I started to say he had no option, that the car was a lethal weapon which could kill somebody, but broke off as Luc’s phone rang. Grabbing it, he glanced at the screen and then looked at me.
‘It seems they’ve saved me the bother. It’s the police.’
‘No, I don’t believe it. I couldn’t understand what you were saying in French on the phone, but you’ve got it wrong. He can’t be; Tom can’t be dead.’ Getting up, I started pacing round and round the kitchen in agitated little circles. Jumping to his feet, Luc seized my arms in a vice-like grip, holding me still.
‘Alix, his body has already been taken to the mortuary.’
‘But… but…what…’ I stared helplessly at him and then choked, unable to finish the question.
His face chalk-white, Luc asked it for me. ‘What happened?’
Very gently, he steered me back to my chair, pushed me down in it and sat down himself, holding both my hands.
‘The car left the road. On the Corniche.’ He spoke in short phrases, his voice low and expressionless. ‘It overturned. It caught fire. It’s burnt out.’
‘Nooo,’ I wailed. Shaking my head back and forth, I tried to release my hands, but he wouldn’t let them go.
‘Tom was thrown clear, Alix. He wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. But he broke his neck. I have to go and identify him in the morning.’
‘Oh, no.’ I stared at him in horror. ‘Is there nobody else who could do that? Hasn’t he any family here or a friend or just somebody other than you?’
‘No.’ He dropped his eyes. ‘I know for a fact that there’s no-one. He was completely alone in the world, or alone in France at least. The only people who had anything to do with him were us, all of us here at the Villa Matisse.’ Then he gave a groan. ‘God, does that make me feel bad.’
‘Youfeel bad? What about me? I was joking earlier,’I said in agony. ‘I was actuallyjokingabout how you could get him to drive the car to the garage in the morning because it was a good way of getting rid of him. I feel as though it’s my fault, as though I’m to blame, to blame for him being killed.’
‘But you didn’t mean anything bad. There’s no way you’re to blame. Nobody is. Except… oh, I’m not going to say this, but Tom brought it on himself.’
‘You did just say it.’
‘Well, it’s true.’
‘As for me and my stupid joking, it’s high time I grew up and stopped playing the fool. It’s time I got serious.’
‘Stop it, Alix.’ Luc gripped my hands so tightly it hurt. ‘Stop this and listen. I know it’s terrible and I am genuinely, truly sorry he’s dead, but we both know Tom wasn’t a very nice man.’
‘He didn’t deserve to die!’
‘Of course he didn’t.’ Releasing me, he rose to his feet and then dithered a little as if uncertain as to what to say next. ‘Look, we’d better get some sleep,’ he said at last. ‘The police are sending a car to take me to the mortuary early tomorrow morning.’
Getting up, I moved to stand before him. ‘Itistomorrow morning,’ I said.
And then we were quiet, motionless, the silence mounting as our eyes locked and we saw each other as if for the first time. Luc drew a sudden deep breath.
‘Alix,’ he murmured. ‘Alix?’
I touched my fingertips to his mouth. ‘No,’ I whispered. ‘No more words. Just hold me.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
There’s a theory about post-disaster sex from a sociologist guy at the University of Washington. It was given an airing at the time of the Twin Towers, but he’s also applied it to human behaviour before, during and in the aftermath of war. It might even be relevant to what many people do following a death or a funeral. Basically, the theory claims that at times of fear, vulnerability and sadness, we experience a heightened libido, making us want sex more than we might normally. It might be biology at work, an atavistic instinct that fuels the urge to procreate in the face of a threat to survival. Or it could simply be an affirmation of life, a subconscious fear that this moment might be our last, therefore we must reinforce our grip on existence before it’s too late. Sex is the most elemental way we can do that. It’s an interesting theory. It does not, however, apply to Luc and me.
We were desire; pure, pent-up, unfulfilled desire, a desire so frantic that I’m not sure how we managed to getup the stairs to Luc’s bedroom. He wouldn’t let go of me, and I could not let go of him. And there was something more. When I woke up the following morning, it was in the certain knowledge that we had made love in the literal sense of those two words. It had never happened to me in my life before. I’d had sex, but I had never made love. And this brought with it another realisation. I never had been before, but now I was in love. I was in love with Luc Mandeville.
Downstairs, I found he’d left a note on the kitchen table.Gone with the police. You were sleeping. Luc.Then underneath this he’d scrawled a P.S. in big capital letters.DON’T GET SERIOUS!My mouth curved into a happy smile, not because the note, or rather its message, was in any way tender or romantic. It was matter-of-fact, almost curt in its refusal to waste words. I smiled because this confirmed the man I now believed I knew and loved. If he’d added dinky little love hearts and a row of crosses for kisses, I might have been less happy. Making myself some coffee, I phoned Carl.
‘Mum, I’m still here in the hospital. They won’t let me out.’
‘You’re not in prison, love.’
