Shallow Be Thy Grave (25 page)

How they managed to fall asleep Lily would never be able to explain. One minute she was sitting there, feeling like she’d never sleep again, her heart beating about two hundred beats per minute, and the next it was almost dusk outside. Jo was sprawled across one of the armchairs, legs dangling over the side, with a silver line of saliva crystallised down her cheek.

“Shit,” said Lily, as she took in their surroundings. Her memory filtered through the events of the night before. Elation swiftly followed by heart-burning guilt. She shouldn’t have had sex with him. She couldn’t even call it a first date. Shame arrived next, as she remembered some of her more adventurous moments. She’d been totally uninhibited for the first time in her life. That couldn’t be a good thing. Although, a voice inside her head reminded her, Alain had seemed to like it. Then her Aunt Edie’s voice right back at her, ‘He would. All men like an easy lay.’

Then she remembered Fiona and the reason she was in Paris. What she was actually supposed to be doing. Which was not taking drugs and having sex with random blokes, even if they were gorgeous. She was supposed to be finding her sister, to break the very sad news of her grandfather’s death. Had she no sense of decorum, of occasion? she railed at herself. And then, finally, she remembered Stuart, who was probably sitting at home waiting for them to come back, out of his mind with worry. Stuart who had done nothing to deserve the awful way she had just treated him. All these thoughts occurred to her in the time it took to sit upright. “Shit.”

She felt shaky. And the sense of alarm that was creeping into her body due to having slept the whole day wasn’t having a good effect on her system. Jo stirred on the armchair, as if Lily’s violent thought processes were interfering with her sleep. Lily stood and staggered across the room. She shook Jo’s arm. “Stuart’ll be going freaking crazy.”

They decided to call at the St Paul’s apartments to see if Marcel’s contact had come up with an address for the politician guy. It was Jo’s suggestion and Lily leapt upon it. Anything to delay the music-facing moment with Stuart. And, if they could make it look like they’d spent some of the time they’d been AWOL actually looking for Fiona - that had to be a good thing. Besides, her system just wasn’t geared for conflict right now. She was shaking all over and worrying she had a heart murmur. She had to keep herself level.

At the apartments, Alain was as beautiful as she remembered, better even. And the way he smiled when he saw her stopped her from feeling like a complete slut, even if only for a few seconds. He stepped outside the building as soon as they approached, like he’d been keeping an eye on the doorway the whole day.

“How are you feeling?” he asked as he stroked her arm.

Lily raised her eyebrows as words once again failed her.

“Did you get the address?” asked Jo.

Alain took a folded piece of paper from his front pocket and Lily felt a flash of excitement as she was reminded of what lay beneath those pale blue jeans. He handed the piece of paper to Lily. As he stepped closer to her, he dropped his voice, “Can I see you again, tonight? In two hours,” he held up two fingers, “I finish work.”

Lily looked at Jo, like she was the social secretary. Jo shrugged. “We’ve got lots to do. I’ll just go and say hi to Marcel, buy us a couple of croissants.”

Lily nearly shouted, ‘Don’t leave me’. Being on her own with Alain was making her hands shake. Alain seemed to sense her discomfort. He put his warm hand round the back of her neck and gently hooked her close to him, so she could feel the warmth of his smoky breath on her face. “If you wait for me, I will come with you.”

Did he stress the word ‘come’ or was that her lurid imagination again?

As much as Lily liked the idea of taking him with her to see Stuart - safety in numbers and all that - she knew it would hardly help smooth things over. “I don’t think it’s a good idea. I’ll call you.”

He kissed her cheek and her skin felt like it had been given the smallest of electric shocks. The hairs on her arms rose. She tried to smile then turned and almost ran from the entrance.

She found Jo coming out of the patisserie with a bag of warm cheese and mushroom croissants. “What a nice guy,” said Jo. “He didn’t even charge me.”

They walked slowly together, to the Metro station, Jo tearing of strips of warm flaky pastry and passing them to Lily. Lily surprising herself with how hungry she was.

Jo balled up the brown paper bag just as Lily was about to step aboard the train back to the Ninth District. “I’ve got to go and collect something.”

“What?” asked Lily, already half on the train.

“It’s a surprise.”

“You can’t leave me.”

“I’ll meet you back at the flat. I won’t be long.” She almost pushed Lily through the train’s open doors.

“What about Stuart?”

Jo pulled a face. “Probably best I’m not there. You two have got lots to talk about.”

The train doors were already closing and Lily could do nothing but stare in alarm as the train pulled away from the station, leaving Jo on the platform. Jo was smiling and waving, like Lily was going to the seaside or something. Lily hated her.

It was almost eight o’clock as Lily walked along Rue Pigalle to Brigitte’s apartment. She counted the hours - almost eighteen - since she’d waved Stuart off and told him they wouldn’t be long. She wondered what the average person considered by the phrase ‘I won’t be long,’ and reluctantly came to the conclusion it was less than eighteen hours. Two hours, tops. Maybe three. The guilt was making her legs heavy and her footsteps got slower and slower.

She had to ring the buzzer, as Stuart had taken the only key with him the night before. The door opened, without him saying anything through the intercom. Lily climbed the steps, one at a time. Stuart was waiting on the fourth floor, in the doorway to Brigitte’s flat. He had a pinched look on his face, and for a brief second Lily thought of the cartoon strip Aunt Edie liked, with Andy Capp coming home from the pub to his big-breasted, battle-axe wife. She half expected him to clip her round the ear. She could feel the heat of his seething. “Where the hell have you been?”

She’d been practising her lines all the way home, so that when the words came out of her mouth they sounded so rehearsed, she didn’t believe herself. “We found the client. He’s a top politician. A shadow minister.”

Stuart’s curiosity collided with his anger, as Lily had hoped it would. “Who told you that?”

“Marcel saw him with Brigitte. At the Love Shack.” Stuart took a breath, like he was considering what Lily had just said. Lily grabbed her moment. “Can I come in?”

He stepped aside and she led the way through to the kitchen, allowing herself to breathe slowly. She’d passed the first part of the test. ‘Deep in enemy territory,’ she could almost hear Kate Adie.

“So, did you go see him?” asked Stuart.

“We’ve been trying to plan what to do next. We’re playing with the big boys now,” she winced at her inappropriate terminology. “We’re going to have to be really careful.”

“Where’s Jo?”

“Dunno. She’s being all mysterious. Said she had to go and get something.”

“So, you know where this guy lives?”

“Yes, Marcel got the address for us. His cousin’s a journalist. Of course, we had to wait ages.” She stressed the word ‘ages’.

Stuart stood by the kitchen door, his arms folded across his chest. “So, you’ve been to see him, the journalist, I mean?”

Lily hesitated. A hesitation that cost her dear. She couldn’t lie, not outright, not to his face. “No, Marcel did. Then I said we should come back here, let you know what was going on.”

She could hear a clock ticking as she waited for his response.

“So, where did the other seventeen hours and fifty five minutes go?”

“What?”

“Lily, you’ve been missing for eighteen hours. Marcel told you Brigitte’s involved with a French politician. You were with Marcel when I left you. So where did the rest of the time go?”

“Marcel had to find the guy’s address.”

“So, what, he rings his cousin?”

“Next step is, we go to the minister’s house. Do you want to come?” If she was hoping to divert him with thoughts of the immediate future, it didn’t work.

“What were you doing, while Marcel was finding the address?”

“We were, we were waiting, waiting for news.”

“Where?”

“What?”

“You were so busy waiting, you couldn’t let me know you were ok?”

“It’s difficult without a telephone.”

“For God’s sake, Lily. Couldn’t one of you have waited and one of you come back here to tell me you were alright? I thought you might be dead. I had no idea what was happening. Did you think about me at all?”

“I’m sorry. It’s just, this thing with Fiona. I’m so worried, I can’t think straight.”

“Oh, don’t give me that crap. I saw the way he was looking at you. You weren’t thinking about your sister, you were thinking about yourself. Typical fucking Lily.”

She’d never seen him look the way he looked right now. Anger made his face hard, unrecognisable. “Don’t shout at me.”

“Oh, I am sorry.” Sarcasm laced his words. “How terrible for you. I’ve been sat here all night and all day wondering whether you’re dead or alive, with absolutely no idea where you are. And now you’re a bit upset that I’m shouting?” His face was red. “Have you any idea what you’re putting me through?”

“I didn’t ask you to come.”

“Yeah, well I care about my friends.”

She did what she always did in situations like these, when her back was to the wall. She grabbed onto her anger, like it was a hot air balloon that might lift her up, above the heads of everyone else and out of the situation. “Call that caring?” spat Lily. “You completely fucked things up for me. If it wasn’t for you, I’d still have a sister.”

“I wasn’t the only one there that night. Don’t remember you putting up much of a fight.”

“I was confused. That was a bit of a difficult time for me. Did you ever think about that?”

“Don’t you dare-”

She picked the cup up off the table in front of her, the nearest thing to hand and launched it at his head. He ducked and it sailed over his head and smashed against the worktop. The noise of it smashing brought a snatch of silence. Lily lowered her voice. “You don’t have any idea what it’s like, to not have a family.”

Stuart shook his head, “Here we go. Lily the victim. Lily with the blanket excuse to do what she likes. Because nothing is ever her fault.”

“Shut up.”

“You’ve got the perfect get out of jail card. Done something wrong? Oh well, doesn’t matter, you don’t have to say sorry-”

“I did say sorry.”

“Because your…” he almost spat the next word, “…daddy left you-”

She launched herself at him, like a cat, claws out. Not that she had much in the way of nails but she didn’t let that stop her. She went for his face, his eyes, whatever she could reach. He held her off, but only just. They were evenly matched. His slight height and build advantage negated by the ferocity of her anger. She punched, scratched, kicked while screaming at him, “It’s alright for you. Your stupid, middle class sense of entitlement-”

He pinned her against the wall, knocking over both kitchen chairs as he forced her backwards. When she was stuck hard and fast, back to the brickwork, nowhere to go, she spat in his face. “You think you can just take what you want. Well, you can’t.”

He didn’t let go of her, did nothing to wipe the glob of spit from his cheek. She watched it sail down his face. He had her arms pinned to the wall, held by her wrists that were up by her shoulders. He pressed his face into hers. “And you think you can hurt whoever you want, just because you’ve been hurt.”

She leaned forward and head butted him. He saw it coming and swung his head to one side, but she caught him just on the side of his lower jaw. The pain hurt her own forehead and she felt the tears prick her eyes. “Sometimes,” she said, her throat sore, “you don’t get what you want.”

He stared at her, a trickle of blood ran down from his nose and she realised she must have got more than his jaw with her head. There were red marks on his face where she gouged him with her fingers.  His eyes were moist, bright and for a dreadful moment she thought he was going to burst into tears. His voice was quiet, “I’m learning that,” he said.

She refused to let the guilt in. Kept it a bay with an anger that felt like a steel shield. “Good,” she spat. “Because that was the first thing I ever learned. You. Don’t. Get. What. You. Want.”

His face was very close to hers and for a moment she thought he was going to kiss her. She’d bite his fucking lips off first. She closed her eyes, felt the heat of his breath on her face.

“Having fun, kittens?” Jo’s voice startled the hell out of her. She hadn’t heard her enter the flat, let alone the room. Jo moved across to the kitchen table and dumped her bag on it. “You left the front door open. Thought I’d better just come right on in, before a crowd gathered.”

Stuart let Lily’s arms fall as Jo bent to pick up one of the chairs. “I’m not sure this is the time to be exploring your SM fantasies. We’ve got a lead to chase. Andy says we should strike while the iron is hot. He’s going to see if he can dig up any dirt on this politician guy.”

Stuart and Lily were still standing inches apart, facing each other. Lily couldn’t really concentrate on anything Jo was saying. Her heart pounded against her chest, against her ears, her head. It felt like she had too much blood in her system, like someone had just opened her up and poured another couple of pints in there, and it was all she could do to keep her skin from bursting. Stuart broke away first.

He turned to Jo. “I’ve decided, I’m going back to England. I think I should go to Arthur’s funeral. I keep thinking about David, and thinking he should have someone with him.”

“Come on, you can’t bail out now.” said Jo. “We’re getting close. I can feel it in my bones.”

“I’ve got an essay that has to be in by Friday.”

“Well, it’s up to you,” said Jo. “I mean, an essay. Man, that’s serious shit.”