“Why?”
“It was way too warm. The conditions were dangerous. But George thought he could do anything. He thought he was immortal.” He shook his head dolefully. “
I
thought he was immortal.”
Phaedra suddenly felt sorry for him and put a hand on his shoulder. “We all did, Julius.”
He looked at her seriously. “I hope those boys are going to look after you.”
“I’m sure they will.”
“I don’t hold out much hope for Tom. If he manages to organize himself to wake up in time to ski, I’ll be very surprised.”
“It doesn’t really matter. David’s very reliable.”
Julius pulled a face. “None of them have George’s drive, though, do they?”
Phaedra put the key in the lock. “I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. I mean, George had something to prove. He was more complicated. David’s happy in his skin.”
“Joshua would be the one to watch; he’s making good money in the City, but he’s dominated by his greedy wife. George wasn’t weak. Tom runs a nightclub: What sort of a job is that? I don’t think he makes much at all, and he drinks too much ever to make a success of anything. What a family!”
Phaedra was shocked and withdrew her hand. “I thought you liked them.”
“It paid well to like them.” He laughed at her expression. “Don’t look so alarmed. Of course I
like
them. As families go, they’re not bad. It’s just not usual that apples fall so far from the tree, and I had enormous admiration for George.” He sighed heavily. “None of them are a patch on him.”
Phaedra pushed open the door and stepped into the hall. “Thank you for dinner, Julius. And I’m sorry I didn’t go dancing with you.”
“Next time. Call me.”
She frowned as an uneasy feeling crept over her. “Listen, Julius, you’ve been wonderful. You’ve helped me get through a really tough time; I don’t know what I would have done without you. But you can let me go now. I promise I can manage on my own.”
She winced as he put his hands on her waist and leaned across to kiss her cheek. “Don’t be silly, Phaedra. We’re in this together, you and I—and you know you
need
me. I’ll call you when you’re in Murenburg, just to make sure you’re all right.”
“Oh, I will be. I’ll be with my brothers.” It sounded absurd.
“Brothers are good only up to a point. You need a
man
.”
“I had one.”
“So you need another. Broken hearts mend, Phaedra, and life is more fun as a pair. Now go to bed and have a good night’s sleep.”
She closed the door, her heart beating frantically behind her rib cage like a frightened monkey. She could smell his cologne on her skin, and she recoiled.
Oh, George, look at the mess you’ve got me into!
* * *
A couple of days later Phaedra, David, and Tom met at Heathrow Airport to fly to Zurich. There was an air of excitement about their trip, in spite of the solemnity of the mission. The boys had small suitcases, for their ski clothes were already in Murenburg, while Phaedra had a very large and heavy one. “Are you planning on staying there until summer?” Tom quipped when he saw it.
“I know, I’m sorry; it’s ridiculously large, but my helmet takes up half of it.”
“Aunt Rosamunde will be happy to know you packed it,” said David, pulling it across the floor towards check-in.
“She’s a character, your aunt Rosamunde,” Phaedra laughed.
“Is she ever going to leave?” Tom wondered.
“She’s thrilled to be of use,” David replied. “Mum will get fed up with her in the end.”
“You know what they say about guests, that like fish they begin to smell after a few days,” said Phaedra.
“Well, Aunt Rosamunde has been there for a couple of weeks now: she must be really stinky!” said Tom.
“Oh really, Tom, that’s very unfair.” Phaedra smacked him playfully on the wrist. “Why has she never married, do you think?”
“Bad timing, bad choices,” David began.
“If you were a man, would you want to marry her?” asked Tom.
“She might have been pretty as a young woman,” Phaedra mused.
“She’s never been pretty, and she’s always been keener on horses than men.”
“Ah well, there’s the flaw,” Phaedra said.
Tom snorted with laughter. “No man can compete with a horse!”
They reached the front of the queue, and David lifted Phaedra’s suitcase onto the conveyor belt. “Passports,” he said, holding out his hand. “I can see I’m going to have to organize the two of you,” he added, watching Phaedra delve into her handbag and Tom reach into every pocket. At last Tom found his in the back of his jeans and Phaedra fished hers out from the clutter.
“You have a British passport?” he asked when he saw Phaedra’s.
“Yes, I’m a British citizen,” she replied proudly.
“How come?”
“Well, you might as well know: I was married to a Brit.”
Tom and David stared at her. “You were married?” David exclaimed.
“You’re a hot divorcée,” said Tom with a smirk.
“Will you behave, Tom—and do hand them over, David. The poor lady has been waiting patiently, and there’s a queue behind us.”
David gave the Swissair attendant the passports then turned back to Phaedra. “Was he the one who broke your heart?” he asked quietly.
“Now isn’t the time or place to discuss my ex-husband,” she replied, and an invisible but tangible gate closed out her past.
“Your bag is like the
TARDIS
,” said Tom, peering inside.
“It’s like a bucket,” she replied. The attendant handed the passports back to David, and while Phaedra was talking to Tom about her handbag, he stole a peek at her photograph. It was a good
representation. His eyes wandered to the right, where her birthday shot out at him like a bullet. February 9, 1984. He stared at it in astonishment. If she was thirty-one, as she claimed, she would have been born in 1981. This meant she was really twenty-eight, a year younger than him.
“Hey, you’re not looking at my photograph, are you?” she laughed, grabbing it out of his hand.
“You look exactly the same,” he replied, covering his confusion with nonchalance.
“Let me see,” said Tom.
“No.” She dropped it into her bag. “It’s a horrible photograph. Now, I need a cup of coffee. Shall we go through and find a nice café on the other side?”
The three of them walked through the airport. David felt uneasy. If Phaedra was a year younger than him, then her mother must have been sleeping with his father during his marriage to Antoinette, which would mean that his father had been unfaithful right at the very start of his marriage. Had Phaedra lied to protect him? Had she lied to protect
them
? He took a deep breath and tried to brush it off: after all, it had all happened twenty-eight years ago, and his parents had been very happy since. He considered his mother and how devastated she’d be if she knew the truth. He resolved to try to forget it.
14
C
halet Marmot was as picturesque as a traditional Swiss chalet could possibly be. It was built high up on the meadows above the village, its wide balconies surveying the magnificent Gotchna Mountain opposite and the Prättigau Valley gently falling away to the right. The chalet had a pretty snow-capped roof, wooden walls darkened to a rich brown, and red shutters into which large hearts had been skillfully carved.
It was four in the afternoon when they arrived. The sky was a deep, startling blue, and the sunlight was dazzling, causing the snow crystals to glitter like pavé diamonds. David carried the bags inside while Tom paced up and down outside with his iPhone clamped to his ear and a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. Phaedra stepped into the hall and inhaled the reassuring smell of pine. She swept her eyes over the interior, her delight growing as she walked on through into the sitting room, where a traditional Swiss fireplace dominated the far wall, already prepared with a neat pile of logs. The walls and ceilings were paneled in antique pine stripped from Prättigau farmhouses two or three hundred years old, and carved in the Swiss tradition with flowers and italic inscriptions. Impressionist paintings hung alongside old masters, and the sofas were big and inviting and scattered with cushions. Outside it was white and snowy, but inside the wood paneling and enormous red Persian rug gave it a cozy feel.
“Your mother has extremely good taste,” she said, wandering through an archway into the dining room. “She has a good eye for fabrics. Blues and reds look really good in the mountains.”
“I don’t know.” David shrugged. “It’s certainly comfortable.”
“She should have been an interior decorator. She has such style.”
He followed her into the dining room, where old pewter beer mugs were lined across the windowsills, and pine walls and beams gave the room the feel of a traditional farmhouse. “Maybe she would have been, had she not married my father,” he said.
“She’s still young.”
“Hard to start something new at her age,” David argued.
“Perhaps she’ll give Fairfield an overhaul.”
“Dad never let her touch a thing, except the bedrooms.”
“You know, it could do with the odd lick of paint here and there. Now George isn’t around to stop her . . .”
“I agree with you. A house should be a home. But I think she’s too aware of the heritage to mess around with it. And my grandmother is still ever-present to keep a beady eye on what goes on in there.”
“I think she should do as she pleases. She’s spent the last thirty years of her life pleasing other people. Don’t you think it’s time she pleased herself? Perhaps she should travel.”
“She’d never go on her own, and Aunt Rosamunde would drive her mad pretty quickly.”
“She needs to get out of the house and out of her head. When we’re in familiar surroundings, we dwell in our minds, with all those rubbishy thoughts we don’t really need. When we go abroad, we live in our senses, taking in all the new and wonderful sights, smells, and sounds. We rise above the useless prattle of our thoughts and fully exist in the present, like I’m doing now. I’m taking in these marvelous new sights, and I feel so uplifted.” She grinned diffidently, aware of sounding quaint. “It was such a good idea of yours to come out. I feel better already.”
It was clear from David’s affectionate gaze that he didn’t think her at all quaint. “So do I,” he agreed. “But then the very sight of you is enough to make me feel uplifted!” She turned away, embarrassed. His flirtatious comment had taken her by surprise. He laughed it off, as it had taken him by surprise, too, and he was regretting having said it. “Come, let me show you where you’re going to sleep.”
If the downstairs had delighted her, the upstairs would please her
even more. Her bedroom was decorated entirely in battened blue toile de Jouy with a bed so high she’d have to climb to get into it. She walked over to the window and gazed down into the valley. No wonder George had loved Murenburg so much; it had the charm of an Advent calendar.
The boys didn’t give Phaedra time to unpack. They were keen for her to hire skis and boots so that they could set off early the following morning. They drove down to the village in George’s Jeep and parked opposite the Co-op to buy supplies. Phaedra relished the thought of cooking in that beautiful chalet, but David and Tom both insisted that they’d be going out every night for dinner at the Wynegg and Chesa Grischuna.
She hired an impressive pair of Core skis at Gotschna Sport, and David made sure she got a bleeper for skiing off piste. The staff offered their sincere condolences. George had been a much loved and ubiquitous figure in Murenburg. Ever since his death the village residents had talked of little else and mourned him as one of their own.
David secured her skis onto the roof rack, and they drove slowly through the village, pointing out the sights and waving at the locals, who recognized the car and greeted them enthusiastically.
Phaedra was enchanted. Murenburg had the air of a lost age of elegance and the charm of a box of Lindt chocolates. Two Bernese mountain dogs enthusiastically greeted their fur-coated mistress as she emerged from the gift shop; a pair of horses harnessed to a sleigh outside the Alpina Hotel set their bells ringing every time they tossed their heads; and the driver, in his traditional blue embroidered smock, smoked a pipe, cheerily chatting to passersby as they stopped to stroke the animals. Opposite, on the station platform, a weather-beaten local in a beret sold hot chestnuts behind a stand as he had for the past forty years, his voice resounding across the street as he cried:
“Heisse maroni, heisse maroni.”
The primrose-colored Hotel Vereina gleamed in the sunshine with palatial grandeur, while the more discreet Chesa, a little farther down the street, exuded an old-world allure.
Tom pointed out the only nightclub, the Casa Antica, then elaborated with a few stories of his adventures there. David drew up
outside the bread shop, where only a few remaining plaited loaves lingered on the shelves. Phaedra accompanied him inside and listened as he chatted good-naturedly in broken Swiss-German to the old lady behind the counter. “I’m afraid I’m not a linguist,” he said to Phaedra as the shopkeeper lifted a loaf with a pair of tongs and dropped it into a paper bag.
“You did well, from what I heard,” she replied.
“What you heard is about all I can say.”
“The whole point of speaking another language is to communicate, isn’t it? In which case you achieved your aim.”
“Tom speaks far better than me. He spent a year working here after he left school.” David looked out of the window to see his brother striding around the car talking on his iPhone. “Languages come easily to Tom.”
“I suspect he’s one of those gifted people who is rather lazy. Am I right?”
David laughed. “Got it in one. He could turn his hand to anything he wants, but he chooses to run a nightclub.”
“Nothing wrong with that, so long as he’s happy.”
“I’m not sure that he is.” David frowned. “He’s an avoider . . .”
The old lady put out her hand, and David delved into his pocket of loose change to pay her. Phaedra watched Tom as he guffawed into his telephone and wondered whether he had really mourned his father’s death, or whether, as David suggested, he had simply pushed the pain to one side. She realized that while this trip was important for her and David, it was
very
important for Tom.