‘Wonderful,’ Lou said again. ‘Will Landon still be there? How long is he staying?’
Flora glanced across at him. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘It was a surprise visit. Rather like yours.’
‘Your lucky week, then,’ said Lou. ‘Looking forward to seeing you, Mum.’
Flora put the phone down slowly. My goodness, she thought. Weeks of nothing, and then all this. And meanwhile, she still hadn’t exchanged a word with Landon. He was looking at her, his face somehow terribly familiar.
‘They’re coming to stay,’ she said.
‘An unexpected pleasure.’ Landon reached out a finger and touched her cheek. ‘Like you.’
Flora smiled, but her face wouldn’t hold it for long. It wasn’t that she regretted what had happened, or that anything was spoiled by it. It wasn’t even that her sense of herself was altered by this second sexual adventure of the summer, although God knows she hadn’t expected either of them. That might come, of course, a belated feeling of bashfulness (or even, possibly, of liberation) but for now there was simply a sense of facing up to reality – an understanding that neither she nor Landon would pretend, and nothing had changed. They were old; he was still married; they’d never really loved each other – not enough, anyway, to overturn a lifetime of dedication to the status quo. Tristesse, she thought. That was precisely the term for it.
‘I’m glad,’ Landon said, after a moment.
‘Glad the girls are coming?’
‘No, glad we did that. We both deserved it.’
No one but Landon could have made those words sound tender, Flora thought. But without raising expectations; without allowing himself the indulgence of extending unfounded hope. What a perplexing man he was. She called up her memories of him: a little boy on the beach, a highwayman at that fateful New Year’s Eve party, a noble William Tell in a small opera festival in Somerset. For a moment she was seduced by the idea that they were both still waiting for their real lives to begin, the lives they’d put aside to concentrate on other things – but then, with a smile, she dismissed it.
‘Can you stay to see them?’ she asked. ‘Lou’s pregnant, you know. Isn’t that a thought?’
‘Lou?’ His eyes opened wide, the weariness lifting for a moment. ‘How lovely. How – unexpected.’
Flora laughed, and he joined in.
‘I haven’t asked,’ she said. ‘A donor, I expect. I’m very pleased for her. And for me, of course.’
Landon nodded. ‘You’ll be a good granny,’ he said. ‘You’ll have time for it, now.’
‘I suppose I will.’
‘Tell me,’ Landon said then. ‘What do you tend to do about breakfast?’
‘I tend to go out and buy bread, but not –’ she glanced at the clock on the chest of drawers. ‘Good Lord, is it really only eight o’clock?’
‘It is. But I agree about going out for bread. Too Peter Mayle for words. Can we improvise?’
‘Probably. I think there’s milk, and some porridge in the cupboard. Will that do?’
‘I’ll make it,’ said Landon. ‘It’s one of my unsuspected talents, cooking porridge.’
He hadn’t given an answer, Flora realised, about staying to see Lou and Kitty. Perhaps it was better not to ask again.
The summer had reached the point when the sun shone every day, and the creep of light around the curtains this morning signified the start of the slow, delicious warming up of another day. That much could be relied on, Flora thought. That and the charms of Les Violettes, the bees among the lavender and the aromatic scents of eucalyptus and juniper. She lay back against the pillows, pleased by the thought that the situation called for nothing more than this, on her part. The summer, she felt suddenly, had taken on its own momentum.
While Flora was still weighing up how long it might take Landon to make porridge, he appeared at the door with a tray.
‘Goodness,’ she said. ‘Room service.’
‘My mother took trouble over my upbringing,’ he said. ‘As did yours.’
‘Over my upbringing, or yours?’ Flora asked, and he smiled. The right note, she thought. Their slick one-liners should be allowed to stand, just for the moment.
She smoothed the duvet to make a level platform for the tray, and Landon set it down in front of her.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘What a treat.’
‘He’s got a very well-stocked kitchen, your friend. Beautiful pans.’
‘Has he?’ Flora laughed, conscious of giving herself away. ‘You know how it is in France,’ she said. ‘You hardly have to cook at all.’
‘You might, if you’re going to have houseguests.’ He put on a mock-grave face. ‘Perhaps I shall have to stay, after all. I could earn my keep as house boy.’
‘Can you?’ Flora couldn’t keep the pleasure from her voice. ‘Aren’t you expected home?’
‘Rosanna’s sister is staying this week. There was to be another concert next weekend.’
‘Was?’
‘Cancelled,’ he said. ‘A problem with the church. Apparently the roof’s in danger of falling in.’
‘Well, if it means you can stay and see the girls . . .’
Flora risked a direct look at him then, and a smile that wasn’t tied to a witticism. He looked a little ragged this morning; she was touched by this glimpse of a Landon with his defences down. It wasn’t just on stage that he made an effort, she thought. He kept up a performance more or less all the time. As if he’d noticed her scrutiny, he touched his fingertips to his cheek, and the unguarded expression vanished.
‘By the way, have you had a communication from Julia Hoxton?’ he asked.
Flora shook her head.
‘Covent Garden Julia Hoxton?’ Landon prompted. ‘She wants to put on a memorial concert.’
‘For Henry?’
‘In aid of a scholarship fund. It’s a generous thought, but it’s your call. I’m surprised she hasn’t been in touch.’
‘Perhaps she wrote to Orchards. Martin’s supposed to send on the post.’ Flora hesitated. ‘Was she . . .?’
‘No,’ Landon said. ‘No, no. Just a friend. An admirer in the professional sense.’ He curled his fingers delicately, as though assessing the ripeness of a peach. ‘But if you’d prefer, I’ll see her off. I can say –’
‘No,’ said Flora. ‘She should do it, if the girls agree. Henry ought to have – we’ve done nothing about his professional life.’
‘Good,’ said Landon. ‘Good.’
‘Will you sing?’
He made a self-deprecating gesture. ‘She did mention . . . And Kitty should write a piece.’
‘I don’t suppose she’d want to do that, even for Henry. She’s not exactly . . .’
‘Oh, but she is,’ Landon said. ‘She is, you know. She had a triumph, a couple of weeks ago: a song cycle performed at St Mark’s, Marlborough Square. I’m told it was quite something.’
‘She mentioned it,’ Flora said. Ah, if he’d wanted to pique her . . . ‘She didn’t tell me how it had gone,’ she admitted.
Landon looked at her carefully. ‘There will be other occasions, I’m quite sure,’ he said. ‘But if the Hoxton affair goes ahead, Kitty should certainly write something.’
The porridge was overcooked: that was something. Flora inspected a large lump of it on her spoon, and Landon laughed suddenly.
‘My cover’s blown,’ he said. ‘Breakfast in bed is not my forte. Please forgive me.’
*
After breakfast they both bathed, and Flora moved Landon’s few things into another bedroom. Neither of them said anything about that, but once it was done things seemed easier again.
There was, suddenly, plenty to do. They drove to the supermarket in Champigny to stock up for Lou and Kitty’s arrival; they made up two beds on the top floor. Landon found a pair of secateurs and cut some roses, while Flora – resisting the urge to prove something – produced bread and cheese and a salad for lunch. A late lunch: it was two o’cloc
k by then, the garden limp and breathless in the heat.
‘There’s something else I ought to tell you,’ Flora said, as they ate. ‘I’m thinking of selling the Comyns.’
Landon said nothing for a moment. Flora had known he’d disapprove: if their paths hadn’t crossed, she thought, she wouldn’t have felt it necessary to say anything, but since he was here it seemed wrong not to mention it. He’d been just as much Nick Comyn’s friend as Henry had. They’d made that famous trip through Europe together, while they were all at Oxford.
‘Not for the money, I take it.’
‘No. But we were surprised, when they were valued for probate.’
Landon made his tortoise movement again, that elder-statesman-like lifting of the head. Was she required to give a reason, Flora wondered? Could she produce one?
‘All of them?’ Landon asked. ‘The ones of the family?’
Flora spread her hands impatiently. ‘I haven’t decided,’ she said. ‘I just thought you’d like to know. Goodness, I might sell Orchards too. I might sell anything.’
‘Of course. Of course you might.’
‘I was fond of Nick,’ Flora said, although she hadn’t been, really. Less and less, as the paintings accumulated on the walls at Orchards, and he was there more and more often. As he claimed more and more of Henry’s attention, she admitted: although she’d known he was no threat, she’d resented his adoration of Henry even so. But that wasn’t really why she wanted the paintings gone, was it?
‘Forgive me,’ Landon said. ‘It’s entirely your affair. It seems a shame to – but there’s no need for sentimentality. The whole episode was painful, but it’s a long time ago.’
‘His death, you mean?’ For a moment Flora wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Had there been another twist, something she hadn’t . . .?
‘It was just after Rosanna was diagnosed,’ Landon said. ‘I was preoccupied. And Henry was – well, Kitty was very young. You were both busy.’
Ah, thought Flora: so it was his death. That mysterious car accident.
‘We took him on holiday that last summer, you know. He came to Wales with us.’ She’d felt Nick’s eyes on them all week, she remembered. Watching, weighing. She’d wondered whether Henry had asked Nick to paint him, but it was the girls he’d painted that time. On the beach, under a black cloud. She glanced at Landon, and made an effort. ‘He was very kind to the girls. Lou spent the whole holiday drawing, although she’s never had an artistic bone in her body.’
‘That’s rather a harsh judgement of someone who’s married to a sculptor.’
Married, Flora understood, was a peace offering. Perhaps she shouldn’t say any more. But the implication of neglect itched at her.
‘Henry didn’t believe the suicide theory,’ she said.
He hadn’t wanted to, certainly. But he’d been deeply upset; rattled by the idea that someone under his patronage – someone he’d loved – could die. Perhaps that was what had made him cleave to Elizabeth in a way he hadn’t to her predecessors. There was another irony, if so. Flora sighed, and Landon’s eyes rested on her again.
‘Water under the bridge, anyway,’ he said.
She suspected he hadn’t said all he wanted to on the subject, but that he’d decided this wasn’t the moment. Well, they were her paintings now. It was her decision. No need for sentimentality, indeed. Whoever said women were the mawkish ones?
After a moment Landon smiled. ‘It’s a long time ago,’ he said again. ‘Let’s take these things inside before they melt. Do we have time for a walk before we go and meet the young ladies?’
36
‘Don’t tell Mum,’ Kitty said, as the ‘Fasten Seatbelts’ sign came on for the descent into Tours. ‘You won’t tell her, will you, unless I do?’
Lou looked at her sister. They had barely spoken since the plane took off. Kitty had been absorbed by a book, and Lou – too tired for reading – had stared out of the window, allowing the white hum of the engines to fill her ears and the empty expanse of sky to carry her far away from Veronica Villa and Seaford and Orchards. It felt very strange to think that it was only thirty-six hours since she’d taken Alice to Heathrow; to think how many miles there were between them now.
‘About Daniel?’ she asked.
Kitty nodded. ‘Just – you know.’
She looked exhausted, Lou thought. Her skin was almost transparent, her eyes over-bright. Lou hoped it was the right thing for Kitty, fleeing to France like this. The book Kitty had been reading slipped off her table and Lou bent to retrieve it. Not a novel, she saw, but a score: Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.
‘For Flora’s sake, too,’ Kitty said, slipping the score back into her bag. ‘I mean, she’ll have to know eventually, but . . .’
Somehow, in the press of other concerns, Lou had lost sight of what the news about Daniel meant for Flora. Considering it now, she felt a rush of adrenaline. Who could possibly guess how she’d react? Quite apart from the usual caveats, it was months since they’d seen Flora. So many things had changed since then. She put her hand in Kitty’s. Perhaps after all this wasn’t so much an escape as a leap from one patch of emotional turmoil into another, she thought, as the plane bumped and lurched its way down through the technicolour clouds, and the green and gold landscape of France came into view, softened by twilight.
*
Flora was in the arrivals hall to meet them, and Landon was there too, tall and spare beside her. Lou registered, in his stance, an unexpected glimpse of the gawky teenager he must once have been, and then her gaze shifted to her mother.
That moment of recognition, shot through with pleasure and – yes, definitely surprise – could only have lasted a second or two, but it seemed to Lou to spool out in slow motion. Flora had changed, certainly. This woman with a tan and soft linen clothes looked like a Flora who’d taken another path, some time in the past. It wasn’t just her appearance: there was something entirely unfamiliar in the way she came forward to greet them both.
‘Mum,’ Lou said. ‘It’s lovely to see you.’
Kitty was caught up in the embrace too; a most un-Jones-like hug that sealed the three of them together for a few seconds. Lou felt something flowing through her, a swift current of alteration, and then they were all stepping back, smiling, recovering themselves.
‘Hello, Landon,’ Kitty said. ‘How nice that you’re here.’
‘The temptation of seeing you both proved too great to resist,’ he said, ‘and your mother’s cooking, of course, is always a lure.’
They laughed; an old joke. Trust Landon, Lou thought, to help them back to familiar ground.
The car journey was duller than Lou had expected: a series of long straight roads through a no-man’s-land of strung-out villages hanging from the coat tails of Tours, and then an expanse of flat farmland. It was quite dark by now, a large moon and a scatter of stars hanging palely over the horizon. Conversation was desultory, as though none of them knew how to recapture, or to follow, the ease and warmth of their airport welcome.
‘How was the flight?’ Flora asked.
‘Ryanair,’ said Kitty. ‘Still, we were lucky to get seats.’
‘A last minute whim, I gather?’ said Landon.
Lou felt Kitty stiffen beside her. ‘Call us impetuous,’ she said. ‘Once we had the idea, there was no stopping us, was there, Kits?’
Flora drove as she always had, her elbows cocked, level with her hands. A surgical posture, Lou though suddenly. Wasn’t that how you saw surgeons’ arms, when they showed operations on the television? For better control of the instruments, presumably. She’d never seen her mother operate, though. All those thousands of operations Flora must have done, and her daughters had never been there to admire her skill.
‘What have you been doing with yourself, Ma?’ she asked.
‘Less than you might think.’ Flora half-turned. ‘Tending the garden. Reading. Getting to know the locals.’
‘Preparing to run off with a swarth
y Frenchman?’ offered Kitty.
‘That too,’ Flora agreed. ‘Just wait until you see the choice on offer.’
Lou chuckled, but after that the conversation lapsed. This was unknown terrain. Better to say nothing than to find themselves heading up a no through road.
37
Lying in bed, Kitty could hear the rhythmic chant of insects that identified this as a foreign night. The sound was insistent, but she found the monotony soothing in the same way as the swish and lull of the sea. The smell of the room was foreign too, a dusty lavender and hot linen smell that evoked something she couldn’t pin down. Comfort, perhaps? No, not as comfortable as comfort: somewhere she wasn’t quite at home, but would like to be.
That was certainly an apt description of Les Violettes. It seemed to her a house of dreams, with its sighing interior spaces and its walled garden full of scent and shadow. That was the reason Flora looked so different, surely. A few weeks here would be enough to mend anyone. But even so, as the cicadas kept up their incantation Kitty wondered about her mother, and about what the summer had done for her.
There was a sound outside her door, a footfall rather than a knock.
‘Lou?’
The door opened. ‘Still awake? Can I come in?’
Kitty moved over and Lou climbed in beside her. This was nice, Kitty thought: curling up with her sister, feeling the warmth of the bed around them. They hadn’t done this for years.
‘You know what this reminds me of?’ Lou asked.
‘Hot chocolate,’ said Kitty. ‘Muse and Nirvana.’
‘Whatever happened to Muse and Nirvana?’
‘I’ve got them on my iPod still. No shouting to drown out here, though.’
‘No.’
‘Is that –’ Kitty began, and then she stopped. Her view of the past had shifted, these last few days. Her view of Henry, above all. The loss of her illusions was part of the pain she’d felt since Martin Carver’s visit: thinking about it put her in a rage. ‘Was Flora miserable all that time?’ she asked.
Lou stroked her hand. ‘We’ll never know,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure she knows, anymore. I don’t suppose you can sum up forty years like that.’
The Things You Do for Love Page 25