by Carla McKay
And so it was that Sarah at sixteen failed most of her exams and left her academic London day school in disgrace. Jean made sure that she enrolled at a local sixth-form college but shortly afterwards, she left home and went to share a scruffy flat with people her parents didn’t know and wouldn’t want to have known. Lance disowned her entirely whilst Jean desperately set up hurried meetings with her in anonymous Oxford Street chain cafes and tried to persuade her to come home. She got by, she told Jean, on social security and was perfectly happy. She had no intention of coming home. She was sorry, she added, but it was better for everybody this way.
After a few months of this, she changed the phone number Jean had been able to reach her on and after that all contact was lost. Jean would pace up and down wet London streets looking for her in places she had seen her in the past but to no avail. Ignoring Lance’s advice to forget her, she went to the police with photographs but when they heard the story, they told her there was little they could do. Sarah was by now seventeen. She had left home of her own accord. There was no reason to think she had been harmed in any way.
‘It happens all the time, love’, a nice policeman finally told a shaking, weeping Jean. ‘These youngsters want to forge their own way without us, I’m afraid. But they don’t think of those who brought them up, do they? Your Sarah will most likely be fine. One day, she might come back and say sorry for the pain she’s caused, you’ll see. You sit there, and I’ll get you a nice cup of tea.’
But by the time he came back, Jean had gone and was sobbing openly on a nearby park bench. She knew she had lost her only child and back at the station, so did the kind copper. He saw it only too often. It affected him every time. No use pretending it didn’t.
That night, as every night, Jean thought about Sarah and wondered where she was – indeed, who she was now. She would be 24, she might even have children of her own. The pain never went away but it had dulled to the point where she could carry on and think of other things most of the time after eight years.
After the police station episode, Jean had resolved not to mention Sarah again to Lance. His attitude was inexplicable. He had never expressed any regret or shown his unhappy wife any support in her evident distress. It was the way he operated.
When three years ago, he decided to take early retirement and move to France, she had been pleased. She desperately needed a change of scene and she had long ago given up hoping that one day she would hear Sarah’s key in the door. And, in fact, life had improved considerably. Lance was preoccupied now with writing his books and she herself had settled down to a far from unpleasant life in the sun, trying to create a beautiful garden out of an acre of dry scrub. They had a busy social life and whilst she hadn’t found a real friend, she was never short of company when she wanted it. As for life with Lance – well, it was just life with Lance. They co-habited. She supposed they always would. She long ago stopped feeling sorry for herself that she had chosen the wrong man.
Lately, though, something more specific was bothering her. Generally, she never went into Lance’s study where he worked on his computer – he had specifically asked her not to go in there for fear of disturbing all his papers, but one afternoon recently when he was out she had gone in to look for a map of the area that she thought must be in there.
She looked around her at the mess everywhere. Papers all over the desk, papers on the floor. But Lance had forbidden her to let the cleaner in. It was strange even being in here – in Mission Control as he called it. She looked on the shelves for the maps but they weren’t there. Idly, she opened random drawers not really expecting to find them at all. The edge of a photograph under some other stuff poked out. Curiously, she pulled it out and looked at it. It was an old photograph of Sarah and her then best friend Louise. They must have been around 15 and they were on a beach sunbathing topless. She remembered the holiday. It had been in Portugal and was possibly the last happy family holiday they had. Sarah had wanted to bring Louise with her and Jean had agreed.
The beach they went to most days was almost deserted and the girls thought they looked more like movie stars at Cannes if they took their bikini tops off. It was a strange photograph for Lance to have kept though. There were many photographs, much better ones, of Sarah by herself. Jean stared at it; it bothered her. It bothered her a lot. She didn’t even remember taking it. Lance must have done.
Then at the barbeque tonight, that conversation with Judith. Why did Lance want her to confirm that he had been gardening with her that day? When, in fact, he had only helped her for about ten minutes. She could see that Lance had been angry – she knew all about that controlled fury. She could also see that Judith was shaken. She resolved to go and see Judith when she could. She liked what she knew of her – which wasn’t much as Judith kept herself a bit apart from the others. But she felt she would like to know her better and she very much wanted to find out what Judith had said to Lance to make him that agitated.
12
Lance had carefully orchestrated his dinner alone with Sophie at the end of her half term. He told Sophie in advance that there was an excellent bric-a-brac market on at the weekend in the old port of Marseillan on the coast and that he would be motoring down in the afternoon to see if he could pick up some odds and ends at knock-down prices. He had pretty well furnished his house in this way and rather prided himself on the way he was able to haggle with the traders in passable French. Carelessly, he mentioned that there were plenty of clothes stalls and, as anticipated, Sophie was immediately hooked.
‘Lance, you’ve got to take me,’ she begged. ‘I adore markets – I’ve got a really good eye for bargains, and I so don’t want to go with mummy and daddy for the weekend to some old bores they know down near Carcassonne. If you told them you were looking after me for the day, I’m sure they’ll agree to go without me. You can drop me back at the house afterwards and they’ll be coming back Sunday morning anyway to pack up.’
This was music to Lance’s ears. On a roll, he now took a gamble: ‘What about bringing that friend along with you?’
‘What friend?’ asked Sophie crossly.
‘The Evans girl – Rose, isn’t it?’
Sophie tossed her hair indignantly. ‘God no, Lance. She’s not my friend – she just happens to be my age. She wouldn’t be allowed out anyway, and she certainly wouldn’t be able to pick out all the designer items which I’m sure I’ll find lurking amongst the rubbish. Poor old Rose has pretty sad taste in clothes. Did you notice those jeans she had on the other night?’ Sophie giggled unkindly at the memory. ‘They were like totally the wrong shape and she had them hitched right up to her waist!’
‘Well, if you’re sure you won’t be lonely with just me,’ purred Lance.
‘Course not, I like being with you. And you like being with me, don’t you?’ Sophie looked at Lance under her eyes the way she had practised in the mirror, Diana-style, and pouted. She mustn’t let on how mega-excited she was about this trip. She had read in Cosmo about the power of the older man and whilst it was true she hadn’t really liked the way Lance tried to poke his tongue in her mouth, she thought it wasn’t any worse than what those poxy little public school boys did to her at every party she went to in London. At the Feathers Ball last year she’d had two of them pawing her all over at the same time. And then some. Lance, in any case, was so much more cool than them. For starters he was famous; secondly, he had money – money that she hoped he might spend on her; thirdly, he was definitely somebody to boast about at school. He was even good looking in an oldish, rumpled kind of way. He might take her to some swanky restaurant after the market if she played her cards right. God, come to think of it, what was she going to wear?
The weather was perfect on Saturday – just the job for the open top Citroen that Lance had just bought. As anticipated, he had easily squared the outing with Rex and Camilla who were delighted that he was taking a fatherly interest in Sophie and only too pleased to leave her behind at the weekend on the grounds th
at she’d be bored stiff at their house party. They hadn’t had much option but to bring her out with them for half term but both were too busy socialising and refurbishing their French house to give much thought to their daughter or her needs.
‘Benign neglect’ works best for us, laughed Camilla when people asked her how she had coped with all her children as well as her endless travelling, charity lunches and new schemes for this and that. Sophie was the youngest by far of their five children and the only girl – a bit of a mistake really – as Camilla confided to her friends at the time. In fact, what Camilla meant was more like a bit of a bore. Soph was certainly going to screw up her plans for jetting around once the other four were off her hands.
In her time, god knew, she’d been a yummy mummy, always one of the first at their prep school, and later at public school to suggest and implement children’s outings, children’s parties, tennis tournaments, cricket matches, children’s happenings generally. Her range rover was always crammed with her own and other people’s kids, always off to some fun thing or other. Nothing was too much trouble. Their house in Oxfordshire was large enough to accommodate them all and there was always a nanny or two to help. And then the boys were so much easier in the way that they entertained themselves and each other and didn’t get into hissy fits the whole time like girls did.
Camilla had been bewildered by Sophie growing up – the tears, the tantrums, the fallings out with friends, the whining, and now the boyfriend thing, though, it had to be said, Soph had gone quiet on that front. Why couldn’t she just run around the garden like the boys did to let off steam? Camilla herself had been sporty as a teenager and holidays were full of bracing outdoor activities, most of them centred around the Pony Club. But Soph didn’t want to ride or go swimming or play tennis it seemed. She really couldn’t understand her at all, especially lately. Fine around other people when they were out, but mooching around at home endlessly looking at herself in the mirror and obsessing about clothes and make up and faddy diets.
What her mother didn’t know and wouldn’t have known what to make of them if she had, was that if one looked closely along the tender white skin inside Sophie’s arms and thighs that one could discern numerous scars, some old, some newer and more liverish and one or two which hadn’t yet healed.
Sophie felt pure pleasure as she and Lance whirled through bright acres of vineyards and sleepy little villages in his open top car on Saturday afternoon. Much thought had gone into her outfit. Finally she settled for her tightest jeans which rested just on her hipbones displaying a washboard stomach adorned by the obligatory jewel in her bellybutton. Her top, in fuscia pink had the words ‘Ask Me’ written over her breasts so that their curve distorted the letters but not their meaning. A wide-brimmed straw hat completed the outfit over which Sophie had tied a chiffon scarf which tied under her chin which held the hat in place and gave her what she thought of an Isadora Duncan look. Black Rayban sunglasses completed the cool image.
Lance had been appreciative. ‘What a sexy little minx you are’, he said when he saw her, and meant it. My God, he thought, they talk about predatory men but these young girls are crying out for it. They dressed like hookers. He would get lucky, tonight, he was sure of it.
13
Having fought so hard to secure his chateau in France, Bill Bailey, the computer mat king, was not a happy bunny. Two months had gone by since he had taken up residence and he had not managed to whip the French into shape in the way he had hoped.
Running anything, from a business, an estate, or even a car was proving a great deal more difficult than he anticipated. French bureaucrats, celebrated throughout the globe for being more numerous and more intractable than in any other country, were determined to stop Bill Bailey in his tracks, he informed anyone who would listen. It was a scandal, for example, he told the hapless Frank Partridge, whom he ran into in Vevey one day, that he hadn’t been allowed to pay his local property taxes with a UK cheque book in the Mairie.
‘But they only accept Euros,’ Frank had reasonably pointed out.
‘That’s my point,’ railed Bill. ‘we haven’t joined the euro – they’re so bloody inflexible.’ Frank had to laugh. If anybody could outrank famously inflexible French megalomaniacs such as Charlemagne or Napoleon, it was Bill Bailey. He probably had been a Frenchman in a previous existence.
Still Bill wasn’t to be defeated – not by a long chalk. Strangely resistant to endearing himself to anybody, he set about antagonising everybody. His next target was unwise, however. Priding himself on being a bit of a gourmet, he had sampled many of the local restaurants and found them wanting. Yes, a good dinner could be had if you were prepared to travel to Montpellier or even Beziers, but what Bill required was a local place ‘to get something decent to eat’ as he put it at lunchtime. His wife Bryony was evidently lacking in the domestic department.
With this in mind he set about trying to buy Café Le Square. His own village, St Servian, only had a tiny bar which apparently operated out of someone’s front room and La Prairie was the nearest place where you could have lunch. Café Le Square, however, was not to his liking. For a start he didn’t like sitting on a grubby white plastic chair. Secondly, he detested the surly Roland and that revolting old peasant who hung around behind the bar chewing the cud with similar old relics. Thirdly, the grub was diabolical. ‘Call this a bloody menu?’ he’d asked the first time he was presented with the ‘formule’ or set lunch. ‘There’s no damn choice’.
Bryony looked indifferent. She had quickly latched on to the pastis habit and didn’t really give a toss about the food. When Bill was working, she went off to a bar in another nearby village where she’d discovered a younger, more interesting gang of mostly English and American dropouts who spent much of the day making the most of the cheap drinks and cigarettes. None of them were employed it seemed but they all enthused about the generous benefits they were eligible for in France. Often they passed joints around and Bryony felt more at home with them than with that boring, bourgeois crowd they’d met when they first arrived. She didn’t let on to them that she lived in a sort of chateau – she thought they might burgle it if she ever invited them back there. Besides, she would certainly lose her street cred.
Unlike Bill, she rather liked it in France. It was cool. If Bill wanted to bugger off back to Oldham, she thought she might stay on. She rather hoped he would in fact. The novelty of being married to a rich man had begun to wear off. OK, so he rescued her from a lifetime of drudgery in Oldham when his eye had alighted on her in the typing pool of one of his companies a couple of years back, but the life didn’t really suit her she found. And Bill had turned out to be a huge pain in the neck too, especially out here, bellyaching all the time about all the things he didn’t like. She had preferred him being a big fish in Oldham and letting her enjoy what he called ‘the fruits of my labours’. She missed the nights out with the girls where they would spend a fortune (Bill’s fortune) on cocktails in Oldham’s poshest wine bar followed by a night on the tiles. But, now that she was here and had made some new friends, she could scent fresh possibilities. And she had her eye on an English lad she had met who had been one of Bill’s building team renovating the house and had also decided to stay on in the sun. He was always down at the bar now and had found himself a room in a house nearby. She’d had to swear him to secrecy about the chateau.
And so Bill set about badgering Roland and Jean-Baptiste to sell him their café. What he had in mind was a more upmarket brasserie where you could get a decent steak. Frank Partridge had put the idea in his head by mentioning that the Chabots were thinking of selling up and moving down to the coast where they had cousins, but it turned out only to be the vaguest of plans and when Bill made his move, Jean-Baptiste was outraged.
‘How could we possibly sell to an Englishman?’ he raged at Roland who was equally indignant but tempted nevertheless by the staggering offers of money Bill had bandied about. ‘We would be the laughing stock of all our friend
s… we could never recover. And what about the village? It would be an affront to the honour of France.’
‘And just think of the food they would serve’, was another refrain once the preposterous notion had spread to the diehards who nursed their coffees at the bar all day. ‘It would be disaster. Nobody could eat here anymore. There would be nowhere to drink a coffee or a pastis first thing in the morning.’
Feelings ran so high that soon the entire village was up in arms. Bad enough to have so many ‘Rosbifs’ living in their midst, but setting up their own restaurant where they would serve jelly all day was unthinkable. Lance had been puzzled by Roland’s reference to jelly when this had been discussed in his hearing. It was apparently an unshakable French belief in these parts that the English had an enormous appetite for jelly. Whenever this was mentioned it was greeted with whoops of derisive laughter. No amount of explaining that jelly was something that was only ever occasionally served at children’s tea parties in England could convince them that jelly would not feature prominently on any English restaurant menu.
Whilst these discussions were on-going, Judith, who was as appalled as the local French that Bill Bailey might take over the café, began to notice anti-British graffiti appearing on village walls. Someone had even fly-posted the village warning of an ‘English invasion’. It was the Hundred Years War all over again, she thought. It made her very uncomfortable and furious with the blundering Bill Bailey.