The Heatwave

by Kate Riordan

  I make for the far side of the square where the road beyond the barriers erected for the circus will take me back to La Rêverie. I’m about halfway across when I see, at the very edge of my peripheral vision, the familiar swing of hair again. I wish it was yours, but it isn’t. I cover my face with my hands, resisting the urge to scream. Somewhere in my mind, the thought registers that I badly need a drink.

  When I take my hands away, she’s gone, whoever she was. Almost everyone has gone from my end of the square, in fact.

  ‘Come on,’ I say aloud. ‘Pull yourself together.’

  I set off again, determined that nothing will put me off this time. Beyond the village limits, plunged into sudden darkness, I run along the main road, ignoring as well as I can the flashing headlights of passing cars, the same dance song coming from one, a blaring horn from another, full of teenagers, high-pitched laughter Dopplering into something low and threatening as they fly past, so close my hair whips my cheek.

  By the time I get back to La Rêverie, I’m breathing hard, my hair plastered to the back of my neck.

  ‘Mon dieu, Sylvie!’ Camille exclaims from the salon door. She’s holding one of our grandmother’s antique coffee cups in her hand. ‘What melodrama. And you such an Englishwoman these days. Emma is upstairs. She wouldn’t say a word to me, just ran straight up. What on earth has happened?’

  I take the stairs two at a time but you aren’t in your room and, for a second, the panic returns and I’m ready to take to the streets again. As I turn to go back downstairs I notice the faint bar of light under the door at the other end of the hall. Of course. You’re in Élodie’s room.

  As I reach for the handle, its brass plate gouged with half a dozen tiny Es if you know where to look for them, I feel the dread that always hits me on this threshold. Inside, you sit cross-legged on the dusty floor, surrounded by heaps of her clothes, torn from the rail in the wardrobe. Hanging from the open door is the key.

  You’ve lifted your face, your eyes red. ‘I found it next to Camille’s cigarettes.’

  I think you look more fearful than angry, which is something I never witnessed in your sister. Nothing ever frightened her, especially me.

  I rush over and kneel to pull you to me, crushing the clothes under my knees. ‘Oh, Emma, I was so worried. You shouldn’t have run off like that. That road is dangerous in the dark.’

  You don’t pull away, but you don’t return the embrace either. When I lean back to look at you properly, a single tear runs down your cheek and falls to the faded blue shirt in your lap.

  ‘Darling, what that horrible man said –’

  ‘He said she was a bad apple.’ You look down at the shirt in your lap and begin to pleat the fabric between your fingers, pinching each fold so hard that your thumbnails turn white. ‘I know what it means but why did he say it?’

  I look at the detritus around you and see the white sundress. The small splash of red wine staining the hem is still there, faded now to pink. I pick up an old flip-flop and trace a finger along the indentation her foot made long ago. There’s something even more intimate about it than the clothes.

  I take a breath. ‘Em, you know I told you she was taken out of school when she was ten?’

  You nod.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t because we decided to teach her at home, like I said. She was expelled.’

  Your eyes widen. ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She was unkind to another girl in her class.’

  ‘Is that all?’

  You sound like Greg, never wanting to acknowledge that Élodie might have done anything wrong, and it makes me sharp. ‘It was bad, Emma. The girl was seriously hurt. The point is that this is a small village. Everyone knew what Élodie did and some people still remember it now. That’s what that man meant. He should never have said it to you but I wanted to tell you why he did so you understood. Unfortunately, people have long memories in a place like this.’

  You gesture to the clothes strewn around you. ‘Can I have some of these?’

  I shake my head. ‘No, I don’t think that would be –’

  ‘Why?’ You speak over me. ‘She was my sister. You’ve never wanted me to have anything of hers.’ Your hand goes to the turquoise necklace. ‘You don’t even like me having this.’ It’s then that I hear the wheeze in your chest.

  I get to my feet. ‘Choose a few things, then. And put the rest away, please. I’ll get your inhaler.’

  That she was expelled doesn’t tarnish your image of her, I realize. Her hurting someone is just an abstract detail. It only makes her more fascinating.

  ‘Mum?’

  I’m almost at the door, thinking about your asthma and how, after years of absence, the symptoms are creeping back in. I’m also thinking about the wine in the fridge downstairs.

  ‘What is it, Em?’

  You pull in your breath and I wince at the sound. ‘I found something else earlier. In the study.’

  I wait. I’ve gone through that room, or at least I think I have.

  ‘It’s all in French but I worked out some of the words. I think it’s her medical notes.’

  1975

  It’s afternoon, Élodie is inside and, like a needle in a well-played record, Greg and I are slipping into the groove of what has become, in the last year or so, one of our most regular arguments. This one always comes out when another of his buying trips is announced, usually with little warning. It turns out he’s leaving the next day and will be gone until the following weekend.

  ‘It’s easy when you can pick up and leave whenever you like,’ I say, as I eat Élodie’s abandoned lunch, already congealing in the sun. ‘It’s easy when you can drive to Paris or London with the radio on and the window down, alone with your own thoughts. When you can visit your interesting friends and talk about art. What do you think I do here when you’re away, or locked in your study, when it’s just me and Élodie and she won’t sleep, or eat anything I give her, or even deign to look at me? You don’t know anything about how it really is.’

  There is relief in ranting like this. It distracts me from the fear that lurks underneath. It’s all true, every word, but what it translates to, really, is please don’t leave me to do this on my own. He would probably stay, if I asked like that, but my pride prevents it.

  He reaches out to rub the back of my neck, a long-established gesture of affection between us that I would usually lean into, but not today. I remain stiff and his hand drops.

  ‘Why don’t you plan a day out? Take Élodie to the coast. You always have fun there.’

  I’m about to reply when Laurent is suddenly in the garden. He ambles across the grass towards the terrace steps, little Luc wriggling in his arms, trying to get down.

  ‘Salut,’ he calls. ‘Am I interrupting?’

  I shake my head and gesture for him to come up. He’s always been a comforting presence, always brought out a version of myself I like more.

  ‘Bonjour, Laurent,’ Greg says tersely, getting to his feet. ‘I’ll leave you two to it. I’ve got some paperwork I need to get on with.’

  Laurent flashes him an apologetic smile. ‘Of course, although actually it’s you I was after. I wanted to get your expert opinion on something.’

  He often makes these flattering little overtures to Greg, as if he knows he’s resented for our shared history. They seem painfully obvious to me, but usually have a softening effect on Greg.

  ‘Okay, sure, I’ll help if I can,’ he says now, relenting slightly.

  ‘It’s a brooch Annette wants me to have valued. It was her great-aunt’s.’

  He shifts Luc to the other arm so he can reach into his pocket. The baby twists round, stretching towards the table and the remnants of our lunch.

  ‘I’ll take him,’ I say, holding out my arms. I love Luc. He’s a placid child, full of smiles and entirely uncomplicated. I like the dense weight of him in my lap. It makes me feel more solid. More grounded.

  Élodie appears at the kitchen door. I see he
r eyes settle on Luc, who is now clutching my necklace in his chubby fist, fat amber beads the same colour as Élodie’s left eye. She sidles over to Greg, one hand snaking around his neck to pull him down to her level.

  ‘What is it, darling?’

  She whispers in his ear, her eye on me. It’s the right side, the blue side, the iris almost as dark as the pupil in the bright sunshine. Greg straightens up.

  ‘Sylvie, she can’t find her ladybird purse. Will you go and look while I talk to Laurent?’

  I hand Luc carefully back to his father. ‘I’ll just be a minute.’ I look at Élodie. ‘Can you remember where you last saw it?’

  She shrugs, her eyes sliding away from mine.

  I swallow a sigh, and begin collecting plates to take in on my way upstairs. By the time I come down, having eventually found the purse stuffed inside her pillow case, she’s gone. It takes me another second to realize there is no sign of the baby.

  ‘Where’s Luc?’ I say sharply. Laurent and Greg are sitting at the table with a couple of beers, the brooch between them on the table in a velvet box.

  ‘Élodie’s taken him for a little walk,’ Greg says, gesturing to the lawn below. Only I notice the slight challenge in his voice.

  ‘He’s so restless since he started walking,’ says Laurent. ‘He can’t sit still for two minutes. She’s doing me a favour.’

  I hurry down the steps but there’s no sign of them on the lawn. There’s a shady corner Élodie likes, just out of sight from the terrace, and I’m so sure she’ll be there that when she isn’t I stare at it dumbly for a long moment, unable to think what to do next. Then I hear a sound, so high and brief that it might have been a bird’s cry. It had come from the direction of the swimming pool.

  As I begin to run towards the parasol pines that screen the water from the rest of the garden, something bright flashes through the leaves, ruby-bright. Élodie is wearing a red dress today.

  I arrive at the shallow end as Luc hits the deep water. It’s not a small pool but I seem to be there instantly, as if I’ve leapt over time. I pull him out so quickly that his eyes are still round with shock from the impact. He doesn’t even begin to wail until I start checking him for damage, his belated terror making both of us shake.

  There’s nothing wet or choked about his breathing and I feel my heart-rate go down a notch. As I cradle him tightly against my chest, letting him cry it out, I catch Élodie’s eye. We stare at each other and it isn’t like looking at a child.

  She sees Greg and Laurent before I do and, as they stop in front of us, Laurent’s face ashen under his tan, she points to Luc, whose cries are ebbing into exhausted whimpers.

  ‘Il est tombé,’ she says to her father, her voice more babyish than usual. ‘Silly Luc fell in the pool.’

  No, I suppose I didn’t see her push him. As Greg says later, I don’t have any proof. But I saw how close she was standing to where he’d fallen in. And I saw the expression on her face, too.

  ‘For God’s sake, it was probably fear,’ Greg says, when I try to describe it. ‘She’d had a shock too, don’t forget.’

  He won’t look at me, though, and there’s not much conviction in his voice. I leave it then, but I know it wasn’t fear. It was excitement, her face almost convulsing with it. It was in her eyes too – I’d never seen them brighter.

  That night, neither Greg nor I sleep well, both of us awake, eyes open in the dark, until well after two. I put out my hand to rest on his smooth flank – an invitation for him to turn to me, to discuss it – but he only stills and deepens his breathing as though he’s been asleep all along. It’s the adult version of hiding from a monster by putting a blanket over your head. If I can’t see it, it’s not happening.

  I draw my hand back.

  1993

  I can’t remember the first time I asked myself the question. I suppose there must have been a first time but it’s been a constant companion for so long, circling above me like a giant bird, shadow wings blotting out the sun, that pinning it down is impossible.

  Was it me?

  There were other questions too – Was she born or was she made? – but they were all variations on the first, the age-old question every mother of a child like Élodie has asked themselves: Is this my fault?

  You’d found the medical notes in the old desk: a huge, dark-varnished monster of a thing with carved drawers running down both sides. The deep bottom one on the left had been locked when I tried it, with no sign of a key. I meant to look for it but then forgot. You admit you picked it with a straightened-out hair grip, demonstrating a rather disconcerting resourcefulness.

  The folder, which you fetch now from your room, is bulky and lands on Élodie’s bedroom floor with a thud.

  There’s a corner of yellow paper sticking out from the pile, a couple of words visible in cramped black ink, and I know it’s Morel’s writing. Docteur Hubert Morel. He arrives in my head in his entirety: the way his pipe had worn a groove in his bottom teeth; cool, dry hands; gentle brown eyes that never judged.

  Slowly, I pull the folder across the floor towards me, careful not to betray any alarm.

  ‘Let’s go out to the garden,’ I say, and get up before you can object. I want to be in the fresh air. Camille appears at the doorway, unnoticed by you, her face enquiring, and I shake my head once.

  Outside, the air is like a warm bath. You sit down next to me, both of us facing into the void of the now lightless garden. Camille walks over and presses a cool glass of wine into my hand, turning to go back inside wordlessly. The cicadas are quiet tonight, but somewhere in the near-distance, probably from the dried-up stream between the garden and the fields, a solitary bullfrog croaks.

  I put my hand flat on the folder. ‘We went to see a specialist about her. Just after you were born. I was … We were so worried.’

  ‘It must have been serious, then.’ You reach out to pick at the frayed corner of the folder. ‘1975, 1977, 1979. Was she ill all that time?’

  I pause. ‘Well, yes. But not in the way you’re thinking. The doctor we went to see was … a different sort of specialist.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ You turn to look at me. In the light from the house behind your head, I can see a frantic mass of tiny insects thronging the air, darting in all directions, too many to count, and I get up to light a mosquito coil. You’ve been scratching at your bites all day.

  ‘Mum, please,’ you say more softly, when I’ve stopped fussing. ‘It’s not fair. I’m not a little kid any more.’

  You are to me, I want to say, but resist. ‘There were lots of phases,’ I begin weakly.

  ‘Phases?’ You shake your head. ‘What kind of –’

  ‘Élodie wasn’t easy,’ I interrupt, and a bubble of hysteria threatens to explode out of me because it’s such a ridiculous understatement. ‘She had quite serious behavioural issues.’

  You pause, taking this in. ‘What – because she was ill?’

  I swallow, reminded again how much easier it had been to let you assume Élodie was physically sick.

  ‘Not exactly,’ I say now.

  I want to warn you then that knowing is not always a good thing – that once you do know, you can’t unknow. That one revelation can upend everything else, flattening walls you thought were immovable, revealing rooms you wouldn’t want to see into. But I’m so tired, and Élodie will be there again if I go and look under the oleander tree, long hair gleaming and rippling out of the dark like a moonlit stream. Tell her, she’ll whisper. Tell her, or I will.

  ‘Élodie wasn’t ill in the way that you’ve always thought.’ My voice is clear so it pierces the darkness. I don’t think I’m speaking just for your benefit. ‘She didn’t have leukaemia or something like that. Her illness was in her mind. When I say she wasn’t easy, I meant that it wasn’t just … naughtiness. It was much more than that, much more complicated. It was something she was born with, how she was made …’ I falter. ‘It couldn’t really be cured, not with medicine.

&nb
sp; ‘Your father didn’t want to face that, not for a long time. I suppose I didn’t either. But then, when I finally took her to see Dr Morel,’ I gesture at the folder, ‘and he explained there was … a condition, that it wasn’t anyone’s fault but there wasn’t much we could do about it either, your dad and I had to come to terms with that.’ I pause, because sometimes I don’t think Greg ever did fully come to terms with the truth. In fact, the loss of her for a decade has enabled him to move further away from it than ever.

  ‘I’m sorry, darling, that we didn’t tell you this before, but you were too young to understand. I didn’t want to remind you of how hard it was when we all lived together here. It was such a difficult time.’

  I’ve been speaking fast and it’s left me breathless. I want a cigarette. I wish I’d asked Camille to join us.

  ‘But I can hardly remember anything about when we were here, Mum, you know that.’ Your voice is high with emotion. ‘I can’t remember Élodie at all. Only from photos.’

  I gesture for you to come and, to my surprise, you do. I pull you into a hug and you squeeze in next to me on the chair. You feel warm and solid, utterly alive.

  ‘Why did you never say anything about this? Why didn’t Dad? He’s always told me more about her than you.’

  ‘We both agreed it was best if we waited. We thought it would be easier for you this way.’ It sounds awful out loud. I’m lightheaded with guilt.

  ‘Everything seems weird now,’ you say, after a while. ‘It’s like everything I’ve always thought about our family was wrong. Like it’s been made up.’

  ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ I say into your hair.

  ‘What was it that she had?’ Your voice isn’t much more than a whisper.

  ‘It’s hard to explain. Her brain didn’t work like other people’s. She couldn’t …’

  ‘Couldn’t what?’

  ‘I don’t think she could feel what other people felt. I suppose that doesn’t sound like much but it caused real problems, for all of us. It wasn’t her fault but … it was hard, Emma. It was unbearably hard at times.’ Frightening, too, I could say, but don’t.