by Jane Holland
With a smile, he leads me back to the white leather couch. We lie there together, breathless and urgent now, hurriedly removing each other’s clothes, re-exploring our bodies.
So much has changed since we made love as teens. And yet so little too. His body is thicker-set than I remember, his chest hair coarser and darker. He’s no longer the lithe, slim boy who deflowered me in the attic room of my aunt’s chateau. But I’m not that inexperienced virgin anymore either. And he knows just what I like, touching me the way I told him all those years ago. He seeks out the tiny reddish birthmark hidden under my left breast, and smiles.
‘Your second heart,’ he whispers, referring to its shape.
‘I’d forgotten you calling it that. When I was little, my mum used to tell me it was an angel’s kiss.’
‘I like that. Still looks heart-shaped though.’
He kisses me there, his lips rising afterwards to suck hard on my nipple while I groan, ‘Oh God, oh God,’ under my breath.
Your second heart.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘Come away with me,’ Robin says the next morning, turning off the bike engine. It’s just after dawn, and he’s dropped me off near the imposing gated entrance to Chateau Tamsin. The streets are quiet, there’s nobody about. Like we’re the only two people awake on the Cap. ‘Just for a day or two. I know a quiet place up in the hills. We can be alone there. Properly alone.’
‘I shouldn’t leave my aunt.’
He removes his helmet and runs a hand through his ruffled hair. He’s not looking at me, but out to sea through clusters of gnarled pines along the winding roadside.
I study his profile. I keep thinking of us in bed together last night, the insatiable way we made love. Not just on the white leather couch, our bodies damp and slippery, but several more times in bed after that first rushed coupling. We barely slept, grabbing a handful of drowsy moments between bouts, overwhelmed by the sheer heat and urgency of it all.
‘Still suffering badly, is she?’
I think of Tamsin’s withdrawn expression since her other guests left, wide eyes burning in a too-pale face. I’ve seen that look before, in the faces of sick people my father has taken me to visit over the years in his capacity as vicar. People deep in the grip of some terminal disease. It’s like she’s giving up the effort not to be eaten alive by the pain of Emily’s death.
‘I need to be there for her, Robin.’
‘She has friends. Thousands of them.’
‘Fans aren’t frriends,’ I say quietly. ‘I’m family. It has to mean something. Otherwise I might as well go home straightaway.’
He turns, looking at me directly. There’s an intensity in his face that makes my body respond, still tender from our lovemaking.
‘Don’t,’ he says huskily, and reaches out to touch my cheek. ‘Don’t say that, don’t go home. You can’t. Not yet.’
‘Not yet?’
‘I’ve only just found you again. And I need you as much as your aunt does. I’m suffering too, Caitlin.’ He taps his head. ‘In here.’ Then his chest. ‘And here.’
I don’t know what to say.
His gaze locks with mine. One long finger brushes the corner of my mouth, then trails gently along my lower lip.
I shiver deliciously.
‘Robin, don’t. You know I can’t …’
‘Your aunt won’t miss you for a day or two. Tell her anything. Tell her you need a break. That you want to be alone for a while, to think things over.’
‘What things?’
‘Emily’s death. She’ll understand, trust me.’
The words are heavy with some significance that flies straight over my head. I frown, suddenly unsure what I’m missing.
‘Sorry, what do you mean by that?’
Robin pauses, then takes the spare helmet from me with a distracted look, attaching it to the back of his bike. ‘Nothing, forget I said it.’
‘Hey,’ I say, ‘don’t give me the brush-off. I’m not a stranger, we’ve just spent the night together. What did you mean?’
His jaw clenches, as though suppressing some emotion with difficulty. ‘Look, Caitlin … This isn’t easy. And I don’t want to upset you. That’s the last thing I want.’
‘I’m already upset by the thought of you hiding something from me.’ I put a hand on his arm. ‘Please, just tell me what this is all about.’
‘I don’t want you to mention it to your aunt.’
‘Of course not.’
‘Emily made me promise not to confront Tamsin over it. And I know she’s gone now, but I want to keep that promise if I possibly can.’
‘Confront her over what?’
Robin takes me by the shoulders, looking down into my face, his expression sober, watchful. ‘Are you absolutely sure you want to hear this?’
‘I won’t let you go anywhere until you’ve told me the truth,’ I say.
The truth.
The truth is, I think dizzily, I’m intoxicated by our closeness. By the rekindling of our relationship. By the recurring memory of us lying together in the warmth of the night, our naked limbs entwined, both when I was a mere girl and now, as a woman. I can still smell myself on him, the musk of recent sex. Fantastic sex too. The kind of sex that’s just the wrong side of dangerous.
He didn’t bother to shave when we got up this morning. It was only just getting light and we were both in a hurry. Consequently, his chin is already dark with stubble. It makes him look piratical. There’s a long, thin cut on his cheek too, where I must have caught him with a fingernail when we were play-fighting.
It embarrasses me to look at the cut, to recall how fierce we were with each other in bed, almost feral at times.
What must he think of me?
‘Okay, you said it yourself.’ His hands tighten on my shoulders, and my heart starts to beat faster in response. ‘Why on earth would Emily, who was such a strong swimmer, who knew the waters round the Cap better than anyone, have let herself get caught out by the currents like that … and drowned?’
‘I don’t know.’
Briefly, he closes his eyes. ‘The only possible reason is that she did it deliberately.’
I shake my head. ‘No, that’s what I thought at first. But Aunt Tamsin said she was fine. That Emily was happy, she had no reason to –’
‘Lies, all lies.’
‘But why would she lie?’
‘So she doesn’t have to face the truth.’
‘Which is?’
‘That she drove Emily to kill herself, to such an appalling level of desperation that suicide seemed the only option left to her.’
I break free and back away, shaking my head. ‘No, no.’ My eyes widen. ‘You told me she wasn’t alone that night.’
‘She wasn’t. But I’m willing to bet she drowned alone.’
‘What do you mean? Robin, you’re scaring me.’
‘I said this wouldn’t be easy to hear.’
‘Who was with Emily?’
But he merely grimaces. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. I just … She texted me. To say she was with someone. But she never said who.’
‘Did you tell the police? Show them the text?’
‘What good would it have done, except to upset your aunt further? Bad enough that it might have been suicide. Can you imagine if the papers were abuzz with the possibility that her darling girl had been murdered?’
‘You should have told them, all the same.’
‘She wasn’t murdered. I’m telling you. I can guess what her state of mind was that night, and Emily committed suicide.’
I put my hands to my head, totally thrown by what he’s saying. ‘But this is all wrong. Why would Aunt Tamsin do such a terrible thing? Why would she drive her own daughter to suicide? She loved Emily, she absolutely doted on her.’
‘That’s right, she doted on her.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t follow.’
I frown, not moving away but keeping him carefully at arms’ length.
I can feel a tidal surge of emotion inside me, telling me to trust this man, that what’s between us is real and powerful. But there’s a tiny voice of caution too, reminding me of how Tamsin refused even to hear his name spoken. Is that past feud somewhere behind his accusation?
‘Emily wanted to leave.’ He nods, seeing my disbelief. ‘She was sick of France. She wanted to go back to America with me as her manager, see if she could kickstart her career as an actress.’
I stare, shocked.
‘Only your aunt forbade it.’ His voice contracts with fury. ‘Or rather, she said if Emily went to America with me, she’d disinherit her. Throw her out of the house, cut her off without a single penny.’
‘Oh God.’
‘You know what Emily was like. Let’s face it, she’d hardly done a day’s work in her life. Almost everything she had was down to her mom’s wealth. And she loved that lifestyle. Money, beautiful clothes, fast cars, all her wealthy friends … Emily couldn’t live without that. But she couldn’t face living a lie anymore either.’
‘A lie?’
‘That she was content to be her mom’s companion. To trail around after an ageing celebrity, never famous in her own right, never a high achiever like Tamsin was in her own youth.’ Robin’s eyes are shining with unshed tears. ‘Time was ticking, you see. Emily hit thirty and … Well, she was still beautiful, everyone still loved her. But she wasn’t young anymore, and she couldn’t keep up with the other kids in the clubs. Dancing until two, three, four o’clock in the morning. Drinking and taking drugs like there was no tomorrow. She told me she knew it couldn’t last forever.’
‘What are you saying? That she chose to die young instead?’
There’s agony in his face. His mouth twists in a mimicry of a smile. ‘Die young, stay pretty. That was always her motto.’
I can’t deny it. I have heard her say it myself. All the same, it seems drastic, even for so melodramatic a soul as Emily. To take her own life just because she couldn’t twist her mother round her little finger as usual.
‘But no,’ he adds slowly, ‘that’s not the only reason why I think Emily took her own life.’
‘Go on.’
‘There are other things you don’t know. Secrets your aunt would never tell you. That she’d never tell anyone.’ His voice becomes hoarse. ‘I’m sorry, but you may find some of them difficult to hear.’
A battered white Renault van approaches along the road from Antibes, rattling and rusty with age, two men in labourers’ overalls in the front, staring at us.
Robin stiffens, turning to watch silently until the van is out of sight.
‘Well?’ I say, impatient to hear what he has to say. Even if it may upset me, perhaps turn me against Tamsin. ‘I don’t care how difficult these … secrets may be to hear. I want to know the truth.’
He looks up at the chateau. One of the windows is open on the second floor, the shutters thrown back to let in the cool dawn light.
His face seems to darken and close in on itself. Like a box folding shut.
‘Robin?’
To my bewilderment, he’s already putting his helmet back on. ‘I’ll call you,’ he says, his voice muffled as he climbs back onto the bike. ‘Soon, don’t worry. Once I’ve booked us a hotel room.’
‘What is it? What’s the matter?’
I turn and stare up at the yawning rectangle of the open window. It’s not my aunt’s room. Wrong floor. I don’t need to be a detective, in other words, to work out whose room it belongs to.
‘It’s only Lucille,’ I say dismissively. ‘She must be up early. Don’t let her scare you off.’
But he’s already kicking the bike into action, and my voice is drowned out by the roar of the engine. He looks back, makes a telephone gesture with his free hand. ‘Tomorrow, yeah?’
Then he’s gone.
When I let myself in through the back door, using the spare key I managed to wheedle out of Tamsin on my second day here, I am startled to find someone waiting for me in the dark passageway.
Lucille.
I stare at the housekeeper, who is still in slippers and dressing-gown. Her hair is collected in a ragged ponytail, as though done hurriedly on the way downstairs. Her eyes are dark but fierce, shining in a lined, sallow face as she looks me up and down.
It must be bloody obvious what I’ve been up to, I suddenly realise, heat creeping into my cheeks. My own hair is probably tousled from a night’s passion followed by the crushing effect of a bike helmet, and when I glanced briefly in Robin’s bathroom window this morning, my lips were reddened, and there was a faint bruise coming up on my throat where he’d played a little rough in the night.
‘Miss Caitlin,’ she says flatly, her ‘Miss’ coming out as ‘Meese,’ ‘where ’ave you been?’
It strikes me again that she must have been an attractive woman in her youth. She makes nothing of herself now though, her service dresses always drab and functional, falling below the knee. As though she’s given up on life these days, content merely to scuttle round after Tamsin in her fading glory.
‘So you can speak English,’ I say.
Her lips purse up, her expression disapproving. She understands me, that’s clear. But I sense her impatience as she struggles with another sentence in a foreign tongue. Then she lapses abruptly into French, telling me my aunt was up late, worrying about me.
‘You should have rung, let Madame know that you would be home late,’ she finishes, glaring at me.
She’s right, of course. I am a guest here and I’ve behaved very rudely. My father would be appalled, especially given Tamsin’s fragile state. And I want to explain, to be totally honest with both these women. Yet how can I? Admitting that I spent the night with Robin, the most hated man in my Tamsin’s universe right now, will hardly smooth things over.
Especially given whatever it was Robin wanted to tell me. Before something he saw stopped him.
Secrets your aunt would never tell you. That she’d never tell anyone.
Though perhaps it wasn’t something he saw that made him change his mind. I remember the expression on his face as he looked up at the chateau. Maybe he stopped out of pity for my aunt. Or maybe because there was nothing to tell.
That possibility makes me feel uncomfortable.
Instinctively, I want to trust Robin. I may even be falling back in love with Robin. I don’t like the idea that he could be lying about Tamsin just to score points over the poor woman. To get his own back over being banned from Emily’s funeral.
There has to be more to his accusations than some paltry act of revenge. Robin isn’t that kind of person. He never used to be, at any rate.
But maybe time changes us in more ways than physically.
‘Yes, I’m very sorry about that,’ I tell Lucille, also in French, but see she is unconvinced by my apology.
Time for a judicious fib, I decide; something to excuse my rudeness in not calling last night.
‘I was out with, erm, friends. And my phone was …’ I hesitate, not sure of the word for flat in French. Epuisé? I do not risk it but make a noose gesture instead to indicate that it was dead, adding, ‘Mort.’
Her eyes widen, and she crosses herself.
‘Mon Dieu,’ Lucille whispers, then stumbles away down the passageway. Never quite daring to turn her back on me, she vanishes into the dark.
Christ, what have I said now?
I’m not sure I even care.
I wander into the kitchen. The place is dark and stuffy, the two broad windows that overlook the formal gardens still shuttered against the morning.
I have a sudden, desperate urge for a nice cup of tea.
This is Lucille’s domain though. I dare not interfere by opening the shutters. She already seems to think I’m the devil. Instead, I turn on the overhead spotlights and start looking around for tea-making equipment.
Locating and filling the kettle is easy. The fine bone china teacup and even the teapot take only a few moments’ search. But I hav
e no idea where Lucille keeps the English breakfast teabags. Tamsin only drinks coffee these days, and the occasional herbal tea. But they must have bought some in specially for my visit, as the housekeeper has been serving me delicious pots of tea every day. So where are they?
I pull open drawers, peer inside, and rattle them shut again. Then I try the cupboards. Finally, I track down a small yellow box of teabags, still partially wrapped in see-through plastic.
Only the plastic wrapper is trapped under a metal canister, and when I yank at it, something else comes flying out of the cupboard.
A photograph.
Slowly, frowning, I put down the box of teabags and stoop to pick up the photograph.
It’s tatty, a bit dog-eared. Heavily fingered and faded over the years. A beach photograph from my summer here. A dozen or so teenagers clustered about a makeshift smoking barbecue, the water sparkling behind us, the sun high in the sky.
My hand trembles.
Looking at the photograph is like being back there, being young again. I can even vaguely remember the day it was taken.
I recognise myself easily, on the end of the front row.
And Emily, next to me.
Robin too, his arm draped round her shoulder.
All of us are in skimpy beach wear, grinning broadly into the camera, lithe and sun-tanned and carefree. The other kids are not quite so recognisable, though I remember a few of their names. Ironically, their faces are just out of focus, as they always were for us.
The three musketeers, Tamsin used to call us. We were almost inseparable that summer.
An idyllic scene on a perfect day.
Only someone has drawn three thin red biro crosses over us, one red cross per face. Like marking out a bingo card.
Full house.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Robin texts me the next day with details of our secret rendezvous. Pack light, his text reads. I’m still on the motorbike.
We can take my car, I text back.
I prefer the bike, is his reply. Faster. More intimate.
I smile, and slip the phone back into the pocket of my shorts. Am I a fool because my breath catches whenever I think of us alone together?
Perhaps.