Exceptional Chapter 4. Some questions are answered The French Letter : Le Rendez-vous des Amis by tfawcus Book of the Month contest entry

A huge crash woke me the following morning. The wind was howling through the trees and driving rain against my window, turning the outside world into an Impressionist blur of liquid colour. I got up to investigate, and saw that a branch had fallen through my landlord's greenhouse. Part of the fence was down, and the poor man was struggling against the storm in a windcheater flattened against his back like a sail against a mast. His prize tomatoes lay squashed and bleeding under shards of broken glass and twisted metal. I did what any human being would have done in the circumstances: threw some clothes on my back, jammed a hat on my head, and raced downstairs to lend a hand. "Zut alors!" he exclaimed, throwing his hands to the heavens in despair. Thinking this called for a sympathetic response, I summoned my finest schoolboy French to echo his evident distress. "Sacré pommes de terre!" Holy potatoes seemed to have the right agricultural ring to it, but throwing my arms into the air to imitate his Gallic gesture was a mistake. The wind caught my hat, and in running forward to recapture it, I tripped and fell onto a piece of broken glass. I felt a warm wetness on my sleeve as my right forearm started to ooze blood in sympathy with the tomatoes. At this stage, having done everything I could to assist him, I retired hurt. By the time I had washed and bound the wound, put on a clean shirt, and improvised a sling of sorts, I realised it was nearly ten o'clock. Fortunately, Le Rendez-Vous des Amis was only a few minutes down the street. The rain still teemed down, so I seized an umbrella from the hallstand on my way out. It was adorned with a big red heart and the words, I Love Paris. Just as I approached the café entrance, the wind blew the umbrella inside out, and while struggling to regain control, I reopened my wound. A small crimson blob stained my sling. My hair clung to my scalp and water ran down the back of my neck. I was definitely not in the best of humour when I staggered in, to find Helen immaculate in a summer dress printed with poppies. She was laughing. "Goodness! Look what the cat's dragged in. You look as if you've just returned from battle! Come and sit down. I'll get you a coffee." I drew up a chair opposite her, trying to hide my discomfiture. "Oh, dear! Poor Charles! What's happened to your arm? It's bleeding." "It's nothing," I said. "Just a scratch." Helen arched her eyebrows in that annoying way of hers, and said, "Well, it looks to me as if it needs attention. Why don't you let me check it out?" "No, honestly, it's all right." I attempted a brave smile, but it came out as a weak, rather inane grin. A breakfast of café crème, croissants and fresh orange juice gradually helped restore my equilibrium, and we even began to enjoy a bit of light repartee. Then, towards the end of the meal I ventured to say, perhaps more abruptly than I meant, "Who was that woman you were with the other evening?" "Oh, that was Madam Durand - a magazine editor here. She sometimes takes my articles, but more often than not rejects them. She's a tough old biddy." "That doesn't seem a very charitable way to speak of the dead - and don't you mean 'was'?" "No. She was tougher than either of us thought. I heard the news report next day. It turns out she was severely concussed, but not killed." "Really?" "Yes, unbelievable, isn't it? I was so sure she was dead when I saw that contorted, lifeless figure, and all the blood. That's why I just wanted to get away. I panicked. The last thing I wanted was to get involved in a police enquiry. Someone was bound to have noticed we had been together, and there would have been all sorts of questions, statements to be taken, and red tape. I couldn't have coped with that. It's not as though I was involved in the accident, is it?" I looked at her carefully. Things still didn't seem to add up. "You know, there's something else that has been puzzling me. Knowing how indispensable a woman's handbag is, I wondered how you managed without it for forty-eight hours. I could have returned it earlier, you know." "No you couldn't. You see, I spent almost all of the next day in the hospital with Madam Durand." Why, I wondered, had she not mentioned any of this the day before, when we had been in Parc Monceau? "Oh," I said, "...which hospital?" Helen hesitated for a fraction of a second before answering, "The American Hospital of Paris on Boulevard Victor Hugo. It's not far from Parc Monceau." She got up and said, "Come on! Enough of the third degree! Let's get out of here and see to that wound of yours. It needs re-bandaging at the very least. Your lodgings are quite close, aren't they?" "Just a couple of hundred yards down the street," I said while helping her put on her black vinyl trench coat - as best as I could with one arm. Standing right behind her, I was intoxicated by the musky, floral fragrance of her perfume. My heart started to beat a little faster as she donned her black sou'wester hat and turned to flash me a smile. She reminded me of a character from The Matrix. Beautiful, but dangerous. Recognized

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