Finally, I was seated in a cab. I handed the driver a piece of paper with the address written on it. He took it and mumbled something I didn’t understand.

‘Sorry, mate – English?’

But he just shrugged and we jerked away from the kerb.

I sank into the leather seat, my duffel bag beside me, the noise of French talk radio blaring and my body stiff with hard-boiled sleep. The countryside was flat, full of business parks and giant supermarkets. We coasted through long concrete tunnels and as we reached the outskirts of the city ugly apartment blocks covered in graffiti began to spring up. Suicidal motorbikes weaved in and out of the traffic. The people looked cold and pale – miserable.

Eventually, we turned into a narrow road with pretty wrought-iron balconies and sand-coloured buildings. The taxi stopped on the corner by a flashing green cross; I paid the driver and stepped onto the sidewalk with my bag slung over my shoulder.

There was no doorbell outside the apartment, just a keypad. I pressed a few buttons and pushed the door, but nothing happened. I waited for a moment and then walked into the middle of the road, assessing the building from a distance. My Blundstone boots scraped on the bitumen. I counted the floors – six – and made a bet they were at the top.

I tried to call Cam’s mobile, but it went straight to voicemail. It was still early; she was probably asleep. I sat on the doorstep and waited.

That was the thing about surfing: it demanded patience. Out there in the line-up, we waited for the wave train to come riding in, and we didn’t mind. I laid my head against my bag, the canvas stiff with seawater, and closed my eyes.

Had Camille ever told me about Paris? Sure. Sort of. She spoke of being half-French, how she had never known her real father, how her grandparents had abandoned them and how she had studied art in Paris – all with salt water in her eyes. I asked,
What happened there? What was so great about Paris?
And she had said,
It’s hard to explain
.

I missed the time when things were simple. The ache of an unled life. I’d only ever lived by one rule up until then: the prickle on your neck, the goose pimples on your arms, the churning of your gut – whatever you wanted to call it, the way the animals lived: instinct.

‘It’s in here, that’s where it’s at, son, not out there.’ The Old Man prodded my chest with his stubby finger. ‘If you’re not centred here, then you’ll never find your way.’ He took another drag of his cigarette. ‘Listen to that and you’ll never put a foot wrong.’

‘Just like riding a wave.’

He laughed, a shovel scraping on gravel. ‘Surfing’s for poofters. Now, boxing – there’s a sport.’ He was always black and white.

The door behind me clicked open and there she stood, Camille, a pulsating spot in my vision, the blues of her eyes swimming, making patterns.

I leapt to my feet, clutching my duffel bag. It was all I could do to stop myself from dropping to my knees, burying my head in her lap and crying like a baby.

‘I can’t believe you’re here.’ She managed a half-hearted kiss. Her lips were cold.

‘The shit’s hit the fan. You gave me no choice.’ I wanted to grab her and either smother her with kisses or wring her neck. My knees went weak. Christ, must be the jetlag.

She led me inside and we stood like strangers in the lift. I saw how grubby my hands were and suddenly became aware of a faint smell of stale booze.

The door to the apartment was open, the entrance hall gleaming bright like Hollywood’s version of heaven: chintzy golds, creams and greens, chandeliers and porcelain trinkets. I looked at myself in a mirror and saw a bleary-eyed and scruffy bloke.

‘Take your boots off,’ Camille said.

I yanked them off and set them neatly together by the front door, trying to pull the holes in my socks underneath my soles.

A young woman in knee-length leather boots walked into the hall, followed by an older couple. I blinked a couple of times, knowing it was Rachael, but not recognising this new version of her. Where was the kid in board shorts I’d seen a few weeks ago?

‘G’day, Rach,’ I said. Emotions flooded in uneven spurts. Hold it together, mate.

‘Dad?’ she said, spinning round. ‘What are you doing here?’ Panic enlarged her eyes.

‘What, no hug for your old man?’ I watched her, thinking of the bit of canvas burning a hole in my back pocket; she should be scared.

She hesitated and then leant in and gave me a quick hug, her body a wisp against mine. She smelt of flowers.

‘Seriously, what are you doing here?’ She looked from me to her mother. ‘Did you know about this, Camille?’

Camille looked wan. ‘He just turned up – didn’t you?’

Rachael managed a weak smile.

‘I wish I were here under better circumstances,’ I said, and the smile disappeared.

Camille introduced her aunt and uncle. ‘We are so pleased to meet you, finally,’ Francine said in a singsong voice. ‘You know, we wondered if you truly existed.’ She kissed me on one cheek and then went to kiss me on the other, but I had already started to pull away and we bumped noses.

Rachael sniggered. ‘Wolfe, that’s the Parisian way of greeting someone.’

‘All right, smart-arse.’

Rupert extended a hand for me to shake. ‘First time in Paris?’

‘Yep.’

He rubbed his hands together. ‘What a treat!’

I half grinned, probably looking drunk. ‘If that’s what you call it.’

‘Well, don’t worry, old boy,’ he said, slapping me on the back. ‘We’ll show you the ropes.’

*

Later, when I’d showered and felt half normal, Camille came to see me in the bedroom. Rachael had been moved into Rupert’s study to a foldout bed.

‘So what’s the grand plan, then?’ she said, standing at the door. ‘Drag us back kicking and screaming?’

I took my toiletry kit out and returned a plastic box containing soap, a razor and a small can of shaving cream. ‘Cam, I had no choice.’ I dug into the back pocket of my jeans and threw the bit of canvas on the bed. ‘Plus, I found this.’

Camille picked it up and turned it over. ‘What is it?’

‘The stolen painting – right? She burnt the bloody thing in my workshop. I remember the smell of it. I couldn’t work it out at first. So Sheehan was right all along – Everett had caught her and she accused him to get out of it. She’s started a war, Cam.’

She chucked it back at me. ‘How do you know it’s that painting? This could be anything.’

‘Seriously? Come on, Cam. She’s set him up. She told Lucy that they’d kissed. Lucy didn’t see a thing. Did you see the links I sent you? There’s a bloody lynch mob out for Everett.’

‘I saw them.’

‘Fuck – we did this!’

She began nodding and then we heard a shuffle outside the door. She put her finger to her lips. ‘Let’s talk over lunch.’

*

‘
L’entrecôte?
’ A slab of bleeding meat hovered above our table. Camille pointed to me and the plate descended. ‘
Et la salade
.’ The waiter fussed around in his penguin suit and brought a
demi
of 1664, with a low tide that had more foam than a closed-out break. They never would have stood for that back home at the Eagle.

The place was stiffer than a corpse. My chair was held out for me, a napkin was fanned and draped across my lap, and the waiters minced around with carrots surgically stuffed up their rear ends – rather like my wife right now.

‘How’s your steak?’

I carved through its purple flesh and went through the motions of eating it. ‘Actually, it’s bloody good. Bloody being the word.’

Cam lowered her eyes and put a small forkful of salad in her mouth. She chewed it delicately, wiping her lips with the corner of her napkin. She was worlds away from the woman I knew who ate Nutella straight from the jar.

‘So this is what it’s all about, eh?’ I said. ‘Paris.’

She looked around. ‘Not quite.’

‘But you love it anyway, all this?’

She pushed bits of lettuce, apple and goat’s cheese onto her fork.

‘Are you pissed I’m here?’

Her head fell to the side. ‘Rachael’s making excellent progress.’

I spooned some extra mustard onto my plate and sprinkled some salt over the steak.

‘She’s being mentored by Lucien Moreau, one of France’s top painters. You don’t just walk into opportunities like that.’

‘Jesus, Cam.’ My knife and fork clattered on my plate. ‘Is that a good idea? After Clippo? And now Everett?’

‘You make out like it’s all my fault,’ she said bitterly.

I took a moment; I didn’t want to kick things off so quickly. I put my hand on hers. ‘Cam, she has to confess. Everett’s had death threats on Twitter.’ I filled her in on the whole media fiasco. ‘After the investigation he was reinstated and the case closed, but the public have gone ape shit. He’s had to go into hiding.’

‘Shit.’ A red flush grew from her neck up around her cheeks. The line between her eyes had deepened. She pushed her plate away, the salad only half finished. ‘What a mess.’

Beside us the men in suits were chomping away – eating, speaking and drinking without pause; an elderly woman silently sipped her glass of white wine. Could they understand us? Possibly. I’d heard that everyone in Paris understood English, they just chose not to speak it.

‘We’ll deal with it and move on, okay? She needs help.’

‘You don’t understand. She’s about to be accepted into art school – normally they never accept students so young.’

The waiter appeared and she fell silent while he cleared our plates. He returned a moment later and scraped the crumbs into his palm with a silver rod. Cam had gone from red to white.

‘The only gift Rach has is for lying and the sooner you see it the better we’ll all be.’ I exhaled, the anger draining from me as quickly as it had come. I touched her cheek and then tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘It’ll be all right.’

She raised her blue eyes to meet mine. ‘I know,’ she murmured, a thousand miles away. ‘I know.’

I watched the sourpuss expression spread across Rach’s face as we stood beneath the iron arches of the Eiffel Tower in an enormous queue that curved around itself like a fat intestine. She looked hard, not like the carefree girl on the beach. Perhaps distance made you see things differently.

‘You like it here?’ I said, clutching my arms about my chest as we tapdanced from one foot to the other in the frigid air.

‘It’s the most touristy place in Paris.’

‘So it’s not cool?’

‘Jesus.’

‘But it’s the Eiffel Tower! Surely you gotta do it once?’

She shrugged. ‘I already did.’

To be fair, I didn’t really care too much for it either. I sure as hell didn’t care for the three hundred people that were standing in line before us. But I had wanted us to be on neutral ground when I showed her the canvas. I wanted her reaction to be real.

We waited for three whole hours, hemmed in by barricades, the tourist buses rolling in. Street sellers buzzing. ‘Ten for two euros,’ they called, jangling their plastic Eiffel Towers.

Finally about fifty of us squeezed into a yellow lift, which carried us to the first floor. Then we queued for another hour, only this time it was even colder. But there was Paris, a patchwork blanket below. At last we squeezed into a smaller lift and saw the ground disappear beneath us as we whooshed up its shaft and felt its dizzy height.

I clung on to the railing in the lift and decided it was now or never. ‘You know there’s been an investigation – Everett’s been cleared.’

Rach raised her eyebrow and gave me a puzzled look.

‘Why did you tell Lucy that Everett kissed you?’

Her nostrils flared. ‘Ha, she’ll say anything, that girl.’

‘Come on, Rach – it’s not a game anymore.’

The lift halted and the crowd pushed us out onto the top platform, separating us. The air was tight and the noise was dim; the world was on mute. I searched over the top of the crowd and saw Rach standing with her back to me, grasping the railing, staring at Paris below. I made my way over to her. The city was laid out below like a manicured backyard, completely geometric.

‘Rach,’ I pleaded, ‘this has to end. There’ve been death threats.’

She let out a snort, not turning. ‘Really? Good.’

‘It’s not funny.’

‘Who’s laughing?’

‘Doesn’t it bother you?’

She shot me a look over her shoulder.