A Foreign Country

56

Vincent Cévennes — dressed as François Malot, channelling François Malot, being François Malot — was sitting alone in the kitchen of Amelia’s house when a figure appeared at the door, tapping on the glass. For a split second he thought that it was François’ mother coming in from the garden, but soon realized his mistake. The lady looking through the window had a slight arthritic stoop and was several years older than Amelia Levene. She appeared to be in her mid-sixties and from a different social class. She was holding up a set of keys. A cleaning lady, Vincent assumed. And so it proved.

‘Good morning,’ she said, a broad and friendly smile spreading across her face beneath a bloom of white hair. She was wearing a pair of Wellington boots and he presumed that she had walked from the village. ‘You must be François?’

Vincent stood up to shake her hand. ‘Yes,’ he said, feigning an inability to understand English. ‘Who are you, please?’

‘You look a bit startled, love. Bless you. Did Mrs Levene not say I was coming?’

Amelia walked into the kitchen.

‘Ah, I see you’ve met. Barbara, you’re so kind to have come on a Saturday.’

‘Wouldn’t have missed it for the world,’ Barbara replied, removing her overcoat and boots and taking them into the utility room. Vincent turned to Amelia.

‘Your housekeeper?’ he asked.

‘My housekeeper.’ Amelia nodded towards the sink. ‘Hence the piles of washing-up. I was too tired to do it last night. She’s marvellous, comes whenever I’m down. My brother employed her when he was living here, knows the place from top to bottom. She’s getting on a bit, but still very fit and absolutely insists that she’s not ready to retire.’

‘And she knows who I am?’

Amelia smiled and shook her head. ‘Of course not.’ She reached out and touched Vincent’s arm. ‘I’ve told her that you’re Giles’s godson, staying for the weekend en route to Cornwall. Is that all right?’

‘Perfect,’ Vincent replied.

Barbara came back into the room. She had changed into a pair of old tennis shoes and was wearing a nylon smock. A ritual of small talk began. Vincent looked on as Amelia filled the kettle and prepared a cup of tea for the cleaning lady, knowing that she liked milk but no sugar. A shortbread biscuit was produced from a tin. Amelia tried her best to involve him in their tedious chit-chat, but Vincent — having insisted that François Malot had never learned to speak English — could not and did not wish to participate. If anything, he found that he was slightly offended by Barbara’s presence, not because it affected the operation, but because Amelia had neglected to mention that a stranger would be joining them in the house. He hoped that she would not be staying long. As Barbara put on a pair of yellow rubber gloves and set about the washing-up, Vincent excused himself from the kitchen and went back upstairs to his room. After locking the bathroom door, he switched on his laptop and saw that there were no messages waiting for him on the server. He sent an email to Luc updating him on the housekeeper’s arrival, then shaved with the electric razor that he had set to charge overnight. It was one of the little changes Vincent had made in his morning routine. François, he had decided, preferred the deeper stubble left by an electric razor; Vincent himself had always opted for the greater closeness of a wet shave. He had also changed his aftershave, taken up smoking — Lucky Strike Silver, the same brand as François — and removed a Cévennes family ring from the little finger of his right hand. All of these gestures were small, if vital details that had assisted Vincent in what he liked to call his ‘chameleonic shift’, a phrase that pleased him. Having closed the lid of the computer, he poured a glass of water from the tap and sipped at it as he contemplated the day ahead. Thus far, he could be reassured that the weekend was proceeding as planned. Dinner the night before had been a success; he felt that he had built on the relationship between François and Amelia that they had established in Tunisia. However, his primary objective for the next twenty-four hours, as agreed with Luc, was to lay the groundwork of a possible move to London. This he would do at a convenient opportunity, perhaps at dinner that evening or lunch on Sunday prior to leaving for Paris.

Vincent had only one reservation, which he would necessarily conceal from Luc. The previous night he had set aside a strange and unsettling feeling of desire for Amelia, an anomaly that — in the clear light of a new day — he put down to alcohol and to the solitude of his position. He needed a woman at least once every week — he had come to realize this about himself as a young man at the Academy — and stressful situations often raised in him an inconvenient desire.

Ignore it, he told himself, and went back to the mirror to check his appearance. He brushed his teeth, combed his hair, then walked down to the kitchen.