Silent Faces, Painted Ghosts

by Kathy Shuker

  Angela watched Peter hit the black ball too close to the edge of the lawn where it slowly trickled off the grass and ran away. Terri dropped her mallet and ran after it while he looked on. Angela’s gaze flicked back to Lindsey. She was laughing at something Celia had said and it looked like genuine mirth. And now she was miming some catwalk pose, nose in the air, talking and waving her hands about. She looked happy and Angela knew the reason why. It had nothing to do with Celia.

  ‘I gather Lindsey’s stepping out with Thierry, one of my students,’ Peter had said to Angela before the others arrived. ‘She was scared to tell me in case I didn’t approve but he’s a good chap. I don’t mind. Do you know him?’

  ‘I know who he is but no, I don’t know him.’

  ‘Well, he’s a damn fine painter. Yes, a good lad. I can’t see any problem there, can you?’

  ‘Really, Peter, Is that the basis on which you judge his suitability for your own daughter...’ she demanded, ‘...that he’s a good painter?’

  He shook his head, frowning. ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘And you’ve already told her you approve?’

  ‘Yes.’ He hesitated. ‘She said you weren’t keen though and I wondered why.’

  ‘You know why, Peter. French life might seem like some sort of Eden to you but it doesn’t to me. Their culture’s different. They’re different. Lindsey doesn’t see it now because she’s infatuated; she’s not thinking straight. You should be telling her that.’

  ‘She’ll be fine. Angela...’ He reached out and tentatively touched her arm. ‘...she’s not a child darling. Stop treating her like one. It’s doing her no good the way you fuss over her all the time.’

  ‘I do not fuss. But she is sensitive and vulnerable. You don’t see it; you’re in a world of your own. She might get hurt. Or she might spend her whole life wishing she’d made a different choice and not sure what she should do about it. So you found a special French girl, well bully for you. But let’s face it your precious Madeleine didn’t live long enough for you to know whether it really would have worked out or not. She’ll always seem perfect in your eyes, won’t she? She never got the chance to show her bad side or disappoint you.’

  ‘She didn’t have a bad side,’ he said, looking shocked.

  ‘Everyone has a bad side, Peter. Stop sanctifying the woman.’

  She regretted her remarks from the moment she’d said them but the words had piled out, in a rush, as if they’d been waiting to be said for so long they could wait no longer. And she’d stunned herself by the bitterness they’d betrayed. Neither of them had mentioned Madeleine’s name to the other since Peter’s first, awkward days of courtship. And now Angela could almost feel the woman, rising up to stand between them, conjured up again after years of being ignored. Peter was silent for a moment, the muscles of his face twitching.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said explosively.

  Angela was glaring at him; she couldn’t help herself. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he repeated, and looked at her as if he hoped she’d fill in what he should be sorry for. She did not oblige. ‘I’ve made mistakes,’ he eventually added. ‘I mean, we used to be good together didn’t we? In those early days? I didn’t realise that I’d made Madeleine into...’ He shook his head, then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. ‘You know...well I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it to be like that. It’s never been that I don’t care for you. I do. Well...so there we are...’

  Terri and Lindsey had walked in and he’d abruptly turned away.

  So, Angela thought now, what was that all about? She tried to put it out of her mind and watched the game continue. Peter appeared cheerful; there was no sign in his behaviour of the argument which had gone before. Terri, she thought, looked subdued but it was difficult to tell with her - she ran deep, that one. Still, she was laughing now as she managed to hit Lindsey’s ball and it, too, went careering off the lawn.

  ‘Sorry,’ she called out.

  ‘No, you’re not,’ countered Lindsey. ‘You did it on purpose.’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘Bloody slope,’ complained Celia, cigarette in hand. ‘Who else would play croquet on the side of a hill?’

  ‘Stop moaning and get on with it,’ said Peter. ‘Whose turn is it?’

  ‘Mine,’ said Lindsey, returning with her ball and placing it back on the lawn.

  ‘That’s not a metre in,’ Peter protested. ‘You’re cheating. That must be a good five foot.’

  ‘Don’t mix your metric and imperial,’ said Lindsey primly. ‘You’re showing your age. Anyway I don’t see anything wrong with it, do you Celia? Has anyone got a measure?’

  Angela stopped listening to the banter as her thoughts wandered again. Lindsey was different these days: she was less biddable, more opinionated and more likely to answer back. She was vague about her movements and parried direct questions. Angela’s eyes flicked to Terri who was watching the exchange and smiling. It was ever since that woman had come into the house. It was like having the proverbial cuckoo in the nest.

  *

  Terri collected up the mallets and balls and put them in the croquet box. Lindsey and Celia had won the game and, though Peter wanted a return match, Angela had already gone back inside to finish preparing the meal, warning them not to be long. Celia immediately lit another cigarette and wandered off towards the mas. Across the lawn and still holding their mallets, Peter and Lindsey were deep in conversation. Terri decided to discreetly withdraw and made her way back to the house too.

  The front door was standing open when she got there and she stepped into the relative cool of the hall. The door to the kitchen was half open too and beyond it she heard two voices. One was Angela’s, raised and cross, the other was the gravelly and recognisably measured voice of Celia. Terri hesitated a moment then moved softly across to stand just out of sight behind the door jamb.

  ‘It’s no good playing the innocent with me, Celia,’ Angela was saying. ‘I know what you’re up to and I won’t let it work. And will you put that cigarette out in the house? I’ve told you often enough.’ There was a pause. ‘Oh here,’ added Angela impatiently, and a piece of crockery of some kind could be heard being put down roughly on the worktop. ‘Put it in there.’

  ‘You’re always accusing me of things, Angela,’ said Celia calmly. ‘I don’t know why. I keep myself to myself most of the time. I always have. I’ve never wanted to trespass on your space.’

  A pan lid banged. Angela was never normally this heavy-handed.

  ‘That’s a bad joke. Of course you trespass. You’re here aren’t you? If you’d had any decency you’d have gone back to England when I married Peter. You’ve done nothing but make snide remarks ever since I came here.’

  ‘Why would I do that?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘We won the croquet by the way, did I say? Lindsey’s good. Very good. She’s really blossomed the last few weeks...’

  ‘Enough,’ shouted Angela. There was the click of her heeled shoes on the stone floor coming closer and then she spoke again in a low, menacing voice. ‘It’s no good playing the dippy old lady with me. You think that you’re going to install Terri as Peter’s granddaughter and then your position in this house will be assured.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t see how...’

  ‘Shut up. I see through it Celia, the whole plan. When Peter dies I’ll sell up and go back to England. Lindsey will have her share and we’ll both be able to make a fresh start. You are not going to produce some mythical relative to take a share of the estate.’

  ‘Is Peter going to die?’ asked Celia, sounding mildly concerned. ‘But you know very well, if Josephine is still alive, she is entitled to her share. And if she bore a child, the child is too. There’s nothing you can do about that. What is it they used to say in those old American police series...tough cookie? Was that it?’

  ‘Give me strength,’ exploded Angela.

  ‘Did I tell you that I sold a painting
at the fête exhibition, by the way? I was so chuffed.’

  ‘Josephine is dead,’ Angela said between gritted teeth. ‘And there is no evidence that she was pregnant. You say she told you. How amazing that you should be the only one who knew. Stop clutching at straws. I will not let you do this, Celia, I’m telling you. I will not.’

  Angela’s heels could be heard walking away again. There were bangs and clicks from the cooker.

  ‘She kept a diary, you know,’ said Celia.

  Terri’s heart thumped painfully. What was Celia doing? There was a heavy silence before Angela responded.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Josephine. She kept a diary; did it for years. I’m sure she’d have said that she was pregnant - because she was, you know. And it’s the sort of thing you write in a diary, isn’t it? Well, I don’t know really; I’ve never kept one.’

  ‘And where is this diary exactly?’ The hard edge to Angela’s voice had given a little. Terri thought there was a note of fear in it.

  ‘There must be several, I suppose, unless she wrote very, very small of course.’

  ‘You’ve got them haven’t you?’

  ‘Got the diaries? No dear.’

  ‘But you know where they are?

  ‘I couldn’t say I do, no.’

  ‘Does Peter know about them?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But you’ve told Terri about them?’

  ‘There you go again. You’re obsessed with Terri, aren’t you, and all because I said her eyes looked like Madeleine’s. But they do, don’t they? Oh, look, here come the others. Shall I pour some wine?’

  Terri, desperate not to be caught eavesdropping, slipped quickly into the sitting room and across to the rear hall. She felt a fool. She had allowed Celia to lead her on and she had willingly followed, desperate to understand why her mother had killed herself and - yes, she couldn’t deny it - even grasping at some sort of family. But Angela’s reasoning made sense and her annoyance was easy to understand. Terri began to see what Celia’s motives might be. Even so, nothing the old woman had said so far had been proved wrong.

  Terri opened the door of her room and went inside. She walked into the bedroom and felt in the drawer of the chest under a pile of T-shirts. The diaries were there. Why wouldn’t they be? But she was increasingly aware that she had been drawn into someone else’s game and the stakes she was playing with were high.

  *

  Luc returned to the studio the following Monday morning. It was the beginning of August. He seemed introspective. Terri guessed that the family reunion had perhaps been tense but she decided not to ask; he would talk about it if he wanted to. He smiled, exchanged a casual greeting, chatted briefly with her when their paths crossed but made no immediate suggestion of another outing. She recognised her own disappointment but she’d asked him not to push her; she could not now complain if he took her at her word.

  She was getting near the end of Josie’s last diary and, keen to finish it, had been taking it to bed with her each evening. The next entry she read was from the summer holidays of nineteen seventy-four. By now, Josephine was seventeen and starting to wonder what to do with her life.

  July

  I suppose everyone will think it’s inevitable but I think I want to go to art college. I’m not sure which one yet or even which country to study in. I could come back and study at Avignon. That’s where maman went and I know she enjoyed it. Or I could go to England and stay in London. There are several colleges there. Of course I know what papa will say if I ask him. ‘They don’t teach you anything at art college any more so it doesn’t make any difference where you go.’ We had a row again yesterday. I said I wanted to go away for a holiday with Colin. His family have a holiday cottage in Brittany. Papa said I couldn’t go – I’m too young. I was really cross because I’d sort of arranged it with Colin already. I told papa he was treating me like a child and I’m not a child anymore. He told me to stop behaving like one then, which made me even crosser. We haven’t spoken since. I’m almost tempted to go anyway but he’d probably go crazy.

  Papa has employed a new bonne. Her name is Basma. She’s Algerian and only twenty. I like her. Tom does too and she’s good with him. I think maybe Sami likes her too. He’s been hanging around a lot lately. I thought he was a dried up stick and too old for that sort of thing! But he doesn’t approve of her having a laugh with me. She told me he thought it was out of place; said she’d end up getting into trouble. I said that was nonsense – I wasn’t going to get her into trouble. Anyway her English is pretty basic so I’ve been helping her with it.

  The summer held few entries. Josie’s handwriting was now more mature, smaller and often quite cramped. As if sometimes making an effort to be more expansive, there were occasional flourishing capitals to the beginnings of sentences but they looked like half-hearted affectations and didn’t fit.

  Terri tried to remember her mother’s handwriting but couldn’t. She wasn’t sure if she possessed anything which her mother had written. Back in her flat in London she had a box of her father’s things. After his death, the solicitor had informed her that his house and its contents had been bequeathed to Lizzie but that he’d left Terri a substantial sum of money. It was a great deal more than she had expected. Indeed, she’d been shocked: she’d not really expected anything. Then, a few weeks before coming away to Provence, she’d received a phone call from Lizzie. She was selling up and moving away, she said, but she had a box of things which she thought Terri might want. ‘Documents,’ Lizzie had said, ‘and personal things which don’t mean anything to me. I’ll burn them if you don’t take them.’ That box, still unopened, sat under her bed. Maybe there would be something in there which had her mother’s writing on it.

  She returned her attention to the diary. The entry for the Christmas holidays was full of the break-up with Colin. The Easter holidays contained endless fretting over examinations: the mocks in which she had not performed well and the examinations proper which she fully anticipated failing. Then it was summer again, nineteen seventy-five.

  So I’ve finished with that school. I never thought I’d be sorry to leave but it’s strange to know I’ll never go back and there are a couple of girls I’ll miss. We’ve promised we’ll keep in touch. Does that ever happen? I’ve been offered a provisional place in both Avignon and London. I still don’t know which one to go to.

  Apparently papa has met a girl at a house party some friends were giving in Cannes and he’s silly about her. He’s getting soft in the head or something. Her name’s Angela and she’s only just nineteen!!! It’s horrible.

  The physio has taught Tom to swim. He has to have arm bands on and sometimes he gets spasms which can be dangerous so he’s not allowed to go in the pool without someone there but the exercise is good for him they say. He swims most afternoons and I sometimes swim with him. He’s definitely improved. I’m not sure he needs Christine any more but I think papa likes to have someone to watch over him.

  I’ve seen Basma and Sami together in the garden a couple of times. They were clearly arguing the other day. Maybe they’re lovers. I don’t see it though.

  The only other entry for the summer was several weeks later.

  August

  Papa has told me he’s going to marry Angela – next spring! I asked him how he could marry someone who was only a year older than me. She’s very mature for her age, he said. Of course he was suggesting that I wasn’t. We had a horrible row. I demanded what maman would have said. He said she wouldn’t have wanted him to be lonely but it didn’t mean he didn’t still love her or miss her. Then he told me I’d like his fiancé. ‘Try and be nice to her,’ he said. I suppose I’ll have to try but it’s going to be weird.

  Anyway, that’s decided it. I’m going back to college in London. I got my grades - surprisingly good. I suppose I’ll find out what Angela’s like at Christmas – she’s coming to stay!!

  Christmas 75

  So we’ve met. Angela is staying
till New Year. I think she was nervous of meeting me too. Actually she seems quite nice. We exchanged presents. It’s all really strained though. She said she wants to be friends but it’s kind of strange and I can’t see that happening. We don’t have anything in common. She’s so ‘just so’ and I don’t think she’s interested in art at all which is really quite funny. Did papa choose her because she was so different to maman? She’s very pretty with golden red hair. Dazzling I suppose – to a man.

  Art college is good but a lot of new stuff to get used to. New people too. It’s tough starting over making friends.

  The wedding, just before Easter, was recorded with little comment. Josephine was settling into college life and wrote about a man she was seeing in London but frustratingly didn’t mention his name. He was a little older than she was. She was enjoying the course, she said; she spent some time with Tom. Celia had been seeing a man too.

  I simply can’t imagine Aunt Celia with a man. What a hoot! I asked her what he was like and could I meet him. She got very secretive. I suppose she’s only thirty-six - not completely over the hill yet! Maybe she’s going to marry him and leave. She doesn’t seem to be so keen to stay now that papa has remarried. I’ll miss her if she goes. I’ve found her easier to talk to these last couple of years. She said she can’t relate to children; she thinks I’m more interesting now!

  Then, after a gap and almost as a promise to herself, Josie wrote:

  They’re back from their honeymoon. Papa seems happy and he’s been really good-natured and kind to me since he got back. I’m going to try to be happy for him and make him proud of me.