Read Lovers and Liars for Free Online Page B

plates.
    Helen came into the kitchen and closed the door, a tiny smile of triumph on her lips. She frowned when she saw him at the telephone.
    ‘Who are you calling?’
    ‘The magazine. I told you, I have an appointment. I’m now going to be late.’
    She ignored this. While Pascal completed the call, she filled the two cups with coffee and carried them over to the table by the window. She placed a porcelain jug of milk and a porcelain sugar bowl in the centre of its white, empty expanse.
    ‘Do sit down/ she said, as Pascal replaced the telephone. ‘Try not to glower. I shall keep this brief.’
    Pascal eyed the coffee, the two waiting cups, this evidence of his ex-wife’s assumption that no matter how reluctant, he
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    would eventually toe the line. He shrugged and sat down. ‘If you would be brief I’d be grateful.’ His tone was polite. ‘It’s important I catch this flight.’
    ‘Oh, I’m sure.’ She smiled. ‘It always was. When I look back on our marriage - something I try to do as little as possible, I might add - you know what I find the single most significant fact? You were never there. Whenever I or Marianne might have needed you, where were you? At an airport. In the middle of a war zone. In some flea-bitten hotel in the back of beyond, where the switchboard didn’t work. And if the switchboard did work … ‘ she picked up a biscuit and bit into it delicately, ‘you were never in your room. Odd, that.’
    Pascal looked away. Keeping his voice level, he said: ‘That’s all ancient history. We’ve agreed not to go over it again. You knew when you married me—2
    ‘When I married you I knew nothing at all.’ Her voice became bitter. She composed herself almost at once. ‘However, as you say
    - ancient history. So I’ll come to the point. I want us to be civilized about this. You should know, I’ve sold the house.’
    There was a silence. Pascal looked at her carefully. His stomach lurched. ‘This houseT
    ‘Well, of course, this house. It is the only one I have. And I find … I find it doesn’t suit.’
    ‘Doesn’t suit? You chose it. It cost five million francs. You’ve lived in it less than three years and you find it doesn’t suit?’
    ‘I have endured this house for three years.’ Her colour had xisen. ‘And you will please keep your voice down. I don’t want Marianne to hear, or the nanny, come to that. I don’t want any more resignations. Marianne needs continuity, and these girls don’t like scenes.’
    ‘Scenes? Scenes?’ Pascal stood up. ‘Considering the wages I pay her, she could stand the odd scene, I’d think.’
    ‘That was uncalled for. And uncouth.’ Helen also rose. She had flushed scarlet. ‘I try to talk to you, in a reasonable manner, for five minutes … And this happens … ‘
    She was shaking, Pascal saw. He looked at her for a long slow moment. His former wife was virtually unchanged from the day he’d first met her, outside the Unesco offices in Paris, where she worked as a translator. She had loved Paris then, or claimed to. A slender girl, with sleek dark hair, and a nervous intense thin face, she had been wearing a dark coat, a scarlet scarf: he could still see her, standing on the pavement the day he met her. Their affair
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    had been brief and fraught. They argued continually. Yet after the marriage, there had been contentment as well as incompatibility, surely? The birth of Marianne, for instance. He said, surprising them both: ‘I loved you once.’
    ‘Thanks for the past tense.’
    She turned away. Pascal looked at her narrow back, at the strain in her shoulders. He had not meant to be cruel. The remark had sprung of its own accord to his lips. Then and now: the woman he had once loved stood three feet in front of him and yet did not exist.
    ‘I’m sorry.’ He started on a clumsy apology, then stopped. ‘You’re right. It’s better if we keep all this-‘
    ‘Businesslike?’ She swung around with a scornful look. ‘I do