Loving Amélie Read Free Page A

bring herself to say a positive word
about his relationship with Amélie: usually when he had been too fed up and
demoralised to get out of bed and keep her company.
    He didn’t want to argue,
however: by God, he needed Sara onside more than ever before.
    “Proper effort?” he found
himself repeating, despite himself, in mild disgust. “What’s that supposed to
mean?”
    Sara’s hair was now thoroughly
dry and had filled out to its usual imperious red cloud:
    “Well, come on, did you make
any serious attempt to even learn her language?”
    Chris gaped as though he were
about to mention that he worked in a French-style restaurant serving
French-style food, before his friend, second-guessing him, added:
    “Properly?”
    “I was watching French films.
And planning a trip to France with her, for God’s sake!”
    “By French films do you mean that one film with
Kristin Scott Thomas?!”
    “Bitch!” said Chris, in exasperation.
    “Cock!” Sara retorted, jiggling the
baby with more gusto than Chris would have recommended, even as an amateur.
“With a ‘q’!”
    At the raised voices, baby Amélie
began to whimper and they stared intently at each other with eyes lit with
blame, like school children who had been rumbled smoking behind the bike sheds.
    “ Don’t make her cry!” Chris hissed.
    “She will only cry, I think
you’ll find, if she is hungry or wet,” said Sara, with a superior flounce of
her curls.
    “And don’t leave me.”
    He knew that, prior to the
morning’s drama, Sara had been due to meet her boyfriend, Rick, for their
habitual dirty weekend in a London hotel. Rick lived in leafy suburbia with his
wife and three children; and, despite the closeness of her relationship with
Chris, Sara had never introduced them in the five years she and Rick had been
“together.” It was an arrangement too fragile to compromise, she had told him;
and Chris thought better than to point out it wasn’t a matter of national
security and he, himself, would be thoroughly uncompromisable – even if he were
threatened with having his finger nails pulled out.
    “You were happy to show me the
door a couple of hours ago,” she said, huffily, settling the baby back into her
Moses basket. She seemed to be peaceful, for the time being. “And I have to leave
you: I might not see Rick till after the school holidays if I don’t go today.”
    “But I don’t think I can cope
without you.”
    “Of course you can. You’re her
dad. And you have all you need for now.”
    “You sound like Amélie. This is
a conspiracy.”
    Sara shook her head and covered
her eyes briefly with the palms of her hands.
    “Bloody Amélie.”
    She came to, and gave Chris a
tight hug.
    “Bugger on through, tonight,
mate, and I will be back sometime later tomorrow. We will talk about what
you’re going to do.”
    “What am I going to do?”
    “I’m guessing get in touch with
Amélie again. Or social services? I don’t know. But we will sort it. Do you
know how to change a nappy?”
    “What do you think?”
    “Well, I can show you quickly.
I’ve done it for my sister’s kids. But she’s asleep at the moment, so it will
need to be more theoretical than practical. Then I really have to go.”

Chapter Three

 
    Chris Skinner was born in
Dudley in the West Midlands in the early 1960s. He was eighteen months younger
than his brother Peter, although there were times growing up that they were
mistaken for twins: this was the cause of considerable annoyance to the older
brother, and was more often than not the root cause of the scuffles and play
fights that peppered their early lives together.
    Even as young as he was when
Chris came along, Peter could remember the notion of relief that he was going
to have a playmate: a distraction from being the constant centre of attention
(both good and bad); and someone who would at least alleviate what would
otherwise have been a rather dull existence.
    Somehow, their passive parents,
Roy and Jean,