We'll Always Have Paris

How did a woman as warm and friendly as Frances have a son as stiff as Simon Valentine? Clara wondered. She hadn’t been expecting to see him just then, and surprise had sent her heart jumping into her throat at the sight of him.

At least she hoped it was surprise.

He looked as disapproving as ever, as if she had thrown herself into that puddle and torn her tights and hurt her wrist just to annoy him. She had wanted to see him, of course, but not like this.

‘What happened?’ he asked his mother.

Frances launched into her story. ‘I was just crossing the road when I felt this thump on my shoulder and this awful oik grabbed my bag.’ She shuddered. ‘I got such a fright! It’s my favourite bag too. Do you remember I bought it in Venice last year?’

Judging by Simon’s expression, he knew nothing about his mother’s handbags and cared less. Clara saw him keeping a visible rein on his impatience.

‘How did Clara get involved?’

‘She saw what was happening.’ Frances sat down next to Clara and patted her knee. ‘Lots of other people must have seen too, but no one else moved. Clara took off after him straight away, and she got hold of my bag, but they had a bit of a tussle and he pushed her to the ground before he ran off.’

Drawing breath, she looked up at her son. ‘I’m very much afraid she may have broken her wrist, but she says there’s no need to call an ambulance. You try and talk some sense into her, Simon.’

‘There’s no need, really.’ Clara managed to get a word in at last. ‘I’m perfectly all right. I can walk.’

‘You’re not all right! Look at you. You’ve ruined your tights, and I can tell your wrist is hurting.’

It was. When the mugger had shoved her, Clara had lost her balance and her wrist had taken the whole weight of her body as she fell. But her legs were all right, thank goodness, and she hardly counted as an emergency.

‘I’ll get a taxi,’ she compromised.

‘You’ll do no such thing!’ said Frances roundly. ‘Simon has a car. You’ll take her to hospital, won’t you, darling?’

Clara had never seen anyone look less like a darling than Simon Valentine right then. It was almost worth a sore wrist and scraped knees to see the expression on his face, where impatience, frustration and reluctance warred with the mixture of exasperation and affection he obviously felt for his mother.

‘Of course,’ he said after a moment.

‘Really, it’s not necessary …’

‘Nonsense!’ said Frances. ‘You’re a heroine, and so I shall tell the police.’

‘All right.’ Rather to Clara’s relief, Simon interrupted his mother’s account of her heroics and took charge. Her wrist was getting more painful by the minute, and she was glad to be able to sit numbly while he despatched the cluster of receptionists who had been clucking ineffectually and arranged for his mother to be taken to his home in a taxi.

Only then did he turn his attention to Clara.

‘There’s no need to look at me like that,’ she said as she got stiffly to her feet.

‘Like what?’

‘Like you think I arranged the mugging on purpose.’

‘It crossed my mind.’ Simon pushed the button for the lift to take them down to the basement car park. ‘If you were desperate enough to sit through a lecture on monetary policy, who knows what you’d be prepared to do.’

‘I was desperate to talk to you, but not quite desperate enough to tackle a mugger,’ said Clara. She didn’t add that Roland would certainly have pushed her into it if he thought it would get results.

As it appeared to have done. She mustn’t waste this opportunity, she told herself, but her knees were stinging where she had grazed them and the pain in her wrist made it hard to concentrate.

Simon looked at her sideways as the lift doors slid open and they stepped inside.

‘And yet you did it anyway. It was a dangerous thing to do. What if the mugger had been armed?’

‘I didn’t think,’ Clara confessed, cradling her forearm. ‘I saw your mum stagger, and then this young guy snatched her bag. It just made me mad. She looked so shocked that I ran after him and grabbed the bag back.’

She was very aware of him in the close confines of the lift. He seemed bigger than he had the night before. Stronger and more solid. More male. More overwhelming, and she found herself babbling.

‘It would have been fine if he’d just let me take the bag back,’ she rattled on. ‘I suppose that was too much to hope after he’d gone to all the trouble of stealing it. Anyway, he turned round and shoved me, and the next thing I was crashing into a puddle.’

She grimaced down at herself. Her favourite skirt was ruined. ‘I kept hold of the bag, though, and everyone was looking by then, so I think he just cut his losses and ran off. Your mother had caught up with us by then, so I was able to give her the bag back. She insisted that we come in here, but I honestly didn’t know that you were her son!’

‘I believe you,’ said Simon with a dry glance. The lift doors opened, and they stepped out into the garage. ‘But I hope you’re not going to ask me to believe that it was coincidence that you were outside the building?’ he asked, leading the way to a sleek silver car.

‘No.’ Clara didn’t see any point in denying it. ‘I was hoping to catch you when you left work. I thought you might be in a better mood today.’

Simon jabbed the key in the direction of the car to unlock it. ‘I was in a perfectly good mood yesterday!’ he said as the lights flashed obediently. ‘Just as I’m in a perfectly good mood today,’ he added through clenched teeth, opening the passenger door for her with pointed courtesy.

‘Gosh, I hope I never meet you in a bad mood,’ said Clara.

There was a dangerous pause, and then Simon shut the door on her with a careful lack of emphasis.

‘I’m grateful to you for going to my mother’s rescue,’ he said stiffly when he got behind the wheel and started the engine, ‘but if you’re thinking of using this situation to press your case about this wretched programme of yours, please don’t bother. I’m not changing my mind.’

Clara heaved a martyred sigh. ‘All right. My wrist is too sore to grovel right now, anyway.’ She slid him a glance under her lashes. ‘I guess I’ll just have to resign myself to pain and the prospect of losing my job.’

‘You know, there is such a thing as employment law,’ said Simon, unimpressed. ‘They can’t sack you because you had an accident and hurt your wrist.’

‘No, but they can for failing to do your job, which in my case was to get you to agree to present the programme.’

‘Emotional blackmail.’ Simon put the car into gear and drove up the ramp and out into the dark January evening. ‘The perfect end to a perfect day.’

‘You’re right.’ Emotional blackmail was all she had left. ‘It’s not your problem if my career is over, or if I can’t pay my rent and have to go back to live with my parents and admit I’m a total failure.’

Simon spared her a brief glance. ‘Save it,’ he advised. ‘If you’ve done your research, you’ll know that I’m completely heartless.’

‘I have, and you’re not,’ said Clara. ‘I know how many times you’ve volunteered for emergency relief projects after disasters. A heartless person doesn’t do that.’

‘Don’t make me into a hero,’ he said curtly. ‘I’m not getting my hands dirty. I just make sure the money gets to those who need it.’

Quite a big ‘just’, Clara would have thought. Simon might not be pulling people out of the rubble or a doctor saving lives, but he regularly left his comfortable life in London to spend several weeks in extremely difficult conditions. Nothing happened without money, and relief efforts depended on financial managers like him to channel the funds where they were most needed and stop them being siphoned off by fraud and corruption.

Simon was clearly anxious to change the subject. ‘Besides,’ he said, cutting across her thoughts, ‘it’s totally unreasonable for anyone’s job to depend on one person.’

‘Tell that to my boss,’ said Clara glumly.

‘They must be able to find someone else. It’s not even as if I’m a professional broadcaster.’