“Mmm,” I said quietly.
Richard grinned at the wheel.
“It’s like having the kids back again,” he said, but not in a mean way.
A road sign showed we were less than one hundred miles from Dover.
- - -
I looked at the sky dubiously. How bad did it have to be before they stopped the ferries running? Our tickets were for tonight, and I had been planning on finding a cheap hotel by the terminal, then doing the final leg tomorrow when we were all better rested. I had pointed out that we could fly in an hour from Newcastle, but of course this had cut no ice at all.
Anyway, my plan had all changed now. We had train tickets, but I had no idea what Richard was intending to do. Was he going to drive us all the way to Paris? I didn’t want to ask him in case he then felt obliged to take us all the way—I could already tell he had impeccable manners. He might not even have his passport. I decided just to sit tight and see what happened.
Claire didn’t wake up all the way through passport control. I thought customs officials might get suspicious and make us wake her up, but they didn’t seem too fussed and waved us on through. Richard had hopped out and bought a ferry ticket for the car so quickly and unfussily I had hardly noticed him doing it, and when I tried to thank him and offer him money, he waved me away.
“If Claire pays you back, it will be my money anyway,” he pointed out, but not unkindly. We were both getting worried about how soundly she was sleeping. She had absolutely assured me that her doctor was happy for her to control her own medication for three days, but now I wasn’t so sure.
“Claire,” said Richard lightly as we drove on to the great clanking ship. It was full of cheerful-looking holidaymakers, their cars piled high with sunhats and inflatable chairs and tents and bicycles and excited children, desperate to start racing all over the boat. The train may be more convenient, I thought, but I doubted it was quite as much fun for the little ones.
Claire nodded a little in and out, and Richard prodded her again, after we’d been led into position in the lower deck and stopped the engine.
“Claire?”
- - -
She had bugged him for ages and he had said, “Don’t be ridiculous, only tourists ever want to go up the Tour Eiffel,” and she had said, “Well, I’m a tourist,” and he had said, “You are not a tourist, you are a muse,” and that was undoubtedly the most thrilling thing anyone had ever said to her in her entire life. She had jumped on him and locked her legs around his waist until he had laughed his huge booming laugh and agreed, so one very warm lunchtime, when everybody else was off eating properly, like normal people did, he said—he was absolutely rigid about his mealtimes, as was nearly everyone she met there—he had led her threading through the new Metro line and up right at the very base of the huge metal structure, queuing in the heat, Thierry mopping his forehead with a large handkerchief.
“I love it,” she said.
“It is for chocolate boxes,” scoffed Thierry.
“It is,” said Claire. “You should put it on chocolate boxes.”
Thierry had frowned at her as they’d waited for the lift, then it shot them up, at an angle of course, like a rocket, and she had trembled in excitement as they went up, the première, deuxième, troisième stage. She would not be happy until they had reached the very top, he noticed, and smiled at her enthusiasm.
Although Paris below was warm and still, up here the wind blew back and forth and there was a chill to it. Thierry immediately took off his jacket and put it on her shoulders, but she didn’t want it there; she wanted to feel the breeze after the heat of the city. Her pale hair streamed back against her shoulders, and she turned and smiled at him, and he managed, with rare presence of mind, to pull out his Leica and take a quick shot of her, her dark red lips—it was the same color Mme. LeGuarde used, and she had taken it onboard—pulled back in a huge, laughing smile, the freckles popped up on her nose, as she tried to hold her large straw hat on her head. As they had gone around the other side, looking out over the river and the flat lands beyond, the wind had finally gotten the better of them and it had gone, blown off, dancing on the thermals just out of reach.
“Noooo!” Claire had yelled, reaching for it, then had turned to him, once more buckling with laughter.
“Little hat! Little hat! I will save you!” Thierry had shouted, pretending to climb up the iron balustrades until a guard came along and shortly told him to stop what he was doing immediately.
“I shall buy you hats,” Thierry boasted, as they finally made their way back down, having exhausted every view and examined the instruments of M. Eiffel himself. “I shall buy you every single hat in Galeries Lafayette, and you shall keep the ones you like, and as for the others, we shall return here and let them fly away. And I hope that whoever finds your hat shall be as happy as you and I.”
And she had kissed him all the way down in the elevator, as the lift operator averted his eyes. Le Tour Eiffel often did that to people.
Gift boxes from Le Chapeau Chocolat had carried a tiny, discreet hat mark in the corner ever since.
- - -
“Claire!” Claire felt the hand on her shoulder and looked up to see Richard and Anna looking at her anxiously.
“Phew,” said Richard.
“It’s all right,” said Claire. Her mouth was very dry; a side effect of the drugs, she knew. Fortunately Anna was already holding out the bottle. What a dear girl she was. She took it and tried to smile, but her lips cracked painfully.
“Just napping.”
She tried to swallow. Some of the water ran down her neck. She realized sleeping in the car had made her terribly stiff. She didn’t know whether she could actually move at all. Everything hurt. Anna wiped away the water and helped tilt the bottle. It was one of those “sports” ones with the teats like a baby’s bottle. Claire wondered dimly why it was called sport, when it was clearly for the opposite of sports people—babies and invalids.
Suddenly the great engine of the ferry sprang to life. The deck, which had already been swaying, started to move and tremble. Claire glanced around. She remembered the Herald of Free Enterprise suddenly and how frightening it had been. A voice came over the loudspeaker announcing in English and French that conditions weren’t ideal and advising passengers to leave the car decks but to stay inside the boat, as some choppy waters had been forecast. Claire suddenly realized where she was.