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Authors: Clare Curzon

BOOK: The Body of a Woman
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‘It won't win,' Charles forecast breezily, ‘but we should back it as encouragement. Good lad, that jockey. He'll give it what it takes. Meanwhile let's get back to our box for some strawberries and bubbly.'
On the way they encountered a knot of Charles's City friends, then the crowd opened as the royal party came through.
‘Ello,' said a voice above Leila's hat and she looked up to recognize Pascal of the cricket field. Today, elegance personified, he was escorting two exquisite young women, one on each arm. He detached them and reached for Leila's hand.
‘Oh, hello. We were admiring my uncle's horse. Number four,' she gabbled, for some reason feeling shy at the encounter.
‘Then we mohst certainly back eet.'
‘No, I didn't mean that.' She felt her face flushing, caught at a loss among these sophisticates. Now they would imagine Charles owned the whole horse.
‘Yoor ohncle?'
‘Yes, he —' She looked around, discovered his party had moved on and that she was stranded alone. ‘Look, I'm so sorry. I have to catch them up.'
His eyes were laughing at her. ‘We shall meet again.'
‘I hope so.' Now why did she say that? A smile would have sufficed. She nodded to the women, turned and fled.
The rest of the day was enthralling. Quincunx, their number 4, appropriately came in fourth, to Charles's great delight.
‘Why Quincunx?' she asked him as their car slowed, manoeuvring through the homegoing throng. ‘What does it mean?'
‘It's a pattern,' he explained. ‘Five dots: four arranged in a square with one at the centre. Like a five in dice or dominoes. But he's called that because he was by White Domino out of Queen Mab. Quin for queen: sort of pun, d'you see?'
‘He should have drawn number 5 then,' Janey suggested airily. ‘Maybe the 4 confused him.'
‘If he's that numerate,' Charles said damningly, ‘he'd've likely seen fit to come in fifth. As it is, I'm well pleased for a start.'
But Pascal won't be, Leila thought. I wonder how much he lost? Why on earth did I allow him to bet on Charles's latest fad?
Two days later Leila was expecting a grocery delivery, but when she opened the back door it was to Pascal nonchalantly leaning there, a bone-china teacup held out like a begging bowl. ‘I do not recall,' he said, his brow furrowed, ‘eef eet ees flour or sugar I am supposed to run short of. These British social nuances are a leetle difficult to pick ohp.'
She found herself responding to the laughter dancing in his eyes.
‘According to the TV commercials you're hoping to share my instant coffee. Anyway, do come in.'
She was aware of Hetty Chadwick's vigorous vacuuming upstairs suddenly hushed and suspected that the twice-weekly cleaner was leaning over the banisters to listen. It was unfortunate that he had chosen one of her days to call, but at least his arrival offered Leila the chance to apologise for her gauche retreat at Ascot.
He heard her out and nodded. ‘I could forgeeve your horry on one condition,' he told her sombrely. ‘Eef you will please accept a spare ticket for Wimbledohn next week, Friday on Centre Court. I know it ees ard on the neck, but the strawberry cream teas mehk up for eet.'
She couldn't accept, of course. One spare ticket meant that he didn't pretend to invite Aidan too. ‘Why me?” she asked. ‘I'm sure you have lots of friends who would love to take you up on it.'
‘But I wish to know you better, Leila. I may call you that, I ope? We could share my big ohmbrella when it rehns.'
‘It's going to be fine and sunny all next week.'
‘But Wimbledohn, sooner or lehter, eet alwehs rehns.'
‘It's a very kind offer, but I really don't know. There's still so much to be done here, unpacking. Come through and see what a mess we're in.'
He followed her into the drawing-room from which open patio doors led to the large conservatory and a panorama of half-emptied crates. A trestle table held several trays piled with china, linen and kitchen equipment.
‘Isn't it grim? I didn't know we'd accumulated so much junk.'
Pascal surveyed the scene. ‘You must ave been a collector from birth.'
‘Most of it's from Aidan's old home. He was married before I came along. I've two stepchildren and they're pretty acquisitive too. But once they'd sorted their best stuff into their rooms they went off for the summer, leaving me to dispose of the rest.'
She knew she was talking too much because his presence challenged her: he so urbane, while she, the housewife, had never been anywhere, never made anything of her life. He didn' t want to hear all this trivia. He'd think her a fool.
‘Theess eez your stepdaughter weeth you?' He had picked the photograph off a side table and regarded it with interest. ‘She could be your own. You are so alike, particularly since you ave changed your air colour since theess.'
Leila touched her head nervously. ‘Mine's really dark brown. It was Chloe's suggestion I should try tinting it like hers. In this photo she was only eight; it was taken seven years ago and she's not so ginger now. Really dark red.'
‘And you ave been married to the Professor ow long?”
‘Just over nine years.'
Pascal smiled: a melon-slice of white teeth. ‘The child bride.'
‘I was a student,' she said shortly, remembering. Aidan, though she hadn't guessed it then, had an ongoing predilection for nubile eighteen-year-olds. But that was information she had no intention of sharing with this stranger.
Perhaps by accepting the chair at the University of London Aidan really would change and cut free from his current entanglement at Reading. It seemed a vain hope, but he had managed to imply something like that, without actually admitting he was still in the throes of an amorous adventure.
Not that amorous was quite the right word. Sexual, she supposed; love and romance being foreign to his nature. But in extramural sexual research the Professor was well qualified. It made her own situation the more hollow. She sometimes thought that if it hadn't been for Eddie and Chloe …
If. How bitterly ironic that she was reduced to a life of recurrent ‘If Onlys'.
‘Leila,' Pascal cooed. ‘Cohm back. You are miles a-weh.'
‘I'm sorry.' She waved towards the carrier's crates. ‘There's such a lot to be done.'
‘But by a week tomorrow all will be streht and you will be looking for an escape from duty. See, I will leave my card. Ring me at any time before then and say you accept. Oo knows, we may even see the admirable Mr 'enman in action.'
He gave her a jaunty salute with the empty teacup. ‘Coffee another time per'aps. I will see myself out.'
She knew she wouldn't take him up on the offer, because it wasn't the sort of thing she did. Quite outside one's wifely remit, she told herself.
But why not accept? There'd be no harm in it. God knows, Aidan was never slow in picking up on an invitation to something he fancied. And if anyone else had invited her she'd probably have accepted like a shot. So was it because of Pascal himself that she hesitated?
He was personable, amusingly eccentric, and she'd admit she found his easy familiarity attractive. Not handsome. Handsome men always left her rather uneasy. They had such an opinion of themselves, and since childhood she'd had this fear of being looked down on.
She went back to unwrapping and washing the surplus china.
So - Wimbledon. She would be glued to the television for the entire fortnight if she had the chance. But to be actually there, feeling the atmosphere, being a part of that involved crowd - that was something she'd never had the chance to aspire to.
So it was a great pity - she told herself as she tore tissue paper
off a quite hideous dinner service - that she had to turn down the offer.
She had prepared a fricassé of chicken in a sauce of liquidised pineapple, red pepper and mango for dinner, but twenty minutes after Aidan was due back he rang in to say he was tied up with some finals students. They were panicking over a paper they'd already taken and wanted to conduct an inquest. It could go on quite late. If so he'd stay there overnight, be back tomorrow evening.
Leila stood with the phone cradled in her hands listening to the dialling tone purr after he'd rung off. She supposed there'd be a smidgen of truth in what he said. Probably one finals student, female, had gone weepy over the likelihood of getting a low grade. He'd find a way of consoling her. As he'd done to others before.
He knew she knew the truth, and still he handed out these fictions. So why hadn't she the courage to snarl, ‘Tell me another!' and slam the phone down on him?
Would it come to that some day? Or if she let the years drag on without real protest could she believe that with age he'd finally come to his senses? But suppose someone special came on the scene, very attractive and more determined than most; he might want to move on permanently - or think that he did. Then where would she stand?
She'd be free to pick up where she'd left off her real life. But it might be too late by then to resume as a student. And with divorce it stood to reason she'd lose Eddie and Chloe, because his was the blood link with them.
She wasn't as daring as she'd once been. It would take courage to stand alone, stripped of the daily domesticity she'd used as her armour.
She'd become a coward by habit. She had to stop the process, make a decision, opt for something she wanted to do for itself. Dammit, for a start she'd accept Pascal's invitation to Wimbledon. It would be a gesture of defiance, and no harm to anyone in it.
It even seemed a kind of joke. While she felt the warm blood of rebellion coursing in her veins she would strike her midget blow for freedom. She propped Pascal's card against the phone and dialled his number.
 
Aidan was away for two days. Then he came back mid-morning on the Sunday in a bustle of organization, showered, changed, packed an overnight bag, collected his mail and read three messages off his answering machine.
‘There's a lot of clearing up to be done before I'm finished there,' he said shortly, ‘and I can't waste time or energy commuting.'
Leila served him a cold lunch and no warmer a reception. After an hour's nap on his study couch he left at 4.30pm.
He hadn't asked about the children. Out of sight they might be, but Leila was left feeling doubly responsible. There was that suspicion that Eddie had again been touching Uncle Charles for money.
And Chloë - where was she? Supposedly with Granny at Nice, but old Mrs Knightley's last letter had as ever been full of complaints that she never saw the children and none of the family had time for her. So Leila had rung her twice since then and discovered that the old lady's grumble was just the same. Clearly Chloe had never arrived, nor even informed Granny she intended to come.
Arthritis might reasonably have prevented her meeting her granddaughter at the airport, but Chloe had been insistent that Granny's hired chauffeur was to be there instead. The girl claimed to have arranged it all by phone. None of which could be true.
When Leila drove her to Heathrow for the flight Chloe had brusquely ordered her to drop her and go: such a hoohah with parking there and anyway she loathed sloppy leavetakings.
Her phone call on arrival said that all was well, but it could have been made from anywhere. So far as Leila knew with
hindsight, she might still be in England, or indeed anywhere within four hours' travel of Heathrow.
There were reasons for not having shared her unease with Aidan. If he cared at all he would blame Leila herself for Chloë's being out of control. And there would be terrible recriminations when the girl did return. Chloë wasn't a bad person, just wilful as fifteen-year-olds felt was their right.
The truth would be that she'd planned a more interesting alternative which she didn't care to share with her stepmother: some venture involving schoolfriends. Leila understood the bid for independence, hurtful though it was, and basically she trusted her. Aidan wouldn't.
And yet shouldn't she do something? Although what could be done without alarming Granny and causing Chloë awful embarrassment by raising a hue and cry? She wished there was someone she could share her concern with. She had missed the opportunity when Janey was here with Charles, just as earlier she'd bottled out of approaching that comfortable senior detective who came into the shop. Not that she'd expect anything of him but an outsider's suggestion of how she might discreetly trace Chloe.
Tomorrow, she decided, she would again ring her mother-in-law for a general chat. If she learned that Chloë had finally arrived there, all well and good. If not - she didn't know what she could do.
She still hadn't decided after making the call, during which Mrs Knightley senior had asked after Aidan and both children.
 
Pascal was to pick her up at twenty to twelve on the Friday of Wimbledon. They would have lunch en route: much better, he promised, than in one of those corporate hospitality tents at the All England Club. And it was superb, because he made a detour to Marlow and they ate at the Compleat Angler with the dazzling Thames streaming slowly past, festive with little boats and graced by swans.
Although curious she didn't enquire which company lunch he'd opted out of, and Pascal didn't inform her.
At Wimbledon the men's singles had breathtaking moments, running to five deuces in the final game of the fifth set. Their seats were in shade until mid-afternoon when Pascal produced a tube of sun barrier cream and offered it for her bare arms. She was aware of him watching and smiling as she spread the cream on.
Their shared excitement as the match approached climax had created a new familiarity. ‘Have I missed a bit?' she challenged him, and it seemed quite natural that he should take the tube from her and cover what he chose to see as bare patches.
Keen to stay watching play, they couldn't spare time for the celebrated Wimbledon tea. Instead they broke their journey home at a country pub where Leila refused anything to eat. ‘My eyes have been devouring all day,' she protested. ‘I have really enjoyed myself so much, Pascal. Thank you.'
She thanked him again as they stood at her front porch before she let herself into the darkened house. For a moment there had recurred that long-forgotten teenage uncertainty about asking him in. But he solved it for her.
Pascal simply took her face in both hands, bent and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I've had a wonderful time too. Goodnight, Leila. Take care.' He left without looking back.
It was only as she undressed by the shower that it struck her how he had spoken. With an English Oxbridge voice. And without a hint of the Inspector Clouseau accent.
The following day, after she had worked a shift at the Mardham shop, and since there had been no message from Aidan about the weekend, she rang to invite Pascal to lunch. They spent the afternoon together, talking and lazing in hammocks in her garden. When Leila thought to listen for the way he spoke it seemed that sometimes he still sounded French. At others she couldn't be sure. Perhaps she was becoming more accustomed to his voice.

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