by Jane Holland
But I don’t escape so lightly.
‘Caitlin? Where is Caitlin?’
Aunt Tamsin beckons me forward, weeping and incoherent behind her white veil, insisting that I join the queue of those waiting to sprinkle the coffin with holy water.
A bright-eyed woman in a dark headscarf nods at me to take her place. ‘S’il-vous-plaît, mademoiselle.’
Feeling a little weepy myself now, I follow the lead of the old man ahead of me, shuffling past the casket with my head bowed, pausing only to brush the side with the tip of my fingers.
Oddly enough, this small gesture brings me immense comfort, and I file back towards my seat with a less heavy heart. My concerns over how my cousin died remain uppermost in my mind. But her funeral is hardly the place to air them.
After more prayers in French, my cousin’s coffin is lowered into the ground in a shared plot that already contains other caskets. Tamsin throws back her veil and sinks to her knees beside the grave, crying out, ‘Emily, my darling, darling girl.’
I step hurriedly forward to help Tamsin back to her feet, to comfort her if I can.
But Lucille is there ahead of everyone, her arm around her mistress’s waist. She shakes her head at me, eyes flashing as though to say, ‘Leave her to me.’
Beside them, the heap of flowers begins to grow as each mourner leaves their offering to the dead.
Having laid my own floral tribute beside the grave, its message simply, ‘With deepest sorrow, Caitlin and Uncle Gerald,’ I turn aside from my aunt and Lucille.
Exhausted by the crushing heat, I’m finding it hard to respond with a smile to the looks of sympathy being constantly cast in my direction. I was never that close to Emily. Indeed, I am a little suspicious that my cousin did not really like me. Or not the way she liked Robin, at least.
Perhaps I could find some shade …
Suddenly, glancing about for somewhere cool to stand, I catch a brief movement behind a line of tall cypress trees at the edge of the cemetery.
I stare, convinced that it was Robin I had seen, in black jeans and jacket, ducking out of sight behind the dark spike of a cypress.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I wonder at first if I have imagined seeing Robin. It seems such strange behaviour. But perhaps, knowing he would not be welcome at the funeral, he intends to pay his respects to Emily in private once we have all gone.
Or else he is trying to signal me, wishing to speak to me away from the other mourners.
I wander round that way a little later, picking my way casually between rows of graves. But there is nobody there. Only white marble headstones baking in the heat, and the lonely chi-chi-chi of cicadas. Shortly afterwards, we are shepherded back towards the fleet of limousines at the cemetery gates, waiting to take the chief mourners back to the chateau.
Tamsin has left by the time I return to the entrance, most of the assembled press decamping in her wake. The heat is sticky now, unpleasantly so. My forehead is damp, my feet aching. Waiting in line for my ride, I glance back over my shoulder.
There’s no sign of Robin.
No sign of anyone.
Maybe I imagined seeing him. Maybe I wanted so much to see him that my brain manufactured that sighting, or misinterpreted what it saw. It could have been lurking anyone behind the cypress trees. Someone visiting another grave, for instance, who quite rightly did not wish to intrude on our grief by coming too close.
The formalities over, I turn on my phone again and text my father.
The funeral is done.
I hesitate, feeling I should add something. The message seems so sparse. Yet what else is there to say?
It was a lovely service.
Empty words, of course. My father may be a vicar, but he’s a pragmatic man too and neither of us cares much about such things. ‘Funerals are for the living,’ he has often said, ‘not the dead.’ For him, it’s always been about hope and the future. Not looking back to what has been. All the same, I send the text message with some sense that I’ve fulfilled my duty as the only representative of our side of the family. I sat through the prayers, I saw my cousin interred, and now I have reported home.
The mourners are noticeably more cheerful now. They chat quietly as they queue in the sunshine for a limousine or head back in twos and threes to their own parked cars.
I wonder what Emily would have thought of this muted circus. Would she would have come to my funeral, if our situations had been reversed and I was the one who had drowned in some mysterious night swimming incident? It’s hard to imagine her shedding many tears over my coffin. She was always so self-assured.
Though I doubt I would ever go swimming in the Atlantic at night, especially not off the rugged Cornish coast. It would be too bloody cold, for a start.
A young man with bent head wanders past me, then stops, does a double-take. He backs up, then holds out his hand. He’s very good-looking, fit build, early twenties, with a hand that easily envelops mine as I take it.
‘Mademoiselle Caitlin.’
I hesitate. I don’t know him at all. ‘Yes?’
‘I’m Jacques,’ he says in French, and releases my hand. His smile is charming, but there is something missing from it. Real warmth, perhaps? ‘I tend your aunt’s garden. And look after the Rolls Royce for her. And mend a few things about the house sometimes, you know.’
I raise my eyebrows.
So this is the mythical Jacques-of-all-trades. What did Aunt Tamsin say about him?
Cheap but efficient.
Jacques has a tanned chest and broad, muscular shoulders under the open-necked black shirt he’s wearing. Oh yes, definitely the efficient sort.
‘Please accept my condolences, mademoiselle,’ he says, his voice husky and respectful. ‘I did not know your cousin very well, but … A sad loss.’
I smile and shake his hand again.
Jacques is lying, I’m sure of it. But about what? Either that Emily’s death is a sad loss or that he did not know her very well. And in fact he’s precisely the sort of young man Emily would have taken to her bed. I may not have been in touch with the family for years, but some things never change. Besides, I’m as capable as anyone else of keeping up with online celebrity gossip, especially where my aunt and her daughter are concerned.
Somehow I end up in a limo with two aging male actors, one French, one British, both of whom are too polite to admit they haven’t the faintest idea who I am.
The other occupant of the limousine is an attractive man in his late thirties, well-built in a sombre executive suit, his hair already sprinkled with a few silver hairs. After nodding briskly at the other two men, whom he already appears to know, he reaches across to shake my hand, introducing himself in swift, machine-gun French as, ‘Pierre.’
‘I was a good friend of Emily’s,’ Pierre tells me as the limousine draws away. He turns to stare back at the cemetery gates, his face haggard. From the strained look in his eyes, he is not faking his grief. ‘A very good friend.’
The slight emphasis he puts on ‘very’ makes the other two men glance round at him, and then look away. But it’s obvious what they’re thinking.
He turns back at last and studies me instead, his expression mournful. ‘How about you? Did you know her well?’
‘We are … were cousins,’ I say, stumbling stupidly over the past tense.
‘Emily’s cousin? Yes, she did mention an English cousin.’ His eyes narrow on my face. ‘You came to stay with her once.’
‘Yes.’
‘She had fond memories of that visit, I think.’ He smiles and shakes my hand. ‘Good to meet you, Mademoiselle ...?’
‘Caitlin.’
‘Caitlin.’ His smile deepens. ‘A lovely name.’
I do not know what to say, so merely smile and sit back. He continues to study me, much to my embarrassment, but also lapses into silence.
She had fond memories of that visit.
I find that hard to believe, given her conspicuous lack of contact with me
over the years. But maybe like me she remembered that summer with nostalgia as she grew older, as a less complicated time.
A time of innocence.
I can readily believe that. It seems as though Emily’s life had become very complicated indeed by the time she died.
The journey back to the chateau is not a very long one. But traffic around the Côte d’Azur is notoriously heavy in the summer and progress is slow. While we sit in a seemingly endless traffic jam, we discuss how beautiful the service was, and how hot the weather is becoming, and the British guy wipes his forehead with a handkerchief.
‘Such a tragedy for Emily to die so young,’ the British actor comments, staring out at the dry, dusty hillside we are passing. More cypress trees rising grim and stark against a perfect blue sky. ‘God only knows what Tamsin must be going through. Her daughter was so beautiful.’
‘Comme une ange,’ the French actor agrees, shaking his head. Then glances at me, as though afraid I will not understand. ‘An angel.’
Pierre catches my eye but says nothing.
Not wanting to seem rude, I smile at him and look hurriedly away. I’m unwilling to be drawn into conversation again, still mulling over what Robin told me at the Pam Pam.
The local doctor, responsible for issuing death certificates for burial, described her death to the police as a tragic accident. The authorities were clearly satisfied that her drowning was not in any way suspicious and indeed may have been linked to consumption of alcohol beforehand. Yet according to Robin, given Emily’s skill and experience as a swimmer, the only explanation that made sense to him was that my cousin had taken her own life.
‘Why on earth would Emily have killed herself, though?’ I had asked him over cocktails at the Pam Pam. ‘Was she depressed? Had something happened to upset her?’
But Robin could not answer that, merely shrugging mysteriously when I pressed him.
I still feel sure he knew more than he was willing to say.
Eventually, the limousine pulls up outside the chateau, behind a long line of black cars with tinted windows. The men let me out first, and I walk awkwardly ahead, instantly roasting in the bright sunshine, then climb the marble front steps into the cool of the house.
The place is crammed with mourners, many of them French, drinking and reminiscing about Emily. Now it’s the opposite of how I felt at the Pam Pam. There I was over-dressed for the occasion, now everywhere I turn are glamorous guests in sleek, expensive outfits. My plain black skirt and fitted blouse with discreet silver buttons make me feel like one of the catering staff, who are hovering in every room with trays of champagne.
To my surprise, not that many people wore black to the funeral. One deeply tanned woman, who arrives in a white Porsche Cabriolet with an attractive man on her arm, is wearing a pink peplum skirt that seems to have been sprayed on. She is Italian, by the sound of it, and highly voluble in her expressions of sympathy as she embraces my aunt, kissing Tamsin three times and gesticulating wildly, her slender arms covered with bangles.
Not in a mood to be noticed, I stay by the window and look out to sea. It’s another glorious day on the Côte d’Azur, fine and bright but with a sharp breeze, and I can see a whole school of wind-surfers out in the bay, their sails taut with the wind.
I comment on the casual dress code to Lucille, in my rusty French.
She seems disinclined to reply at first, then reluctantly explains that French funerals are conducted rather differently to those in England, with the whole community free to attend and less emphasis put on mourning, more on a celebration of the deceased’s life.
‘Well, that’s a good idea,’ I agree. ‘Emily would have liked that. She hated long faces.’
I think of my cousin, her vivacity and joy for life, her flawless skin and large, expressive eyes, and suddenly can’t bear to be in company anymore.
‘Excusez-moi,’ I say huskily to Lucille.
I weave my way through the noisy rooms of guests until I reach the chateau hallway.
But even the hall is crowded today.
Somehow I manage to push my way to the stairs through people laughing and chatting now, their looks following me curiously as I run up to the first floor. Their chatter is still loud up there, so I wander up two more flights to my attic room.
The shutters in my bedroom are latched back, the windows wide open. There’s a wasp lazily circling the room, but otherwise the room is empty.
I shut the door and kick off my heels, then usher the wasp carefully out off the room with a magazine. My feet are aching after the long walk to and from the graveside, carrying the heavy wreath I had chosen at the local florist’s shop. The scent of those flowers, somehow stronger in the heat, is still on my hands.
I sit on the edge of the bed and close my eyes for a moment. It’s quiet and peaceful.
In my bag, my phone buzzes, breaking the peace.
I reach inside and retrieve it, frowning.
It’s Robin.
I need to see you.
CHAPTER EIGHT
My heart picks up, beating faster. I’m even more sure now that it was Robin I saw at the cemetery, lurking behind the cypress trees. Instinct warns me not to confront him about it though. If Robin had wanted me to know he was going to be at the funeral, albeit in hiding, he’d surely have said something when we met at the Pam Pam.
I stroke the back of the phone, thinking it over. The text message taunts me. I need to see you. I can’t leave Emily’s wake though. It would be disrespectful to Tamsin, not to mention my cousin’s memory.
But then I consider how Emily herself would have behaved, if it had been my funeral, or Robin’s. She would have left without even considering how it would look to the other mourners, preferring to live for the moment, to respond to her impulses, however crazy, however dangerous …
I text Robin back.
The wake won’t be over for hours. Where are you?
Perhaps it’s time to behave more like Emily. To take more chances in life.
I wriggle out of my black funeral skirt while waiting for his reply, and rummage through my drawers for some shorts instead. Something more suited to the hot weather. I hesitate over a ridiculously tiny silver pair of shorts, an impulse buy at the airport, and the midriff top I packed ‘just in case’. Then slip into them. What the hell.
Heeled sandals, sun cream, and I’m ready.
The phone buzzes again.
Vieil Antibes. Musée de Picasso. Can you escape?
I know the museum he means. Bright airy rooms overlooking the old port, decorated with works of art by Pablo Picasso and other artists from that distinctive era.
I step out onto the balcony, uncomfortable with the height, and peer down into the chateau grounds.
Guests are now circulating among the pines or on the lower tiers of Aunt Tamsin’s formal gardens, glasses in hands, talking animatedly. I can see wide-brimmed hats, and men in shorts and sandals, and imagine Emily threading between them all, listening to their conversations, the celebrity small-talk, a ghost among the living.
Among the guests, I spot Pierre from the limousine journey, now in shirt sleeves, his executive suit jacket abandoned somewhere. He is smiling at a diminutive blonde in a spray-on red dress with cut-out sections above her hips, his grief apparently forgotten.
What would my cousin think of this gathering?
I see none of the kids we used to be friends with down there. Though they will all be grown-up now, nearly thirty like me, or beyond. Perhaps I wouldn’t recognise any of them anymore. Would I have even recognised Robin if I hadn’t been looking for him?
I grab my bag, head for the dimly-lit mezzanine level where Lucille has her private quarters, and slip down the back stairs.
I feel guilty at deserting Tamsin. But she did seem brighter once Emily had been laid to rest, as though the hardest part of losing her beloved daughter was finally over. I’m not so sure of that, remembering only too well the aftermath of my mother’s death. Some losses la
st not for months or years, but forever.
But at least Tamsin is surrounded by friends and admirers today, which always makes her happier. And why not? A natural performer, she loves a stage on which to shine, and people around her who can be relied upon for applause. Now that I think of it, Emily had been much the same. ‘My little star,’ her mother had often affectionately called her at social gatherings, though never without a hint of jealousy. There had only ever been room for one star in our family, and that was Aunt Tamsin, without a doubt.
The back stairs from the mezzanine level lead directly into the kitchen.
I push the glass-fronted door at the bottom, and Lucille is in there, a little flushed, hair dishevelled, a red smudge on her white apron. She’s removing a plate of glazed, sweetly fragrant petits fours from the fridge.
The housekeeper looks up as I slip past to the back door, shoes in hand, and gives me a disapproving frown. Not simply of my outfit, though that is probably outrageous on its own. But also of the fact that I’m obviously trying to escape the funeral.
‘Caitlin?’
I make a pleading face, and say in halting French, ‘I’m sorry. All these people … I need to get out of here, just for a few hours. Apologise to my aunt, would you?’
‘No, no,’ Lucille replies in the same language, and frowns in consternation now, not disapproval. She looks almost scared.
‘I won’t be long,’ I promise her.
‘Caitlin, wait.’
But I shoot her an apologetic smile, hurrying out before she can persuade me to stay.
It’s mid-afternoon by the time I’ve freed my BMW from the chaotic parking lot of vehicles jammed onto the drive, and headed for Antibes, escaping the claustrophobic heat of the Cap.
I park alongside the busy marina, and walk through the cool of a stone archway into the old walled town of Vieil Antibes. There’s a more relaxed vibe in the shadow of these ancient walls than in the modern town centre with its high-rise apartment blocks, bars and clubs near the seafront, so popular with holidaymakers. In the cafes and restaurants beside the medieval wall, tourists are still enjoying a late lunch in the shade, while locals are beginning to return to their offices and businesses after the siesta.
