Chapter 17

William yawned and stretched. “Wonder what time it is?” he mumbled groggily. Even focused as best they could, his eyes could still do no better than 11:24. Since he’d already given himself ‘just another ten minutes’ two hour ago, he decided he ought to get up.
It was Anne-Marie’s birthday and he wanted to buy her a present. He’d seen exactly the thing: a silk chemise, beautiful design, beautiful colour and, last but certainly not least, transparent. “Better get her something else, too,” he thought, “you can never tell.” She might fall for it like he did or she just accuse him of having a one-track mind and give him a clout on the ear.
What else? Perfume? Got gallons of the stuff. Music don’t even think of it… Aha! Got it! A weekend on the coast. Next weekend, she had, for want of a better expression, nothing on.
At thirty-two, Anne-Marie was getting broody. She’d told him twice she wanted children before it was too late, as if the magical age of forty meant the inescapable production of monsters. The first time, he’d vaguely agreed, in a very non-committal sort of way. The second, he suggested she find a father; he was not interested.
William’s reactions had always been fast. Here, they saved him from a faceful of fingernails. They had a row and didn’t see each other for three months. If nothing else, it convinced William he wasn’t cut out for monogamy.
Their relationship was snug. They liked the same things: food, wine, cinema, the country, swimming and suchlike. Why on earth did they need babies waking them up in the middle of the night? She had her flat, he had his, and he was convinced that as soon as they moved in together, they’d end up with ‘his’ and ‘hers’ embroidered on the bloody soap. She didn’t like his bathroom, too stark, too bright; he didn’t like hers, too pastel, too cluttered. Trying to get at the toothpaste was like wading through a jungle of dominos. The slightest touch and a dozen tubes fell on the floor. In his own flat, he’d put up a cabinet especially for her, “to keep your things in”, and spent half his time repatriating pots and powders. Concession leads to catastrophe.
Perhaps without being aware, the choice of presents was a message. The chemise, epitome of sexuality, and the two nights in a hotel were gifts of youth and now. If he’d wanted marital blisters, he’d have given her fluffy slippers.
For him, it was plain and simple. He liked her, she was sexually, intellectually and emotionally satisfying. And that was all he wanted.
Anne-Marie knew they’d never get married and settle down. She wasn’t blind and didn’t need to be a detective to know he saw other women. She just hoped that one day he’d grow up.

William ran up the stairs two by two. And one by one between the fourth and fifth to get his breath back. Hiding the presents behind a corner, he rang the bell. “Happy birthday!” he sang out and flourished a dozen roses under her nose.
“Ah, thank you!” she replied, kissing him on the cheek and eyeing him suspiciously. No, both hands in front; nothing else. “Make yourself at home, I’ll be back in a minute.” That meant half an hour at least.
She went to the bathroom to get ready and William slipped out to retrieve the gifts. Give her a bit of time to get cool and offish... “Lovers’ quarrels are the renewal of love” and all that, and went into the kitchen. Smells were oozing out of casseroles and a pile of glistening fat oysters waited on the table. Three bottles of wine were dribbling beads of condensation down the glass. He went over to inspect: “Aha! Grand Vin de l’Etoile,” he read. “Lovely girl!”

“A bunch of bloody flowers! After all the work I’ve put in, he has the cheek to turn up with a bunch of bloody flowers! Right, that’s it!”

William sat on the sofa and flicked through magazines. Suddenly, he stopped, and his eye caught sight of a familiar name. “Good God, Raoul! What the hell’s he doing photographing fashion?”
He was still wondering about Raoul’s change of direction when Anne-Marie came out of the bathroom.
“Pretty, is she?”
“No, er, I mean yes... no, what am I talking about, look, it’s Raoul.”
“Strange name for a girl...” (Cor blimey, she can be so sarcastic sometimes.)
“No, not her, the photographer, it’s Raoul. Just the man I need.”
Anne-Marie was not even listening. She grabbed the parcel laying on the dining-table and tore it apart, flinging paper and bow all over the place. “Oh! It’s lovely!” Holding it up to get a better view, she let out a gasp of feigned disbelief. “But William, it’s absolutely transparent! I could never wear that!”
“I’d better take it back to the shop then.”
“Oh no, it’s too lovely! But how on earth could I wear it, I mean, it’s so...”
“Revealing?...” and a goatish grin splattered across his face.
“Ooh you swine, you lovely dirty-minded pig of a gorgeous evil lecherous old man you!” Undoing her bathrobe in a flamboyant gesture of Pigalle promise, she knelt down and drowned him in soft warm breasts, then slithered down and kissed him furiously.
“Listen, they won’t be here for another hour...”

“Anne-Marie, hello! You are looking well; been away?”
With William standing behind and poking his fingers all over the place, it was hard to keep a straight face.
“Come in, come in,” and hellos all round. “Isabelle, François, put your coats in the bedroom, I’ve got something in the kitchen.”
She’d asked William to put some coat-hooks up for her at least three times but with him the slightest mention of screwing...
Isabelle and Anne-Marie were old friends. The two of them were French-English interpreters and often worked together. François was something in computers. Excellent company as long as you kept him off networks.
They spoke in French. François was too proud to speak English with Isabelle around, and William had lived in France for years.
“Fix you a drink?”
Drinks were served and Anne-Marie left her blanquette de veau to simmer. The conversation wandered haphazardly around work, films and news. Anne-Marie kept nipping in and out of the kitchen and at last came back with a huge platter of oysters.
A chorus of “Oohs” and “Aahs” followed it to the table.
“Amie,” said William, “have a look in the fridge would you.”
“What for?”
William smiled at her and she rushed off.
“Champagne! You lovely boy, thanks.” She kissed him on the cheek then pressed the ice-cold bottle on the back of his neck.
“Aagh!” jerking forward.
“Serves you right for playing tricks on me.
The bubbles burst and the froth frizzled down, tiny streams of crystal balls curved upwards and traced patterns on the surface. William lifted his glass.
“Happy birthday!”
“Oh, your present!” shrieked Isabelle, “completely forgotten it!” She zipped into the bedroom and came back with a little parcel. “Happy birthday!” they all chimed in.
“Mind if I open it later?” she asked, nodding at the food.
After the oysters, the blanquette de veau. “An English recipe” William chauvinistically insisted on calling it. They humoured him.

“You working on anything at the moment, William?”
“Yes, got a couple of things in mind. Oh, that reminds me!” He turned to address Anne-Marie. “You remember what I was talking about when you started giving me some of you lip?”
She smiled archly.
“It’s Raoul. D’you remember him?”
“Name rings a bell, describe him to me.”
“Uses a six by seven.”
“Typical!” she sighed, calling the others to witness the cross she had to bear. “Every time I ask him to describe somebody, he starts with the camera. Any other distinguishing-marks?”
“Tall guy, slightly cross-eyed, how he manages to focus I don’t know...”
“Oh yes, I know the one, what about him?”
“Remember that project for the Regional Tourist Boards I told you about?”
She didn’t, but nodded, he had so many ideas buzzing around his head, she’d given up trying to keep track.
“He’s just the man I want for the landscapes.”
The photo his name was attached to did not even remotely suggest the countryside.
“Oh yes? I know you...”
William burst out laughing. “Yes, I see what you mean! No, it’s not that at all, in fact, he’s an excellent and recognised landscape photographer, we use the same agency. What the hell he’s doing fashion for, I don’t know.”
Anne-Marie’s eyes narrowed just a teeny bit. “But you will find out, of course, won’t you darling?”
“Of course, my cherub, if you wish...”
Time to change the subject.
“Yes I am indeed. Heard of Jane Goodall?”
“Isn’t she the one got involved with a gorilla and killed?”
“No, that’s Dian Fossey, and she did not get “involved with a gorilla” as you so libellously suggest, she was researching their behaviour in Rwanda. Rumoured she was set up, something about preventing people selling baby gorillas.”
“Oh, that’s horrible!”
“Even worse when you consider the enormous number you have to kill to get one baby. You have to massacre the entire family first to get one, and only one in five or ten survive.”
“Jesus!”
“Yes, pretty grim, better get out there myself before they’re all extinct. Won’t be long... Anyway, it’s not that. No, Jane Goodall is Hugo van Lawick’s ex, the guy who did those amazing photos of cape hunting dogs.”
“Might have guessed,” Anne-Marie interrupted.
“She wrote a book called The Chimpanzees of Gombe where she talks about killer apes. There’s this female and her daughter, called Passion and Pom, who killed and ate three infants and might have been involved in the disappearance of seven or eight more.”
“What? Baby chimpanzees? That’s cannibalism.”
“You’d better believe it,” said Baloo the bear, “and you’re gonna to love the way they tickle.”
“Oh stop it, you’re revolting.”
“Sorry, yes I know, it is pretty foul, but animals are no worse than us, just a little less efficient. You know the first thing lions do when they take over a pride? No? Kill all the cubs under a certain age so the females come on heat again. Nice eh? Lord of the beasts... Actually, when you think of it, it’s quite a fitting description.”
“Nonsense, animals don’t do things like that.”
“Can give you the references if you like, check for yourself.”
Anne-Marie did not press further, William usually got his facts right, even if he did tend to exaggerate at times.
“Anyway, back to Goodall, what she depicted struck me as the first-ever example of serial killing in animals and I was thinking of doing something on it.”
“You can keep your serial killers, they give me the creeps.”
“Oh, there not all nasty. What about Erzebeth Báthory? Countess Dracula, walled up alive in her castle for killing some six hundred young girls.”
“Six hundred!”
“The quest for eternal youth, ladies! Used their blood as an anti-ageing lotion.”
“Oh, that’s gross!”
“Virgins of course...”
“Of course,” said Anne-Marie, “trust you to get back to sex.”
“I’m only reporting what any layman with basic Hungarian can read in the official court records.”
“Yes my darling of course you are would you like some cheese?” she intoned in a soothing padded-cell monotone.
“Not straight away, what about you two? Oh, I know, open your present, let’s see what you’ve got.”
“Ooh yes!” ... “Oh it’s beautiful! Exactly what I wanted. How on earth did you know? It’s lovely, thank you (Mmm”, big kiss on the cheek for Isabelle, “Mmm”, ... for François).
“What else did you get?”
Anne-Marie pulled a face of mock prudery and went into the bedroom.
“Wow wow wow wow wow!” François glanced over at William and raised an eyebrow. “Try it on, go on, let’s have a see!”
“Certainly not!”
Isabelle and Anne-Marie examined the portable peep-show and William went to fetch the cheese. François followed him out.
“Nice piece of schmutter; when’s she going to wear it? I’d like to be around!”
“Aha! I have my plans.”
“Come on, you dirty bugger, out with it.”
“Got us booked into a hotel at Deauville next weekend and on Saturday night they’re having a fancy-dress ball. She’s going as a red-light district.”
Lewd laughter bounced out of the kitchen.
“What are you two up to?”
“Nothing darling,” they both replied, innocently, my foot.
“Doesn’t know yet, so keep it quiet.”
They came back in, William carrying the cheese, both of them sharing the Cheshire. ¶ 1:55 AM