Girl Unknown(71)

‘What?’

He shrugged, seeming a little sad in the half-light, a look of defeat coming over him. ‘I’m here for her if she needs me, but she has to forge her own path.’

Hope bloomed in my heart. Words I had longed to hear. ‘She can manage on her own, David. She’s perfectly capable.’

‘This thing with Chris …’

‘It’s a fling. She’s nineteen. You have to allow for these things.’ I didn’t say what I really thought: that her relationship with Chris was calculated to get at us.

‘I suppose.’

‘Wait and see. By the time we get home to Dublin, it will probably be over between them.’

A chill had entered the air as we stepped away from the square, David’s arm around me as we walked together. Buildings appeared chalky blue in the moonlight. We talked a little of our plans for the next few days. David wanted to visit some of the beaches on the south of the island where bunkers built by the Germans in the Second World War still existed. I had promised Holly a shopping trip to La Rochelle. Tired but content, we returned to the house, closing the gate behind us and crossing the courtyard.

As soon as I opened the front door, I felt a change. The house seemed alive in a different way – the air spiked with a new presence. David behind me, I pushed open the door to the living room and saw Robbie sitting with his arms crossed over his chest, his face dark and unreadable. Movement in the kitchen caught the corner of my eye, but before I could turn to look there, Chris was getting out of the other armchair, his face a mixture of hope and apology.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked. He had been crossing the room to greet me, but the abruptness of my question made him stop.

‘Caroline, Dave,’ he said. ‘I know this is a surprise, calling on you unannounced …’

He had a glass of wine, which he was passing from one hand to the other, as if unsure of what to do with it. He put it down on the coffee-table. Then, straightening up, he addressed us with a smile: ‘We wanted to surprise you, didn’t we, babe?’

She was almost at my elbow by the time I realized she was there. Wearing a sleeveless short blue dress and orange flip-flops on her lightly tanned feet, I was struck all over again by how slight she was. Without the boots, her winter armour, she seemed wispy and insubstantial, like a twig that might snap in a brisk breeze.

‘It’s my fault,’ she said, the corner of her mouth pulling into a smile but her eyes were watchful, moving from me to David. ‘We were in Paris, you see, when it happened, and I knew you guys were here. Chris said we should ring but I preferred to tell you in person.’

She stepped past me towards Chris. I felt David close behind me, but couldn’t see his face. I was too caught up with these new arrivals. Her new way of dressing made her look younger rather than older. Next to her, Chris was like some trendy uncle. He was sporting new clothes too, clearly aiming for a look that was youthful and flashy. He’d had his hair cut differently – there was a sort of mussed artfulness about it.

‘Are you sure it’s all right?’ Zo? asked, assuming a worried expression. ‘It’s a bit cheeky, I know, turning up out of the blue. It seemed like such a good idea at the time, but then, when we were driving over the bridge, it suddenly felt like a mistake. That you might not be happy to see us.’

‘You’re very welcome, Zo?,’ I told her, thinking of the times before when I had uttered the same hollow statements. Gestures of hospitality, but they were empty of any truth. David said nothing.

‘You see?’ Chris told her, putting his arm around her, smiling with reassurance. ‘Didn’t I tell you it’d be okay?’ Then to me: ‘She worries about everything.’

Oh, please, I thought. Give me a break.

It was nauseating to watch him clutch her to his side, beaming down at her. How could she stand it? The suffocating benevolence. I had a glimpse of what it was like between them – the way he lavished her with attention, his cloying affection, Zo? enduring it with a patient smile. She looked up at him then and her expression changed, the two of them giggling. There was something shifty about it, as if they were sharing a joke that I wasn’t in on. I knew this visit wasn’t the whimsical decision they had made it out to be.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘What’s happened?’

They exchanged a look, then Zo? reached for a bag on the table and pulled out a bottle of champagne. ‘We brought this,’ she said, and offered it to me.

I can still remember it, his hand on her shoulder, her almond-coloured skin beneath the reddened tips of his fingers, my eyes travelling the length of her arm to the orange label on the green bottle, the stones in her ring catching the light.

‘Oh, my God,’ I said.

I didn’t turn to David, not wanting to see the slow shock that was surely coming over his face. Instead I kept my eyes fixed on hers. Brackish green eyes, gleaming now with excitement. Excitement, not nerves, for while Chris was sweating a little under the low ceiling of the room, she betrayed no anxiety. I thought again of when I had first met her – how nerveless she had seemed. She held out her hand to us – a queenly gesture – presenting us with her ring as if inviting us to come forward and kiss it.

Robbie shifted on the couch.

‘I don’t believe it,’ I said.

‘It’s true,’ Chris said, pulling her close to him, the two of them laughing as he kissed the side of her face.