Secrets of a Chalet Girl (8 page)

“Are you sure they’re in?” Flora bit her lip, feeling increasingly uncomfortable, like she was trespassing or something.

Zac pulled a key out of his pocket but hesitated again before putting it into the keyhole. He glanced at Flora, gave her a tight smile that she took to be a ‘thanks for this’ and then swung the door open.

She could hear the raised voices before they had taken many steps into the elegant hallway. They were speaking French but there was something about the male voice that made her tense, the hectoring tone familiar. Her stomach twisted violently and she placed a hand against the cool stone wall. Zac didn’t seem to notice as he strode forward to the source of the row.

The voice could easily have been Tom’s in thirty years time. And the woman’s voice, low and pleading, sent a chill down her spine.

I used to plead like that. Much good it did me.

Flora hesitated where she stood, one hand on the cool stone and the other on her stomach. Should she go with Zac, or…

A scream cut through her thoughts and Zac strode off ahead of her.

Flora followed tentatively, wondering if she should help but half wanting to go back to the car and shut herself in. She felt physically sick, as though her defences were crashing down around her and her body was letting her down.

She entered a large drawing room in time to see a man in his sixties, presumably Zac’s father, with his hands around a slender woman’s neck.

Zac raced forward and yanked his father away, then pushed him so hard the man staggered and fell backwards into a chair. The woman ran to the fallen man’s aid, her eyes flashing accusation at Zac.

She then stood behind her husband as though literally hiding behind him. Flora froze in the doorway, hoping if she stayed still enough then maybe no one would see her.

“How could you Zac?” The woman’s English accent sounded clipped and slightly upper class, Flora had to admire her swift recovery of composure. Her clothes were smart, probably designer. Most people wouldn’t be able to tell anything from looking at her now, her face a mask.

But Flora knew. She knew from one look in the woman’s eyes…and she would have known even if she hadn’t seen the Zac’s dad trying to strangle her. This was classic avoidance.

And she knew it because she’d been there herself.

“I was defending you mum. We should call the police.” Zac raised his arms in the air, hurt so vivid in his eyes that for a second she imagined she could see the boy he’d once been. “What is it going to take for you to realise he can’t treat you like this? Exactly how far does he have to go?”

“He doesn’t mean any harm,” his mother whispered, eyes cast down to the hands clasping the chair back in front of her.

Zac snorted.

His father merely sat, glaring at Zac as though his son had climbed out from under a rock and he was contemplating ways of exterminating him.

Anger bubbled inside Flora, causing emotions she’d successfully buried to rise to the surface.

“Why are you here anyway Zac?” His mother asked coldly. “You know we always go to the country club on Christmas day.”

“You rang me.” Zac shot an angry look at his father, as though daring him to stand up again. “I heard you crying!”

“Oh.” His mother frowned, mouth pursed into a tight line. “I must have knocked the button on my mobile, I didn’t know…”

Flora looked away from Zac and his mother, feeling uncomfortable. Zac’s father’s eyes flashed with pure hatred when they met her gaze. She shrank away backwards into the corridor, feeling nauseous again.

I really shouldn’t have come…

She could still hear their voices from the hallway.

“Why don’t you leave mum?” Zac’s voice was entreating. “Come away with me now. Just leave and let me take care of you.”

Then she heard a roar and shouting in French and she guessed Zac’s dad had decided he’d had enough of sitting quietly. She heard the word ‘quittez’ and knew enough French to guess he was saying Zac should be the one to leave, ordering him to get out of his house.

“I’m not a little boy anymore, Dad.” Zac raised his voice but didn’t shout. “You can’t beat me into submission anymore.”

“He’s always tried to be a good father to you, Zachary.” His mother’s voice rose to join in.

Flora walked towards the front door as quietly as she could, feeling winded and wishing she could literally disappear. It was all too much to deal with. She felt for Zac, really she did but she didn’t know what to do. Presumably no one would thank her if she called the police and Zac’s mum would refuse to make a complaint.

“Please mum.” Zac’s voice was still audible when Flora reached for the catch and opened the front door. A vice-like grip squeezed her chest and she could barely breathe, as though even her lungs were afraid of being heard.

She walked to Zac’s Jeep and stood with her back against it, watching the house, her fingers twisting anxiously together.

Zac emerged from the house, his face blank of all emotion although his eyes were grim.

I don’t know what to say…

“I’m sorry,” she said simply, her eyes annoyingly deciding to choose that moment to fill with tears. “I’m so sorry.”

What’s she sorry about? Sorry but she has to dash, has remembered she needs to be back at Chalet Repos? Sorry she can’t do this anymore…what?

What had happened back at the house must have been awful for her. Worse than that, she’d seen him hit a man, an elderly man at that…she must think he was as bad as her ex.

Maybe I am… What kind of a person must she think I am? But she has no idea what’s happened, the things he’s done to mum over the years, is still doing.

How could he tell her all that stuff? He never talked about it and wasn’t sure he had the emotional vocabulary. It was much easier when he was trying to cheer Flora up, trying to help her… he didn’t feel comfortable with the situation reversed.

He opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out. He put the key into the ignition, desperate to put some distance between the house and them, wishing he’d never brought Flora here. It might have worked if his dad had answered the door, he would’ve had time to assume his usual act. But when they hadn’t answered the door there’d been no choice, he’d had to use his old key.

Zac put the Jeep in gear and drove off a little too fast, gravel crunching beneath the tyres, spraying up into the bushes.

Should he tell Flora it had only been the second time he’d ever hit anyone in his life? The first time he’d hit his dad he’d been eighteen and he’d moved out straight away afterwards, paying his own way through university with as many part time jobs as he could manage on top of his studies.

But if I had a franc for every time I wish I’d hit him I’d be far richer than he is. Doesn’t that make me just as bad as him?

“Zac, are you okay there?” Flora placed a gentle hand on his thigh, bringing him back from the dark thoughts swirling round in his mind. He only realised he’d been holding his breath when he heard himself sigh at her touch.

“I’ll be fine,” he replied shortly. He wasn’t fine, but he would be. He planned to be. That was how it usually worked. If you worked hard enough at it, nothing needed to keep you down forever. Flora didn’t need his crap dumped on her, however tempting it might be to just let go.

He paused at the junction and turned to look at her. Actually she looked terrible, her face as pale as a ghost.

“If you’d rather I took you back to Chalet Repos instead of to the Mirador I’ll understand. I could always bring your bags over…or…” Zac tried to keep all his emotions in check. He didn’t want her to go, he needed her right now, needed another human body to be close to. He needed someone who understood.

He needed Flora but that was selfish. What about what she needed?

His throat felt tight and painful, like he’d swallowed sandpaper.

“No.” She lifted her hand from his thigh and he felt the loss of the contact. “Unless you wanted me to, you know, go? Did you want to be on your own?”

Out of the corner of his eye Zac saw her lip tremble and he pulled over into a lay-by. He undid his seatbelt and took her in his arms. She burst into tears, burying her head against his shoulder.

He stroked her back, feeling the pressure to contain his own emotions. She needed looking after, so he had to squash his own issues down. That was just how it went.

It was how it had always been.

“I need you to know Flora, what you saw… I would never hit a woman!” He whispered into her hair. “I had to stop him, I had to…”

“Hey I understand, really I do.” She turned curious eyes up to his face, looking a little confused. “Sorry, I’m just a bit…stressed, you know?”

“Yep, there’s a lot of it going around,” he replied.

“I know. Look he wouldn’t come after us would he? He really didn’t seem to like me very much.” She glanced anxiously over his shoulder as though half expecting his father to drive up behind them.

“He wouldn’t take me on now. Bullies only pick on those weaker than themselves, they don’t like a fair fight.” Zac’s tone was flat. It was as though someone had sucked all of the emotions out of him, leaving him cold as ice.

For the umpteenth time he cursed himself for bringing Flora along. He’d ruined whatever they had going on and just as he was beginning to well, feel something.

“Not exactly the best Christmas, eh?” he put the Jeep into gear again and indicated to pull out.

“It never is as perfect as we hope, is it?” Flora stared out of the passenger window and didn’t replace her hand on his leg. He sensed the shift in her was more than physical.

She might be sympathetic but she’d withdrawn from him and he felt the growing gap between them.

Had he stuffed this up?

“Tom hit me,” Flora blurted out and Zac fought to keep his concentration on the road, his natural instinct being to turn back to her.

“Oh?” He glanced over, startled and then had to turn his attention back to the road when someone hooted their horn behind them.

“Only once,” her eyes were downcast and her fingers twisting in her lap. “Well it was twice really. I should’ve left after the first time but you know…it’s never quite the same when you’re in the situation yourself. You know the advice you’d give your friends if anyone ever hit them and you think you know how you’d react…but real life is always so much messier and more complicated and Tom wasn’t all bad. If he had been all bad it would have been so much easier to go.”

Her voice had dropped to a whisper and Zac regretted having pulled the car back out into the road, now there was nowhere to pull in. But maybe she needed him to be driving in the same way she’d need it to be dark in the bedroom before she’d open herself up to him.

“You did the right thing.” The words left his lips instinctively. “There was no way you could have stayed and no way anyone in their right mind would expect you to. No one who cared about you would’ve wanted you to stay in that situation.”

So why won’t mum leave? I really can’t understand it. I’ve said I’ll take care of her. We can manage without…him.

Zac thought he might be choking with the pain of it. He took a deep breath to restore his calm and the crisis passed.

“Do you think your mother will leave?” Flora asked, making him start. How had she done that? How had she read his mind?

Zac took another deep breath. “At first they were staying together because of me, supposedly. Now there’s no other reason than that he’s become her world, her provider, her everything…”

“Maybe she loves him,” Flora suggested tentatively. “Maybe she loves him despite everything. I know it must be really, really hard to stomach but it’s her choice and you can’t make her leave.”

“I know,” he replied, his voice taut and his control cracking. But did he know? Really? Hadn’t he been trying to force his wishes on his mother for years? And if so then wasn’t that an indication that he liked to be in control too?

He didn’t trust himself to say anymore. He put his foot on the accelerator and headed for the autoroute to take them back to Vevey and the Mirador. Maybe things would feel better when they were back there. Perhaps they could hit the rewind button and just take up where they’d left off, as though none of this had ever happened.

Yeah right! And I’ll get a call to say mum has left dad and he’s really sorry for all the stuff he’s done wrong. Life simply doesn’t happen like that Zac, haven’t you figured that out yet?

If he was like his dad then maybe it was a good thing he’d never committed to a relationship. Maybe this was why he’d been avoiding emotional entanglements. Had he been afraid a relationship might disintegrate into the kind of scenes he’d witnessed growing up? After all it was so much safer to be single, no one to argue with, no one he needed to protect.

It wasn’t fair to make Flora witness more scenes like that one this morning after all she’d been through. It’d clearly really shaken her. And he was never going to give up his mum, so… Flora didn’t need this kind of hassle. He was going to have to do the decent thing.

Even though the decent thing stunk to high heaven.

But the fear he might not be able to protect Flora hammered away in his chest. He couldn’t even protect his mum so how would he be able to shield Flora as well? His muscles were still taut with tension and although he tried to smile when they got back to their hotel suite he knew it wasn’t very convincing.

Suddenly he was tired. So very, very tired.

They ordered from room service and ate in silence. Zac thought he would’ve preferred the sounds of other diners around them compared to this pregnant silence. When Flora had finished she yawned widely, covering her mouth with her hand. “Do you mind if we just go to sleep? I’m shattered.”

It looked like she was going to make things easy for him. His original plan had been to keep this thing with Flora as a holiday fling with a question mark ending.

There was no question mark now.

He’d end it after the wedding. It would be awkward to finish it before and then bump into each other and Christmas day had been bad enough already without adding to it.