The Forgotten Summer

by Carol Drinkwater

  The waiter was at their side, hovering to clear plates. Robert discreetly waved him away. ‘Let me get you a brandy.’

  ‘No, thanks.’ She rubbed her nose and sniffed. ‘Do they? A and P?’

  ‘I don’t know what they represent, sorry. Is it an organization or … ?’

  Jane shook her head.

  He waited, but she didn’t elucidate. ‘I’ve given you the facts, Jane, much as I would have preferred not to have such a conversation with you, particularly at this time.’

  ‘Did Luc tell you that he’d tried to borrow against Les Cigales?’ Jane persisted, suddenly rattled by the wall of secrecy, of dissimulation, corralling her. ‘I mean, if he’d tried to raise a loan against his mother’s home, he must have been desperate. Desperate … but he didn’t confide any of it in me.’

  ‘Over Clarisse’s dead body, I’d say.’ Robert had intended it as a lighthearted riposte, but it fell flat between them, causing an embarrassed silence.

  Robert swiftly called for the bill.

  They parted at the edge of Green Park with gushing assurances from Robert that both the London and Paris offices of his firm would continue to act gratis for his late friend’s estate as a gesture of goodwill. He assured her once more that he would do his best to see her through the crisis with as much dignity and financial win as was possible.

  ‘By the way,’ he added, before departing, ‘Marje says hello and suggests that when you’re more settled you pop down to see us in Chichester for a weekend. We’ll take you sailing. Don’t let this get you down, Jane.’

  Jane nodded her thanks, suspecting that she would never take Marjory up on the offer. And of course it was getting her down. Luc was dead. He was dead, for God’s sake, and she couldn’t string the latter months of his life into a coherent existence.

  They embraced.

  ‘Don’t hesitate to call me if things get too rough,’ he urged. ‘Luc was my friend way before he was a client. I miss him too, you know.’ She nodded and watched Robert hurry away, fishing for his iPhone in the pocket of his navy-blue Crombie, taking a call as he strode in the direction of Marble Arch.

  If things get too rough … Just how much rougher could they get?

  She walked back towards Piccadilly Circus, past the Ritz and the Wolseley where they had just dined, intending to take the Tube from Leicester Square, and then she decided to wait for a bus to Camden Town and from there walk to her empty flat and the impending nightmare of estate agents. How was she going to survive? Had Robert said almost a quarter of a million or half a million pounds? It made no sense.

  How many holes were there left to pick open in one man’s life? Where was this trail of deception leading her?

  Part Two

  * * *

  SOWING SEEDS

  France

  1

  Jane navigated the driveway cautiously, heart thumping. She parked in the forecourt of the manor house and switched off the engine, but remained in her seat. It was May. Luc had been dead for five months. She was making her first trip back to Les Cigales since his funeral. Her nerves, an eddying anxiety, were rising. First impressions suggested that a great deal had changed since her last sojourn. The house and land appeared to be gently decaying, as though the past was picking away at it, fragmenting the present. Even as she pulled over from the route nationale to the parking spot beyond the locked gates, the neglect was signalled. From the road, any passer-by might conclude that the domain had been abandoned. Weeds were growing up alongside and curling themselves around the iron gateposts. The stones of the boundary wall were covered with unsightly ivy. Luc had always insisted that the ivy be kept at bay. It ate its way into everything, he had claimed. His absence was evident even before Jane had crossed the grounds’ perimeter.

  The parklands were equally unkempt. The grapevines banked close to the driveway, those visible beyond the columns of cedars and pines, had shot up and sprouted into raggedy bushes. It was practice to cut the vines hard back during January and February, before the spring, to allow space for the new trained growth, so that in March the weeds could be more easily cleared away and the soil ploughed. But, as far as she could see, none of the vineyards had been touched. She wondered why not.

  As she drew close to the house, a sense of gloom, of weathered darkness, hung like a cloud over the place. How could a building become so transformed in such a short space of time? Did Clarisse never visit the bastide? Was she unaware of its deteriorating condition? Was she as strapped for cash as Jane was?

  Robert had told her that Luc had been unable to borrow against the estate, but might he have been borrowing from his mother, money that would not now be repaid? Had it left Clarisse, her wine business and the properties, destitute? Or had Luc sunk every penny he earned into this place, and now, without him, there were no more injections of cash? Was Clarisse expecting Jane to contribute, or worse, take full responsibility for the running costs and upkeep of the manor house? Whatever verbal commitments Luc had taken on, promises made to his mother, Jane could not allow herself to be saddled with them. There were so many unanswered questions and concerns. Nothing had been discussed. Clarisse and Jane had barely spoken since she’d left for London. They had engaged in one or two brief, rather brittle phone conversations, which had amounted to chilly exchanges, a charade of keeping in touch. Jane was there now to empty the house of her and Luc’s possessions, to visit his grave, make arrangements and decisions for his headstone before departing, to abandon this chapter of her life. And once she had cut her ties here, once her home in London had been sold, what then? She was contemplating doing a little travelling. A solitary widow circumnavigating the globe? Whatever for? She had no idea. She stepped out of the car.

  The lawns laid out before the west and east faces of the mansion had recently been mown, but the striking purple bougainvillaea and roses, planted for colour and shade to hang from iron pergolas sunk into the quadrangles of lawn, were running riot. It wasn’t an unattractive sight, but it was unexpected. Jane felt sure that neither Claude nor the generously efficient Matty could be held responsible for the unruly state of the grounds. An honourable, trustworthy pair, they would have contributed all that could be expected of them and more, given that, according to Clarisse, they were no longer in the Cambons’ full-time employment. ‘I have been obliged to cut back their hours. The running costs are crippling me. I am an old lady facing the future here on my own. Drastic measures are called for. I may need to ask them to leave.’

  Jane had been incensed by this revelation. The Lefèvres had been a loyal labour force for over forty years. Where else were they to find employment at this stage in their lives?

  ‘You cannot do that to them!’ she’d cried.

  ‘It’s done. Let the state keep them. I can’t.’

  This news had hastened Jane’s return. As a girl, before Matty’s own daughter was born, Jane had been close to the housekeeper. When her father was elsewhere, occupied on wine matters, and Luc was not at home, Matty had cared for Jane and taken her about with her. The affection that had been seeded in Jane’s infancy had never paled. Matty had once looked out for her, and now Jane felt an obligation to protect the Lefèvre family.

  Two paved pathways fanned out from the forecourt into a horseshoe and wrapped themselves around both sides of the main house, meeting again at the rear, in what had once been known as the ‘formal gardens’. These paths were tufted with grass shoots growing vigorously up through the cracks. They had been hastily swept but not weeded. Dried twigs and leaves had been stacked into pyramids set back from the paths, ready to feed bonfires during the cooler autumn days. On both sides and to the rear, the borders had been trimmed. First impressions in this small sector were welcoming, not alarming, but when Jane strolled round to the back of the house, delaying the moment of entering it for a minute or two longer, the growth, a creeping encroachment of time and nature, was upsetting to behold.

  What an uninviting spectacle the swimming-pool had become. Its b
ase was carpeted with leaves that had drifted and fallen in throughout the seasons while algae organisms were coating the interior walls with a slimy green film. The water was tainted the same emerald while skeins of ivy had grown up over the pool’s stone surround and were drifting on the water’s surface. Jane asked herself whether this had not been a deliberate act on Clarisse’s part, a punishment for her absence. Or was she too hard on the old woman? It was more likely that the maintenance and costly pool products were beyond the estate’s means now. A luxury item. In any case, who would be using it?

  Jane loved to swim and Clarisse knew it. Jane loved the gardens too. Clarisse had never been green-fingered and proudly claimed it. Isabelle had been the one who had tended the crops, who had added flair to the displays surrounding the property, the lavish bouquets on the dining-table and in the library.

  She recalled the first time she had dunked herself in the pool. Midsummer, baking hot. She had been dusty and fretful, enervated after the long drive from England and awed by her surroundings. Her first encounter with Luc; she had been scared of him. She smiled now at the thought of it. How could she ever have feared him, even back then when he was twice her age? Gentle Luc, whose driving compulsion in life had been to help people, to celebrate the existence of every creature he dug out of rock pools or found living on the land, exploring his childhood fascination to make his fabulous nature films. So unlike his mother. If he were standing here beside her now, what would Luc say of this neglect, of his mother’s hard-heartedness towards Claude and Matty? Was his financial mess in some way responsible for all this? Jane had not yet broached the subject of Luc’s penury with Clarisse, but if Clarisse was ignorant of the situation, she might be expecting an injection of funds from Jane, from Luc’s will. And what fury might be unleashed when she learned that Jane had nothing to contribute? Jane would need to pick her moment carefully.

  She passed through into the kitchen garden, with its high stone walls, by its north-facing door. The latch was stiff, in need of oiling and scarred with rust. Ahead lay a jungle of bolted growth, buzzing and fluttering with insect life. Even the cracks between the stones in the walls had been invaded by thick, bristly ferns. In the old days, Jane would have expected to find Claude leaning over a fork, digging, rummaging, humming to himself or chatting with his wife, discussing the health of the plants as though they were old friends. Both of them born of this red earth, married to it. Matty at his side, sometimes with her two sons, the squabbling twins, Arnaud and Pierre, would have been scrutinizing the lusty crops, then singling out the vegetables that took her fancy for her next cooking bonanza.

  Jane remembered being left alone, as a girl, with Claude, clutching an empty basket with pride, waiting for instructions. She had watched, fascinated, as Claude clipped off the heavy tomatoes, removing the ripe, sweet fruits from their slender, hirsute stalks. Edging dutifully along the stone path behind him, she proffered the basket as he uprooted a burgundy Lollo Rossa and then a Romaine lettuce, both muddy at the roots. They might have been followed by a handful of pea pods, fresh mint leaves, the golden flowers from the courgette plants. All to be washed clean of soil, he instructed her, at one of the outdoor taps before she delivered them to Matty’s pantry in readiness for her lunchtime menu. ‘And you wash your hands too, girl.’

  ‘Bien sûr, Monsieur Claude.’ With what relish she had examined her muddied digits, the dark-red earth packed beneath her nails like dried blood.

  ‘Go on, then, get along with you.’

  Such memories made the spectacle before her an even sadder one. If any vegetables were still surviving, they were invisible to Jane’s eye, strangled beneath banks of muscly dock and carpets of dandelions the colour of egg yolk, each furry yellow blossom crawling with tiny black insects. White cabbage butterflies fluttered between one bolted legume and the next. The entire expanse had been so ordered and invitingly laid out, especially, she recalled, the circular beds of rosemary, thyme, coriander, rich mauve-and-white-flowering sage in the culinary herbs allotment, the canes of scarlet-flowered runner beans with pendulous green bodies, the dark or striped aubergines, soft raspberries, redcurrants, strawberries, edible marigolds, bold, red-stalked rhubarb – oh, such kaleidoscopes of colour were once on display here. Banquets to gorge herself on when no one was watching, to stuff herself until the seeds and juices had trickled down to dry sticky on her chin, and her stomach had swelled from greed and happiness. Today, it was nothing but a barrage of weeds and wild flowers.

  She opened her mouth and took a deep gulp of air. Fresh leafy air. Compost-rich, feracious. Tiny insects floated like spores before her eyes. She heard the humming of bumble bees, honeybees, hornets sating themselves in their fluorescent paradise. Well, at least they’re happy, she thought.

  What had possessed Clarisse to allow the gardens to run wild like this? Was her grief over the loss of Luc, her only child, paralysing her, as it had Jane?

  The espaliered apples, pruned regularly by Claude and Luc and secured to the inner surrounds of this garden’s high stone walls were clinging on, more or less. It would take a little time and effort to reattach them. The first job would be to remove the rotting trellis and replace it. Even she could manage that, with a saw and a little assistance. The quartet of fig trees offering shade, one at each of the four corners of this garden – two with wooden benches placed strategically beneath them for digging pauses – had grown tall. Their reach was spreading, blocking out light. They were in need of pruning but they hung heavy with hard oval fruits and promised a fine late-August yield, so best to leave them for now. Jane was reminded of Matty’s marvellous fig tarts. A taste from the early days of her childhood. When before or since had she devoured a dessert so flavoursome, so scrumptious? Only when topped with scoops of Matty’s homemade mint or lavender ice cream as an accompaniment. Jane should ask her for her recipes, file and catalogue them before it was too late.

  Before it was too late …

  How could all this be the past? Where was the spirit of Luc among such desolation? Was he here somewhere, striding the big open spaces, pushing up through the forests of roots, heartbroken at the dereliction? She longed to be alone with him, flesh to flesh, to hold and stroke him again. Was it pathetic of her to beg the world to stop turning, to arrest time, to rewind, to admit that without Luc she had lost her present and her future?

  Feet crunching swiftly on grass-infested, loose-pebbled pathways, Jane slipped out through the garden’s southern door. It creaked closed behind her. She reached the uppermost point of the iron-arched staircase. Ahead, there was a flight of stone steps that descended to the lower terraces where rockery and lavender beds had long ago been laid. Those elegant rose-clad arches, whose curving structures Jane had painted apple green one long weekend soon after Clarisse had decamped to Cherry Tree Lodge, when Luc had accepted responsibility for the management of the main house, to alleviate his mother of the burden and Jane, in a spirit of solidarity, had set about refreshing parts of the surrounding gardens: five and a half years on, the arches were flaking and rusty again. No longer entwined with cinnamon-scented climbing roses that, in full blossom, hung like dollops of clotted cream, they were overrun with thorny briars.

  And where were the canvas director chairs, ready to unfold and drag to a vanilla- or rosemary-perfumed corner in the shade, where she could settle with a book or her Kindle for an afternoon’s tranquillity? Where was the order in the planted pathways? It was all disappearing, lost, wasted by wilderness. Glancing back towards the rear of the house, its walls scaled with strands of browning jasmine, Jane concluded that the heart of the property had gone adrift. It was rudderless. All joie de vivre had drained away. Eviscerated, heartbroken.

  Gone with Luc.

  And there was no dog to skip to greet her, jumping excitedly, tail wagging as it barked its welcome. Walnut. What had become of Walnut? No trace of his remains had been detected in the car. Hairs from his coat had been identified, but there was nothing to prove that they were n
ot several days old. He had vanished into thin air, and his mysterious departure continued to haunt Jane. There were moments when the loss of the animal seemed to fell her more than the loss of her husband. She knew that Luc was dead, she’d finally begun to accept it as the months crawled by, but Walnut’s disappearance was one of the enigmas, the conundrums begging explanation. ‘A’ and ‘P’: who were they? Those three lost hours in or near Paris, the night after she had been with him when he had checked out of their hotel? Luc’s financial calamities, and the vanished dog … She had telephoned the central canine refuge in Lyon and three local ones. None had heard of Walnut.

  Unanswered questions. So many of them.

  ‘Madame Cambon! Jane!’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Bonjour!’

  She swung round and caught sight of Claude in his battered straw Panama and blue overalls, waving to her with both bare arms raised. Her spirits lifted. ‘Claude, hello! Bonjour, bonjour.’

  The gardener, whose shoulders were growing humped, she noticed now, picked up the handles of his wheelbarrow and pushed it across one of the pebbled pathways to greet her. In spite of his advancing years, he was in rude health, as she had always known him, but as he drew close she saw that his grey-lashed eyes were glistening with emotion.

  ‘Welcome home. It’s very good to see you again, Madame.’