Marseille

Fournier

Another number was dialled on an unregistered telephone box on the corner of Rue de Buci in Paris. The call was 24 seconds long and untraceable. All of this Frederick Fournier knew but he was still nervous. It had been seven years since he had been contacted by his home country and he couldn't resist the unease that had settled within him. Jane couldn't know. They were just settling down again. The couple had never wanted children but that morning, over breakfast, Jane had remarked that she felt as though they were leaving it a little late, if truth be told. Fournier had found himself agreeing. Thoughts of a family now though wouldn't be helpful, it seemed. There was a tiny tremor in his ring finger as he placed the phone down.

Don't panic. We have guests.

Frederick Fournier kissed his wife where she slept on the sofa, then he left the room as quietly as possible. He poured himself a large glass of Bordeaux and took two gulps. He stood there in his kitchen; the kitchen Jane had so wanted when they had moved here - to the point where she was blind to the mould on the bathroom tile and the corner of the dining room. They had fought in here, and Jane had cried because of it. Not because of the argument but because this was her sacred place, the place where she could escape the world and her husband's absence. When he returned, they made love in here. But she was used to the emptiness. She and Alice bonded over that. He was eternally grateful to Alice and it still made him deeply sad to think of her and the way she ended up. He didn't know how James did it, he really didn't. He didn't really want to dwell on it.

He made his way quietly up the twenty-four stairs and crept along the landing, careful not to wake Felicity.

Poor, poor girl. James does not see it, does he? Still grieving, always grieving. Still, he appears to have come out of his shell lately. Always was a charmer, he can't help but attract women. Unfortunately, there is an Alice-shaped hole in his heart, and Mademoiselle Penwortham might just not be enough to fill it.

His office door was still open, just as he left it. He removed the paper clip from underneath the doorframe. It was unnecessary and childish, he knew, but it was always something his father insisted on doing when he was younger. He had grown up with paranoid parents. They had ruled a totalitarian regime; teaching manners, respect, fear, love, anger, nationalism. That last part had withered away over the years and was now a single, scrappy thread whipping around violently in the breeze. His patience had run out with France. He could cope with England.

He scrawled down two numbers and two words on a sheet of old parchment. Then the time. What was it? He had left his watch off. Jane had insisted: "Relax, it's a weekend darling." He wasn't relaxed now. The nearest clock was in the spare room, where Felicity was still presumably lying in her drunken stupor. He shouldn't intrude but he had to do this whether he liked it or not. Whether he killed himself or his marriage. The door was only opened a crack, enough for the slice of yellow to cut the girl's face in two.

Such a pretty young thing.  Although, she can be so distant. Of course, Marseille has her rolling about laughing when he's on form.

The clock informed him that it was indeed forty seven minutes past four. No time for fooling around, get it written down. Then it is real. Then it's a task.

Merde!

Marseille and King could be heard from the garden.

They can entertain themselves.

He regretted it now, of course, but this is what he had agreed to all those years ago. The time had come. For King and Country. There or thereabouts.

I cannot leave Jane without a note, I simply can't bring myself to.

Quickly, he penned the hollow words.

'Mon trés cher,

I told you seven years ago that I would never leave you again. It is my only wish that those words could have been true. My country calls me, my dear. I have to answer.

I love you.

Always,
Frederick.'

He packed a small suitcase and stuffed the brief in his jacket pocket. He left out the back, leaving Marseille and King in the garden and the girls asleep, all completely unaware.

He knew this day would come. The day he was, once again, crudely stripped of his life and called back to France. Back to secrecy.