Loving Amélie by Sasha Faulks

stripped
naked and turned to face him. He cast off his own clothes, put his arm round
her waist, and lifted her off her feet. She whimpered slightly in surprise, but
made a little gasp of pleasure as he tightened his grip and spun her carefully
around. She was no weight at all! He laid her back onto the duvet, enjoying the
caresses of her uplifted hands as he traced his first journey with a warm, open
mouth down her neck, across her nipples and from her softly contoured navel to
the coarse wetness between her thighs. He rose up, and their fingers worked
together with needy dexterity to fit him with a sheath.
    At first he felt he should
apologise for the speed of his entry and despatch; but Amélie groaned with such
satisfaction and he was at ease with nature’s way. He was more restrained the
next time. And the next. He lay in the changing light with his eyes on the
ceiling, resigned, challenging Death to come and shake his hand.
    He appeared to have been
spared.

 
                                       
                                                                *

 
 
    Peter and Linda were waiting
for him in the bistro, with the sign on the door of Skinner’s flipped over to Closed.
    “Our kid,” said Peter, by way
of a greeting. “This is a turn up.”
    “It’s like the plot of one of
Nessa’s awful films,” said Linda, who had been peering into the papoose on
Chris’s body as though she were approving a delivery of vegetables. “Was it Tom
Selleck or that annoying short guy who was left ‘ holding the baby’ ?”
    It occurred to Chris for the
first time in fifteen years that there had been no patter of tiny feet for
Linda and Peter; with not so much as a fleeting reference as to why.
    During this time, Linda’s
father had bought outright the premises that became Skinner’s ; allowing his daughter and
son-in-law to pay him back, by degrees, when they started to make a profit. By
now, there couldn’t be much left to pay - something else they had never really
discussed. The Skinner over the door was in the singular, and could have been a reference to
either one of them; although, in reality, Chris knew he had the smallest claim
to stake, given that Peter and Linda were by far the more industrious and
motivated two-thirds of the partnership. It was Peter and Linda who dressed up
in tuxedo and black frock to attend the business dinners; or schlepped to the
accountant’s with the files of paperwork: Chris shrank, without their
judgement, from all of that. His only major stakeholder duty was to run the
restaurant during the annual skiing holiday that Linda deemed to be sacrosanct,
so she could meet up with her sporty sisters, get a healthy glow about her, and
come home reinvigorated to serve raclette .
    “Her name is Amélie,” he said.
“And, if she could, she would probably say ‘pleased to meet you Auntie Linda
and Uncle Peter’.”
    “Oh, Chris, I’m sorry!” said
Linda, flicking the tea towel she had in her grasp over her shoulder, and
applying her hands to the baby’s cocooned back: in much the same way she would
apply them to a joint of meat she had seasoned for the oven. “I think I’m in
shock, that’s all, and what with tonight’s cover…And I don’t know a baby’s bum
from its elbow!”
    “I’m finding it’s pretty much
the same as yours and mine,” said Chris. “Although more yours than mine in the
bum department, Lin.”
    “I’m sure she’s a real
sweetie.”
    The central island in the
kitchen was a vast stainless steel hot plate, grazed all over with tiny
scratches from incessant scrubbing, and top lit by a row of   lamps that were as bright and searching
as those that might illuminate a stage. It was on here that Peter placed three
mugs of tea.
    “What are you going to do?” he
asked. “Get in touch with Amé and sort something sensible out?”
    “Those weren’t my