A French Affair

by Susan Lewis

  Letting herself back into the cottage, she quickly dialled Charlie’s mobile. As far as she could remember he was at the production office today, so provided he wasn’t out shooting she should be able to get hold of him to find out if there was any news yet on her mother’s whereabouts.

  ‘Actually, there is,’ he replied, confounding her slightly. ‘I’ve just received confirmation that she’s with Maurice, in Italy.’

  Jessica’s insides tightened. ‘Really?’ she replied. Then added tartly, ‘I should have known. And how typical of her to go off without telling her neighbours.’

  ‘I don’t think it happened quite like that. From what I can gather she hasn’t been too well, so Maurice has taken her to his villa for some rest and recuperation,’ Charlie said.

  Jessica’s tension increased. ‘Why, what’s wrong with her?’ she demanded, wishing she didn’t care.

  ‘I don’t think anything is now, but apparently she collapsed a couple of weeks ago while she was shopping in Bond Street.’

  Jessica’s expression changed to one of alarm. ‘What do you mean, collapsed?’

  ‘I don’t have any details, only that she was in hospital for a week or so . . .’

  ‘Are you serious? And we didn’t know?’

  ‘Frankly, darling, considering how things are between you, you can surely understand why you weren’t the first person she called.’

  ‘Yes, but if she’s sick . . .’

  ‘She’s fine now.’

  ‘How do you know? Have you spoken to her?’

  ‘No, but . . .’

  ‘We need to get hold of Maurice’s number in Italy. She could be lying again, or for all I know she could be seriously ill, either way . . .’

  ‘Jessica, if she has been unwell, and we’ve no reason to suppose she hasn’t, it’s not going to help if you start accusing her . . .’

  ‘Then you speak to her. Find out exactly what happened when she collapsed and why they kept her in so long.’

  ‘OK, but I can’t do it now, I’m about to go out. I’ll get onto it this evening, or first thing tomorrow.’

  After ringing off Jessica remained standing where she was, looking around the kitchen, then up to the top of the stairs. Everything was exactly as it should be, perfectly still, apart from dust motes dancing in the hazy bands of sunlight and a spider scurrying towards a crack in the wall. She couldn’t think why she might have expected anything to be different, but the longer she stood there the more unsettled she seemed to be feeling.

  Not quite knowing why, she picked up the phone and called Charlie again. ‘Something’s not right,’ she said, when he answered.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Are you sure you’re telling me everything? You’re not holding anything back?’

  ‘Darling, I’m just about to . . .’

  ‘I know, you’re going out. I’m sorry, but I . . .’ She hesitated, not quite sure how to go on.

  ‘You what?’ he prompted.

  ‘I just need to know – are you hiding anything from me?’

  ‘You mean about your mother?’

  ‘About anything. Maybe the Médecin Légiste told you something you don’t want me to know.’

  Sounding more exasperated than annoyed, Charlie said, ‘Look, this really isn’t the time, but the answer is I’ve told you everything the Médecin Légiste told me.’

  ‘Did you actually read his report?’

  ‘Yes, of course. Now, I’m sorry, darling, I really have to go.’

  Jessica put her mobile back on the table and stood staring blankly at the notes she’d made earlier. Then with a horrible churning inside she went to stand at the door, needing to take in the calming spectacle of nature, as though it might disperse the doubts that were gathering like clouds inside her. She needed to believe what Charlie was telling her, because without trust they really were going to fall apart. So she must try to keep everything in perspective – just because he’d lied to her once, over an affair that had happened more than six years ago, didn’t mean he was doing it again now. In fact, he couldn’t be, not over this, because if he was hiding something then it would mean the French authorities must be too, and that, she realised with no little relief, really didn’t make any sense at all.

  ‘Jessica? It is Daniella. I hope I am not interrupting.’

  ‘No, not at all,’ Jessica assured her, closing the cover of her notepad as though not wanting anyone to see it, even though Daniella was at the other end of the phone. ‘How are you? You can speak French if you prefer.’

  ‘Thank you, but it is good for me to practise my English. Are you OK? Do you have everything you need in the cottage?’

  ‘I think so,’ Jessica replied. ‘It’s kind of you to ask, but I don’t want to be any trouble.’

  ‘Ah, mais non, you are our welcome guest,’ Daniella assured her. ‘And really I am calling to find out if you would like to join Papa and me for lunch up at the house. I am here to help him with the little bit of exercise he must do, and he is grumbling so much that we thought you might help restore his smile. But of course, if you are busy with something else, we will understand . . .’

  ‘No, I would love to join you,’ Jessica interrupted. ‘Can I bring anything, or help in any way?’

  ‘No, no, we have everything under control. Lilian call me a few minutes ago, by the way. She was trying to reach you, but your line was busy. She wanted you to know that she and Luc have arrived in Paris now, and they will be there until she leave tomorrow, if you need to be in touch with her.’

  ‘So Luc not only made it back, he went with her?’ Jessica said, almost able to feel how much that would have pleased Lilian.

  ‘I think they just decide this morning when he get here,’ Daniella said. ‘So you will come for lunch? We will have some terrine, and a little of Papa’s delicious gazpacho. I have to say that because he can hear me, but truly it is very good.’

  When Jessica arrived at the manoir half an hour later Daniella and Fernand were nowhere to be seen, but the table was already laid outside, and looking extremely inviting with its clear wine glasses sparkling in the sunlight, and vivid blue tablecloth arrayed with check napkins, shining cutlery and gleaming white plates. With the pergola and all its exuberant flowers around it, it was as exquisite a spectacle as she’d seen anywhere.

  ‘Can I do anything?’ she offered, stepping in through the open kitchen door.

  ‘Ah Jessica,’ Fernand exclaimed with pleasure. ‘This is very good that you come to join us, because Daniella is very, how you say, autoritaire with me.’

  ‘Bossy,’ Jessica smiled, going to kiss him on both cheeks.

  The kitchen was large and cool, with thick stone walls, and a big open fireplace that was filled with dried flowers now there was no need for a fire, and flanked by two capacious armchairs. In the middle of the room, beneath two pendant lights, was a long, wide table covered by a green check cloth that was almost the same shade as the dressers and cabinets that occupied the rest of the space. It was as homey as the warmth in Fernand’s grey eyes, and as cluttered as every respectable farmhouse kitchen should be.

  ‘Today,’ Fernand informed her, ‘we are going to drink some excellent rosé that is from the vineyard of my very good friend dans le sud de la France. You know that Provence has a very good reputation for rosé wine, and my friend, he is very highly respected vigneron in this region.’

  Daniella was already opening the cooler. ‘You see,’ she said, holding up a bottle that was moulded into the elegant shape of a classical urn, ‘the colour is a very pale pink, which tells us that Monsieur Simone has made his wine from the jus de gouttes et le jus d’écoulage, which are of the highest quality.’

  Taking the bottle from her, Fernand said, ‘In Provence they hold a glass of rosé to a very blue Provençal sky and if the colour mirror a blue that exist in an atoll in French Polynesia at midday they know they have a very good wine. Mais, nous sommes en Bourgogne,’ he said with a twinkle. ‘Quand même, c’est
toujours un très bon vin.’

  Enjoying their expert knowledge as well as their evident passion for wine, Jessica encouraged Fernand to tell her more, but for the moment he was eager to explain his recipe for gazpacho, which he’d been given by the wife of a Spanish vigneron several years ago. As he talked Daniella laid a crispy baguette and pain de compagne on a wooden board ready to take outside, while Jessica arranged a platter of wild boar pâté and Maconnais cheeses. There was a bowl of roughly sliced avocado too, and cubes of icy green cucumber, with a plate of sun-ripened tomatoes that were oozing their juice all over a succulent bed of basil coated in a thick, yellowy olive oil with a splash of balsamic.

  As they ate they talked about Daniella’s children who were at a nearby water park with their father and other friends today, then about the kind of vintage they were expecting from this year’s harvest, and on to Jessica’s plans for the time she was here.

  ‘Will you be making a start on your book?’ Fernand wanted to know. ‘I think it will be a very fascinating subject, and I have an excellent library about artists that belonged to my wife. You are welcome to take a look and if there is anything there about Modigliani you find helpful, please take it with you down to the cottage. But I must ask you to return it before you leave. They mean very much to me, these books.’

  ‘Of course,’ Jessica responded, knowing from Lilian how much he’d loved and still missed his wife. ‘It’s very kind of you to let me look through them at all, so I promise I’ll take great care of anything I borrow.’

  Apparently delighted to think he might be able to help, Fernand lifted the wine from the cooler and refilled their glasses as Daniella said, ‘Will you be going to Paris to do some research? If you are, I’m sure Luc and Lilian will be happy for you to stay in their apartment, but you know that Claude and I have one too, which is on the floor below theirs. You will be welcome to use it, if you need to. I think our building is very close to where you will need to be.’

  ‘It’s exactly where I’d need to be,’ Jessica agreed, ‘and indeed I do intend to go at some point, but really, my visit here isn’t only to make a start on my book, it’s to try to get a clearer picture in my mind of what happened back at Easter.’

  Fernand instantly looked mournful. ‘Oh, such a tragedy,’ he murmured. ‘I blame myself for not putting a banister there before . . .’

  ‘Shush now, Papa,’ Daniella interrupted gently. ‘It’s not good for you to get upset.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jessica said, full of remorse. Why had it never occurred to her that Fernand and his family might be suffering too, and blaming themselves, the way she and Charlie were? After all, it had happened on their land, and in one of their houses, and in a way that might have been prevented had the stairs been protected the way they were now. ‘It really wasn’t anyone’s fault,’ she told Fernand earnestly. ‘It was an accident, and even if the banister had been there the outcome might well have been the same.’ Though she knew they all doubted that, she had to let him know that she bore him no resentment, or even held him responsible, for how could anyone have foreseen what would happen when the stairs had always been open and no-one had ever fallen before?

  Daniella gave her a quick smile of thanks. ‘This is what I try to tell him,’ she said. ‘It is very easy to know what to do with hindsight, but that is true of so many things in our lives.’

  Jessica’s eyes moved back to Fernand, and taking heart from the openness of his expression she said, ‘I know you weren’t actually here on the day it happened, but before that . . .’

  ‘I was with Jean-Marc at the laboratories,’ he told her gruffly. ‘It was our day to meet with the oenologist.’

  Jessica smiled, in an effort to keep him relaxed. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘but before that . . . In the days leading up to it . . . Did you see anyone else at the cottage? Or did anything happen that seemed, I don’t know, unusual in any way?’

  Fernand was starting to look slightly confused. ‘I think everything was very normal,’ he answered, glancing at Daniella as though seeking confirmation. ‘The weather was not so good some of the time, and your mother has a very bad headache on one of the days, but this is not the kind of thing you are wanting to know?’

  Jessica shook her head. ‘Did you see either of them in the morning, before you and Jean-Marc left for the laboratories?’ she asked.

  ‘Not that I can remember. It was raining so the door was shut as we went by. Maybe they were still sleeping, because it was very early.’

  ‘What about you?’ Jessica asked Daniella. ‘Did you see them that day?’

  ‘We were supposed to,’ Daniella answered. ‘I was going to drive over and pick them up, but when Elodie called Natalie to find out what time we should come Natalie said she would call back because she had something important to do with her grandma.’

  Jessica felt a small jolt in her heart. She hadn’t heard that before. ‘Did she say what?’ she asked.

  ‘I’ve asked Elodie,’ Daniella replied, ‘but apparently that was all Natalie said.’

  Jessica thought it over for a moment, but since there was nothing she could deduce from it right now, she said, ‘Did you speak to my mother at all that day, I mean before it happened?’

  ‘Yes, I called a little after Elodie did to find out if your mother needs anything from the supermarket, because I was going. She says she does not because she thinks she and Natalie will go to the village café for lunch.’

  Another surprise. ‘In the rain and without a car?’ Jessica said.

  Daniella frowned, as though only just realising that it did seem a little odd. ‘Perhaps they were going to ring for a taxi,’ she said lamely.

  Jessica sat back in her chair, knowing it wasn’t just the heat and wine that were making her feel light-headed. Natalie and her mother had had something important to do. They were going to the café instead of seeing Elodie and Daniella. So were they supposed to be meeting someone at the café? Or maybe someone was coming to pick them up, so they wouldn’t have to walk through the rain. But why not tell Elodie or Daniella that? And whatever their plans, they hadn’t gone to the café because Natalie’s fall had happened just before midday . . .

  Suddenly noticing how tired Fernand was looking, she said, ‘I’m sorry. I hope I haven’t spoiled this lovely lunch with all my questions . . .’

  ‘No, not at all,’ he assured her. ‘We are happy to answer as much as we can. I only wish we could be a little more helpful.’

  ‘I think it is time you took your siesta, Papa,’ Daniella said, patting his gnarled old hand. ‘Jessica and I will do the clearing up.’

  ‘You must take her to Luc’s studio,’ Fernand said, as he got to his feet. ‘I think you will like his work, ma chère. But maybe you have seen it before?’

  ‘Some pieces,’ Jessica confirmed, ‘but I’m sure there are some new ones by now, which I’d love to see.’

  ‘They are very good. I think they are a little like Brancusi, non?’ he said, looking at Daniella.

  ‘Mm, peut-être,’ she responded, apparently undecided.

  ‘I am thinking of La Muse endormie ou Le Baiser,’ he said. ‘I think, when he is not doing abstracts, that Luc has some of this grace and . . . comment on dit, caractère?’

  ‘Character,’ Daniella replied, ‘and of course, you are not biased.’

  Chuckling, Fernand stooped to kiss her, then after embracing Jessica too he disappeared inside.

  ‘I see you really do feel that the picture from that day is not complete,’ Daniella said, picking up her glass. ‘Lilian told us this was the way you were thinking.’

  ‘She doesn’t agree with me though,’ Jessica admitted. ‘Nor does Charlie, so don’t worry, I’m not expecting you to either, but thank you for indulging my questions.’

  ‘As Papa said, I only wish we could be more helpful, but you must feel free to ask whatever you like.’

  Jessica’s eyes were warm as she thanked her.

  Smiling, Daniella said, ‘So wo
uld you like to see the studio? You don’t have to be polite, if you would rather not I do not mind at all, but Lilian asked me to show you where she had moved her computer, so you can use it if you have need.’

  ‘I’d love to see the studio,’ Jessica smiled, ‘if you think Luc won’t mind us going in while he’s not here.’

  ‘Oh, I am sure not. He is great exhibitionist with his work, and besides I would like to see how he is getting on with the sculpture he is making of the twins. They are very poor sitters, and he lose his temper often with them, but they refuse to be afraid of him.’

  Amused by the image, Jessica finished her wine, and got up to follow Daniella the short distance to the converted barn.

  ‘I think, since you last were here, Luc has the permit to put much more windows in the roof,’ Daniella said, as she pushed against the heavy wooden door, ‘but only over the part where he sculpts. At this end is where he and Lilian have their computers and other things, so it is a little more dark.’

  As she switched on the lights, even if Jessica’s eyes hadn’t needed a few seconds to adjust she’d have known where she wasthe instant she stepped into the shady, cavernous space, for the smell of wet clay and turps and photographic chemicals was unmistakable. The air was thick with it, seeming to lend a heady, though acrid, texture to the coolness that emanated from the stone walls. She looked around at the posters and photographs clamped to various corkboards and surfaces, the cameras that stood on tripods or were tucked away in cases, the books and files strewn about the worktops, the large computer screen that was undoubtedly Luc’s, the clay-spattered jeans that hung from the back of a door, the rough stone carvings that cluttered the shelves . . . Everything about the place seemed to speak of Luc.

  ‘Here is Lilian’s space,’ Daniella said, closing the door.

  It occupied a large, sheltered corner which had been given over to an L-shaped desk with a neat Sony laptop at its centre, four orderly shelves of art-reference books and a couple of exhibition posters, a few chosen sculptures, a pair of steel cabinets and a photograph of a blissfully happy couple on their wedding day.