by Rachel Rhys
They rejoin the others outside and Eve gulps in the fresher air as if she has been suffocating.
With her face turned towards the street, she has the strangest sensation of being watched, but when she peers out into the shadows there is no one there, just the customers outside the bar opposite – a couple who only have eyes for each other, and a large table of US airmen. Eve wonders if their presence here in Europe has anything to do with the deepening crisis in Berlin the papers back home were so full of. She has read that the Soviets are threatening to block the Allies’ access to the part of the city under Western control, isolating its citizens. This bloody war. Every time she thinks it is well and truly in the past, something happens to make all her fears rear up again.
She and Ruth go in search of the ladies’ cloakroom. Eve is glad to find the facilities quite civilized, having been shocked in one cafe near the beach at Juan-les-Pins at being confronted by what amounted to little more than a hole in the ground.
‘He is very charming, your Monsieur Meunier,’ says Ruth as they wash their hands side by side.
‘He is not my anything,’ says Eve, noticing how wild her expression looks in her reflection and raising her wet hands to her cheeks in an effort to cool them.
‘Do you think, perhaps, just a little too charming?’
Eve is conscious of Ruth’s gaze seeking out her own in the mirror, but she resolutely refuses to meet it, or to treat Ruth’s question as serious.
‘We are in France,’ she says. ‘I think charm is something taught at infant school, like mathematics or Latin.’
By one in the morning, the Colletts are ready to leave.
‘Why don’t you come back with us?’ Ruth asks Eve. ‘There’s a sofa in our room that Jack could sleep on if he comes back tonight and you could have his room.’
Eve looks around at the people and the lights, listens to the saxophone playing in the background, breathes in the smell of freedom and youth, and her spirits plummet at the thought of the night ending so soon.
‘But it is still early, by Riviera standards,’ says Victor. ‘Don’t worry. I have my car here. I can deliver Eve safely back to her villa when she is ready to leave.’
Ruth looks uncertain. ‘Perhaps we ought to stay a little longer,’ she appeals to Rupert. But he has had enough.
‘My love, Eve is a grown-up,’ Rupert says. ‘We must pay her the courtesy of allowing her to know her own mind.’
When they wave the Colletts off, Eve is reassured to see the streets are still teeming with people. Victor summons the waiter and orders two Soixante Quinzes.
The cocktail slips down so easily, like lemonade, but with a kick in the tail that suggests something much stronger.
‘What does it have in it?’
‘Lemon, sugar, champagne. And perhaps a little gin.’
Eve knows she should not drink any more, and yet it is so seductive sitting here listening to the music, feeling that particular breeze that raises the fine hairs on your arms and lets you know you’re very close to the sea even when it’s nowhere in sight.
Victor is such good company, with his old-fashioned politeness, his slow, shy smile, the sadness that lives in the hollows of his face.
‘Will you tell me about your accident?’ she asks. And then, almost immediately, she is sorry. ‘Forget I spoke. Please. You do not have to relive anything unpleasant on my account.’
‘It is perfectly all right, Eve. I am not ashamed of this old leg. There are plenty of others who have uglier injuries. I was shot in the leg during the Battle of Hannut in Belgium, just before I became a prisoner of war.’
‘I am sorry.’
‘No need to be. I own an art gallery; I am not an athlete or a mountain climber. I can still appreciate fine paintings and enjoy a glass of something special and dance with a beautiful woman.’
Eve feels her cheeks burning and is glad of the breeze and the darkness. The crowds have thinned out considerably now and she is surprised, when she looks around, to see how many tables are empty.
She is aware suddenly of how much she has drunk. Everything on the outer edges of her vision seems to be in constant motion and she has a strong desire to be lying down.
‘I think I must go,’ she says.
‘Is it something I said? Because I called you beautiful?’
‘No. Don’t be silly.’
Victor summons the waiter and produces some notes from his pocket.
‘Here, let me pay,’ says Eve, scrabbling in her bag for her purse, too drunk even to worry about the bill they might have run up.
Victor reaches out to stop her, elegant fingers curling around her arm.
‘Please, do not offend me.’
They stand up to go and Eve feels herself swaying. Victor cups her elbow with his hand. They take one of the roads that shoot off from the junction where Le Crystal sits, heading towards the seafront. It is dark and Eve stumbles. Immediately Victor’s arm is around her. She feels the weight of it, like something inanimate, a heavy fur stole on too hot a day. She has an urge to shrug it off, but she does not want to offend him.
‘My car is just this way.’
Only now, too late, does Eve think about what she is doing, alone with a strange man in a strange country on a near-deserted road. A man who, despite his gentleness, is not her husband.
To her relief she sees a couple ahead, taking photographs against the backdrop of the moonlit sea. As they pass, there is the flash of a camera and a giggle from the woman posing.
‘Here,’ says Victor, opening up the passenger door of a long, low car and sliding her inside.
The car is stuffy and Eve winds the window down so that she can take big lungfuls of fresh air.
When Victor gets behind the wheel, he sits still for a moment, his lips pressed together. Then he turns to her.
‘I don’t suppose,’ he says, ‘you would like to come back to my home? I live above my art gallery. You could view the paintings.’
In that confined space, Eve is aware of her heart thumping in her chest, the sound of blood in her ears. She yearns suddenly for her bedroom back in Villa La Perle. For the big bed where she can reach out in all directions and feel nothing but air.
‘Thank you, but I’m not feeling terribly well,’ she says. ‘Then we shall take you home.’
Victor starts the car and Eve sinks back in relief, although already a small, contrary part of her is wondering about the road not taken.
Outside the car window, the moon dances across the still surface of the sea.
Waiting. Always waiting.
18
7 June 1948
THE INSIDE OF Eve’s mouth has been coated in felt. Overnight, someone has wrapped her head tight in wet bandages that are slowly constricting as they dry so that her skull feels held in some sort of vice. When she opens her eyes, the light is a white-hot blade coming towards her.
Eve has never been a drinker, though more through lack of opportunity than any kind of inbuilt moderation. Also, she is someone who fears losing control. When you have felt out of place all your life you tend to keep a tight rein on yourself, not trusting your surroundings to protect you if you are unable to protect yourself.
Now the previous night comes back to her. Victor’s palm hot against her waist, the weight of his arm around her shoulders.
She thinks of Clifford in a rush of guilt and nostalgia. Remembering his diffident courtship, how he’d asked her if he might hold her hand, and then again if he might kiss her, as if physical desire were something to be negotiated up front, like a dinner invitation that might be turned down with an apology and no hard feelings and never spoken of again.
‘I would like to take care of you,’ he’d said when he proposed. At the time she’d felt something inside her cave in at the very idea of it. Self-reliant from childhood and then faced with a blank future following the end of the war, the idea that she might hand over responsibility for herself to someone else, even momentarily, was seductive. His flush of pleasure when s
he said yes was so gratifying.
No one believed in true love any more. Not since the war. Duty was the thing, that’s what she told herself. And respect. And honour. A desire to build a solid, peaceful future.
When she and Clifford had stood quietly in the registry office in front of seven members of their families, she had felt optimistic. The registrar had the tremors and had barely been able to sign the register, but Eve had been full of hope. ‘You look very nice,’ her mother had said. ‘He’s a good man. You’ve done well.’ And her heart had swelled with pride.
She resolves to phone Clifford later today. When she is feeling better. She will explain that she intends to return at the weekend, as Ruth suggested. She will apologize. She will tie up what needs to be tied up here and go home.
Villa La Perle will be rented out and then sold. The Lesters will get their money.
Eve finds Sully outside at his garden desk, typing away in the dappled shade of the eucalyptus tree.
‘Feeling a bit delicate?’ he asks without turning round.
Eve is nonplussed. ‘How did you—’
‘Oh, please. This is a very small town. Kick one, they all limp.’
Eve sinks down heavily into a wicker chair. It is another flawless day but the beauty of her surroundings just seems to emphasize her own shortcomings – her sluggishness, the way her hair feels frizzy and tangled like coir matting, her sallow skin and the sour taste of yesterday’s wine in the back of her mouth.
‘I apologize for the other day,’ Sully says, still without looking at her. ‘What I said about your marriage. I tend to make assumptions about people based on nothing more than the fact that I’ve made so many mistakes myself I want to believe others are just as foolish.’
‘It’s forgotten.’
Now, finally, he turns towards her. Gives a low whistle.
‘Boy, you really look bad.’
‘Thanks.’
‘No, I mean, really terrible.’
Eve thinks about going back to bed; at the very same moment she is also thinking about jumping off the jetty into the sea, fully clothed, letting the glorious cool water instantly wake her.
In the end she does neither.
‘I’m going in search of breakfast,’ she tells Sully. ‘Coffee will either cure me or kill me.’
‘When it comes to Mrs Finch’s coffee, there’s a third category,’ says Sully. ‘A sort of low-level maiming.’
Inside, the cool of the house provides relief for her throbbing head. She goes into the kitchen, but finds no trace of either housekeeper or breakfast. Nor does she dare raid the cupboards herself for fear of appearing to be taking liberties.
She wanders, disconsolate, into the hallway, jumping when she hears the slamming of the front door one storey up. There comes the sound of voices, a man and a woman seemingly mid-argument. ‘If you don’t like the way I drive, you can bloody well drive yourself,’ the man retorts.
Eve groans as she recognizes Duncan Lester’s voice and, seconds later, Clemmie Atwood’s. Just the people she least wants to see while looking like something the cat dug up. On an impulse, she dives in through the door that leads down to the cellar, pulling it closed behind her. Feeling around for the switch, she flicks on the dim bulb.
For a moment she hovers at the top of the stairs, unsure what to do, jumping when Duncan and Clemmie resume their argument seemingly inches from the door she is leaning against.
Well, she can’t go back out there. Nor can she remain where she is without running the risk of appearing very foolish should they come bursting in here.
Instead she decides to go downstairs and investigate Guy’s junk room. It is a long shot, she knows, but didn’t Mrs Finch say that Guy couldn’t bear to throw anything away? Mightn’t there be something in that room that kick-starts a memory in her mind or provides a clue? At least it would be a way of justifying her presence down here if Duncan and Clemmie did make an appearance.
Near the bottom of the stairs, the first doubts set in. The walls down here are damp. When Eve puts her hand on the bare brick to her left, it comes away wet. The light bulb is a long way above, over the top of the steps, and the stairwell where she stands is shrouded in shadow.
Eve takes hold of the metal handle of the door. It feels clammy, and she wipes her palm on her dress after she turns it, giving it an extra shove to counterbalance the stiffness.
There’s an immediate smell of musty earth, a cold dankness that her skin absorbs like ink on blotting paper. She steps forward, feeling along the brick wall for the light switch she feels sure must be here. She tries not to breathe in as she casts her eyes around, trying to identify the shapes in the dark corners by the yellow light from outside the open door.
Unable to locate a switch, she edges further into the room, conscious now of the goosebumps rising up on her bare arms, the chill on the back of her neck. For a moment she thinks about turning around and going back upstairs, but the thought of bursting out on to Duncan and Clemmie stops her.
There is a movement in the back corner where various cast-off items lean against the shelving. A rustling sound. Just as she begins to realize there is something in here with her – a mouse or, heaven forbid, a rat – there is a loud bang, the door slams shut, and everything is pitch black.
For a moment, all is still. Eve is so stunned she cannot formulate a single thought. There is a strange noise echoing around the darkness, a rasping sound, which she only belatedly realizes is the sound of her own breathing, harsh and ragged.
Panic begins to build in the pit of her stomach, a bubbling anxiety that she knows she must keep under control. Breathe, she orders herself. The door has blown shut. That is all. She thinks of how she will craft this into a story to tell Sully when she gets out. How amusing she will make it. Gradually the panic ebbs away.
She reaches out a hand, pawing at the darkness until her fingers make contact with something cold and damp. She feels rough stone under her skin. The wall, then. With her palm flat against the surface, she slides her hand along, praying it will eventually lead her to the door.
Her foot knocks into something, sending it clattering to the ground, and she cries out. But it is nothing, she tells herself. A half-empty tin of paint, perhaps.
She continues feeling her way along the wall, braced against whatever other objects she might encounter, but thankfully there is nothing more and soon her hand encounters the smooth wood of the door.
Relief floods through her, so strong she almost laughs from the force of it. How foolish to have allowed herself to become so scared. Her fingers find the handle and twist.
Nothing.
She takes her hand off, wipes her palm once more on the fabric of her dress, and tries again, making sure she has a firm grip.
The door will not budge.
No. No, no, no, no, no. She rattles the handle, first gently, then with increasing ferocity.
‘Help! I’m trapped in the cellar. Please help!’
She pictures Sully outside, the keys of his typewriter loudly clattering, and a tight band snaps inside her.
Mrs Finch then. But the housekeeper hasn’t been around all day. She remembers the empty kitchen, the lack of breakfast things laid out on the dining table.
‘Please!’ she shouts again. ‘Someone.’
Even Duncan and Clemmie would be welcome now. But of course the chances of them having stayed put all this time in the passageway behind the stairs are minimal. No, they will have gone off in search of Sully or whatever else brought them here in the first place.
The damp chill is overwhelming. Eve remembers her reaction the first time she came to this room, how she’d had a sense of something unpleasant here, had even recoiled. And now here she is, stuck.
Turning around so that her back is to the door, she slides down until she is sitting on the hard, cold stone floor, her hungover exhaustion overcoming her fear of a mouse or rat crawling over her legs.
She peers around. Does darkness have different qual
ities, different depths? She tries to make out whether the black is denser in the corners, or where she imagines the corners to be.
Even when her eyes finally adjust a little so that she can make out some vague shapes, it merely makes things worse. What’s that black thing over there? Did that large looming shadow really move or is it just the darkness playing tricks on her?
She hugs her bent knees close to her chest, feeling her heart hammering against her thighs.
She is wearing the brown crepe dress and the cold seeps in through her clothes, to her very bones. She lowers her head until it is resting on her knees and she no longer has to look into the black void.
She weeps.
19
‘I TOLD YOU, she was there one minute and then pfff!’
‘What the hell does pfff mean?’
The voices, male, jolt Eve from her slump. How long has she been sitting here in the dark? She has no clue.
‘Help!’
Has she even spoken aloud? She is so discombobulated, here in this endless, depthless black hole, that she no longer seems able to recognize what is real from what exists in her head.
‘Help!’ she tries again. Louder. She scrambles to her feet, fumbling for the door handle.
For a long, agonizing moment she thinks they have not heard her. She rattles the handle as violently as she can.
‘What in hell?’
Now there is a noise on the other side of the door.
‘In here!’ she shouts.
‘How did you—? Hang on, the blasted handle has fallen off.’
There is a low exchange that she cannot make out and then the sound of something clicking into place, and now, without warning, the door bursts open, knocking her backwards.
She tries to open her eyes, but the sudden light is too strong and she remains on the floor, blinking, until she feels someone’s hands on her bare arm, pulling her up.
A few minutes later, she is upstairs in the sitting room lying back on the velvet sofa.
‘What were you doing in there?’
Noel Lester is standing in front of her, blocking the sunlight and not looking very happy.