A Year in the Château

by Sarah Long

  ‘I know I’m not a cook,’ she said, ‘but I just wanted to express how relieved we are that you’re with us again.’

  That made Nicola cry. ‘I almost didn’t come back,’ she said, ‘but I’m so glad I did. This is where I belong.’

  Her first task was deciding what to do with Dominic’s ashes. On her first night home at the château, the urn was placed on the mantelpiece in the crystal ballroom, where Will proposed a moving toast to his friend. Fizz suggested scattering them on the lake; Leo wanted to commission a life-size statue; Dougie proposed a Victorian-style headstone, engraved with weeping maidens. Nicola eventually settled on the idea of creating a rock garden in his memory, beside her vegetable plot within the high stone walls. That way, she would see him every day when she came to tend her crops. Granite boulders were assembled from around the grounds and Nicola trawled through the websites of specialist nurseries to compile a perfectly harmonious combination of exquisite alpines – African violets, Cape primroses, cyclamens, speedwell and gentians – which she carefully planted to form a perennial tribute to her beloved husband.

  True to her practical nature, Nicola realised that keeping busy was the best way to cope, and spent most of her days hard at work in the garden. It was Jean-Louis’s idea to develop this passion into a business. He regularly sold his apples at the local market and one day asked Nicola to come along to help him. She loved the bustling atmosphere, the sight of the boxes of Belle de Boskop and Reine de Reinettes emptying into their customers’ baskets.

  ‘You should join me in this market garden project,’ Jean-Louis said. ‘We can diversify. I have no time to grow vegetables, but you have the green hand – I have seen how your garden has flourished. With my apples and your salads, we can make a very good team.’

  ‘We say green fingers not green hand,’ she corrected him, but the idea was appealing.

  Before long she was loading up her own crates of onions and lettuce and joining him twice a week at morning markets – one in their own town and the other fifteen kilometres away. She came to recognise their regular customers, who were intrigued to find an English woman manning the stall.

  One elderly man with a twinkle in his eye always greeted her the same way, with a chivalrous, borderline lecherous flourish: ‘A nous les petites anglaises! ’

  ‘Why does he say that?’ she asked Jean-Louis, who explained it was a reference to a film about French schoolboys on an educational trip to Kent that would have been released in her admirer’s heyday. She found comfort in these moments of levity, a welcome release from the heavy numbness that was still her default mode.

  After dinner – with the remarkably delicious soup – they took tea and games in the salon. The games had become a habit, an hour of companionable interaction before everyone disappeared to their own quarters. Nicola found it soothing to have something to focus on, rather than make conversation, which invariably brought her circling in to her own unhappiness. Tonight they were playing Articulate and Nicola was paired with Leo. She was trying to describe a ferret to him, but he was proving very obtuse.

  ‘Put it down my trousers – whatever for?’ he was asking.

  ‘Come on, Leo,’ said Will, ‘everyone knows this!’

  ‘Well, I don’t. Nature is not my strong suit.’

  ‘It’s good to hear you laugh again,’ said Mary, as they packed away the game. ‘I think it works better if you store the cards like this – much tidier.’

  Nicola let her rearrange the cards that she had carelessly thrown into the box.

  ‘It’s great to have you all here,’ she said. ‘I know we talked about the advantages of having friends on tap when we bought this place, but I never dreamed I’d have such urgent need of them.’

  ‘You’re doing so well,’ said Mary. ‘I’m going to fit in a couple of hours of study before bed. Have you got a good book to read? Very important in your condition.’

  ‘I’m reading this thing that Fizz gave me, about a woman training a hawk in order to get over the death of her father. Can’t say it’s something that would cheer me up, but each to his own, I guess.’

  ‘Your garden is your hawk, I suppose.’

  ‘Yes, busyness is next to godliness. Or saves me from myself, or something.’

  ‘Though you don’t want to overdo the busyness. Remember Chaucer’s “Sergeant of the Law’s Tale”: And yet he seemed busier than he was – a marvellous put-down of the self-important busy-busy culture that still infects us. You need to be kind to yourself, Nicola. Make sure you take plenty of rest.’

  ‘I love my garden, it’s so therapeutic. But I think perhaps I’m ready to give up on the goshawk. I’m going to read PG Wodehouse instead. Goodnight, Mary.’

  Nicola climbed up the stairs, pleasantly tired after her morning at the market. She’d take it easier tomorrow: get up late, then have a sort through Dom’s clothes and see about getting rid of some of them. She opened the door of the armoire they’d bought from Chris, remembering with a smile how he’d fallen in love with it. There were his shirts hanging in a neat line, the donkey jacket he’d cherished for many years, the Norwegian fisherman’s sweater ready for the winter he wouldn’t see.

  It was too late to look at this now. She undressed and slipped into bed. The nights were the worst, everyone said so. The bed was too big without Dom. It was difficult getting to sleep without his warm presence beside her, and the small hours waking were such a cliché, but very vexing. She picked up a book from the pile next to ‘her’ side of the bed, in the hope that Carry On, Jeeves would see her through till morning.

  *

  Jean-Louis had told her that October was the best month in Normandy and Nicola could see what he meant when she woke and pulled back the curtains. A soft grey blanket of fog was lying across the valley and above it the sun was breaking through, pale yellow against the milky blue sky.

  After giving up on PG Wodehouse, she had remembered Leo’s advice and read a little Jane Austen, which had done the trick and she had slept right through. In her peaceful, rested state she could now contemplate the view across the russet-tinged trees with pleasure and gratitude.

  Dominic’s wardrobe was less intimidating in the sunlight. She pulled out his clothes and laid them out on the bed in a business-like manner. The obvious way to dispose of them would be to take them to a charity shop, but she hadn’t seen any since the move to France, although she wasn’t sure why; there were plenty of depots-ventes where you could buy incomplete sets of crockery and broken pieces of furniture. It must just be clothes that were deemed unworthy of selling on. Dom had been a big fan of charity shops; he often used to joke he was wearing a dead man’s suit when he put on one of his second-hand bargains. Now it was someone else’s turn to wear the dead man’s suits, assuming Nicola could find a charity shop to take them.

  She picked up a pair of jeans and started rooting through the pockets, the way she had done so many times when preparing a load of washing. Dom was by no means an unreconstructed patriarch, but she’d always taken care of the washing; he once joked that he wouldn’t know how to turn the machine on if anything happened to her.

  Tucked deep into a back pocket was a small key. She pulled it out and inspected it, but didn’t recognise it. Possibly it belonged to an old bike padlock. Yet the jeans had clearly been worn quite recently and she had already thrown away the bike keys, which had been returned to her in the hospital, in a transparent plastic bag alongside his other personal effects: the trainers, the wallet containing a photo of her, his wedding ring. It occurred to her when they handed it over that there were only two eventualities that would result in such a transaction: death or prison release.

  Then she remembered. He was wearing the jeans when they were moving stuff into the barn, and this was the key to the box of diaries that he was so keen to keep from her. Well, it was too late now, he no longer had the authority to prevent her snooping. It was like the moral dilemma facing relatives of deceased artists. Would they want their privat
e letters shared for posterity or should they all go up in a pile of smoke? She took the unilateral decision that she should read them, and that she should do so right now.

  Simon had stepped outside for a smoke and she passed him on her way out.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m just going through Dom’s things and want to check out some papers in the barn.’

  ‘Don’t make yourself too sad. Do you want me to come with you? I could serve as your filing clerk.’

  ‘No, I’ll be all right, but thanks for the offer.’

  ‘Anytime.’

  He took hold of her shoulder and addressed her in an unusually earnest manner.

  ‘You know I’m here for you, don’t you? We’re all here for you.’

  She laughed. ‘Piss off, Simon – sincerity doesn’t suit you. But seriously, thank you. I know you are, and I’m touched. I really am.’

  She set off at a brisk pace, following the lavender hedge where some confused bees were looking for long-gone pollen in a half-hearted way. The last thing she wanted was company, witnesses to her delving into her late husband’s diaries and tales of his teenage conquests.

  A perfectly formed spider’s web was suspended on the gate to the field, shimmering with drops from last night’s rain, and Nicola stopped to admire it. There was not a breath of wind and although it was chilly, she could feel that the sun would be coming through later, bringing a couple of hours of warmth when you could imagine yourself back to the summer, back to the balmy days when she still had him.

  She shook off that unhelpful thought and opened the barn door. Everything was exactly as they had left it, the chaise longue and armchair still uncovered – they’d never got round to protecting them with a tarpaulin. She went to the cardboard box and delved down through the photos until she found the metal box at the bottom. She heaved it out and tried the key – open sesame! There was the diary, exactly as she remembered. Dom’s previous life, before he met her, laid out in hand-scrawled pages in an exercise book.

  Did teenagers today keep diaries? She had no idea. Gus and Maddie never did to her knowledge – you’d have to hack into their online messages to uncover their most secret thoughts, private exchanges and photos, now evaporated into the ether of iCloud storage.

  Reading through Dom’s diaries now, she remembered why she chose to destroy her own. It wasn’t a case of getting rid of evidence, it was embarrassment at the banality of the entries. The self-importance of adolescents, placing themselves squarely at the centre of the universe, interpreting every pedestrian exchange with their friends as a matter of extreme significance. She smiled as she noted his scoring system, as though each romantic encounter was a football match with goals achieved and nil-nil draws.

  So much for that, she thought as she closed the book. Nothing there I didn’t know. She put it aside and lifted out some photos, enjoying a leisurely trip down memory lane. How lucky she was to have had him for thirty-five years; she should focus on that rather than dwelling on her loss. The self-help books she had flicked through all advised gratitude for the gift of a departed loved one.

  As she was putting everything away, she noticed that there were some brown envelopes tucked at the bottom of the metal box. She should look through them in case there was anything useful; her recent experience of red tape had made her realise the importance of keeping records, and there might be something here. The first contained payslips from Dom’s student holiday jobs at a garage and a garden centre, written references to Whom It May Concern, vouching for his excellent character and capacity for hard work – she couldn’t argue with that. Then she slid out the contents of the second envelope. A collection of letters, with his name handwritten on the thick cream envelopes, sent to his office, not their home address. She opened one up and inside found three sheets of flamboyant writing on the kind of stationery you don’t use for business purposes.

  My darling Dom,

  it began.

  I know things are difficult for you right now, but I wanted to let you know that I completely understand and that I will wait for you.

  Nicola stared at it in disbelief. Her instinct was to screw up and throw away this utter nonsense, but she carried on.

  You talk of loyalty to your family and I love you for that. You are a good man. But you cannot let your past dictate your future and you know you agree with me that I am your future, as you are mine. You will never be happy if you deny yourself the opportunity that fate has thrown in our path. We must be together, and together we will overcome the obstacles.

  What on earth was this about? It had to all be nonsense. Or was it the scribblings of a crazed stalker who’d become obsessed with Dom? She checked the date at the top of the letter – it was several years ago, but she didn’t recall him mentioning anything like this. Although there was that secretary at the office they used to laugh about, who obviously had a crush on him, but why would she actually post a letter when she could just drop it on his desk?

  Confused, she flicked through the rest of the envelopes. There were loads of them, at least twenty-five. The date stamps showed most were posted twelve years ago, then some more recently, ten and eleven years ago – they covered a couple of years, it wasn’t just a one-off.

  She slipped another letter out of its envelope. The same careful handwriting – it wasn’t dashed off in a hurry. It spoke of a weekend in Castel Gandolfo, their precious hours together in the shadow of the Pope’s summer palace. There were too many accurate details for this to be the work of a crazed stalker. Like how happy Dom had been to find his favourite Tuscan fennel sausage to take on their picnic. How on earth would she know that was his favourite?

  ‘It’s not true,’ she said out loud. ‘It can’t be true; it must be a mistake.’

  She devoured the rest of the letter, then gorged on all the others, like a compulsive eater who can’t stop, even though she knows it’s bad for her. Then she read them all again. There were two possibilities. These letters were fabrications, or they were genuine. But if they were fabrications, why would Dom have kept them all these years under lock and key? Why would he have been in such a panic when she found them here and he thought she was going to read them?

  She scrunched up the letters and threw them across the barn.

  ‘You bastard,’ she said. ‘You sneaky, lying bastard. You sneaky dead bastard, who’s not even around to hear what I’ve got to say to you. How could you!’

  Then her methodical side kicked in and she picked up the scattered letters and laid them out in date order. The evidence, m’lud, set out in black and white. Or rather, purple and cream. She’d always mistrusted people who used coloured ink and fussy stationery, as if what they had to say was too good for normal methods or so trite it needed to be dressed up in fancy clothing, and now she knew why. What an absolute bloody cow.

  It had all begun twelve years ago, apparently.

  I can’t put in words how much I enjoyed last night. I’ve no idea how I’m going to get through the next week until we do it again. Once is never enough with a man like you. Take care, my Dom. Your Flora xxx

  My Dom. How dare she! Twelve years ago, when Gus and Maddie were at peak vulnerability in early adolescence. When Nicola was working flat out at the surgery and Dominic started travelling more for business. Or at least he said it was for business; probably it was a pretext for nights away with Flora. Stupid name. Flora and Fauna. Flora margarine.

  As she pieced the timeframe together, Nicola drew the arc of the relationship with what she could glean from the one-sided letters. The heady early days – where did they meet? Infuriatingly there was no way of finding out. Then a full year of regular meetings, trysts in hotels, the weekend in Castel Gandolfo and a trip to Bologna, which provoked a lengthy recollection of the best tortellini she had ever tasted – along with other pleasures of the flesh, no doubt – and finally, the ultimatum, when Dom had evidently decided not to leave Nicola. That was big of him.

  You promis
ed me, you said it would just take a little time to find the right moment to tell her, and now you tell me after two wasted years that there is no right moment.

  Was he seriously planning to walk out on her? Or was this just a bit of fun, which Flora had taken too seriously? Why aren’t you here? she thought again angrily. Why can’t you explain and apologise to me? It seemed that Flora’s husband had left her shortly before the affair and that she had wasted no time in searching out a replacement. Revenge adultery, you might call it.

  Nicola thought back and tried to remember if there was any sign, any way she might have known that he was cheating on her, but nothing came to her. They’d had their ups and downs, like everyone else, but it all merged together in her head, the long flow of married life, getting on with it, united in the pleasures that drew you together in the first place, then sharing your pride in the children as they miraculously evolved under your lazy watch. Benign neglect, it worked for them – they used to laugh at other people’s helicopter parenting, overseeing every detail of their child’s life in the hope of producing a cloned but better version of themselves.

  ‘You still here?’

  Simon appeared at the barn door.

  ‘I’ve come to tell you that lunch is ready. You’ve been ages – what are you up to? Is that your filing spread out all over the floor?’

  ‘Is it lunchtime already? I had no idea.’

  She turned to face him.

  ‘Good God, what’s up?’ he said. ‘You look terrible. Like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I have, in a way.’

  *

  ‘What a conniving little shit,’ said Beth. ‘I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead, but really.’

  She put the letter down and picked up another from the pile that had been passed around the table.