the accidental life of greg millar Part 16

The plane touches down at three. Cardigan off. Sunglasses on. Riviera Radio keeps me company in the car as do Grace’s words. I get to the villa, fired up and ready for positive action. But there’s no sign of Greg, and I sense that something’s wrong. Rachel has a face on her like a brewing storm. So does Toby.

‘What is it?’

‘Dad didn’t come back,’ he says.

‘From where?’

He shrugs.

‘Where’s Hilary?’

‘Kitchen.’

They follow me in.

Incredibly, Hilary is tearing at a French stick with her mouth.

‘Where’s Greg?’ I ask.

She drops the bread, including the bit she had between her teeth. She brushes crumbs from her chest and turns. ‘Ever think of knocking?’

‘The door was open, Hilary. Now, what’s going on?’

She straightens up, chin high. ‘He promised to take us to Antibes for ice cream. I got the children out of the pool, helped Toby get dressed. When we were ready, he’d gone.’

‘Where?’

‘I don’t know, do I? I’m just the hired help.’

‘Did you try his mobile?’

‘No,’ she says with pride.

‘OK. Well, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.’ Somehow, I suspect that may not be the case. I ring his mobile, looking confident, until I hear it, somewhere in the villa. ‘How long’s he been gone?’

‘An hour.’

‘Well, why don’t I take you?’ I say to the children.

‘Forget it,’ says Rachel gloomily.

Toby is quiet. His face is flushed and he looks languid. Hilary has all the windows and doors open to create a breeze, but the villa is stifling. This boy needs to cool down.

‘Toby, would you like to see my apartment? It’s nice and cool, and I’ve Magnums in the fridge.’

He looks up. ‘OK.’

‘Rachel, would you like to come?’

She eyes me as if I’ve just offered to pull a tooth. ‘As if,’ she says, summing up our relationship in two words.

Toby holds my hand as we leave the villa. Hilary looks murderous.

Toby scans the apartment. ‘You’re right, it’s nice and cool.’

‘Would you like a drink?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Sit down there, and I’ll get it.’

‘Ooh. The seat’s cold, too.’

‘It’s leather,’ I call from the kitchen.

‘I like leather.’

I find myself smiling.

I return with two glasses of orange juice and hand him one. ‘Cheers,’ I say and hold my glass out.

‘Cheers, big ears,’ he says, cheerfully clinking his glass against mine. ‘It’s really quiet here,’ he says, looking around. It strikes me as an odd thing for a child to appreciate. ‘Is that a balcony?’

‘Yep.’

‘Can we go on it?’

‘Sure.’

Once out, he doesn’t stay long. ‘Nifty,’ he says, and goes back inside. He sits in the exact spot he was in earlier. ‘I like it here.’

‘Me too.’

‘Can I stay with you?’ He looks at me with big brown St Bernard eyes, the puppy I always wanted as a child.

‘Why would you want to stay with me?’

He shrugs.

‘Is it a bit hot at the villa?’

He nods. ‘And really noisy. Even at night-time. I can’t sleep. Dad never goes to bed. He shouts on the phone and his music’s really loud. I hate that song.’

‘What song?’

‘A little more satisfaction, baby. I hate it.’ He puts his hands over his ears.

I wait until he takes them down again. ‘Why don’t you ask him to turn it down?’

‘I do. But when I get back into bed he turns it up again. So I don’t ask him any more. Can I stay with you? Please?’

‘I don’t know, Toby. I think your dad would prefer you to stay with him.’

‘Just for one night? Please? I’d be very good.’

I get up, go over and sit beside him. ‘Would you like to go for a little sleep now? You look a bit tired.’ He looks exhausted.

‘’K.’

‘I’ll be out here, working, OK? Sleep as long as you like. And when you get up, we’ll have a Magnum.’

‘’K.’

I hold his hand and lead him to the bedroom. When he’s settled, I cover him with a sheet and sit on the edge of the bed until he sleeps. It takes less than a minute. His little face looks so vulnerable.

I go back outside and try to work, but can’t. What’s Greg up to? If Toby’s being kept awake, Rachel is too. She’s older; she must know something’s up. Because something is up. And we really, really need to talk. If only I could just get him to focus, stop for one second. Sit still. Stop talking. Stop moving. Just listen for five minutes without interrupting me or himself.

When Toby wakes, I invite him to stay for the rest of the day.

‘Yes!’

I call the villa.

Hilary answers.

‘Is Greg back?’

‘No.’

‘Right, well, just to let you know, Toby’s staying with me for a while.’

A brief pause before she says, ‘Yeah, well, just make sure he’s back for dinner.’

It’s like Upstairs, Downstairs. The staff’s running the place.

I teach Toby to play draughts and am amused by how competitive he is. We eat the Magnums. I show him how to play Spider Solitaire on my laptop.

‘Are you a child prodigy?’ I ask because he’s so bloody quick.

‘What’s that?’

Phew.

He’s such good company, I could keep him forever.

I ring Hilary again. ‘Greg back yet?’

‘No.’

‘Right, well, when he does get back, you might tell him I’ve taken Toby out for pizza.’

‘You can’t!’

‘Why not?’

‘He’s not your child.’

I almost laugh. ‘He’s not yours either. His father’s not home. He’s hungry. I’m taking him out for a meal. If you’ve a problem with that, I suggest you talk to Greg.’

She slams the phone down.

We drive to Antibes and find an outdoor table at a restaurant overlooking Place Général de Gaulle. We share the same side of the table, looking out. A woman walks by, carrying a Yorkshire terrier. A central parting divides its back into two glossy curtains of hair. Behind the woman skips a pair of twins, encircled by a hula hoop. But it’s the fountains that interest Toby. Dotted around the square, they have water shooting straight out from the ground, alternating between wide, light sprays and single slender jets. They disappear in a pattern, leaving only wet ground and the uncertainty that they were ever there. Then they reappear again just when you thought they were gone for good. Toby creates a game of second-guessing the display, at which I lose miserably.

At last, our food arrives – spaghetti for him, as they don’t do pizza. Listening to this dark little boy chat about bumper cars, piranhas and self-flush loos makes me realise how special he must be to Greg. Where is he, then? What’s he doing, disappearing off without telling anyone?

‘Are you cross with Dad?’ he asks, catching me off guard.

‘No. Why?’

‘Hilary’s cross. Dad always tells us where he’s going and when he’ll be back.’

‘There’s probably a good reason why he had to hurry away. Maybe he remembered something he had to do. He’ll be back later and we can ask him then, OK? But we’re having a nice time now, aren’t we?’

‘Yeah. When are you and Dad splitting up?’

That stalls me. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Hilary said you’d be splitting up soon.’

‘I see. Well . . . We’ve no plans at the moment. I think Hilary might be a bit confused.’ And an interfering cow.

We don’t rush back. I take Toby for a ride on a tourist ‘train’ that drives through the narrow, winding streets of the town. We buy ice creams, then fake tattoos that we place on our arms, reminding me of when I was a kid.

Eventually, it’s time to go. On the way home, Toby needs a pee. Like, now. No, he can’t hold on. He has to go. With no other option, I pull in to the side of the road, worried about the possible existence of some obscure French public exposure law.

But it’s fine. He’s climbing back into the Clio and we haven’t been arrested.

‘Mission accomplished,’ he says, and I know where he learned that one.

I smile sadly and tussle his hair.

As soon as we arrive back at the villa, Hilary snatches him from me.

‘Look at the state of you,’ she says to him. ‘You need a bath, young man.’

The spaghetti and ice cream have given his T-shirt a whole new look. But so what? He’s five. It’ll wash out.

She’s holding out his hands, examining the tattoos.

I wink at him. And he winks back.

She starts to herd him towards the stairs.

‘Goodnight, Toby,’ I say. ‘You were great company.’

He smiles. ‘Thanks for the basketti.’

Red is the colour of Hilary’s – entire – face.

Back at the apartment, to distract myself, I check my emails and have a more detailed look at the brief we’ve been given by the retail company. Before I know it, though, I’m Googling amphetamines. I visit site after site and read list after list of the effects of speed. Alertness, increased energy and confidence, rapid movement, talkativeness, excitability – one by one, I tick them off. To suffer insomnia, though, Greg would need to have been taking speed for a long time and in high doses. The sites don’t give any advice on how to come off the drug, but warn that doing so can lead to tiredness, depression and emotional exhaustion. Seems like a small price to pay. I’d welcome a bit of exhaustion.

At eight, I ring Greg’s mobile. He’s back. I go down to the villa. Straight to the office. He’s frantically rummaging through a drawer. What’s he looking for, his next fix?

‘What happened earlier?’ I ask.

He looks up. ‘When?’

‘When you disappeared.’

‘What?’

‘You were supposed to take the children for ice cream, but you went off and never came back.’

‘Oh, right, that. I must have forgotten.’

‘Where did you go?’

‘To see a man about a dog.’

‘What man? And what dog?’

‘It’s an expression, Lucy.’

‘People hide behind expressions.’

‘I’m hiding behind nothing.’

‘So, where were you? And who were you with?’

He gives me a look that says ‘What have you turned into?’ But he does answer. ‘I was in Monte Carlo.’

‘Monte Carlo?’

‘A little principality beyond Nice.’

‘I know where it is, Greg. Not why you had to suddenly drop everything to go there.’

‘No reason.’

‘There must have been a reason.’

‘Well, if there was, I forget it.’

‘Just like you forgot the kids. You know, Greg, they dropped everything for you. And then you dropped them.’

He starts back at the drawer, mumbling, ‘I’ll make it up to them, OK?’

‘How?’

He pops his head up. ‘I don’t know. I’ll spend time with them.’

‘When?’

‘Now. If it’ll make you happy.’

‘It’s almost Toby’s bedtime.’

‘So? He can sleep in.’

‘He can’t sleep at all with the racket you make.’

‘What racket?’

‘Loud telephone conversations, music blaring . . .’

‘He’s imagining things.’

‘He asked to come and stay with me, today. He’s not imagining things.’

‘OK, OK.’ He gets up suddenly. ‘Stop nagging. I’ll keep the music down, OK?’ I open my mouth to speak, but he cuts me off with, ‘And I’ll go play with the children right now, if that’s what you want.’

‘Don’t you need to find whatever you’re looking for, first?’

He scratches his head. ‘I can’t remember what I was looking for.’

Let me help. ‘Speed, amphetamines . . .’

‘What?’

‘Drugs, Greg. I know you’re taking them.’

He laughs. ‘Well, you know more than I do.’

‘Admit it, Greg.’

His face changes. ‘What is your obsession with drugs? What is wrong with you?’

I feel like snapping the same back at him. But I don’t want to fight. I want to sort this out. I try to keep calm, focus on my mission.

‘Look, Greg, you’ve a problem. We both know it. If you could just admit it, we could do something about it . . .’

‘The only problem I have is you, Lucy,’ he says, turning and walking from the room.

He leaves me standing, winded. Hurt stops me from reacting immediately. Anger propels me forward. I go after him, ready to ask, ‘What do you mean I’m a problem? If I’m such a problem maybe I should leave?’ But I walk straight into a happy family scene. Toby, dressed for bed, is running to get paints, while Rachel is heading to the office for paper. I slow down, try to lift the expression on my face. That’s when I see Hilary, looking like she’s ready to start fitting.

‘Right,’ she snaps. ‘Forget routine. Fine. I’m going to my room. And I won’t be back down.’ She pounds up the stairs.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ he asks.

I keep walking; amazed he has the nerve to talk to me.

‘Where are you going?’ he asks cheerily, as if the argument between us never happened.

‘Bed,’ I answer only because the children are watching.

‘Don’t go. You’re great fun.’

I feel like clocking him.

They’re sitting down to paint as I walk out of the door. And I wonder how long it will be before Greg has to go somewhere, do something, or be with someone other than us.

Next Part Will come Soon