‘Okay.’
Patrick said goodbye and rang off. Leonie felt the past months recede like a wave from the shore, dragging away with it all the gritty, sore detritus. She returned to her clients, smiling confidently.
The following evening Leonie’s mobile rang again while she was getting ready to go out. Debating whether to wear her new summer slippers decorated with silver sequins took her back to how Patrick had had to push her on his bike after she’d decided to wear unsuitably high-heeled sandals. She instantly recognised the voice.
‘Hello, sweetie. It’s ages since we spoke. How are you?’
‘Gaby! I’m very well. And you? And Thierry?’
‘Well, not so great. That’s why I’m calling. Thierry had some tests, and the doctors think he may need a heart bypass.’
‘Oh no!’
‘There’s no immediate danger, but that’s the way it is.’
‘I’m sorry, Gaby. You must be worried.’
‘We’ve been doing a bit of re-assessing our lives,’ she admitted. ‘Thierry thinks he may retire.’
‘That wouldn’t be so bad, would it?’ asked Leonie. She remembered Thierry’s many interests – local history, wine, the peach and apricot trees espaliered against the high stone wall in their garden, over which he fussed about winter frosts and pollination and marauding insects.
‘I suppose not. Everyone thinks they’re immortal, that’s all.’
‘Are you okay, Gaby?’
‘Fabienne, the girl I took on when you left. She’s hopeless.’ Gaby paused. Sensing what might be coming, Leonie hesitated to fill the silence. ‘I may semi-retire, too,’ Gaby went on. ‘So Thierry and I are free to go off and do things together. Sweetie, none of my kids are interested in the business, so I’d like to make you a partner. They’re all happy with my decision. What do you say?’
Hearing the pleasure Gaby took in making her offer, Leonie swallowed hard. ‘Thank you, Gaby. So much. I’m very touched. And I really admire how hard you’ve worked to build up the agency.’
‘So you’ll come back?’
‘I don’t know.’ She registered Gaby’s involuntary little gasp and winced guiltily. ‘Gaby, I’m honoured. It’s a wonderful offer, but please may I think about it?’
‘Are you still working part-time for that estate agent?’ Never one for flannel, Gaby had cut straight to the bone.
Leonie felt terrible. Gaby had been unbelievably kind and generous and understanding: she owed her a proper explanation. ‘The truth is, I’ve just seen Patrice Hinde again.’
‘No! Oh, sweetie, no, you mustn’t.’
‘I know, I know. But I have to—’ Leonie sought the right words. ‘I have to finish it. So I can pack it away.’
‘Stay away from him, Leonie. I beg you. Think of what you told me about his son!’
‘I know you’re protecting me, Gaby, and I’m terribly grateful.’ Leonie struggled with conflicting impulses. ‘Give me a day or two, and you’ll have your answer.’
There was a long silence before Gaby spoke again. ‘Something else you should know about him. Something I learnt a little while ago. I wasn’t going to rake things up again, but—’
Leonie could just imagine Gaby pursing her lips with a shake of the head.
‘It’s about his grandfather,’ Gaby went on. ‘Madame Broyard’s husband.’
‘Yes?’
‘He had nothing whatsoever to do with the Resistance. He shot himself.’
‘Suicide?’ Leonie was astonished.
‘Yes. When his poor wife was eight months pregnant. Even worse than what his charming grandson did to you.’
‘My God!’
‘Whether or not you come back to Riberac, you should stay away from that man.’
‘But he had no idea about his grandfather! And it was hardly anything to do with him!’
‘Bad blood, all the same.’
‘Please, Gaby, let me have a few days. I just want to clear stuff up first.’
‘Think things over very carefully, sweetie. It’s a good business. A good life here. Thierry joins me in sending big bisous à toi. We’d all love to have you back.’
‘I’ll call soon, I promise. And thank you. For everything.’
Gaby rang off. Leonie dropped the phone on the bed and put her hands to her face. It was all too much. And now she was running late and Patrice – Patrick, she corrected herself again – would be waiting.
As she sat on the bus towards Camden, from where she intended to walk along the canal, Leonie attempted to examine the tumult that besieged her feelings. She hated being so ungrateful to Gaby; and she had lied to Stella about what she was doing tonight. And what was she supposed to do with this latest revelation about his grandfather? A suicide more than sixty years ago, how could it possibly affect her? Yet she was certain it did. There had been too many long dark nights when her sanity had rested on the attempt to understand how anyone could be capable of such indifference, how Patrick could have been able to abandon her so completely, yet still persuade himself that he had acted for the best. She was sure the reasons lay in his damaged childhood, and that this suicide, kept secret, was yet another of the toxic adult emotions that had swirled and curdled above his head when he had been a homesick, lonely little boy.
And there still remained Patrick’s own secret to take into account: his son’s death, and the way in which he had left his marriage and, according to him, walked to Riberac; his horrific nightmares; his refusal to travel in a car; his reaction to Gaby’s grandson clinging onto him that night at dinner; his panic at the prospect of fathering a second child. All things he must still assume she could not possibly link together. She hoped he would trust her to understand.
The bus reached its stop and Leonie pushed her way off. She went down the steps to the tow-path, awakening to the fact that it was a beautiful June evening and the canal side was thronged with kids out to enjoy themselves. Threading her way between the various tribes sprawled out along the path, she felt charged with special power and energy. This grappling with damage and memory, with secrets and despair, was all about what makes people who they are. It was a privilege to see beyond the veil of everyday superficiality and be vouchsafed a glimpse of the real stuff of life. She was determined to respond with every scrap of courage and wisdom she possessed.
Patrick was waiting for her on the wide pavement outside the pub at Primrose Hill, his stance rigid with self-consciousness. Leonie was immediately taken back to how he had leapt up from the churchyard bench the evening of their first date. If only she had known and understood then what she did now, had herself possessed more self-confidence. He gripped her arm and kissed her cheek, and she noticed a rucksack in his other hand. He threw a glance of distaste towards the bellowing drinkers occupying the pub and displayed the rucksack. ‘We don’t have to stay here,’ he said. ‘I brought a picnic. And a bottle of wine.’
The flimsy barricades she imagined she had constructed so carefully around her heart melted, and she walked in happiness beside him up the grassy slope of Primrose Hill, letting him choose a spot beside some scrubby thorn trees where they sat down, the panoramic view of London spread out below them. She stretched out her legs, wriggling her toes so she could admire her glittery new slippers. She caught him looking at them askance and curled her feet away out of his line of sight.
‘They’re a bit silly,’ she apologised. ‘An impulse buy.’ But instantly she admonished herself: there was no point being here if she let herself feel inauthentic because of what he might like or dislike.
‘Impractical, but very stylish,’ he teased. ‘They suit you. Though I hope it wasn’t a trek for you to get here,’ he went on. ‘Where do you live?’
‘Caledonian Road,’ she told him. ‘Up near Holloway. So not too bad. Anyway, it’s worth it. This is lovely, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
She noticed that he didn’t offer in turn to inform her where he lived. All too aware that at some point she would be answer
able to both Stella and Gaby, she vowed to keep her wits about her.
Patrick busied himself opening and pouring the white wine. ‘You’re not hungry yet, are you?’ he asked. ‘Though I brought some olives.’ He removed the lid from the delicatessen’s little plastic tub and nestled it into the dry grass between them. ‘Help yourself.’
‘Thanks.’ Her impulse was to fill the silence, but she made herself wait for him to speak first.
‘I don’t suppose you can ever really forgive me,’ he said abruptly. ‘You must be very upset with me.’
‘I had a very bad time. I was hurt and frightened. I didn’t understand why you’d gone. Had no idea even where you were. But your silence was the hardest thing. It felt like a punishment, like I’d done something wrong, something unforgivable.’
‘No! It wasn’t you. It was all me.’
‘Did you mean me to feel like that? Is that why you kept silent?’
‘No!’
‘I wondered if that’s how you must’ve felt, when you were left, as a child? And maybe other times?’ She glanced at his face, but his expression gave nothing away.
‘I’m sorry for what I did to you,’ he said, sounding genuine and sincere. ‘But there were reasons. I couldn’t help it.’
Leonie waited, but he sipped his wine, drawing her attention to the antics of a dog chasing a stick nearby.
‘I spoke to Gaby this evening,’ she told him. ‘Gaby Duval?’
‘Oh, yes.’
‘She told me something.’
Patrick licked his lips and nodded cagily, his eyes darting over her shoulder. ‘Really?’
‘About Josette, about your grandfather.’
‘Ah.’
‘Remember, you wondered if there was some secret about his death? That maybe he’d been a collaborator, and not a hero at all?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, apparently, it was neither. He killed himself.’
Patrick gave a short laugh. ‘Of course! I should’ve worked that out for myself. It makes sense of all kinds of things.’
‘Must’ve been awful for your grandmother.’
‘Yes. No wonder she closed up so tight.’
‘How much easier her life would have been if the secret hadn’t been kept.’
He nodded. ‘Amazing how everything just falls into place once you know the truth.’
‘Your life, too,’ she prompted.
‘I suppose things become unsayable.’
‘Surely nothing is truly unsayable?’ Leonie held her breath. ‘Not in the end?’
‘Josette never trusted anyone enough to tell them the truth.’ Patrick caught her look, and seemed to Leonie almost to perceive that it held some intent.
‘I can see now why she always insisted it was selfish to feel sorry for oneself. How my being homesick and miserable must have goaded her! That time I drove her too far and she snapped, said I was evil, like him. And my poor Maman! No wonder she was so anxious. I used to believe it was me, that I’d failed her. But she never stood a chance, born right into the middle of that inferno.’
‘Just weeks after he shot himself,’ agreed Leonie, swallowing her disappointment at Patrick’s deflection. ‘What incredible selfishness, to do that to his unborn child, never mind leaving Josette to cope on her own.’
‘Or despair. The impossibility of a future.’
‘Perhaps. But still … ’
‘It’s extraordinary really that it could remain hidden for so long,’ Patrick went on, deflecting again from his more painful truth.
‘You don’t think your mother knew, or ever suspected?’
‘No.’ Patrick shook his head, pondering. ‘No. I’m pretty sure she would have told me. By the time she was old enough to understand, it had probably been swept right under the carpet, and the longer a secret is kept, the harder it becomes to speak about.’
‘Keeping secrets takes up a lot of energy,’ said Leonie. ‘I can’t even begin to imagine the effort it must have taken for Josette to hide it from your mother. And to pretend that your grandfather had been a hero.’ She observed his face intently. ‘Never to drop her guard, never to slip up.’
‘Blocked energy,’ agreed Patrick. ’It’s what I see in my patients all the time.’
‘If only that energy had been free to flow into other aspects of your grandmother’s life,’ said Leonie. ‘How much happier you all could have been.’
Patrick nodded, but failed to see the true bearing of her words. Instead, he sighed. ‘I went to see Maman the other week. She recognises who I am, but that’s about it. Her memory’s gone. Fragmented like a computer disk.’ He stared out at the soft evening sky for a moment. ‘Dad never visits her.’
‘Do you see him?’
‘Not really. Speak on the phone. He’s not interested.’
‘Did he ever come to see you in Riberac?’
‘No. Are you hungry? Shall we eat?’
He rooted in the rucksack, bringing out bread, tomatoes, mozzarella and a tiny bottle of olive oil. Instead of being enchanted by his consideration, by the picnic and its magical setting – lights glimmered in the city below, while above them, on the hill’s summit, a party of students had lit a ribbon of candles, all in glass jars to protect against the breeze – Leonie noted how fluently he managed to distract the conversation from dangerous topics. It was as though she had been taken to some spellbinding theatrical performance, and all she could concentrate on was the flare of the footlights and the creaking of the scenery. And yet somehow, sensing the strength of Patrick’s desire for this all to be real, remembering how hard he had always worked to win her favour and applause, to distract her attention from the flimsy backdrops of his life, her heart went out to him all the more. His evasions were not fraudulent, their aim not to deceive her but, by beguiling her, to deceive himself. This performance gave him something, too. It had become, by degrees, by force of repetition, fundamental to who he was. Maybe, the idea struck her, it had become all he was.
Patrick tore the bread, moistened it with a few drops of olive oil and, explaining that he’d only brought one knife, layered on slices of tomato and cheese. Watching, she longed to reach out and touch his wrist or the warm skin at the nape of his neck. The memory of his body against hers was intensely present, reminding her of their undeniable physical connection, a connection in which she had to believe he had been truly himself. Taking the food from him, Leonie would not contemplate that he could have forgotten how his hands still held the memory of her flesh, just as hers did of his. She knew now that Patrick was not the shy wild creature she had imagined in Riberac; his real self was far more deeply buried than she had ever thought, and the love that would heal such wounds might not be easy. For it to be possible at all, much more than patience would be required. But he had chosen to be here with her, to share this moment. In return, she must keep an open heart.
‘Gaby wants me to go back to France,’ she told him. ‘She’s offered me a partnership in the business ready for when she retires.’ She was gratified by the way his eyes widened in surprise, but, just as he opened his mouth to respond, his mobile rang. Distracted, he pulled it out of his pocket, checked the screen, then switched it off.
‘Sorry,’ he said.
‘Take it,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind.’
‘No, no, it can wait. It’s not urgent.’ He put the phone back in his pocket and shot her a quick, searching look. She smiled back reassuringly. He took her hand. ‘Are you going to go?’
Leonie squeezed his hand. ‘I haven’t decided.’
‘You’re leaving already!’ He laughed and lifted her hand to his lips, kissing it. ‘Just when you found me again!’
Leonie studied his face. His expression was as fond and sincere as she could wish, yet she could not dispel the sense that this gallantry was an act put on to convince himself of his authenticity. ‘I haven’t decided yet whether or not to accept,’ she repeated.
‘Then you should go. Don’t listen to me.’
&nb
sp; ‘We could stay in touch. Work things out,’ she offered, trying to formulate a way to ask him now about his son’s death.
‘No. You deserve someone much more reliable,’ he joked anxiously, letting go of her hand to reach for bread and oil. ‘I’m starving!’ he said. ‘Dig in!’ The mood shifted and the moment was lost again.
They ate, then sat watching the stars emerge from the night sky, hearing the murmur of other voices in the darkness around them. They finished the wine, and Patrick packed away the remains of the picnic. He took her arm for the walk to Camden Town Tube and sat holding her hand in the carriage until King’s Cross, where she changed lines. He made no suggestion that she stay with him and it was impossible to invite him to Stella’s, so they parted on the train.
Leonie got off at the next stop and, as she stood in the lift ascending from the platform, the couple standing in front of her were kissing; she could see, from the way their bodies swayed into one another, their confidence that, after a few streets’ walk, they would be in bed making love. Though she had steeled herself all evening to remain watchful, to guard against being swept away, when she observed the anonymous lovers exit the station and walk off together, she indulged in memories of herself with Patrice. Walking the short distance to Stella’s flat and spying into some of the lighted windows of the residential streets where other people had lovers, spouses, families, she couldn’t help feeling that her wishful imaginings were just a mirage.
II
Rob let Patrick in. ‘Hiya. Mum’s in the kitchen.’ He disappeared back into the sitting room, returning, Patrick assumed, to his computer. Patrick went through to the large, uncluttered kitchen where he found Vicki putting a supermarket concoction into the microwave. She smiled and waited for him to kiss her.
‘I brought you some herbs.’ He showed her the tray of pots balanced on one arm.
‘Thank you!’ She touched the leaves caressingly and made space for the tray on the counter beside an ordered pile of files which Patrick knew concerned her role in planning an annual conference for her professional association. He was well aware how much time and energy she channelled into such voluntary commitments, needing a variety of outlets, he suspected, for her cool-headed intelligence.
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