Майкл Ридпат - Fatal Error

Actually, making love wasn’t quite the right description of what had happened. It was more like an explosion of adolescent lust. It couldn’t have lasted much more than two minutes. Dominique hadn’t seemed to mind. In fact she seemed to find the whole thing amusing, which didn’t bother me in the slightest. Afterwards, she had gone to get a cigarette. She had sat opposite me, naked, her legs crossed, and lit up. She offered it to me. I had never smoked, to be honest I didn’t know how, but I accepted the cigarette and took a long drag. She thought the paroxysm of coughing that resulted very funny. She kissed me. I stirred.

She noticed and raised her eyebrows. ‘So soon?’ she said.

I shrugged and smiled. ‘It looks like you get two for the price of one.’

She giggled. ‘What a deal.’

The second time took longer and produced much more sweat. I lay in a crumpled heap on the balcony as she took a quick shower.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I know we’re going to be very late, but we should at least try to get there before they leave. It’s only polite.’

The gradient was levelling off and we turned onto a busier road with houses and apartment buildings on either side. We were nearing Monte Carlo. Nearing lunch with Guy and his father. Nearing the enquiring glances, the questions, the excuses. Since the moment when Dominique had led me up the stairs by the hand I had blanked out all thought of the consequences of what was about to happen. But those consequences were only five minutes away.

I had slept with another man’s wife. I had slept with my friend’s stepmother. It was wrong. I knew it was wrong. There were all kinds of justifications to myself that I could use, probably would use. Her husband had been unfaithful to her the night before. She knew entirely what she was doing. I hadn’t encouraged her in any way, I had been an accomplice rather than an instigator. This was France; married people in France had lovers, everyone knew that.

But after I had argued it all through with myself, I knew the answer would still be that I had done wrong.

I wouldn’t have changed the decision, though. I couldn’t have done anything else. For a moment I was being offered a small taste of life from another world, a life of money, sun, sex, beautiful women. I had seen glimpses of this life reflected through some of the other pupils at Broadhill, but I had never experienced it myself. Perhaps I wouldn’t experience it again. Carpe diem.

How the hell would I deal with Guy and his father? There was no need to lie, just mumble. They would never find out. Dominique wouldn’t tell them. Just stay quiet and I’d get away with it.

Dominique hustled the Alfa through the cramped streets of Monte Carlo, orange and yellow high-rise apartment buildings rising above us on all sides, and parked illegally by the port, blocking in a yellow Rolls. The restaurant was just over the road, and Guy, Tony, Ingrid and Mel were sitting at a table outside. A large man was sitting with them.

‘Darling, I’m sorry we’re so late,’ Dominique said, approaching Tony with a broad smile. He stood up and accepted her energetic kisses. The debris of a finished meal littered the table. ‘And Patrick! Comment vas-tu? ’

The stranger stood up with difficulty, almost upsetting the unsteady table with his stomach, and kissed Dominique on both cheeks.

‘David, this is Patrick Hoyle,’ Dominique said. ‘He is Tony’s lawyer. He is a very clever man. He lives here in Monte Carlo and saves himself millions of francs in taxes. Patrick, this is David Lane, a friend of Guy’s from school. A charming friend.’

I shook Hoyle’s hand, which was damp. ‘Pleased to meet you, David,’ he boomed. He had a large, round head edged with black tufts of hair. He wore pink-tinted glasses and his skin was pasty for someone who lived in such a sunny place. He was also fat. Really, really fat.

I mumbled something in return. I thought the ‘charming’ was a bit unnecessary and I tried not to go red.

‘We’ll just order a salad,’ Dominique said.

The others seemed awkward, uneasy about something. Mel looked miserable, Ingrid cool, Guy mildly irritated and Tony pensive. Only Hoyle seemed comfortable as he poured himself another glass of red wine.

Dominique gazed out over the multi-million-dollar motor-yachts that were crammed into the harbour in tight rows. ‘Ah, Tony, it’s such a lovely day, don’t you think?’ she said, giving him a dazzling smile.

Tony was caught off guard. I knew they had been screaming at each other the previous night, and I’d seen them ignore each other before lunch. He looked at Dominique questioningly, and then turned his eyes to me. They met mine for a fraction of a second before I had time to look down at my menu in panic. But that fraction of a second was enough.

He knew.

I wanted a hole to open under my chair and swallow me up.

He knew.

And what’s more, I realized that the whole thing had been done by Dominique for just this delicious moment of revenge against her husband. He could fuck a child; well, so could she.

I glanced over to her. She was chattering away, smoking a cigarette and smiling a smile of triumph. I couldn’t hear what she said. It was all meaningless anyway, and only Guy seemed to be responding half-heartedly to any of it. I didn’t hear anything at all. I was buried deep in my menu, wishing to God I was somewhere else.

I felt used. Used and dirty. But I knew I didn’t deserve sympathy. Because most of all I felt stupid. I should have realized what Dominique was after, that all she wanted was to hurt her husband, that I had nothing to do with it. My self-esteem could cope with the idea that it was all just a laugh on her part, but not that I was an inept instrument in a piece of petty malice.

What an idiot.

Lunch was a nightmare of awkwardness. Afterwards, we set off for the beach, thankfully leaving Hoyle to return to his office. This time I made sure I was in the Jeep. Ingrid went with Dominique.

The beach was just a small stretch of sand in a rocky cove beneath the cliffs upon which Les Sarrasins perched. It was difficult to get to: we had to scramble down a rocky path, and the waves rushed in with more vigour than at the sedate beaches of Beaulieu. It was flanked on one side by nudists and on the other by gays. There were very few other people there and in a better mood I would have thought it beautiful. It did at least give me the chance to lie down, shut my eyes and ignore everyone else.

I spread my towel over a smooth rock next to Ingrid, lowered myself face down upon it and closed my eyes. I could hear activity around me. Guy and Tony had brought a cooler of beer and were getting stuck into it. It sounded like they were having some kind of father-and-son bonding session, but nobody else was interested.

It made me sick. Tony had just screwed his son’s girlfriend and yet he was quite happy to drink and joke with him. Guy didn’t have a clue. The girlfriend in question was keeping very quiet, despite Guy’s efforts to bring her into the conversation.

I felt a gentle tickle on my thigh. I turned and opened one eye. Dominique was lying next to me, leaning on one elbow, her uncovered breasts hanging down towards the smooth rock. A smudge on the inside of her forearm caught my eye, as though there were a patch of make-up that had picked up the sand. Odd.

‘Ça va?’ she said with a smile that could have been seductive, or could have been mocking, or could have been both.

I turned the other way. It was rude, perhaps, but it was the only way to make my point I could think of.

The other way was Ingrid. She too was topless, as was every woman on the beach apart from Mel. Although her skin was a lovely warm golden colour, her breasts were nothing like as full as Dominique’s, and she didn’t have Dominique’s curves. She was quite ordinary looking, really. But suddenly a girl my own age seemed so much more attractive than the supposed sophistication of Dominique.