by Kathy Shuker
Terri walked back to the sofa, retrieved her bag and slung it on her shoulder. She felt the comforting shape of the diary inside it; to think she’d nearly shown it to him. She crossed to the door but Luc moved quickly and grabbed her by the arm.
‘What do you mean?’ he said, ‘What I’m like? What am I supposed to have done?’
‘You’re hurting me.’ She tried to pull away from his grip and failed, stopped fighting and stared into his face. ‘You should clear the messages on your machine more often if you’re going to play the spy. I heard them.’ Terri affected a light, childish voice: ‘Bonjour Luc,’ she mimicked. ‘It’s Grace here.’
Luc nodded. ‘Ye-es, Grace. So what? Anyway what were you doing going through my messages?’
‘I came here because I couldn’t wait to see you; I wanted to talk to you. Then I saw you had a new message so I listened to it. I thought it might be urgent. Then I listened to the other messages, yes. What a coincidence that you should go away the same weekend she suggests for a meeting. And I found your computer notes on Peter. You haven’t got the whole story but lack of facts never stopped you from writing a sensational article, did it?’
She could feel a mounting hysteria; she hoped it wasn’t audible in her voice. She wanted to be strong here, desperately clinging on to the last crumbs of her dignity. She waited for a response but Luc glared at her, not offering one. He released her arm and she rubbed at the place where his fingers had been.
‘It seems you have a very low opinion of me.’ His voice when he did speak was low, controlled, bristling with anger. ‘It’s clearly pointless to try to explain. You’ve appointed yourself as judge and jury. And you appear to be very pleased to have found out that I’m the terrible person you thought I was at the start. Does it make you feel better in some way? Superior perhaps? Does it?’
Terri flinched back as if he had physically threatened her though he’d barely moved. He glared at her another moment, then turned and moved away into the back of the cottage and up the stairs. Terri immediately let herself out and began to run across the clearing into the woods. A minute later she was crying, weeping uncontrollably, and had to stop to steady herself against a tree, the rain running down her face mingling with her tears. How could she have been so stupid?
Chapter 20
Peter took the piece of cheese the stallholder offered him and chewed it appreciatively, rolling it around his tongue. Rather salty but creamy and good, yes, very good. He nodded and asked the man to cut him a small slab. He was at the Saturday morning market in Ste. Marguerite and the narrow streets were sticky and noisy with people. Pocketing his change, he noticed Terri at the adjacent stall. She was watching him with a strange expression on her face and produced a wan smile when she realised she’d been seen. She eased her way round a couple of people to get to him.
‘So is this a cheese you can recommend?’ she asked lightly, glancing at the paper bag he’d just been given.
‘Indeed, it’s excellent. Here...’ He delved into the bag, broke off a piece of the cheese and offered it to her.
‘Yes, very good,’ she said. ‘But...whoa...very salty.’
‘Yes, isn’t it? My doctors would disapprove. Coffee? That would wash it down.’
‘Er...thank you, yes, OK.’
‘Good.’
He took her to his favourite café and they sat on the terrace, watching the people passing by.
Terri ordered a café crème; Peter asked for a large, black coffee and two chocolate brioches. Terri was silent, her gaze wandering aimlessly around the terrace and out over the street. He noticed a slight tic in her lower eyelid. She had been working hard all week. What she still found to do he didn’t know. The paintings had all been taken to the gallery; the invitations had long gone; the catalogue was being printed. Surely everything was organised? He’d become increasingly aware of her tension as she bustled up and down the studio, getting drinks, wandering in and out of his office, speaking to Nicole, stalking outside with her mobile phone stuck to her ear, speaking rapidly. She was in overdrive, it seemed to him, and she looked pale and drawn.
‘Is there a problem?’ he’d asked her eventually on the Friday morning. ‘Why all the activity?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘You haven’t stopped all week. I thought the exhibition was all organised.’
‘There are lots of loose ends to sort out and things to check up on. We don’t want any unpleasant surprises, do we?’
‘Certainly not.’ He’d been obliged to stop himself from smiling then. He’d been getting rather nervous himself but watching Terri almost made him feel calm.
Now she sat stirring the spoon round and round in her coffee – which was odd because she took no sugar – and looking very serious.
‘Do you have a job lined up?’ he asked.
‘Possibly. There’s a post at the National in London. They’re interviewing next month.’
‘Need a reference?’
She smiled, properly this time, and her face briefly lit up.
‘Thank you. I will. Though I think the exhibition will be my strongest reference...or not.’
Peter took a mouthful of his hot, sweet coffee and swallowed with satisfaction.
‘I think it will be good,’ he said. ‘You can only do so much, then you have to let it go, let it out into the world, like...like...’
‘Like a child,’ offered Terri.
He frowned, studying her face in case she’d intended some significance to the remark, but she looked embarrassed as if she regretted saying it.
‘I was thinking: like a painting,’ he said. ‘It’s always tempting to think that you can make a picture perfect by keeping on working at it. But it’s not true. You get so far and then you start to lose the original idea, the creative force, if you will. And it’ll never be perfect, whatever you do. Nothing is, is it?’ He picked up the plate on which the two chocolate brioches lay and held it in front of her. ‘Brioche? You should. You’re looking thin. Have you been eating?’
Terri took one of the pastries, flicking him an accusing look.
‘You sound like my grandmother,’ she said.
Peter didn’t respond. He took the other brioche and pulled it into two pieces before eating it with relish. He watched Terri eat her own slowly, without apparent appetite.
‘Have you and Luc had an argument?’ he asked eventually.
Terri looked up at him with a frosty glare.
‘I know it’s none of my business,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t help notice that you’re barely talking to each other. I’m not the best person to hand out advice, but I’ve learnt a lot...recently...and I know that it’s important to keep talking.’
‘Sometimes talking is what gets you into trouble in the first place,’ she replied bitterly.
He got the impression that she was working herself up to saying something to him and he felt a frisson of unease. Perhaps she had found out something about her mother. He was curious, certainly, but he flinched from knowing yet. All was calm and well and he didn’t want the boat rocked now. He was scared of what she might say and what chain of events it might set in motion. It would be a conversation best held another time – after the exhibition was up and running.
He forced a smile. ‘So-o, you’re off to Nice on Monday,’ he said quickly.
‘Yes.’
‘Don’t let Christophe tell you how they should be hung. You do it your way.’
‘I will.’
‘When will you be back? You are coming back before the Private View?’
‘Yes, of course, but it depends how long it takes.’ She played with the teaspoon in her saucer and added, ‘How long is a piece of string?’
‘Sometimes very long indeed,’ he said, without thinking. He finished his coffee, slipped some money in the saucer on top of the bill and stood up.
‘Thank you for your company,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I really must be going.’ And he moved away briskly, without looking back.
For Terri, impatient now to get on with hanging the exhibition, the weekend dragged. She wanted to set it up, attend the opening night and then leave. Le Chant du Mistral held nothing for her any more and the last week could not come and go soon enough.
She had hoped to get an opportunity to return the diaries to the attic but Angela had caught what she described as ‘the summer flu’ and was spending the days drifting around the house in a silk wrap, looking forlorn, coughing and dabbing her nose with tissues. And Peter had spent much of the weekend down in the studio, effectively guarding the key, so returning to the attic was impossible. Guilt haunted her: she should have told him about Luc’s article. She’d been on the point of doing so several times but never seemed to find the right moment or the right words.
On the Sunday, with time to kill and too much time to think, she went for a walk, grabbed some lunch, then retreated to her room again and tried to read; she watched television without concentrating. For the umpteenth time she wondered what Luc would write. How would he approach it? He had always been quick to defend Peter. Had that all been part of his act or did he truly like the man and would that be reflected in the article? At least she hadn’t shown him the diaries but she did wonder what he would have made of the final one. She missed being able to talk things through with him for there was no-one else in whom she could confide.
Restless, she got up, retrieved the last diary from the drawer in her bedroom and read it through again, hoping something would finally slot into place. There were barely half a dozen entries.
August
I still keep feeling sick but I daren’t tell anyone. It’s not just in the mornings though, so someone’s bound to notice. It must be what I was dreading. I think I’ve missed a second period now. And he said it couldn’t happen the first time. Stupid of me to believe him but it was only once. How can that be fair? If it is I don’t know what I’ll do. Papa will be so angry.
At least Tom is better. He’s still weak but now I can play board games with him.
Of course, Tom had been ill at the end of the previous diary: a virus, they thought. Now Josie recounted the cleaning of the pool and noted that by the middle of the month Tom was stronger and was allowed to go swimming again.
The weather is so hot. We go in the pool a lot. I even persuaded Basma to borrow one of my costumes and join us the other day. She seemed a bit embarrassed but she can swim OK. She’s a bit of a mystery really, won’t talk about herself or her past. Says she’s made a new start for a new country. Not sure what she means. Papa and Angela went away for a couple of nights or she wouldn’t have dared come in. Maybe he’s starting to trust me again. I thought Sami was off for the day too but he suddenly appeared, watching us, glaring. I don’t think he approved of Basma being in the pool – or maybe it was Tom. Basma said Sami thinks it would have been better if Tom hadn’t lived. He thinks he has no life and no future and causes so much trouble and anguish. I was shocked but remembered I used to think something similar myself.
Terri quickly turned the page. Her stomach began to knot up inside, just as it had the first time she’d read these last entries.
I think I’m going to go mad here. I thought it was going to work out but everything is horrible and getting worse. I feel like a stranger here and Angela told me that Tom is going to be sent to a special boarding school in the autumn. ‘So he can get help and be with other children like himself,’ she said. But I’m sure he’ll hate that. Papa’s doing the same thing to him that he did to me. Tom hasn’t been told yet so I’m not allowed to say anything. I feel like a traitor – especially when he’s so happy here and in the pool. Aunt Celia has been kind to me in her own strange way. One minute she ignores you then she says something which shows she’s been paying attention all along. She told me her romance is over. No explanation. She looks unhappy and I feel sorry for her. She offered me money – ‘just in case.’ When I asked in case of what, she didn’t answer. She must have guessed I’m pregnant. Maybe I should talk to her but can I can trust her not to tell anyone else?
Terri moved on to the last entry. The handwriting was uneven, scribbled in a hurry with a distraught hand.
This is going to be the last time I write to you. I’m relieved you’re still here. This room is the only constant, the only thing I can rely on.
The worst possible thing had happened. Tom has died. I still can’t believe it. He drowned in the pool but I don’t know how. There was no-one around and I was supposed to be keeping an eye on him but I wasn’t there. I had a secret appointment with the doctor. I’d done my own pregnancy test and it was positive but I wanted to be sure.
I’d asked Basma to watch over Tom. She’s so good with him and I wasn’t going to be long. Oh God, what have I done? When I got back to Le Chant I found Tom floating face down in the pool. There was no-one else there. He was dead. He didn’t have his arm bands on. I jumped into the water but it was too late to do anything. It was so horrible. I shouted for help and eventually Sami came and found me in the pool holding Tom’s poor head. When he asked me what happened I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to say where I’d been and I didn’t want to accuse Basma. Now everyone blames me.
It’s been awful ever since. The policeman questioned me for ages. He kept trying to get me to say I’d done it intentionally. He said he’d heard that Tom and I didn’t get on. I wanted to shout no, it’s not true, but what’s the point - everyone knows how I used to feel about him. I told him I’d hadn’t gone swimming with Tom because I didn’t feel well so I went to the toilet in the pool room and it had happened while I was there. I know I shouldn’t lie but I wanted to speak to Basma before I said anything else. Why wasn’t Tom wearing his arm bands, he asked me. I said I thought he was. What else could I say? The policeman said they’d speak to me again. I’m sure he knew I was lying. He said there were other enquiries they want to make. Then papa sent me to my room and told me to stay there. When I tried to find Basma, Angela told me papa had sacked her. Apparently her papers weren’t in order and she was here illegally so with the police around, my father had no choice. She’s already gone. Angela’s the only one who’s been kind to me.
I have no idea where Basma has gone. I don’t know what to do. It can’t be her fault. Why should she hurt him? Or did she make a mistake? But the fault’s mine. I shouldn’t have left him.
I sneaked out yesterday and went to the studio. I tried to explain to papa but he was so furious with me he wouldn’t let me talk. He said he didn’t know me anymore, that I was no daughter of his. We ended up shouting at each other, worse than ever before. I threw a couple of books at him and he slapped me hard. I fell over and my face is cut and bruised.
I can’t stand it anymore. It’s the middle of the night – the only time I could risk doing this. It’s my best chance of getting out and...No, I shan’t say what I’m going to do. I’m leaving the book behind. Maybe papa will find it and read it one day when I’m gone. Then perhaps he’ll believe I’m innocent. We’ll never meet again.
Terri finished the entry and stared at the page, her eyes glazing over. It was harrowing but offered no real information: Terri was no wiser about the father of Josie’s child and neither was it clear how Tom had died. Was Josie to be believed or was she just covering her back by leaving this account behind? Could she conceivably have let her brother drown so that he didn’t have to go away to school? She didn’t seem that unbalanced and Terri found it hard to believe. But if not Josie, was Basma to blame after all?
She closed the book and put it aside, got up restlessly and put the kettle on, tossing a teabag in a mug while the issues ran round and round in her head.
If Josie was telling the truth, Basma was clearly the key to what happened, but she was long gone. Thirty-five years gone. Did she go back to Algeria? Or did she find work somewhere else in Provence despite having no papers? There seemed to be little chance of finding her now. She supposed Lindsey was right: Sami might know. What had been h
is relationship with Basma exactly? But no, not Sami. After all surely it was no coincidence that Sami had been the first person to turn up when Josie was cradling Tom’s dead body in her arms? And he had ‘appeared’ by the pool when Josie and Basma had been swimming with Tom that previous time when he wasn’t supposed to be there. He was the man who had lamented the fact that the boy had survived so long, causing ‘trouble and anguish’. So had Sami played some part in Tom’s death? Maybe he persuaded Basma to do something terrible. If Josie was telling the truth. Terri sighed. The argument had come full circle; she needed to find Basma.
The kettle boiled and she poured water into the mug.
‘You obviously can’t ask Sami where to find Basma,’ she muttered to herself, ‘even if he knows.’
She stared unseeingly at the water as it darkened.
‘But I’ll bet Celia knows where she went,’ she said suddenly. ‘She seems to know just about everything else.’ Terri rolled her eyes, pushing a weary hand through her hair. She didn’t relish another cat and mouse conversation with Celia, but Basma was her only chance of finding out what happened. At least Celia would be unlikely to tell anyone else what she was doing.
She abandoned the stewing tea, slipped her feet into some sandals and went outside.
*
Terri found Celia sitting on the circular wooden seat fixed round the trunk of a cherry tree in the orchard. The sun was high but the tree offered generous shade and a light breeze blew up the hill from the valley below. Celia’s pram was parked immediately behind the tree, a garish painting balanced on its top. Inconsequentially Terri noticed a couple of flies stuck in its oily surface. An empty plastic food box lay on the seat beside Celia who was staring down over the trees to the spread of the Durance valley, sucking vigorously on the velvet flesh of a peach. She looked up at Terri’s approach, removed the peach from her mouth and produced a broad smile.