The Forgotten Summer

by Carol Drinkwater

  After more than twenty years of marriage, Jane had grown accustomed to the separations she and Luc were obliged to endure. It was the nature of his professional life to travel, and for him to immerse himself in his projects, to dedicate himself wholeheartedly to the next film on the horizon, to raise funding single-handed. His was a small, independent business, which meant that he was his own master, but it also meant that he was the sole carrier of the can for both financial and artistic responsibilities. Despite that, they had always found ways to be together. They had squeezed in weekends, stolen days here and there, meeting where they could, and they had turned those occasions into fun and sexy trysts. Right up until the last couple of years, Luc had managed to dedicate parts of his research time as well as the periods between filming to life in London with Jane, but of late a multitude of commitments seemed to be crowding in on them. And she sensed him slowly slipping into worlds where she couldn’t reach him.

  Should she renounce her life in London, at least for the foreseeable future, to make circumstances easier for Luc? Her modest translation business was operated via her laptop. There was no requirement to meet her clients face to face. Skype or FaceTime were her boardrooms. Hers was the more flexible of their professional lives. She could base herself anywhere. After Isa’s death, a move to the South of France had been mooted, but Jane had vehemently stood her ground against it and Clarisse was now repaying her. At whatever cost, the old woman intended to entice her son back to his family home.

  Jane’s father, Peter, her only remaining blood relative, ailing and widowed, was in a home in Kent. She needed to be close to him and she wanted a married life that was not ruled by her mother-in-law. Was that so unreasonable?

  The consequence of putting her foot down was that her marriage was beginning to drift. The extended separations were becoming more frequent. Luc’s responsibilities were crowding in on him. Increasing burdens on the two shores of the Channel were alienating them.

  We do need to talk.

  Jane sat on the train, staring out at the early-November English countryside, the wet Kent afternoon, feeling miserable and sorry for herself.

  Talk about what, Luc?

  Did he judge her unnecessarily stubborn? Why hadn’t she succeeded in finding a way to make peace with Clarisse? Was Jane misguided to stand her ground against her mother-in-law? Luc held them both responsible in equal measure, or he wasn’t taking sides. But he didn’t know the whole story. She loved Luc deeply, passionately – she always had – but circumstances were driving them apart. Something had to give. Their life together couldn’t continue like this.

  6

  Whenever Jane was in England, she paid a visit to her father at least once a week. There was no consistency about it: she popped in whenever it was convenient or she felt the need to sit at his side. The staff at the care home were flexible and accommodating and it made little difference to Peter. He was no longer able to keep track of dates, times, days of the week. She had been planning to drive down the first weekend after her return, but as she sat gazing out at the increasing rain, she realized the Eurostar was pulling into Ebbsfleet. On a whim, she grabbed her case and disembarked. Ebbsfleet International Station, Kent’s rail connection to the continent, was a dreary, forlorn location battered by winds and surrounded by nothing but a vast car park, usually half empty.

  Jane rarely had cause to use this alighting point and the matter of onward transport had not crossed her mind when she leaped off the train. She enquired at the ticket desk and was informed that there was a taxi rank outside, but no taxis were available. The glum girl offered the number for a mini-cab service based in Dartford, but when Jane thought through the logistics of the rest of her day, she realized she would still need to get herself with the suitcase to London. In the deserted concourse, she found a lone car-rental company and handed over her credit card.

  The journey was swift, the motorway clear. She made the turn-off for Chislehurst and Bromley in forty minutes. Peter’s care home was in a tree-lined residential side street, Garden Park Avenue: three substantial Victorian houses had been knocked together and converted into a nursing home with in-house medical facilities for the elderly, offering specialist supervision to those with dementia. It welcomed both private and state-aided patients.

  Once the funds from the sale of Jane’s parents’ modest home had dried up, Peter’s care had switched to the state system. Jane had handled the paperwork. It had been smooth, with little fuss. Peter never knew the difference. That he hadn’t been obliged to move had eased Jane’s heartache.

  Three years off his eightieth birthday, Peter had spent the last two in this establishment. The staff came and went. Most were warm-hearted and compassionate. His Alzheimer’s had been diagnosed at an early stage so he still enjoyed a certain quality of life.

  Jane parked the car in the leafy street, ran through the rain, which had eased off to a soft, steady downpour, into the reception block where she made her arrival known. Frances, with her permed dark hair, a few grey curls, recognized her immediately. ‘You’re looking well, got yourself a good colour. Been back to France?’

  Jane nodded.

  ‘Lucky you.’

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Been as good as gold. He’s in his room. He had a little potter round the garden after his breakfast before the weather turned. After lunch, a little nap. He was asking after you this morning, wondering when you and your mother would be dropping in.’

  Frances and Jane shared a look.

  ‘I’ll go on up, then. Anything you want taken in to him?’

  Frances shook her head. ‘No thanks, love, we’ll be round with tea in a little bit. I’ll ask them to bring yours in first, if you like.’

  Upstairs, Jane knocked softly and let herself into the overly warm room. Peter was sitting on the bed, staring out of the window towards a spacious, meticulously maintained back garden. Hanging on the wall above the headboard was a painting of a small fishing boat bobbing offshore. Jane had bought it in Saint-Raphaël and given it to him one Christmas. It was one of the few possessions he hadn’t parted with when their family house had been sold and he’d moved in here. On the dressing-table across the room there were three photographs in frames: Jane’s parents on their wedding day; Jane, aged eight, with her father in France; and the last was of Luc and Jane, windblown in Positano, after their wedding.

  ‘Hello, Dad, it’s me, Janey.’

  He didn’t turn, didn’t respond. Jane thought at first that he hadn’t heard her. She closed the door gently and crept across the pale carpet to stand at his shoulder. It was then she saw that tears were rolling down his cheeks. ‘Dad? Dad, it’s Jane.’ He swivelled his head sideways and looked up into her face. There was such sadness in his startling blue eyes that it took her breath away. Jane perched on the foot of the bed with its pink eiderdown, and lifted her arms towards her father. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘What’s up? They told me downstairs you’ve been doing great.’

  ‘I’ve lost my banjo,’ he said. ‘I thought it was in the cupboard. The bass is in the car but I promised them I’d do a few numbers on the banjo. They’ve specially requested some of the old tunes.’

  ‘Dad, Dad …’

  ‘It’s a retirement party, you see. They like the classics. A bit of Formby.’

  It broke her heart to see him so frail, so confused. The weight he had lost. A slight tremor had appeared in his left hand.

  ‘Dad, we’re in Garden Park. This is where you live now. You gave me your banjo a while ago. I have it at our flat in Lady Margaret Road, remember? But if you’d like to play it again, I can bring it next time I come.’

  Peter frowned, his eyes darting to and fro as though trying to focus, tussling with memories, trying to locate, to drag the images back. He stared at her, bemused. ‘Vivienne?’

  ‘No, Dad, it’s Jane.’ She took his hands in hers and rested them on her lap, and he seemed to relax. ‘We’re in Bromley,’ she said softly, emphatically.


  ‘Jane? Janey. Where’s Luc?’ he asked eventually, the concerns over his music seemingly dissipated for the time being.

  ‘He’s in France. We’ve been harvesting grapes.’ She waited. No reaction. ‘I’ll bring him along next time he’s over. Would you like that?’

  Peter nodded and released a long sigh. A slow exhalation. She felt him surrendering, unknotting.

  ‘It’s raining so I won’t suggest we go for a walk, but I’ve got a car if you fancy a little drive. We could go to Shoreham.’ She was speaking slowly, clearly, as she had been taught to do, counselled by the staff at the home. ‘But don’t baby-talk him. Don’t interrupt him, let him find the words. Only assist him with the thought when he’s agitated and the inability to grasp it is upsetting him.’

  Peter shook his head, puzzling over what he wanted to do.

  ‘Hey, we can just stay here. Sit and chat, if you’d rather? Frances has promised they’ll bring tea soon.’

  ‘The bells are ringing for me and my gal …’ He began to hum and sing the words softly. A ditty Jane had learned from him years earlier. He often did this, broke unexpectedly into song, and it was frequently this tune he began with. Jane had no idea why he chose it – a childhood memory of his own, perhaps? – but it seemed to indicate that he was at peace again, content, his inner self operating out of a world where he could sing endlessly. Music, the composition of his own tunes, had always been his primary love.

  Jane encouraged him with the next line, The birds are singing, and they were off on one of their sessions, their riffs. Vocal jamming, he used to call it. Although Jane was a singer of little competence, she made up in enthusiasm for what she lacked in skill. She stayed with her father for another couple of hours, and for most of the time they sat on the bed hand in hand, facing the window, looking out towards the oak trees, swaying gently, like the trees in the wind, softly crooning. It was a sanctuary from the real world and calmed Jane’s troubled heart.

  Alice, the kitchen assistant with Down’s syndrome, brought the tea. She beamed at the sight of Jane. She had included a small plate of Rich Tea biscuits, so Jane and Peter paused from their singing to enjoy their snack together. Looking at her father as he dunked his biscuit in his tea, Jane could fool herself that he didn’t have a care in the world, and she was relieved, but she knew that his mood, his state of mind, could change in an instant, triggered by nothing that was apparent to her.

  She treasured those moments of affection, of proximity, of lucidity, returning to the twosome they had so frequently been when she was a girl. Daddy’s girl. Watching him now, his pupils flitting, thinking hard, running through his mental repertoire, she asked herself why it had all turned out this way. If her mother hadn’t got sick, hadn’t died … Had the loss of his wife sparked Peter’s dementia? The doctors had assured Jane that the two were quite unrelated. Still, if Jane had not forced her mother to hear the truth, to face facts, everything might have been different. Jane still felt responsible. She still harboured guilt for the damage she had caused. She recalled Clarisse’s recent allegation, that she had destroyed others’ lives. It wounded her again. But what could she do now? What could she change? It was the past. What was the sense of raking over old mistakes? It only churned up worn-out emotions.

  Saying goodbye was always distressing, particularly today when she felt so vulnerable and craved reassurance from the exuberant father who was no longer present. Au revoir, then. Leaving him in the home, in the white room that whiffed gently of a not-unpleasant room spray … In spite of the staff’s kindness, Jane always wanted to make a run for it with Peter at her side, the truant’s head buried beneath her raincoat, the pair of them giggling, just like the old days, their travelling summers, heading south into France in his car.

  Past happiness. Full of anticipation. Never growing up.

  ‘Au revoir. See you soon, Dad.’

  ‘Yes, see you tomorrow, love. Why not bring Jane? She hasn’t been to see me for a while. How is she getting on with her studies?’

  Jane pondered for a moment, hesitating to say, I am Jane, Dad, married, no longer a student, and Mum’s been dead thirty years. But he had spilled what remained of his tea, slopped the saucer, made a damp patch on his trouser leg and begun to whimper. She grabbed a flannel from the sink, helped him mop it up, took the cup from him and set it on the tray near the door, calming him as she did so. When he was quiet, she kissed the crown of his head, gave him a heartfelt hug and hurried to the stairs. She couldn’t bear to look round, to see the back of his head still with a full mop of hair, to see him staring out of the window, humming or muttering to himself. Frances would send someone to clear away the tea tray.

  What Jane wouldn’t trade for a magic flick of a switch to bring him back. Flood his brain with memories, past and recent. Even those she was secretly delighted he had forgotten? Yes, if that was the cost, yes, even those.

  One day, before long, at some point in the not too distant future, Peter wouldn’t recognize his daughter at all any more. He would no longer remember any of his past. All would be deleted, even the music. Perhaps he was the lucky one to have got off scot-free. The taxes of the mind erased. The guilt buried.

  Already he appeared to have no residual memories of Les Cigales, not a trace of the night when Jane was fourteen and her world had caved in.

  By the time Jane hit the southern edges of central London, dusk was falling and it was rush-hour. A rainy night in London. She was listening to a popular jazz album: Rainy Night in Georgia by Randy Crawford, a CD forgotten by a previous renter. The music washed her senses full of the blues. She was recalling her father as a young man, their pioneering summer together in the South of France. Crossing to the continent in search of employment was an intrepid step to take in the early seventies. Had little girl Jane understood just how desperate her father had been when he had first rung the bell at Les Cigales, all that was at stake for them? Not for the first time, she asked herself what she wouldn’t give to bring that vigorous young man back to life, to halt the sickness that was eradicating his mind.

  She was startled back to reality by the bleating of horns and the impatient jostle in the urban streets around her. London. She was home. Crossing the Thames by Battersea Bridge, nose to tail bumpers, sirens wailing, rain streaming, cabs hooting, wipers whining, red lights shining, fractured, into the overheated car. She loved its messy energy.

  Now she craved a hot bath, plenty of scented bubbles, several glasses of wine and sleep. Her own bed. Own room. Own rhythms. A text message from Luc on her phone. She glanced at it as she progressed tortuously towards the King’s Road. Hope safe arrival? Running from one meeting to next, will call later. Lx.

  After a light dinner she telephoned Luc, but his mobile was on voicemail. She left a message: “I’ve been thinking, why don’t we invite Clarisse to join us here for Christmas? Call me, love you.’ Then, on the off-chance, she rang the hotel on the Left Bank where they had spent the last couple of nights together, hoping to find him working on his laptop in the room where they had so recently made love. She was replaying in her head the intimacy of that night together, his nakedness against hers, when the receptionist returned to the phone to inform her that Monsieur Cambon had checked out that afternoon.

  She felt herself go cold. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Oui, Madame.’

  That was curious. She had understood he was staying one more night in Paris. Surely, if his plans had changed, he would have contacted her. She telephoned the main house at Les Cigales. Matty answered. ‘He’s still in Paris, Jane, back tomorrow.’

  Jane replaced the receiver, feeling edgy. Where was Luc? She poured a glass of wine and sat with a book that she didn’t read. Luc didn’t call her as his text had promised, and when she dialled his mobile again, it was still on voicemail. Where was he?

  7

  London, December, seven weeks later

  The flat exuded an air of stillness, of expectancy. Every now and again, its polished oak floors cr
eaked and shifted, as though purring with satisfaction. Jane was excited at the prospect of welcoming Luc and Walnut home after such a long separation. The neutral-carpeted stairway, the upstairs landing and bedrooms were perfumed with lavender pot-pourri. In the downstairs open-plan living areas, a mix of dried flowers, orange peel and cinnamon laid out in blue-and-white Chinese porcelain bowls emitted a spicy, woody scent, a satisfying Christmassy aroma. The ground floor was illuminated with candles. Four antique silver candlesticks – a wedding present, a Cambon family heirloom from Isabelle – were blazing on the dining-table while a spangled array of lights flickered and winked on the tall, blue-pine Christmas tree in the sitting room.

  Exhausted by all her preparations, the anticipation and the couple of glasses of wine she had enjoyed while decorating the tree, Jane was curled up in a chair by the fire, the second half of the bottle of white Sancerre growing warm on the mahogany table at her side. She had fallen asleep waiting for the arrival of Luc, who was due in off the last Eurotunnel Shuttle. He had called her before he set off from Les Cigales, then a few hours later from the motorway, during a coffee-and-sandwich stop, north of Beaune.

  ‘Are you on your own? I made up the spare room.’

  ‘I’m alone.’

  ‘No Clarisse, then?’ Jane fought to conceal her relief. Since her invitation, she had been growing edgy at the prospect of her mother-in-law arriving, like royalty, for her first stay with them in England.

  ‘She wouldn’t come. I’m not sure which of you is the more stubborn.’ He didn’t elaborate.

  South of Beaune in the Massif Central, he had skidded to a standstill, gridlocked by a tailback of holiday traffic on a fog-bound highway buried beneath heavy snow. Wipers slapping against minimal visibility.

  ‘Christmas weather, clogged-up roads, it makes for slow-going.’ His voice sounded flat, weary, as she listened to his update. He pushes himself too hard, she had observed silently. Luc never let up and the progress on the new film seemed to be consuming his every waking hour. That, and his mother’s ceaseless demands. Jane hadn’t seen him since their brief sojourn in Paris. Even their phone conversations, when she had managed to reach him, had been strained, as though his mind was everywhere but with her.