Sticks and Stones 11

Griff had told me he loved me and Maddy looked me in the eye for at least a second before I floated out to my car, while Clara, the matchmaker that she is, pulled my face towards that of her mother to get us to look at each other, and said ‘Go on!’ She then tossed herself from Mummy’s shoulders to mine and back again until one of us put her feet back on the ground. They all waved me goodbye.
‘A demain!’ we shouted, in over-exaggerated Tarnais accents.
I drove back to Lavaur and played the CD I’d made at the time I’d met Suzie and the children back in 1999. I hadn’t heard it for a while and it sounded amazing.
On Friday morning, I felt so good that I didn’t need a joint on waking. Suzie called early and told me I could pick Clara up from school at midday, so I had my second shave in three days, a record for the year, and walked out of the hotel like a king. I had a quick cup of coffee at a café and watched traffic go by.
I got to Clara’s school on time and went back home, where we found no one.
Griff and Suzie arrived a few minutes later and we had a good time. I went back to the hotel and had a late lunch.
Michel had given me ‘pension complet’, (bed, breakfast, lunch and dinner), at fifty euros and, as I had lost weight in Andorra and over the past week in France, I relished the thought of an orderly digestive system and ate like a good kid at all sittings.
After lunch, I wrote in my room.
At four-thirty, I left and met Maddy outside her school. I was afraid that she’d be in a bad way after the false pissing accusation, but, as she walked towards me, a grin became apparent and grew in earnest on her face. She seemed happy to see me!
I took a picture of a butterfly that kept on fluttering off just before I could shoot it, and we sat down at a shaded bench. I gave her the little pate sandwiches, the half donut and the carton of apple juice that her mother had prepared for her, and we chatted about her day.
She’d made a new friend, she loved her gym teacher, she’d been given fifteen out of twenty in maths and ten out of ten in a quick gym test. I asked her tentatively about the pissing situation and she told me it had all been mopped up with the lies.
‘It wasn’t even mentioned!’ she said.
I was ecstatic. It seemed I hadn’t lost her forever after all.
‘What shall we do now?’ she asked, having polished off the grub.
‘I thought we’d have a look in a shop I found up the road, and after that we can have a quick coffee somewhere, and then it’ll be time for your dance class.’
‘Sounds good to me,’ she replied.
So off we went. The shop had a few things for Mummy, but I saw by Maddy’s expression of quiet disdain that Lavaur had nothing on Toulouse, so we went and had a coffee, satisfied that we’d missed nothing.
We sat down and watched traffic go by for a while.
‘You know, Maddy,’ I said with a toffee-apple stuck in my throat, bad pride suffocating me. ‘I’m sorry about the way I’ve been over the last week, but,’ and this is where I almost choked, ‘I thought you loved Alan more than me.’
She, just as her mother might have, laughed quietly to herself.
‘No,’ she said, soothingly.
I changed the subject quite readily, like a little boy of eight.
‘You know I’ve been writing since I’ve been away?’ Maddy nodded. ’Well, I’ve been writing about us, you know, the family. I’ve been trying to evaluate the situation by writing things down.’ She nodded again, feigning understanding with gentility. ‘Guess how many words I’ve written since I’ve been away.’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, sheepishly. ‘Two hundred and forty seven.’
‘No,’ I replied, slowly holding my cup up to my chin like a little gold trophy. ‘Eleven thousand,’ I said.
Her mouth opened wide. ‘What? About us? That’s amazing.’
‘It’s not really for you yet but I’ll let you read it in a few years, OK?’ I should have told her I’d read it to her instead, to allay her confidence in my durability as a father-figure.
Maddy nodded happily and drank her hot chocolate, her eyes anew with hope, love and air; the three things that keep us going.
‘We’ll be late,’ she said, so off we went.
Her dance class went well, so well that as soon as she arrived home she fell fast asleep on her bed without changing or eating her evening meal.
I felt elated in the way that one feels when one has accomplished something over a period of time. This feeling was my reward.