by Lucy Foley
‘So she lives here now?’ I indicated the return address that she had given, in Paris: Rue de Seine.
‘I can’t say. As there’s been no contact since …’ He made a helpless gesture to indicate the span of years. ‘If you went there, though, you might be able to discover something further. A start, at least.’
I glanced down at the postcard. I turned it over, and saw the view it showed: of a sandy beach buffeted by grey waves, and two buildings, one large and historic in aspect, the other nestling in its shadow, a cottage perhaps a tenth of the size. I had the strongest feeling of recognition, as I studied it. And I knew, before I read it, this was Winnard Cove.
30
Corsica, September 1986
I had to leave now, that was clear. I needed to go in search of Alice, but I didn’t want to offend Stafford, to whom I owed so much. Any anger I felt at him had ebbed as quickly as it had arrived. I saw how fervently he had wanted to be certain that I understand her before I judged her actions.
When I went to tell him that I planned to go to Paris, Stafford anticipated me. ‘I know that you will want to be on your way,’ he said, ‘it will be so sad to see you go, Kate. Both of us,’ he glanced over at Oliver, who sat quite still, gazing out to sea, ‘have enjoyed your company enormously.’
I could not see Oliver’s expression – and I wasn’t sure that I wanted to. Would it mean anything to him, that I was leaving? It might even be a relief: the removal of a complication. Now he would have the time alone with his grandfather that he had craved.
‘You could fly to Paris,’ Stafford said, ‘or you could take the night ferry across tomorrow and catch a train from Marseilles.’
I was instantly more attracted to the idea of the train. A plane would have been faster, of course, and speed was to be prized. But if I could avoid flying – and the associations it brought with it – I would. I needed time to prepare myself too. A train journey would offer those few necessary hours in which to do so. And it would give me one more day in this place. It was gratifying to see how pleased Stafford looked when I told him of my choice.
Stafford and I talked late into the night, after Oliver had excused himself for bed. It was rare that Stafford stayed up beyond nine, so I understood that to be granted his company at this hour was a great and unusual honour.
He went to pour us both a drink. I never drank whisky, but this one tasted of peat and woodsmoke and I found myself cautiously savouring it. It spoke of adventure and a little of magic.
I looked up at the sky and it was indigo-black. The stars, on this clear evening, astounded me. In London you barely ever see them, and I had always thought of them as a flat canopy stretched over the heavens: a painted surface. Now, studying them properly for the first time since I’d arrived, I saw that they were more like silvery particles sinking through dark water. Was there, just possibly, a coolness to the night air that I had not noticed before? It was the first day of September: no longer summer.
‘Do you have anything else to ask me?’ Stafford studied me over the rim of his glass.
I did, and the whisky had given me confidence. ‘What was it like, when you believed Alice was dead?’
He considered this for a long moment before answering, and I wondered if I had gone beyond the pale, but then he said, ‘I couldn’t believe, after hearing it, that I could go on living. But you do, you know. Even if some part of you does die in that moment.’
I knew that, well enough.
We had one last breakfast on the terrace the next morning. It was still warm but, overnight, anvil-shaped grey clouds had rolled in from the sea, obscuring the sun and leaving us, after the dazzling glare of previous days, in what felt like a half-light.
Stafford turned to Oliver. ‘Would you drive us to the ferry? I’d like to come and see Kate off.’
‘Yes,’ said Oliver. ‘But … I was thinking of going too.’
Both Stafford and I stared at him.
‘With Kate?’ Stafford asked.
He nodded, briskly. ‘I have some things I need to be doing in Paris.’ He looked to Stafford. ‘That is, if you don’t mind, Grand-père.’
‘Of course not,’ Stafford said. ‘If that’s what you’d like.’
‘Kate?’ Oliver turned to me. ‘Would you mind if I travelled with you?’
That last day was a rather subdued affair. I was depressed by the thought of leaving the house, the island and most of all Stafford himself. I had only known him for a short time but through all that he had told me I felt I knew more about him than one might of one’s closest friend. He had been generous, selflessly so, with his own history.
I went for one last swim in the pool, realizing that I would not have the chance to do such a thing for a long while, and wandered down to the beach to drink in the warm briny scent of the sea. I collected a trophy from the maquis itself – a small bouquet of herbs that I hoped would, at least for a while, continue to evoke the island for me once I had left.
I did not see much of Oliver that day. I could not understand why he had asked to join me on the journey to Paris – but I decided that it would do me no good to dwell on it.
After lunch, Stafford called me into his studio. ‘It’s not quite finished,’ he told me, ‘but I think it’s ready for you to see.’
I followed him round, for the first time, to the other side of the easel. ‘Oh.’ I could not seem to find anything else to say. It was a work of incredible technical skill, of that characteristic economy of his that allowed for no errant line. Yet it was also at the same time something much more than that. He had found strength of character where I had only seen a lack – had revealed a beauty that I would not have believed existed. Yet it wasn’t a lie. It was true – it was me.
Stafford had one last thing to show me. I saw that he had pulled from the corner of the room an old trunk, the leather worn and cracked with age. As he bent, stiffly, to unlock it, I suddenly knew what it was. When he lifted the lid and I saw what was within – what I had hoped would be there – I felt my eyes fill with tears.
31
Paris, September 1986
Oliver and I took the ferry from Ajaccio to Nice. We’d each booked a small cabin, but I knew instantly that I would not be able to sleep: there was too much to think about. Instead, I told him that I planned to remain for a while up on the deck, and he opted to join me.
The clouds that had obscured the sky had finally retreated in the afternoon to reveal a night sky of almost perfect clarity. We found a part of the deck that we could make our own and sat and stared out across the depths towards the lights of the island, receding until they became tiny pinpricks of light, will-o’-the-wisp’s lanterns, scarcely real.
‘I packed these,’ Oliver said, ‘just in case.’ He produced two beers from the battered rucksack he had brought – the only luggage he seemed to be taking with him. I thanked him as he passed me one, and he gave a quick smile, then looked back out to sea.
I wished that things could be simple between us, now that we had shaken off hostility, then strained formality – all of that. Instead there was this other, complicating element. I was sure I had not imagined the way he had looked at me in the boat the evening before. Yet the idea of acknowledging it, of forcing it to reveal itself, was unthinkable. Now, removed from the island and from Stafford, our aloneness together felt dangerous. Though the boat was crowded with passengers, sitting there in the dark alcove we had found, suspended between the sea and sky, I could believe that we were the only people for miles around.
‘I was thinking,’ Oliver said then, surprising me, ‘I was always so depressed on this journey, back to the mainland, that I never realized how beautiful it is.’
‘But coming the other way must have been the opposite?’
‘I was generally too excited then to notice.’ He took a sip of his beer. ‘Mum always hated taking the ferry. She once told me that she thought of it as the passage across the River Styx.’
I tried to imagine how someone mi
ght equate the crossing to Corsica, land of light and sea, with a voyage into the underworld.
‘For her sake,’ he said, ‘I hope that it wasn’t where she ended up when she died. She’d have hated that, having spent her whole life trying to get away from it.’
I cleared my throat. ‘How did she die?’ Oliver didn’t answer immediately, and my question seemed to echo in the silence. Immediately I felt I had gone too far. But then he said, quietly: ‘An overdose.’
‘Oh. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. It happened a long time ago.’
‘How old were you?’
‘It was the day after I’d turned ten, actually,’ he said, his tone slightly too offhand to be truly convincing. ‘Mum had this idea that I was now grown up – she had allowed me to come to Cannes for the week – and that we should celebrate in style. It … it was the most bizarre day you can imagine. I feel sorry for her, now, when I think about it. She simply didn’t have a clue how to be a parent, even though she’d had such a good example from my grandmother.’ He shrugged. ‘It wasn’t in her nature, I suppose.
‘She told me that since I was now an adult we’d have a grown-up celebration and go for lunch in the best restaurant. I’d have preferred a cake on the beach, to be honest. Most ten-year-old boys would, probably. Still, she was trying, and I suppose she didn’t know what ten-year-old boys liked.
‘It was out of town, the restaurant, about half an hour’s drive away. My mother told me on the way that it was the place to go – everyone who was anyone would be there. That didn’t mean much to me, but she looked very elegant, and I was proud of her when we walked in and people turned to stare. I think she at least seemed like the “somebody” she wanted to be.’
I remembered, as he said this, walking into the smoke-fugged bar of the Groucho Club with Mum, me only as high as her waist at the time. People swarming around her, patting me on the head. There were other beautiful women there, but she was by far the most beautiful, the most interesting, the most talented: I knew this unequivocally. She’d knelt and whispered in my ear, ‘We can go as soon as you want to. Tell me when, and we’ll leave that very minute.’
‘Did you enjoy it?’ I asked.
‘In a way – it was a new experience, certainly. It was a hot day, but inside the restaurant there was this strange refrigerated cool. You know the sort of place: huge white napkins folded into elaborate shapes, waiters like penguins – a bit old-fashioned now.’
I nodded. He was speaking quickly, as if afraid of stopping, of not getting to the end. I wondered why he had chosen this moment to tell me. Perhaps, I thought, it was to do with the unusual, confessional quality of our spot – the silence and darkness around us like a cloak.
‘Maman ordered us champagne,’ he continued, ‘which I hated, but drank because I didn’t want to look like a child. She kept leaning over and whispering to me: “There’s so-and-so, there’s so-and-so” and making subtle gestures in their direction, which got less and less subtle as she had more to drink. They were mainly men, I think, and to me they all looked old and unremarkable. Judging by her excitement, I imagine they were bigwigs in the film industry: important people.
‘Then she said she was going to the bathroom. She was gone for some time, and I began to look about me, because I was bored. Suddenly I spotted her, in the far corner, talking to a man. He was sitting, and there was another man opposite him – and my mother was crouching next to the table to speak to him. I could see, even from that distance, when things changed from being friendly, civil, to something else. She put her hand on his shoulder and he reached up and removed it, very cool, not looking at her. Then she pointed right over at me, and his head came up, and his eyes met mine. I looked away quickly, down into my blanquette de veau. I know this may sound far-fetched, and I have no proof other than what I felt … but in that moment I knew that man was my father.’
‘Oh.’
He took a long drink of his beer. ‘When my mother came back to the table I saw that her make-up was smeared – I think she’d been crying. Suddenly she appeared ten, twenty years older than she had before, and drunk. I wish she could have acknowledged that she felt as terrible as she looked. The pretence that we were still having fun was the worst.’
‘When she paid, she pulled the notes out of her purse, like this’ – he gestured with his free hand – ‘and threw them at the waiters, so they had to scrabble on the floor to pick them up. In the car she forgot to put her driving shoes on at first, so she couldn’t work out, when she put her high-heel to the pedal, why it was so difficult to drive.’
‘She drove you home?’
‘Yes, but she did try to be sensible. She asked me if I wanted to drive instead.’
‘She asked you?’ I tried not to sound as horrified as I felt.
‘Yes.’ He gave an odd smile. ‘It’s almost funny, when you think about it.’
‘It’s lucky you didn’t crash.’
‘Yes. Although …’
‘What?’
‘I wonder now if that’s what she wanted. I mean,’ he said quickly, ‘don’t get me wrong – she definitely wouldn’t have meant anything to happen to me. She probably hadn’t thought it out to that extent.
‘The following morning I waited hours for her to get up. It was hot in the apartment, I was bored. I gathered all our beach things and sat watching the clock. When it was past midday I finally went in to wake her up.’
He didn’t say anything else for a while, and I couldn’t think, though I tried, of something with which to fill the silence.
*
In Nice we took the TGV to Paris, crammed in with holidaymakers returning to Paris, sunburnt families and couples, bags haphazard about them. We just managed to find two seats amid the chaos.
Much of my attention was caught by the warmth of Oliver’s body forced against mine on the small seat. Despite myself I could not help but remark the beauty and remarkable size of the sun-browned hands resting in his lap: the curved, dexterous thumbs and elegant fingers. I pressed my head against the window and feigned sleep, watching the countryside rush past through half-closed eyes.
When Oliver fell asleep, his head thrown back against the seat rest to expose the beautiful column of his throat, my sensitivity to his presence beside me waned. Now I was free to think about what lay ahead: all the possibility and terror of it. I thought about Stafford, too. Making another journey all those years ago, through a different France – returning from the front. Both of us in search of the same woman.
It was a balmy afternoon in Paris – a far cry from the scorched and salt-swept bluster of the Corsican climate that I had become accustomed to. As we stepped from the train at Gare de Lyon I looked up at the station clock and found that it was only midday. There was time, I realized – with a stab of apprehension – to make my way across the city, to call at the address.
Echoing my thoughts, Oliver said, ‘You could go straight there, I suppose.’
‘Oh,’ I said, wavering – suddenly drained of all confidence by the prospect. ‘I thought I’d drop off my bags first.’ I knew that it sounded feeble, a transparent play for time.
When I glanced across at Oliver I saw that he was studying me, and I looked away in case he read my cowardice in my face. ‘Where will you stay?’ he asked.
‘I’ll find a hotel.’ I’d already decided this. I still had most of the money Stafford had given me, which he had refused to take back.
Oliver seemed to be making up his mind to speak. ‘Or,’ he said, ‘you could stay at the apartment, with me.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said, too quickly. The idea scared me.
But Oliver was tenacious. ‘I know that Grand-père specifically wanted me to ask you.’
I felt fatigue wash over me then. I was too tired to argue the point, I realized, too tired to trawl the city looking for somewhere to stay. The fact that it was Stafford’s wish, not Oliver’s, made it an easier offer to accept: made the gesture seem less significant
.
Oliver’s apartment was above a café, of the sort that you see on old postcards of the city – with tables and chairs spilling across the pavement. Now, it was rather subdued – a solitary couple having a quiet drink, but in the morning and during the lunchtime rush, Oliver said, you could faintly hear sounds drifting up through the floors: the thwack and screech of the coffee being made, the murmur of the customers sitting outside.
‘I like it though,’ he said. ‘I love staying with Grand-père, but I don’t enjoy silence quite as much as him.’
After the light and space of the Maison du Vent the place seemed on the small side, though I’m sure that it was generous for the city. I could see, too, that it was rather beautiful – with tall windows leading on to a tiny ironwork balcony, and toffee-coloured floorboards. A couple of twin Stafford sketches hung upon one wall: studies of the Maison du Vent from different approaches. There was an antique trunk that served as a coffee table and held a thick stack of architectural digests, and a low-slung sofa. Yet, these elements were far less noticeable than the sparseness that surrounded them: the place was shockingly bare, more like an elegant hotel room than a home. I saw that several cardboard boxes lined the corridor that ran between the rooms.
‘I’ve been having a clear-out,’ Oliver said. He didn’t elaborate, and I didn’t probe, not wanting to know whether any of them contained his wife’s remaining possessions. It wasn’t hard to understand why he had decided to escape to Corsica.
I looked at him, standing there in his empty flat and felt great pity for him. Whatever had happened between them, they must have loved each other once. The ending, however it had come about, had been a tragedy of sorts. No one entered a marriage anticipating its demise.
He showed me to the spare room. ‘It’s not big,’ he said, ‘but hopefully it’ll be comfortable.’