Familiar Rooms in Darkness

by Caro Fraser

  He tried to tiptoe down the steps, hoping to head out the side door unnoticed, but the cleaner turned and saw him. He raised a hand and smiled, and called out ‘Bonjour!’, then gave his surroundings an interested glance, in the hope of being taken for an early-morning sightseer. The cleaner nodded and smiled at him, bemused, and he went out of the side door into the cobbled square and the early-morning sunshine.

  Despite getting to bed late, Bella woke early, her mind fogged with the residues of a dream involving Adam and Charlie. She lay there for some moments, trying to recall details, but they had ebbed away. Wondering how Charlie was, she got up and went through the house, looking in each of the spare rooms. There was no sign of him. And no sign of any of the neatly made beds having been slept in. On her way back down the corridor she met Claire.

  ‘Did Charlie come to bed?’ asked Bella.

  ‘No – I thought you said he must have gone to sleep in one of the spare rooms.’

  ‘Well, he hasn’t. There’s no sign of him.’ They looked at one another in alarm.

  Derek, who had got up for an early swim in the pool, met them as they came downstairs. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Charlie’s gone missing,’ said Claire.

  ‘I had a bit of an argument with him in the garden last night. It was after you’d gone in,’ said Bella. ‘I left him out there, and that’s the last I saw of him. He didn’t go to bed, and there’s no sign of him anywhere in the house.’

  ‘What about the annexe?’ said Derek.

  ‘Oh – of course.’ Bella gave a little gasp of relief. ‘He must be there.’

  She went out and crossed the lawn, then mounted the short flight of stone steps to the annexe. She knocked on the door and looked in. The big room was empty, the bed unslept in, Adam’s laptop and papers lying on the table under the window.

  She ran back to the house. ‘He’s not there!’

  ‘Oh, God,’ said Claire. ‘Where can he have gone?’ Her voice was panicky.

  ‘He’s a big boy. He can look after himself,’ said Derek, about to prepare some coffee.

  ‘He was too pissed to know what he was doing. He could be lying in a ditch somewhere!’ said Bella. ‘We have to go out and find him!’

  Bella and Claire raced upstairs in agitation to get dressed. Derek sauntered outside, looked round speculatively, then set off down the track past the melon and sunflower fields, glancing in ditches for a prone figure, trying to conjecture what he himself might have done in Charlie’s shoes.

  Charlie walked through the village by the back streets, thankful that no one was around. He glanced at his watch. It was a little before eight. There was always a possibility that he could slip back into the house undetected, but not much of one. He’d bluff it out, say he’d slept in a spare room.

  It was when he reached the turning from the main road on to the track leading up to Montresor that he saw Derek. The disused millhouse lay a hundred yards or so from the track, next to a narrow river overhung with trees, and Derek was walking slowly around it. Charlie hesitated, about to head up to the house, then changed his mind and walked across the field to his brother.

  Derek glanced up at Charlie in mild surprise. ‘Morning.’

  ‘Hi.’ Charlie hoped he didn’t look as bad as he felt. ‘What are you doing down here?’

  ‘Looking for you.’

  ‘Oh… right.’ Charlie glanced diffidently around, then back at his brother. They stood, hands in pockets, warily contemplating one another, conscious of their similarity of stance and feature.

  ‘I was trying to work out what was going through your head last night, what I’d’ve done if I’d been you,’ said Derek.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘You know – bit pissed, upset after arguing with Bella.’ Derek shrugged. ‘I reckoned you must have gone for a walk to cool off, then ended up falling asleep somewhere. I was trying to follow in your tracks, so to speak. Thought you might have finished up in there.’ He indicated the millhouse.

  ‘Ah. Right. Well, you didn’t follow far enough. For some reason, which doubtless struck me as good at the time, I walked into the village. I went into the church and fell asleep behind the altar.’

  ‘What!’ Derek laughed. ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ said Charlie. He walked a few paces and sat down on the trunk of a partially uprooted oak tree. ‘Like I said, it seemed like a good idea at the time.’ He put his head in his hands. Wretched as he felt, he realized suddenly that he was glad to be here alone with Derek, who seemed big and safe at that moment. Solid, sane. Charlie himself felt insubstantial, shaky.

  Derek walked over slowly and sat down next to Charlie. ‘We didn’t get off to a very good start yesterday, did we?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘It’s a weird situation. The thing Bella and I have found is – not to expect too much.’

  ‘I didn’t. I don’t. I have no expectations. That’s the point. I’ve been trying to avoid everything.’ Charlie took his head from his hands and sighed. ‘I took the line that it would be better to pretend. Pretend it had all never happened. Pretend everything was just the way I’d always supposed it was.’

  Derek nodded. ‘I know what you mean. I know what you mean exactly. That first time Bella came to our house… When she’d gone, I was in a hell of a state. I finished up wishing she’d never come, that I’d never known. It was bad, I tell you.’ They both sat silent for some moments. ‘But here we are. What we’ve got to do is help each other.’

  ‘Help each other?’

  ‘You tell me your story, I tell you mine. That’s what Bella and I have been doing. It’s a start. It’s what people do – people who don’t know one another.’

  At that moment they heard the sound of a car coming down the road. They looked up and saw the hired Renault go past, Claire at the wheel, Bella next to her. Charlie and Derek were screened from the road by the foliage of the tree on which they sat. Neither of them moved.

  ‘They’re looking for you.’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Not much we can do about it.’

  ‘I didn’t mean to worry anyone.’

  ‘Do them good.’

  After a few seconds Charlie nodded and said, ‘So, you tell me your story. Right from the beginning.’

  Three-quarters of an hour later, as they drove back up the track, Claire and Bella caught sight of Derek and Charlie walking ahead of them.

  ‘Charlie!’ squealed Bella.

  ‘Oh, thank God!’ said Claire.

  At the sound of the car engine, the two men stopped and turned. The car pulled up next to them and Bella rolled the window down. ‘Where have you been? We’ve been absolutely frantic!’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Charlie. ‘I walked into the village last night and kipped in the church.’

  ‘You didn’t! Charlie!’

  ‘Don’t worry. Nobody found me. No local scandal’s about to erupt. I was walking back when I met Derek, looking for me.’

  ‘Well, I thought you might have walked into the village, but I assumed you’d asked Marianne and Pierre to put you up. We’ve just been there. We scoured the entire village! How come we didn’t meet you on the way down?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ Charlie gave a shrug. ‘I didn’t think of going to Marianne and Pierre’s. Probably just as well, given the state I was in.’

  ‘Well, quite. You look absolutely awful.’

  Charlie’s glance shifted to Claire, who was sitting silently behind the wheel. ‘Sorry,’ he murmured.

  Claire shook her head. ‘Idiot,’ she said mildly.

  ‘Come on,’ said Bella. ‘Get in. You look as though you could do with a bath and some hot coffee.’

  ‘No,’ said Charlie. ‘You go on. I’ll walk up with Derek.’

  Bella glanced at Derek. Derek smiled, and she smiled in return. Then she rolled up the window and they drove on.

  Bella didn’t get the chance to speak to Charlie alone until later that afternoon, when she found him s
itting under the bean tree with a book. Claire was sunbathing by the pool with Megan and the girls.

  Bella crossed the lawn and sat down on the grass next to Charlie’s chair.

  ‘How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Better. Fragile, though.’

  ‘You and Derek had a talk this morning, I gather? You seemed OK at lunchtime.’

  ‘Yeah. Yeah, we had a talk.’ Charlie was silent for a moment. ‘He’s a good man.’

  ‘Yes, he is. He’s very–’

  ‘Solid.’

  ‘Yes, he is. And he’s funny and nice.’

  ‘Good big-brother material.’

  ‘Right.’ Another silence fell.

  ‘It’s strange,’ said Charlie after a moment. ‘I thought learning all about these people, our parents, Len and Doreen–’ He paused. ‘Len and Doreen. God, imagine what they’d’ve called us… Anyway, I thought finding out about them would make me feel different. I think that’s what I was afraid of. That I’d turn into someone else.’

  ‘I know.’ She hesitated, then added, ‘I imagine it’s changed both of us.’

  ‘I suppose. But, I mean, I’m still essentially me.’

  ‘Oh, essentially very Charlie.’ Bella laughed.

  He leaned his head back and sighed. ‘I’ve been crucifying myself these past few months.’

  ‘I know. I’ve done a lot of soul-searching, too. No doubt a psychiatrist would say it’s all very understandable.’ She glanced up at him. ‘Does that mean you’ll try to lay off the booze?’

  ‘Oh, now, hold on a minute.’

  ‘I mean, can you try not to drink quite so much? It worries Claire. It worries me.’

  Charlie looked uncomfortable. ‘Oh, fine. I know. I know I’ve been – Well, I suppose I’ve been trying to get away from this thing, trying to block out finding out I was adopted. Alcohol seems to help.’

  ‘Does it? Well, maybe now you’re coming to terms with things, you won’t have to rely on it quite so much.’

  ‘I was talking to Derek about that, actually. He was telling me he went through a bad period around the time he got divorced. Started drinking a lot, nearly lost his business…’

  ‘He never told me.’ Bella looked somewhat piqued.

  Charlie smiled. ‘Stuff we have in common, you see. Brothers.’

  ‘Huh. Well, if he can knock it on the head, so can you. Anyway, I’m glad you’re getting to know one another. It makes me feel vindicated.’

  Charlie stretched out a hand to Bella. ‘However well I get to know him, I can never feel as close to Derek as I do to you.’

  ‘I know.’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Shared history. Being related to someone is only part of the story.’

  Charlie hesitated, then said, ‘I have an awful confession to make.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m rather glad that they – the people who had us, gave us away – aren’t around any more. I don’t think I could have–’ He stopped. ‘What I mean is, if I could bring anyone back to life, it would be Harry, not either of our real parents. Is that bad?’

  Bella’s eyes pricked with tears. ‘No, I don’t think so. It’s just the way things are.’

  ‘When I get back, I’ll go and see Mum. I haven’t been very pleasant to her of late.’

  ‘I think that’s a good idea. It’s been as bad for her as for the two of us. Three of us.’ She stood up. ‘Don’t laze around here too long. It’s your turn to make dinner tonight.’

  As they all sat around after dinner that evening, Frank pulled some leaflets from his pocket. ‘I picked these up in the village today. All about local fêtes and activities.’ He flipped through them. ‘Apparently there’s an animal fair tomorrow in Sainte Levroux. It is Sunday tomorrow, isn’t it? I lose track of time.’

  ‘It’s quite good fun, the animal fair,’ said Bella. ‘They have it every year. All the farmers from the area bring in cattle and goats and horses to be judged, and there are chicks and rabbits, things like that. The girls would like it. You would, too,’ she added, nodding at Compton-King. ‘They have a local wine-tasting, and a big communal lunch in the square, all laid out on trestle tables. Only a few francs a head. Sorry – euros. Why don’t we all go?’

  There was general agreement that it would be a novel way of passing a Sunday. Next morning at ten everyone got ready to walk down to the village, except for Bruno, who had sloped off to the orchard with some dope and his mouth organ.

  Adam came into the bedroom to pick up his watch, and found Megan lying on the bed.

  ‘Do you mind if I don’t come with you?’ she said. ‘I’m feeling really lousy. I think I may have had too much sun yesterday.’

  Adam sat down on the bed next to her. He had scarcely so much as embraced her or kissed her these past few days. They were hardly ever alone together, which was probably just as well. Something in her very attitude as she lay there seemed expressive of the distance which had grown between them lately. He was sure she was as conscious of it as he was. Maybe now was the moment to say something… then again, maybe not. ‘D’you want me to stay here with you? I’m not sure that looking at a lot of Aquitaine cattle is my idea of fun.’

  ‘No, you go. I just want to rest, honestly. Please – I don’t want to spoil your day.’

  ‘You’d hardly be doing that.’ But he rose from the bed. ‘If you’re sure you’ll be OK here on your own.’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  He bent and kissed her forehead. ‘See you later.’

  The normally quiet village was bustling with people, the main roads fenced off and the streets lined with stalls. In the square stood long trestle tables and benches in preparation for lunch, and at the far end workmen were putting the finishing touches to a wooden stage, with microphones and a sound system, in readiness for the local jazz band. A large dusty space behind the tourist office, normally used as a car park, had been turned over to livestock for the day, with a central area fenced off as a judging ring. All around stood rows of cattle, pens of goats, horses and ponies with their manes and tails specially combed and plaited for the occasion, and cages of rabbits and poultry. Adam wandered round with the others for half an hour or so, but without great enthusiasm. He’d spent the previous two days thinking about the biography, trying to work out ways of dealing with the business of Harry’s secret sex life. As he stood staring morosely at some goats a couple of ideas came to him – ideas he rather wanted to put down on paper.

  He glanced at his watch, and decided he’d had enough of the animal fair, anyway. Unlike Leanne and Emma, he could only spend so long looking at baby chicks. He caught sight of Compton-King’s unmistakable tall figure near the judging ring, and went over.

  ‘Listen, I’m going back to the house. I left Megan there – she’s rather off-colour and I feel bad about leaving her on her own.’

  ‘OK.’ Compton-King gave a nod. ‘See you later.’

  Adam walked the half-mile or so back to the house, thinking about the biography. He was at the point now where he longed to be back in London and getting on with it. He was grateful for the time and distance which this trip to France had lent him. He was able to see now that any misgivings he’d had about the family’s reactions to his revelations had been entirely misplaced. It wasn’t his business to worry about Cecile and Briony and the rest of them. Or even Bella, come to that. Harry had lived his life without scruples, and that was the way Adam had to write it. There should be no absolution for fathers who deceived, evaded responsibilities, tried to lead lives that didn’t belong to them – Harry, Len, his own father… What was it Tolstoy had said? ‘The one thing necessary in life, as in art, is to tell the truth. Truth is my hero…’ Not the easiest of principles by which to live.

  He came in view of Montresor, and tried to shake off the seriousness of his thoughts. High-minded notions apart, in purely commercial terms he was on to an absolute bloody winner with this biography. He couldn’t afford to leave anything out. He was still debating whether he was going to
use Frank’s story about the boy in India, unsubstantiated as it was, and one to which there might be many sides. Harry himself had never mentioned it, and there was nothing about it in the journal which he had kept, on and off, during his time in India. Adam had been able to track down only one of the various young women who’d formed part of Harry’s household in Simla, and she’d never mentioned any boy. She still seemed to regard Harry with devoted reverence, so maybe she wouldn’t want to remember any such incident. Still, it was worth talking to her again. And to Frank’s brother; that would have to be arranged.

  Preoccupied with these thoughts, Adam crossed the orchard and went up the stone steps to the annexe and opened the door. It was a moment of acute embarrassment, particularly for Bruno and Megan, who were entirely naked, but too strenuously and intimately involved to notice Adam’s presence immediately.