‘I don’t know. I’ll have to find out where she’s living now.’
‘Birgitte?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Why not?’ he said, lightly.
‘No, I mean – why now?’
‘Well . . . for some time now . . . there’s something I’ve been thinking of doing. I didn’t – no, that’s not right – I felt I shouldn’t do it before because, as you may know, I made a bit of a mess of my life and I didn’t – I suppose I didn’t want to face her with all that going on – you know, Jane – gambling, drink, women, drugs . . . not a lot of drugs,’ he said quickly, seeing her face. ‘But now I have a job, and it seems to me – here we are – happily in the wind and with no responsibilities to anyone – yet – that this would be a good time. Do you remember – when we were in Egypt . . .’
Jane experienced a jagged flash of memory. ‘You will not fear the terror of the night – you said she taught you that.’
Luke took a deep breath. ‘Birgitte is the only person in the world – apart from you – who has ever held my hand and said she feared for me. I’ve spent years thinking about her. So let’s find her. Shouldn’t be a problem for two resourceful people like us.’
‘But who is she?’
He looked around. There was a café across the road. The Greasy Spoon. ‘Come on, I’ll buy you a coffee.’
‘And tell me about Birgitte.’
‘And tell you all about Birgitte.’
21
The café was warm and steamy. Since this was Chelsea, and despite the name over the window, the establishment was only playing at being a greasy spoon. The inside was bright and cheerful with red gingham tablecloths and travel posters on the walls.
‘I’m going for coffee and a sausage sarnie, Jane. You?’
‘Coffee and a bacon roll, please.’
Luke typed their order into the table and then paused with his hand over the paypoint.
‘While I think of it, I got you one of these.’ He handed her a paycard.
‘Thank you.’ She turned it over. ‘What’s the limit?’
‘Sorry?’
‘How much can I spend?’
‘Sorry?’
Jane enunciated slowly but clearly. ‘What is the amount of money I can spend on this card?’
‘As much as you like. It’s unlimited.’
Her jaw dropped. ‘What?’
‘Well, what’s the point otherwise? Suppose you suddenly decided to buy your own helicopter?’
She sat back and stared in astonishment. ‘How likely am I to buy my own helicopter?’
‘I’ve known you six months and I can honestly say you’re the only person I’ve ever known who’s been arrested for murder or destroyed a seagull, so how should I know what you’ll do next? Seriously, Jane, you’ve got a bit of a rep, you know.’
‘Have I?’ she said, suddenly feeling quite proud of herself.
‘You do, yes. I think one or two people at rehab have got their eye on you. For what reasons, of course, I’ve no idea.’
She tucked the card away. ‘Bit of a risk, isn’t it, then? Giving this to me?’
He smiled at her. ‘No, Jane. No risk at all.’
‘Is that a compliment?’
‘No.’
Their food arrived and Luke got stuck in. Jane stared at her coffee, still stunned at the prospect of unlimited credit. ‘Tell me about Birgitte.’
He chewed and swallowed.
‘Birgitte was what they used to call an au pair. Don’t know what they call them now. This was a long time ago.’ He sighed. ‘I had a lot of nannies when I was little. They were all much the same. They lasted as long as it took Dad to get them into bed. The next day there would be Ms Steel on the doorstep – payoff in one hand, NDA in the other. It wasn’t actually a case of out through the back door as the new one came in through the front, but near enough.’
He sipped some coffee.
‘Right from the start, Birgitte was different. She was with me for over a year – easily the longest any of them ever lasted, so Dad must really have had to work for it.’
Luke was silent for a while, staring into space and then continued.
‘I liked her. She didn’t just lie around doing her nails or talking to her friends on the phone. I was at a local school then but we did things together at weekends. She was a design student. We went all over London looking at houses, gardens, parks and so on. We went to the zoo, the Natural History Museum – things like that. During the school holidays I used to wake up every morning wondering where we’d go that day and what I’d see when we got there. We read books together and she actually talked to me about them – what I was thinking when I looked at this or that. She was about the only person who ever actually spoke to me properly. My father just issued a set of instructions – usually by proxy – but Birgitte was different.’
He gazed back into his past. ‘She loved to sketch. She taught me about colours and perspective and so on. She bought me my own sketchpad and paints so I could experiment. That summer seemed endless. It must have rained, I suppose, but I only recall long, hot days. After a while I couldn’t remember a time when she hadn’t been with me. I thought it would go on forever. As you do when you’re too young to know these things don’t last.’
He pushed his empty coffee cup across the table. ‘It didn’t, of course. Last, I mean. One day I woke up and she was gone. No warning. Two days later I was off to a new school, full of utter bastards, where I had to learn to be an utter bastard myself pretty damned quick. I didn’t know what had happened or why she’d gone, of course. I only knew it was connected to Dad somehow. I think I thought I’d done something really bad and he’d held her responsible. Although what . . . And that school was brutal. I hated it. I sometimes have a bit of a problem with discipline, as you well know. But trust me, there was no holding me back then. I lost count of the number of schools I was expelled from after that. The number of girls I left behind me. Broken friendships and so on. Before long no one halfway decent would have anything to do with me. I don’t blame them now. In fact, it was only when I went to rehab that I realised just how close I was to becoming my father.’
Jane stirred her cold coffee and said carefully, ‘Are you going to tell her you’re coming?’
‘I don’t know. Uncharacteristic indecision on my part. What do you think?’