Out of Sight (7 page)

Patrice soon came back. He'd already taken off his shirt, which he laid on the chair as he kicked off his shoes beside hers. He stood a moment, uncertain and apprehensive, the lack of sunburn beneath his shirt making him appear especially naked. She went to him, stroking the warmth of his bare shoulders before putting her arms around his waist, her fingertips exploring the muscled contours of his back. He dropped his lips to her neck, then locked his mouth to hers, strained to help her to drag off
both their clothes and groaned when their naked limbs met under the sheets.

Leonie awoke in the small hours from a deep sleep. He too stirred and folded himself around her. Breathing in the redolent scents of his bed, she felt a deep rush of joy.

By Sunday evening, Leonie was beside herself. She couldn't remember when she'd last felt like this, and could hardly bear to believe that she'd fallen so headlong into the cliché-ridden trap of waiting for a man to call and wondering if he ever would. Nearly forty-eight hours earlier, awake in Patrice's arms and smiling into the darkness of the unfamiliar room, she had allowed the fantasy of happy-ever-after to wash over her. She'd been unable to explain to him before they went to bed on Friday how Saturdays were her busiest days at work, and so she'd have to scramble off at dawn. He had woken with the light and, apart from saying good morning and asking how she'd slept, had set about making love to her again without further speech. Then she had decided that, for once, she could be late, even though afterwards she'd had to rush off without even a cup of coffee, apologetic, embarrassed and glowing from the unaccustomed sex.

All day, she'd been a grinning fool with a spring in her step. When she had come home on Saturday evening
exhausted from work it had simply never occurred to her that he wouldn't want to speak to her. She had even hummed to herself as she took leftovers out of the fridge for her supper, sure he would call and interrupt her meal at any moment. But as bedtime had come, and the instrument of her torture remained infernally mute, terrible forebodings had begun to take shape. Was her rushed exit that morning the reason he'd not rung? Had he wrongly assumed that work was just an excuse, that she'd dashed away because she regretted being there? In which case, ought she to call him? But she knew that was impossible. She may not have had much experience of starting relationships, either before or after Greg, but she knew it was mandatory for her to wait for him to call.

And so she had lain in bed that night, watching the clock. This could not be! Before she'd left his house, she'd scribbled down her home number – maybe he couldn't read her handwriting? Or had lost the piece of paper? Eventually she slept, but all Sunday morning she had hovered near the phone. To keep busy, she had set about spring-cleaning her small apartment. By mid-afternoon, it was spotless, so she had driven to the nearest Carrefour to stock up on essentials she didn't need. And now, at eight o'clock on Sunday evening, she was exhausted and climbing the walls.

She would just have to accept that she was a one-night stand. She could live with that, she told herself; she was a grown-up after all. It had been heavenly to be reminded
what it was like to be touched, aroused, desired, held. Extraordinary to remember, to realise how the body could forget pleasure as easily as it forgot pain. She had no regrets. She just had to pull herself together. Okay, she'd obviously been wrong about Patrice, but not for her the agony and humiliation of persisting in a belief that it had been anything more than it was. She might have been a bit naïve, assuming he felt the same way as she did, but being a bit naïve wasn't going to turn her into an object of ridicule. Or pity. She'd simply have a good cry before she went to sleep, and hold onto a glimmer of the sexual afterglow.

Leonie was very glad to reach the haven of the office on Monday morning, despite having to maintain constant guard against Gaby's acuity. The busy phones were a welcome distraction, so she was taken completely by surprise when, answering routinely, she heard his voice.

‘Hello. It's Patrice. How are you this morning?'

‘Fine.' She tried to keep the incredulity out of her voice. ‘How are you?'

‘Very well. I've got something for you. Spent most of the weekend on it.'

‘Oh!'

‘Would you like to come for supper tomorrow night?'

‘Tomorrow?'

‘Then I can show you.'

Leonie made a rapid emotional calculation: ‘Yes. Thanks. What time?'

‘Come when you like. I'll be home by seven.'

‘Okay.'

‘Bye!' And he hung up.

The weekend had given her enough of a scare to hide her relief and delight as much as she could from Gaby. But she felt elated, exonerated, reprieved, as if the story with the happy ending could now be resumed.

On Tuesday evening when Leonie saw what Patrice wanted to show her, she was enchanted. She forgave him utterly for all the misery he had unwittingly put her through over the weekend.

‘It's been rusting in the shed,' he told her. They were in his garden, where he had wheeled out a woman's bicycle. ‘I cleaned it up and oiled it, and I got new tyres and brake blocks. It'll be a hundred per cent safe, I guarantee. Nothing much I could do about the saddle, I'm afraid. It's a bit tatty. Otherwise all it needs is a basket.'

‘And a bell! At least until I learn to ride in a straight line.'

‘Do you like it?' he asked shyly.

‘Yes!'

‘Good. Then we'll be able to go places together.' Patrice looked at her with such transparency that her heart melted. It was clear to her now that she had completely misunderstood how new relationships were managed. She'd been a student when she met Greg, but thirty-somethings obviously had all sorts of priorities beyond some juvenile head-long
rush into romance. During those long hours over the weekend while she had been mentally accusing him of just using her for a quick fuck, he had been innocently planning ahead, imagining picnics, outings, grown-up time spent together. A future. She resolved never to doubt him again.

‘It's adorable! Thank you. Thank you so much.'

She went to kiss him and saw that same little flicker of alarm, of hesitation, that he had shown the day they ate their baguettes together on the bench by the church. As before, she was engulfed by tenderness. Then he kissed her back, and they did not make supper until after they had led each other upstairs to bed, hungry for warm, smooth skin, ravenous to reach inside one another and find release.

He held her hand as they went back down to the kitchen, hungry now for food and wine. ‘We're pretty good together, aren't we?' he said, squeezing her hand, and giving her a sideways grin.

Patrice made salad and a hastily prepared omelette. Leonie sipped red wine and watched him handling the bowl, reaching for the eggs, adjusting the burner on the stove; she smiled to herself, imagining all over again with each of his deft, confident movements the pleasure contained in each touch of his fingertips. They ate in rested silence, mopping up their plates with bread, then she dried the dishes while he washed up, making a joke together of her attempts to work out where things were to be put,
habit having superseded any rational storage system decades ago. They chatted in a desultory way, too satiated with physical knowledge to enquire into anything much beyond the present moment.

Before returning to bed, Patrice opened the garden door and they stood, his arm around her shoulders, listening to the night sounds – small rustlings, a passing car, the inevitable barking of a distant dog – and enjoying the cooling air on their faces. As he switched off the hall light and followed her up the stairs, Leonie had a vivid sense of eternity, of male and female together, forever approaching the same inevitable conclusion. They undressed again without self-consciousness, and he nestled in behind her in the narrow bed. He stroked her hip for a while, then they dropped effortlessly into sleep.

Over the next few weeks, during which they settled into a pattern of meeting every three or four days, Leonie found it hard to believe that she could look forward with such luxuriously matter-of-fact assurance to something as exquisite and exalting as their love-making. It gave her almost as much pleasure to think about Patrice during the days she did not see him – and sometimes not hear from him, either – as to be with him. And when they were together, his ability to read from her body language what kind of day she'd had, and then wordlessly either soothe her or elicit and share some small elation, created a wonderful intimacy.

She had no memory of it being like that with Greg. She
possessed more energy than she'd had in years. Her life seemed whole, as if she were constantly on the point of effortlessly winning a race, throwing out her arms and flying past the tape. The very last of the grimy rim of misery that had clung to her since she left London was rinsed away. She felt cleansed of unhappiness – and vindicated: it was not she who was unloving, unlovable. There could be nothing wrong with her if she could feel like this with Patrice.

‘I'd better book a ticket and come meet this man,' declared Stella, when Leonie attempted to explain her happiness over the phone. ‘I want to relish the sight of a loved-up Lennie!'

After Leonie ended the call, she forced herself to analyse why her instant, though luckily unvoiced, reaction had been to tell Stella not to come. Stella was her closest friend. Not once had she ever been apprehensive at the idea of spending time with her. Why should she be reluctant now? It wasn't that she was afraid of Stella not liking Patrice. She was sure Stella would discover everything in him that she herself so adored. It was, she decided, merely that she and Patrice were still in that initial starry-eyed lovers' bubble into which, so far, no third party had been invited. They hadn't even yet gone out for a meal, preferring the intimacy and spontaneity of eating at home. Patrice had spent a couple of nights at her apartment, but mostly they had tacitly opted for his house – a place which, to her at least, had itself become magically set apart from day-to-day reality. She had been charmed, though, at how he took note of the
type of breakfast tea and jam she had at home and produced them the next time she came to him.

Now, examining her reluctance to see Stella, she acknowledged how she'd repeatedly put off arrangements with a couple of the friends she'd made locally – Audra, who dealt in
bricolage
and garden and kitchen antiques, and Martine, who worked for the private catering company they recommended to some of their wealthier villa clients. She had declined their invitations because she couldn't always be certain in advance which night Patrice might suggest meeting, and she wanted to be sure of seeing him as often as she could. But that was not a good pattern to fall into. Not that she minded him not making fixed dates, she wasn't insecure about it; he always promised to call her and he always did. But equally, she instructed herself, she ought not to go on sacrificing her own arrangements, the infrastructure of friendships and appointments that had supported her life here – friendships that, when she first arrived, battered and fragile, she'd worked hard to establish. She picked up the phone, called Audra and fixed to meet in three days' time.

Sure enough, when Patrice called her the following evening, he said he'd like to meet up that same Thursday.

‘Oh, I can't, Patrice. I'm going out with a friend.'

‘Well, never mind.'

Leonie could hear that he was slightly taken aback, but squashed her craven impulse to say she'd cancel. She waited, breathless.

‘Did you sort out the problem with the cots?' he asked.

‘Yes. Gaby had to borrow a travel cot from one of her daughters. You'd expect people to shout well ahead that they had triplets. How many rented houses are going to have two cots, let alone three?'

‘True. I had an interesting new case today. I'll tell you when I see you.' Patrice liked to discuss his work with her, although he never identified his patients.

‘You could come along on Thursday if you want to,' she offered, cringing at herself. ‘You'd like Audra. She's good fun.'

‘I won't intrude. Another time. What are you up to this evening?'

Her hopes soared. ‘Not much.'

‘I'm ironing. Run out of shirts.'

Disappointed, she wondered whether she dared suggest going over there.

‘And been watching the swallows gathering,' he went on. ‘They'll be starting to leave soon. Nights are already drawing in, don't you think?'

‘Oh, don't say that! Summer's not over yet.'

‘I imagined you'd prefer it out of season. A lot less busy.'

‘I don't mind. Anything rather than getting up and coming home in the cold and dark. I always hated the lack of daylight in London, so I'll take every last bit of sunshine and heat I can get.' When he didn't reply, she prompted him. ‘Wouldn't you?'

‘It gets a bit stressful. Some relief when autumn comes. Call you on Friday … Bye for now.'

Alone, she looked out of her kitchen window at the swallows endlessly swapping places on the telephone wires across the road, calming herself with the image of the birds' mysterious voyages as a direct link to Patrice on the other side of the town. She reminded herself of the powerful part his elusiveness played in his attraction for her. That such an essentially shy man should be lured by her willingness not to rush him, by her ability to coax him with stillness and waiting, emphasised her sensitivity and empathy. She couldn't help but like such a reflected image of herself. And Patrice was the complete opposite of Greg, whose failure to commit had stemmed from immaturity, a lack of depth. Patrice, she felt instinctively, suffered from an abundance of depth, profound places where he wrestled with difficult memories.

She hoped one day he would tell her what they were. She was sure they were bound up with why he was drawn to homeopathy: the wounded healer. He had all but explained himself to her when he outlined the theory of miasms, of past or inherited damage that causes an endless repetition of symptoms, of aches and pains caused by old and invisible injuries and diseases. She wasn't sure she believed in every last word of homeopathy, but she certainly believed in the healing power of love. She had only to be patient, and, she was sure, they would free one another from their pasts.