by Aileen Izett
He banged the press down on the orange, practically flattening it.
“I was just glad that I had the château for you.”
“You used our situation to get me down here. Why?”
He looked at me, bewildered by my hostility. Then he hunched over the counter, so his face was hidden.
“You’re the only person I can trust.” His voice was muffled.
“With what Tom?” I shouted. “What aren’t you telling me?”
There was despair in his eyes.
My heart broke for him. I had never seen him so vulnerable, my swash-buckling, devil-may-care brother.
I leant into him. I curved my body over him. I sheltered him, like he used to do with me, all those years ago when I was frightened by nightmares in bed at night.
“I’ve made a mess of things,” he said shakily.
“What’s happening in London?”
“London,” he sighed, straightening himself and me, up. He took a step away, pushed his shoulders back and jutted out his chin. “Good morning!” he beamed. “And how are we today?”
Eveline had just walked through the door, her arms full of flowers and foliage from the garden.
“It’s wonderful about your diamonds.” I gave her a smile, following Tom’s lead.
“Isn’t it just?” Tom crowed. “We spent most of the day tramping the woods and then they were there, weren’t they?”
She nodded as she put down the flowers. She was proud and happy.
“Hanging off a branch,” Tom said. “Snagged on a bush and you don’t remember even being in that bit, do you?”
Eveline gave Tom a glance which looked suspiciously like adoration.
“What do you think Sis?” He was practically doing a jig in front of the citrus press, he was so full of his achievement.
“Well done.”
“Thank you.” He tried to juggle with three oranges but one bounced across the floor. Eveline picked it up and handed it back which he took, with a bow, as if he was on stage at the Royal Variety. He gave Eveline a glass of the juice.
“Is it okay Sis, to take the car again? I’m going to take Eveline to the train.” He watched her anxiously as she drank.
All his talk and I still was completely taken by surprise. I looked at Eveline.
“You’re not going are you?”
Eveline smiled. “It’s time for me to go back to Paris.”
“But what about your brother? What about Claudine?”
She looked at me as if I were quite mad.
“I don’t want to see her. What would a cleaning woman,” those words were said with such haughtiness, “know about my brother?”
“But…”
She put up a trembling hand. “No.”
She scooped the flowers off the table and fled the room.
All Tom did was watch.
“Well, that’s that then. I’ll take her to the station.”
“No it’s not. What did you say to her?” I was furious that, once again, all my plans were being thwarted.
“She doesn’t want to go. You should be pleased. Don’t you want her to leave?”
“She can’t bottle it now. Not after everything we’ve been through. I won’t let her!”
Tom, too, was angry. “You’re only thinking of yourself. Not her. Just because you’ve got a bee in your bonnet about that brother of hers, fact or fiction…”
I took a deep breath to compose myself. “I need to know what happened,” I told him calmly. I couldn’t tell him that I was frightened of being forever haunted by the man in the tree if I didn’t discover what had happened to Eveline’s brother.
“Be it on your own head!” Tom shouted after me as I took the stairs.
She was in the hall. The flowers were spread across the chest so that she could select which stem to put where in the empty vase.
“I thought I’d do this for you before I go.” Her hands were still trembling.
I opened out my arms. Slowly, she turned into them. “I can’t do it.”
“You can. You are so near to finding out the truth.”
“I don’t know if I can bear to know.”
There was man in front of us, a man in a tree, the branches of which were half-obscuring Eveline.
“You have to find out. Get him justice if necessary.”
I could have squeezed the breath out of her, I was hugging her so tightly. “If you don’t you’ll spend the rest of your life wondering.”
“You betrayed him once.” It was a terrible thing to say.
She cried then, great wracking sobs and I held her, like she was a sapling blowing in the wind.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay.”
We went back down to the kitchen to tell Tom.
Tom turned on me, hissing with anger as soon as Eveline left the kitchen to retrieve her brother’s photograph from her suitcase.
“What the hell do you think you’re up to? You’re just fuelling the girl’s fantasies.”
I stood my ground. “I don’t understand you. One moment you’re forcing Philip to tell me the truth and the next moment, you’re trying to stop Eveline from finding out the truth about her brother.”
He thumped his glass down with such force it cracked. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. You’re playing with fire.” His laugh was mirthless. “It’s not as if she hasn’t already started a bonfire.”
Before I could think of a retort, Greg entered the kitchen. Apart from a perfunctory “good morning” he said nothing. He looked as if he had been up all night worrying. He didn’t offer Tom a reason for being late and Tom was too preoccupied to ask for one. Instead, he poured Greg a glass of orange juice and insisted that Greg accompany us to Claudine’s.
“I don’t know what use I’ll be.” Greg was reluctant.
Tom snorted. “Just having another man around may be useful.”
Tom’s mood was so thunderous that neither Greg nor I dared challenge him.
Tom drove. Greg, sitting beside Eveline, bounced up and down in the back, green at the gills.
Valerie was surprised to see us.
“You must be Tom Braid.”
Tom’s mood had changed. He was back to his old, familiar self.
“Yes,” he grinned. “The brother.”
Before Valerie could say anything more, Tom strode past her, into the sitting room, marvelling at the glorious panorama of her garden.
“Have you fully recovered from your fainting fit?” Valerie asked Eveline. She gave Greg a cursory nod of acknowledgement. He looked uncomfortable.
Valerie’s sitting room was very pretty, very English in style, the sofa and two chairs covered in chintz and a coffee table laden with books.
Tom was all charm. “Do you mean to say you do this all by yourself?” He shook his head disbelievingly. Tom wouldn’t have known a lavender plant from a sunflower. “How long have you been here?” He was flattering Valerie. Greg had already told him that Valerie has lived in the area longer than any of the other British.
Behind Tom’s back, Greg rolled his eyes at me and I smiled.
Valerie succumbed. “Would you like to see the garden?”
“Love to.” Tom opened one of the French doors. “After you.”
Eveline, Greg and I were left standing in Valerie’s sitting room unsure if the invitation extended to us. I could see my father’s last novel on top of a narrow pile of books and when I looked more closely the four beneath were his as well. It was my father’s entire oeuvre and the slightness of his life’s work dismayed me.
“Are you lot coming out?” Valerie called.
It felt even more awkward in the open air. Too tense to engage with anyone, Eveline wandered off, down a path.
Greg and I were totally superfluous to the conversation as Tom and Valerie focussed solely on each other. She grew visibly more attractive by the minute, cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling.
“Sis, here,” Tom told Valerie, “wants to find out more about the château’s ver
y recent history. She has this wild idea,” he grinned over to me, “about going to see the former cleaner. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
Valerie bristled, ever so slightly. It was her suggestion after all, to go to see Claudine. “I think it’s an excellent idea.”
Tom’s face showed his disappointment.
“I’ll come with you if you like,” Valerie offered, as if to soften the blow.
“I know where she lives,” Greg said mischievously.
“Her accent’s very thick,” Valerie said icily. “I don’t think your French will be adequate.”
Tom led Valerie down to the shadiest corner of the garden, out of earshot. Greg gave a derisive snort. He and I made a pretence of being interested in a plant with small daisy-like flowers. He rubbed the leaves roughly, releasing the pungent smell of aniseed.
Tom was standing at the end of a path with Valerie, telling her about Eveline’s brother. Valerie listened closely, occasionally glancing over to where Eveline was standing.
“I’ve had her, you know,” Greg gave a curt nod in Valerie’s direction. “I can’t stand the woman. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. She wore me out.”
“I thought you didn’t go with married woman?” I teased.
“She’s divorced.” Greg’s reply was very serious.
Tom saw us, watching.
“What’s the big secret?” he called.
“You tell us,” I joked, delighted that Tom had finally accepted that we were going to go to Claudine’s.
Chapter 40
Valerie sat in front.
As we rattled along, Tom ignored the rest of us, squashed behind. I was in the middle. The other two looked as if they were about to fall sleep. Greg’s eyelids flickered. Eveline’s eyes were closed, her head bumping against the window.
“All this fuss because of that bullet you found,” Tom grumbled to Valerie.
“True,” Valerie replied hesitantly. “But the chances of the bullet I found matching your guest’s must be pretty remote.”
There were a couple of hills between Valerie’s house and the village. The château was built on the lower of the two. We climbed up the higher hill, the one furthest away from the village — but very accessible, across wooded terrain, for the château.
“This cleaning woman…” Tom murmured.
“Claudine?” Valerie was pert.
“How long did she work for them?”
“How many years did they own the château? Ten? She’d have been there nine, at least.”
“So was she daily?”
Valerie gave her light, tinkling laugh. “Let’s ask her, shall we?”
“Sis.” Tom wrenched up the handbrake. Both Greg and Eveline opened their eyes with the car’s sudden stop.
“I’m not so sure that this is a good idea, digging into the past.”
“That is a mistake so many people make,” Valerie began earnestly. Unbeknownst to him, Tom had lit on one of her pet themes.
Greg cleared his throat. “The sooner we find out what happened — if anything happened — the better really for all concerned.” He glanced over at Eveline. I could feel her body stiffen but she looked ahead, her profile unmoving.
Tom released the handbrake and we moved again. His hair shone greasily, polished with the sweat that was dripping down the nape of his neck.
Dappled trunks of trees glided past as the car strained against the steep slope.
We abandoned the car half way up the woods and walked the last kilometre to Claudine’s. Flies swarmed around us, buzzing at our faces. Tom found a stick and whacked back bits of dry undergrowth.
“You’re not worried about snakes, are you Sis?”
“Are you?” Valerie turned round, curious for any snippet of information.
I lied.
The track was rough, uphill, and littered with flaky animal droppings which made my shoes slip.
“Are you sure this is the right way?” I called out to Valerie who was being coy out in front with Tom. I was walking with Eveline coaxing her along. She looked more anxious with every step. Greg brought up the rear.
“I come here in the autumn,” Valerie called back without stopping, “to search for truffles. The terrain’s not so difficult then.”
“Truffles?” Tom was full of interest. Already, I could see him shipping boxes and boxes of truffles from Château de Tom to smart London restaurants. I shut my ears to Valerie’s voice droning on and on.
My body felt, after the sex with Greg, as if it had been run over by a double-decker bus. It had been the first time in such a long time.
The path continued relentlessly upwards. Finally, we caught up with Tom and Valerie in the thickest part of the woods.
“Here,” Valerie proffered a small, brown bottle. “Put a dab or two on your temples.”
“What is it?”
“Something to calm you and Eveline down. You both look so tense. Don’t argue.”
Tom watched with amusement as I did as she said, before handing the bottle to Eveline.
I could have almost enjoyed that part of the walk, out of the sun, if it hadn’t been for Greg, bursting into occasional snatches of nursery rhymes like ‘Twinkle little star’.
“Don’t you think ‘Frère Jacques’ more appropriate?” I asked him. “Since we’re in France?”
Eveline gave a slight smile.
“Not for much longer,” he said starting to whistle ‘Oh what a beautiful morning’ with the two notes at his disposal.
“Shut up Greg.”
“I have a daughter,” he told Eveline.
She didn’t respond.
I asked what was her name.
“Like what’s Eveline’s?” He joked.
For a moment, she looked as if she was going to run back down the hill. I glared at Greg.
“Jess,” he said, grinning.
He was happy. How I wished for Eveline to have happiness, to find a way of living without self-recrimination about her brother.
I honestly thought that we were doing the right thing in going to Claudine’s. I still think it was right. There was no other option.
Chapter 41
It would have been impossible to find Claudine’s house without Valerie’s help. It blended, I can imagine an English estate agent’s description, ‘beautifully with its surroundings’. It was a pitiful hovel, made up of a concoction of wood and odds and sods salvaged from building sites, in a clearing in the woods.
“It used to be a woodman’s hut,” Valerie said, her voice low. She, like the rest of us, was conscious of the sudden stillness and wary of disturbing it. Eveline hung back by the trees with Tom and Greg. I beckoned her and with slow, reluctant steps she joined Valerie and me. I caught her hand in mine. I gave her an encouraging smile. “Almost over.”
Valerie banged on what passed for a door, the sheet of corrugated iron.
“Claudine!” Crows wheeled, cawing raucously above the trees hemming the clearing. “Are you there?”
Valerie tried again. “Claudine!”
We heard shuffling noises. The sheet of iron was scraped back — enough for a shrivelled face to appear in the gap, eyes blinking furiously. Instantly, I recognised the old woman who accosted me in the kitchen. Valerie spoke rapidly, explaining who we were. The eyes lingered on me. I blushed. I could tell she remembered being chased down an avenue three months before. Eveline was unflinching under the scrutiny.
Valerie indicated the edge of the clearing. Tom and Greg stood sheepishly as they too, were examined. The old lady seemed to recognise Greg. Her eyes lingered over Tom until he got impatient with the scrutiny.
He broke the silence. “This is ridiculous. I’ve had enough.”
He started back through the trees, hands in his pockets.
“You can’t chicken out now Tom! I’ll never forgive you!”
He stopped, the set of his shoulders resolute. He tilted his head to look up at the trees. After what seemed like an age, he turned and retraced his steps. �
�I warn you, nothing good will come of this.”
“Tell Claudine,” I said hurriedly to Valerie, “that we’d like to know a little more about the Kumonos.”
As soon as I uttered the name, the old lady tried to shut the makeshift door. I blocked it with my foot.
Valerie shot me a look of pure exasperation. “Thanks. I was getting to the sons.” I realised then that she had been very careful not to mention the name.
I hurried over to Tom. “You’ve got money.”
“Christ’s sakes. No.”
“Yes. The sooner she talks, the sooner we can get out of here.”
He held my gaze as he pulled his wallet out of his back pocket.
Claudine watched the money in my hand. Her voice was vociferous, rasping with effort. Eveline evidently understood the old lady. Her body was taut, poised for flight. I put my arm around her waist.
The rheumy eyes looked up at Eveline. The old head nodded slowly.
“Do you understand what she’s saying?” Greg asked no one in particular.
“She says,” Valerie said breathlessly, “that the Kumonos killed her dog before they left. They slit its throat and left it to die in the sun as a warning for her not to talk.”
“But the Kumonos are dead,” I said. “Doesn’t she know?”
Valerie translated. The wizened face relaxed. Tom, Greg, Eveline and I waited. Claudine responded.
“She says,” Valerie relayed, “that she knows nothing, but what she knows she’ll tell you if she has the money first.”
All of us, even Claudine, looked at Tom. His expression didn’t need any translation. Muttering, Claudine began to heave the door closed again.
“What’s she saying?” I asked Valerie.
“She’s calling Tom a bastard, amongst other things.”
“Okay,” I blocked the door again. “Tell her she wins.”
“I’ll wait for you out here,” Tom said. “I’ve given over my money to that old witch. I’m not taking any more insults.”