It was. I felt unable to explain anything adequately.
“I drank too much.”
“To miss everything. Very convenient.”
It was. It seemed an unreasonable excuse, a feeble explanation, though I felt a sense of remorse at how often Antoine had filled my glass, how Nicole had let me sink into a deep sleep when she didn’t want my presence in her bed. The curse of drink.
“Report to the quayside at ten in the morning. You had better find a hotel room this evening before they get full up.” I did, made a few calls, asked my editor for extra time and had a light dinner.
ii
Back at the cove I could have fallen into a mood of self-pity, but the fresh air and a return to the calm isolation, away from the bustle of the modern world in Calvi - these factors came together to force me to stand up to events and think positively.
Nicole was awake, that was the most important thing.
I had work to finish and could do this without distractions. The very ones, however, that I had loved so much, the closeness of Nicole, the occasional brush against each other as we passed in the corridor, the glance into my room when she saw I was bent over the desk at my scribbles. She knew enough not to disturb me at those moments, nor to question what progress I was making. She understood that words might fill the page, but be gone again in the cold mist of dawn. Nothing existed until the critiques were finished, their texts burnished and polished with all the certainty I could muster.
Even then I sensed my inadequacies against the prose of Lawrence Durrell, built lovingly on wanderings and work in Corfu, Rhodes and then his much-admired Alexandria. And as for Somerset Maugham, his tales of English planters and adventurers in the Far East echoed shades of the rainbow of misfortune that I myself had neither experienced, nor could hope to emulate. Then the Lawrences. T.E. and his Seven Pillars of Wisdom dealing with wild Arab expectations that outscored the reality of their divisive tribal existence in the desert. Contrasting with the harsher yet realistic passions of D.H. with their sexual emphasis.
Fine writers, but of an age slipping away from the attention of today’s readers and students. Would they read my critiques at all or skip my contribution and progress without the lessons of history and literature? It seemed very possible in this audio-visual internet age.
However I was near the finish and the pressure to meet the deadline stopped me falling into melancholic inactivity.
The spur to action was as much a tonic as a necessity, and I began to write furiously to take my mind off a greater reality. If Nicole’s brother-in-law was on his way, that would alter the balance of things – and my responsibilities – fundamentally. I dared not consider the likelihood that I should lose her. If death took her, we would share the burden of that loss. If she continued to recover a different loss would occur, but my self-interest would be overtaken by others.
I had started collating Nicole’s notes and samples in the expectation of handing them over to a successor, but now the context was changed. In this in-between state my enthusiasm to tidy up waned. I made a desultory effort to complete the task, but I felt it was to the advantage of others not me that the compilation would serve. I assumed, given time to recover, if she did fully, that she would continue her work. Perhaps with a new vigour.
Or would the effort be too much, the impact of events a bar to the contentedness she had enjoyed here? I could not envisage her working without the panorama of the maquis, but were there other landscapes just as good? Where else was there such a rich bouquet of flowers, herbs and plants to fill her basket of experiment?
I shared the days between her interests and mine. Putting her notes into folders, the specimens into jars, the dried plants into envelopes, matching the small watercolours wherever possible with their latin designators.
My dutiful reporting to the gendarmes on guard down at the taverne meant I was kept exercised by the effort of descending the tricky path and clambering back later. I took to the routine of building these obligations around lunch.
Antoine and Angelique had brightened up at the good news about Nicole. But this did not last. The attack on her had deeply undermined their view of life in the cove. Coupled with the death of Giuseppe they felt abandoned, given that I would soon depart, along with the gendarmes. What had been a well-earned retirement home had become an outpost associated with violence and death.
“It is the old Corsica,” Antoine admitted, “we thought we were well out of it here.”
Angelique too worked now with less enthusiasm on her potager. The mules were given their fodder, but not exercised. Some of the vegetables were withering unpicked under the scorching sun. Fruit was left on the trees. With me gone they would be back to the infrequent custom of yachts. The summer had not been that good and with winter reducing these revenue-earning transients, they were facing a much leaner income.
Antoine seemed reluctant to talk about the future. They had appeared to me to manage quite well on a seasonal trade, but they feared the word would get out soon enough that this was a trouble spot.
“It could kill what little business we have.”
As for me I forced myself to bring my work to a conclusion. There was too much on my mind for a clinical and professional finish to the critiques. I knew the deadline would be missed, but I had negotiated a brief extension to my return to London. There in the shadows of my office, I could close the texts down unfazed by the distractions here. Of heart, mind and body. It seemed a bleak alternative, unless I could stay in touch with Nicole.
I was called to Calvi by the Gendarmerie Maritime with a week to go before my original return date to the U.K. Girard and his team had had time to read through Giuseppe’s notebooks. I was hoping these would clear me of suspicion in his death. If so, I needed to know whether I was no longer a suspect in the other acts of violence, and more importantly whether I would get my passport back.
I knew I would have to be on my guard at the interview, for the police were now constructing the fabric of a role for me in all these events, as a mastermind of plotting to gain some undiscovered prize from the cove. They still had me in the frame and might detain me at their pleasure for as long as they cared. Would they have some late objection, a breakthrough in the crimes that would call for them to keep me here indefinitely?
I decided to have a quiet dinner at my hotel and chose a seat on the terrace overlooking the warm lights of Calvi harbour. It remained an enchanting scene. I would be sad to leave this too. I was back in the wide world.
A man approached my table, whom I immediately realised was English.
“Jack Weston?”
“Yes.”
“I’m Robert, Nicole’s brother-in-law. Can I sit down?”
“Yes, of course. I am sorry it slipped my mind that you would be here.”
“They didn’t tell you?”
“Sorry again. I didn’t know for sure when. That must sound terrible, very remiss of me. I have become self-centred.”
“Nicole!”
“I became very close to her in the short time I was here.” I called the waiter and
ordered a bottle of rosé and a couple of glasses without thinking to ask Robert what he might want. “She’s woken from the coma. I expect they have let you know?”
“I’ve been told she’s sleeping. She’s not out of danger. Could relapse at any moment. She may be changed for ever.” Robert paused assessing the implications of Nicole’s condition, the risk to her very life. He looked defeated. “ They have asked me to wait until the morning for a visit. What do you think really happened?”
“I don’t know.”
He became at once very angry, “You must know. You were the only person there.”
“Except Antoine and Angelique down at the taverne.”
“Do you think they had something to do with it?”
“No. I can’t think why they would.”
We became involved in a very brittle exchange. I felt t
hreatened, challenged. I don’t know why I was surprised.
“I understand from the police it is a very small bay, landlocked and can’t be approached from the landside,” Robert persisted.
“By boat only. I never saw anyone come on foot, from the mountain side, I mean. Until the night of the shoot-out.”
“The what?”
“Nicole was already in hospital. A gang of smugglers made a delivery. Past the house. The gendarmes were waiting for them up at the Pisan church. There was a fire-fight.”
“What’s that got to do with Nicole?”
I took a swig of wine. Of course Robert knew very little of what had gone on. Nothing of my relationship with Nicole. He had simply answered an S.O.S. I started to explain events at the cove, but he wanted me to talk about Nicole only. Understandably.
“So what happened on the day you found her?”
“I’m sorry, I can’t explain why anyone should want to hurt her.”
“Or kill her. She wouldn’t poison herself,” Robert said testily.
“Unless she was testing one of her potions. I know she sometimes took risks, experimented on herself.”
“How did you get to know her?” Robert remained aggressive.
I paused. How could I express the quick passion that had overcome us, the riddles, the intense intimacy? It would seem a greedy lust, inspired by me rather than Nicole, not one shared in our bubble of isolation.
“I met her at a theatre. Some mutual friends. In the interval she told me a little about her house here. The idea of seeing it appealed to me. We seemed kindred spirits in being content with a quiet and isolated existence in which to do our freelance work. It suited both our projects. We had a chat later and she agreed I could come – as a paying guest this summer. The money would help with the taxe d’habitation.”
“You came for three months.”
“We were very happy.”
Robert poured himself another glass without asking me. I realised I had chosen my words unwisely.
“Happy? It sounds as if you are saying you have known her long enough to be an item.”
“We, well, we got on very well. The arrangement, the deal suited us both. I could do my work and she could carry on her studies without worrying about me. The income suited her, keeping the house.”
The waiter hovered, so we ordered entrées et plats from the menu to keep him off our backs. I didn’t even ask Robert whether he wanted to eat, but I could see he needed to go through the circumstances in depth, to clear his mind in some way, and that would take time. I wasn’t sure I could help. Now I was back ‘in civilisation‘ I felt what had occurred was part a dream, part a nightmare, unreal. Had it really happened? The cove already seemed remote, lost in the craggy coastline of western Corsica.
Robert broke the silence, “I don’t know whether to believe you. Saying you were happy. It doesn’t sound like her.”
“What do you mean?”
“You don’t know, do you?”
“Know what?”
“No you don’t. She can’t have told you. About her life in England, what it is like.”
I suddenly took stock of the position. Whatever problem or mystery Robert might be about to reveal, I knew nothing of it, and worse, she had not let it form any part of our conversations up at the house. In the end I had caved in to her resistance. It hadn’t seemed necessary. We had both escaped. Our daily conversations had floated, outside work, along on a breeze of chattering and miscellanea. The desire to indulge my senses with her had not needed heavy words. I had entered into the spirit of the riddles and enjoyed the game, as she had. After lovemaking we never felt that arrow of remorse, which can so often blunt its pleasures.
“She has a son. There is a son. Harry. He’s twelve now. Had meningitis when he was three. He has suffered from serious epilepsy ever since. Her partner left her after the second year of his illness. She has been coping with that ever since.”
I immediately thought of the thumbnail photo of the infant in her purse. Harry, before the condition had ruined his life, broken that contented smile.
“She never mentioned him. I mean she never said …”
“She wouldn’t. Though if you were becoming an item, you would have had to know soon enough.”
“We were … ,” I paused at once, because the words of definition did not come at once to mind. How to describe our relationship in ordinary terms? It wasn’t normal. It was idyllic. Outside the confines of regular life. The entrées arrived and we started to eat, neither of us I suspect really interested in the food. Throughout the meal, which we ate in desultory fashion, Robert told me more. He spoke in the past tense. He was faced with looking after Harry for the rest of his life.
“Nicole was a very special person. The tragedy of her son hovered over her every move, each day she would have to plan his care, her workload, how to maintain an income. It has been hard, even though she had help from family, caring friends and considerate services. But all that, and any money her ex-partner sent her was never enough. She has had to struggle.”
“I didn’t know anything of that, I’m afraid. She kept it all to herself.”
“The house here was her bolthole. We would look after her son, whilst she was away. It gave her time to recharge her batteries.”
“And pursue her botany, her medicines.”
“They gave her a purpose, hope. She even felt in some way – misguidedly – that she might find a cure for her son’s troubles.”
What could I say? These two worlds seemed disconnected. Nicole and I had enjoyed a passionate interlude that was at risk of being classified as indulgent, libertine. Which of course it was.
“What will you do, Robert, I mean for her son?”
“We’ll look after him. There is no one else.”
Our plats came and we nervously continued to eat, unsure as to how the tragedy could be explained, how it could be satisfied. The lights of Calvi harbour formed a glowing backdrop to our meal. The ferry from Marseille appeared round the headland and berthed, bringing a sudden bustle to the sleepy town, disgorging its mass of tourists and islanders returning home.
I was tired. I could not satisfy Robert’s questioning, and was subsumed in the revelation of her son. I tried to picture the Nicole I had come to know, intimately, with the picture being painted of her life in England. There was no common thread.
“Are you sure there is nothing you can tell me that would clear up what happened? What you may have done. I need to know.” Robert was still angry.
“I understand, but I have told the police what I know. I have been over it time and time again. Someone came and tried to poison her. Forced her to take something that has left her at death’s door. We had no enemies as far as I could tell.”
Robert looked unconvinced, but was still to be debriefed by the police. He had yet to hear their views, the accusations flying around. The suspects. Including me.
We sat in silence for some time, unsure of ourselves. Robert broke the awkward silence.
“I don’t know what to believe. What to say, or do.”
“The police will not let the investigation slip.”
“I hope not.”
“I am sure they’ll work on it, until they can resolve whether she accidentally …”
“I just know it wouldn’t be an accident,” Robert interrupted, “she was always careful. For Harry’s sake.”
“They are the experts here. They know Corsica inside out. If anyone can clear it up, it will be them.” I was trying to be positive, but didn’t have much faith in my words, and was not sure Robert did either.
“You too are seeing the police in the morning?” Robert asked of me.
“Yes.”
“Do you know what they are going to say?”
“No. They may want to keep me on the island longer. I am ‘in the frame’. There have been too many deaths at the cove.”
“One is too many.”
“Yes, of course.”
Robert paused reflectively. I felt he wanted to pursue my guilt, but couldn’t find the words.
“I have to take Nicole back by air as soon as she can be moved safely.” He didn’t say whether he expected to take a dead body or a living person.
“I understand.” But did I? No, not at all. If I was to be let go, I would be making my final packing as she was flown to England in a coffin concealed in the cargo hold of a passenger plane full of tourists.
Robert offered to pay the bill, but I declined. It was not important. I felt washed out and concerned for the police interview in the morning. In my innocence I was assuming I would be cautioned but allowed back to England, but his questioning was making me feel uncertain.
iii
Inspector Girard was in the Gendarmerie punctually at ten o’clock. I had lingered over a coffee at the restaurant opposite to ensure I would not be late. I had not seen Robert. I did not know what to expect. Girard produced my passport, but did not give it to me. “We’re not finished yet. There will need to be a report before we can let you go. That will include a final assessment on Giuseppe’s murder.”
“Am I still a suspect?”
Girard didn’t answer directly. “You gave us Giuseppe’s pocket-book, with its clues as to what happened on that case. We have made enquiries back in Marianne’s home village. How she escaped during the war, against the family’s wishes. How they considered she had broken the code of honour. Old-fashioned custom, of course. Out-of-date tradition. We should be long past vendettas now.”
“People say they died out a long ago.”
“In general, yes. But when is a long time ago? To her grandfather? If her grandfather remembers vendettas of his grandfather, we’re talking a hundred years of resentment and revenge. Her parents, the groom she avoided, the families, when should they turn their backs and forget what she did?”
I thought of Antoine’s similar exposition of lingering violence, that he and Angelique had only just escaped. Strada.
“The debt had to be repaid?”
“Giuseppe murdering her murderer …”
The Dark Side of the Sun Page 23