Nicci French - Beneath The Skin

“Oh, Josh, you know you loved it last year. Harry doesn’t think it’s too long.”

“I’m not Harry.”

“Don’t say you’re going to miss me,” I said teasingly.

He gazed at me. He’s got huge dark brown eyes, and he can use them to look pathetically reproachful, like some fuzzy donkey. I noticed how bony and pale he was looking; his collarbones jutted out like knobs; his wrists were a mass of tendons. When he took off his shirt to put on his clean clothes for the flight, his ribs were like a pair of ladders climbing up his skinny body.

“You could do with some fresh air. As could this room. Don’t you ever open your windows?”

He didn’t answer, just stared moodily out at the street below. I clapped my hands to wake him up.

“I’m in a hurry. Your father is taking you to the airport in about an hour.”

“You always think you’re in a hurry.”

“I’m not going to have an argument with you just before you go off on holiday.”

He turned and looked at me.

“Why don’t you get a proper job?”

“Where’s your deodorant? I’ve got a job. Being your mother. You’d be the first to complain if I didn’t drive you around to your parties and clubs, and cook your dinner and wash your clothes.”

“So what do you do while Lena’s doing your job?”

“And I’m doing up this house. Which you seem happy enough with. Okay, what are you going to do in the short time you’ve got before you leave? Why don’t you go and see Christo-he’s going to miss you.”

Josh muttered something and sat down at his computer.

“In a minute. I want to look at this new game. It’s only just come.”

“That’s why it’s good you’re going away. Otherwise you’d spend two weeks in the dark in front of a screen. Anyway, while you’re here you might as well strip your sheets and put them out for Mary.” Silence. I started to leave the room and then stopped. “Josh?” Silence. “Will you miss me? Oh, for God’s sake, Josh.” I was shouting now.

He turned sulkily. “What?”

“Oh, nothing.”

I left him locked in a form of unarmed combat in which every blow sounded like a falling tree.

I hugged Harry, though he seems to think that eleven is far too old to be hugged and he stood stiffly in my arms. He’s an eager boy, none of Josh’s moodiness, thank God. He’s like me, not one to brood. You can tell just by looking at him, with his brown curly hair and his snub nose and his stocky legs. Josh looked spindly beside him, his skinny neck sticking out of his new, too-big shirt. I kissed him on the cheek.

“Have a wonderful time, Josh; I’m sure you will.”

“Mum…”

“Darlings, you’ve got to go. Clive’s in the car. Be good-don’t get in trouble. See you in three weeks’ time. Bye, darlings. Bye.” I waved to them until they were out of sight.

“Come on then, Chris, it’s just you and me for the next three weeks.”

“And Lena.”

“Well, yes, of course, Lena too. In fact, Lena’s going to take you to the zoo soon, with a picnic lunch. Mummy’s got a busy day.”

A busy day cooking for this wretched dinner party that Clive had foisted on me. I couldn’t remember the last time I had been alone in the house. It was oddly quiet, echoey. No Josh and Harry, no Chris and Lena, no Clive, no Mary or Jeremy or Leo or Francis; no banging of hammers, whistling of workmen as they slapped paint onto plaster; no ringing of the doorbell as gravel, or wallpaper lining, or electric cables got delivered. Well, almost alone. Lynne was always around somewhere, like a bumblebee that occasionally buzzes into the room and then out again.

This house used to be a building site, which was bad enough. Now it’s a building site that’s been abandoned: wallpaper half put up in the spare room, floorboards ready to be laid in the room that will be the dining room one day, dust sheets in the living room, all ready for the painting that isn’t going to happen, the garden full of weeds and holes. The police may not be able to find the person bothering me but they’ve certainly blocked my plans. And that Schilling woman had got quite angry with me.

She came around again. More of that irritatingly grave and attentive expression, which I bet she practices in front of her mirror. Pushing and pushing, into my life, about Clive, men, generally, scratch, scratch. She says it’s a standard part of the investigation. I sometimes feel she doesn’t really care about the criminal at all. What she really wants is to solve my other problems. To change me into something else. What? Her, probably. I keep wanting to tell her that I’m not a door that will one day open onto some enchanted garden inside me. Sorry. This is who I am: me, Jenny Hintlesham, wife of Clive, mother of Josh, Harry, Chris. Take me or leave me. Actually, just leave me, leave me alone, to get on with my life again.

I don’t enjoy cooking that much, but I do like preparing dinner parties, if I’ve got plenty of time, that is. Today I had loads of time. Lena wouldn’t be back till teatime and Clive was going straight from the airport to a golf course. I had been through my recipe books, which are still all in a cardboard box under the stairs. Because of the heat I had decided to go for a real summer meal: fresh, crisp, clean, with lots of good white wine. The canapés with wild mushrooms I’d have to do at the last minute, the gazpacho I had made late last night, while Clive was sitting in front of the TV. The main course-red mullet in a tomato and saffron sauce, to be served chilled-I could do now. I made the sauce first, just a rich Italian goo, made with olive oil, onions, herbs from the garden (at least Francis had put in the herb garden before everything was put on hold), lots of garlic, seeded and skinned plum tomatoes. And when it’s really nice and thick, you add red wine, a touch of balsamic vinegar, and a few strands of saffron. I do adore saffron. I laid the six mullet into a long dish and poured the sauce over them. They only had to cook at a moderate heat for about half an hour and then I could put them in the larder.

For pudding I was doing a huge apricot tart. It always looks spectacular, and apricots are gorgeous at this time of year. I rolled out the puff pastry (I’d bought it ready-made: there are limits) and laid it in a dish. Then I made the frangipane with ground almonds and icing sugar and butter and eggs, and poured it over the pastry. Finally, I halved the apricots and popped them on top. There; just a hot oven for twenty-five minutes. Perfect with gobs of cream. The wine and the champagne were already in the fridge. The butter was cut into little knobs. The brown rolls I was going to pick up this afternoon. The green salad I would do just before we ate.

We were going to have to eat in the kitchen, never mind Clive’s important client, but I pulled out the Chinese screen so the room was divided in half, and covered the table with our white lace tablecloth, the one my cousin gave us for a wedding present. With our silver cutlery and a mass of orange and yellow roses in a glass vase, it was a brilliant improvisation.

I had invited Emma and Jonathan Barton along as well. God knows what this Sebastian and his wife would be like. I had a picture of a fat City of London type, with a paunch and broken veins in his nose, and a hard-bitten, ambitious, power-dressing wife, bottle-blond and heavy round the hips. I don’t envy women like that, even though sometimes they patronize people like me.

I wanted to look good this evening. Emma Barton has got round hips and big breasts and full lips that she paints bright red, even in the morning for the school run. She seems a bit obvious to me, but men certainly seem to like her. The trouble is, she’s getting on a bit now; she’s probably my age, maybe a little bit older. And pouting and wriggling is all very well when you are twenty, or thirty, but it starts to look ridiculous when you’re forty, and when you’re fifty it looks positively pathetic. We’ve known the Bartons forever. Ten years ago he was all over her, furiously possessive, but now I’ve seen his eyes stray to women who look just like Emma used to look then.