Peter May: Cast Iron

Charlotte frowned. ‘It’s not your sixtieth, is it?’

‘Fifty-sixth.’

‘Yes, I didn’t think you were quite that old.’ She paused. ‘It’s not a particularly auspicious birthday. Why the party?’

He shrugged. ‘Sophie turned twenty-five this year. I paid for a big bash for her and Bertrand. I guess she’s just trying to return the favour.’

She smiled. ‘Except, of course, you’re the one who’ll be picking up the tab.’

Enzo was unable to prevent a wry smile crossing his lips. ‘Of course.’

‘So, what other reasons?’

Which took him by surprise. ‘What?’

‘You said you had other reasons for being here in Paris — other than Roger’s briefing and asking me to your birthday party.’

He shrugged. There were no other reasons.

‘Perhaps you have a secret lover you’re not telling me about. Some child, half your age, beguiled by the Celtic charm she hasn’t yet seen through.’

He hid his hurt. ‘There’s no one else in my life, you know that.’

‘I know nothing of the kind. All I know about is the succession of younger women you have somehow persuaded to share your bed. Star-struck students and God knows who else.’

His voice was raised in anger for the first time. ‘I have never had a relationship with any of my students. And you know perfectly well that, if you hadn’t pushed me away, I would never even have looked at another woman.’

‘You can tell yourself that all you like, but I know you, Enzo. And I know you are not fit to be the father of my son. Grandfather, maybe. At a stretch. But, even then, what kind of example would you set? A drinking, womanising old hippy who left his wife and child in Scotland and never had a serious relationship in his life.’ She quickly raised a hand to pre-empt his protests. ‘And don’t tell me about Pascale. I’m sick of hearing about how Sophie’s mother was the love of your life. If only she hadn’t died in childbirth... How long do you think the relationship would have lasted if she hadn’t? Really. I mean — be honest, Enzo — your track record’s not that great.’

Enzo felt the cold blade of her cruelty slide between his ribs and into his heart. And he remembered again the awful night that Sophie was born. Climbing the hill above his hometown in south-west France and weeping in the dark. It was for Pascale that he had left Kirsty and her mother in Scotland and come to France to begin a new life. A life, it had seemed to him then, that ended the day she died. Charlotte had been the first woman in twenty years to touch his heart, and now she was turning her blade in it. Deliberately inflicting pain. And she wasn’t finished.

‘So, next time you want to come and see Laurent, you call me first and I’ll tell you if it’s okay.’

‘I have a right to see my son!’ He repeated his refrain of earlier.

‘ Your son? Is he?’ Her words struck him like bare-knuckled fists swinging out of the dark.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, how do you know I wasn’t seeing someone else?’

His heart seemed to be trying to escape through his mouth. ‘Were you?’

‘Actually, I was. But then, you wouldn’t have known, would you? You were never around.’

‘Are you saying—?’

‘I’m not saying anything, Enzo. I’m telling you. Don’t take anything for granted.’

He stood, gazing at her, filled with pain and uncertainty. Thoughts flashed through his mind like the frames of a movie spooling backwards. Words, pictures, memories. All too fast to catch and register. He felt sick.

She stood up. ‘And I’m afraid Laurent and I won’t be able to make it to your birthday party. We’re much too busy.’

The Métro was full of Parisians out for the evening, heading for cafés and restaurants and to queue at cinemas. Enzo pushed his way through them, up the steps and into the Boulevard Saint Germain. He bumped and jostled shoulders as he ploughed west, head down, oblivious to the protests of people around him. But no one was seriously going to challenge this big, ponytailed man with a white stripe through his greying dark hair. He was well over six feet, and built like a man who had played rugby in his youth — which he had, at Hutchesons’ Grammar School, in Glasgow. His cotton jacket was open and flew out behind him, tangling on one side with the canvas satchel slung from his left shoulder. His cargoes were crumpled and gathered around heavy brown lace-up boots, his stride lengthening with every step, fuelled by the anger that simmered inside him.

He barely registered the young people sitting under canopies outside cafés, smoking and drinking coffees and cognacs, or the restaurants, full and noisy behind steamed-up windows, or the lights of a Carrefour Contact spilling out into the Rue Mazarine, late shoppers buying last-minute items to eat at home.

His mind was full of a dread fear. That Charlotte had not just been idly bating him. That Laurent really wasn’t his son. He could hardly bring himself to entertain the thought. It had never before occurred to him that Charlotte might have had a relationship with someone else. Who? She had never given any indication. And yet, how would he have known? He was in Toulouse, she in Paris. Although, how different that might have been if only she hadn’t constantly kept him at arm’s length. She valued her independence too much, she had said. She simply didn’t want another relationship — it was too demanding. And now she was telling him there had been another man. Hurtful enough, but with its inherent implications regarding Laurent’s paternity, Enzo felt wounded.

He turned into the Rue Guénégaud. The Café le Balto lay in unexpected darkness, and he pushed open the door to the neighbouring apartment block, climbing wearily to the first floor, fumbling to get his key in the lock. This tiny studio was where he always stayed in Paris. An apartment owned by a very elderly man passing his final days in a residential care home, and loaned to Enzo by friends in Cahors. When their uncle died, they would have to sell to pay the inheritance tax. Enzo wished he had the money to buy it, and, not for the first time, hoped that the old man would live forever.

The studio smelled of old age and was full of souvenirs collected during years spent travelling the world. All that remained of a life almost spent. Light fell in from the streetlamp outside and Enzo opened the windows for some fresh air. He let his bag fall to the floor and dropped heavily into a worn leather armchair.

He remembered Charlotte coming to him on the Île de Groix to break the news that she was pregnant. She had made it clear then that she did not want Enzo to have any part in her child’s life, and threatened abortion if he made legal demands. Might that have made some kind of twisted sense to her, if she had known that Enzo was not the father? Try as he might, he could not see the logic in it. Because, just as suddenly, she had relented. She would have the baby, and she would allow Enzo access, but wanted complete control of his upbringing. And most confusingly of all, she had called the child Laurent. The French equivalent of Lorenzo. Of which ‘Enzo’ was a shortened form. A name that owed its own origins to his Italian mother.

Enzo sat in the dark, feeling confused, and hurting like an old injured stag. Why would she have called him Laurent if he were not Enzo’s child?

He reached for a bottle of whisky on the table, pouring himself a stiff measure into the glass he had used the night before, and drizzled liquid gold back over his tongue. The only certainty on this dark autumn night was that the bottle would be empty by morning.

It was like therapy being back in Cahors, this ancient Roman town set into a loop of the River Lot in south-west France where he had raised Sophie on his own for all these years. If there was anywhere on this earth that he could call home, this was it.