‘Of all the things I have done in my life, that was the one which haunted me. You at least have had Davie… he’s a handsome and charming lad – and has real talent, he’s a credit to you – oh, please, don’t flinch from me when I mention the boy’s name. I mean him no harm, Annette! On the contrary—’ He stopped, his eyes flickering to the open door.
Annie heard it too. Soft, padding footsteps coming across the landing. She turned. As if conjured by the sound of his name Davie stood in the doorway, blinking and knuckling his eyes, the flushed softness of sleep on his skin and his tousled hair. ‘What is it? What’s happening?’ His eyes moved to Annie and widened in delighted amazement. ‘Mother! How on earth did you get here? When did you come? Why didn’t you wake me up?’ On bare feet he flew to her. He was sleep-warm in her arms and smelled of soap. She caught him to her so hard that he squealed breathlessly, and then wriggled away. She took his hands in hers and held them tightly, looking into the bright face that was lit with delight. ‘How did you get here? Did you manage to come by boat after all?’
She shook her head. ‘I came by aeroplane.’
He stared at her, entranced. ‘By aeroplane?’ He turned excitedly to the two men. ‘Richard! Grandfather! Did you hear that? By aeroplane! That’s really swagger, isn’t it?’ And in the same excited breath, as he turned back to his mother, ‘Did you know that Richard had found Grandfather for us? Wasn’t it clever of him? We’re having such a good time, aren’t we, Grandfather? And now you’re here too, Mother. Now we can stay a bit longer, can’t we? You don’t have to go home yet, do you?’ He flashed a brilliant smile at the still figure in the bed. ‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Grandfather? I could paint some more flowers for you. And you could teach me some more French—’
‘Davie…’ Annie began, then stopped.
He turned the smile upon her. ‘I’m getting really good. N’est-ce pas, grandpère?’
‘Mais oui, Bonbon.’ The old man’s voice was very gentle.
Annie glanced at him. For the first time since she had seen him a faint trace of colour had risen in the waxen skin; her heart lurched suddenly at the look in the deep-sunken eyes that rested upon Davie. ‘Bonbon?’ she enquired faintly.
Davie giggled. ‘It’s a nickname. Grandfather pretended he couldn’t say “Davie”.’ He pronounced the word with an atrociously exaggerated French accent and laughed again. Then he pulled his hands from hers and ran to the bed. ‘May I show Mother the paintings I did for you, Grandfather?’
‘Of course.’ The long-fingered, skeletal hand moved to rest upon a folder Annie had not noticed before, which lay upon the bedside table.
Davie dropped a quick, casually affectionate kiss on the thin cheek, and his hand lingered softly for a moment on the thick white hair. ‘I can do you some more now, if Mother will stay and we don’t have to go home for a week or so. I’ll pick some flowers for you tomorrow, and you can choose, like you did before. Look, Mother, these are all from the courtyard – have you seen the courtyard? It’s absolutely spiffing. I like this one, look, bougainvillaea, though’ – he put his head on one side, frowning a little – ‘I’m not sure I’ve got it exactly right. Perhaps I’ll do another one.’ He smiled at her, a smile of quite dazzling excitement and happiness. ‘Oh, I’m so pleased you’re here. An aeroplane! What a clever thing to think of! Wait till I tell…’ Suddenly and hugely he yawned. ‘Sorry.’
All at once Annie herself felt exhausted. ‘Darling,’ she said quietly, ‘I really think you should go back to bed, don’t you? We can talk in the morning.’
He pouted a little. ‘O-oh – can’t I just…?’
‘Davie. Please. I’m pretty tired myself. We’ll talk about everything tomorrow.’
He yawned again, and his eyes watered. ‘Oh – all right. Will you come and tuck me in, please?’
‘Of course.’
He went back to the bed, replaced the folder and gently kissed the old man. ‘Good night, Grandfather. God bless.’
Lucien took the child’s hand. ‘Good night, Bonbon.’
Davie stood looking down at him in concerned affection. ‘You must look after yourself, you know. You must do what the nurse says. We want you to get better.’
The man smiled faintly. ‘Yes, child,’ he said obediently.
Davie went to Richard, who bent to kiss him. As he did so the boy put his arms about the man’s neck and stood on tiptoe to whisper something in his ear.
Richard straightened, his eyes going to Annie. When Davie tugged on his hand and whispered again, urgently, Richard nodded – a trifle reluctantly, Annie thought. Her eyes sharpened. A self-defensive worm of suspicion, swiftly awakened, curled through her mind.
‘Come along, Davie.’ She held out a hand.
The boy came to her. ‘I’ll show you where my room is.’
It was a large room at the front of the house, the shutters open to catch the breeze from the river. Davie climbed into a huge bed that dwarfed his small frame as he snuggled back tiredly beneath cool cotton sheets, reached up his arms for a cuddle. She hugged him fiercely. ‘I’m ever so pleased to see you.’ His voice was already on the verge of sleep. ‘And I’m ever so glad that Richard found Grandfather for us. I’ve never had a grandfather before. He’s really sw…’ The rest of the word was lost in a huge yawn. But then his eyelids, which had been drooping, opened suddenly wide. His eyes were serious. ‘I know he’s sick,’ he said, his young voice strangely reassuring, as if for a moment he were the adult and she the child. ‘Richard has explained it to me. So I know that I probably won’t have him for very long. But Grandfather says that any time is better than no time at all. That’s true, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘that’s true.’
He closed his eyes, smiling.
Outside the door she leaned tiredly on the wall for a moment, her hands covering her smarting eyes.
‘I’ve made arrangements for you to have a room of your own. I thought you’d prefer it.’ Richard had come up quietly beside her.
She jumped, dropped her hand. ‘Thank you,’ she said stiffly.
He pointed. ‘It’s that one – at the end of the landing. It’s quiet. You need some sleep.’
She nodded.
There was a long silence. Neither looked directly at the other.
‘Annie, I’m sorry,’ he said at last, very softly. ‘So very sorry.’
She did look at him then, but did not speak. It was not until he turned to leave her that she said, ‘Richard?’
‘Yes?’
‘What did Davie whisper to you? When he said good night?’
He shook his head quickly. ‘Nothing important.’
‘Oh?’ Her voice was suddenly chill. ‘Nothing important, or nothing to do with me? More secrets, Richard? Even now?’
There was undisguised pain on his face as he looked at her. ‘Annie, please. Believe me. It isn’t something you’d want to know about, I promise.’
She looked at him levelly. ‘That’s rather an odd word to use under the circumstances, don’t you think? I saw the way you looked at me. It has something to do with me, doesn’t it?’
He hesitated. ‘Yes.’
‘Then I have a right to know what it is. Especially since Davie obviously already knows. I’d really rather not have any more nasty surprises sprung on me, if you don’t mind.’
His head came up sharply at that, a mix of anguish and anger in his eyes that was quickly extinguished. ‘All right. I suppose I deserve that. It was only this.’ He put his hand into his breast pocket. ‘All that Davie said was that I’d be able to give it to you now, instead of waiting until we get home. He’s been dying for you to see it. He helped design it; he was understandably excited about that. Here.’ He put something small and heavy in her hand, wrapped in tissue paper. She unwrapped it, laid it carefully upon the flat palm of her hand and stared at it.
‘I had it made for you. At a little shop in the Place du Tertre.’ She sensed rather than saw the small, unhappy smile, the accom
panying shrug. ‘A belated wedding present.’
The brooch was silver, and designed in exquisitely graceful art nouveau style. It was a delightful study of tumbling flowers and leaves encompassing two sensuously entwined initials: ‘A’ and ‘R’.
Annie blinked. The gleam of silver blurred in her eyes.
Richard had walked away from her. Now he turned, looked back. She did not lift her head. ‘I do love you, Annie,’ he said softly. ‘You may find it hard to believe at this moment, but I truly do. Even I didn’t realise how much.’ He opened the door of the dying Lucien Sancerre’s bedroom. The click of the latch as he shut it behind him was very loud in the silence.
Annie stood very still for a long time, almost absently rubbing the teardrops from the gleaming silver as they fell. They made no sound at all.
In the room behind her slept her son, having joyfully found a grandfather who, for all her fury and resentment of betrayal, Annie knew she would not be able to bring herself to tell him was not his grandfather; having excitedly collaborated with charming, deceitful, manipulative Richard, whom he adored and trusted, to create the beautiful thing she held in her hand because he knew how much she would love it. Innocence and corruption, side by side. What most would damage him? To know of it? Or not to know of it? For the briefest of moments she remembered – and forced herself to acknowledge – the undeniable and undisguised love in Lucien’s gaunt face as he had looked at his son earlier. The son whom she had herself noticed with every day that passed looked so very much like the dead Philippe.
She couldn’t think about it now; she couldn’t. She’d think about it in the morning. Or perhaps the next day.
Salt tears ran through the wrought silver and onto the skin of her hand.
Annie went to bed; but not to sleep. Later – much later – she heard Lucien’s door quietly open and close, heard soft footfalls cross the landing, hesitate for a moment outside her door before walking on. She lay for a long time after that, staring into the darkness as if staring into a pit.
* * *
It was a strange household for the next few days. For the first twenty-four hours Annie pleaded travel fatigue and a splitting headache – neither one of them a deception – and stayed in bed, waited on by an anxious but still ever-ebullient Davie. Sitting on her bed he wanted to hear every single detail of the flight, several times over, and was full of praise for her ingenuity at finding them. ‘Supposing you hadn’t, what would you have done? Would you have gone to the police? Or would you have gone home? You’d have been ever so worried, wouldn’t you? I must say, I didn’t like that horrible Madame Colbert one little bit – but at least she gave you a clue, didn’t she?’
Unable to stem the flow, Annie nodded.
‘And now we can stay here for a while. Even that crabby old nurse told Richard that our being here was doing Grandfather loads of good. Would you like some more lemon drink? It’s awfully nice, isn’t it? D’you know, it’s made with real lemons!’
It was on the third day that, worn out with the treadmill of her thoughts and tired of the stilted politeness and the careful avoidance of anything like real or meaningful conversation, she ventured out of doors. It was early Sunday morning. All over the city church bells rang, and people in their Sunday best hurried to their summons; scrubbed children, their boots as shiny as their scrubbed faces, being firmly marched in front of their elders. She was leaning with her elbows on the parapet of the Pont des Arts, looking out across the glittering water to the majestic magnificence of the Louvre, when the voice behind her made her start.
‘Annie?’
She turned. Richard stood behind her, tall, lean, his bare head glinting like new-peeled chestnuts in the sunshine.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. I hope you don’t mind? I saw you leaving the house. I followed you. Annie – we need to talk. Don’t we?’
She turned back to her contemplation of the river. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I suppose so.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘About what?’ Her voice was tired.
‘About Davie. And Lucien.’ About us; he did not speak the words but they hung in the air between them.
She turned her head to look at him, her eyes narrowed against the brightness of the sun. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Annie, I know you don’t want to believe it – and I don’t blame you if you don’t – but Lucien really does love the boy. And Davie…’ He spread his hands.
‘I know. I know. You think I haven’t seen? Haven’t listened? What the hell else do you think I’ve been thinking about for the past three days? Whether or not to stand for Parliament?’ The words were almost vicious in their despair. She pushed herself away from the wall and began to pace slowly across the bridge. Two young people rode past on bicycles; the laughing girl carried a couple of long sticks of bread under her arm.
‘You surely couldn’t be so cruel as to tell Davie the truth now?’ His voice was intense, almost pleading. ‘How would you ever explain? What would it do to Davie if you did?’
‘How long can we lie?’ she countered bleakly. ‘Months? Years? For ever? We’ll surely have to tell him sometime?’ She stopped abruptly, biting her lip at the slip of her tongue.
They had both stopped walking. “‘We’’?’ he asked quietly. ‘You mean – there is a “we”?’
Stubbornly she turned and paced on, refusing to look at him. Refusing to answer.
He did not press the point. ‘Annie,’ he said after a moment, softly. ‘I’ve talked a lot to Lucien these last few days. If it’s any consolation at all, I do believe that what he said was true. What he did to you has haunted him in these past years. I think that was why he didn’t try to find you. He genuinely thought it best for you both – you and Davie – if he stayed away from you.’
‘How did he know we weren’t starving in an attic?’ The words were caustic.
Almost he smiled. ‘He remembers Jane… very well. He knew she wouldn’t allow that to happen. He knew she had the means to care for you if it had been necessary. Annie, he’s dying. Can’t you find some pity for him? You lost your husband – but you had your son. He lost both his sons. Why do you think he’s lived the way he has? He’s killed himself with his excesses—’
He stopped. Annie had turned to him; her dark eyes, huge in a pale face that had thinned in the past few days, were studying him with a sudden and disconcerting intensity.
‘He spoke about the paintings yesterday…’ Discomfited by her disturbing gaze he struggled on.
‘No,’ she said sharply, ‘I don’t want Davie to have the paintings.’ Still her eyes did not waver. Uncomfortable warmth rose in his face. She was studying him as if she would read his mind, his soul.
‘I understand that. So does Lucien. But – you do realise how valuable they are?’
‘Of course I do.’ Again the words were brisk and entirely dispassionate, at odds with her expression. ‘Davie doesn’t need that kind of money.’ Her eyes were still probing his. ‘Those things would bring nothing but trouble.’
His long lashes lowered, as if in defence against her fierce, intense gaze, but he did not look away. ‘Lucien asked—’ They were standing quite still now, eyes locked, in some strange way set entirely apart from the busy world around them. A sprucely dressed young couple in their Sunday best pushing a bouncing perambulator walked by, eyeing them curiously.
‘What did Lucien ask?’
‘He wants to set up a trust fund for Davie. To help with his education and with his ambition to become a botanist.’
She considered that gravely for a moment. Then shrugged and nodded. ‘I can’t see anything wrong with that.’
There was another long, precarious silence. Still she studied him with unsparing concentration. Suddenly Richard knew that behind those brave, steady eyes conclusions were being drawn, decisions being made: conclusions and decisions over which he could have neither influence nor control.
‘He as
ked me,’ he continued quietly, ‘what I thought he should do with the paintings in the highly likely eventuality of your not wanting Davie to have them.’
‘Oh? What did you say?’
‘I told him to send them to America.’
Annie sucked her lip reflectively. Her gaze still had not flickered once. ‘What did he think of that advice?’
Richard’s expression did not change. ‘He offered them to me.’
The small sound she made was almost, but not quite laughter. It held not the slightest trace of amusement. ‘The only temptation the devil himself can’t resist,’ she said, softly, ‘to tempt others, even to the last. What did you say?’ She raised her eyebrows a little, questioningly.
‘I refused them. Politely but firmly, I believe the phrase is.’
‘Oh? I would have thought they would have looked splendid in the Hampstead house?’ Her voice was suddenly and deliberately savage.
He could stand it no longer. ‘Annie!’ He caught her shoulders. ‘Annie – don’t! Please don’t! And – oh, Annie, don’t cry – please, don’t cry?’ There were hard-held tears in his own eyes now.
‘I’m not crying,’ she lied calmly, turning away from him to look across the water. ‘I’m tired of crying.’
He came close behind her, hesitated for a moment, then put his arms tentatively and very lightly about her, barely touching her. She did not move away; even, imperceptibly, he felt she might have leaned against him a little, her head tilted to his shoulder, her hair brushing his face. She sighed wearily.
‘What are we going to do?’ he asked quietly. ‘Will you ever forgive me?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘And I don’t know. In that order.’
‘We have to decide. For Davie’s sake.’
She smiled the very ghost of a smile. ‘For Davie’s sake,’ she repeated.
‘And for our own.’
She closed her eyes. “‘Marriage is too absurd in any case’’,’ she quoted softly.“‘It begins and continues for such very slight reasons…’”
‘No.’ Rough in his urgency, he turned her to face him. ‘No, Annie! That isn’t us.’
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