‘Inside now?’
‘Inside,’ agreed Landon. ‘Hot out here, isn’t it? Sweltering.’
‘We could go for a swim this afternoon,’ said Flora. ‘There’s a lake the other side of the village with a plan d’eau, a little man-made beach. They’re good at all that, the French.’
Lou was right, Kitty thought: Flora did look happy. Sort of simply happy, as though the sunshine and the gardens and all of them being there was enough to make everything all right. She watched Flora take Lou’s arm, as they turned towards the château, and felt a pang of jealousy.
Kitty was no good at describing buildings, but this castle looked just like a castle in a child’s drawing, waiting to be populated by ladies in flowing dresses and cone-shaped hats. It was built from grey stone with a slight sheen to it, and the entrance was flanked by two towers. As they approached, the walls rose above them, one of those surprises of perspective that look like tricksy camerawork.
And then, as they approached the big wooden door, a faint strain of muted strings drifted into Kitty’s head. She recognised it instantly as G sharp minor – a key with a lot of black notes, marshalled here into a doleful pavane with a rumble of drums behind it. Kitty felt a shiver run down the full length of her back, from the top of her head to the base of her spine, like a glissando on a xylophone. The tone of the music was sombre, even portentous, but the fact that it was there at all – that was an immeasurable, an overwhelming thing. Since Martin had broken the news about Daniel the stream of music in her head had been turned off. Although she’d thought that was the least of her worries she understood, now, that the silence had been a terrible thing to bear.
She stopped a few yards before the huge front door and let the notes filter through her, grasping at the glimmer of insight they brought, the layer of meaning, the draught of solace. The sense that there were resources she could call on; that however bad things felt she was, would be, could be, in control of her own destiny. Was that folly? Delusion? Just for a moment, she felt the presence of her father in the thread of melody in her head, and her eyes filled with tears.
41
It was late afternoon, but the sun was still full in the sky. Lou lay on the sweating grass, letting the last vestiges of the dream that had jolted her awake fall away. She’d been in the shadow of a big oak tree when she fell asleep, but the sun had moved and she was hot now. Flora and Kitty had disappeared, leaving their towels laid out beside her. Shading her eyes, Lou thought she could see them down in the water, thirty yards away. The scene made her think of Seurat, something very typically French. There was a little beach beside the lake, a sandy strip created to encourage bathers, and a scattering of families and teenagers and older couples sat along the length of it or on the grassy slope above. Twenty or thirty people were swimming in an area roped off with floats, and beyond them the water stretched away, ringed by dark trees.
‘Ah, you’re awake.’
Lou turned her head: she’d forgotten for a moment that Landon was with them.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Are the others swimming?’
‘Yes.’
‘You didn’t fancy it?’
‘I was concerned about the sun,’ he said. ‘I thought I’d stay and keep an eye.’
‘On me?’ Lou was touched. ‘That’s sweet of you. Is there any water left?’
She levered herself upright as Landon passed her a bottle and a plastic cup.
‘I might have a dip,’ she said. ‘Do you want to come?’
‘No.’ He smiled. ‘You go. I’m happy to watch.’
The lake was warmer than she’d expected, though bracing enough after lying in the sun for so long. She stood in the shallows for a few minutes with children paddling around her, feeling the small weight of her own child in her belly, the muggy warmth of the day on her skin.
‘Lou!’ Kitty waved and splashed towards her. ‘Isn’t this perfect? Mum’s gone off across the lake.’
Sure enough, there was the back of Flora’s head, ducking under the rope and striking off towards the far bank.
‘Not you?’ Lou asked.
‘There might be eels.’ Kitty laughed, and Lou thought how different she looked already, after less than twenty-four hours here. Was that evidence of the resilience of youth, or the restorative powers of the French countryside? Simply, perhaps, the plain fact that no misery could keep up its grip on you every moment of the day.
‘Time to swim,’ she said, ‘here I come,’ and she waded swiftly into deeper water and ducked forward to launch herself. Kitty was right: it felt glorious, water all around her and the wide sky above. ‘Oh,’ she said, ‘that’s blissful. I could float here forever.’
‘We can,’ said Kitty. ‘Why not? We can stay here all summer. Come and swim every day.’
‘I think Harvers and Green might be expecting me back at some point, unfortunately.’
‘Oh, bother them. Look at Flora – she escaped.’
‘Flora’s sixty.’
Kitty laughed again; she was in that sort of mood, Lou thought. Well, she certainly deserved a little joie de vivre.
For some time the two of them swam and talked and drifted, reminding each other how they used to do star floats, somersaults, handstands; watching children ducking each other and old ladies in black rubber swimming hats executing stately circuits in breaststroke. Not Seurat but Monsieur Hulot, Lou thought.
When something splattered into the water beside her she turned, looking for a child who might have thrown a pebble, but then there was another splash, and another.
‘It’s raining,’ Kitty said. ‘How funny, the sky was completely blue a minute ago.’
But now, when they looked up, they could see a mass of dark clouds. The surface of the lake was soon pitted by heavy drops, falling more and more rapidly. The other bathers were squealing and splashing their way to the bank, rushing for their towels and whatever shelter they could find.
‘Silly,’ Kitty said, ‘we’re much better off in the water,’ but then there was a roll of thunder and – only a second or two later – a flash of lightning.
‘I’m not so sure,’ Lou said. ‘Maybe we should get out.’
Landon was coming towards them across the strip of sand, holding towels. ‘That took me by surprise,’ he said. ‘Where’s your mother?’
‘Coming back, I hope,’ said Lou, wrapping a towel around her shoulders, but when they turned to look there was no sign of Flora.
‘Oh God,’ said Kitty, ‘where is she? She set off across the lake, but . . .’
Lou felt a rush of fear, the colourless kind that accompanies a completely unexpected threat. The three of them stood at the edge of the lake, Landon barely less wet than they were by now. Another crash of thunder and an answering bolt of lightning elicited screams from the children further up the bank.
‘I’ll speak to the lifeguard,’ Landon said, and he turned towards the wooden hut in front of which, not so long ago, a posse of athletic young men had lounged, but it was deserted and padlocked.
‘They’ve taken the flag down,’ said Lou. ‘That was quick.’
‘Perhaps she’s sheltering somewhere,’ said Kitty. ‘She must be. She couldn’t have been struck by lightning, could she?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Landon. He wasn’t, Lou thought, one of those men who plunge heedlessly into action in a crisis, but she could see he was troubled by his failure to seize on a solution.
‘Shall I go back in?’ Kitty suggested. ‘I could swim across the way she went, and –’
‘We’re better placed to see her from here,’ Landon said. ‘There’s no point putting you in danger too.’
The locals had all fled to their cars by now. The rain streamed down, and so much light had gone from the sky that it felt like late evening. Possibilities bobbed in Lou’s mind: could the shock of the storm’s sudden onset have brought on a seizure of some kind? A cardiac arrest, an asthma attack, an epileptic fit? None of them could take their eyes off the lake, an
d she told herself that sooner or later they’d spot Flora, making her way back towards the beach. But her head would be almost invisible against the stormy surface of the water, and the thunder was coming more frequently now. The latest jag of lightning cracked over the lake, shattering the sky like a sheet of glass. She wouldn’t like to be in there now, Lou thought. What the hell had happened?
‘We can’t do nothing,’ Kitty said. ‘We can’t just stand here. What about walking round the lake? Maybe she made for the edge somewhere else?’
‘You can’t,’ said Lou. She’d already looked: a high fence blocked the way in one direction, and a bank rose steeply from the water in the other. ‘The only way round is by that road we came along, and that loops right away from the lake. We’d be better to stay here and ring the emergency services.’
But she was thinking that it was all too late, too slow, too cumbersome. The lake that had seemed so benign and inviting looked to her now like a death trap, a bottomless body of water in which any number of people could have drowned in the time Flora had been missing. What they would need, she was beginning to fear, were police divers and dredging equipment, not an air ambulance to winch her mother’s gasping form from the water.
‘How long has she been gone?’ Landon asked, as though his mind was working along the same lines as Lou’s.
Lou shook her head. ‘I really have no idea,’ she said. ‘She was setting off just as I went into the water.’
Landon looked at his watch, its surface bleary with rain. ‘I didn’t look at the time,’ he said. ‘When did you last see her?’
Lou and Kitty shook their heads, silent as schoolchildren caught in a sin of omission. They’d been playing, enjoying themselves, not thinking of their mother. On the grass behind them, their belongings would be drenched by now, the sodden heaps of clothes unwearable. She had never, Lou thought, felt quite so helpless, quite so much at a loss.
They had almost decided the best thing would be for Landon to go and find a gendarmerie when a jeep pulled into the car park. Lou glanced towards it, wondering whether this might be someone in authority, coming to check on the plan d’eau. The rear door opened, and a figure got out with a shawl draped around them.
Lou thought at first that the resemblance to Flora was mere wishful thinking. The light was bad, and the car was partly obscured by the branches of the oak tree. But then the figure was waving and making its way towards them, and Kitty and Landon had spotted it too, and Kitty was turning and running up the slope.
For the second time that day, Lou felt tears welling up without warning.
‘Mummy!’ she heard Kitty shouting. ‘Oh God, Mummy, we were so worried!’
PART V
Greville Auctioneers, Friday 12th December 2014
Paintings and drawings by Nicholas Comyn, from the collection of the late Henry Jones
Lot no. 5: Landon Peverell as Leporello, 1974
The opera singer Landon Peverell was, like Henry Jones, a lifelong friend of Nicholas Comyn. The three were contemporaries at university and remained close until Comyn’s death, sharing an interest in both visual art and music.
This portrait commemorates an early triumph for Peverell, when, aged 23, he understudied the part of Leporello in Mozart’s Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne – and took over the role for the last three performances, to overwhelmingly positive reviews. Peverell is shown here in costume, wearing a fur-edged cloak over a dark suit and Harlequin-style waistcoat. A Homburg hat is held loosely in his left hand, and in the right he holds the battered leather notebook in which his master’s conquests are detailed.
Like many of its productions, Glyndebourne’s 1974 Don Giovanni also exemplified the connections between the arts, with a memorable set designed by John Piper. Piper’s atmospheric evocation of ruined buildings and overgrown gardens, which appears in the background of Comyn’s painting, intensified the strains of subterfuge, concealment and deception in the production – and Peverell gave a consummate account of the half-apologetic, half-complicit servant of the seducer Don Giovanni.
The evocation of personality in this painting, as well as physical likeness, is exceptionally skilful. Both wry humour and affection are evident in a deeply personal rendition of a public figure.
42
The storm had altered the texture of the day, Flora thought, leaving a crackle of electricity in the air. When they had finally got back to Les Violettes, everyone had busied themselves with separate tasks, as though each of them was too highly charged to be in the same room as the others. Kitty had run her mother a bath, Landon had lit a fire and Lou had searched out a laundry rack to set in front of it. When Flora came downstairs again, the house smelled of wood smoke and wet clothes, like an indoor campfire. The rain had subsided at last and the thunder had burned itself out, leaving behind a conspicuous hush. Coming into the sitting room, Flora found the other three scattered in its corners.
‘What time is it?’ she asked.
‘Seven o’clock,’ said Lou.
It felt much later, Flora thought, looking out at the scoured sky. It felt as though the year had moved on a few turns: a strange feeling. She went from window to window, drawing the curtains.
‘Food,’ said Landon. ‘What shall we do about food? We need a faithful retainer to produce a raised pie and some pickles.’
‘Very Railway Children,’ said Lou, with a little smile.
Flora thought with misgiving of the shelves in the larder, which were almost empty again. The road to St Rémy was blocked by a fallen branch; coming home, they’d had to follow a long diversion which involved traversing a flood. No one would feel like going out again.
‘There’s not much in the house,’ she said.
‘I saw some tomato soup this morning when I was looking for jam,’ Lou said.
‘There are eggs,’ said Kitty, ‘and some bread left.’
In the end a meal was constructed more, Flora thought, through force of will than hard ingredients, as if this were a party game or a survival challenge. But filling the table with food – a large omelette, small bowls of soup, a salad resurrected from a stray lettuce left in the bottom of the fridge – drew the little party back together again. There were smiles, the clink of wine glasses, a pair of candles discovered by Kitty in a drawer.
‘Here’s to happy endings,’ said Landon, lifting his glass in a gesture that saluted Flora then circled in a little flourish to include her daughters.
‘I’m sorry to have alarmed you all,’ Flora said, not for the first time. She wouldn’t explain herself again. The story was straightforward enough: the scramble onto the bank when the first lightning struck; the path that led eventually, as she’d hoped, to the road; the passing car that stopped to pick up a bedraggled stray. She’d known they would worry, but not how much. Both sides were still a little embarrassed by that excess – a little annoyed, even – which was perhaps not, Flora thought, the reaction any of them would have expected.
‘Never mind.’ Landon put his glass down. He’d cast himself as Master of Ceremonies, Flora saw. ‘We’ve had culture, adventure and now culinary contrivance today, not to mention meteorological extravagance. When I think that I almost left this morning . . .’
‘Have some omelette,’ said Lou. ‘It’s nicer warm.’
‘Elizabeth David, eat your heart out,’ said Landon, his tone still theatrical, as though he wasn’t ready to relinquish the spotlight yet.
‘Shut up and eat, she means,’ said Kitty, her smile conveying her assurance that she’d get away with a little cheeky familiarity. To everyone’s surprise, though, she almost didn’t. Landon’s expression changed, and Flora recognised the amour propre of the public man he’d become, and the chain of association around the table that didn’t include him: the difficulty of being an outsider, even in this loosely bound family. And then Landon laughed, and Kitty blushed with relief, and they concentrated, for a few minutes, on eating.
43
The whole evening had been very pe
culiar. It was hard, Kitty thought, to say how, exactly, or even why – except that it was to do with the storm and Flora getting lost and being found again, and the four of them being together through what felt now like a very long day.
As they sat in the sitting room waiting for Flora to come downstairs, then fussed around in the kitchen looking for tin openers and matches and chopping boards, she could feel the criss-crossing threads that joined them all together, even Landon. It was as though they were caught in a web that held them just a little apart from each other, and every time one of them moved or spoke or even thought something, the others all felt it: all evening the threads tweaked and stretched and tugged at them. From the outside they might look like people with separate lives and free wills, but any of them could have told you it didn’t feel like that.
‘Have you done much opera lately, Landon?’ Lou asked, as they sat around the dining room table.
‘No, not for years,’ he said, with a brisk gesture that seemed to Kitty to reveal the depths of his disappointment, even though it was presumably intended to convey a breezy nonchalance. ‘Apart from the odd concert performance, like the one your mother saw last weekend. Staged productions – oh, you know. One gets too . . .’
Too old, Kitty wondered? Or too weary of the rehearsal, and the commitment so far in advance? He’d never been able to leave Rosanna, that was the story. How had he managed to leave her for so long now, then? What had made him stay on here?
‘It’s lovely to have everyone here,’ Flora said then, picking up – of course – Kitty’s train of thought. Feeling it down the lines of the web, and saying things she wouldn’t usually say. ‘Being on your own for a few weeks makes you appreciate company. Family. Old friends.’
The Things You Do for Love Page 28