The Heatwave

by Kate Riordan

  There are two girls in her class, Thérèse and Sophie. Their mothers have been friends since childhood so, inevitably, their daughters are close too. They are more than that, though: these two are inseparable. They sit together, they eat together, they hold hands in line, they plan how they will both wear their hair the next day.

  Three is always a crowd with little girls. As far as anyone can tell from what Thérèse, Sophie and the other children are willing to say afterwards, Élodie worked on Sophie first. She was the shyer of the two friends; if one was to be brutally honest, she was a paler version of Thérèse in all ways. I don’t know why Élodie mounted her charm offensive on Sophie first; perhaps because Thérèse was a more formidable opponent to go up against.

  Élodie started wheedling Greg to buy her sweets behind my back. The school frowns on anything like this. She sneaked them into school and began to ply Sophie with them. I don’t suppose any of her classmates had ever experienced the full beam of Élodie’s charm before. It’s a fact that even babies prefer beautiful faces and Élodie’s looks, combined with her new-found smiles and contraband sweets, made her irresistible to little Sophie, who chose to pair up with Élodie, turning away whenever Thérèse tried to join in. Thérèse’s mother noticed how angry and tearful her placid daughter had become but didn’t know how to tackle it. She hoped it was just a phase that would pass.

  This was the point at which Élodie switched. According to another girl in the class, she simply walked up to Thérèse one morning when the bell to line up had been rung, and took her hand instead of Sophie’s. From then on, Thérèse and Élodie were as thick as thieves. Or so we were told afterwards. Élodie never mentioned Thérèse at home. There was no change in her whatsoever, despite her apparent discovery of intimate friendship for the first time.

  Unfortunately, Sophie didn’t have Thérèse’s pride. While the other girl vented her frustration and sadness at home, Sophie became desperate. She followed the other two around, trailing in their wake, her little face pinched with misery. The teacher intervened and said the three of them must be friends, and this was when the real trouble started.

  After some weeks of ignoring Sophie, or holding their noses and saying she stank of shit, Élodie told her that they could all be friends again if she did a dare. Sophie, who had never done so much as talk back to her parents, stole money from her teacher’s purse, scratched bad words into her desk and broke her lunch plate.

  All this was unpleasant but arguably not out of the ordinary for little girls flexing their muscles in the playground for the first time. Perhaps. But then the dares took a darker turn and Thérèse started backing off, taking days off school, telling her mother she had a stomach ache.

  On one of the days Thérèse had absented herself, Élodie told Sophie she had to climb up onto the high, flat roof of the dinner block. When she’d done that, Élodie told her to jump off. Ground down by months of bullying, she barely hesitated. She broke both legs, one of them so badly that the jagged tibia pierced the skin.

  That was last week. Today, Greg has insisted we take Élodie to the hospital where Sophie lies in traction, to ‘let them sort this out’. When we get there, the girl takes one look at Élodie, who is approaching armed with chocolates, and begins to tremble violently, her small hands clutching at the bed sheet, her mouth opening and closing in silent terror. She tries to sit up – to back away – the metal traction equipment above her groaning as it resists, and her face blanches with pain.

  ‘Take her out,’ I say to Greg, my voice like steel, and for once he doesn’t protest. Neither does Élodie.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper before I follow them out, deep shame and horror making me shake almost as hard as Sophie herself. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  1993

  You emerge just after I’ve finished talking to Camille on the phone, hair tangled and eyes puffy. You’ve dressed hurriedly, your T-shirt on inside-out, but I notice you’ve taken off the locket I gave you, favouring Élodie’s turquoise necklace. Hurt flares inside me.

  ‘Where is she?’ you demand, without any kind of greeting.

  ‘In the pool.’

  You drag a chair back with a screech of metal and throw yourself into it. You look a bit like I feel: stunned and slightly frantic. I brace myself for more questions that I won’t be able to answer properly, infuriating you further, but you don’t seem angry any more, just totally preoccupied. Teenagers live their lives so immediately. I’m not convinced death seems so final to the young. You hear of teenagers committing suicide for reasons that seem almost trivial to an adult, and I’ve always thought it’s because the end of a life is still an abstract concept. I’m not sure they can process ‘for ever’, let alone in relation to their own death. And, of course, Élodie has never been entirely dead to you anyway. She has lived on in dreams and photographs and the cherry-picked stories your father tells you. She’s halfway to being your religion.

  You go back inside without warning, and when you reappear, the straps of your favourite swimsuit are visible beneath the T-shirt. You hover by the steps down to the garden, suddenly hesitant.

  ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

  You shrug, but I know you do. Is it shyness, I can’t help wondering, or some old instinct lighting up in your brain?

  I would have followed anyway.

  At the pool, we watch Élodie gliding underwater, a lithe shadow moving through the green, hair streaming over her shoulders as she surfaces, the shining water running cleanly off her smooth limbs.

  She props herself up on her elbows, her lower half still in the water, two shades paler.

  ‘You know, ma soeur, when I last saw you, you still needed …’ She gestures, making a ring around one slim upper arm.

  ‘Armbands!’ you cry triumphantly.

  ‘Yes, armbands.’ She winks. ‘I am certain you are faster than me now.’ You go over to a lounger and pull off your T-shirt, your cheeks pinking as you drop it. Then you turn and dive so abruptly into the deep end that you almost misjudge it. I watch you touch the bottom, then kick hard up to the surface. Your front crawl to the side is ragged.

  ‘Mum …’ you suck in a breath ‘… Mum, will you get my inhaler? It must be the chlorine.’

  I kneel down at the edge and put my face close to yours. ‘There’s hardly any in the water. Breathe for me.’

  It’s not nearly as bad as yesterday but the wheeze is definitely there. ‘Emma, you have to take it everywhere with you. I know it’s boring but you have to remember.’

  You roll your eyes. ‘Sor-ry. It’s by my bed.’

  I hesitate, looking from Élodie to you. She’s floating on her back in the middle of the water now, face serene, golden hair fanned out around her face. She makes me think of a Greek icon.

  ‘No, you go and get it. You’ve got to learn.’

  You glare at me but clamber out, something in my voice halting any objections.

  ‘She doesn’t speak much French, does she?’ Élodie says, when you’ve gone. ‘Even though it’s half of her.’

  She lifts herself out of the pool so she’s sitting on the edge, a fine gold chain around one ankle glinting in the bright light as she flexes her toes. Lifting her hair, she lets it fall with a wet slap. The movement reveals an inch more flesh at the base of her spine, and with it a small black tattoo. It’s a symbol I’d never seen, three delicate swirls arranged in a triangle.

  ‘I thought it would be easier for her to adjust,’ I say, looking away. I still feel as if I’m dreaming, that I can’t really be having a conversation with Élodie by the swimming pool at La Rêverie.

  ‘In London, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. I told you we were moving there when I came to visit you that last time.’

  She moves her feet in circles, churning the water. A butterfly hovering too close is soaked and begins to struggle on the surface. She goes still, watching it. I get up and reach in to scoop it up, placing it carefully on the warm stones to dry out.


  ‘Emma can’t remember being here, when it was the four of us?’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  She plucks a stray oleander flower out of the water and lays it next to the butterfly. ‘Maybe she does remember somewhere. I think we all remember everything, like a videotape running inside our heads from the moment we’re born. You just have to find where it’s stored. I have a very good memory. I can find things quickly, up here.’ She points to her temple. ‘I remember everything. Being here only makes it clearer. Maybe it’ll be the same for Emma, once she’s been here a little longer. Maybe it’ll all start coming back.’

  ‘Élodie?’ She looks round and I take a breath. ‘Where have you been?’

  But suddenly you’re back, three cans of cold Panaché clamped between your hands and the inhaler tucked into the top of your swimsuit.

  ‘It’s a bit early, isn’t it?’ I begin but, seeing you flush with embarrassment, I hold out my hand for one of the cans.

  ‘She got angry when I drank at your age.’ Élodie smiles conspiratorially at you. I marvel again at how I’ve come to be in such a situation.

  After lunch we return to the pool. I sit stiffly on a lounger pretending to read, when I’m really observing Élodie surreptitiously through my sunglasses. I’ve decided the house can wait. I need to stay with you.

  You’ve dug out an old photo album from somewhere and the two of you are sitting cross-legged on the ground to look through it. I’ve tried to ask Élodie about the intervening years a few times now, but each time she’s batted away my questions.

  ‘Come and look at these, Mum,’ you call. ‘You look weird in this one, and so thin.’

  I know then that they must be some of the pictures Élodie took with her little pink camera. Apart from a particularly disturbing set of pin-sharp shots, which eventually made me confiscate the damn thing, her photographs always came out blurred or otherwise off-kilter. Lots were of me, though I often had no idea she’d taken them until they came back from the developer. Our little voyeur. I made the mistake of saying this to Greg as we looked through the photos, making my voice lighthearted, but he shook his head. ‘A little voyeur?’ he said. ‘Christ, Sylvie.’

  I don’t want to look at them any more. I turn back to my lounger and it’s then that I see Luc. The red of his T-shirt catches my eye, blazing among the dark foliage of the pines. It takes me straight back to that day when he fell into the pool as a baby, Élodie in a red dress.

  ‘Luc est là,’ I say. As Élodie turns to see the new arrival, I think I catch the cold flare in her eyes that means she’s working something out. For that split second, I glimpse the Élodie I used to know and, though it chills me to the bone, it’s also a strange relief.

  ‘Luc and I already met,’ she says, with an easy smile. She hasn’t got up to greet him so he goes over to kiss her the usual three times, bending over her to do it. I see his eyes rake down her body as he straightens up. There’s an ease between them that seems off. I suddenly remember him slipping away yesterday, when I was still stunned by her return.

  I’m trying to piece it all together when I catch sight of you, your smile faltering as you absorb the effect Élodie is having on him, the fact he’s forgotten to greet us at all.

  ‘So, what can we do for you, Luc?’ I say sharply.

  He shoots me a quick smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. ‘Two things. First I came to invite you to my parents’ anniversary party. It’s next week. There’ll be food and a band.’

  For a second I’m perplexed that Annette would want us there, but then it would be just like her to want to show her marriage off, especially in front of someone like me. We’re whole, would be the message. You made the wrong choice.

  ‘Thank you for the invitation – thank your mother – but I’m not sure we’ll be able to come.’

  ‘Mum, what’s he saying?’ You look suddenly miserable, picking up the animosity between me and Luc.

  ‘I was inviting you to a party,’ Luc says in smooth English. ‘But your mother says no.’

  You look at me, your eyes pleading. ‘Why can’t we go? Mum, please.’

  I sigh. ‘We’ll see. I don’t know if we’ll still be here then.’ I look back at Luc. ‘What’s the second thing?’

  ‘I just wanted to make sure Emma had got her birthday surprise.’ He glances over at Élodie. ‘But I see she has.’

  She narrows her eyes at him, so fast that I only just catch it. Luc does too, and it makes him flush along his cheekbones.

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I say. My head is whirring. ‘You said you had a surprise for Emma days ago. A little present, you said.’ I take a step towards him. ‘How did you know Élodie would be coming back then? How do you know her at all?’

  I look from him to Élodie. She’s staring at Luc, unsmiling and completely still. He shifts about, clearly uncomfortable, eyes cast down to his feet.

  And then she stands and shakes her hair back. ‘Oh, Luc, you have given away my secret,’ she says and laughs her silvery laugh – the one that was once capable of making me quake, the one she always used in front of men. ‘I’m sorry, Maman. I came earlier than I said. I was … what is it in English? “Getting my courage”?’

  I don’t correct her. I think of the clock that had wound itself; the swimming pool already filled; the presence I’ve felt in the house and garden since we arrived. Has she been here all along, watching and waiting, not just an electric hum in the air, but real?

  Confusion clouds your face.

  ‘Mum? I don’t understand. What’s everyone saying?’

  ‘It’s nothing, darling. Just a mix-up. Luc was asking if it was a surprise to see Élodie, that’s all.’

  You smile uncertainly and just as I reach out, hoping you’ll have forgiven me enough to take my hand, Élodie swoops in and kisses you on the forehead.

  ‘Isn’t my little sister beautiful?’ she says in English for you, and Luc nods, smiling tentatively again. You blush and laugh shyly, covering your mouth with your hand. ‘Luc, you must go now,’ she adds, with a toss of her hair. ‘I am going to swim with Emma.’

  ‘Arrête,’ I say, and she swings round. ‘Have you been here, at the house, before yesterday?’ I’m speaking in French again, too fast for you to begin to follow.

  ‘Non, Maman,’ she replies. ‘I swear. I was in the village, staying with a friend of Luc’s. That’s how I know him. I didn’t come back here until last night.’

  It surprises me more than anything that I want to believe her, even if I’m not sure I do.

  1982

  You are three, and have lately turned your teddies into school pupils. I have bought you a small chalkboard and an exercise book of squared paper, which I’ve made into a class register. I’ve written down the teddies’ names in a column, but you’re dexterous enough with a pencil to mark everyone in and out. Your current favourite pupil, though he’s naughty, is Maurice, a plush monkey in dungarees and a flat cap. I’ve invented a funny voice for him.

  Your sister was expelled nearly two years ago, and because Greg has resisted enrolling her anywhere further afield, I am supposedly conducting lessons at home for her. The reality is that she does what she wants, moving through the house and garden, and lately beyond its boundaries, like a semi-feral cat. If I’m brutally honest, I prefer it when she’s out. When she’s here we do nothing but circle each other, hackles up. It’s exhausting.

  It’s mid-afternoon, and I’m in the kitchen, trying to work out why the fridge light is flickering, when it dawns on me that the house is too quiet, that it’s been too long since I’ve heard you moving about upstairs. That I haven’t seen Élodie for hours.

  I crash through your bedroom door but you’re not there and neither is she. Élodie has recently taken to hitching lifts from the main road to go and see friends she won’t tell us about, disappearing for hours without explanation. She’s probably been gone a while already, her thumb out to the cars heading south to the sea, hair and dress billowing in the hand-d
ryer-hot breeze. Probably.

  I’m about to leave, my mind already frantically listing other places to search: the garden, the pool, the road. But then I hear a tiny whimper and freeze. For a second I think it’s coming from one of your soft toys that are, as usual, stacked high on the bed. But then I hear it again and realize it’s coming from the tall cupboard in the corner.

  I fling back the door to find you cowering at the back behind a couple of bags of old clothes, your knees brought up to your chin and tears spilling over at the sight of me. Silent tears, though, because she’s tied a silk scarf of mine around your mouth, tight enough to leave marks. I wrestle it off, wringing wet with tears and spit and snot, and resist the urge to tear it into strips. Your face is flushed with panic and from being in the airless cupboard, but you also have two bright pink circles drawn on your cheeks. A different pink, darker like peonies, stains your lips. Spidery lashes are drawn above and below your eyes, each one a black line two inches long. It’s then that I notice the felt tips scattered across the floor.

  You don’t have any dolls. You don’t like them. Camille sent an expensive one from Paris for your third birthday, which I quietly put away in the same cupboard because, standing only half a head shorter than you, it terrified you. It takes me a moment to comprehend what I’m seeing because I haven’t thought about, let alone seen, that doll for months, but Élodie has stripped you of your usual T-shirt and shorts and dressed you in Claudette the doll’s scratchy nylon dress. It’s too small and the elasticated capped sleeves have made red rings on the delicate skin of your upper arms, to match the gag marks on your face. It’s the same around your neck.

  It’s as I lift you out that I spy Claudette there, at the back, and of course she’s in your clothes. She smiles fixedly at me and the thought of you being trapped in there with her, when she frightens you so much, makes fury sear through me like acid.