by Jane Holland
‘I couldn’t tell her. You know that. Not now, not after Emily …’ He sounds weary. ‘Anymore than I could make the funeral.’
‘It’s okay, I know.’
He’s too ill to travel such a long distance, of course. His doctors had absolutely forbidden it when he raised the idea. And he’s probably right. Aunt Tamsin has enough to deal with right now. The emotional overload of learning that her brother is dying would be too much. Better to let her think he’s just an insensitive idiot, and break the bad news later …
‘Can we talk tomorrow?’ Dad asks suddenly. ‘I’m waiting on a phone call.’
‘Everything okay?’
‘Yeah, I just … Need to see the doctor again. Nothing to worry about. Meds running low, that’s all.’ He starts to cough, and I wait until he’s finished. It takes longer than usual, which worries me. ‘I saw on the news that they’re calling Emily’s death an accident. Do you think that’s the truth?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, keep me posted. You’re my eyes and ears there. I want all the gossip.’
‘Sure.’ I try to keep my tone light. He hates me nagging. ‘Let me know at once if you need me to come home. And don’t forget to take your pills.’
‘I’m surprised you can’t hear me rattling, I’ve taken so many of the bloody things.’ He laughs, and promptly goes back into a coughing fit. ‘Later, okay?’
‘Look after yourself, Dad.’
I ring off, and throw the phone onto the bed, staring into the shadows. Beads of sweat have started to roll down my back under my T-shirt, it’s so stuffy in here with the shutters closed. I’m not used to this heat. Perhaps I should go for a swim in the pool.
They’re calling Emily’s death an accident.
I keep coming back to Emily’s death like an obstacle in the road, forced to negotiate it afresh every time, as though I’ve forgotten and have to convince myself all over again that she’s dead. That I’ll never see my glamorous cousin again. Literally, indeed, as Aunt Tamsin has chosen – to my secret relief – a closed casket for her daughter. I’ve never seen a dead body before, and how she died would have made it especially hard.
I wrestle with the creaking window shutters and blink at the dazzling abruptness of light as they fold back. Once each shutter is latched securely into place, I unlock and open the floor-length double windows, and step out onto the crumbling balcony for old times’ sake, even though I hate heights.
It’s not a proper balcony, of course. Not like the ones on the floors below. The attic balconies are just a narrow strip of stone topped with a rusty handrail. We were warned not to use them as kids, that they weren’t strong enough to bear our weight. But we could never resist the lure.
The view is magnificent. Exactly as I remember.
Blue skies, blue sea, white sails, darkly wooded hillsides shimmering in the near-distance, the swarthy, spiked green tops of my aunt’s pines reaching to just below the attics. The outside swimming pool is almost out of sight here, though I can see the far end, and recall the blue mosaic of the pool walls and floor, glinting in sunlight. I can smell fragrant bougainvillea adorning the outside of the chateau below me, and deep hedges of lavender along the gravelled paths below.
The rich scents of my aunt’s garden take me straight back to the long, hot summer I spent here as a teenager. Strange how a smell can be every bit as potent as a photograph. More so, perhaps.
Before I left the chateau on that last day, I stopped outside the guest bathroom on the floor below, almost too terrified to open the door again. I did though, peering inside the room with trepidation. To my surprise, the bathroom was as pristine as ever, immaculate white towels hanging over the radiator, the white interior of the bath spotless. Gold taps and marbled floor gleaming, and everywhere a scent of lavender bath salts. No sign that anything had ever happened in there beyond the taking of a luxurious bath.
There’s a rustling in the gardens below.
Jacques, perhaps?
I try to look down, which is a mistake. The attics are very high up and my head spins, a sudden attack of vertigo.
Leaning heavily on the handrail, I gasp, struggling to regain control. The whole structure shudders under my weight, and a handful of plaster drops to the floor as the handrail shifts in its wall fitting, perhaps working loose.
‘Shit.’
Stepping backwards, I catch a flash of light from below, among the clustered pines. It’s only a brief impression, and is gone before I can properly register it.
Something reflective moving quickly …
Sunlight flashing on a pair of binoculars? Or maybe a camera lens. Has one of the paparazzi managed to invade the grounds of Chateau Tamsin?
I peer cautiously over the handrail again, but can see no one at the base of the pine trees below. The ground is rough and sloping, covered with pine needles, and most of the windows on this side of the chateau are kept shuttered against the afternoon sun. An intrusive journalist, trying to grab a shot of the grieving actress, would be staking out the front of the chateau, not the back. Not that many people would be able to make it through the increased security on the gate, surely?
I decide to mention the glint of light to Lucille when I next see her. Then I put it out of my mind, and head back into my attic bedroom to unpack. If any paps out there were after an intimate photo of the famous Tamsin, they must have been disappointed to find me on the balcony instead.
CHAPTER FOUR
I swim twenty laps of the pool before supper, which would have been impressive if the swimming pool at Chateau Tamsin was not so small. But given the lack of aircon in my room, even that quick dip refreshes me. I find it rather idyllic, in fact, lying on my back in the cool water to catch my breath after swimming, and staring up at a perfect blue sky.
Just like the old days.
My first dinner back at the chateau is a strangely muted affair, nothing like the vast, elegant meals I remember from my last summer here. A whole crowd of us used to gather for dinner in my aunt’s gold-and-white dining room, and were served sumptuous, five-course meals by candlelight, accompanied by wine and music. There was always laughter. Sometimes there was dancing on the tables too. Some evenings the partying went on long into the night, ending at five or six o’clock in the morning, people stumbling away in tuxedos and creased party frocks, looking weary and dishevelled.
Tamsin had other staff though, of course. People to wait on, people to polish the floors and dust the furniture, people to answer the phone and deal with correspondence.
Now she just has Lucille. And the mysterious Jacques.
Tonight, we eat alone in the dimly-lit breakfast room at a pine table laid for two. No hors d’oeuvres, no ceremony, no attempt at grandeur, not even the dignity of a tablecloth.
Lucille does not appear at any point, so presumably she has laid out our supper, then slipped away for an early night or perhaps to make preparations of her own for the funeral.
I wonder how Lucille manages this huge place on her own, if indeed she does, now that she must be pushing fifty. But there’s a generous plate of cold meats and sliced sausage on the table, as promised, a large bowl of green salad, and a dish of tomatoes dressed with herbs and vinaigrette.
Despite her reduced circumstances, Aunt Tamsin comes down to dinner in her customary splendour.
She’s dressed as though for a major film premiere, in a trailing floor-length golden gown. Her hair is coiled on the back of her head and secured in a matching golden net. Her lips are bold scarlet, her dramatic eyes heavily dusted with gold and ochre, each lash coated in black mascara.
I feel distinctly underdressed.
‘Have any other guests arrived yet?’ I ask, a little bewildered.
‘Not yet.’ Aunt Tamsin smiles. ‘It’s just you and me tonight …’ She hesitates, then says my name dubiously, as though checking she’s remembered it correctly, ‘Caitlin.’
‘Lovely.’
We sit opposite each other, the c
hair legs scraping on the tiled floor in the silence.
I watch as she pours herself a large glass of wine. ‘Well, this looks delicious,’ she says, studying the table with little sign of appetite, then helps herself to a few handfuls of salad and one meagre slice of pork. ‘Wine?’
It’s a pichet of a rough local red, but I accept a glass politely. To keep her company. She drains her wine with every sign of appreciation, as though it’s the finest Burgundy, and pours herself another glass while I am still sipping my first, trying to deal with the taste of chalk.
I suppose it has been a long time since Tamsin’s last really successful film.
Ten years?
I consider telling her what I saw in the grounds. The odd flash of light that could have been one of the paparazzi, already staking out the chateau in advance of the funeral. But the last thing I want is to alarm her. Poor woman, she must be suffering dreadfully.
‘This chicken is good,’ she says vaguely.
‘I think it’s pork.’
‘Oh.’ She looks surprised, then shrugs. ‘It tastes like chicken.’ She frowns. ‘I think.’
‘I was sorry to hear about Robin’s father. I know you two were … good friends.’
‘David, yes.’ Her kohl-outlined eyes are sad. ‘He died a few years ago.’ She stops, staring at me across the table. ‘Did I already tell you that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good, I wasn’t sure.’
‘It’s very sad,’ I say gently. ‘He can’t have been that old.’
She picks up her glass and takes several deep swallows, as though it’s water. ‘I don’t like to talk about it.’ Again, she offers me the pichet of wine, and again I shake my head, so she tops up her own glass.
‘You didn’t say if Robin is coming to the funeral,’ I continue.
‘Robin isn’t welcome here.’ She puts down the pichet abruptly. ‘I told you, I don’t like to talk about it. About him.’
I sit in silence, stunned by the anger in her voice. I don’t know what to say. She always liked Robin, found him charming as a teenager. From the way she just spoke, it’s almost as if she blames him for his father’s death. Which is beyond ridiculous. Robin and his dad got on reasonably well, as I recall. But a short temper is one of the signs of dementia. Perhaps that’s all this is.
With one of those sudden shifts in mood for which she is famous, Tamsin achieves a beatific smile, almost apologetic. ‘Let’s talk about you instead, Caitlin. That’s far more interesting.’ She watches me lift a slice of herb-smothered tomato, dripping olive oil, onto my plate. ‘Let’s see, how long has it been since you were last here?’
‘Fourteen years.’
‘Is it that long? Good God,’ she says blankly, then shakes her head. Her diamond earrings sway, catching the light. ‘I ought to have invited you and my brother out here before now, but … Well, it never seemed like the right time.’
I want to ask why she and my father argued, all those years ago, to understand the reason for the rift between them, but decide against it. Aunt Tamsin seems so fragile tonight. And if my father never mentions it, why would she?
She manages a smile for me. ‘You look well though. You’ve blossomed since you were a teenager. Do you have a boyfriend?’
I think of Madern. My boss, essentially, and the last man I went to bed with. It ended rather a long time ago, through mutual apathy.
‘I suppose so, but it’s very off-and-on.’
‘True love often is, darling.’
I try to envisage the academic, slightly distracted Madern as my ‘true love,’ and have to suppress a smile. The closest he came to such lofty sentiments was when he quoted from Arthurian poetry, and that’s only because we shared an interest in that dark era of British legend. But perhaps my ‘true love’ is still out there somewhere, and has spoilt me for all other men.
‘What does this boyfriend do?’ she asks, no doubt seeing my smile and misinterpreting it.
‘He doubles up, like most people in Cornwall. Bookseller and tour guide. An Arthurian specialist, like me. In fact, he’s my boss.’
‘Your boss?’ She frowns. ‘So you sell books too?’
‘I do work in the book shop sometimes,’ I say, ‘but mostly I run guided tours around the Cornish coast. Sites with Arthurian links.’
‘Oh,’ she says faintly, looking confused.
Uncomfortable, I decide to shift her off the topic. This is probably too much new information for her to remember, given her condition. Though she seems remarkably lucid at the moment.
‘Aunt Tamsin,’ I begin hesitantly, ‘I’m sorry to bring this up, but I don’t know exactly what happened to Emily. That is, the newspapers say she drowned. But not the circumstances.’
Suddenly her face is like stone. I worry I’ve said something appalling. That I’ve crossed some invisible line between us.
Then she draws a quick breath, blinking, and reaches for her wine again. ‘Of course, of course. It’s only natural …’ Tamsin holds the glass to her lips. Her hand trembles slightly, then she puts the glass down without drinking. ‘I don’t remember exactly but … The police came to the house very early in the morning. They told me some local fishermen had found Emily’s body in the water.’ She stumbles over the words, staring down at her plate. ‘It was such a shock. I didn’t even know she’d left the house. She must have gone down to the beach for a midnight swim, that’s what the gendarmes said. And … got into difficulties.’
‘Because she’d been drinking?’ When she lifts her head, staring at me, I add hurriedly, ‘That’s what the newspaper report said. And Emily was a good swimmer, after all. She grew up swimming these waters. She must have known the currents around the Cap as well as anyone.’
‘Emily was an excellent swimmer,’ Tamsin agrees huskily. ‘Always in the water as a child, day and night. Petit poisson, Lucille used to call her.’ She shrugs helplessly. ‘It’s possible Emily was drinking that night. I really don’t know. But if the medical report said so …’
‘It’s fine, please don’t worry.’
‘I find it so hard to remember things these days.’ She bites her lip. ‘Details. It’s always the details I forget. I can’t learn lines anymore. That’s why I don’t act these days. Did you know that? Did I tell you?’ Tamsin sighs. ‘I used to learn lines so easily. Now I forget everything. It’s like having a big hole in my head where all the lines, all the details, just drain away to nothing.’
There’s a long silence.
I push away my plate, my appetite non-existent. ‘I can’t believe she’s gone.’
‘Oh, my darling.’ She pats my hand, her eyes full of tears, but clearly can’t say anymore. ‘Petit poisson,’ she repeats, staring at her wine glass. ‘Little fish, little fish.’
After we have cleared away our plates to an empty kitchen, Aunt Tamsin stumbles back upstairs in her trailing golden gown, taking the last of the wine with her.
‘Sorry to desert you so early,’ she says wearily over her shoulder. ‘But I’m so tired, and I still have a thousand things to do before bed. I’ll see you in the morning.’
‘Of course.’
‘Good night, erm …’
‘Caitlin,’ I remind her, and see a flash of impatience in her eyes.
‘I know who you are, you don’t need to treat me like an idiot,’ she says with a snap, then seems to catch herself, adding more graciously, ‘Good night, Caitlin.’
Not yet ready for sleep myself, I slip away to the dark veranda once she has vanished and take out my phone. After a moment’s restless thumbing through old messages, I give in to temptation and text Robin.
I’m at the chateau. Where are you?
There’s no point pretending I don’t want to ring Robin, to hear his voice again. I want to ask why on earth Aunt Tamsin seems to hate him now. But I’m wary too.
His unexpected message on Facebook after Emily’s death was the first contact between us since that summer I spent here as a teenager. His profile pictu
re showed a handsome face, barely changed since his youth, albeit partly hidden under the brim of a hat.
I’d studied his Facebook photo at length, excited and frustrated at the same time. I’ve changed since he knew me; put on a little extra weight, my skin no longer as dewy and elastic. By contrast, Robin looked almost exactly as I remembered him, unless the photograph on Facebook was taken many years ago. Though plenty of my other friends do that too, most out of vanity. Nobody wants to admit they’ve aged …
I gaze out across the bay.
My aunt and I ate early, and dusk has only just fallen, the sky streaked reddish-orange over the darkening swell of the Mediterranean. The moon won’t be out for ages yet.
I’d forgotten how quiet the Cap can be in the evenings. I can see the pine trees from here, and smell many unseen flowers below me in the darkness. I listen for the gentle lapping of the Mediterranean against the rocks below, and think unwillingly of Emily. Midnight swims were de rigueur during my stay at the chateau, of course. A delicious way to cool ourselves down when the heat grew too much even for us, human salamanders that we were, always on the beach, always lying about in the sun.
I try not to imagine Emily’s final swim. It’s too horrible and gruesome. Nonetheless, I can’t help but see her in my mind’s eye, turning onto her back in the moonlight, maybe a little drunk. Then getting into trouble, struggling against the strong currents, drifting further and further away from the winking lights of the Cap …
The phone buzzes in my pocket.
I take it out.
Robin has sent a reply, his message lit up on the screen.
Juan-Les-Pins. The Pam Pam. Care to join me?
CHAPTER FIVE
About an hour later, once I’ve had a chance to freshen up and change my clothes, the cab driver drops me off a few hundred yards from The Pam Pam. I could have driven down in my flash BMW, of course. Made a few heads turn. But I’ve been drinking already, and fully intend to drink more.
Besides, there’s never anywhere to park in Juan-Les-Pins at this time of night.
The Pam-Pam is one of the most famous and iconic café-bars on the Côte d’Azur, and the place is packed. The driver is North African, wearing a white robe with intricate gold embroidery, all the cab windows wide open. He can’t stop right outside the bar, because of the crush of traffic, but draws up instead further along, at a junction with another narrow street. He pulls in close to the kerb, but can’t park. The pavement is crowded with outdoor seating and large ornamental shrubs in wooden planters, like so many of the streets in central Juan-Les-Pins.