The Forgotten Summer

by Carol Drinkwater

  ‘No damage,’ reiterated Jane. She left him to his work, drove to the bank and returned to wait in the narrow corridor beyond the pantry while the man underground drilled and hammered. His first bullseye was the discovery of a small decaying corpse in the second catacomb. The rodent had breathed its last behind a tall metal cabinet. Tassigny wrapped it in one of his greasy rags, climbed the stairs and thumped it down in the small pantry. Not Walnut, thank God. Matty was definitely not pleased: she swiped the hateful thing off her chopping space and disposed of it outside in one of the dustbins. ‘When his lordship’s done, Claude will put some poison down there for you.’

  It took the locksmith the best part of the morning to get himself organized, jotting notes, measuring, calculating. He then departed for his lunch, to return two hours later. Eventually, as Matty was setting off to close Arnaud’s chickens back into their coop after their day in the yard, all doors and drawers stood open. Jane counted out the euro notes, showed Monsieur Tassigny out and returned to the basement alone.

  Luc’s life was hanging open all around her. She stood still, afraid to take one step further, and then, heart hammering, hands shaking, she made a start.

  The top desk drawer to the right contained cheque books – Barclays, Camden Town, and their French bank in the village; Luc had opened his accounts when Jane had opened hers. A navy-blue leather-bound King James Bible. Curious, with Luc’s atheism. Jane opened it and read the dedication, ‘Pour Luc, merci beaucoup’, in what might have been a child’s handwriting. No signature. She riffled through the pages, found nothing else and replaced it. Opening the drawer to its full extent, she found a white cotton pillowcase. It was one of the big square ones from a set for their bed upstairs. Within it, a box, and within that a nickel-plated gun with walnut grip, ‘Colt 1911’ engraved on the barrel. Jane stared at it. What was Luc doing with this lethal thing? Cautiously she lifted out the weapon. She turned it over in her right hand. It was in good condition, only occasionally used by the look of it, but not modern. It was surprisingly heavy. Was it loaded? She had never handled a firearm before so she decided not to fiddle with it to find out. Claude or Arnaud would know. She examined its box, which was a little scruffy, one corner dented, as though it had travelled distances. A serial number was printed on a sticker on the lid: 285, 03 … The remaining numbers or letters had faded and were no longer legible.

  She was amazed that Luc had known how to operate a gun, let alone owned one. As a boy, of course, he would have learned to hunt. Did he have a licence for this? It certainly didn’t look like any hunting gun she’d ever seen. Was it a means of self-defence? Why would Luc be in possession of a second-hand gun? Had his life been threatened? Detective Inspector Roussel had raised that possibility in the days following the accident but it had been dismissed.

  She placed it on the desk alongside its box and sat down staring at it. Her attention returned to the Bible. Both were items that, in their life together, she would never have guessed Luc would need. She picked up the cheque books and flipped through the stubs. Phone bill, subscription fees for professional magazines, membership fees, film unions, Air France, Visa, AmEx … Nothing to suggest massive expenditure, nothing to raise alarm.

  Except the gun.

  Had Luc been contemplating suicide? Was the Bible to give him courage? In those last weeks when she and Luc were not together, had he been facing such financial hell that he had planned to take his own life? If the car had not run off the road, might he have returned here after Christmas and put the gun to his head?

  Such an image … It was too shocking. She had to get out of the cellars.

  She locked up the workspace, leaving it as it was, and hurried back upstairs to make coffee. She needed a break. Fresh air. Her head was swimming. She had to think, clear her mind. She felt unable to continue her search. She would continue, but not immediately. She had to set her thoughts in order. A gun and a Bible. Might they have been props for a scene in his film? It seemed unlikely.

  The coffee was percolating.

  She slid her iPad from out of her handbag, left open on the breakfast-room table, and typed in the information she had for the gun: Colt 1911, she described the look of it and found ‘post-war .45 ACP nickel finish’. The model had been manufactured in 1960. There was a list of such pistols, collectors’ items, offered for sale on eBay and one or two other sites. Was it really so easy to acquire a gun? Where had Luc bought it? Had there been a sales ticket in the box, a receipt? She hadn’t noticed one.

  The presence of a gun among Luc’s possessions was disquieting.

  She put through a call to Robert in London. He was in a meeting but acted on her message before the coffee had even brewed.

  ‘I was just going to ring you,’ was his opening gambit. ‘Good news. We received an asking-price offer on your property this morning.’

  ‘That was quick.’ A surge of panic rose within her. Her home was going. It was a reality.

  ‘And, even better, they would like to complete before the sixteenth of July. I’ll push hard to get it wrapped up sooner rather than later. The mortgage company will jump up and down with delight. How are you getting on?’

  ‘Robert, did Luc leave instructions about what to do with his film stock and research materials?’

  ‘Nothing in particular, no.’

  ‘Was he in some kind of trouble?’

  Pause.

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘Jane, we had this conversation over lunch. His debts were driving him to bankruptcy and they were beginning to encroach on other areas of his life.’

  ‘What do you mean? Which other areas?’

  He sounded exasperated. ‘The problems were wearing him down, Jane, and may well have caused the accident. Lack of concentration, exhaustion …’

  She was trying to recall the allusion Roussel had made to Luc killing himself. ‘Aside from the money, was there anything else, any other difficulties?’

  She heard him breathing. Was he deliberating, mulling over what to divulge?

  ‘Robert, was there anything else? I have to know.’

  ‘Nothing he shared with me, Jane. How’s the weather there?’

  ‘Might Luc have been contemplating suicide?’

  She heard him laugh. Too loudly? ‘Jane, please don’t allow your loss to get the upper hand. I realize the situation you’re in is not –’

  ‘Did he ever say to you that suicide was the only way out of the hole he was in?’

  ‘Of course not. He was far too resilient. Try to make some time for yourself, Jane, go to the beach. It’s easy for me to say, I know.’

  ‘Thank you for the news about the flat.’ She hung up.

  She tapped the home screen again on her iPad, accessed the calendar, clicked 15 July and typed: ‘Move out of Lady Margaret.’

  She had to remain calm.

  She pulled out her pen. On a sheet of paper that bore the heading Things to Do, she wrote, hand shaking, ‘Find a London removal firm.’

  And then what? she asked herself. What’s next?

  Could Luc have contemplated suicide, suicide, in preference to confiding his troubles in his wife, his lifelong friend? She lowered herself into a chair and laid her head on her arms on the table. What was to become of her alone, without Luc, without her refuge in London?

  Why did Luc have to die, and for what reason had he left her in such a predicament? A flash of anger took hold. She sat up, steadied herself, exhaling slowly, attempting to regain her composure, but the anger returned, boiling within her. ‘Damn you, Luc, for deserting me, for leaving me in this hellish mess. And for not saying a bloody thing about it!’

  She would send their furniture to auction, most of it, or donate it to charity shops. The little that remained could go into storage.

  Always in times of difficulty it had been to Luc she’d turned. Now there was no one, besides her father. For the past six months Jane had been battling to stay afloat, struggling with each day as it came. Shock, numbness had
, ironically, kept her semi-capable, forcing her to stay in the present in a robotic fashion. Now the future was looming, and it was shapeless and terrifying, accelerating towards her at a speed she couldn’t handle.

  5

  Three centuries earlier, Les Cigales and its extensive holdings had been a Benedictine stronghold. Here, on land rising from the shores of the Mediterranean, the monks had tended their vineyards and produced exceptional vintages from shale soil. The gentle Mediterranean climate and the warm winds coming in off the water had nurtured grapes that were perfect for fermentation. In an era when the Midi was not renowned for its wines, the monks grew wealthy and reinvested, purchasing land to extend their acreage. On the outskirts of the abbey’s vast grounds towards the western perimeters of what today was the domain of Les Cigales, stood a two-storey house. The limestone building, rather like a vast shoebox, had been constructed to offer a place of education for the offspring of the labouring families from the valleys and villages thereabouts. It was designated the Malaz Benedictine School House, although it was some distance by foot from Malaz.

  Today, the old stone shoebox, School House, was the residence of Claude and Mathilde Lefèvre. It was one of the sturdiest of the domain’s farmhouses, spacious and better equipped in that it possessed decent plumbing, electricity, a kitchen and a bathroom. Round the front of it was a porch that looked out in the direction of the sea, although you couldn’t see the water from there, masked as it was by sloping fields of orchards and ripening vineyards.

  It had been years since Jane had stepped inside their home. On the last occasion, they had occupied a more modest cottage further inland on the estate. At some point during Jane’s teenage years, after she had become estranged from Les Cigales, Clarisse and Isabelle had offered the larger, outlying property to their caretakers because Matty had given birth to a third child. Long after Matty’s twin sons were born, she and Claude had been blessed with their baby girl, Annie.

  Jane drew her car to a halt beneath the shade of a spreading mulberry tree. Across the backyard, she caught sight of Arnaud. He was bent forwards on one knee, banging and nailing wood. It looked as though he was assembling a small shed or coop. All about him, domestic fowl rummaged and pecked, honking, hooting and crowing. His two hunting dogs, lean black-and-white pointers, were dozing in the sun. Arnaud, in blue shirt and overalls, glanced up from his chore, laid down his hammer and ambled over to greet Jane. He was a slow-minded but well-meaning fellow, built like a tractor, with shoulders broad as beams, well designed for carrying goats and sheep. A shy, solitary man, who seemed happiest herding livestock or alone with a rifle slung across his back, roaming the Alps, he lacked most social skills, had never married, had never left home.

  Jane had often asked herself whether he might have suffered from being in the shadow of Pierre, his non-identical and more extrovert twin, who was living in the Camargue, caretaker of a splendid equestrian farm, and married to a pretty woman of gypsy heritage, who had given him two gorgeous children. It occurred to Jane now, as she stood watching Arnaud, his head bowed low, that she knew very little about the family’s personal circumstances, even though they were the backbone of the estate. She wondered at the difficulties they must be facing with only one day’s paid employment a week to sustain all three of them. Arnaud drove into the hills to lend a few of the livestock farmers a hand with the slaughtering of their pigs, but it was occasional employment, not regular. A little poaching in the months when hunting was not allowed would bring the family illicit game, but there could be little else to keep the kitchen stocked. Did Arnaud pay for the few grams of tobacco he needed by logging illegally in the nature reserve or the pine forests? Even the estate’s kitchen garden was bare of produce to sell at one of the local markets. By all appearances, the Lefèvres were facing bleak days.

  ‘What are you building there?’ She smiled as he held out his hand to her. Huge calloused hands, broad and leathery as cabbage leaves. Their flesh was burgundy-hued. Hunter’s hands. She had seen him skin whole beasts, wild boars, chamois, with the dexterity of one peeling an apple.

  A winter’s afternoon, in the early years of her marriage, flashed out of her memory. Arnaud had come striding triumphantly into the yard, with a limp red deer slung over his shoulders, shot hours earlier, the corpse still warm. Une biche, a female, with shocked eyes, frozen like glacial lakes. The hunter had tossed the lifeless creature across an outdoor table and drawn out a knife from one of the many pockets in his trekking pants. Pierre, Annie, Jane and Luc had stood huddled alongside one another, glued to the spot as Arnaud slit the ruminant apart. Inserting the curled tip of the glinting knife below its stomach, drawing it upwards in short pushing movements, he had unzipped the creature.

  Jane watched, horrified yet mesmerized, as he opened the deer. She had glanced about her, expecting to see the same revulsion on the faces of her husband and companions, but no. In the season, hunting was an essential pastime to these people and the kill provided food for their tables. The deer’s ruby blood had flowed, globules at first, then spluttering and gushing into a zinc bath positioned on the ground beneath it. To this day, Jane could recall the sound of that blood plopping, then pouring against the metal while Arnaud drew out the young deer’s stomach, bulging with recently eaten grasses, and threw it victoriously onto the ground where it split and stank to high Heaven.

  Jane had been mildly discomforted by his presence ever since. The hint of savagery. His relish in the mastery of killing.

  ‘Beehives. Claude’s gone to town,’ he informed her now. Arnaud never offered his cheek or attempted the conventional three kisses. He was too ill at ease and withdrawn.

  ‘Is your mother home?’

  He nodded, awkwardly pointing the way to the back door. He had blood on his fingers.

  Jane knocked gently on the semi-open door. Flies were circling above where she stood on the step. A bucket on the ground contained pinkish water and dishcloths; droplets of blood stained the step. Arnaud must have decapitated a chicken for their dinner.

  ‘Who is it?’

  As Jane had expected, Matty was in the kitchen. She was rolling pastry. A metal colander holding freshly shelled peas lay on the draining board. A bunch of purple asters stood tall in a Bonne Maman jam jar on the windowsill. Same design as the jars that adorned Luc’s grave. So, it was Matty leaving the flowers, probably when she went to Mass. Matty and her two sons, who had loved Luc as one of their own. It reinforced her desire to do all that she could for this family.

  ‘Matty, may I come in?’

  ‘Mon Dieu, what a surprise.’

  Matty wiped her hands on her wrapover floral apron. She hurried to usher Jane in. The room was exceptionally dark with only two small windows to access the light. They exchanged kisses and the older woman steered Jane through the kitchen to the sitting room, which was cool and also dark. Here there were larger windows but the shutters were bolted closed. This would have been the main schoolroom. It was long and narrow, with only one fireplace, and must be hell to keep warm in winter. It was furnished in two parts, to create sitting and dining areas.

  ‘What a surprise,’ the housekeeper repeated.

  ‘Forgive me for turning up unannounced.’

  ‘Coffee or a cool drink?’

  Jane shook her head. She had not considered the possibility that her visit might cause embarrassment or confusion. ‘May I sit down?’

  ‘Of course, make yourself at home.’

  Jane lowered herself onto a sofa while Matty hovered close by her. She was suddenly lost for words, feeling herself an intruder.

  ‘Claude’s gone to town,’ said Matty, as though to explain away her perplexity.

  ‘Yes, Arnaud told me. I could have phoned you but, well, I thought it better to drop by. I probably should have called first. I came on impulse to discuss something.’

  ‘We like to think of you as family, Jane. Please, don’t apologize.’

  ‘Clarisse mentioned to me that she is, well, she �
� The wine business is a bit slow and the estate’s finances are not the brightest …’

  Matty lowered herself into a chair. Dread tightened her features. ‘Claude’s gone to look for rented accommodation for us in town. As soon as he’s found somewhere, we’ll …’

  ‘Oh, Matty, no. That won’t be necessary and please don’t look so concerned. I’m not a bailiff, not here as Clarisse’s representative to deliver further bad news.’

  The older woman let out a tremulous sigh. ‘I thought for a moment you’d been sent to ask us to leave the house. We’re very aware, Jane, that the residence comes free with the foreman’s job, as the law states, but one day a week, well, it doesn’t justify giving us a home, does it? Our time is up, we can see that.’ She lowered her head.

  Jane feared tears.

  As her eyes adjusted to the shadowy light, she noticed a series of photos in plain-cut wooden frames lined up on the stone mantelpiece. The subjects of the pictures were indistinct. Family snaps, a wedding, groups of smiling people huddled together. Memorable days in the lives of the Lefèvre clan. At none of which had Jane been present.

  ‘We’re under a lot of strain, what with no work. We’ll have to sign up for chomage if we don’t find another situation fast as we’re still a bit young for our pensions.’

  ‘Well, that’s my reason for dropping by. There’s no need to sign up for unemployment benefits because … Well, I’ve been thinking … As there is so much material in Luc’s studio to log, pack up and donate, I’ve decided … well, that I need to stay on.’

  ‘Marvellous! Oh, that’s marvellous news.’

  ‘It’ll only be for a short while. I’ve spoken to Clarisse,’ she lied, ‘and we both agree that, no matter how dire the estate finances might be at present, we can’t manage without you and Claude. The old farmlands will grind to a standstill without you both and that’s the fact of the matter.’ Jane attempted a laugh to substantiate her deception. It rang hollow in her ears. ‘I hope you’ll agree to return to work with us, starting as soon as would suit you both.’