The Forgotten Summer

by Carol Drinkwater

  ‘If I put my foot down and the motorway clears, I might just manage the last Shuttle,’ he had told her. ‘If not, I’ll check into a B-and-B somewhere in Calais and board the first one in the morning.’

  She glanced at her watch. It was not yet three p.m. ‘But, Luc, unless you get really snarled up, you’ll easily make the last Shuttle.’

  ‘I have one more brief stop to make outside Paris.’

  ‘Oh, really, what for?’

  There was a moment’s silence. ‘Some paperwork, research material to deliver.’

  ‘Couldn’t you have emailed it across?’

  Pause.

  ‘Luc?’

  ‘It won’t take long.’

  ‘Luc, it’s Christmas and I’m longing to see you. It’s been too long.’

  Silence, save for the long-distance whine of transport and the hooting of horns.

  She bit her tongue. ‘I promised Dad we’d drive down and pick him up around midday tomorrow. We’re taking him out for lunch at the what’s-it-called in Halstead, remember?’

  ‘I’m doing my best, chérie. I am not trying to avoid being with you.’

  Travel delays could mean that Luc would be approaching the outskirts of Paris and its challenging périphérique at rush-hour. Rush-hour the night before Christmas Eve. Why did he put himself through so much stress? If only she could understand what was pushing him so relentlessly.

  ‘I know.’ She sighed. ‘Let me know how you get on.’ She was attempting to conceal her disappointment. ‘Get here safely, that’s the main thing. Don’t drive too fast. I love you.’

  He always did drive too fast, speeding from A to B, hurtling along country lanes.

  ‘The first Shuttle out seems the most likely scenario. Either way, I’ll give you a ring later. I’m looking forward to seeing you. We’ll have plenty of time to relax, enjoy the holidays, talk …’

  ‘I’m glad we’ll be on our own.’

  Jane had remained adamant that she wanted Christmas in their own home. Tomorrow they would take Peter for a pub lunch, and once he was delivered back to Garden Park, she and Luc would spend the holidays alone, low-key. He had promised to be with her till after New Year. Tonight, she was preparing duck, and had opened a bottle of Haut Médoc to accompany it. Silver cutlery polished, Wedgwood White dinner service laid for two (with a third set at the ready, in case). Everything special, a celebration.

  They deserved it: they had not seen one another for seven weeks, and Jane had been looking forward to this homecoming with almost childlike anticipation. She was determined that this would be their best Christmas together ever.

  She opened her eyes, yawned and glanced at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. It read a quarter to one. It couldn’t be. Luc must have missed the last Shuttle after all. Curious that he had not called to forewarn her, as he had promised, or sent a text at least, she picked up her mobile, lying alongside her wine glass, to confirm that she had not slept through his call. If something was amiss, he would have let her know. He always did. He was diligent and caring in such matters.

  At that moment the phone’s metallic bell burst rudely into the silence. It was the house telephone. Normally it was only care-home calls that came through on the landline. Jane stared at it, as though it were an intruder, a thing not to be trusted, listening to its emphatic ring, before lifting herself from the armchair to answer it.

  The care home. It must be. Oh, Lord, something had happened to her father. A fall, or … It wouldn’t be Luc. He always rang her iPhone.

  ‘Hello?’ She could hear the tremor in her voice.

  ‘Jane? It’s Clarisse.’

  Clarisse! Jane glanced again at her watch, puzzled. It was almost two a.m in France. Why wasn’t the old woman in bed? ‘What are you doing up at this hour?’ They hadn’t seen one another since the grape harvest yet there was no pretence at the usual pleasantries.

  ‘You’d better get over here.’

  Jane sighed. Her mother-in-law’s sense of drama didn’t lessen with age. ‘What’s the matter, Clarisse?’ Was this about not spending Christmas together?

  ‘Something’s happened to Luc.’

  ‘To Luc? What makes you say that? He’s on his way home – he rang me earlier.’

  ‘I’ve just received a call from a police officer in Paris, asking for Madame Cambon.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Evidently he was trying to contact you, and when he understood that I am Luc’s mother, not his wife, he clammed up and refused to give me any information. I may have given birth to the boy but because you and Luc are married I am not his next of kin and the fellow simply refused.’

  ‘Has Luc had an accident?’ Jane butted in, the first inkling of something wrong beginning to dawn on her. ‘Did the officer suggest that?’

  ‘We’d better get off the phone – they’ll be trying to reach you. I don’t know why you’re not here. I can’t understand why you insisted on spending Christmas in London and not down here with me.’

  ‘Clarisse, please, concentrate, did the caller mention an accident?’ Jane’s voice was firm, urgent.

  ‘Luc would have been perfectly happy to stay at Les Cigales. In fact, he would have preferred it. Less stress for him than driving backwards and forwards, and now … Oh, God.’

  Jane was anxious to hang up. ‘Let me find out where he is. I’ll ring you back.’ She replaced the receiver and took a deep breath, calming herself, gathering her thoughts. The candles on the dining-table were burning low. One flickered and died. Clarisse was an attention-seeker, Jane knew that. She was miffed because they were not going to be with her for the holidays. Jane had to keep her wits about her, be logical, and not get drawn into Clarisse’s manipulative game-playing.

  Within seconds, there was a knock at the front door. She glanced at her watch. One fifteen. Luc had finally arrived. He’d forgotten his keys. Oh, thank heavens! As she stepped towards the door, the house phone began to ring again. It was bound to be Clarisse. Let it ring. She crossed to the door, unlocked it, arms ready to embrace her husband.

  An average-built man with a creased, shadowed face, hollow bone structure, was standing before her beneath the automatic light in the porch, alongside a short woman with cropped blonde hair. The woman was in police uniform, the man in a trilby and brown overcoat, wrapped up in a thick woollen scarf in various shades of green. ‘Mrs Cambon?’ As he spoke her name he lifted his hat. His breath rose like steam into the cold night air.

  ‘You’d better come in,’ Jane muttered, throat dry, heart kicking, after she had glanced at the identity card the officer had held towards her in his gloved hand.

  ‘And this is Police Constable Sally Branch.’

  She offered them tea, a Scotch. They shook solemn heads. Both sat without removing their outer garments. There was a cold, sober air about their presence and Jane’s gut lurched as she perched on the arm of the chair she had so recently been dozing in.

  ‘We understand that Luc Cambon is your husband.’

  Jane nodded, gripped her hands together.

  ‘We’re here concerning your husband, Mrs Cambon. I’m sorry to inform you that there has been an accident.’

  ‘Accident?’

  ‘Mr Cambon’s car ran off the road, east of Paris.’

  ‘Oh, God. Is Luc all right? Has he been hurt?’

  ‘We received a call from a Detective Inspector Roussel a little more than an hour ago. He is requesting your presence at the hospital in Paris.’

  Jane was confused. ‘Luc’s in hospital?’

  ‘Mrs Cambon, there is no easy way to break this to you. Your husband’s accident … I’m afraid the outcome is not good. The French police will need you to identify him.’

  ‘Ident– Oh, God, what are you telling me?’

  ‘I’m sorry to be the bearer of this news, particularly during this season.’ He glanced towards the Christmas tree. The table candles had burned out. The room was descending into darkness. ‘According to DI Roussel, there wa
s nothing that could be done to save him. His injuries were fatal.’

  ‘Fatal? Luc is –’ She couldn’t utter the word. A blockage in her throat. Years of loving him, waiting for his return, for Christmas, for …

  ‘Mrs Cambon? Mrs Cambon, can you understand what I’m telling you? Your presence will be required in Paris and we’re here to assist you with your arrangements.’

  ‘Would you like me to put the kettle on, make you a cup of tea?’ This was the woman in uniform, cherub-faced Sally. On her feet, large black shoes, flat, well polished, her expression perplexed, furrowed, attempting to locate the kitchen.

  Jane couldn’t direct her. She couldn’t remember which room abutted this one.

  ‘The first train leaves from St Pancras at six eighteen and arrives at the Gare du Nord at nine forty-seven. We’ve made you a reservation. Sally will stay here with you tonight and will accompany you to the station in the morning. Or would you prefer we find someone to travel with you to Paris?’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  ‘I have your ticket,’ said Sally. ‘We can call a taxi.’

  ‘If you don’t mind, I’d rather be on my own. I appreciate everything you …’

  No sooner had Jane seen off her after-hours callers, expressing gratitude for their assistance but desperate to be rid of them, close the door, be alone, catch her breath, take on board the magnitude of what had been imparted, than the phone rang again.

  ‘Mrs Cambon?’ A male with a French accent. But not Luc.

  Jane’s legs buckled. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Detective Inspector Roussel. I’m speaking from the thirteenth arrondissement commissariat. You are the wife of Monsieur Luc Cambon of Lady Margaret Road, London NW5, is that correct?’

  ‘Y-yes.’

  ‘Bon. We are very sorry for your loss.’

  ‘Loss?’

  Pause.

  Jane swung towards the window. Headlights were shining in through the glass, reflections of passing beams hitting the large wall mirror above the fireplace, drawing to a standstill. A car pulling up? Darkness again in the silent street. A door slamming. Footsteps heading this way, then turning elsewhere. Only the flickering light from the flames of the gas fire and the Christmas tree remained.

  ‘You have spoken to my colleagues in London, I understand. They have paid you a visit, furnished you with travel documents. And you understand that your presence will be required here in Paris, s’il vous plaît, Madame.’

  ‘Where is Luc, please?’ Jane had instinctively switched to French.

  Silence.

  ‘Monsieur, I must speak to my husband. Where is he?’ Jane was clutching the receiver tightly. She felt as though she might vomit. ‘There has been a mistake, je suis sûr.’

  ‘Madame Cambon?’

  She was breathing heavily, trying to get a grip. ‘Please.’

  ‘Do you have a pen?’

  ‘It cannot be Luc.’ She was having difficulty co-ordinating, remaining upright, ordering her thoughts. ‘Someone else was at the wheel … Not Luc.’

  ‘Madame Cambon, I need you to write down an address, please.’

  The phone, held in her right hand, slid from ear to table as she sank onto her haunches on the floor.

  ‘Hello? Madame Cambon? Madame Cambon?’ The man’s voice called her name one last time and waited. Jane barely registered it. It was Luc she was waiting for across the miles.

  When Jane attempted to replay her exchanges with the police, she recalled little of either beyond the words ‘accident’, ‘loss’ and the ‘need to identify’. Sally, the police constable, had written down in bold clear letters an address, a hospital in Paris, on the Left Bank. A Eurostar ticket had been placed in Jane’s hand. Somehow, numbly, after seeing her bad-news messengers out and speaking to Roussel on the phone, she had climbed the stairs, drawn the silk curtains and crumpled, like a leaf, onto her bed. She had curled into a ball on top of the covers where she remained, quaking, fully dressed, for no more than a few minutes.

  There had been a mistake, an identity error. Or she had misunderstood. She had foolishly jumped to the worst-case scenario. Clarisse’s selfish behaviour always put her on edge, on the defensive. She hadn’t been thinking straight. Luc was driving to London to spend Christmas with her. Of course he was. He had said so. They were to be together. She had spoken to him. Spoken to him. She leaped from the bed and went in search of her phone, frantically tapping his number.

  Luc answered. ‘Allô?’

  Indescribable relief. He was alive.

  ‘Oh, Luc, Luc. Thank God. It’s me. Sorry if I’ve woken you, but … Luc?’

  ‘… leave a message after the bleep and I …’

  8

  A few hours later, on Christmas Eve before daybreak, drained from lack of sleep, Jane climbed aboard the first Eurostar leaving St Pancras bound for Paris, Gare du Nord. In spite of the early hour, the train was bouncing with holiday passengers, excited children, noise, ebullience, expensively wrapped gifts, cuddly toys, suitcases jammed precariously one on top of another in the corridors. Twice during the crossing, her mobile rang. On both occasions it was her mother-in-law. On both occasions, Jane let it switch to voicemail. The police would keep Clarisse informed. Jane had requested it. She could not face his mother now, could not bear to utter the words Luc is dead.

  She needed to be armed with facts before she went up against Clarisse. Oh, the prospect of it. Undoubtedly, the old woman would hold her responsible. ‘This would never have happened if you had been less obstinate and had agreed to join us here for Christmas instead of selfishly dragging the poor man north.’

  Which was a fact. Unpalatable, but a fact. And now he was dead.

  From the station in bleak rain and impatient traffic, a taxi to the south of the city. Over the river Seine, through narrow streets bunched tight with cafés, whose interiors were harshly lit against the wintry hour, whose exteriors were illuminated to celebrate the season. Early-morning workers, hunched against the wet, leaned against bar counters downing their third or fourth caffeine shot of the day. Proceeding to the thirteenth arrondissement, to a tree-lined avenue where the university hospital of Pitié-Salpêtrière was to be found. In Reception, she was greeted by a clutch of men and women who looked as though they had also been up for the best part of the night: two French police officers in uniform, one rather scruffy man dressed in a grey suit, who confirmed that he was Roussel and that they had spoken on the telephone a matter of hours earlier; a surgeon – she didn’t catch his name or which branch of surgery he was engaged in; an emergency nurse in her fifties in a starched white coat-dress, parchment-skinned, wiped out; and an elegant dark-haired female in her early thirties, who was introduced to Jane by the surgeon – he spoke English and French with a discernible Lebanese accent – as ‘a specialist in post-accident trauma’.

  ‘We called in the resident priest, who was at your husband’s side when he passed away. He received the last rites,’ the trauma specialist was assuring her.

  Encircled by strangers, Jane listened in dazed silence. Luc wasn’t religious. He was an atheist. He had witnessed first hand, he’d said on many occasions, the damage perpetrated by faith. Faith was not in his line of thinking.

  Was. Already Luc was the past tense.

  The group was now moving as one along a corridor. Jane, netted at the centre of them, had no idea to where she was being escorted. A room, a ward, a mortuary, to Luc?

  She could barely place one foot in front of the other, her legs were trembling so. Jelly. Jelly legs.

  They turned right into a small, square, off-white room, bare except for a narrow bed. It reeked of sulphur, of chemicals, disinfectant. She could not identify the odours, but the composition was acrid. There, on the bed, lay a shape covered with a white sheet. The body, once the sheet had been peeled to chest level by the surgeon, was Luc’s.

  Jane felt her innards capsize.

  Lingering patches of blood besmirched his lined bluish features. One si
de of his face had suffered burns. His compassionate green eyes, so curious, so caring, so full of passion, were shrouded beneath closed lids. Someone had done a hasty clean-up job. Jane’s legs were threatening to collapse beneath her.

  She gulped and lifted a hand to her face. ‘Oh, Luc … no.’

  ‘Madame, please can you confirm if this is your husband, Monsieur Luc Cambon?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Desolé, Madame, but I need you to tell us oui or non.’

  ‘Oui, c’est Luc Cambon. Mon mari.’

  The sight of him, the lifelessness of him, his inanimate features, aggravated by her exhaustion and the fact that she had not seen him for seven weeks, provoked an explosion of tears.

  Roussel coughed awkwardly, looking behind him as though for assistance. The others, including the post-trauma specialist in her well-polished black leather stilettos, seemed to have vanished, evaporated. The inspector suggested coffee. And then, as an afterthought, ‘Or perhaps you would prefer tea?’

  Jane shook her head. He led her to another small room, with pale grey walls and a table dressed with papers, files and a cutting from a recent Le Monde, an interview with Luc discussing his upcoming film. Two chairs, one either side of the table. Roussel gestured her to a seat.

  ‘Your French is excellent. Where did you learn to speak our tongue so well?’

  ‘I’m a linguist. I spent time here as a child. My husband is French.’

  Roussel stared at her. Is. ‘May we continue in French?’

  She nodded.

  There will be formalities, he warned her gently. An autopsy will need to be carried out. There will be papers to sign. Unfortunately, many offices are closing at noon today until the twenty-sixth. Boxing Day, as Jane knew well, was not a public holiday in France.