“You painted it, in 1965?”
“She told you?”
“In a way.” She didn’t know whether to tell him about all the diary entries. Wasn’t yet sure how much she wanted to share.
“It is all because of her,” he said as he nodded at the painting. “My crazy Catriona, my muse, my beloved. She was the one who inspired such a fury in me, a desire to put that face onto canvas, for the whole world to see.”
“It’s incredible.” The way he had captured the light on her face, the look in her eye, with only a few strokes of brush. Emily stepped forward, wanted to try to understand how he had accomplished such detail with so little paint.
“It belongs to you.”
“Me?”
“She bought it many years ago. Sent it back to me on the condition that, one day, I should pass it on to you.”
“I don’t understand.”
Antoine looped his arm around Emily, drew her close and placed a kiss on her head. Then he took her chin in his hands, turned her head to the light, exposing her scar, but she didn’t pull away, found she didn’t want to hide, not from him. He made her feel at ease, the same way he had Catriona. A gift of sorts, one that was impossible to explain or describe.
“I think she wanted you to understand that happiness isn’t ever constant.” He cupped her face with both hands. “That summer was magical in so many ways, but it also nearly destroyed her.”
“You mean Noah.”
“You know about Noah.” It wasn’t a question, accompanied only by a small nod of his head as he moved to the back of the house, taking Emily by the hand and walking out onto the terrace.
Two bright ceramic flamingos stood guard by the pool as Emily shielded her eyes and looked across the coastline of Sainte-Maxime, tiny dots of white that interspersed the green. There was the faintest of winds, carrying the scent of the sea and of lavender from the various bushes dotted around the garden.
“Lavender always makes me think of Catriona.” Antoine twirled a lock of Emily’s hair through his fingers, then handed over a glass of iced tea from a tray that had miraculously appeared on a nearby table. He took a sip from his own drink, regarding her over the rim.
“Why did she leave?” Emily held her glass with both hands, registered the shiver along her spine in response to the chill.
“Right to the point.” Antoine gave a small chuckle. “Just like her.”
“Because of Noah?”
“He was an utter bastard. Playing with her emotions, her love, as if it were something she would give to just about anybody.”
“But did they ever…?” Emily left the question hanging, unsure whether or not she wanted to know the answer. To find out if her grandfather was the man responsible for causing so much pain.
“I expect so, but she never did speak to me about him after she left. Knew how much I disapproved.”
He was hiding something. She could tell by the curve of his shoulder, the fact he took another sip of his drink before answering.
“Where is he now?”
“Your guess is as good as mine, my dear. Noah and I were never what you would call friends. Oh,” he said, registering the way Emily’s body slumped at his words. “You’re disappointed. Why would you be?”
There was no need to finish the question, because he had seen the way Emily scrutinized every detail of his face when she was standing outside the gates, watching him in silence. He had seen the tilt of her head as she listened to him speak, felt the sharp intake of breath, the tightness with which she hugged him back. All of this and more made him realize what it was she had hoped to find.
“She left because of me.” He gave a short sniff, wiped at the corner of one eye, then tossed his head in annoyance. “I was stupid enough to ask her to stay.”
“Why was that stupid?”
“She was like a caged animal here. Always prowling, always on the hunt for more.”
“More?”
“Of everything,” he said, spreading his arms wide and nearly knocking over one of the flamingos. “Of life, of love, of loss. She needed inspiration, and there’s only so much you can glean from a town filled with nothing but vacuous rich people.”
“And you.”
A small smile as he gave her arm a playful squeeze. “And me. I was young, in love, and selfish. I thought I could only stay if she was here too, protecting me.”
Emily knew better than to ask for details of something from so long ago, from a man who clearly meant the world to her grandmother, even if they had drifted apart.
“You’re Sebastian.” It wasn’t a question. Nor was it an accusation, more her way of showing him that she understood, because she had read her grandmother’s first book, as well as her diary. She was telling him he didn’t need to reveal anything about himself, or the man he had fallen in love with.
“Clever as well as beautiful. Why am I anything but surprised?”
Emily looked up, watched as a pair of sparrows flew down from one of the palm trees, squabbling like siblings as they landed on the grass. She approached them slowly, bent down to avoid startling them, and they hopped apart. One flew away, while the other regarded her a moment, watched as she took a slice of apple from her glass and held it out.
The little bird jumped forward, took a bite, then jumped back again.
“It’s okay,” Emily whispered, breaking the apple into pieces and scattering them on the ground.
“They trust you,” Antoine said, watching her, watching the bird.
“I like birds.”
“Why?”
No one had ever asked her why.
“Their simplicity?” She turned her face to him, saw the sparrow fly up to land on the roof.
“No, birds are anything but simple. Take my friend the flamingo over there.” He pointed to one of the ceramic sculptures wearing a shiny top hat. “Did you know that they are only pink because of a chemical reaction that occurs in their body due to the specific type of algae that they eat?”
“Did you learn that from the same person who taught you about jellyfish?”
Antoine frowned, then opened his mouth wide as he realized what she was referring to. “She told you.”
“I’ve read her diary from that summer.”
“She kept a diary? She never told me, the minx. Am I in it? I suppose I must be.”
“She wrote about why she came here.” Emily realized it was because of Antoine, and Noah, and the way she had felt trapped because of her love for them both.
“I had to hide who I was, for so long.” He looked toward the house, and Emily thought he seemed to be looking back in time, trying to pick up on a memory, a feeling, that was no longer with him. “But I never hid from her. She always accepted people for who they were on the inside, no matter what other people thought.” He seemed sad, as if he too understood what it meant to lose someone special, someone who was his whole world.
“I wish I’d known her back then.”
“She was glorious, simply glorious. My late partner, Jean-Christophe, told me she was the wife I never had. Told me I was an idiot for letting her go.”
Jean-Christophe. Someone who wasn’t there. Emily could sense the absence all around her, saw the memory of him in Antoine’s eyes. She reached out for his hand and he took hers, gave it a gentle squeeze. To touch someone, to bridge that infinite divide, was something so uncharacteristic of her, so unexpected, that she didn’t realize what she had done until he let go and the air around her skin registered what was no longer there.
“I like their freedom.” She looked to the sky, searched out the birds as was so often her go-to, her escape from dealing with what was happening there and then.
“Do you wish you could be free?”
“I don’t even know what it means.”
“Free from this?” He reached out for her scar, then put his hand on her heart. “So much inside, so many scars you don’t let anyone see. No doubt you learnt that from her.”
Emily fe
lt her insides tighten.
“Do you think she ever told Noah how she really felt? Do you think she ever took the leap of faith that was needed to be happy? Even after Margot was born, she refused to ask for help from anyone, even me. Insisted on doing everything by herself. Said she certainly wasn’t going to ask Margot’s father for help.”
Emily took a long sip of her drink, tried to swallow the lump in her throat before speaking. “Noah?”
“I suppose he could be,” Antoine replied as he handed her a silk handkerchief, pretended not to look as she wiped at her eyes. “But she wouldn’t ever say. The point is, don’t be like her. Don’t lock yourself away for fear of what may come spilling out. Life is too short for you not to be daring, especially when it comes to love.” He paused. “So what’s his name?”
Emily twisted the handkerchief around her hand. Antoine was little more than a stranger, yet somehow understood what she was feeling.
“He has a girlfriend.”
“They always do,” he said, looping his arm around her and taking her back inside, up and around the staircase that climbed to the sky. “In my experience, men like that aren’t worth the hassle.”
Emily followed him into a turret room with windows on all sides, a glorious view of the coastline stretching out before her.
“My darling girl,” he said, sitting down on a chaise longue and opening a small glass dish to reveal a sugar-laden stack of Turkish delight. “You deserve someone who will treat you like a queen.”
Emily put a piece of gooey deliciousness into her mouth and sucked at the sweetness as she looked around the room. It was a cacophony of objects, none of which seemed to be in quite the right place. Buckets of brushes, stacks of paper, drawers half open with pastels and tubes of paint all chucked in at random. It seemed to suit him, more than the glitz and polish of all the money back downstairs.
“The money was never mine,” he said, as if reading her thoughts. “I only inherited it when J-C died, but I’d give it all back in a heartbeat if I could have him instead.”
“I know what you mean.”
Emily walked around the room, noticing there were four easels, all of them faced out, each on a different point of an invisible compass. Three were covered with cloth, but the fourth was on display. It was another portrait of her grandmother, dressed all in white. She stood in the shallows, with the ocean curling around her feet. Her face was in profile, and she seemed to be looking toward somewhere just out of view.
“Where was this?”
“Nowhere. I’ve found myself painting her more and more, simply from memory. It helps me remember.”
“She always loved the water.” Emily stepped closer, looking at the layers of paint Antoine had used. Tiny brushstrokes to recreate the dips and lines of her grandmother’s face. It was a talent she envied, to be able to capture a mood, an expression, of someone that they themselves were probably completely unaware of.
“Did you ever consider going to art school?” he asked.
“Why would I do that?” At one point she had considered it, but she was too scared to try.
“You’re very talented, I can see that from the illustrations in her books. But untrained. I could train you.”
“That’s very kind of you, but…”
“But what? You can make your own decisions, can’t you? Live wherever you want to, be whoever you want to be.”
Emily spied a well-loved copy of L’Oiseau Bleu tucked away at the bottom of a pile of magazines and wondered when was the last time it had been read, if he had given it to her grandmother or the other way around. It made her see how much there was she still didn’t know, or understand, about her grandmother’s life, her past, what shaped her, what pushed her into becoming a single mother, a famous author. So many personas, each worn at a different point in time.
“It’s not that simple,” she said, watching as Antoine opened up a large trunk with brass hinges, took out a paper package, and handed it over to her.
“No, I don’t suppose it is. I guess we’re both rather too good at pretending to be someone else.”
“I don’t pretend.”
“You’re sure about that?”
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, on a Persian rug with a cigarette burn in one corner, she pulled apart the paper to reveal an enormous full moon in a starlit sky. Two friends sat on a swing, legs out straight, bodies leaning back as they circled above the earth. The story was about a girl who lived in the mountains with her father. Together she and Ophelia caught stars that were made into two identical necklaces, one of which Ophelia wore and never took off.
Emily’s fingers sought out the chain around her neck as she opened the front cover to read the new dedication.
For G—because you never know what’s around the corner.
“Gigi’s dead.” Emily frowned at the dedication.
“And?”
“How am I supposed to find a dead woman?”
Antoine popped two more cubes of Turkish delight into his mouth. “Perhaps that’s not what this is about.”
“I don’t follow.” Emily pulled out a plain white envelope, turned it over in her hand, then shut the book.
“Perhaps you’re not supposed to find a person.”
“This makes no sense.” Why would she be pointed in the direction of someone who was no longer alive? It felt as if she was being deliberately set up to fail.
“Where is it you think she is asking you to go?”
Emily wore a necklace that Gigi once gifted her grandmother, inside of which was a photograph from when they were young, along with one of her parents—which was why she never opened it or went anywhere without it.
They had bought matching lockets in a small shop in the back streets of the last city they both spent any time in together; where they said their goodbyes, promised to see one another again soon. But Gigi died only a few years later from a brain hemorrhage, and Emily had always hated the idea of her grandmother not knowing that she had so little time left.
“Rome,” she said with conviction, as there was a faint knock on the door and the housemaid entered, telling Monsieur that there was a young couple at the front gate, asking for Emily.
15
GOOSE
Anser indicus
Seated on the terrace, where brunch had been served, Emily found herself unable to eat, to take her eyes away from Tyler and Phoebe, who were helping themselves to Antoine’s hospitality. She kept wishing she had a magical swing that would take her somewhere, anywhere but here.
The two of them had come blustering in, full of apologies and contrition for oversleeping, for not being there when Emily had gone to the gallery. Tyler had even gone so far as to blame her for not owning a mobile phone, then had the decency to shut up when he spied the portrait of Catriona. Phoebe had gushed about how amazing, gorgeous, spectacular the house was, how lucky Antoine was to live in such a beautiful setting. She hadn’t stopped talking since stepping foot inside, her enthusiasm only going up a notch when she saw the pool and the view.
“I can’t quite believe it,” Phoebe said, lifting another forkful of smoked salmon to her lips. “I mean, it’s just so incredible when you think about it. A magical treasure trail set up by the Catriona Robinson. A secret quest to discover her unfinished manuscript. It’s like some sort of film.”
“You told her?” Emily glared at Tyler, unsurprised to find him looking anywhere but across the table at her.
“Tyler told me everything,” Phoebe went on, popping another sliver of fish into her mouth. She licked the lemon juice from her fingers as she smiled up at her beloved.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Tyler shifted in his chair, took a sip of coffee.
“What would you say?” Antoine stirred his own drink, lifted the cup to his mouth. Emily imagined rays of fire emerging from his pupils, pointed at Tyler, like a recalcitrant superhero. The idea of him strutting around in underwear and a cape was enough to make her smile, make her forget how angry she
was, if only for a moment.
Antoine was also smiling, aiming those pearly whites at Tyler. To the untrained eye he would appear as nothing more than the perfect host: welcoming, warm, and funny, with an uncanny ability to make everyone around him feel at ease. But Emily had confided in him, only a little, so he knew that the handsome young man who sat at the table, eating his food and enjoying the view, wasn’t necessarily someone to be trusted.
“I had to explain what I was doing in the South of France.”
“What are you doing here?” Emily asked him, wishing he had turned around and gone back home instead of following her, instead of taking his responsibilities seriously simply because it suited his own selfish needs.
“Is this the next clue?” Phoebe picked up the book Antoine had given Emily, without asking, and began to flick through the pages. “I absolutely loved this one when I was younger,” she said, looking up to smile at Emily, seemingly oblivious to her irritation. “The idea of being able to soar through the sky on a magical swing. To visit the moon, come back with stars in your pockets. It’s just amazing.”
Emily looked down to find Antoine’s hand on her own, making her let go of the fork she didn’t realize she was gripping.
“Emily thinks the next clue is in Rome.”
“What makes you think that?” Tyler’s interest had been piqued, enough for him to actually look Emily in the eye for the first time since his insipid girlfriend had arrived, unannounced, and put herself firmly in the middle of it all.
“Rome,” Phoebe said with an extravagant sigh, leaning into Tyler and stroking his cheek. “It’s just the most amazing city. Although the Colosseum is a little gruesome. My parents took us when I was a kid, and my brother spent the whole time pretending I was a lion and he was a gladiator.”
Emily rolled her eyes, busied herself with tidying away some of the plates.
“It’s where Gigi bought the necklace,” Antoine said, ignoring the warning look Emily gave him.
“The one you’re wearing?” Phoebe leant across the table, hand outstretched, and Emily pushed back her chair to stand, to get out of her way. “That’s just amazing.”
The Book of Second Chances Page 16