Peach (40 page)

Today, as she did once every month, Lais was to be driven to Paris to meet him. Ferdi stayed at his apartment at the Ritz and Lais went home to the Ile St Louis. After they’d met again at the Ritz she’d invited him to dinner at the house, just the two of them, with candlelight sparkling on the silver and the view of the ropes of lights along the Seine. Lais had thought she wouldn’t feel nervous because their letters had strung a subtle connecting web between them. But when Ferdi came towards her across the blue Aubusson carpet in the salon her heart had jumped and she had wanted desperately to be able to run to meet him. Ferdi had taken her hands in his and then he’d kissed her and for a moment the familiar feel of his kiss and the scent of his cologne, the texture of his skin had eliminated time. But Ferdi hadn’t spoken of love. He had simply treated her as a treasured friend.

Ferdi took her everywhere in Paris, untroubled by the
curious stares of passers-by at the beautiful, elegantly dressed woman in her wheelchair. He pushed Lais’s chair unselfconsciously to the smart shops on the rue de Rivoli and the Faubourg St Honoré. They went to galleries on the Left Bank and they lunched in simple street cafés. And they went to the theatre and dined in their favourite restaurant or in crowded noisy brasseries.

The journey to Paris was long but Lais didn’t feel tired when she arrived this time. She was looking forward so much to seeing him. It didn’t feel strange being with Ferdi any more, not now they had had time to become friends. In fact she felt she knew him better now than before. “I never knew what books you liked or your favourite artists,” she told him over dinner. “I didn’t know the name of your tutor when you were a boy and that you wrote in red exercise books and your fingers were always stained with black ink. Or that you took size ten shoes and hated wearing a wrist-watch.”

“Lais, what would you like most in the world?” interrupted Ferdi suddenly.

“You want to know how to buy me?”

“No, I’d just like to give you whatever it is you want most.”

Lais looked at the man she loved. She didn’t see the lines of pain and harsh experience on his fine, lean face, nor the prematurely silver hair. She remembered the young blond officer, smart in his uniform, leaning against the piano at her party in the Ile St Louis, the young man walking with her along the rocky headland near the Hostellerie, his strong hand holding hers, and the young virile lover who had held her in his arms and promised her their dreams would come true. It would be unfair to expect Ferdi to marry a cripple. She must be content to remain his friend.

“It’s impossible, Ferdi,” she said quietly. “You see, no one can turn back the clock.”

Oblivious to their surroundings they stared into each other’s eyes. He had thought for a moment it could be the way it used to be, that Lais would take down the barriers and let him back into her magical world. But she refused to put back the clock—she couldn’t. For her it was impossible. And for him? He still loved her, he knew that now. He’d marry her tonight if he thought she’d have him. But she’d just told him it was impossible.

“I’m sorry, Lais,” said Ferdi at last. “I’m so sorry.”

They left the restaurant and Ferdi lifted her carefully into the car, waiting while the chauffeur folded her wheelchair, placing it in the trunk of the big old-fashioned de Courmont that had been Lais’s since before the war. They sat silently holding hands as they drove along the Boulevard St Germain, veering left on the Quai de Tournelle. The Seine looked smooth and black beneath the lighted bridge and the grey façades of the ancient buildings on the Ile St Louis loomed like a prison fortress.

Lais couldn’t bear his silence. What had he meant? Was he sorry for her? Or sorry because he didn’t love her the way he used to? If only she could run she would have wrenched open the door and raced away from the car, away from the wheelchairs and specially adapted rooms and the fuss that surrounded the once simple events of living. She would have run away from the silent man she only thought she knew.

Her half-averted cheek burned as he kissed her goodnight. “I’ll telephone tomorrow,” he promised as the door closed.

“Miz!” called Lais.
“Oh Miz
, Miz, where are you?
I need you
.”

Her hair in metal curlers, wrapped in a salmon-pink wool robe, Miz hurtled across the hall towards her. “Dear me,”
she gasped. “I was just in a doze, waiting for you. Whatever is the matter?”

“We must pack,” said Lais, tears streaming down her face. “We’re leaving tomorrow.”

“Leaving? But we only just got here. Do you want to go back to the Hostellerie already?” queried Miz, sensing disaster.

“Not the Hostellerie,” replied Lais. “We’re going home. Whatever ship sails tomorrow for New York, we’ll be on it.”

Ferdi couldn’t get a straight answer from Oliver, the de Courmont butler. “Mademoiselle Lais had packed and left very early this morning, sir,” and “No, I do not know where she was destined,” was all the response Ferdi received to his surprised questions.

Ferdi paced his apartment overlooking the Place Vendôme, hands clasped behind his back, his face tight and expressionless, analysing the previous evening. Later he placed a call to the Hostellerie only to be told that they were not expecting Lais.
Then where was she?
Ferdi continued his pacing, watching the phone like a hawk, waiting to pounce on it when it rang.

Unable to stay indoors any longer, he took a taxi to the Bois and walked aimlessly, watching the children play and staring at the posters on the kiosks advertising concerts and the circus. Head down he paced the sandy paths, seeing nothing of the splendour of the autumn trees. He didn’t feel the chill wind that had sprung up or notice that the sun had disappeared behind banks of grey clouds.

Life without Lais looked bleak. He lived for her letters and for their meetings in Paris. He had told himself that he could be happy with only her friendship because Lais would want nothing more. But her disability had become so much part of his way of life that it scarcely mattered.
Except when
he wanted to hold her in his arms
. They who had been passionate lovers were now just friends. And when Lais had finally spoken of the past his façade of pretence had shattered.

At a little outdoor café Ferdi sank on to a green-slatted wooden chair, running a hand distractedly through his hair.

“Monsieur?” A waiter appeared at his side, a metal tray balanced on one hand as he cleared the small table of glasses.

“Whisky,” demanded Ferdi, suddenly aware of the edge of ice on the wind. There were a few other people on the little green chairs. Solitary people. A man in a dark overcoat reading a paper, another, younger man, staring into space, lost in his own thoughts.

Ferdi pushed back his chair abruptly. What a fool he was. What a goddamn fool. He’d re-built their shattered relationship, not daring to look back at the past. They were two people who had been struck down by disaster
and who had survived
. He was a lucky man to love Lais. He wasn’t going to lose her again!

Amelie and Gerard were surprised to have Lais so suddenly. She arrived with Miz by plane from New York and although she said she was happy to see them she looked so miserable they wondered what was wrong.

“It’s that young man of hers—Ferdi,” Miz told them. “They’ve been writing to each other for a long time and she sees him every now and again in Paris. But now something has upset her and she’s not saying what.”

A week went by and still Lais was silent and brooding. She smiled and was pleasant but they felt that it was an effort, and when they questioned her she said nothing was wrong.

When Ferdi von Schönberg arrived on their doorstep one
morning and told them he had flown in to see Lais and that he must speak with her at once, it was urgent, they greeted him with relief.

“At least there’ll be some action,” said Amelie, lurking outside Lais’s door, “good or bad.”

“For her sake, let’s hope good this time,” added Gerard.

Lais sat in her chair by the window, a ribbon in her pale hair and no make-up, looking like a shocked child, waiting for the blow to fall.

“I’m sorry I startled you—but I didn’t realise I’d
frighten
you!” exclaimed Ferdi, still standing by the door.

“I’m afraid of what you’re going to say,” whispered Lais.

“Then you know why I’m here?”

“Yes … no … Oh Ferdi, I don’t know …”

“I’m not taking no for an answer, Lais, you realise that?” He walked across the length of white carpet that seemed to her as long and infinite as a road she would never walk again. “Please marry me, Lais,” begged Ferdi, dropping to his knees by her side. “Please say you will?”

Her hands were imprisoned in his and his firm warm touch still gave her that old thrill and, when he looked at her like that, the old magic still played its tune in her brain, leaving her breathless. “Ferdi, it’s not possible … Look at me … realise what you would be getting …”

“It’s you I want, Lais,” he said, his eyes steadfast as they locked with hers, “you and only you. I want to help you, to take care of you …”

“You see,” she cried, anguished, “you see—you pity me. And I can’t bear it, Ferdi … not after the way I remember it, the way it used to be …”

“Let me finish!” he commanded her, harshly, “let me finish, Lais. I sympathise with your condition, but I don’t
pity
you. You are here, I can take you in my arms, I can love
you—you’re still my Lais. And I love you. My life has been empty without you. Please don’t run away from me again. Marry me, Lais!”

His kiss bruised her lips and Lais gasped, responding to his passion. Then, blushing like a young girl as he lifted his mouth from hers, she murmured, “Ferdi, if you’re sure …?”

“Say it!” he demanded, smiling.

“Yes,” she whispered happily, “I’ll marry you.”

The door opened an hour later and the two of them emerged smiling.

“Is everything all right?” asked Amelie cautiously.

“Everything’s fine, Maman,” said Lais. “Ferdi and I are engaged.”

“Engaged? Oh, how wonderful! How very wonderful!” Amelie bit her lip to stop from crying.

“You mustn’t start planning the wedding yet, Maman,” warned Lais. “I want Ferdi to take his time and make sure he knows what he’s getting into, marrying someone like me.”

Amelie’s heart ached for Lais.

“That’s Lais’s idea, not mine,” said Ferdi. “I’m doing my best to change her mind.”

“Oh dear,” said Amelie as the tears spilled over, “I’m sorry I’m crying. I was just thinking how pleased your grandmother would be.”

Lais and Ferdi were married six weeks later in a simple ceremony in the gardens of the Palačio d’Aureville. Peach flew down from Boston to be her sister’s bridesmaid and Leonie and Jim flew in from France. Leonore was in Switzerland and couldn’t get away but she sent her good wishes for the couple’s happiness.

Peach thought Lais looked wonderful. She wore a wheat-yellow dress and a gardenia in her hair and she was smiling as though all the happiness in the world belonged to her.

But Peach knew better. She’d cornered some of that happiness for herself.

Harry Launceton flung down his pen and stared at the blank sheet of paper in front of him. Damn it, he couldn’t concentrate. Every time he tried to follow a train of thought he ended up thinking of Peach instead. She was constantly in his mind. He went to sleep at Augusta’s side wondering about Peach, and he woke in the middle of the night panicked in case she refused to see him again. She had infiltrated the most important part of his life. His work.

Peach wasn’t the first girl he’d had an affair with but inevitably they bored him and he always returned thankfully to his wife. Cool, sensible Augusta who protected him from the daily household problems and who, when he was writing, always fended off the visitors and the endless requests for interviews, the invitations to lecture or to dinner parties.
Augusta understood him
. She knew he had a weakness for a pretty, available face and without saying anything, she tolerated his little escapades. And behind that cool façade, she was surprisingly inventive in bed. He’d always enjoyed sex with Augusta. He still did.

His affair with Peach had been going on for six months
but on the surface life continued as normal. He had breakfast with Augusta, hiding behind the airmail edition of
The Times
, he prepared his lectures or worked on his novel in the mornings, and they went to dinner as usual at friends’ houses and to the theatre or the concert hall.
But underneath it all he was going quietly crazy
.

He lived for the long luxurious afternoons making love to Peach in a friend’s borrowed apartment, or their quiet dark evenings together in some out of the way country inn. Peach’s lithe girlish body with its small high breasts and long golden legs fascinated him and her innocence was charming. Sometimes, trembling on the brink of passion, he would open his eyes and meet her unnerving blue gaze as though she were searching for his soul and in the very act of love.

But it was
afterwards
that he felt inspired. Peach would lie, curled in the tumbled sheets, watching his pen fly across the pages writing page after page in a scrawl only he could decipher. He wrote about
her
—about her feline grace, about the way she walked naked across the room in her long pantherlike lope, about the sloping bones of her face and her small flat ears. He wrote of the colour of her russet hair contrasted against the leaden grey of a winter sky and about her watching him writing, lying there like a sleepy animal.