Peter May - Extraordinary People

Enzo wrote the word fire? beside the photograph of the salamander brooch, but did not circle it. There were still no connections. For a moment he closed his eyes, and from nowhere a wave of fatigue washed over him. He staggered, and put his hand on the table to steady himself.

‘Are you okay?’ Charlotte stood up, concerned.

‘I’m fine.’ He stepped back and looked at the board again, but it was burning too brightly on his retinas, and he had to screw up his eyes to focus on it. He knew now that he would make no further progress tonight.

‘It’s nearly four o’clock,’ she said. ‘The sun’ll be up in less than an hour.’

He nodded, succumbing to the inevitable. ‘We’d better go to bed, then.’

She put the computer to sleep and took away his empty wine glass. Then she took his hand and led him through to the bedroom at the back of the house. The double bed, with its heavy, carved wooden head and foot boards, took up nearly the whole room. An enormous armoire occupied the remainder. Lurid green and pink floral wallpaper covered the walls and the door. A single, naked light bulb cast its cold light around the room. The air was chill in here, and smelled of damp cellars. ‘I should have had it airing,’ Charlotte said. ‘It’s my parents’ room. My room’s in the attic. It would be warmer and drier. But there’s only a single bed up there.’ She opened the windows and threw the shutters wide, then slotted a fly screen into the window frame.

The bed was cold and damp, and they huddled their naked bodies together for warmth. She fitted perfectly into his foetal curl, and he wrapped an arm around her, cupping one of her breasts, feeling a nipple pressing into his palm, aroused by the cold. But there was no thought of sex. Just comfort. And within minutes of Charlotte turning out the light they were both asleep.

It wasn’t the daylight that wakened him. It had been light for hours. Sunshine streaming through the open window lay hot across the bed. The room smelled of the forest, and the hum of insects filled the air from outside. It must have been the church bell that pricked his consciousness. He heard it ringing distantly in the hilltop village. He had no idea how many times it had rung. Seven, eight, nine times? He lay with his eyes closed, luxuriating in the warmth, listening to see if it would ring again. Sometimes they would ring the hour for a second time after an interval of two or three minutes. Just in case the workers in the fields had miscounted the first time. The bell began again, and this time he counted it all the way up to twelve. It was midday. They had slept for almost eight hours.

He rolled his head to one side and saw that Charlotte was still asleep. Her hair lay tangled beneath her head, smeared across the pillow. Her mouth was slightly open, soft lips almost pouting, blowing out tiny puffs of air. He was seized by an incredible tenderness. He wanted to run his fingers lightly over her lips, and then kiss them softly, so that she would wake to the taste of him. He wanted to make love to her. Not frantically as they had before, but gently, taking their time, losing themselves in a long, slow oblivion.

But he did not want to wake her, so he slid carefully from the bed, lifting his clothes from the floor where last night he had simply let them fall, and tiptoed out to the kitchen. There, he pulled on his cargos and tee-shirt and slipped into his running shoes, dragging his hair out of his face to gather it loosely in a band at the nape of his neck. In the bathroom he slunged his face with water and went back out to the kitchen to make coffee. He opened the window and shutters on either side of the main door to let in light and air, and went out on to the patio. In daylight, he saw that the terrasse was shaded by a vine trained across a rusted metal frame. No doubt the family would eat out here on summer evenings, looking out upon their own private view of paradise. He saw, now, tiny villages of honeyed stone nestling in the river valley, or sitting proudly on hilltops, church spires poking out from amongst the trees that marched up every hillside. Ravines and gorges cut through greenery, marking the outer limits of valleys where once huge, fast-flowing rivers carved their way relentlessly through the rock.

It was a wonderful, solitary place. Somewhere to reflect. To be at peace. To be yourself. Enzo saw two magpies chasing each other across a meadow full of summer flowers immediately below the house. He heard the coffee-maker gurgling and spitting inside, and he went in to pour himself a coffee. He found a mug, and a jar of sugar cubes, and made it sweet. He took a long sip, and almost immediately felt the caffeine kick. There was still no sound from Charlotte.

It was curiosity that led him to the staircase behind the curtain. He drew it back, and climbed carefully up into the dark, his coffee still in his hand. At the top of the stairs a low door opened into a tiny bedroom built into the slope of the roof. Sunlight sneaked through the cracks around the edges of a small dormer window. Enzo opened it and unlatched the shutter. Light poured in and filled the intimate space around him. The view across the valley was spectacular. He could imagine the young Charlotte waking to it every summer’s morning, filled with excitement, and an eagerness to be out exploring the world around her, probing the outer limits of her imagination.

He turned back into the room, stooping to avoid the angle of the ceiling. Her bed was pushed against the far wall. He pictured her lying in it, the child in the photographs. Sleeping, dreaming, free to fantasise, before adulthood reined her in to face an altogether less attractive world. More photographs lined themselves up along a wooden dresser, around a bowl and pitcher, carefully arranged on lace doilies. Family groups posed in the garden with the view behind them. A pergola hanging with flowers. He recognised Charlotte’s parents, and an older couple. Perhaps the grandparents he had seen, much younger, in the photograph taken on the beach. Her grandfather still had the same curling moustaches. Only now they were pure white. Charlotte looked radiant, touched by a happiness that sparkled in her dark eyes and glowed in her smile. She was sitting on the knee of an older man. Not as old as her grandfather, but with the same extravagant moustaches, and a head of wild, untamed hair.

Enzo felt as if someone had just punched him in the gut. He felt dizzy and sick, his mind clouded by pain and confusion. His mug of coffee fell to the floor and smashed, and he picked up the photograph with a shaking hand. His mouth was dry and he couldn’t even swallow. There was absolutely no doubt. The man on whose knee the young Charlotte was sitting, was Jacques Gaillard.

As he got to the foot of the stairs, Charlotte was padding naked from the bedroom wiping the sleep from her eyes. ‘What happened?’ she asked dreamily. ‘I thought I heard the sound of something breaking.’ And then she saw his face. Chalk white and etched with hurt and anger. ‘What’s wrong?’ The alarm in her voice was clear.

He threw the photograph on to the table, and the glass cracked in the frame. She looked shocked, her eyes full of incomprehension. He said, ‘I think there’s something you forgot to tell me.’

She walked to the table and glanced at the photograph behind the broken glass, and he saw realisation break over her like a wave, leaving her drenched with weary resignation. But her first instinct was to cover her nakedness, to dress up her sudden vulnerability. ‘It was none of your business,’ she said, almost under her breath, and she turned back to the bedroom.

Enzo went after her. ‘Well, I think it’s my business now.’ She pulled on a towelling dressing gown and held it tight around her, then stood her ground defiantly. ‘Are you going to tell me?’ he asked.