The Woman From Paris (25 page)

“A little fortification,” he replied, grinning playfully.

“Is that another Swiss tradition?”

“A
Frampton
tradition.”

She hugged the mug and took another sip, feeling the chocolate burn its way down to her stomach. “I highly approve of it.”

“I thought you would.”

“I liked dinner tonight, though I’m sure I’ll be sweating garlic out of every pore for the next week.”

“At least we all ate garlic.”

“So we can kiss each other,” she said with a laugh.

David looked across at her through the darkness. Her hair was pulled off her face, and the fur collar of her coat was drawn up to her chin. Her skin looked milky in the moonlight, her lips as red as holly berries, her blue eyes as pale as moonstones—she was more beautiful tonight than he had ever seen her, and he longed to kiss her with every aching muscle in his body. “Tell me about your ex-husband, Phaedra,” he asked in order to distract himself.

“Well, I was very young, just twenty. He was called Shane Connelly, Irish, of course, with an English mother. Did you know that Connelly means ‘as fierce as a hound’ in Gaelic? Well, that was what he told me, and he was, well, fierce, from time to time. We met in Whistler. He came out to ski with a group of friends, and we fell in love. It all happened very quickly. He was much older than me and very together. I was rather chaotic. Well, I still am, really.”

“You don’t look at all chaotic.”

“I hide it well. In truth, I’m very forgetful and disorganized.”

“You remembered everything today.”

She laughed. “That’s because I took the trouble of laying everything
out on my chair last night so that I wouldn’t forget anything! It would be typical of me to reach the top of the mountain with only one glove. I wanted to give you a good impression.”

“You certainly did that. So what happened?” David was curious to know about her past, even though the thought of her and Shane Connelly filled him with jealousy.

“He worked in Geneva for Franck Muller, you know, the watch designer. He was crazy about watches. Unfortunately, I didn’t pick up on the signals. He was a good skier and very handsome; it didn’t occur to me that we had nothing in common, or that his obsessive nature would destroy us in the end.”

“In what ways was he obsessive?”

“Everything had to be immaculate. He’d get angry when I forgot things. He could be very cruel, and he was very possessive. He didn’t let me have male friends; he got mad when another man chatted me up.”

“I hate this Shane Connelly!” he exclaimed with passion.

Phaedra laughed. “You’re too wonderful, David. I love you for your support.”

“You have no idea,” he said, gazing at her affectionately. “How long were you married?”

“Five years.”

“Was it he who broke your heart?”

She sighed heavily and looked up at the lights of the Gotchna lift station that twinkled on the mountain pinnacle like big stars. “No. I broke his. I had loved a mirage. Once I realized that, I knew that I hadn’t been in love at all. It had just been wish fulfillment. My love disappeared like mist in sunshine, and there was nothing left but disappointment. I walked away.”

“To Paris?”

“Yes, I went to work in Paris. Your father wanted me to move to London.” She dropped her gaze into her mug and sighed. “I don’t think he’d thought it through. He was very impulsive . . .”

They sat in silence for a long moment. David felt her awkwardness, as if the air between them had somehow knotted. Just then, the
whooshing sound of the red train could be heard sweeping up the valley. A moment later it whistled, and they watched the little square window lights as it snaked on into the village, disappearing behind the chalets.

“Phaedra,” he said softly. “I know the truth about Dad.”

She stared at him, stunned. The pink hue on her cheeks drained away, leaving an ashen pallor. “You do?”

“It’s okay. I understand why you lied.” She looked horrified, as if she were staring down the barrel of a gun.

“Let me explain. It’s such a long story—”

David interrupted. “I know you did it to protect Dad.”

“Oh, my God!” she gasped.

“And to protect Mum, too, because it would break her heart if she knew that Dad had been unfaithful.”

“I’m so sorry.” She put her hand over her mouth to stifle a cry.

“It’s okay, Phaedra.”

“I didn’t know. I swear I didn’t know.”

“Look, I don’t think the worse of you. In fact, you’ve been very tactful.” She was so upset, he wished he hadn’t mentioned it. “You know, you don’t look thirty-one.”

“What?”

“Well, it makes sense now. You’re younger than me. So Dad had a relationship with your mother when he was married to mine. It doesn’t matter. It makes no difference.” She stopped crying and gazed at him, frowning. “I thought about it long and hard, and I wasn’t going to let on that I know. But I can’t go on pretending I don’t know the truth. I can’t lie to you, Phaedra.”

“How did you find out?”

“I saw your passport at the airport.”

In a sudden flurry of relief, she threw herself at him. David had not expected her reaction to be so extreme. “Oh, thank you, David,” she gasped. “Thank you for your forgiveness.”

He wrapped his arms around her and felt her clutch the sides of his coat as if her life depended on him. “Of course I forgive you,” he laughed incredulously.

“I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be silly, it’s not your fault. And it happened a long time ago. But listen, it must be our secret. We must never tell anyone else, do you understand? It would break Mother’s heart if she were to ever find out.”

“Yes.”

“Then that’s settled. We’ll speak no more about it.”

But Phaedra didn’t pull away, and David didn’t want her to.

16

T
hat night when she went to bed, Phaedra received a text from Julius asking how it was all going and suggesting a date for dinner once she was back. She read it with a rising feeling of resentment. It was Julius who had got her into this mess, and now she couldn’t get out of it. As George’s lawyer he should have counseled him against changing his will so rashly. If she hadn’t been mentioned, she could have simply disappeared and no one would have known she had lied. She didn’t want George’s money or the Frampton Sapphires. If George had been so determined for her to have them, why didn’t he simply give them to her? Why did he have to change his will? Surely he could have anticipated the problems that would create. She had been put in a very awkward position. And to add fuel to the fire, she was falling in love with David.

She lay awake, her head throbbing with unmanageable thoughts. Julius and George were tossed about in her mind like stones in a concrete mixer. But right at the very center of it all was David. She had never anticipated falling in love with George’s son. The idea was inconceivable and wrong. She couldn’t have him, not ever—if her heart ached with regret she had only herself to blame.

The following morning it was snowing. Big fluffy flakes like balls of cotton wool fell outside her window, and only the blurred outline of the fir tree could be distinguished through the fog. It was quiet and still and she lay a while, watching the ballet of dancing snow, wishing that David was beside her, holding her close. Once again she thought of George and wondered what he’d think of her growing infatuation for his son.

Tom was too hungover to ski, so David and Phaedra set off on
their own. Barely anyone was at the Gotchna. As usual, only the British were foolhardy enough to want to spend the day in a blizzard. But David took her skiing in the trees, where the visibility was better. The snow had fallen sufficiently in the night for a thick layer to have formed on top of yesterday’s tracks, so they had a morning of flawless white glades and undulating meadows all the way down to the village of Saas.

By lunchtime white beams of sunshine were breaking through the cloud, causing the last fragile snowflakes to sparkle like tinsel. They lunched at the top of the Weissfluhjoch, the highest point in Murenburg, and gazed over the panorama of serrated peaks emerging out of the evaporating fog. They were aware that their time together in Murenburg was short, and a melancholy feeling fell upon them like the patches of mist the sun failed to reach. As David sipped his coffee and Phaedra her hot chocolate, they both sensed their mutual attraction as animals do, wordlessly, instinctively—and both knew it was too horrendous to speak of.

Phaedra loved skiing with David. Being alone together in the mountains had a romance beyond anything else. They chased each other at high speed down the pistes and dodged the fir trees in light powder. They stood together watching a small group of chamois in a glade nuzzling the snow for grass. The mountains were silent and magnificent, and they both felt a sense of awe and privilege that they were there, on such a glorious day, amidst such beauty.

Neither wanted the day to end. They had come out for George but had found each other. It was a discovery that left them both frustrated and confounded.

When they returned to the chalet, they found Tom still in his pajamas, watching a DVD. There was an empty bottle of wine on the table beside the armchair and a half-eaten plate of
bündnerfleisch
, the local air-dried beef. David caught Phaedra’s eye. He shrugged in defeat. “I suppose it was inevitable, considering the circumstances,” he whispered to her.

“Let me go talk to him.”

“Do you feel like a steam?”

“I’ll meet you down there.”

“Don’t be too long or I’ll overcook.”

Phaedra padded up to the armchair. Tom was slumped in a daze, watching
The Sopranos
. She took the bottle, which alerted him to the fact that he wasn’t alone. “Oh, hi,” he said, grinning up at her. “Good day?”

“A perfect day,” she replied. “But we missed you.”

“I wasn’t in any state to ski this morning.”

“What time did you get up?”

“I don’t know. About midday.”

“Have you eaten?” She picked up the plate of
bündnerfleisch
. “This isn’t enough for a growing boy.”

“I had some bread, too.”

“Good, but you should have eaten properly, you know. How about we all eat in tonight and I cook?”

“David says you cook a mean pasta.”

“I do. It’s so mean, it’s wicked.”

“You’re on.”

“Come down and have a steam with us.” She smiled at him kindly. “You might sweat out some of that alcohol.”

“I haven’t had much, just a drop,” he replied quickly.

“It always starts with a drop.” His face clouded, and she knew he was about to get defensive. “My mother is an alcoholic,” she added, and watched his guilt turn to interest.

“Really?”

“Yes. She’s been in denial for years.”

“Why?”

“Because life has disappointed her at every turn. Everyone has their own reason and they’re all good—but you have to somehow find the strength to rise above your sense of inadequacy or fear.” He pursed his lips and let his gaze wander over the rug at his feet. Phaedra continued. “I grew up without siblings, but you know what? I’m really enjoying having brothers. I missed out. It’s fun having people to care about. I care about you, Tom. The thing is, I couldn’t help my mother. She didn’t listen, and her problems ran too deep. We never
really connected. I always felt I was an alien who somehow fell into her lap at birth. We’ve always been strangers. But I feel I connect with you. I understand that this is a difficult time and the easiest way to deal with it is to avoid the pain by dulling it with alcohol. You feel much better when you’ve had something to drink. We all do. But that’s just cutting corners. You’ll never be satisfied unless you go the long way around.”

“I hear you,” he said. He gazed out of the window. “You know, Dad was this great hero, climbing the insurmountable, trekking to remote places, one with nature.” He chuckled resentfully. “Everyone loved Dad. But he wasn’t there for
us
. Mum won’t agree with me, of course, because she worshipped him without question, like a sweet dog. But it’s true. He was never around for sports day or weekends out from school. I don’t think Joshua and David minded so much. I did. I wanted him to take an interest in me, but he was more interested in himself.” He sighed, as if a great burden had fallen off his shoulders. “I shouldn’t have said that. I feel bad exploding the myth.”

She reached out and touched his arm. “That’s okay. You’re entitled to your point of view. But, Tom, you can’t carry this bitterness around with you. You have to let it go. The past doesn’t exist anymore; it’s only thought. It’s your story, but it’s not who you are now.”

He looked at her, his eyes glassy, and smiled. “You sound like a self-help book!”

She laughed. “I’ve read a few.”

“I can tell.”

“Come and have a steam, then we’ll have dinner by the fire. We can all watch
The Sopranos
together. There’s nothing better than a good American drama.”

He sighed and switched off the television. “Okay, I’ll come and sweat it out. I like having you around, Phaedra,” he said, getting up. “There’s something about you that makes me feel better about myself.”

“I hate to see someone I care about pressing the self-destruct button.”

“It also helps talking to someone outside the family. Well, you
are
family, of course, but you know what I mean.”

“I certainly do.”

“I don’t feel so ashamed talking to you about Dad.”

“You shouldn’t feel ashamed at all, Tom. We all have our battles: even those who don’t seem to have any have a few. We’re all finding our way in the dark.” She grinned affectionately.

With that, he threw back his head and laughed. “Come on, then, Wise One. To the steam room. Where’s David?”

“Already cooking.”

“Does he know we have a guru in the family?”

She grinned at him bashfully. “I don’t know. Perhaps you should tell him.”

“No, I think I’m going to keep you as my
secret
guru.”

“That’s perfectly fine.”

“You’re going to help me, right?”

“If you like.”