by Kate Riordan
‘For God’s sake, shut up!’
Your bottom lip begins to tremble because you hate any conflict, even when it isn’t to do with you. In contrast, Élodie always seems invigorated by it. Her goading or defiance makes her hard and bright, like a diamond, cutting through all that hippie lassitude she affects when it pleases her, her eyes suddenly alert, and her mouth twisting as though she’s trying not to laugh or cry out. Fighting is the only time the two of us truly engage with each other, to the exclusion of everyone else, even you.
‘Sylvie, Sylvie, Sylvie, Sylvie!’ Her voice grows louder each time.
You put your hands over your ears and begin to cry in earnest.
‘Ça suffit, Élodie!’ I feel myself give in to my own anger in a hot, blissful rush. I storm over and start to pull her off the stool. She’s only half a head shorter than me now, and almost as strong. Feeling her resistance makes me pull harder. I’ve almost prised her off when she goes heavy and limp, and because she’s jammed her feet behind the bar, her full weight barrels into me. Both of us crash to the stone floor. You begin to scream with terror as I struggle to get out from under her. The physical intimacy is a shock – it’s rare we touch at all.
I realize then what it is she smells of. I scramble to my feet and look down at her, still sprawled on the floor.
‘You’re stoned.’ I’ve always hated the heady herbal smell of cannabis.
‘Papa does it sometimes.’
‘I don’t care what he does. You’re only fourteen.’
She stands up and tries to push past me but I get hold of her arm. With my other hand, I start patting the pockets of her jeans.
She stands motionless while I search her, eyes dull now. She’s retreated into herself again, spark tamped out.
There’s nothing on her but a few coins and one of my lipsticks, which I put into my own pocket.
‘Up to your room,’ I hiss in her ear. ‘I don’t want to see you again tonight.’
For once she goes without a fight.
In the morning, when she fails to appear at breakfast, I go upstairs to find her gone, the windows open and creaking in the breeze. She’s done this before: clambering out and dropping to the top of the shutter below. It’s dangerous but possible, if you’ve got the nerve, and Élodie always has the nerve. I go over to secure the windows so they won’t bang and it’s then I notice the scorch marks on the wall, the jungle animals I painted when I was pregnant with her now burnt away in places.
Perhaps the pattern of it is random – Greg certainly thinks so when he comes back and I show him. And it’s true that human eyes will find faces in anything. But to me, already uncomfortable in the room – I always feel I’m trespassing there – I see it immediately: the mouth a howl, the eyes round and staring.
I don’t want to think about what it might mean, but I can’t help wondering what your sister might have in store for us next.
All I want to do is go downstairs and ring my mother. I know exactly what she would say to calm me down, but when I whisper the same words aloud it isn’t the same. It doesn’t work at all. I sit on the floor outside Élodie’s room and cry in silence so you won’t hear me. It only makes me feel worse because, for the first time, I truly understand that I will never be able to speak to her again.
1993
I get into bed that night without bothering to brush my teeth. The tension in the house is palpable though I’ve apologized to you and Élodie for losing my temper. Your sister hugged me in response, the unexpected physical contact winding me, but you remained aloof and in the salon for the rest of the day, ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ playing over and over.
I don’t expect to sleep – I assume I’ll replay the exchange that took place on the drive over and over again – but in fact I must drop off immediately. The next thing I know the room is entirely in darkness, the moon gone but dawn still hours away. The music has finally been turned off.
Though the windows are opened wide to catch the smallest sliver of breeze, the air is entirely still, as if the room has been hermetically sealed. The only sign it hasn’t been is the faint tang of smoke. I try to hear something, anything – a solitary car out on the road, a mosquito’s whine – but there’s only the ringing of my own ears. I panic for a moment, in case I’ve been somehow deafened as I slept, rendered incapable of hearing if you were in trouble, but then I sit up, and along with the internal banging of my heart, I can also hear my own panicky breaths.
Something must have woken me. I’d been fathoms-deep in dreams a minute before. The top sheet is tangled around my legs and I kick it off. The temperature doesn’t seem to have dropped even a degree. If anything, the press of darkness makes it feel even hotter. My cotton T-shirt is damp against my skin.
I get up and tiptoe to the door to listen. Still nothing. Then something – instinct or experience – draws me to the window and the gap in the shutters. My eyes have adjusted by now so I see her immediately, ethereal in gauzy white, hair a broad, waving ribbon down her back. She’s standing on the terrace, facing the rest of the garden.
I don’t know how long I watch her but she remains entirely motionless and the effect is uncanny, as though she is frozen in time, like I’m looking at a photograph. To a degree, we are all unknowable; our most private thoughts and desires would shock the people we’re closest to. But Élodie? She had always taken this to another level. There were never any givens. As far as knowing what she’s thinking out there, I might as well be a total stranger, learning from scratch.
I’m just about to move away when she begins to descend the steps, her nightdress in the gloom making it seem as though she’s gliding, as though there truly is a ghost at La Rêverie.
She walks to the middle of the lawn and lies down on her back, stretching her arms and legs out so that with her head she forms a five-pointed star. A pentacle. I’d forgotten but she went through a phase of this when she was ten or eleven. I’d watched her then as I’m watching now, astonished at her ability to remain still for so long. Sometimes I got close enough to see that even her eyes didn’t blink.
Then I remember something else and it makes my stomach turn over, my fingernails pushing into the soft old paint of the windowsill. She used to do it as an adolescent when she was angry, when she’d been refused something, or told off. Before that phase she had raged, slamming drawers and cupboards so hard they would bounce open again. And, of course, in the earliest years she’d screamed in that terrible flat monotone that could draw the whole village square’s attention in seconds. It was awful, but when she stopped – when she learnt that these dramatic protests weren’t ultimately paying off – she internalized the fury until there was no sign of it on the surface. An incredible feat for a child and, to me, much more sinister than anything that had gone before.
*
Greg arrives when it’s still early, about six o’clock, and although I’d witnessed Élodie go to bed from the garden a few hours before, I hadn’t managed to get back to sleep.
I run down the stairs, hoping to get there before he knocks and wakes you both, but he’s already letting himself in. I forgot he still had a key.
‘She hasn’t gone?’ he says, by way of greeting. ‘I haven’t missed her?’
I shake my head and point upstairs. ‘They’re both asleep. Let’s go into the kitchen. I’ll make coffee.’
Close up, he looks tired but otherwise well: face lightly tanned and hair recently cut. His blue shirt – blue: he’d always worn blue because he knew it suited him – was more expensive than the ones he used to pick up in Monoprix. It was pressed, too.
‘What did you tell Nicole and the boys?’
‘The truth – well, to Nicole at least. I said my daughter had been found. That I had to go to her. She knows everything.’
‘Everything?’
He lights up and takes an irritable drag. ‘Christ, Sylvie, I’ve driven through the night and you’re already interrogating me. Haven’t we got more important things to discuss? Wh
at have you told Emma?’
‘She knows some of it. Élodie said it was her fault that we let Emma think she was dead – that that was what she let everyone think. That she was the one to push us away.’
An urge to pour a large drink eddies through me. This is the effect your father had on me in the last years of our marriage. Neither of us seemed able to be anything but the worst of ourselves when the other was around. Divorce is not just what happens when you grow to dislike your husband or wife. It’s as much about no longer wanting to spend time with the version of yourself that comes out when you’re with them. I can’t think now when I was last on my own with him: all my dealings with him are to do with you these days. To be alone with him here seems to double the strangeness. I feel wistful and anxious and irritable all at once.
‘I want to see her,’ he says.
‘Let her sleep for now.’
He sighs and fiddles with the matchbook he used to light his cigarette. I think of the barn, and what I found, but decide not to share my suspicions that Élodie might have been here longer than she’s admitting.
‘So what has she told you then, about where she’s been all this time?’
I rub my eyes. ‘She’s been living in a commune in Spain. Apparently, she’s on a journey of self-actualization.’ I raise an eyebrow. This is your legacy, the eyebrow says. You were the one who bought into all that when we were young. ‘Before that, she was travelling around.’
He doesn’t say anything as I pour the coffee and fetch milk from the fridge.
‘And what about Emma? What does she think about it all? Did she believe Élodie’s explanation?’
‘She’s – I don’t know. She’s excited, obviously, and still shocked, I think. She watches Élodie like she’s expecting her to disappear in a puff of smoke. But she’s also quite …’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. Not herself. Distracted, glazed over somehow. Difficult, too. Her asthma’s got worse since we’ve been here. I don’t think she’s telling me things.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Things she’s remembered from then. The barn made her anxious yesterday. Why else would it unless she’s remembered something?’
I turn to pick up the coffee pot and, as I do, the kitchen around me jumps and judders, like a tape that’s been rewound and paused too many times. For a moment, though I know exactly where I am, I don’t quite know when. I look down at my trembling hands, the skin fractionally more crêped now I’m in my forties, and for once I’m glad to be ageing. Anything not to be back then.
*
The reunion between father and daughter is not what I would have expected. The two of you come down together about nine, Greg and I already halfway down a second pot of coffee. You spot him first.
‘Dad!’ You launch yourself at him and he hugs you tight, but he’s already looking over your shoulder. It’s how it always was – except that suddenly it’s because Élodie is the one hanging back rather than you. He looks surprised and then, as she makes no move to approach or even say anything, increasingly discomfited. She looks to me instead, as if asking for permission, and I find myself nodding. Only then does she go to him, accepting a hug and giving him a peck on each cheek in return. I don’t know what to take from this, but then I remember what she said before she went to swim. He was never there, was he? Was she demonstrating solidarity?
‘Élodie,’ he breathes, when she stands back. His eyes search her face. ‘Look at you, all grown-up now.’ His voice wavers on the last word and I see him struggle to contain his emotion. Élodie reaches out, rather stiffly, to pat his hand and I can’t help gaping at how odd this is. When she was a girl she would entwine herself around Greg like a cat, her fingers in his hair, her head tucked into the cleft under his chin.
‘I thought of you every day,’ he says now, his voice steadier. ‘When my little boys were born – did Sylvie tell you about them? – I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that their big sister was out there somewhere but I didn’t know where. It brought back all the memories of you being born, my beautiful daughter.’
I glance at you, a middle child at a stroke, and your eyes are large and forlorn. I go over to put my arm around you but Élodie is already there, pulling you close.
‘I have got my little sister back,’ she says, smiling down at you so that your face lights again, her slim finger dancing over the necklace you’re wearing: her necklace. Of course I haven’t told you that the reason you found it behind the chest of drawers is because I threw it across the room at Greg, ten years earlier, on the most frightening day of my life.
‘It’s amazing to think I have little brothers too,’ says Élodie. She beams at Greg and his body relaxes instantly.
By lunchtime, we have entered much more familiar territory. I find myself serving you all, like a mute waitress. It’s so hard to fight the old patterns and rhythms. I’ve even laid out an age-softened, scalloped-edged tablecloth that belonged to my mother, an idea that hadn’t occurred to me when it was just the two of us. Perhaps all this effort, this presentation, is to create the illusion of control.
As I fetch and carry from the kitchen, you and your father are patently entranced by Élodie. He can’t take his eyes off her. He’s too eager, too quick to laugh, and bizarrely I find myself feeling sorry for him. As charming as she is, there’s still a reserve in her manner towards him.
‘We’ll go to the village tonight for dinner,’ Greg is saying, as I go back outside with a bowl of peaches. He’s mopping his plate too thoroughly with a piece of bread and it surprises me to realize that he’s nervous. ‘Emma, did you say there’s a good pizza place now?’
‘Yes, they’re huge. Mum, it’s really nice there, isn’t it?’
I lay a hand on your hair as I put down the bowl. You’ve forgiven me for yesterday, too thrilled with the family reunion to hold a grudge.
*
The afternoon wears on, the temperature rising with the cicadas’ chorus. I watch as Élodie continues effortlessly to seduce you and your father. Or perhaps my eyes are so jaundiced I can’t tell what’s real from what’s not. Perhaps there really is no artifice any more. Perhaps she’s simply charismatic, with no ulterior motive. I have no idea.
You sit cross-legged in front of her as she plaits your hair into cornrows. There isn’t a peep from you as she pulls on your scalp, though I can barely help you put it up into a ponytail for school without you yelping and complaining. You’re dressed in something of hers again – a stretchy red bandeau top cut too low – and you’re also wearing mascara and something shiny on your lips. It’s impossible not to be reminded of the incident with the doll, the felt-tip scribble on your face. It feels like a more sophisticated version of the same game. But when I search your face for signs of strain, like I saw in the barn, a fragment of memory catching the light, there’s nothing. You’re glowing with pleasure.
‘Tu es très jolie,’ Élodie exclaims, when she’s finished, and kisses you on the top of your head. You blush, your eyes shining, and I feel unease flex inside me, like a cramp. My instincts are still telling me to separate the two of you, just in case, but you’ll hate me for it if I do.
With Greg there, I take the opportunity to retreat inside and crawl back into bed. I don’t know what else to do with myself and the repeated nights of broken sleep are beginning to make me feel spaced-out but no less anxious, my body fried from the relentless pumping of adrenalin.
*
I’m woken a couple of hours later by Olivier ringing. Luckily I’m the one to catch it; the three of you must still be outside. I say luckily, as if I don’t have every right to speak to another man. The pull of the past is hard to resist, though, and I’ve just been dreaming of London in the late sixties, when Greg and I were new. It’s a small act of treachery from my unconscious mind when I least need it.
‘Is everything okay?’ Olivier says tentatively. ‘I didn’t want to disturb you before.’
‘I’m sorry,
I should have rung. I can explain, but I’m not sure I’m up to it right now. My ex-husband is here and I –’
‘You don’t have to explain. It’s none of my business. I just wanted to check you were all right.’
‘Thank you. You always seem to say the right thing. Look, you could come round but …’
‘It’s fine … It would be good to see you sometime. Just know that I’m here, if you want to talk. There’s something else, too.’
I clutch the receiver tighter, sure he’s going to tell me something about Élodie, something I don’t want to know.
‘It’s good news. The English couple want to make you an offer.’
I can’t think of a reply.
‘Sylvie, are you still there?’
‘Oui.’
‘Have you changed your mind about the sale?’ I think he sounds hopeful.
‘No, it’s not that. I just didn’t expect them to make a decision so quickly.’
‘Don’t you want to know how much they’ve offered?’
‘Oh. Yes, of course I do. Sorry, I’m just taken aback.’
‘It’s fine. I didn’t expect it to happen so quickly either. But they loved it apparently, the husband particularly. I guess they saw the magic after all. They’ve offered a hundred thousand francs under the asking price. That’s about ten thousand in sterling, more or less. They didn’t know about one of the taxes, they said, or they’d have stumped up all of it.’
I stare out of the salon door to the terrace beyond. I can see the spear-headed parasol pines beyond, motionless in the dense air. They look almost black against the azure sky.
‘I see,’ I say vaguely. ‘That seems fair.’
‘Do you want me to tell Martine you agree or would you rather hold out for more? It might be worth trying.’
He’s speaking carefully, as though to someone slowwitted. I push my thumbnail into the flesh of my bare thigh hard enough to make a deep, sickle-shaped indentation. I imagine leaving La Rêverie behind for good, and even as sadness creeps in, a weight eases off me, the sensation so tangible it feels literal, a great dark bird lifting from my shoulders into the air.