by Janet Tanner
‘One could argue that Sophia has not exactly treated Deborah badly,’ Viv said, stubbing out her cigarette and closing the ashtray with a snap. ‘She lives in the lap of luxury at La Grange.’
‘Married to David she would live in the lap of luxury anywhere. I suppose it’s true that she would not be married to David if it weren’t for Sophia, but daughters-in-law are not known for being as nice to their acquired parents as Deborah is to Sophia. And before you say she’s after something I would again point out she has nothing to gain from sucking up to Sophia. No, I think she is genuinely fond of her. She was there, remember, when Sophia needed her most – when a good many of her so-called friends were only too ready to desert her. And she’s been there ever since. Quite honestly, I don’t know what Sophia would have done without Deborah.’
Viv smiled. ‘At risk of sounding a complete cow I would still like to turn that one on its head and ask what Deborah would have done without Sophia. It’s not just a question of money – it’s much more than that. Look, just ask yourself, Paul – who is Deborah? Where did she come from?’
Paul was silent.
‘You see?’ Viv spread her hands expressively, then folded them around her ample, black organza-clad bosom. ‘That is not a question you care to answer, is it? So Paul – I rest my case!’
‘Grandma, are you asleep?’
Juliet pushed open Sophia’s bedroom door and peeped in. Lights were still burning, two wall lamps and a table lamp, and they bathed the room in a warm glow.
‘It’s all right, my dear, come in.’
Sophia was in bed but propped up against the pillows – stark white embossed cotton which contrasted sharply with the old-fashioned brass bed. Bernard had liked white cotton, to him its fresh crispness had symbolised everything he had wanted from life far more than any more ostentatious material could have done and Sophia had never tried to persuade him into anything else. Let the boys have what they wanted – Sophia had never forgotten Bernard’s disgust when Louis had insisted on changing his bedlinen to black satin – ‘Good God, what next!’ he had exclaimed. ‘Anyone would think this was a bordello!’ – but she was happy to go along with his wishes. Only one thing had she changed since his death – there was now a frilled white broderie Anglaise beauduvet on the bed instead of the brown and gold throwover and gold wool blankets that Bernard had favoured.
The bed was enormous and they had shared it to the end – not for them the separate bedrooms of the class to which they had been elevated; after her enforced absence Sophia had found returning to it one of the most comforting aspects of her homecoming. Now she eased herself up a little more and patted the bed beside her.
‘Sit down, Juliet.’
Juliet sat, half afraid of creasing the broderie Anglaise.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘Oh, I’m fine now.’
‘I find that hard to believe,’ Juliet said. ‘ In fact there are a lot of things I find hard to believe about you, Grandma.’
The moment she said it she regretted it. She hadn’t meant to raise the subject at all unless the moment was right, doing so now, with her grandmother unwell, was unforgiveable. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said quickly.
‘It’s all right, my dear.’ Sophia patted her hand. ‘Don’t worry. I expect you are a great deal more sensitive about certain things than I am. I will talk to you about it, I promise – though I’m not sure I can tell you any more than you already know. But not tonight.’
‘No, of course not … I didn’t mean …’
‘I know.’ She patted Juliet’s hand again but she was not looking at her granddaughter. Juliet, disconcerted, followed the direction of her gaze and saw a photograph in a silver frame on a small occasional table beside the bed. The man in the photograph was not anyone she knew but instinctively she knew exactly who it was for somehow the expression on her grandmother’s face identified him more explicitly than any words could have done.
Louis. It had to be Louis. His hair was obviously fair although the photograph was black and white, his face square with regular features. He looked quite young in the photograph, perhaps nineteen or twenty, yet already there was the smallest hint of something less than flattering about the eyes. Oh, he was handsome, yes, without a doubt – the studio portrait endowed him with almost film star good looks – but Juliet thought with a small sense of shock that she was not sure she would trust him.
She could not expect Sophia to think like that, of course. She was his mother. Even if she had killed him …
‘Whatever must you think of us all?’ Sophia asked.
Juliet, engrossed in the photograph, had not noticed her grandmother’s shift of attention. Now she jumped almost guiltily as if she had been caught snooping.
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Our way of life here must be very different to what you are used to.’
‘It is different, but I’ve enjoyed myself very much. I really don’t think I am going to want to go home.’
‘And I for one shall not want you to. But your parents would be very upset, I expect, if we persuaded you to stay. And you have your fiancé too.’
‘Yes,’ Juliet said and felt her heart sink. Oh God, she thought, why should it do that whenever marriage or engagement was mentioned? She loved Sean didn’t she … didn’t she? Yet it came to her now that one of the reasons she had so enjoyed the last days was that she had felt absolutely completely free – free from the gentle loving pressures Sean exerted on her, free to be herself with no commitments to anyone.
No sooner had the thought crossed her mind than the guilt came rushing in. Sean would be missing her, wondering about her, and all she could do was relish her freedom.
‘Do you think I could phone him?’ she asked.
‘Of course, my dear. Why ever didn’t you ask before?’
Juliet did not answer. Because I didn’t want to, she thought, and felt the guilty colour rising in her cheeks.
‘Go and phone him now,’ Sophia continued. ‘It will be the middle of the day in Australia, won’t it? And you are not to worry about me any more. When I’ve had a good night’s sleep I shall be perfectly fine, you’ll see.’
‘I certainly hope so. Goodnight, Grandma.’
‘Goodnight, Juliet. God bless.’
Something sharp and sweet twisted deep within. A half-forgotten memory – a little girl being tucked into bed – ‘Goodnight, God bless.’
‘And you, Grandma,’ she said.
The line to Sydney was perfect, so clear, Juliet thought, that if it had not been for that split second’s delay between speech and reply it would have been impossible to believe that she was halfway across the world.
‘How are you?’ she asked Sean. ‘How is Australia?’
‘Much as you left it. I was beginning to think you had deserted us completely.’
‘Of course not! It’s just that there has hardly been a moment to turn around!’ Liar, she thought. ‘ This is really the first chance I have had to telephone.’
‘You’re enjoying your holiday then?’
‘Yes, it’s fantastic. You should see the hotels, Sean. And Grandma’s house! Sheer unadulterated luxury.’
‘I can see you are not going to want to come back.’
It was what she had said herself earlier but to hear him voice it made her feel dreadfully guilty again. ‘What a silly thing to say!’
‘Is it?’ A pause. ‘What about the family mystery?’ he asked, tone deliberately light. ‘Have you solved it yet?’
‘Not yet. But I’m going to.’
‘Oh yes. How?’
‘I have one or two ideas. But never mind that. Tell me about you. How is the job going?’
They chatted for a few minutes more then Juliet said: ‘I’d better go. I’ll ring you again.’
‘Promise?’
‘Promise. Goodnight, Sean.’
‘G’day, lady. Love you.’
‘Love you too.’
She replaced t
he receiver, surprised to realise she suddenly felt a little homesick. You see, you do miss Sean, she told herself almost aggressively. Hearing his voice had reminded her of the good things they shared and she found herself thinking how nice it would be to crawl into bed beside him, feel his arms around her, gentling her, his lips on hers, his body, hot and hard, pressing into the soft sensitive cushion between her legs. The very thought aroused the excitement in her that was always there at the start of one of their encounters, making her forget for the moment the let down that inevitably followed.
‘Did you get through all right?’ Deborah asked, coming out of the drawing-room.
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Would you like a nightcap?’
Juliet hesitated but only for a moment.
‘Yes, I would. It’s been quite a night one way or the other, hasn’t it?’
Deborah smiled serenely without replying. Does nothing ever phase her? Juliet wondered. She stood now beside the drinks cabinet, stunningly beautiful in her purple and fuchsia pink, the soft shaded standard lamp catching the highlights in her hair and turning them to silver.
‘What would you like? Brandy – scotch – a liqueur?’
‘Have you any Cointreau?’
‘We should have. With ice?’
‘Please.’
‘David, would you …?’
‘Of course.’ David, who had been sitting in one of the deep armchairs, long legs stretched out in front of him, got up and made the drinks.
‘Does Grandma have these attacks often?’ Juliet asked, perching on the little love seat.
‘More often than we would like. She’s supposed to have the condition under control but the tablets don’t always work as well as they should. Frankly she worries us, doesn’t she, darling?’
David handed Juliet her Cointreau.
‘Things do seem to be getting worse rather than better. That’s why I’m so glad you’ve come now, Juliet. I think we live in fear that one of these days she is going to suffer a heart attack proper and it would have been so sad if that had happened before she had had the chance to see you again.’
Juliet felt slightly sick.
‘That’s an awful thought! She seemed much better when I went in to see her just now though. Tired and a bit pale, but very cheerful.’
‘She is almost always cheerful,’ David said, settling back into his comfortable chair. ‘ Considering the life she’s had I think it’s a miracle.’
There was a slight pause; Juliet sipped her drink wondering if she dared raise the subject of Louis. This was after all the best opportunity she had had. David had practically raised it himself.
‘There was a photograph in her room. Right by her bed. I wondered if that might have been …?’ Her voice tailed away. The atmosphere had suddenly grown cold. Juliet looked uncomfortably from one to the other of them, David rigid in his easy chair, Deborah, her fingers curled too tightly around her glass of brandy.
‘I’m sorry …’ she began but Deborah interrupted her.
‘Louis,’ she said. ‘Yes, that photograph is of Louis.’ Her voice was strained, determinedly light, but Juliet knew that for the first time since she had arrived she had seen Deborah in less than complete control of herseif.
‘I didn’t mean to pry,’ Juliet said hastily.
‘Don’t be silly, of course you are not prying. It’s natural curiosity. He was your uncle, after all.’
‘Exactly. But in many ways it’s as if he never existed.’
‘Oh he existed all right!’ That was David, his tone deeply bitter. ‘The fact of the matter is my brother was never anything but trouble. He was a strange one – ruthless, selfish, hard as nails …’
‘And very charming.’
Juliet saw the look that passed between them, the lift of Deborah’s chin in a gesture close to defiance as she said it, the wary expression in David’s eyes and again she was aware of the powerful emotions it seemed Louis could still evoke, almost twenty years after his death. For a moment it seemed as if the very room was holding its breath, then David tossed back his drink impatiently.
‘We don’t really want to talk about Louis do we? What sort of a subject is that?’ He stood up, loosening his tie. ‘I’m going to bed. I have a busy day tomorrow. Greig wants me to go over the accounts with him and that is trying enough even when I have a clear head. You stay down if you want to.’
‘No, I think I’m ready to turn in too. Juliet?’
Juliet nodded her agreement. But she was disappointed that the subject of Louis had been dropped so unceremoniously and though she went up to her room it was a long time before she was able to sleep. Images set off by the evening’s events were chasing through her mind. Sean … half a world away in Australia, loving her, wanting her back; Grandma … looking so shockingly frail suddenly; Viv with her acid tongue; Deborah and David exchanging a look that had totally excluded her whilst appearing almost to challenge one another; even her own parents, defensive and secretive as they had been when she had told them she wanted to visit Jersey. And of course, most of all, Louis … Louis, whose life had clearly had such a dramatic effect on everyone who knew him and whose death was still shrouded in mystery.
What was the truth of it all? Juliet wondered. And would she ever learn any more than the little she knew already? Probably not. Whenever his name was mentioned the family closed ranks, it seemed. And she, as the next generation, was firmly excluded.
Juliet was not the only one unable to sleep. In her beautiful bedroom, decorated in soft pinks and peaches, Deborah lay quite still, arms wrapped around herself, eyes wide open in an attempt to make the nightmare fade more quickly.
It was a long time now since she had had it. Once upon a time it had come almost every night, then gradually less and less often until nowadays months would pass by without a recurrence of those haunting scenes from the past.
It shouldn’t be like this, Deborah had sometimes thought. A dream or a nightmare should be just that – fantasy – not a reliving of something that had actually happened. And sometimes it was. Sometimes the same emotions – the fear, the loneliness, the sheer desperation – came in other guises. Not tonight. Tonight she had been whirled back in time to the girl she had once been, Debbie Swift, seventeen years old, with a cloud of back-combed bleached-blonde hair and a pair of bright pink hot-pants, teetering along on three-and-a-half inch heels. Tonight she had known throughout the dream exactly why she was so sad and so frightened and when she had woken at last and raised a shaking hand to wipe away the tears that were filling her eyes she had half expected to feel eyelashes spiky with waterproof mascara instead of soft and lustrous from the nightly treatment with oil and glycerine. Even as reality began to return the aura of that other Debbie remained, reaching out across the years to envelop her. And though she was awake the cameras rolled again before her eyes, showing her glimpses of the night that haunted her.
She knew what had caused this relapse, of course, and it had nothing to do with Sophia’s attack, worrying though that was. No, it was the talk of Louis that had sparked it off.
In the darkness a solitary tear welled up in the corner of Deborah’s eye and ran down her cheek. She folded her arms around herself more tightly but she could not stop the trembling and soon her whole body was shaking with huge uncontrollable, racking sobs.
Why should she cry for him? God knew he had been nothing but a bastard. But it made no difference. It never had.
Alone in the night Deborah cried as she had often cried before and each and every sob was an echo of his name.
‘Oh Louis … Louis …’
Chapter six
Juliet was awake again very early – the sign of a busy mind, her mother always said, and certainly this morning it seemed to be the case. She had fallen asleep thinking about Louis and the twenty-year-old mystery surrounding his death, now, as she came through the layers of consciousness, it was still there, teasing at her. She eased herself up on the pillows, propping her hands
behind her head and trying to force her mind back to her own hazy recollections of the events that had preceded her parents’ departure for Australia.
A vague memory of Louis had taken shape on the edges of her mind, an image indistinct as an over-exposed photograph, but she was unsure how much of this was real memory and how much imagination inspired by the snippets of information she had gleaned about him and the photograph beside her grandmother’s bed. The memory, if that was what it was, stirred long forgotten emotions, echoes of alarm and anxiety experienced by a four-year-old child who had sensed a threat to the continuance of her secure world in the raised voices behind closed doors, the whispered conversations that ended the moment she entered a room and the strained faces of those closest to her. But there was nothing, no single shred of concrete memory she could get hold of. Each soft focus picture slipped infuriatingly away from her as she tried to grasp it just as a dream slips away on waking.
Juliet pushed her fingers through her sleep-tangled hair, frustrated by her inability to remember. She wanted to know the truth. She wouldn’t ever be able to put the past to the back of her mind and get on with the future until she did. But she could not imagine how she could ever get to the bottom of the mystery. Every one of the family was too adept at sliding away from awkward questions. Only an outsider would be likely to tell her something approximating to the truth, someone without emotional involvement. But she did not know anyone and it was all so long ago.
Quite suddenly Juliet’s eyes flew wide open and her fingers ceased their abstracted combing of her hair. The advocate who had defended her grandmother – what had Aunt Catherine called him? Dan Deffains, that was it. If she could find him, talk to him, was there just the slimmest chance that he might tell her the truth? He might consider it a breach of professional confidence, of course, and she couldn’t expect him to reveal anything that had not been made public at the time, but at least she would have the facts.
‘I didn’t believe she had done it and neither did Dan Deffains,’ Aunt Catherine had said. Perhaps, if she approached him in the right way he might explain just why he had had those doubts. Juliet pushed aside the covers and got out of bed. She was trembling slightly from combined anticipation and nervousness. But her mind was already made up. Somehow she would find Dan Deffains and ask for his help.