The Paris Apartment (24 page)

They file into the apartment. Nicolas, Antoine, Mimi. Take up the same positions on the sofas they occupied last night, when
the girl interrupted us. Nick's foot is tapping a frantic rhythm on the Ghom rug. As I watch I am certain I can make out a
tiny black scorch mark just beneath his toe. One of several burned into the priceless silk. But you'd only spot them if you
knew what you were looking for.

Suddenly I am assaulted by memories. It was my greatest transgression, inviting him up here. We stole a bottle from Jacques'
cellar: one of the finest vintages. Had each other there on the rug, Paris glittering nosily in at us through the vast windows.
We lay tangled together afterward, warmed by the cashmere throw I had pulled around our naked bodies. If Jacques had come
back unexpectedly . . . But wasn't there some part of me that wanted to be caught? Look at me, who you have left here alone
all these years. Wanted. Desired.

As we lay there I stroked his hair, enjoying the dense velvety softness of it between my fingers. He lit a cigarette that
we passed back and forth like teenage lovers, hot ash scattering, sizzling into the silk of the rug. I didn't care. All that
mattered was that with him here the apartment suddenly seemed warm, full of life and sound and passion.

“My mum used to stroke my hair.”

I pulled my hand away, sharply.

“I didn't mean it like that,” he said, quickly. “I just meant I hadn't realized how much I missed it.” And when he turned
to look across at me I saw in his expression something undefended and frail, something that had hidden beneath all the charm.
I thought I saw my own loneliness reflected there. But in the next moment he smiled and it had vanished.

A minute or so later he sat up, taking in the empty apartment around us. “Jacques is away a lot in the evenings, isn't he?”

I nodded. Was he already planning our next encounter? “He's very busy.”

His gaze seemed to sweep over the paintings on the walls, the furnishings, the richness of the place. “I suppose that must
mean business is flourishing.”

I froze. He'd said it lightly. Too lightly? It brought me back to myself: the madness of what we were doing, all that was
at stake. “You should go,” I told him, suddenly angry at him . . . at myself. “I can't do this.” This time I really believed
I meant it. “I have too much to lose.”

I close my eyes. Open them again and focus on my daughter's face. She does not meet my eye. All the same, it has brought me
back to myself. To what is important. I take a steadying sip of my wine. Force down the memories. “So,” I say to them all.
“Let us begin.”

My stepmother has called us all to order. We're sitting upstairs in the penthouse apartment. A dysfunctional little family
conference. Like the one we'd been going to have last night before Jess turned up unannounced and set the cat among the pigeons.
I was always a keen student of English idioms. We have a French one like it, actually:
jeter un pavé dans la mare—
throw a paving stone in the pond. And maybe that's a more accurate description of what happened when she arrived here. She
has displaced everything.

I look at the others. Antoine knocking back the wine—he might as well have picked up the whole bottle. Mimi white-faced and
looking ready to bolt from the room. Sophie sitting rigid and expressionless. She's not looking quite herself, my stepmother.
I can't work out what's different about her at first. Her shining black bob doesn't have a strand out of place, her silk scarf
is knotted expertly at her throat. But there's something off. Then it hits me: she's not wearing lipstick. I don't know if
I've ever seen her without it. She looks diminished, somehow. Older, frailer, more human.

Antoine speaks first. “That stupid little cunt is at the club.” He turns to me. “Still suggest we do nothing, little bro?”

“I . . . I think the important thing is we all pull together,” I say. “A united front. As a family. That's the most important
thing. We can't fall apart now.”

But I realize, looking at their faces, that they're all unknown quantities to me. I don't feel like I know these people. Not really. I was away for so long. And we're all so estranged from one another that we don't look and feel like the real thing. Even to one another.

“Yes, because you've been such a key player in this family up until now,” Antoine says, making me feel even more of an imposter,
a fraud. He gestures toward Sophie. “And you're not going to catch me playing the adoring stepson to that
salope
.”

“Hey,” I say. “Let's just—”

“Watch your mouth,” Sophie says caustically, turning to Antoine. “You're sitting in my apartment.”

“Oh it's your apartment, is it?” He gives a mock bow. “I'm so sorry, I hadn't realized. I thought you were just a parasite
living off Papa's money—I didn't know you'd
earned
any of it yourself.”

I was only eight or nine when Papa married the mysterious new woman who had materialized in our lives but Antoine was older,
a teenager. Maman had been an invalid for so long, languishing in her rooms on the third floor. This newcomer seemed so young,
so glamorous. I was a little besotted. Antoine took it rather differently. He's always had it in for her.

“Just stop it,” Mimi says suddenly, her hands over her ears. “All of you. I can't take any more—”

Antoine turns to Mimi with a horrible smile on his face. “
Ah
,” he slurs at her now, “and as for you, well you're not really part of this family, are you,
ma petite soeur
—”

“Stop that,” Sophie says to Antoine, her voice ice-cold: the lioness protecting her cub.

At her feet the whippet startles and gives a sharp bark.

“Oh, I think she can give as good as she gets,” Antoine says. “What about all that stuff at her school, with the teacher? Papa had to make a pretty hefty donation and agree to remove her to
keep that one quiet. But perhaps it's no surprise, huh?” He turns to Mimi. “When you consider where she comes from.”

“Don't you dare speak to her like that,” Sophie says. Her tone is dangerous.

I glance over at Mimi. She's just sitting there, staring at Antoine, her face even paler than usual.

“OK,” I say. “Come on, let's all just—”

“And can I just say,” Antoine says, “that it's just typical that our darling père has decided to fuck off for all of this.
Isn't it?”

All of us glance instinctively at the portrait of my father on the wall. I know it must be my imagination or a trick of the
light, but it looks as though his painted frown has deepened slightly. I shiver. Even when he's miles away you can still feel
his presence in this apartment, somehow, his authority. The all-seeing, all-powerful Jacques Meunier.

“Your father,” Sophie says to Antoine now, sharply, “has his own business to be taking care of. As you well know. It would
only complicate things further if he returns. We must all hold the fort for him in his absence.”

“What a surprise,
he's not here when the shit hits the fan.” Antoine gives a laugh, but there's no humor in it.

“He trusts you to be able to handle the situation on your own,” Sophie says. “But perhaps that is simply too much to ask.
Look at you. You're a forty-year-old man still living under his roof, leeching off his money. He has given you everything.
You've never had to grow up. You've had everything handed to you by your father on a silver platter. You're both useless hothouse
flowers, too weak for the outside world. Unable to fly the nest.” That stings. “For God's sake,” she says. “Show your father
some respect.”

“Oh yeah?” Antoine gives her a nasty smile. “Are you really going to talk to me about respect,
putain
?” The last word hissed under his breath.

“How dare you speak to me like that?” She rounds on him, a surge of real anger breaching the icy façade.

“Oh, how dare I?” Antoine gives her a sly-looking grin. “
Vraiment?
Really?” He turns to me. “You know what she is? You know what our very elegant stepmother really is? You know where she comes
from?”

I've had my suspicions. As I grew older, they grew too. But I've barely even allowed myself to think them, let alone voice
them aloud, for fear of my father's wrath.

Antoine stands up and walks out of the room. A few moments later he comes back carrying something in a large frame. He turns
it around so that all of us can see it. It's a black and white photograph, a large nude: the one from my father's study.

“Put that back,” says Sophie, her voice dangerous. Her hands are clenched into fists. She looks over at Mimi who is sitting
stock still, her eyes wide and scared.

Antoine sits back in the chair looking pleased with himself, propping the photograph beside him like a child's science project.
“Look at her,” he says, gesturing to the image, then at Sophie. “Hasn't she done well? The Hermès scarves, the trench coats.
Une vraie bourgeoise
. You'd never know it, would you? You'd never know that she was really a—”

A crack, loud as a pistol shot. It happens too quickly to understand what's going on: she moved so fast. Then Antoine is sitting
there holding his hand to his face and Sophie is standing over him.

“She hit me,” Antoine says—but his voice is small and scared as a little boy's. It isn't the first time he's been hit like
this. Papa always was pretty free with his fists and Antoine, the eldest, seemed to get the worst of it. “She fucking hit
me.” He takes his hand away and we all see the mark of her hand on his cheek, the imprint of it a livid pink.

Sophie continues to stand over him. “Think what your father would say if he heard you talking to me like that.”

Antoine looks up at Papa's portrait again. Tears his eyes away with an effort. He's a big guy but he seems almost to shrink
into himself. We all know that he would never dare speak to Sophie like this in Papa's presence. And we all know that when
Papa gets back there'll be hell to pay if he hears about it.

“Can we please just focus on what's important?” I say, trying to gain some control. “We have a bigger problem to focus on
here.”

Sophie gives Antoine another venomous stare, then turns to me and nods, tightly. “You're right.” She sits back down and in
a moment that chilly mask is back in place. “I think the most important thing is that we can't let her find out any more.
We have to be ready for her, when she returns. And if she goes too far? Nicolas?”

I nod. Swallow. “Yes. I know what to do. If it comes to it.”

“The concierge,” Mimi says suddenly, her voice small and hoarse.

We all turn to look at her.

“I saw that woman, Jess, going into the concierge's cabin. She was on her way to the gate and the concierge ran out and grabbed
her. They were in there for at least ten minutes.” She looks at all of us. “What . . . what could they have been talking about
for all that time?”

I stare at the girl on the stage. It's her, the girl who followed me two days ago, the one I chased onto the Metro train.
She stares back. The moment seems to stretch. She looks as terrified as she did when that train pulled away from the platform.
And then, as if she's coming out of a trance, she swings her gaze back to the audience, smiles, climbs back onto the hoop
as it starts to rise upward—and is gone.

Theo turns to me. “What was that?”

“You saw it too?”

“Yeah, I saw it. She was staring right at you.”

“I met her,” I say. “Just after I spoke to you for the first time at the café.” I explain it all: catching her following me,
chasing her into the Metro. My heart is beating faster now. I think of Ben. The family. The mystery dancer. They all feel
like parts of the same puzzle . . . I know they are. But how do they all fit?

After the show ends the audience members drain the remainders from their glasses and surge up the staircase, heading out into
the night.

Theo gives me a nudge. “Come on then, let's go. Follow me.”

I'm about to protest—surely we're not just going to leave?—but I stop when I see that rather than continuing up the stairs
with the rest of the paying customers, Theo has shoved open a door on our left. It's the same one we noticed earlier, during
the performance, the one through which those suited men kept disappearing.

“Let's try and talk to your friend,” he murmurs.

He slips through the door. I follow close behind. Beneath us is a dark, velvet-lined staircase. We begin to descend. I can hear sounds coming from below, but they're muted, like they're coming from underwater. I hear music, I think, and the hum of voices and then a sudden, high-pitched cry that might be male or female.

We have almost reached the bottom of the stairs. I hesitate. I thought I heard something. Another set of footsteps beside
our own.

“Stop,” I say. “Did you hear that?”

Theo looks at me questioningly.

“I'm sure I heard footsteps.”

We listen for a couple of moments in silence. Nothing. Then a girl appears at the bottom of the stairs. One of the dancers.
Up close she's so made-up it looks like she's wearing a mask. She stares at us. For a moment I have the impression that there's
a scared little girl looking out at me behind the thick foundation, fake eyelashes, and glossy red lips.

“We're looking for a friend,” I say, quickly. “The girl who did that act on the swing? It's about my brother, Ben. Can you
tell her we're looking for her?”

“You cannot be here,” she hisses. She looks terrified.

“It's OK,” I say, trying to sound reassuring. “We're not going to stay for long.”

She hurries past us, up the stairs, without a backward glance. We keep going. At the end of the corridor there's a door. I
put my shoulder against it but there's no give. I suddenly have a sense of how far underground we are: at least two floors
deep. The thought makes it harder to breathe. I try to swallow down my fear.

“I think it's locked,” I say.

The sounds are louder now. Through the door I hear a kind of groan that sounds almost animal.

I try the handle again. “It's definitely locked. You have a go—”

But Theo doesn't answer me.

And I know, before I turn, that there's someone behind us. Now I see him: the doorman who met us at the entrance, his huge
frame filling the corridor, his face in shadow.

Shit.

“
Qu'est-ce qui se passe?
” he asks, dangerously, quietly, as he begins moving toward us. “What are you doing down here?”

“We got lost,” I say, my voice cracking. “I . . . was looking for the toilets.”

“
Vous devez partir
,” he says. And then he repeats it in English: “You need to leave. Both of you. Right now.” His voice is still quiet, all
the more menacing than if he were shouting. It says,
absolutely do not fuck with me
.

He takes a hold of my upper arm in one of his huge hands. His grip burns. I try to pull away. He grips tighter. I get the
impression he's not even putting much effort in.

“Hey, hey—that's not necessary,” Theo says. The doorman doesn't answer, or let go. Instead he takes hold of Theo's arm too,
in his other hand. And Theo, who up until now I'd thought of as a large guy, looks suddenly like a child, like a puppet, held
in his grip.

For a moment the doorman stands stock-still, his head cocked to one side. I look at Theo and he frowns, clearly as confused
as I am. Then I hear a tinny murmur and realize that he is listening. Someone is feeding him instructions through an earpiece.

He straightens up. “Please, Madame, Monsieur.” Still that scarily polite tone, even as his hand tightens further around my bicep, burning the skin. “Do not make a scene. You must come with me, now.” And then he is steering us, with more than a little force, along the corridor, back up the first flight of stairs, back into the room with the tables, the stage. Most of the lights have been turned off and it's completely empty now. No, not completely. Out
of the corner of my eye I think I catch sight of a tall figure standing quite still, watching us from the shadowy recesses in one corner. But I don't manage to get a proper look because now we're being manhandled up the next flight of steps, up to ground level.

Then the front door is opened and we're thrust out onto the street, the doorman giving me such a hard shove in the back that
I trip and fall forward onto my knees.

The door slams behind us.

Theo, who has managed to keep his balance, puts out a hand and hauls me up. It takes a long time for my heartbeat to return
to normal. But as I manage to gain some control over my breathing I realize that though my knees hurt and my arm feels badly
bruised, it could have been so much worse. I feel lucky to be back out here gulping freezing lungfuls of air. What if the
voice in the doorman's ear had given different instructions? What might be happening to us now?

It's this thought rather than the cold that makes me shiver. I pull my jacket tighter around me.

“Let's get away from here,” Theo says. I wonder if he's thinking along the same lines:
let's not give them a chance to change their minds.

The street is almost silent, completely deserted: just the blink of the security lights in shop windows and the echo of our
feet on the cobblestones.

And then I hear a new sound: another pair of feet, behind us and moving quickly, quicker, growing louder as my heart starts
beating faster. I turn to see. A tall figure, hood pulled up. And as the light catches her face just so, I see that it's her.
The girl who followed me two nights ago, the girl on the hoop, who stared at me in the audience this evening like she'd come
face to face with a nightmare.