sex had been a revelation, and it was sex born of love, and she just can’t think of any of it as in any way smutty or dirty or degrading. She holds her legs tightly together, as if the beautiful memory of it might slide out from between them. And then an earthquake of loneliness cracks her body and she shudders with the fear of the days without Timothy beside her in bed. She thinks about his lovely sullen darkness, his rough stubble, his occasional devastating shy smile. She loves him. She thinks about praying to God to arrange for her to leave school and live with him and marry him. But God would be too busy and people just didn’t pray on the twenty-eight bus and in any case she isn’t certain…no, she isn’t yet ready to admit to herself that she has doubts about the existence of God. That’s too frightening. That would make home life too difficult.
She is thinking so many things that she almost forgets to get off the bus at Cragley Road. She rings the bell and lugs her case down the stairs in a rush, trips, almost falls, almost tumbles out of the bus into the cool of the autumn evening.
She gazes up the hill towards the big houses of the old textile magnates in Upper Cragley Road, but her path takes her down past the pleasant detached but less impressive houses of Lower Cragley Road. It’s still posh enough to have only names on the houses, though, the numbers being a secret known only to the beleaguered postmen.
L’Ancresse. A pleasant 1930s house with simple lines and a square bay window in the lounge. It had been Laburnum Villa but her parents had renamed it after their favourite bay in Guernsey, where they used to take their seaside holidays. Unlike Timothy, Naomi has always hurried happily to the warmth, safety and sheer good spirits of her family home, but today…today she cannot believe that it is sitting there so calm, so quiet, so sure of itself, as if nothing has changed in the three days since she was last there, and of course, inside the house, now that her elder brothers have fled the nest, nothing will have changed.
And she realises, with a flash of horror, that she has forgotten to make any preparations for the questions that she will be asked about Paris. And hers is a family that asks about everything, shares everything, demands that you share everything.
She stands stock still beside the old English rose bush which is still in glorious flower. Well, it’s too late now. She marches to the front door, gets her key from her handbag, and opens the door, which does not squeak. There is no shortage of everyday essentials in the Walls household, and that includes WD40.
The house is quiet, strangely quiet, but Naomi is too nervous to notice this. Besides, she is not actually always very sensitive to atmosphere. Her teachers at drama school will soon be working on this.
‘Hello!’ she calls out. ‘I’m back. Je suis retournée.’
Her mother and her father emerge slowly from the kitchen and the study respectively. Her mother is smiling. Naomi does not notice that the smile is strained. Her father is not smiling. There is nothing unusual about this. He is not a smiler.
Her mother kisses her, and says, ‘So. How was Paris? Come through and tell us.’
Her father does not kiss her. There is nothing unusual in this. He is not a kisser.
The evening sun is slanting across the kitchen, lighting up the oranges in the Japanese bowl. There’s a smell that Naomi recognises and loves, yet today, for the first time, it seems to smell of the past. It’s a shepherd’s pie, browning in the oven.
She doesn’t know where to begin.
‘It was lovely,’ she says.
‘What did you see?’ asks her father. Naomi is too terrified to notice that he is being a schoolmaster now, not a father.
‘Er…well, the Champs Élysées. Notre Dame.’ She thinks hard, desperately. ‘Les Halles.’
There is silence. She has run out of sights.
‘Not a lot, in three days.’
Her father’s voice is quietly, regretfully merciless. Her mother is moved to try to rescue her daughter, even though she knows that the rescue will itself make matters worse.
‘So, what about the food?’ she asks brightly, but as she pauses her mouth continues to work in that way she has that reveals her inner tension. ‘The French are famous for their food, aren’t they? Where did they take you to eat? Nice bistros?’
Naomi’s heart is beating like the wings of a trapped moth. Her throat is dry.
‘Yes. Exactly. Nice bistros.’
She is afraid that she will blush. She strives so hard not to blush. Her brain is whirring and she even considers the possibility of confessing.
‘One of them was called the Blue Oyster.’
‘What a strange name,’ says her mother.
‘Surely you remember it in French,’ says her father.
‘L’huître bleu.’ The girl’s a fighter.
‘And what did you have? Let’s hear all about it.’
Her mother’s chattiness is terrible for Naomi.
‘Er…not oysters. Miss Malmaison had oysters, and so did two of the girls. Sammy Foster’ll eat anything. I just had steak and chips.’
‘Oh, dear,’ says her mother, falsely bright. ‘I was so hoping to hear details of really local Parisian dishes that I might make.’
Her mother, whose name is Penny – well, it’s Penelope, but nobody ever uses that – is known for good plain cooking. She teaches domestic science and sometimes takes Sunday School at church.
‘I quite thought I might have something new to teach my girls.’
Naomi knows that she has to get away from the question of food. The only food she can think of is the food at the Amalfi, and she hasn’t the wit, in her anxiety, to say that they went to an Italian restaurant. Besides, the food at the Amalfi is a secret between her and her lover.
Inspiration strikes.
‘We went to the Louvre. We saw the Mona Lisa.’
‘Ah,’ says her father. His name is William. He teaches Classics and he’s going bald. There is not necessarily any connection between these two facts. ‘What did you think of her?’
Naomi dredges up something that she has read somewhere.
‘She’s a lot smaller than I expected.’
‘That’s strange,’ says her father. ‘Since you clearly read that somewhere, it’s odd that you should not have expected it.’
‘What?’ She is confused.
‘You haven’t been to Paris, Naomi, so you must have read that.’
His voice is not cruel. His message is devastating, so he would have no need to be cruel, even if he was capable of it. His voice is pained, and that is worse than cruelty to Naomi.
She is free to blush now. All the blushes that she has fought come pouring out. Her cheeks blaze.
‘I met Miss Malmaison in
