by Kathy Shuker
The upper shelves were full of paperbacks, the lower shelves held folders, files and large, hardback art books. There were no diaries. On a lower shelf was a photograph album containing Madeleine and Peter’s wedding photographs, a time-capsule of the nineteen fifties: fascinating but irrelevant.
Terri suddenly remembered asking her father if there was a photograph album for his wedding and he’d said no in that clipped way he had when he was reluctant to talk. They’d married in a registry office, on the spur of the moment, he’d said, and had immediately changed the subject. And then, as if the one memory had jostled another, she remembered doing a project on family trees at school and asking her father to help her fill in the names. But he didn’t know the names on her mother’s side apparently; she’d fallen out with her family and never talked about them. The more she remembered, the more it all seemed to fit. She felt a bubble of excitement forming inside, or maybe it was apprehension.
After the heat of the day the attic air was warm and close. She rubbed a hand across her damp forehead and looked round again, forcing herself to think. This was Madeleine’s room, not Josephine’s. Where would a grieving daughter be likely to put something in her mother’s room? Her gaze fell on the work table by the easel – arguably the most important place in the room.
She heard a man’s cough outside and quickly moved to the window, peering down. She couldn’t see anyone. It was probably Sami; he rarely came in the house but, perhaps, with Angela away... She needed to get on and finish here. She crossed briskly to the work table.
An old oilskin tablecloth disguised the fact that it was actually a big kneehole desk. Terri pulled out the upper right hand drawer. It was full of pencils, rubbers, sharpeners, a box of charcoal and some coloured crayons. The second drawer held a tray of watercolour pans and brushes. The bottom drawer was full of old sketch books. She checked through the top one: it was full of neat pencil studies.
About to put it back, she found the remaining sketch pads had tipped unevenly in the drawer and, pulling them out, she found three hard-backed lined notebooks underneath. The first contained clumps of writing in a childish, uneven hand. They were in French and the top entry was headed November 1967. Terri struggled to read it but grasped the gist.
Dear Diary,
Madame Grancourt gave you to me because I need a friend. She is my favourite teacher and very kind. She thinks I should talk to you and it will make me feel better. I miss maman so much that I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to do anything. My friends don’t understand. Madame Grancourt said to write anything I want. But I don’t know what to say. I’m so unhappy. Today I had stew for lunch. The tartines I had after school were stale. I haven’t seen papa all day.
Terri closed her eyes, clutching the book hard between her two hands. ‘Yes,’ she hissed triumphantly. Glancing through quickly it was clear that the other two books held similar writing and were marked with later dates.
She slipped the diaries into the cotton shoulder bag she’d brought with her, carefully closed the drawer and stepped back softly across the room and out of the door, locking it silently behind her.
*
November
The baby came home from hospital today. His name is Tom. He hasn’t been well and they say he’s very weak. He was supposed to come home before but then he got an infection. There is a nurse to look after him. Her name is Denise. Tom is very small with tiny little fingers and nails. His eyes are very dark, like maman’s, and he has a lock of dark hair on the top of his head. I’m not sure I want him here. It was because of him that maman died so now he’s here and she isn’t. Why did she have to have another baby?
It had been Terri’s habit, as a child, to read in bed – a safe, cocooned world - long after she was supposed to be asleep. Now, having furtively returned the keys to the studio, she was in bed again, reading the earliest entries in the first diary. Josephine had been haphazard about dating her entries, sometimes just marking the month and, rarely, a specific day. The first entries were the woebegone jottings of a bright but unhappy child. Occasionally there was one line; sometimes a wordy, rambling paragraph. Terri turned the page.
December
‘School finishes for Christmas next week. All my friends are excited about it. Angeline is hoping for a pair of skating boots. I don’t know what I want. Maman always made a nativity scene but when I asked papa about it he said no. He said he didn’t know where it was and he got cross when I offered to look for it. Yesterday we put the santons round the crib at school. It looks very nice. I brought one of the santons home and I’ve hidden it in my room. It’s a lady with a basket of flowers and she reminds me of maman.’
Terri had seen the little painted clay figures which the Provençal people used in their nativity scenes each year. There was a shop in Aix-en-Provence which specialised in them. She yawned. It was a laborious process deciphering both the undisciplined handwriting and the French.
Isabelle found the santon when she was cleaning my room.
Isabelle had been mentioned before; she was the bonne.
She showed it to papa and he got very cross. He says I must take it back to school in January and say I’m sorry. I told him I was going to take it back but he didn’t listen. He never listens. Isabelle says he’s just very sad and I have to behave. But she should not...
There was a verb Terri didn’t know. Too often she found she was guessing meanings. Maybe this was ‘search or snoop’.
...in my room. She probably reads this diary too even though I hide it. Aunt Celia asked me what I wanted for Christmas today. She said she would take me shopping tomorrow. I wonder if she’ll remember. She’ll probably make me get something horrible. She likes strange things.
Terri put the notebook down again, rubbing her eyes. It was nearly midnight and she knew she should sleep but first she’d read just another couple of pages...
A few minutes later she fell asleep with the light on and the notebook still on her lap.
*
With the two sisters away, the days appeared longer; time felt elastic and flexible, the routines temporarily adjusted or even abandoned. The old mas basked in the summer sun, its pale sandy stone changed, like a cygnet to a swan, into a dazzling white. The chorus of cigales rose each afternoon to a deafening pitch then slowly fell away again as the sun set. It was almost as if the house itself seemed watchful, waiting for something to happen.
Corinne fussed over Peter. When she got back to the house on the Tuesday afternoon, Terri found her arranging a salade niçoise on a plate.
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘It’s for Monsieur Stedding. I leave him food for the evening.’
‘You spoil him.’
‘I have to or he won’t eat.’
‘Why not?’ asked Terri.
‘Because he is a man,’ Corinne replied simply. ‘And they are stupid. He will eat crisps. Or chocolate.’ She shook her head. ‘It’s not good for an old man. He needs proper nourishment. And he drinks whisky,’ she added sadly, as if that itself proved the point. She finished preparing the salad and wrapped it in cling film. ‘He will probably leave it anyway.’ She switched her gaze sharply back up at Terri who was smiling. ‘You think this is funny?’
‘I think you worry too much about him.’
‘I think you should make sure he eats it.’
‘Me?’ Terri’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I don’t think he’ll listen to me.’
‘Perhaps I should make one for you too? You probably don’t eat properly either. You could eat together.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Terri, with a grin. ‘You just fuss over Peter and leave me out of it. Anyway, he’ll probably work till late and I’ll be in bed.’
But Peter seemed to be spending more of his evenings around the house. Terri didn’t want to spend all her spare time in her dark room but nor did she want to get in his way. It was like being in some kind of party game where she had to guess where he would be next and move on to
avoid him.
On the Thursday evening, sure that she’d heard him go out, she walked into the kitchen to make something to eat only to find him sitting at the big wooden table. Not far from where he sat, clearly pushed to one side, sat Corinne’s plated meal, still wrapped in cling film. There was a glass, half full of red wine, near his right hand and the open bottle further up the table. Lying close by, flat on its side, was a packet of salted nuts with the corner ripped open. A couple of peanuts had fallen out onto the table. Peter raised his eyes from a book at her approach and his expression noticeably brightened.
‘Ah Terri,’ he said, ‘how are you?’
‘Fine, thanks. Sorry, I didn’t mean to disturb you. I was just going to get something to eat.’
‘Carry on.’ He waved a hand towards the kitchen. ‘What are you going to have?’
‘I haven’t decided yet.’
Peter examined the wrapped salad.
‘If you like tuna and...fried potato...and egg... and, let me see, French beans, you could eat this. You’d be doing me a favour.’ He looked up at her again, eyebrows raised in a pleading, comical expression.
‘But Corinne wouldn’t approve,’ Terri said. ‘She told me to make sure you ate her meals.’
‘Did she indeed? The madam. She makes too many salads; does she think I’m a rabbit? Anyway, I’m not going to eat this so it’s up to you.’ He pushed the plate towards her. ‘No doubt she’ll be cross with us both tomorrow morning when she finds it in the fridge.’
Terri moved closer to the table.
‘What will you eat then? Do you want me to make you something?’
‘Are you a good cook?’
‘Terrible.’
‘Then no. I had a meal at lunch-time in any case. There’s a large tiramisu in the fridge which is beckoning. If you eat this thing, I’ll let you share it with me.’ He got up, grabbed another wine glass from the rack and poured red wine into it. He put it firmly down on the table by the salad.
Terri slid into the chair nearest the plate and put her things – including an old hardback book - on the chair alongside.
‘What’s that?’ demanded Peter, looking at the book.
‘It’s the French dictionary from the sitting room. Do you mind if I borrow it?’
He shook his head. ‘Of course not. In any case, it’s ancient and out-of-date. Why, what are you reading?’
‘Nothing special,’ she said. ‘Just a cheap paperback.’
She was embarrassed at the ease of the lie. She peeled the plastic off the salad, picked up the cutlery Peter had moved her way and started to eat. Peter returned to his book. He ignored her and she watched him out of the corner of her eye. Over the last three months she had spent a lot of time with him and yet really she barely knew him. In Josie’s diaries there had been glimpses of him as both the withdrawn grieving widower and the clumsy father of a troubled child. But the night before she had read about a trip Peter had made with Josie into town where, after a ride on the roundabout, he’d bought her a huge ice-cream. It had been an exceptional outing, a rare moment of connection between them, and the girl had seemed briefly happy.
It had brought to mind a long-forgotten trip Terri had made with her own father. She had no idea how old she’d been – nine or ten perhaps – and they’d gone to the seaside. She remembered playing crazy golf with him – he’d let her win - and yes, there was ice-cream, melting too fast and running down the cone over her hand. Why had she never remembered that until now? It always seemed to be the dark, silent times which stuck in her mind.
‘What are you reading?’ she asked Peter suddenly.
He looked up, surprised, then picked up the book to show her the cover. She looked at it blankly.
‘It’s a thriller,’ he said, ‘American.’
‘Good?’
‘Not bad.’
‘I wouldn’t have expected it,’ she said, without thinking.
Peter studied her face, his lip curling in amusement.
‘Why? What would you have expected me to read?’
She shrugged, swallowed the last mouthful of Corinne’s salad and laid the cutlery down on the plate.
‘I don’t know. Something more literary perhaps. I noticed that the bookshelves in the sitting room are full of classics – both English and French.’
Peter looked at her with a knowing smile.
‘I do that just for show. A lot of them are very old. I have read them, mind you, but years ago. These days, I like books which move along. Time is shorter – or maybe I’m more impatient.’ He looked at the empty plate. ‘How was that?’
‘Delicious. I’ll have to tell Corinne.’
‘Mm...you’d better not.’ He fell silent, lips pursed up, studying her speculatively. ‘So...what do you like to read?’
He topped up the wine glasses and they sat, surprisingly companionable, discussing books and then films. About the most recent films, Peter knew only what he’d read in newspaper reviews – he never got to the cinema these days, he said – but with old films he had an endless supply of stories and anecdotes.
‘Have you tried the old fleapit in Ste. Marguerite?’ he asked eventually.
‘No, not yet.’
‘Then Luc is slipping, isn’t he?’ said Peter, archly. ‘Don’t chaps do that with their best girls anymore? Back row of the cinema?’ He winked. ‘I’ll have to have a word with him.’
She was about to protest that she was not Luc’s girl when Peter pushed his chair back and got to his feet.
‘Dessert?’ he offered, and immediately walked away to fetch it.
*
Angela sat alone at the kitchen table and ate her grapefruit, breaking each segment in half and chewing carefully. It was just after ten o’clock on the Monday morning and her sister was still in bed. They’d got back the previous evening, a day earlier than intended because Patricia had gone down with a streaming summer cold. It looked like the few remaining days of her holiday were going to be blighted.
It was deadly quiet in the house. True, Corinne was in the utility room, bustling about, doing some job or other, but no-one else was around. Already St. Raphaël and the buzz of life in their sophisticated hotel felt like a world away. Angela desultorily finished the grapefruit and replaced the spoon in the dish, then poured herself a cup of tea and sipped it. At least that was one thing which was better at home: she knew how to make a decent cup of tea.
She got up, took the dish over to the sink, then pushed two slices of toast down in the toaster and idly looked round. It was all so boringly familiar, so dull. Except that there were three DVDs stacked together on the edge of the worktop nearest the passage. That was unusual. Puzzled, she moved closer and picked them up, glancing at each one in turn. The Maltese Falcon, True Grit and Rear Window. She frowned. They were each still labelled with the price on a sticker which named the shop where they’d been purchased; she’d never heard of it. She had certainly never seen these films in the house before. She turned, the DVDs still in her hand, as Corinne emerged from the utility room hauling a bin bag of rubbish and a plastic carrier bag with newspapers and flattened boxes protruding from the top.
‘Do you know what these are?’ enquired Angela, holding the films up.
Corinne hesitated. ‘Yes,’ she said cautiously. ‘They are films that belong to Luc.’
‘To Luc?’ Angela frowned. ‘So why are they here?’
‘I don’t know. Perhaps they haven’t finished with them. Perhaps he comes to get them...later.’
‘Who hasn’t finished with them?’ said Angela, the frown deepening. ‘And why are they are here in the first place?’
‘It is nothing to do with me,’ said Corinne defensively. ‘Excuse me, I must put these outside.’
She began to pass through the kitchen but was stopped by a hand on her upper arm. Angela pulled at a cardboard box poking out of the carrier bag.
‘Popcorn,’ she said in amazement. ‘Who’s been eating popcorn? Tell me what’s been going on
Corinne.’
Corinne rested the bag of rubbish down on the floor and paused, looking at Angela with a resigned expression.
‘Monsieur Stedding had a film night.’ She shrugged. ‘He wanted to see some old films...and Luc knows a shop in Avignon where he can buy them...cheap. So they all watch films, eat popcorn and ice-cream.’ She took the flat box back out of Angela’s hand and replaced it in the bag. ‘They did not make so much mess so I am happy.’ She picked up the bin bag again and carried it out, muttering to herself.
The toast popped and Angela automatically walked across to take it out and put it on a plate. She took it back to the table but sat, doing nothing with the toast, just staring, unfocussed, into space. It was such a strange story; Peter hadn’t watched a film in years. He’d not shown any interest. And to sit there eating popcorn? But then she remembered hearing him singing in the bath just before she went away. She couldn’t remember when he’d last done that either.
Corinne returned, walked through to the utility room and could be heard washing her hands. Angela began to spread margarine on the toast then stopped half way through as something Corinne had said came back into her mind. She got up again and walked into the utility room.
‘You said ‘they all watched films’,’ she stated firmly. ‘All who?’
Corinne was now drying her hands on the towel behind the door.
‘Monsieur Stedding, Luc, Terri and Celia,’ she replied.
‘Where was Lindsey?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And when was this?’
‘Saturday night.’ Corinne smiled and raised her eyebrows. ‘Movie night,’ she said, rocking her head side to side. When she saw Angela’s expression, the smile faded. ‘It has nothing to do with me,’ she repeated.