The Family Upstairs(10)
He’d given her a high five. Confused her with a young person like the ones he read about in the newspapers. It had been quite disconcerting.
‘It’s in a bad state,’ Libby says, now. ‘And it has a history.’
‘History?’
‘Yes. Some people died there. A bit shady. Distant relatives.’ She was about to mention the baby left behind in the cot but stopped.
‘No way!’
‘Yeah. All a bit shocking. So for now I’m just going to act like everything’s normal.’
‘You’re going to keep on selling kitchens? In St Albans?’
‘Yes,’ says Libby, feeling her equilibrium start to rebalance itself at the thought of nothing changing. ‘I’m going to keep on selling kitchens in St Albans.’
8
Marco and Lucy spent the night on the beach in the end. The rain had stopped at about 2 a.m. and they’d gathered their things and walked the twenty minutes across town to the Promenade des Anglais where they’d unrolled their yoga mats on the wet pebbles, tucked themselves under sarongs and watched shreds of spent grey rain clouds chase each other across a big pink moon until the sun started to leak through the line between the sea and the sky.
At eight o’clock Lucy collected together all the cents from the bottom of her rucksack and the bottom of her purse and found she had enough to buy croissants and a coffee. They ate them on a bench, both stultified by lack of sleep and the awfulness of the night before. Then they’d walked back across town to Samia’s flat to collect Stella, and Samia had not invited them in for lunch despite the fact that it was midday and they had clearly not slept in beds. Stella had been bathed and redressed in clean clothes, her soft curls brushed out and pinned back with pink fluffy clips and, as they walked back across town yet again, Lucy pondered that it probably looked like she and Marco had kidnapped her.
‘I can keep her for another night,’ Samia had said, her hand on Stella’s shoulder. Lucy had seen Stella shrug against Samia’s hand, almost imperceptibly, a tiny shake of her head.
‘That’s kind of you, but I’ve found us somewhere to sleep tonight.’ She’d felt Marco’s eyes burning into her shoulder at her lie. ‘But I am so, so grateful to you. Really.’
Samia had tilted her head slightly and narrowed her eyes, processing some silent account of Lucy’s situation. Lucy had held her breath, awaiting some damning pronouncement on her appearance, her parenting, the part she’d played in Samia’s precious son’s moonlight flit. Instead Samia had moved slowly towards the table halfway up the hallway and pulled a small purse from her shoulder bag. She’d peered into the purse and pulled out a twenty-euro note which she passed to Lucy.
‘It’s all I have,’ she’d said. ‘There is no more.’
Lucy had taken it and then leaned into Samia and hugged her. ‘Thank you,’ she’d said. ‘God bless you.’
Now she and the children and the dog are walking along the Promenade des Anglais in the burning afternoon sun with a bag full of clean clothes from the laundromat and bellies full of bread and cheese and Coca-Cola. They head towards one of the many beach clubs that line the beaches here in Nice: le Beach Club Bleu et Blanc.
Lucy has eaten here, in the past. She has sat at these tables with Marco’s dad, worked her way through piles of fruits de mer, a glass of champagne at her elbow or a white wine spritzer, whilst being cooled by intermittent puffs of chilled water squirted from tiny nozzles. They wouldn’t recognise her now, those jaded old waiters in their incongruously trendy blue and white polo shirts. She’d been a sight for sore eyes twelve years ago.
A woman sits on a perch at the entrance to the restaurant. She is blonde in that way that only women in the south of France can be blonde, something to do with the contrast between vanilla hair and darkly toasted skin. She glances at Lucy, indifferently, taking in the state of Lucy and Marco and the dog, before returning her gaze to her computer screen. Lucy pretends that she is waiting for someone to join her from the beach, cupping her eyes with her hand and peering towards the horizon until the woman is distracted by a party of five people arriving for lunch.
‘Now,’ she hisses, ‘now.’
She collects the dog into her arms and pushes Stella ahead of her. Her heart races as she strides as nonchalantly as she can down the wooden platform that runs behind the restaurant towards the shower block. She looks straight ahead. ‘Keep moving,’ she hisses at Stella as she stops, inexplicably, halfway down. Then finally they are there, in the dank, humid gloom of the shower block.
‘Reserved exclusively for the use of patrons of le Beach Club Bleu et Blanc’, say numerous signs nailed to the wooden walls. The concrete floor is sandy and damp underfoot; the air is fusty. Lucy guides Stella to the right. If they can get through the wooden saloon doors to the showers without being spotted, then they will be fine.
And then they are in. The showers are empty. She and Marco strip off their clothes for the first time in nearly eight days. She finds a bin for her knickers. She never wants to wear them again. She pulls shampoo and conditioner from her rucksack, a bar of soap, a towel. She takes the dog in with her, massages shampoo all through his fur, under his tail, under his collar, behind his ears. He stands steady and still, almost as though he knows that this is needed. Then she passes him to Stella who is waiting outside. He shakes himself off and Stella giggles as she is splattered with droplets from his fur. And then Lucy stands under the flow of warm water and lets it run over her head, into her eyes and ears, under her arms, between her legs and toes, feels the hell of the past week start to dissolve along with the dust and the mud and the salt. She shampoos her hair, pulling her fingers through the length of it until it squeaks. Then she passes the bottle under the stall to Marco. She watches their combined suds meeting in the gap between them, the sad, grey tinge of it.