She smiled casually, but her silence said something else.
It suddenly occurred to him: “Do you think Cherry had a different day in mind?”
“Did she?”
He was getting irritated now. “No! Look, we discussed the dates with you, she booked the flight, and I sent over the six hundred quid.”
It took all her effort to keep a pleasant expression, to remain calm.Sixhundred pounds?
“You paid?” she said lightly.
“Yes. A trainee estate agent doesn’t earn that much.”
She heard the warning in his voice and smiled genially. “I can imagine.”
* * *
Anyone passing Cherry’s bedroom at that moment might have been disconcerted by how still she was, so still, eyes fixed ahead with great intensity. If that person had come into the room, he would have seen she was staring at the dresser or, more accurately, the book on the dresser. That person would have wondered what about it could hold someone’s penetrating stare.
Cherry repositioned it so the spine was parallel to the edge of the dresser. She knew it had been picked up, looked at, the document hidden at the back taken out. And that document’s information was probably fermenting like some sort of multiplying bacteria right now in Laura’s brain. Cherry was livid, but knew better than to confront her. No, there would be another way to deal with this. For now, she would keep it to herself.
14
CHERRY SHOWED NO SIGN OF LEAVING. THE DAYS DRIFTED BY, LAZY, plentiful, and filled with sunshine. Laura kept waiting for her to say when her time was used up, or talk about when she had to go back to work, but Cherry never mentioned it. Suggestions for day trips that they could all do together completely dried up; Laura didn’t quite feel the enthusiasm she had before. They fell into a pattern: At breakfast, she would wonder what they had planned for the day. If they were going to the beach, Laura now felt a sense of relief if they did, as she wouldn’t have to continue to make polite conversation. Instead she would lie by the pool, peaceful but lonely, and she found herself starting to resent Cherry’s presence. This was her vacation too—and she hadn’t counted on having her son’s girlfriend present the entire time. She wanted some time with Daniel too, just the two of them.
She broached the subject once more with him, a few days after Cherry was meant to have gone home. To his due, he was apologetic and offered straight away to find a hotel they could stay in instead. But then Laura realized she wouldn’t see him at all, so on the spur of the moment, she’d dissuaded him.
The tension was starting to get to her in other ways too. She would mislay things. Her keys would disappear from the kitchen worktop. Her toothbrush would be in the bin—fallen from the sink above. And a deep scratch appeared on her rental car, which must have happened when she’d parked in the village. It wasn’tjust Cherry’s continued presence that was bothering her. There was also the issue of the cost of the flight. The ticket had definitely shown a fee of five hundred pounds, of that she was certain. And yet Daniel had said he’d paid her a hundred pounds more. She was well aware of the vast gulf between the two of them in wealth and she didn’t like the way her mind was thinking.
Two days before Laura was to go home, it suddenly occurred to her that Cherry would likely still be at the villa when she, herself, had gone back to London. This notion irritated her so much that she was quite monosyllabic when they said they were going into Saint-Tropez for the day. She waved them off and then went outside to the pool to retrieve her bikini, which she’d left on the drying rack the day before. It wasn’t there and Laura looked around. She could swear she’d hung it out the previous night. Then she saw it, blown into the dirt. She went to retrieve it and saw it was filthy, as if it had blown off when it was still wet, which was odd as it hadn’t been windy at all the previous evening. Sighing, she took it inside to wash.
As she ran the tap, she considered how much, if anything, she could challenge Cherry about. She could hardly ask her how much her flight had cost, as it would sound like a direct accusation, but she decided that she would ask her again when she was planning to leave. That, she was entitled to do.
* * *
Cherry would stretch out this trip another three days. After all, funerals in France take so long to organize, and there were all her grandmother’s things to go through. Neil had been appropriately sympathetic and had agreed to the extended compassionate leave when she’d phoned to tell him her grandmother, sadly, had passed away. It had been a simple decision not to tell Laura exactly how long she planned on staying; it served her right for nosing through her things. Who the fuck did she think she was, snooping through her private stuff? She was so in your face all the time, always asking questions, wanting to spend every waking minute with Daniel and her. Laura probably thought it was her God-given right to look around their bedroom. Cherry sighed.She so wished it hadn’t become like this. It would have been so nice if they’d hit it off. Cherry was of the opinion it was important to get on with your boyfriend’s mother and it bothered her that she didn’t.
She held Daniel’s hand as they wandered around Saint-Tropez, bags slung over their shoulders, hats shielding their eyes as they walked, flip-flops kicking up sand and dust. They headed through Place des Lices, where the old guys playedboulesin the dappled shade under the plane trees; then they made their way down to the port, where the yachts looked too big for the harbor.
“What was it again?” asked Daniel, wanting to hear her say it.
“A blue short flared skirt and matching blue-and-white-striped cotton top. An exact color match,” she said with a shudder.
He looked at her legs. “How short?”
She pulled his hat down over his face.
“Okay, sorry.” He grinned. “So then what?”
“I was out with a couple of friends one day and saw the girl whose hand-me-down it was. And I happened to be wearing it at the time.”
“So?”
“You don’t understand. It was humiliating. I was so embarrassed, I ran across the road in the hope she wouldn’t spot me. That was when the car hit me.”
“What!” He looked at her, horrified.
She tucked her arm into his. “In the end, it was only a sprained ankle, along with a lot of bruising.”
