Cast Iron

Chapter twenty-four

The gap between carriageways of the motorway was on fire with leaves in full blaze of autumn colour. It had been dark when they left Cahors, and now a low sun was slanting through the rear windscreen as they headed west and south. Toulouse was behind them, and away to their left the Pyrenees cut a purple silhouette against the palest of clear blue skies. Some of the most distant peaks already bore snow.

Enzo glanced in the mirror and saw Kirsty keeping a measured distance behind them, her brown hair almost red, backlit by the sun.

For someone who had been so keen to talk to him the night before, Charlotte had stayed strangely silent for most of the last hour, gazing straight ahead at the lines counting themselves off beneath the car, lost in her own private world. She had handed her car keys to Enzo and insisted he drive.

Suddenly, apropos of nothing, she said, ‘Why have Kirsty and Roger not married?’

Enzo was startled, both by the sudden sound of her voice and the question it had framed. ‘I’ve no idea. I’ve asked her about it myself, but she seems a little evasive. They were due to marry before the baby was born, but it never happened.’

‘Good. Let’s hope it stays that way. For Kirsty’s sake.’

Enzo stole a glance at her, but her eyes were still fixed on the road ahead. ‘Why? Are you jealous?’

Now she laughed, and her amusement seemed genuine enough. ‘Good God, no. It was over with Roger and me a long time ago.’

‘And yet you still maintain regular contact.’

She shrugged. ‘What is it they say? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer?’

Enzo was surprised. ‘You think of Roger as your enemy?’

She half turned her head towards him. ‘Not exactly. But as I’ve told you before, I know him too well. I neither like nor trust him. I’d rather keep him in plain view in front of me than suddenly feel his knife in my back.’

And Enzo remembered the night on the terrace at Gaillac where she had expressed dark thoughts about him. He glanced in the mirror again at Kirsty, and the misgivings he had always had about Raffin came bubbling once more to the surface. Yet again he felt a stab of concern for his daughter, and Charlotte put his thoughts into words. ‘Pity they had the baby. Children have a habit of tying people together more closely than marriage.’

And the irony in that was not lost on him. He glanced at her and their eyes met for a moment in unexpected communion. He returned his gaze to the road. ‘You know he’s been offered a job by the Mayor of Paris?’

He felt her head turn towards him. ‘Devez?’

He nodded.

‘What kind of job?’

‘Press secretary. If Devez gets the nomination for the presidential candidacy.’

He heard a tiny puff of air expel itself from between her lips. ‘That figures, I suppose. With Roger’s left-wing credentials and his association with Libération, it’ll put the socialists on the wrong foot. Give the UMP a little street cred.’ She paused. ‘You know that Roger and Marie were great friends of Devez and his wife back in the nineties?’

‘I do. Though I don’t really know very much about Devez himself. Except that he’s the front-runner for the UMP nomination.’

‘Oh, he’s a smart one, Enzo. A real smooth operator. Cut his political teeth in Bordeaux in the early days. He was deputy mayor for some years, with responsibility for finance, human resources and administration. One of the youngest ever to be entrusted with the job. I guess even then people saw him as a future star. Bright, intelligent, personable. But he had something else. That magic something you need to get to the very top. Charisma. The kind of charisma that marked out Bill Clinton as special. It shines through, even once removed, on television, or in press photographs.’

Enzo half smiled. ‘Sounds like you’ve fallen for him.’

She laughed. ‘Oh, he’s an attractive man. There’s probably not a woman in France who wouldn’t be tempted to slip into his bed. Though he’s happily married from all accounts. With a young adult family.’

Enzo said, ‘It’s a big leap from provincial deputy mayor to Mayor of Paris.’

‘It is. But there was never any doubt when he made the move to the capital that that’s where he was headed. Even though he was still just a baby, in political terms.’

‘And now he has the presidency in his sights. Will he win?’

‘If the party picks him, I think he will.’ She turned to look at Enzo. ‘Which will make Roger a very powerful man.’

Enzo nodded. ‘Do you know him? Devez, I mean.’

He heard a tiny snorting laugh burst from her nostrils, her lips pressed tightly closed. Then, ‘I’ve met him, yes. But know him?’ She shook her head. ‘Does anyone really know a man like that? Charisma is a wonderful and attractive quality, Enzo, but who knows what it conceals?’