by Rachel Rhys
The door on the opposite side of the hall is closed.
‘That is my room,’ says Mrs Finch. ‘I can show you, if you’d like—’
‘Oh, no need,’ says Eve quickly. The housekeeper is kind and jolly, but there is a certain absence of boundaries in the way she speaks and acts that Eve is finding hard to get used to.
On the way back through the house, she notices a plain doorway in the darkness behind the staircase. ‘Cellar,’ calls Mrs Finch, following her gaze, and Eve feels a rush of embarrassment, as if she has been caught making an inventory of the house.
They enter the sitting room, which opens out on to the terrace at the front and also on to the side, where the cool green swimming pool shimmers where the ripples catch the light. In the daylight, Eve can see how the far end of the pool appears to be built into the rocks themselves.
‘The pool was horribly damaged during the war,’ says Mrs Finch. ‘Great cracks as big as your arm. Mrs Lester wanted to re-tile it in bright blue, but Mr Lester would not hear of it.’
‘I think it is quite lovely as it is,’ says Eve.
‘Quite right,’ says Mrs Finch, beaming. ‘Now, tea, I think.’
Before Eve can protest that it’s not necessary, Bernard steps in.
‘That would be delightful,’ he says.
Once Mrs Finch is out of the room, he turns to her.
‘This must all seem very strange to you, Mrs Forrester. Like a dream, perhaps?’
Trying to compose herself, Eve wanders to the back of the room, where a photograph in a silver frame sits on a low table. On closer examination, she sees it is a formal posed black and white wedding photograph of a startlingly young Diana, looking like a film star in a long white lace dress, her throat looped with a slender string of pearls and her hand tucked into the arm of a handsome, broad-shouldered man with hair already starting to go grey around the temples. He has a strong nose, and the expansive smile of someone used to getting what he wants, but his eyes, crinkled around the edges with a fan of laughter lines, seem kind.
Guy Lester. Eve peers closely at his face, looking for something, anything, familiar. Waiting for it to jump out from the picture to say, ‘Here. Here is your mystery solved.’
Now there comes a noise from the top of the house. A door closing. Footsteps on the stairs. Voices. A woman’s, then a man’s. Now another man’s. ‘Completely insupportable,’ this last voice says.
Nerves drive Eve up from the armchair in which she has been sitting. Dry-mouthed, she positions herself with her back to the room, looking out of the side doors towards the pool, trying to absorb some of its cool serenity.
‘Monsieur Gaillard. It’s as well you have such a nice face, or I should be growing quite fed up of seeing it so often.’
Eve turns slowly when she hears that cut-glass voice, unable to put off the confrontation any longer. Diana Lester is framed in the doorway, wearing a pair of dark blue wide-legged trousers and a blue and white striped top with blue wedge shoes. Her silky hair is held back from her face by a pair of large-lensed black sunglasses resting on the top of her head.
‘I have brought company, as you see. When Duncan and Noel heard about the contents of their father’s will, they were keen to come here and meet Mrs Forrester for themselves, as you can imagine.’
And now Eve sees coming behind her the tall figures of two men. Two familiar men.
‘Mrs Forrester, allow me to introduce you.’ Bernard is courteous as always, but there is a new formality about him.
‘You met Mrs Lester yesterday, I believe. And these two gentlemen are Noel and Duncan Lester, Guy Lester’s sons from his first marriage.’
Duncan Lester nods at her without a smile or a trace of recognition.
Noel Lester fixes her with eyes that seem greener even than the swimming pool outside. But there is no hint of the amusement that so vexed her the last time she saw them, through the train window.
‘To think I was worried about you stranded on the platform at Cannes all alone,’ he says from behind his stepmother’s narrow shoulders. ‘Such a relief to see you are quite capable of looking out for yourself.’
6
COULD EVER THE swallowing of tea have sounded quite so loud?
Eve is sure her cheeks must be flaming. Still the silence stretches on, broken only by the clinking of a china cup on a saucer. Finally Diana Lester speaks.
‘Perhaps you could enlighten us, Mrs Forrester, as to your relationship with my husband.’
Shock closes up Eve’s throat. ‘There was no relationship,’ she splutters.
Bernard intervenes. ‘Mrs Forrester never met Mr Lester,’ he says. ‘Before her visit to my English colleague Mr Wilkes last week, she had never even heard his name.’
‘Do you think we are idiots?’
Duncan leans forward in his chair with his hands on his knees. Next to his brother’s emphatic features, his soft, pallid face appears curiously weak, as if its development was arrested before it could be fully realized, so that when he is angry, as now, he resembles a child unable to master his own feelings.
‘Are we expected to believe Guy left you a share of this house on some charitable whim? Let me tell you something, Mrs Forrester. It is a fact of life that men do not leave houses to younger women they don’t know. So please cut out the innocent act.’
Bernard gets to his feet.
‘Mr Lester, I understand you are grieving, but I must ask you not to be so—’
‘Don’t pretend you are taken in for one minute by this ruse, Monsieur Le Notaire. All right, this sort of thing happens in France and no one turns a hair, but Englishmen take a different view.’
Eve’s face burns. They all assume there was some liaison between her and Guy Lester. And that his bequest to her is payment for it. Frustration at the unfairness of it prickles in her chest, the early warning sign of an old childhood rage she had thought long-since conquered. She takes a deep breath. She cannot lose her temper here in this beautiful house, with all these strangers. She cannot.
‘There was no relationship,’ she repeats. ‘I am a happily married woman. I never met Mr Lester. I have no idea why he included me in his will. I can only guess there is some family connection and when I get home to England you can be sure I will be making enquiries.’
She stops, flustered. She has on the silk blouse from yesterday and is conscious of how it sticks to her skin.
Everything about her is wrong. Next to Diana Lester’s louche elegance, her own clothes seem frumpy. The Lester sons are probably outraged at their father’s lapse in taste, she thinks, painfully aware of the gulf between her slight, flat-chested frame and their stepmother’s imposing figure.
‘I suppose it’s not a bad pay-off,’ says Duncan. ‘For whatever this connection will turn out to be. Sign a few papers, pick up a nice fat wodge of cash and scuttle back to your nice suburban English life. Let me guess. Pinner? St Albans?’
‘Sutton, actually.’
He lets out a bark of laughter and sits back with a smile, as if vindicated.
‘What if we don’t accept the will?’ Diana asks Bernard. ‘I presume we could contest it?’
The notary looks uncomfortable.
‘Of course that option is available to you, Mrs Lester. In order for there to be a delivery of legacy, all the beneficiaries must sign the notarial act, and if they refuse the matter will have to go before a judge. But I should tell you, such a procedure could take years, during which time you will not be able to sell the house, nor receive money from it. I should also point out, respectfully, that Mr Lester was in perfectly sound mind when he made the will, so any challenge is unlikely to succeed.’
Duncan, who has been sitting to attention since the suggestion of a legal challenge was mooted, now flings himself back in his seat in disgust.
‘Bravo, Mrs Forrester. Looks like you have us over a barrel.’
Bernard clears his throat. ‘But you have not seen the outside in daylight,’ he says, turning to Eve.
‘Perhaps you would like to have a look at the terrace while I discuss some business matters with the family?’
She gets to her feet, grateful for his delicacy.
‘Do take care,’ says Diana as Eve prepares to open the French doors. ‘It can get very blowy out there, and you’re such a little scrap of a thing. We wouldn’t want a gust of wind to take you away.’
Outside Eve leans against the wrought-iron balustrade and takes in great gulps of sea air.
They hate her. Of course they do.
She will cut short her stay and leave. That is the sensible thing. Then she remembers Mr Wilkes had told them Friday was the earliest he could reserve a ticket.
So she won’t leave right away, but she will go back to her hotel and remain there for the rest of her stay. She will tell the Lesters they can keep their blasted house and that will be the end of it.
The decision calms her enough for her to begin to take notice of her surroundings. She is standing on the narrow terrace that runs between the house and the sea. Directly below her is the jetty, from which a ladder leads down into the water. A small red and blue painted rowing boat, roped to a post, bobs gently alongside.
Did Diana and Guy sit out here, Eve wonders, on this beautifully weathered terrace with all its exotic plants? Did they linger on summer evenings, sitting at the table under the spreading eucalyptus tree, with the lanterns hanging from the branches overhead forming their own mini galaxy?
A gull screeches somewhere out at sea, and Eve turns to watch it soaring. The cloud is breaking up and sunlight pools on the surface of the water.
‘Not a bad view, is it?’
Noel is leaning against the balustrade a few feet away, lighting a cigarette.
Even from that distance, she is conscious of his physical presence, the broad shoulders, the V-shape of his back.
Her mind goes blank. She cannot think how to reply to his question. If she agrees, might she not be walking into some sort of trap whereby she will be somehow thought to be already totting up the value of her inheritance? But how impossible to shrug and pretend it is all the same to her.
‘That bit of land out there is the tip of the cap.’ He is pointing ahead and to the right where, in the distance, rocks and pines are met by the sea. ‘And in that direction’ – he gestures vaguely behind his left shoulder – ‘is the old town of Antibes and then Nice, and way over there across the bay is Cap Ferrat.’
Eve nods, guarded.
‘Look, I apologize for my brother. He isn’t normally so rude. Our father’s death has hit him very hard.’
Noel’s voice is gruff and uneven, as if the apology is being dragged from him against his will.
Really, Eve thinks hotly. Why bother?
But some response is called for.
‘I really am sorry for your loss. However, you must believe I never knew your father. This whole business with the house has been as much of a shock to me as to you.’
She risks a glance at Noel and meets with the eyes that throw her quite off balance, so she instantly looks away again.
‘In which case I apologize again. Although it is a natural assumption. Guy, my father, had a weakness for women.’
Her cheeks are aflame once again, and Eve turns away from him, positioning her back to the sea. The house rises up in front of her and she sees now that the paint on the shutters is faded and peeling in places and one of the terrace railings is broken.
‘A house directly on the seafront needs a lot of looking after,’ says Noel, following the direction of her gaze. ‘All that wind and salt takes its toll. Diana wouldn’t let Guy spend anything on this place. Diverted it all into the new house, which is altogether a grander affair.’
Eve assesses the house, trying to see it critically, as the second Mrs Lester must have done, but where there should be objectivity she finds only feeling. There is something about Villa La Perle that causes a quickening in her blood, a warm press against her heart.
‘I imagine you will be returning to England now. Sending your husband back to make the arrangements for the sale.’
This is the time to tell him that she has no intention of accepting this absurd gift. Yet Eve remains silent, that word ‘husband’ like a toothpick against her skin. She thinks of the master bedroom upstairs. The vast empty bed and the windows thrown open so the only view is the sky and the sea stretching away towards Africa. Then she thinks of her room at home, of Clifford. What if this is her one chance to be somewhere as beautiful as this, her one chance to find out why she is here?
They go back into the house. Duncan and Diana are sitting close together, talking in low voices that stop abruptly when they spot Eve in the doorway. Now that Eve has had a chance to see Duncan in the context of his brother, the family resemblance is clear, but it is as if Duncan is the preliminary sketch, and Noel the complete painting. There is a moment’s awkward silence, which is broken when Bernard comes back into the room.
‘Ah, here you are. I am sure you are ready to go back to your hotel now, Mrs Forrester. It is a lot to take in.’
Eve nods.
‘But then I should like to come back,’ she says, surprising everyone, none more so than herself.
‘I still have two days remaining before my train leaves on Friday evening. In his will, Mr Lester said he hoped I would get to know the house. So, if it’s all the same to you, I should like to spend the rest of my stay here.’
7
EVE HAS ALWAYS been wilful, according to her mother. Pliant to a point, happy to please as long as it doesn’t put her out, but stubborn thereafter, determined that her way is the only way. Liable to be impetuous, to act without thinking things through.
‘Eve pleases herself,’ her mother is wont to say. As if pleasing oneself is something shameful.
Sitting alone on the edge of the bed in the green guest room on the top floor of the villa, gazing through the window towards an unsettled sea, Eve regrets where her impetuousness has brought her.
It had seemed so easy to be brave this morning, spurred on by a combination of Noel Lester’s arrogance and the intoxicating pull of the house itself. And for a few wild moments, it had been worth it. To see how Noel Lester set his jaw so tight a muscle pulsed in the side of his cheek, and how Diana looked at her more closely, as if seeing her for the first time.
But now she is not so sure.
When she arrived back here less than an hour ago, she resisted any suggestion that she stay in the master bedroom, so recently used by Guy and Diana Lester that the vast white bed might still bear the imprint of their bodies.
‘The green room, I think, in that case,’ Mrs Finch decided. ‘What fun it will be to have female company in the house again.’
Eve was touched by the housekeeper’s childish pleasure, though she couldn’t help feel a twinge of discomfort at how much effort Mrs Finch was making to be agreeable. She wished the woman might just relax a little. But then she was probably just trying to make up for the Lester family’s lack of agreeability.
Eve cannot believe the speed at which events have unfolded. It was only this morning that she stepped through the front door of Villa La Perle for the first time. And now here she sits, having already unpacked her paltry things. Afraid to explore the house for fear of encountering Mrs Finch or the mysterious Stanley Sullivan. Worrying that she has overstepped the mark by coming here in such indecent haste, appearing every bit the avaricious gold-digger they all assume her to be.
She opens her door and stands tentatively at the top of the staircase, listening for sounds. If she peers over the middle, she can see the smooth rail curving down to the hallway below.
The house is silent, so she creeps down the stairs, throwing an apprehensive look at the closed door to Sullivan’s room. Only now does it occur to her there might be something inappropriate about staying here in this house with this strange man.
At the bottom of the stairs, she hesitates on the threshold of the living room, trying to picture herself going in
side and making herself comfortable on one of the plush sofas. Earlier, she had noticed a bookcase up in the master bedroom. She could bring a book down from there and kick off her shoes and curl up to read. Yet something stops her. Fear of making herself too much at home.
Instead she makes her way out on to the terrace. The day has brightened since the morning, but there is a fresh breeze that ripples the surface of the sea. Her hair is whipped around her face, the dark strands already stiff with salt, like iron bars blocking her vision. She strolls around to the swimming pool deck, which is shielded from the wind. As soon as she rounds the corner, the breeze drops and when she emerges from the shadow of the house the temperature rises. She raises her face to the sun, feeling her skin slowly waking up as if from a long sleep.
The powerful scent of jasmine wafts from a bush at the far end of the terrace. Eve wanders towards it, removing her cardigan and flinging it on to one of the wooden steamers that face the pool.
‘I appear to have something on my head.’
It is possibly the deepest voice Eve has ever heard, and its unusual timbre and the fact that it appears to be coming from nowhere cause her to exclaim loudly.
She turn around, and then immediately turns away again when she sees a man on the lounging chair. Naked save for her dusky pink cardigan over his head.
‘It’s OK, you can look now. I’ve made myself decent.’
She turns cautiously. He has taken the cardigan off his head and laid it across his lap, and is scrutinizing her with unabashed curiosity.
The blood is pounding around so violently inside her that she sees him only in snatches, like a series of snapshots. A barrel chest and belly covered in whorls of dark hair. A smooth, gleaming brown head, either bald or the hair cut so short as to be hardly there at all. A pair of intense blue eyes set into a face the colour and texture of old tan leather shoes. A close-cut beard, half black, half silver.
