Silent Faces, Painted Ghosts
Page 17
Terri stood and looked up at the ceiling, remembering the creaking steps up to the attic. ‘Raphael’ was immediately above her; with Aunt Patricia staying, exploring it was going to be out of the question.
*
The longest day had come and gone but the temperature continued to rise. The studio, with its skylights bleeding sunshine, became sticky and still. Peter, who was happy to paint to the sound of music but refused to have the intrusion of a fan whirring, took to leaving the door ajar and asked Luc to open all the windows. In the house Terri was politely introduced to Angela’s sister, a small woman with a big voice and an inquisitive smile, but tried to keep out of the way and had little contact with her. The two women were sometimes to be seen by the pool – Patricia occasionally even swam – or sitting with drinks on the terrace. Sami hammered croquet hoops into the lawn and the sisters played an occasional lethargic game in the late afternoon.
Luc knocked at Terri’s office door one afternoon and walked in to find her sitting at her computer, fanning herself with an art magazine.
‘Too hot for you?’ he remarked blandly. He came to stand behind her and bent over to look at the screen. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m trying to write the catalogue.’
‘In your way am I?’
‘Yes.’
He moved away and leaned against the trestle table where the timeline was laid out.
‘Don’t move anything on that table,’ she ordered, and returned her eyes to the computer.
‘There’s a dinner party tomorrow night. Are you going?’
‘I haven’t been invited.’
‘Oh? Why not?’
Terri shrugged, her gaze not leaving the screen. ‘It’s for Angela’s sister. People she already knows I imagine.’
‘Fine. In that case I was wondering if you would like a day trip to the sea tomorrow?’
Terri raised her eyes to look at him, frowning.
Luc raised his hands in a gesture of innocence. ‘Just a trip to get some sea air. No strings.’ When she hesitated, he added, ‘Sea breezes - it’ll be cooler.’
She hesitated, then nodded, smiling in spite of herself. It was too tempting to refuse. ‘Sounds like a good idea. Where did you have in mind?’
‘Wherever you like.’
*
Terri chose to visit St. Tropez though Luc had insisted that there were closer places they could go. In the early July traffic they got stuck in endless queues, all heading to the coast. Luc complained that they should have left earlier as he had suggested. Terri told him he was being impatient – which was typical of men when they were driving. He protested against the generalization. She abandoned the argument and looked out of the window. They had spent much of the journey either in petty dispute or in teasing, often absurd, exchanges; the cosy familiarity of it had a disconcertingly intimate feel at times.
They drank coffee on the quay facing the water, watched a procession of tanned and glamorous people walking past, then strolled around the old town and ate lunch at a backstreet restaurant, sitting on a terrace under a sweeping canopy.
In the afternoon, they explored the harbour, sight-seeing the enormous yachts with their uniformed crews and luxurious fittings. When they reached the end of the harbour wall, there were seats and a welcome breeze off the sea. Terri sat down, stretching her arms along the backrest and leaning her head back.
‘That’s the first time I’ve felt the air move since we’ve been here,’ she said appreciatively. ‘When I complained about the heat to one of the shopkeepers in Ste. Marguerite the other day, he said: What do you expect? It’s Provence.’
‘He had a point. You should wear a hat.’
‘Probably.’ She closed her eyes, enjoying the whisper of the wind on her skin, but was aware of Luc sitting down beside her and immediately drew her arms back to her side.
‘Have you heard from Oliver recently?’ said Luc.
Terri’s eyes sprang open and she sat up straighter.
‘No.’ She frowned at him. ‘Not for a few days now. Why? Have you seen him?’
‘No. Hey, don’t panic. I’ve seen no-one – no strange Englishmen anyway. Only you told me he’d been emailing you so I wondered how persistent he was.’
‘Oh he’s persistent.’ In fact he had become increasingly abusive. His last message had been: You’re just a whore who’ll go with anyone, aren’t you? And he’d gone on to describe what he’d do to her when he found her. It was sick and her skin crawled at the memory. Why she felt she had to read them was beyond her; she should just delete them as soon as they arrived. But it had been more than a week since that last email. ‘He’s been strangely quiet for a few days actually,’ she added.
‘Good. He’s probably moved on to torture someone else.’
‘Maybe. Poor girl then.’
Luc smiled and she tried a smile too but Oliver’s silence felt ominous and made her irrationally uneasy. She pushed him out of her mind, reluctant to let him spoil her trip.
Luc leaned forward, elbows on knees, looking out between the boats to sea. His expression became reflective, preoccupied even, and they sat in silence. Terri glanced across at his thoughtful profile.
‘What does your father think now...about you painting, I mean?’
He shrugged. ‘He doesn’t know. I haven’t told him.’
‘But surely he must know you’re not writing? Or are you, on the side?’
Luc turned his head to look at her. ‘You still don’t trust me.’
‘No, it’s not that...’ She paused as it occurred to her that she actually meant it, and noticed Luc raise one questioning eyebrow. ‘...I thought he’d make a point of reading your articles. I thought he’d notice if they stopped.’
‘I do still do an occasional piece for a magazine. The money’s useful. But my father wouldn’t notice.’ He looked out to sea again. ‘We fell out some time ago.’
‘I’m sorry.’ She was tempted to ask why but didn’t think she could. ‘Maybe he’ll come round when you become a successful painter.’
He laughed ruefully.
‘Maybe. I doubt it. But there is a gallery in St. Rémy which might give me an exhibition. They want me to produce more work to show them. Then...’ He shrugged again. ‘Who knows?’
‘That’s wonderful. Congratulations.’
He turned to look at her and smiled. ‘Thank you.’
‘When do you think it might be?’
He shook his head and looked at her quizzically. ‘Not sure. I’m a slow worker. But I’ll let you know - if you’ll come, that is.’
For a moment she let her gaze rest on his face. ‘OK,’ she said off-handedly, standing up. ‘It’s very hot here. Can we move on? I need a cup of tea.’
It was just after ten o’clock when Luc drove up the winding drive back to the mas. He paused in the main parking area with the engine still running. A number of unfamiliar cars were lined up in front of the garages. The dinner party was clearly still in full flow.
‘I had a great day,’ said Terri, putting her hand to the door handle. She turned her head. ‘Thanks for inviting me.’
He smiled at her. ‘Me too. Thanks for coming.’ He quickly leaned across and kissed her: warm, gentle, chaste. It was over before she had time to react. He sat back, looking at her expectantly. ‘Maybe we could do this again sometime? Explore somewhere else?’
‘OK...yes, I’d like that.’
She watched the rear lights of his car disappear along the track, her thoughts confused, and made her way up the steps to the terrace. Light spilled out from the downstairs windows of the west wing and she paused, glancing across. There was no-one visible in the drawing room; the guests were apparently still dining.
She heard the crack of something trodden underfoot and looked quickly to her left where a narrow path led round the side of the house to the garages. The long, lean figure of Sami was moving away. He’d been silently watching her. That man could be unnerving.
*
That Sunday morning was dry but a bank of high cloud had made it cooler and sticky. Peter finished his pastry and sat reading, a light breeze occasionally flicking the pages of his newspaper. Turning a page of the broadsheet, his attention was caught by a familiar figure on the pavement on the other side of the street. Peter peered through the fronds of the adjacent potted fig tree. It was Lindsey – he’d thought so - and she was not alone. He stared more intently. She was with Thierry, his own student, and he watched, frowning, as they stopped and lingered over a kiss, the boy’s hand roaming down her back. Then Lindsey looped her arm through the boy’s and they walked on down the street.
Peter was stunned; he’d had no idea. He hadn’t even realised they knew each other and he felt a reflex charge of anger build inside him: Thierry was taking advantage of his little girl. But the fire dissipated as quickly as it had come. Lindsey was no longer a little girl and Thierry was twenty-six or twenty-seven. It was he, Peter, who was old which was why they seemed so young. And he thought his daughter deserved some fun; she got precious little at home. Angela fussed over her and hedged her in. And with Patricia in the house poor Lindsey was being more hounded than ever.
But suppose the girl was falling for Thierry and then he dropped her? She would be broken hearted and Peter would feel responsible. He shook his head, resolutely picked up his coffee cup and took a mouthful. He was not responsible; Lindsey had to learn like everyone else. Angela might treat her like a child but she was all grown up now. Anyway, Thierry seemed like a good boy: he worked hard, he had talent, and he was able to use criticism. And Peter rather liked the idea of having another artist in the family.
Madeleine drifted into his mind. After years of keeping her at bay, she kept doing this lately as if she stood waiting for him to open a door and let her in. When he’d first started dating her, he remembered walking the streets with her, just the way the two youngsters were, hand in hand or with his arm around her shoulder. No-one else had existed for him when he was with Madeleine; he simply did not see them. And he remembered Madeleine’s father calling to see him at his studio, a dump of a place, looking at him suspiciously because he was English and, worse still, an artist, and asking what his intentions were and if he thought he would be able to earn enough to support her. If not, he should do the decent thing and leave her alone – right now. Comprenez? Peter smiled sadly now at the thought. He had not remembered that conversation in donkey’s years.
He finished his coffee, folded up the newspaper and threw some coins on the table. He was about to get up but then remembered that Patricia would be up at the house and his heart sank. His sister-in-law was a decent sort but her prattling conversation revolved entirely around her family and she was currently obsessed with the potty training of her youngest grandchild. Even Angela, who usually enjoyed her sister’s visits, had started to become frayed at the endless bulletins provided courtesy of Patricia’s new smartphone.
Perhaps he should suggest to her that she take her sister over to the Côte d’Azur for a few days. Any available accommodation would cost a fortune at this time of year but he would happily pay. Since that little unpleasantness over the accounts he had thought a few times that he should treat her, prove that it had not been about the money. His father had been mean. By the time he was an old man, it had shown on his face: he was pinched and shrivelled. Peter, whatever his other faults, had always been determined not to be like that.
He tapped a jaunty middle finger on the table and got to his feet, feeling better suddenly. He was certain Angela would love a trip to Cannes – she adored the place; surely Patricia would too? He knew people who would help; he would arrange it for them.
Chapter 13
At Terri’s request, Gilles Arnaud, from the security firm, came to the studio the following Friday to upgrade the locks and fit an alarm. Before leaving, he explained how to programme whatever code she chose into the alarm, how it worked, and how to deactivate it. There was no-one else in the studio to hear. An old artist friend of Peter’s had an exhibition preview that evening in Vence and Peter had invited Luc along. He’d asked Terri too, almost diffidently, and she might have been tempted but they had to leave mid-afternoon and she couldn’t leave Gilles alone in the studio. ‘Indeed not,’ Peter had replied vehemently. ‘Well...there we are then.’
Now she saw Gilles to the door and turned back into the room, glancing up at the huge clock on the wall. It was barely ten past six. She retrieved her things from her office, left the studio and locked the door behind her, feeling a buzz of nervous anticipation. Earlier that afternoon she had taken the key ring from the drawer in Peter’s study. Her fingers automatically felt for it now in her pocket as she quickly climbed the hill to the house.
The two sisters had gone away and the old mas was quiet. According to Corinne, they were staying in a smart hotel in St. Raphaël near Cannes. ‘A few refreshing days by the sea,’ was the way Angela had described it. Lindsey had been working late all week; Corinne would have gone home. This was Terri’s best, if not only, opportunity to gain access to Madeleine’s studio. She deposited her things in her room, quickly changed into cropped trousers and a T-shirt, and made her way back through the house and up the stairs, on and up the hidden flight from the linen room, to the attic room door.
Once there, she fumbled with the lock. There had been two key rings in Peter’s desk drawer – neither were labelled - but the one she’d left behind held cupboard or suitcase keys, too small for an old door. The ring she’d taken held three large old keys. The first entered the lock but wouldn’t move; the second was simply too big. By the time she tried the third - sure that someone would come back any moment and find her there - her hands were damp with sweat. It fitted and turned with a clunk which seemed to echo through the whole house. A wild idea had thrust itself into her mind earlier that day and had refused to leave: suppose there was someone hidden up there, alive or maybe even dead? It was nonsense, of course, and anyway she’d come this far...She pushed the door back and took a cautious step inside.
It was a studio cum day room. Dust motes hung in the air along with a dry musty smell mingled with a tired hint of lavender. There was no body. She looked around. The windows she recognised: low and wide, two into each long wall and one at the front, open a crack at the top. At the back, facing north, was a large window which reached up into the apex of the roof. It hadn’t been visible from the outside but there was a creeper growing across it, spreading its sticky tendrils across the glass. Below it, against the rear wall, stood an old roll top desk. Straight ahead of her was a cabinet with a record-player on the top and a small stack of vinyl records lying alongside. At the front of the room stood a chaise longue in faded linen, a small, low table and, nearby, a long cupboard with a tray and an old kettle on top. On the other side of the room a bookcase stretched the height of the wall.
Terri closed the door behind her and took a few hesitant steps inside. On the other side of the partitioning for the stairs was a door to an old-fashioned washroom. The centre-piece of the room, however, was a l
arge wooden studio easel with a table alongside spread with tubes of oil paint, brushes and rags. A wooden palette was still covered in dried, crusted oil paint. On the easel a vivid painting of a flower shop, with buckets of brightly coloured flowers on the pavement outside, had been left unfinished. A yellowed reference sketch was pinned to the easel; others lay on the table. Getting closer, she could see the dust lying in the grooves of the congealed paint and fragments of colour which had flaked off.
On the walls and propped up on the floor were more canvases: still lives of flowers, pottery and fabrics; intimate interiors; people working; sweeping landscapes - cheerful, optimistic pictures, enthusiastically and efficiently executed. All had been signed: Madeleine. It was a room frozen in time, left as it was the day it had been abandoned. And there was a layer of dust over everything while gossamer thin cobwebs hung and looped from the ceiling. Surprisingly, despite the neglect and forlorn associations, it was a charming room: untidy and homely. Terri could almost imagine Madeleine walking back in, taking up where she’d left off. It was an odd feeling. She moved round, occasionally letting her fingers rest on something: the brushes on the table, the edge of a canvas, the high gloss glaze on a gaudy vase.
Down in the sitting area, at the front, an old mahogany writing slope on the cupboard top glowed in the flattening rays of the sun. In front of it the sunlight reflected off a couple of photograph frames containing black and white images. The first was a wedding photograph: Madeleine in a pale lace dress and Peter looking happy if bashful in a dark suit. The second was of Madeleine with a baby in her arms. Terri studied it then slid the photograph out. On the back someone had written: Madeleine with Josie 1957. So this was Josephine, but the child’s tiny features told her nothing and she replaced it in the frame.
She stood, surveying the room. Where would Josephine’s diaries be? She crossed back to the roll top desk near the door. The top was unlocked and it snaked back easily under the pressure of her hands. In its pigeon holes she found drawing pins, paperclips and stationery. There were receipts, odd lists, an open bag of brittle elastic bands and a wad of yellowed letters, written in French, signed with names Terri had never heard of. The drawers held nothing of interest either. She abandoned it and crossed to the bookcase.