by Jane Holland
‘The doctors say it’s terminal,’ I admit as he reaches me.
‘I’m sorry to hear that.’
I nod, still not very comfortable discussing it in public. I wait until he’s closer before adding in a low voice, ‘That’s why I need to go home again soon. Why I can’t stay in France.’
‘Of course.’
He’s so close now, my heart starts to speed up again. Like my whole body is responding to his presence. Fuck or flight, I think wryly.
Robin studies me intently, as though aware of my weakness. Then he slides a warm finger up my arm, my neck, my cheek. My heart accelerates under the light contact.
‘To be honest,’ he says, ‘I’m surprised you’re still here.’
Does he disapprove?
‘I spoke to my father before leaving the Cap yesterday. He’s not doing as well as we’d hoped. I offered to fly straight back. But he said no. He says he doesn’t need me, that he’s got friends coming to visit. Playing the independent card, you know?’
He nods, watching me.
‘I don’t think Dad likes me following him around all the time anyway,’ I add, unhappy with the idea that Robin may think I’ve deserted my sick father. It’s not like that at all. Or at least, I hope not. ‘It makes him feel like I’m babysitting him, or something.’
‘I get that.’
He moves closer, his eyes gleaming in the shadow of his hat. I feel again the odd jangle of alarm inside that sometimes goes off when we’re together. But I continue to suppress it, letting the rush of sexual intensity fill me instead.
My mouth is dry. ‘You’re right though. I can’t stay here forever. I’ll have to make arrangements to fly back soon.’
‘How soon?’
I touch his chest. My hand splays out on the thin white cotton T-shirt, and I feel the rapid tattoo of his heart beneath my fingers.
‘Three days. Maybe four.’
His eyes widen. There’s a fine ridge of perspiration on his forehead under the brim of the trilby.
‘Shit, I thought …’
‘What?’
‘That we’d have longer together. Not just a couple of nights.’
‘Perhaps you could stay with me at the chateau when we get bac. Just for that last night before I fly home.’
‘Tante Tamsin would never allow it.’
‘But why?’
‘It’s not important. Forget it.’
‘How can I?’ My smile is lopsided, hurting me inside. ‘That’s like asking me to forget you. To forget this.’
I steady myself against his shoulders, then stand on tiptoe to kiss him. He seems surprised, then begins to kiss me back. His tongue slips between my lips, probing and teasing.
Our bodies touch, warm and intimate, our faces hidden in the shade of our hats. For a few drugged moments the sounds of the town below us recede. I’m back in the strange hush of my last night at the chateau, kissing him properly for the first time. His arms come round me urgently, cradling my hot back, slipping down my spine to my buttocks, sliding over the tiny silver shorts I’m wearing.
It’s like we’ve never been apart, never grown up …
‘Darling, listen …’ I pull back slightly, my voice throaty, breathless from our kisses. ‘Let me talk to Aunt Tamsin on your behalf. I can tell her we’ve been seeing each other. She’ll understand once I explain how you’ve changed. That whatever you did to upset her –’
‘I told you, no.’
He pushes me away so hard, I stumble backwards, colliding with one of the rough white stone walls that punctuate Les Baux at every turn.
What the hell?
I can’t see his face anymore. It’s hidden under the shady hat brim. I stare, momentarily speechless.
‘Just leave it, would you?’ he snarls.
‘Robin? Why on earth did you do that? Come on, this is ridiculous.’ He starts walking away and I straighten, staring after him. ‘Hey, where are you going?’
But Robin pays no attention, rounding a corner ahead to leave me alone on the rocky, sun-baked path.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
To my relief nobody at the museum turnstile seems to have noticed our little altercation. I can’t help feeling humiliated though. Angry too. Who the hell does he think he is, treating me like this?
Flushed and breathing hard, I stumble up the slope after him.
‘Robin?’
My voice is high, stressed.
I round the corner.
The next street is empty. Not even a street, really. It’s more like a dusty, overgrown track, leading further uphill on one side, and branching off into a small, dusty cemetery on the other. I stop at the entrance and scan the cemetery for signs of movement. I can’t see Robin. I can’t see anyone, in fact. The stillness up here is eerie, broken only by the constant, rhythmic chirruping of cicadas. But then the whole place looks ancient and deserted. Some of the gravestones look so old and weathered, they must have been here for centuries …
Robin can’t have headed up the path towards the old city. Not so quickly. He would still be in sight. Which means he must have turned off into the old cemetery.
I hesitate in the narrow gateway, unsure of the etiquette here. There is nobody in sight to ask though. The cemetery is set on the very edge of the old fortifications, overlooking a vast rocky bluff and the impressive valley the guide book refers to as the Val d’Enfer.
The Valley of Hell.
Pleasant name, I think drily, looking about the place. Low, gnarled olive trees shield the older headstones from the sun, the occasional sombre height of a cypress piercing an intense blue sky. I wander through the gravestones and tombs, looking down at names and dates, and the occasional withered wreath of flowers, and can’t help thinking of Emily’s grave, miles away on the azure coast.
My fury at his behaviour slowly gives way to sorrow. It’s as though the graves here have put our petty squabbling into perspective.
Why didn’t I keep in closer touch with Emily? Why did I have to discover about her unhappiness only after she’d died?
‘Robin?’
I keep remembering Tamsin’s face when I first arrived at the chateau, her terrible fragility. The way she has consistently sidestepped all discussion of her daughter’s death. There’s more to all this than anyone is telling me. I know it, but I can’t prove it, and my suspicions are driving me mad.
The thought of being lied to about Emily’s death makes me furious again.
‘Robin?’ I raise my voice, turning on my heel to survey the cemetery. Dusty white gravel grates underfoot, loud in the silence. ‘Robin?’
No response.
I look round, hoping for a glimpse of a tall, dark figure in a trilby. But my eye is drawn instead to some graffiti on one of the rough stone walls. It’s an ironic scrawl in red spray-paint, all capital letters: LE VILLAGE DES MORTS.
The village of the dead.
I make a face, turning away. Pretty creepy. And it doesn’t help that my pulse is racing. It has to be this incredible heat, coupled with the steep ascent from the town below. All the same, I stop shouting for Robin and pick my way along the edge of the graveyard in silence, stupidly unnerved by the emptiness, the gravestones, the unsettling graffiti. Then I force myself to move a little further into the cemetery, taking refuge under the shade of a stately cypress.
From behind one of the crumbling walls that separate some plots from others, I catch a sudden flicker of movement. Someone is standing there, I realise with a shock. Watching me?
Something hooks onto my subconscious and refuses to let go.
I can’t remain silent any longer. ‘Who’s there?’
I stumble backwards, losing my footing on a grassy plot, and scramble upright again in an ungainly fashion, my chest tight. My panting breaths sound suddenly loud in the silence.
I feel like an intruder on sacred ground. I shouldn’t be here, in this private place, this place of grief, the village of the dead. Some premonition, some dreadful fear of the u
nknown, perhaps even of the supernatural, has taken hold of me.
What am I afraid of?
I know it’s got to be Robin behind that wall, his dark gaze watching me, angry with me over something I still don’t quite understand.
Then the watcher moves, coming slowly free of the wall’s shadow, and I stare, realising with a shock that it’s not Robin, after all.
It’s a woman dressed in black, about my age, looking straight at me …
Our eyes meet.
I sag in ridiculous relief, my heart thudding violently.
It’s not her. It’s not Emily.
I’m shocked by the vehemence of my response. Was that really what I was thinking? That Emily has risen from the dead and is haunting me? Or that she never died at all, that we buried someone else in her grave – or an empty coffin filled with stones – and this was her coming back to tell me it had all been a mistake, or perhaps even some elaborate deception.
The woman is swarthy and heavy-set. Nothing like my cousin. She flicks back lank, shoulder-length black hair and smiles at me, displaying two gaps in a crooked front row of teeth.
She’s carrying a small spray of white flowers that, as I watch, she places with awkward reverence on top of one of the more modern-looking plots. There are already several wilted floral tributes leaning against the headstone, which features a framed photograph of an elderly woman, uncannily similar to the woman herself, protected with a transparent plastic cover against the rain. Her grandmother, almost certainly.
And here I am, a stranger intruding on her grief.
I smile back as she straightens, and hurry away, head down, watching my step this time. I’m so hot, my forehead is damp with perspiration, and I feel unsteady on my feet.
Someone grabs me and I stop, nearly colliding with Robin on the narrow gravelly path out of the cemetery.
‘Where the hell did you go?’ Robin demands, staring down at me.
I’m relieved to see him. I can’t hide it. But there’s something so aggressive about the way he’s speaking to me, an impression of barely suppressed violence behind the words, that my relief fades, quickly replaced by a wave of anger.
‘I could ask the same of you,’ I say pointedly, not without justification. My breathing quickens, my heart begins to thud again, loud in my ears. The surge of anger surprises me. ‘You walked away from me, remember? One minute you were there, talking to me, and the next … You just disappeared. I had no bloody idea where you’d gone.’
‘So you came in here?’ Robin looks around the cemetery, his brows raised. He’s not so aggressive now, but there’s still a prickling edge to his voice. ‘I’m not dead, in case you hadn’t noticed.’
‘Hey, don’t try to make me the one at fault here. I was looking for you.’ I wipe a hand across my damp forehead, so hot I’m getting lightheaded. ‘What on earth happened back there?’
Robin opens his mouth to reply, perhaps equally sharply. Then he hesitates. His gaze searches my face. I get the feeling he’s trying to assess my mood.
‘Yes, I’m sorry about that,’ he says slowly. ‘It was the mention of Tante Tamsin. Just hearing her name …’
There’s genuine hurt in his eyes, I realise with a start. Hurt and the wrench of disillusion. He thought better of me, and I betrayed his trust. My fault, of course. Suggesting he could make up with Tamsin with such ease was insensitive in the extreme. Whatever happened to drive them apart, it’s clear that a few words and a handshake will never be enough to heal their wounds.
My anger dissipates as rapidly as it arose. I feel awful, my stomach in anguish twisting at the basic unfairness of the world.
Robin’s been shut out from my family since Emily’s death, his close relationship with her ignored by everyone, his grief denied even the outlet of attending her funeral. Small wonder he’s got a hair-trigger temper where Tamsin’s concerned. That fury I saw in him out there on the street wasn’t aimed at me, I ought to have realised that. Instead I was just focused on myself as usual, on my own selfish feelings and expectations.
But who is his anger aimed at? That’s the question. I remember him as a kid. What turned the mellow, easy-going, Californian boy I knew into this seething mass of resentment?
‘I wish you’d tell me what happened between you two,’ I say.
‘I told you before, you’ve got to trust me.’
‘But why? What’s the big secret?’ I am frustrated and can’t hide it. He’s hurt and I want to help, only he won’t let me. What kind of love is that? ‘Aunt Tamsin won’t talk about it, you won’t talk about it … What am I supposed to think?’
‘Caitlin,’ he says sharply, then stops.
The woman in black walks past with a heavy tread, a scarf drawn over her head now. She nods at me, smiling with her gappy teeth again, and then steals a quick look at Robin.
He ignores the woman completely, his head turned away.
When she’s gone, and the cemetery is silent again, Robin looks round at me directly. ‘I’ve had enough of this. Will you do me a favour?’
‘Of course. What is it?’
His face is wry. ‘So eager to say yes, without even knowing what it is I want.’
‘Just tell me, for God’s sake.’
‘Okay.’ He pauses, his gaze intent on my face. ‘When you get back to the chateau after this trip, take a look at your old diary.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
‘My old diary?’
I did keep a diary while I was in France that summer, an occasional journal crammed with thoughts and fears and secret desires in my untidy scrawl. And yes, I left it behind by accident. But I haven’t thought about the diary for years, and I certainly never mentioned it to Robin. Not to anyone, in fact.
He nods calmly. ‘You left your diary behind that summer, didn’t you? Forgot to take it back to England with you.’
I stare, not sure how to respond.
His brows are still raised. ‘Caitlin?’
‘I don’t understand …’
‘How I can possibly know about your diary?’
I nod mutely.
His smile is crooked. ‘How’s that for fucking ironic? Emily said more or less the same thing when I discussed it with her. She didn’t think I knew you’d kept a diary either.’
‘Emily?’
Now I’m even more perplexed. Emily did not know about my diary. Or did she? My head struggles with what he’s telling me, trying to make the pieces fit. Perhaps I did mention it to her. And there’s a vague possibility I mentioned leaving it behind in one of my letters to her, though likes the ones I sent to Robin, they all went unanswered. All the same, I’m uneasy. The thoughts and feelings I noted down in that diary were deeply personal, and as such, potentially embarrassing. I was only a kid, after all, and the maelstrom of emotion I was experiencing then sometimes felt like the end of the world.
I never showed my diary to Emily, I’m sure of it, or told her about it while I was at the chateau. That’s a conversation I would have remembered.
But perhaps I mentioned it to her in a letter sometime afterwards. I do remember it weighing heavily on my mind that I left my diary behind, packing in such a blind panic that last morning, my thoughts scrambled and uncertain. And maybe Emily then went hunting for the bloody thing, found it hidden under the loose floorboard in my attic room, and deciphered my handwriting. If she also somehow managed to decipher my occasional ‘codes’ – designed to protect my most private thoughts from prying eyes – how she must have gloated over my teenage angst.
Maybe she even showed my diary to Robin. He does seem to know all about it …
Oh, it’s too awful to contemplate.
My cheeks are flushed, and not simply with the heat. ‘Let’s get moving, shall we?’
I walk away, heading up towards the ancient city without waiting for him. For a moment, I suspect he will just leave. But when I look back, he’s following me, head down, his face shuttered, averted.
Is he offended by the abrupt
way I spoke to him?
I would be.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I say quickly over my shoulder, afraid that I will lose him again if I can’t control my impulses, ‘but it’s too hot to stand about in the sun, talking.’
‘Of course.’
He catches up with me, the sun full on his face. There’s a deep honeyed sheen to his skin, the effect of years of living in sunny places. No wonder he passes so easily for a native, with his Gallic looks and his immaculate command of French. But his mother was French, as I recall. That was why they kept a villa on the Cap all those years, why his father retired out here. Not that I ever saw much of her that summer. She was often away somewhere else in France. Visiting relatives, I think my aunt said. No doubt that suited Tamsin and David, able to carry on with their less-than-clandestine affair without interference.
‘Hey, baby.’ Robin reaches for my hand.
I do not try to pull away. What would be the point?
‘Sorry,’ he adds softly.
‘What for?’
‘Treading on your toes back there.’ He smiles into my eyes. ‘The diary. I know how you English like to keep your secrets close.’
‘Do we?’
He throws back his head and laughs. ‘Shit, yeah.’
Our warm fingers interlace. Some tiny sense of trust is returning.
But I don’t reply.
We walk side by side until we reach a shaded area under a high wall. The ground is gradually beginning to flatten out into a plateau. I can see the ruined chateau ahead, or what’s left of it. High stone walls built up out of the cliff, broken fragments of towers and ancient look-outs, crazy segments of stairways appearing out of nowhere and leading to thin air. There are few people in sight, only a clutch of lone tourists, clambering over the dusty ruins in shorts and sandals. To my surprise, the plateau is peaceful and still after the windy, funnel-like streets of the town. Almost too still. And everything looks unnaturally white up here, as though the sun beating down on this arid ground, day after day, century after century, has bleached all the colour out of the world.