Lace

  Much to her relief the women were not particularly tough or aggressive. Most seemed to know each other and chatted quietly until Christopher started to speak. Then they jabbed at notebooks and asked questions that were ruthlessly to the point.

  “My wife has specifically asked me to use simple language,” Christopher began, “because when I first explained my work to her, she didn’t understand a word I said. I hope that I won’t oversimplify—later I shall be delighted to be as technical as you wish. First I’ll give you a few facts, but I’d like to start answering questions from you as quickly as possible. I’m here to tell you about the work that we’re doing at the Anglo-American Cancer Research Institute. I’m also here to ask you to help us to raise money to continue with our work. Already one in three cancer victims recovers: we want to improve that figure.”

  His small audience looked politely interested until, at the end of his short speech, Christopher announced, “In our South London laboratory we have produced a very crude form of vaccine, which I shall refer to as Vaccine X; I am sorry if that makes it sound a bit like a washing powder. We cannot speak with certainty until our findings have been checked, but Vaccine X seems to stimulate the body’s defense forces to attack and beat off the viral invader and prevent the formation of those particular cancer cells.”

  Now they were sitting up and taking notice. “In a recent experiment we took two groups of mice and injected one group with Vaccine X. We then implanted tumour cells that are associated with the virus in all the mice. After two months the tumours in the treated mice had either not grown or had disappeared completely, while the untreated batch of mice all showed considerably enlarged tumours.”

  There was a burst of questions and a rustle of notebooks. Pagan felt she was off to a good start.

  PART

  SIX

  31

  LILI STARED LONGINGLY at the burning Atlanta skyline, at Vivien Leigh shooting a soldier with rape written all over his face, at Olivia de Havilland in a crinoline and at all the other colour posters in front of the cinema. Although she was now thirteen, Lili had only been to the movies twice. She bit her lower lip and thrust her hands deeper into the pockets of her raincoat, wondering how she could manage to get in.

  “Have you seen it?”

  She turned to see a young man grinning at her. He was blondish, tall and at least twenty-four. “No, but doesn’t it look wonderful? Have you seen it?”

  “No,” he lied. “Look, why don’t we see it together? I’m all alone in Paris.”

  Lili hesitated. She wasn’t even supposed to be on the Champs Elysees that afternoon, but Madame Sardeau was away on her annual visit to her mother in Normandy, and Lili had invented an extra math lesson for the benefit of Monsieur Sardeau, who wouldn’t notice her absence anyway, since he was at his office. Monsieur Sardeau was a boring little pedagogue, but he had long ago stopped lecturing, correcting and reprimanding Lili—or, indeed, taking any notice at all of her—because the child’s well-formed breasts and her gawky, sprawling legs aroused in him a physical response that at times he was afraid his wife might notice. He had once gasped Lili’s name aloud as he imagined himself lying between those slim, firm thighs, when in fact he was writhing upon the bony body of his wife, clutching at the sagging breasts of Madame Sardeau. He’d managed to convince her that he hadn’t said anything, that she had merely heard a voluptuous gasp of pleasure, but he couldn’t risk trouble so close to home. Conscious of the danger, he prudently avoided Lili whenever possible.

  Lili gazed up at the young man who had just spoken to her. He looked a bit like Leslie Howard gazing down at her from that photograph; he had the same limpid look. He sounded foreign as well.

  She’d never get another chance.

  “Yes, please,” she said. It was as easy as that. They moved past the box office into the darkness, into the previous century and the Civil War.

  When the lights went up for the entr’acte, Lili was still in a state of romantic ecstasy. “Isn’t Scarlett beautiful?”

  “Not more than you,” the young man said.

  Lili’s face was no longer childish. A tangle of dark hair was held back from her face by a velvet hairband; she had huge brown eyes that seemed to radiate a very adult sensuality; but what gave her face its most arresting quality was the elegant, slightly hooked little nose above lips so voluptuously chiseled that they might have been carved by Michelangelo. At thirteen, her figure was no longer childish. Her legs were still a trifle thin, but her body had filled out and her breasts were well developed—perhaps, in fact, too developed. Sometimes she thought that Monsieur Sardeau was furtively looking at them, and when they walked out of church on Sunday, his hand always grasped her upper arm, his knuckles quivering unnecessarily hard against her breast.

  Lili’s new friend bought her an ice cream, and she learned that his name was Alastair and he lived in New York. It was clear that he thought Lili older than she was, because he didn’t treat her like a schoolgirl.

  The lights dimmed again and Alastair reached over and took her fingertips. His hand felt warm and firm and almost unbearably thrilling, not like Monsieur Sardeau’s furtive hand, which frightened her. Lili felt a shortness of breath, an eerie excitement, as if the fine down on her arms was standing on end like a cat’s. She felt a dreamy yearning to have this stranger stroke more than just the inside of her palm and the back of her wrist.

  As they shuffled out with the dark, swaying mob that moved toward the exit, Alastair asked, “Would you like something to eat?”

  Lili tossed her hair, summoned up her courage and said yes. They splashed through the drizzle to a restaurant, and by the end of the meal Alastair knew a good deal about Lili, although she had learned nothing about him. Toward the end of the meal Lili suddenly became anxious. It was nearly eleven o’clock—she had never been out so late before, she explained.

  Without argument he snapped his fingers for the check and took her home. As the taxi splashed toward home, Alastair put one finger under her chin and gently turned her eager, anxious face toward him. Then, just like Rhett Butler, he bent over and kissed her. Trembling with this new tingling feeling, thirsty for love and warmth, Lili put her arms around Alastair’s neck and lifted her head. By the time the taxi splashed to a halt, she was in love.

  Creeping up the staircase, she trembled for a different reason, terrified of her reception, never imagining that she might be able to reach her room without being challenged. But Monsieur Sardeau hadn’t yet returned; he had no intention of staying at home on the rare occasions when his wife was absent for a fortnight.

  Lili now got up at five in the morning in order to do the sewing that ought to occupy her summer afternoons, because Alastair now occupied those hours. Never again did she dare stay out so late in the evening, but his working hours seemed conveniently elastic, so at midday Lili always ran to meet him in a café for lunch and afterward, holding hands, they would wander along the trees in the Bois de Boulogne, stroll among the exquisitely dressed children in the Parc Monceau, take a bâteau mouche on the Seine or window-shop.

  “Why don’t you let me buy you a decent dress? I’ve only seen you in one sweater and one blouse since we met, and always that same navy skirt.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t let you buy me anything! Madame would see it.”

  “Well, what about these little red suede shoes?”

  “No, I couldn’t hide them, they’d want to know where I got the money.” But in the stone arcade of the rue de Rivoli, Alastair bought her a heart-shaped locket on a fine gold chain that she could hide under her mattress. He’d never met such a trusting, affectionate, undemanding girl; even the youngest ones were usually after something, especially once they knew who he was. Then there were always demands for jewelry, money, sometimes even marriage. Skinner, his mother’s attorney, handled them if things became difficult, particularly if a father turned nasty. Lili suited him admirably, and, as yet, few people knew him in Paris.

  In the taxi Lil
i threw her arms around him and thanked him for the locket, affectionate as a puppy. But when they got out in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower, she looked up and asked in surprise, “Where are we going?”

  “To have a drink, kitten, in this hotel. I often come here.”

  Behind the desk, a bored, fat concierge was knitting a gray tube that might have been a sock or a sleeve. Alastair passed her a note, and she slapped down a key. “Number nineteen. First floor. You’ll have to pay extra if you stay longer than two hours.”

  Lili followed Alastair up the stairs: he usually took her to much smarter places. “Is it a floor show? Why did you have to pay?” she asked.

  Number 19 was a dim shuttered room containing a large bed with a faded pattern of pink shepherdesses on the counterpane, a collapsible tin bidet and a washbasin. Lili looked uneasy.

  “I wanted to be alone with you, kitten.”

  “But there’s a bed.”

  “It’s difficult to find a hotel room without a bed, kitten. Now, let me put your new locket around your neck.” He lifted her hair and kissed the nape of her neck, then slid his hands under her arms and over her breasts, feeling for the nipples under her thin blouse, then slowly unfastened the small rose buttons down the front.

  At the mercy of her innocence, of the newly roused passion stirring in her body and her longing for love, Lili offered little resistance. Soon, to her surprise, she lay naked among the pink shepherdesses, mesmerised by Alastair’s easy air of assurance and his swift, practiced hands as he stroked her quivering stomach, teased her silky pubic hair and murmured, “Now, kitten, what’s your real age, hmm? Let’s pretend you’re only ten years old and I’m your schoolteacher, so you have to do everything I say.”

  He bent his head and gently bit the tip of her nipple. “Because if you don’t, you’ll be punished. I’ll have to telephone Madame Sardeau and tell her what a naughty girl you’ve been, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

  Lili stiffened with fear. “Don’t worry, I was only joking, kitten,” he said. “Now lie back and relax, because I’m going to make you feel wonderful.”

  He slid his hand between her thighs and stretched out on the bed beside her. His fingers danced, probed, burrowed insistently between her legs. He kissed her on the mouth, hard. Then he suddenly thrust his fingers into her body, and, as it jerked in pain, his body jerked in ecstasy. “Keep quiet you little fool, stop that noise,” he whispered. He played his trump card, saved against this. “It’s because I love you, Lili. This is grown-up love, kitten.”

  “But it hurts,” she whimpered.

  “I’ll kiss it better,” he promised, and gently kissed her nipples, her breasts and her face, shedding his clothes as he did. Then he slid on top of her and inside her body. It happened so quickly that Lili, bewildered by her conflicting emotions, hardly even knew what was happening. She realised only that she ached again, then ached unbearably as Alastair straddled her small body, shuddered in his climax, then rolled off to lie beside her, exhausted.

  Later he mumbled, “That was wonderful, kitten, let’s have you in your school clothes next time.” After a bit he started to stroke her pink breasts again, then the rest of her body, until it stopped shaking. Softly he spoke words of love. She wanted him to love her, didn’t she? Slowly, patiently—thinking of the following afternoon—he won her confidence again, soothed her with his stroking, reassured her with words of love, hypnotized her with his self-confidence, terrified her with veiled threats of love withdrawn, of telephone calls to Madame Sardeau.

  Then he relieved himself in the washbasin, dressed and left the room, while Lili washed in the bidet. She was thinking that if he loved her, he shouldn’t have brought her here. But if he didn’t love her, he wouldn’t want to, surely? He had done it because he loved her.

  After a few minutes Alastair returned and sat on the edge of the bed. He pulled her onto his lap and produced a packet of pills. “Now I want you to take one of these every day. See, the instructions are on the label.”

  “Why?”

  “So that you don’t have a baby. It’s the new pill. Promise you’ll take it.”

  “Why can’t we get married and have a baby?”

  “Because you’re too young, that’s why, kitten. Later on, if you’re good, when you’ve passed your exams, then we’ll see.”

  After that there were no more trips up the river, no more strolling under the trees. Almost every weekday during that hot summer, from three to five o’clock, a frightened, timid Lili met Alastair at the hotel. When Madame Sardeau returned, Lili explained that as it had been so hot she had taken her basket of sewing to the shady park every afternoon. Madame’s chemises de nuit were exquisitely sewn and the child certainly looked as pale as milk, so perhaps the park was a good idea, provided she was back in good time to prepare the evening meal.

  The early September sun crept down the opposite side of the courtyard as Lili retched for the fifth morning in succession. Panic-stricken, she crept back to her bed. She had no knowledge of gynecology, but she knew what early morning sickness meant. Too exhausted and worried to get up, let alone sew, she heard Madame Sardeau calling her. “Lili, Lili, wherever has that child got to, why isn’t the coffee on? So! Still in bed at seven o’clock!” But the child didn’t look well, she seemed hardly able to lift her head and the black rings around her eyes were darkening. Perhaps she’d better call the doctor, although of course he would charge for a visit. Better see if a day in bed would cure her. There was no point in paying for a doctor unless she was really ill.

  The waves of nausea passed and by midday, Lili no longer felt ill. She was merely panic-stricken. After taking Alastair’s pills for three days, she had stopped, because they made her feel sick. She hadn’t told him this because she was afraid he’d be cross with her.

  She had to get out of bed. Alastair would be waiting for her at the Pam-Pam Café. Luckily, it was one of Madame Sardeau’s afternoons for bridge.

  When she confessed her fears to Alastair, his usually languid face hardened. Suddenly he didn’t look at all like Leslie Howard.

  “I might have known it! You stupid little bitches are all the same! . . . Are you sure?”

  “I haven’t seen a doctor, but I’ve been sick all this week.”

  “Well, it’s your own damn fault. You’re not going to pin anything on me. You don’t know where I’m staying, nobody’s seen us together, and for all I know you’re sleeping with half the men in Paris. . . . Oh, God, don’t start crying!” He thought for a moment; it was better not to frighten her. He didn’t know how old Lili was, but she was certainly under the age of consent. Skinner might not be able to swing that with the French police. Though the French were tolerant about these things as a rule. . . .

  “Can’t we go to the hotel?”

  “No, we can’t. For God’s sake stop snivelling and let me think.” Thank God she didn’t know his real name. He must have been crazy, out of his mind, to pick her up! Still, it was too late now. He had to get out of this immediately before anyone could pin it on him. Of course, there was the hotel receptionist, but she’d keep her mouth shut for a few thousand francs. An idea occurred to him. He thrust his hand into his trouser pocket and pulled out fifty thousand francs, not much, about a hundred and eighty dollars, but it was all the cash he had on him.

  “For Christ’s sake, stop crying, Lili, or I’ll walk out of this place. Look, this is what you must do. Take this money and go to a doctor to make sure that you’re really pregnant—I’ve no idea what he’ll charge, but this is bound to cover it. If you aren’t pregnant, then there’s been a lot of fuss about nothing. If you are, then go straight to the concierge at the hotel and she’ll arrange for you to see someone who’ll fix you up. I’ll see that the bill is paid. Do it as fast as you can—and don’t tell anyone.” He threw a note on the table to cover their bill and stood up.

  “Don’t go, Alastair, please don’t leave me, when I love you so.”

  “If you love me, you’
ll do exactly as I say. You’ll obey me or I’ll never see you again.”

  “When shall I see you? When?” Now she was too frightened to cry.

  “I’ll see you here in two weeks.” He patted her shoulder. “Cheer up! If you’re a good girl and obedient, we can forget all this unpleasantness. Now do you promise to do as I say?”

  “Oh, I promise, but you will come back again, won’t you?”

  “Of course, kitten,” he said soothingly, and he bent to kiss her wet cheek, with no intention of ever seeing her again.

  He had gone before Lili ever thought of asking which doctor she should visit. She sat staring at the pile of notes, then stuffed them in her raincoat pocket and walked to the hotel. She hung around outside, not wanting to go in, but eventually she approached the fat, knitting fingers behind the desk.

  “I was told you could help me.” The woman’s eyes immediately dropped to Lili’s stomach.

  “How long?”

  Lili turned red and looked hard at the brass bell on the countertop. “I don’t know.”

  “When were you last due?”

  “About three weeks ago. But I haven’t seen a doctor yet.”

  “Just as well. Sit on that chair and wait a minute.” Bare feet stuck into carpet slippers, she shuffled to the telephone booth at the back of the hall. Lili could not hear her low conversation. Then she shuffled back and said, “Did he give you any money?”

  “Yes!” She pulled out the bundle of notes and put them on the counter. The woman’s fat fingers flew through them, counting.

  “That’s not going to get you far. You need another hundred thousand francs, tell him.”

  “But that’s all he gave me. I can’t get any more. He said he’d see that the bill was paid.

  “That’s what they all say, but the fact is, this sort of business is strictly cash in advance. Can’t your family help?” Lili’s frightened face grew terrified. “Well, can’t you borrow from a friend?”