One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [96]
I sat, pensive, on the bed. My hand still hurt, but a plaster had replaced yesterday’s bandage. I picked at it. After a bit, my reverie was broken. Footsteps came running up the stairs: then voices on the landing, arguing. I froze, arms locked around my knees. I recognized that voice. It sent a bucketful of adrenalin shooting through me, but it also had me leaping into action. I dived for the baggy T-shirt I slept in, pulling it over my head – just as the door flew open.
There, framed in the doorway, beaming broadly, blond, tanned and quite delicious, stood Ivan. Behind him, a breathless Monique was remonstrating with him angrily in quick-fire French, wagging her finger. She broke into English.
‘I tell him no! I tell him you no down yet, you sleep and I no know him, but still he persist!’
Ah, yes, Ivan did that. Persist. I felt the blood pumping through me.
‘It’s OK, Monique, I’m awake. And actually, I was expecting him.’
Throwing up her hands with a ‘Zut!’ she went away, grumbling.
Ivan shut the door behind him with a wicked grin. And a decisive click.
‘Stay right where you are,’ he commanded, eyes feasting about my crumpled person and the crumpled bed. ‘I’m coming in with you.’
He put the flowers and the bottle he was holding on a table by the door, then, with a practised eye, crouched to a diving position and launched himself headlong. As I rolled to the left, he measured his length into an empty bed.
‘Oi!’ He demanded into the pillow as I got to my feet. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Lovely to see you, Ivan, but I’m getting up and having a shower.’
‘Then I’ll have one with you!’ he roared, as in one fluid movement he was up and after me, following me to the bathroom.
‘You will not.’ I turned at the door, kissed him firmly on the lips, then shut and bolted it behind me.
‘What kind of a welcome is that?’ he bellowed through it in mock indignation. ‘I’ve just driven eighty miles!’
‘I kissed you!’ I yelled back as I reached in to turn on the shower and let it warm up. ‘What more d’you want?’
There was a pause, then: ‘Where would you like me to start?’ In gleeful anticipation. ‘Shall I run you through my entire, hectic schedule, or just point out the highlights?’
‘No,’ I laughed. ‘You will not. And when I come out, Ivan, it’s breakfast I’ll be wanting, not sex.’
‘Who said anything about sex? Just a little cuddle!’
‘Not even that.’
‘I brought you flowers!’ he wailed. ‘Champagne!’
‘I saw,’ I said, as I got under the hot stream of water and turned my face up to it.
Just as Henry had.
A few minutes later I got out and towelled myself dry, rubbing my short hair, which could dry in the sun in the square, I decided, where I fancied a coffee and a croissant. My T-shirt and jeans were already in the bathroom so I quickly pulled them on and reached for my make-up bag. I was about to apply my usual faceful, when I regarded my reflection soberly. A few laughter lines around the eyes and mouth, the skin not quite as taut and peachy as it once had been, but hey. I heard the door go next door; rested the heel of my hand on the side of the basin. Had he disappeared in high dudgeon? Unlikely. After a moment, I replaced the eye shadow in the bag, applied a touch of mascara instead. Then I slicked on some clear lip loss and came out.
Ivan was lying on the bed, hands clasped behind his head, long legs stretched before him, looking over-innocent. Beside him on a tray, was the champagne and a jug of orange juice. A single sweet pea lay alongside. He patted the bed gently.
‘Sure you won’t change your mind?’
‘Quite sure, thank you.’
‘I’ve got you your breakfast.’
‘Don’t fib.’
He reached down beside the bed and produced a baguette, complete with a saucer of butter and jam, all clearly nicked from Monique’s basket downstairs. He patted the bed again; eyebrows waggling. ‘Tempted?’
‘Not in the least, thank you. I want breakfast in the square.’
He sat up, blinked. ‘I want, I want… You’re a very demanding woman.’
‘That’s me all over. Sorry.’
He watched me cross the room to collect my handbag. Then he flopped back on the bed, clamped