Wish You Were Here (31 page)

‘I'm ten, anyway, next month.'

‘Exactly. Next month you are ten. In a few years, a teenager. A young woman.'

‘And can I still come on holiday to Antibes, in September, before school, like I was going to, with you?' She turned to Étienne.

He shrugged, unable to hide his sadness. ‘If Michel –'

‘No, not if Michel,' Michel broke in. ‘I told you. Everything will remain the same, with this' – he flicked a dismissive hand at the piece of paper in Étienne's hand – ‘as if it had never happened.'

Thérèse got up. She whipped the sheet from Étienne's hand. Walked to the island and lit the gas on the stove. As the flame leaped into life, she held it within. Burned it, before the three of them.

‘DNA,' she said scathingly. ‘What is DNA to ten years of love and devotion. Ten years of unconditional love.'

A silence enveloped the four people below us; they were suspended there like characters in a play. Up in the gallery, we, too, turned to stone, hardly daring to breathe. The silence was finally broken by Agathe. Her voice, when it came, was shrill and unnatural. It had a crack in it.

‘And you will love me just the same, Papa? Even though …' She didn't make it to the end of the sentence.

‘Don't say it,' Étienne whispered fiercely, and equally brokenly, holding her close. ‘No one knows it. Except the
people in this room. And your mother. Who won't want anyone to know. So don't say it.'

She nodded, and they clung on to each other tightly. Agathe had both arms around his neck, hiding her head in his shoulder.

Upstairs, I glanced at the girls and saw them both blink away tears. My own eyes were full, too. We silently got to our feet in the shadows, feeling horribly like interlopers now. Quickly, we slid back along the wall, swallowing a bit, and, like spirits, disappeared out of sight, back down the corridor, fleet of foot, to our rooms.

The girls crept into mine and sat on the bed, which was empty. We could hear their father showering in the bathroom.

‘Wow,' said Amelia.

‘What a bombshell,' agreed Tara. ‘So Agathe is Michel's, is that it? Did I get that right, Mum? They were speaking so fast.'

‘You did. And she is. But we keep it to ourselves, OK?'

‘Definitely. We shouldn't have heard it at all. Bloody hell, though. Who would have thought?'

Well, I had thought. In what I imagined was a mad moment. And I wondered how many more people might have done, or would continue to do so, over the years.

‘So Camille shagged her brother-in-law,' said Amelia. ‘How weird is that?'

‘Or magnanimous,' I told her. ‘Depending on how you look at it.'

Amelia gave me an arch look. ‘Crap. I bet she loved it. She's like that, I can tell. And Michel is very good-looking.'

‘They're
both amoral,' Tara said. ‘Similar types. Thérèse is the only decent one in that family.'

‘Except Michel was generous to the husband, just now,' I reminded her. ‘About seeing Agathe.'

‘Oh, yeah. I meant sex-wise, that's all. I agree, he was good about Agathe.'

‘I want one of those,' said Amelia wistfully, hugging her knees to her chest and gazing into space.

‘What, a child?' I said, alarmed.

‘No, a Johnny Depp lookalike with a six-pack and a heart of gold.' She shivered, her eyes on fire. ‘Wasn't he amazing? All heart and soul and stunning good looks.'

At that moment, Toby blundered through the door, which was ajar. He was in his boxer shorts with a minuscule T-shirt which bore the legend ‘Keep Calm and Marry Harry' stretched taut across his chest. Unshaven, as he had been for days, he reeked of stale bed. He scratched his balls.

‘Oh, man, what time is it? Why are we all, like, awake?'

Amelia looked him up and down. Her lips pursed. She looked older, suddenly. ‘Toby. Why the fuck have you got my T-shirt on?'

Toby glanced down in surprise. ‘Needed a slash. Down the corridor. It was all I could find.'

‘Well, take it off!' Amelia leaped off the bed.

Toby saw something in her eyes and, in panic, started to wrestle his huge, hairy torso out of the tiny T-shirt. Quite a lot of tummy protruded over his shorts.

‘Not here, you fool!'

She turned him around and hustled him back to their room, but the T-shirt was stuck over his head so he couldn't see. He walked straight into our door.

‘Ooof!
Ow!
' he roared plaintively, doubling up in pain.

Totally without sympathy, Amelia continued to steer him on. Before her own door shut, we heard her mutter darkly, ‘Shut up, Toby. You'll live.'

I sat there a moment with Tara. We pulled the sheet up over our knees.

‘Do you really think Michel's amoral?' I asked her.

‘God, yes. He's the biggest flirt ever. A pest, actually. You certainly wouldn't want to be on your own with him. Apparently, he made a move on one of Camille's opera buddies when she came to stay, followed her down to the pool on her own.'

‘How d'you know?'

She flushed. ‘We found a letter on Camille's bed, complaining about him. It was recent. This summer.'

‘Right.'

‘Why?'

‘Oh, nothing. Just wondered.'

She laughed and got off the bed. ‘Still wondering if he was after you in the vineyard, Mum?' She regarded me kindly. ‘It was from Atalanta Guggenheim, the American soprano? Legs up to her armpits? Face of an angel?'

‘Oh. Right.'

She seized a dress from a chair in the corner. ‘Is this mine?' she asked incredulously.

‘Might be. I was trying it on.'

‘It's way too small for you.'

‘It's Lycra, Tara.'

‘Yes, but that doesn't mean it's elastic! I hope you haven't stretched it.' She gave me an outraged look and flounced out.

James
came in from the bathroom, toothbrush in his mouth. ‘What was that all about?'

‘I borrowed a dress of Tara's.'

‘No, the rumpus downstairs.'

‘Oh. That.'

I hesitated. He had been so smitten so very recently. I wasn't sure he was ready for the object of his desire to be quite so tarnished.

‘Camille's husband's here. Raising merry hell about how little he sees of Agathe.'

‘Ah.' He nodded. ‘Well, she's a very devoted mother, of course. Likes her daughter with her as much as possible.'

I nodded. ‘Right.'

James turned and wandered back to the bathroom, still brushing his teeth.

I smiled to myself in the empty room.

The Murray-Brown family sailed for Portsmouth five days later. Our bodies were rested and tanned – and possibly a little plumper, having supped copiously at the land of milk and honey and done little more than flop by the pool – and our hair was a shade or two lighter but, most of all, our minds were made up. In particular, James's. There'd been a bit of a sea change. A bit of a Damascene moment, two days after Étienne had appeared. He'd stayed, Étienne – after all, it was his house, too: the divorce had yet to be finalized and Camille wasn't there – only for a few nights, and in the lodge with Agathe, not in the chateau, but he'd stayed. And God he was nice. He did little more than introduce himself that first evening, strolling slightly self-consciously on to the terrace, ruffling his hair and saying he couldn't really be next door and not say hello, and also did we mind if he used the pool? We'd all got to our feet in a flurry, lolling as we had been in chairs, saying, ‘Of
course
we don't mind,' and golly, it was far more his pool than ours. Then we'd persuaded him to stay for a drink. We'd all liked him immensely, then, and the odd times we'd bumped into him in the grounds over the next few days. He was so courteous, so friendly, so
charming
. Or, at least, the female members of the party thought so, possibly because he was the best-looking man we'd ever seen. I'd had to kick Tara to stop her staring with her mouth open
when he'd passed us on his way to his car, and Amelia seemed to have urgent business tidying up the pool house when he took his evening swim.

The men couldn't really see the attraction. Toby sulked, but James liked him very much, principally because he got the internet working again. It was temperamental, Michel had explained, with his lugubrious shrug one morning when Drummond had been unable to get his
Telegraph
; and he was not technical, he'd said apologetically. Neither were we. But Étienne knew precisely which provider to ring and harangue in his native tongue, and then which buttons to press. And James, who was the least web-oriented of us all, who didn't even own an iPhone, just a cheap supermarket model, seemed, strangely, the most grateful.

I crept down in the early hours one night, having woken and found the bed empty beside me, to discover him in the study, where the main computer was, staring at the screen. He cleared it quickly when he heard me come in. Stood up, shielding it.

‘What are you doing?' I peered around him.

‘Nothing.'

‘Well, of course it's not nothing. What were you looking at?'

‘I was bored. Couldn't sleep. Came down to read my emails.'

‘I don't believe you. You hate doing that on holiday.'

‘OK, I was looking at … porn.'

‘Porn? You? Don't make me laugh.'

I pushed past him and sat down.

‘What's
so funny about that?' he yelped. ‘I do have a sex drive, you know.'

‘Yes, but you hate porn. What were you looking at, James?'

I tried to see if he'd minimized anything. He had. I pulled it up.

Restaurants à vendre en Provence.

I caught my breath. Stared.

‘I was just – just looking out of curiosity,' he faltered. ‘Just window shopping. No real intent, no –'

‘And last night, too,' I breathed, ignoring him. ‘I heard you get back into bed. What have you found? Oh, what have you found, James?' I swung around to him on the chair, my eyes shining.

‘Well, no, Flora, nothing. You are not to get excited. It's just that – well, OK, this one …' He shoved me across on the chair and scrolled down with the mouse. ‘Near Seillans, right, has a view … and also a terrace …'

And there we sat, bottom to bottom, a middle-aged couple in our jim-jams, poring over a heavenly-looking stone building in an olive grove beside a river, with covers for thirty. Too remote, though, we decided, scrolling back to another he'd found, this time in the centre of a very pretty village, opposite the
hôtel de ville
, which came with a separate house. And then another, so big it was a restaurant within a house, really: beautiful, shuttered and chateau-like, again,
centre ville
; the owners had simply converted their huge hall to accommodate tables, just twenty covers. This one, we loved. It had two kitchens, one for the private family side, one for business. We sat salivating over it until
four in the morning, before dragging ourselves up to bed. We slept until noon.

‘What have you two been doing?' asked Amelia, when we finally joined them by the pool, having grabbed a coffee en route. She peered at us over her book and sunglasses as we skirted past them.

‘Just having a lie-in,' I told her.

‘Oh, gross. Too much information.' She went back to her book.

‘Better than sex, actually,' muttered James, as we lay down together on adjoining sunbeds on the opposite side of the pool. I giggled.

‘They're
giggling
,' Tara told her sister in horror.

Amelia sat up. Regarded me from across the water. ‘Don't get pregnant, will you, Mum? You told me the other day your Mirena was running out. I'm not going to have to talk to you about contraceptives, am I?'

She was showing off for the boys' benefit, to demonstrate that, unlike some families, we did pretty much talk about anything. The boys giggled, suitably bug-eyed with awe at Amelia's neck. I told her to wind it in, in no uncertain terms, but it did occur to me there were some things that would have to be talked about and, in a way, surely better done out here than at home?

The following evening, our penultimate one as it happened, we managed to corner them whilst the boys went to help Michel at the bottle bank.

‘Won't take you a mo, boys,' I'd said cheerily, engineering the whole thing. ‘And Michel will be glad of the help.'

Michel looked like he couldn't think of anything more irritating than having two grunting teenage boys along
for the ride in his pick-up, but they settled in the front seat beside him and set off in a crunch of gravel, several weeks of louche living rattling in bin liners in the back.

I grabbed a bottle of rosé from the fridge as James shepherded the girls to a quiet spot at the bottom of the garden: the round stone terrace where Rachel and I had talked. As I approached with the wine and the glasses, the girls were sitting side by side on the bench, opposite their father.

‘What's going on?' asked Amelia with wide eyes, not fooled for one minute.

I poured the wine and then we explained, between us, James doing most of the talking, for a change. About our careers. About how mine had obviously hit a sudden buffer and how Daddy's was – well, not entirely what he'd imagined it to be as an idealistic young medical student. And how, now that we'd educated them, got through the worst bit – school fees, etcetera – seen them through all of that, and now that they were young women, almost –

‘Shit. You're not splitting up, are you?' said Tara.

‘No, of
course
not. Of course not, darling.'

‘Bloody hell. Yesterday's lie-in really would have been a last hurrah if they were,' observed Amelia.

James ignored her and carried on. Said how, of course, careers didn't always live up to expectations – one had to be realistic – but how it was also important to recognize it was possible to do something about it. Take a view. Maybe make some changes, before it was too late.

‘Don't tell me. You're running away to the circus. You'll throw knives at Mum, who'll be spreadeagled in a bikini. Paul and Debbie.'

‘Shut
up,' muttered Tara, who was more intent.

‘No, we're going to be restaurateurs,' James told her.

She gaped. ‘Restaurateurs?' She had to think about it. ‘What, run a restaurant?'

‘Run and own a restaurant. Out here. In France.'

‘How?' They both blanched.

So we told them. About how we – I – had all the experience under the sun to ensure it had the right ingredients to make it a successful enterprise. About Jean-Claude, who we'd talked to last night, and who had once been one of the most celebrated chefs in Paris, and about Mum. About how we all spoke French. How it could work. Would work. How brilliant it could be.

‘What did Jean-Claude say?' asked Amelia.

‘He leaped at it.'

He had. I recalled how James and I had broached it with him, gingerly at first, but he'd caught on like a forest fire, halfway through James's semi-prepared speech: had jumped to his feet, eyes shining: ‘You mean you'd finance it? Run it? I'd just cook, be in charge of the kitchen?'

‘In total control of the kitchen, yes. We'd do the rest.'

‘Everything I hate, can't do. Loathe. The business side, the politics, the hiring –'

‘I'm good at that,' said James firmly.

‘And I know people in France. Magazine critics, contacts –' I'd told him.

‘So do I,' he'd said vehemently, turning to me. ‘
Moi aussi
. Friends, who regret now what happened. Have some shame.'

‘Exactly. Of course.'

‘But not in Paris. I can't go back yet.'

‘No,
not in Paris.'

‘But … maybe one day.' His eyes gleamed, remembering what he'd lost. What had been taken. Some unfinished business.

‘That's a long way down the track, JC,' James had told him firmly, but his eyes had gleamed a little, too, perhaps at some unfinished business of his own. His own, unfulfilled career. ‘Let's start small. Build a reputation. Here, in the south.'

‘The best reputation. I would never let you down, never. You'll see. People will come from miles.'

‘From Paris?' James had joked.

He'd turned a serious face on him. ‘Of course.
Bien sûr, mon ami
. When they know I am cooking again.' His back straightened.

I'd breathed in sharply. Golly. I looked at my mother, who'd been silent the whole time.

‘Mum? What do you think?'

I wondered if she'd seen herself more quietly: on the steps of the shabby-chic antique shop, painting chairs, mending old lace, her legs in the sun. But I was wrong: her face suddenly wreathed into smiles.

‘Of
course
, yes, darling, of course! I'm in shock, that's all. My one, my only reservation about coming here with JC was leaving you behind. We've always been within minutes of each other, but to be here with you
both.
' Her eyes sparkled, and I realized they were full of tears. ‘It's too much to hope for, at my age. All my life,' she admitted, ‘I've never dared hope too much. Then you get through, you know? If you don't expect too much. Don't think too much. Don't go deep. Have only happy thoughts. See only nice things.'

It
had always been her defence mechanism, I knew. And who was I to knock it? My mother had never been down, subject to depression or moods; she just didn't allow herself. She skated across the surface of life.

‘But what about the girls?'

‘They'll come, too,' I told her quickly. ‘That's the only condition. In the holidays. Or, if they hate it, we'll go back to England then, and you and Jean-Claude will hold the fort. But, having said that, if they're not up for it at all' – I looked around at everyone – ‘it's a deal breaker. The whole thing's off.'

Jean-Claude looked shocked, but Mum didn't. She looked very knowing.

I wished I felt half as knowing as James and I sat with our daughters now at the round mosaic table in the sunken terrace, the girls' faces not so jokey now, not so flippant. Digesting. Absorbing. Watching us closely.

‘So, basically, we'd move to France,' said Amelia flatly.

‘Yes. We'd sell Clapham, buy a place out here – you get more for your money, so it would be nice – and this would be our base. Provence.'

‘But … what about all our friends? Tara and I don't really speak French.'

‘We'd keep Granny's house. In Fulham.'

‘Oh!' Having both looked tense and worried, they brightened considerably.

‘You mean Tara and I can go there in the holidays? It'll be empty?' Already she was filling it with friends, loud music, everyone spilling out on to the pavement, smoking, drinking, neighbours banging on walls, the whole street vibrating, throwing the best parties in London, the coolest
place to be:
Are you going to Amelia's? Her parents have, like, given her this house
…

‘No, not empty, because, if you're there, Daddy and I will be, too.'

‘Oh.'

Tara looked slightly relieved, though. ‘So we can choose where we want to be?'

‘Up to a point,' said James, more sensibly. ‘The family won't be totally dictated to by you. We'd like to think a couple of weeks at Easter here in the sun, perhaps bringing friends; likewise, six weeks in the summer might be very pleasant, at the restaurant's busiest time. Grandpa might be persuaded to come, too. Whereas Christmas, we might spend in Fulham, whilst Granny and JC hold the fort.'