A French Affair

by Susan Lewis

  ‘Yes, and we’ve got our secret to show you,’ Elodie was saying, as they started running out. ‘Antoine only told me about it last week, so even I haven’t seen it yet.’

  As they disappeared, Lilian got up from her chair and walked over to the door to watch them charging down through the vineyard. How wonderful to be their age, she was thinking, so innocent and pure, no fears, no crimes, no guilt, only secrets they were bursting to tell. She thought of Natalie, and how she’d tried to tell Jessica her secret but hadn’t been able to – and as the darkness of it all began filling her up again she closed her eyes and tried not to think any more.

  Charlie’s mouth was set in a grim line, and his eyes looked tired and strained as he listened to Veronica at the end of the line, telling him that she understood, of course, why he hadn’t shown her letter to Jessica yet, but he must surely understand why she wanted him to now.

  ‘I know my relationship with Jessica can’t be considered as important as yours,’ she was saying, her normally flighty tones still trying to make it through the tiredness and slurring, ‘but I always was a teensy bit selfish, as you know, and though these little turns I’ve had aren’t supposed to be serious, I really don’t want to pop off without seeing her. And Maurice is adamant she can’t come unless she knows the truth, or she’ll start shouting at me and upsetting me and who knows, I might end up having another little turn. You do see that, darling, don’t you? Please try to understand. I know she’ll never forgive us, but I can’t go on hiding things from her. Not any longer, and if she’s going to shout at me, at least I won’t have to keep worrying about what I’m saying if I’m not having to hide anything any more.’

  ‘She’s going to be very worried once she knows you’ve had a stroke,’ Charlie told her, feeling he’d rather deal with that for now than anything else.

  ‘Two strokes,’ she corrected, ‘but only little ones. Hardly anything to worry about at all, though I’m having a bit of a problem seeing at the moment. Everything’s a bit blurred, but they say that will probably get better. And they might operate, apparently, because there are things they can do these days to stop the embolism . . . I think that’s what it’s called. Is that right, Maurice?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what it’s called,’ Charlie told her.

  ‘Anyway, we’re waiting to find out. I go back again next week for more tests . . . But you don’t want to hear any more about that. I know how upset and worried you must be. Is Jessica still in France?’

  ‘Yes, I’m going there myself tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh dear. That’ll probably be difficult for you. I was going to go back myself, but then I couldn’t face it. How has she managed while she’s been there? She must have found it very hard.’

  ‘Yes, I think she has, but she felt it was something she had to do.’ Then, after a pause, ‘She’s spoken to the paramedic.’

  There was a moment’s silence, until understanding the significance of what he’d just told her, Veronica said, very gently, ‘Then it would seem to me, darling, that you don’t have very much choice but to tell her now.’

  ‘No,’ Charlie responded bleakly, ‘no, I don’t suppose I do.’

  ‘Oh là là, brace yourself,’ Daniella warned as the sound of thundering feet coming down through the vines reached them. ‘I’m just dropping off Antoine’s toothbrush and pyjamas for tonight,’ she told Jessica. ‘I’ll come back later for Elodie – she’s going to stay with her friend who has a pool. The boys are invited to join them tomorrow, so you can drop them off on your way to collect Charlie from the airport, if you like.’

  ‘Of course,’ Jessica replied, a smile appearing in her eyes as the children came charging across the patio and in through the door.

  ‘Hey Mum,’ Harry cried, going to throw his arms around her waist. ‘I just saw Lilian and Luc, and Rousseau is a flat-coat retriever.’

  ‘Really?’ Jessica responded, wanting only to go on holding him.

  ‘Yes, so can we have one, please, because he’s a really nice dog and I promise I’ll take care of him myself. You won’t have to walk him, or feed him, or anything, because I’ll do it . . .’

  ‘Darling, we’re in the middle of London and look how big Rousseau is.’

  ‘But other people have big dogs in London.’

  ‘I’ll wish you good luck with that one,’ Daniella interrupted with no little irony. ‘I’d better be off, Claude’s waiting. I’ll be back for Elodie around four.’

  Letting Harry go and walking out to the car with her, Jessica said, ‘Are you sure you don’t mind Harry staying for a few days if Charlie and I go off to Provence?’

  ‘Absolutely not,’ Daniella assured her.

  ‘There’s always a chance he might want to come with us . . .’

  ‘Mum! Can we go and play in the attic?’ Harry shouted from inside.

  Jessica turned incredulously. ‘Do you have any idea how hot it’ll be up there?’ she said.

  ‘We don’t care. We’re going, OK?’

  Shrugging, Jessica turned back to Daniella. ‘I’ll see you at four,’ she said, giving her a hug.

  ‘Before I go,’ Daniella said softly, ‘I take it you know Lilian’s going to have a baby.’

  Jessica smiled as her heart contracted. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Is Luc pleased?’ Then, before Daniella could answer, ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. Of course he is.’

  Daniella’s sympathy showed. ‘I don’t know how he feels. He didn’t say.’

  As Jessica went back inside her heart was aching for Lilian and how hard she must be finding this, and knowing she was the cause of Lilian’s pain was making it so much worse. She wondered how they were ever going to get past this, or if they even could, for Lilian would always be watching them and wondering if her husband and best friend still had feelings for one another. No friendship could withstand that kind of pressure and suspicion, not even theirs, and Jessica could hardly bear to think of how much she was going to miss her.

  Becoming aware of Rousseau whining upstairs, she decided to go up and investigate, but had got only as far as her own bedroom door when the children started sliding down the attic ladder, bumping into one another and the dog who’d been crying because he couldn’t climb up.

  ‘Mum!’ Harry cried breathlessly, the last to come down. ‘Mum, look what we found.’

  His face was pale and worried, and as Jessica looked down at what he was holding she felt her heartbeat starting to slow. Then the world outside seemed to quieten and recede, like a sea being sucked away from the shore.

  ‘It’s Natalie’s,’ he said.

  Jessica could still only look at it. Somewhere in her mind was the memory of how determined she’d been to come here, how she’d known she should stay, and how she’d even felt Natalie’s fear as though it were still in the house, but nothing was fully in focus yet, that would come later. All she could see now was a small pink book with a fake brass lock and odd little doodles scribbled into the flowers on the front. Natalie’s diary.

  A moment later it was in her hands, and the children were running off down the stairs, and out into the vines. She listened to their voices fading in the distance, then holding the book to her she went to the window to watch them.

  Later she was unable to say how long it took her to open the diary and read it, because from the moment Harry put it into her hands – brother delivering message from sister – it was as though time itself slipped out of kilter. All she knew was that she was in the kitchen when she read the final entry, and as she stared down at the words blurring and slanting in front of her, and felt the horror of them gathering in her heart, she realised there was no longer any doubt about who had carried Natalie to the sofa that day.

  Someone’s just arrived. Think it’s supposed to be a surprise so will pretend – but it’s Dad cuz can hear his voice. Someone’s with himIthink, or maybe it’s just Grandma. More later . . . (Need to have bigger mysteries in life, am determined to be exciting.)

  Jessica p
ut the book down and as she heard her daughter’s perky, busy little voice echoing from the page she felt her entire world starting to crumble around her.

  Charlie had been here when Natalie died.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  AS CHARLIE CAME into the arrivals hall Jessica was standing to the side of a large group of people, so he was unable to see her at first. She watched him looking around and felt an odd sensation that seemed to be a mix of nerves, anger and a kind of bewilderment. It was vaguely like watching a stranger, she was thinking, who bore a resemblance to someone she knew. Of course his appearance hadn’t actually altered, he was still a large, robust man with a handsome face and shock of loose sandy hair, but the truth he’d kept hidden from her all this time had altered him in her mind. Now he seemed diminished, if not in stature then certainly in self, and all she could think was, You were there when Natalie died, and you never said a word. Why? What are you hiding? The answer seemed so blindingly obvious that were it not for the need to hear it from his own lips, she’d have turned around right then and walked away.

  Instead, she stepped forward, saw his expression turn to one of pleasure, and attempted a smile of her own as he drew her into a hug.

  ‘I was beginning to think you weren’t here,’ he said, holding her tight.

  She didn’t reply, merely allowed him to look down at her and wondered what he could read in her face. He must have sensed something, because his eyes showed a moment of wariness, but then he was smiling as he said, ‘I’d almost forgotten I had such a beautiful wife.’

  ‘Come on, let’s go,’ she said. ‘The car’s not far.’

  As they walked out of the terminal he put an arm round her shoulders, while giving her all the latest news from home as well as passing on messages. ‘. . . and Suzie Collins is really keen to see you,’ he was saying as they got into the car. ‘She’s heading down to Provence with her new man next week, so I’ve told her to give us a call when she gets there, in case we’re there too. I wasn’t sure if you wanted to go small and romantic,’ he continued, as they drove away, ‘or grand and expensive, so I’ve earmarked a few places to show you. You’re using Lilian’s computer, aren’t you?’

  ‘I was,’ she replied.

  Instead of sounding curious about that, he let a few seconds pass, then with a note of anxiety in his voice he said, ‘So, do you still want to go, or have the plans changed again?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ she answered.

  He said no more and she wondered how deep his anxiety was, for the coldness of her manner must surely be setting off all kinds of alarms by now.

  They continued in silence for a while, joining the autoroute and speeding north towards Macon. She thought about the secret he was hiding, and could only wonder how he’d found the courage to come here at all. Certainly it explained his reluctance, in fact it explained so much that she could barely make herself think of it, for the deception was so great, and had gone on so long that almost everything in the past few months seemed tainted by it. Including his inability to deal with his grief. Now she knew why he’d been blocking it all this time, trying to carry on as though Natalie’s death hadn’t happened, but it had come at him in other ways, and in amongst all the horror and confusion in her heart, she realised she almost felt sorry for how bitterly it must be destroying him.

  ‘Have you spoken to Nikki today?’ he asked, as they left the autoroute to begin driving through the countryside.

  ‘No,’ she answered. ‘She’s making a strike for independence, so we only speak every other day now. The rest of the time we text.’

  ‘She seems to be having a good time up there.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I miss her,’ he confessed. ‘The house is too quiet without any of you there.’

  It’s especially quiet without Natalie, she wanted to say. ‘Harry’s with Antoine and Elodie,’ she told him, changing the subject. ‘They’re at a pool party so he won’t be back until late.’

  He had nothing to say to that, so she let the silence run on until he asked, ‘What’s this Harry tells me about a concert at the weekend? At the château.’

  ‘Yes, Daniella’s singing.’

  He turned to her in surprise. ‘And you want to go off somewhere without seeing her?’

  ‘Not really.’ She swung the car sharply to the left, and started heading down the road that would eventually lead to Valennes.

  He turned to gaze out of the window, apparently still not willing to get into why she was being so uncommunicative. He must know I’ve found out, she was thinking to herself, he simply has to.

  ‘So how are Luc and Lilian?’ he asked, making another attempt to be friendly.

  ‘Lilian’s going to have a baby.’

  He nodded, as though approvingly. ‘They must be pleased,’ he commented. Then, with an awkward laugh, ‘I expect we’ll be godparents. Do they have them in France?’

  ‘Yes, but I doubt we’ll be asked.’

  To her surprise he said nothing to that, which annoyed her, for he surely had to be curious to know why Lilian might not want them.

  Eventually he said, ‘Have you and Lilian fallen out, or something?’

  Instead of answering she simply glanced at him, and continued to drive.

  Twenty minutes later she walked into the cottage ahead of him and turned to watch where his eyes went first as he came in the door. She wasn’t entirely surprised when they avoided the stairs, nor was she sorry to see how pinched his expression had become.

  Without even offering him a drink, she took the diary from a drawer in the table and handed it to him.

  The moment he saw it the blood drained from his face.

  ‘I want you to read the final entry,’ she said evenly, ‘and then I want you to tell me the truth.’

  As he opened it she was aware of her heart starting a strange kind of beat, and could only imagine what was happening to his. Then for one awful moment she realised how close she was to tears. He was Natalie’s father, for God’s sake, he’d adored her, so surely it couldn’t be as bad as she feared.

  When finally he looked up from the page he appeared so haggard and grey that she was half afraid he might be on the verge of collapse. He tried to speak, but all that came out was a strangled sort of cry, and slumping into a chair he put his head in his hands.

  ‘You were having an affair with my mother,’ she said.

  His eyes came up to hers, but before he could say anything she went on, ‘Natalie found you together. She tried to call me, so you . . .’ She couldn’t say any more, she just couldn’t. ‘Please tell me you didn’t push her down the stairs,’ she gasped brokenly. ‘Please tell me it wasn’t . . .’

  His eyes dilated with shock. ‘No!’ he cried. ‘My God, how can you even think it?’

  ‘Then what happened? For Christ’s sake tell me how she fell. I need to know.’

  He looked down at the diary again, and when his eyes came back to hers they were so full of pain that she couldn’t remain unmoved. ‘You’re right, she did find me,’ he told her, in a voice that rasped with grief. ‘But not with your mother. It was Lilian.’

  Jessica was so stunned that for a moment she didn’t think she’d heard right. Then, becoming aware of the strangest swirling in her senses, she put a hand to her head. It was as though she was floating away from the shock, even as it held her to its core. ‘But Lilian was in Paris,’ she said stupidly.

  He only looked at her, his expression telling her that her belief belonged to another place, another time, not to this horrible new world he was suddenly opening up.

  A full five seconds or more passed before she could even inhale, and when she did it made her feel sick.

  She continued to stare at him, all the time thinking, he was here with Lilian, he was here with Lilian. She repeated it over and over as though to make herself believe it. Lilian. Her Lilian. It couldn’t be true. She wouldn’t let it be. Lilian’s betrayal felt so much worse than his, not because of Charlie, but bec
ause of Natalie and the pretence they’d kept up all these months, lying to her in ways that made her head spin, even trying to convince her she was crazy for being unable to accept what she’d been told. How shamefully, wickedly, they’d deceived her, and so too had her mother.

  She could feel herself starting to tremble, as though the shock was turning into some kind of attack. She tried to envisage the scenario, where he and Lilian might have been when Natalie found them, where her mother was, and how Natalie had come to walk in on them. Then suddenly she said, ‘I want to know everything that happened here that day, from the moment you arrived till the moment . . .’ She choked on the next words. ‘I want to know everything,’ she finally managed.

  With his face drained of colour and his eyes heavy with pain he looked a different man to a few minutes ago, as though he was fracturing apart inside and unable to hold on. He tried to take a breath, then tried again. It was a while before she realised he was sobbing, dry, brutal convulsions, his whole body juddering as the beginnings of his grief broke free.

  ‘You have to tell me,’ she cried. ‘Charlie, please.’

  He nodded. By now his torment was so clear that she felt a stirring of pity, for whatever he had done, whatever madness had taken place here, she knew he would never have meant it to end the way it had.

  ‘Lilian and I left Paris very early that morning,’ he began, his voice cracked with emotion. ‘I’d hired a car and . . .’

  ‘How long have you and Lilian been involved with one another?’ she asked, barely connecting with the words, they seemed so strange.

  He shook his head. ‘We’re not. It was over before she moved to Paris.’

  Jessica’s eyes closed as another dizzying wave of shock came over her.

  ‘I think it was why she went,’ he continued. ‘We’d been seeing one another for six months, maybe more . . .’

  Jessica looked at him and wondered who he was. Who Lilian was too, because suddenly her world seemed full of people she didn’t know.

  ‘We were terrified of you finding out,’ he said, ‘but we still couldn’t seem to stop.’ His gaze started to lose focus, as though he was no longer quite sure where he was. ‘To be honest I don’t think it was as serious as either of us thought, it just seemed that way at the time. I knew she was lonely and desperate for someone to love her, while I . . .’ He took a breath, and for a moment it seemed he might break down again. ‘I only ever loved you, but I didn’t know how to end it. She was . . . It became . . . Oh God, it hardly matters now, because she came to France and met Luc, then finally it was over between us. I’m not saying I didn’t have feelings for her, because obviously I did, but they weren’t what she needed . . . I could never give her that.’