Blowback

Chapter Nine

Enzo’s laptop sat open on the coffee table, while he squatted on the edge of the settee waiting for the moi. dssr file to transfer from his memory stick to his hard drive. Sophie was curled up beside him, one arm draped idly over his shoulder watching the slow progress of the transfer. It was after eleven, and she had sneaked straight up to his room after the evening service.

“Won’t you be missed?” he had asked her.

“Nah. Everyone’s too tired to bother about socialising at the end of the day. And the only one who’s liable to notice I’m not in my room is Philippe.”

“Who’s Philippe?”

“The sous-chef. I told you!”

“Oh. The boy who’s taken a shine to you?”

“Yes.”

“So how will he know that you’re not in your room?”

“Oh, papa, stop being so suspicious.” She had drawn a deep breath of indignation. “He quite often comes in to listen to music and chat.”

“And that’s all?”

“That’s all.” She had sighed, then. “Anyway, I’ve been playing a bit hard to get lately, so he won’t be surprised if I don’t answer when he knocks on the door.”

Finally the file finished transferring, and he double-clicked on it. A message appeared informing him that he did not possess any software that would open it.

Sophie squinted at the screen. “So what are you going to do?”

“See if I can track down the software and download it.”

She disentangled herself and lifted the computer on to her lap. “What’s it called? I’ll find it for you.”

“It’s called Dossier.”

“No problem.”

He watched as she focused on the screen, eyes wide and fixed on the browser, tapping on the keyboard in search of the software. She was a beautiful young woman. Even tired, and washed out at the end of the day, and without a trace of make-up. She had inherited her mother’s fine, strong features, and her father’s dark hair and Waardenburg streak, though concealed now by the blond rinse. He remembered how, in those first weeks after her mother had died, and she was just a wet, pink, crusty bundle, he had felt such resentment toward her. As if somehow it had been Sophie’s fault that her mother had died giving birth to her. He found it difficult now, to believe that he had harboured such feelings. Of course, they had passed. And he had come to see her as Pascale’s gift to him, a little part of her that would live on in her daughter. And perhaps, too, in Sophie’s children, if she ever had any.

“What?” Sophie’s question startled him. Her eyes had never left the screen.

“What do you mean?”

“I can feel your eyes on me.”

He smiled. She was so much a part of him. “I love you, Sophie.”

Her eyes flickered up from the screen, and he saw them grow moist as she met his. “I love you, too, papa.” And she reached out suddenly and touched his face. He felt her fingers track lightly over his bristles. “Do you ever see Kirsty these days?”

He felt himself tense. “Occasionally. When I’m in Paris.”

“She’s still with Roger?”

He nodded. “You don’t keep in touch with her, then?”

She shrugged. “No point. Since we’re not sisters any more.”

The revelation that his daughter by his first marriage was not his daughter after all, but the fruit of a fleeting affair between his wife and his best friend, had come as a shattering blow to Enzo. Sophie had greeted it almost joyfully. Kirsty was no longer her half-sister. She didn’t have to share her father with anyone anymore.

“I need your credit card.”

“What?”

“Your credit card. To pay for the download.”

“You’ve found it, then?”

“Would I need your card if I hadn’t.”

Her logic was impeccable. Annoyingly, he could hear himself in it. They were far, far, too alike. He reached for his satchel and took out his wallet, and held out his card.

“Just read it out to me.”

“Where did you learn to be so damned bossy, girl?”

“You, papa. Read!”

He sighed and read out the details of his card while she tapped them into the computer.

She hit the return key with a flourish. “ Et voila!” She beamed at him. “Downloading now.” It took several minutes to download, and then Sophie installed it before passing the laptop back to her father. She squeezed up close to him so she could peer at the screen as he opened up moi. dssr, and entered Marc Fraysse’s password to unlock the document. “What is it?”

“Wait…” Enzo scanned the first few lines, then scrolled quickly through several thousand words of text, stopping occasionally, scrolling back, then forward again. “Elisabeth was right,” he said finally. “Marc Fraysse was writing a memoir.”

“You mean like an autobiography?”

“Sort of, I guess. Although, this really just looks like notes and anecdotes. As if he was gathering his thoughts before getting down to the real meat of it, so to speak.”

Sophie grinned. “As a chef would do.”

Enzo scrolled back up to the top of the document, to a date and a place where, for Marc Fraysse, it had all begun. And the voice of the young Marc spoke across the years to Enzo and Sophie, as clear as if he had been there in the room with them.