by Jane Holland
Back in the stifling afternoon sun, we follow the road round the ramparts and into the town centre, walking together side-by-side.
Most shops have reopened now after the long lunch break, and there are shoppers in the streets again, walking deliberately in the shadows to avoid the heat. Tinny Arabic music issues from a loudspeaker positioned on a chair in the doorway of a small supermarché. A tall, bored-looking man with a paunch watches us through the window; African, most probably Moroccan, in a broad, green-and-gold robe. A middle-aged French couple hurry past us in voluble conversation, the woman sour-faced and with a wicker basket swinging over one arm, the man smoking a cigarette and gesticulating violently. The powerful smell of tobacco lingers in the narrow street long after he has gone.
Robin turns to me in the middle of the street, and I stiffen instinctively. ‘Hey,’ he says, frowning. He strokes a finger under my chin, lifting my face towards his. ‘Look at me.’
I obey, my eyes half-closed, dazzled by the sun behind his head, and am seized with a sudden wild desire to kiss him, even though we are in public, even though it would be madness.
‘I’m sorry about before. It’s not what you think. It’s because of what today is, you see,’ he says, as though finishing a thought from earlier. ‘What today signifies.’
‘You mean Emily.’
‘It’s a question of respect. You only laid her to rest today.’
‘I wish you could have been there.’
‘I wanted to be there. Not being there to pay my last respects was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. But your aunt wouldn’t have permitted me anywhere near her daughter’s funeral. She made that abundantly clear when I phoned to give her my condolences.’
‘You rang the chateau? Aunt Tamsin didn’t say a word about it.’ I realise what I’ve said immediately. ‘She probably forgot, of course. Poor woman.’
‘I don’t think she forgot. She hung up as soon as she recognised my voice.’ Robin shrugs. ‘I wasn’t surprised, though it knocked me for six at the time. I guess she blames me.’
‘Blames you for what? For Emily’s death?’
He falls silent for a moment, his look brooding. Then he says, ‘You don’t know the things I’ve done.’
‘Then tell me.’
‘I wish I could. It would make life easier if … But I can’t, it’s too soon.’ Robin seizes my hands and holds them tight against his chest. ‘This is a big ask, honey. But I need you to trust me a little longer. Can you do that?’
‘Of course.’
‘I knew I could rely on you.’ He bends slightly, brushing a much longed-for kiss across my left cheek. ‘Dear little Caitlin.’
Dear little Caitlin.
It’s what Aunt Tamsin has always called me. Even now, as an adult, when I am sadly far from little. Like a pet name, it should make me feel infantilised, like a child again. Yet when Robin says it in his husky voice, it’s suddenly a term of desire.
My head turns, impulsively, and I catch his lips with my own.
To my delight, he kisses me back.
The heat between us is incredible. I feel boneless as the kiss deepens, my eyes closing, my breath trapped like a bird in my chest.
Then Robin stops, groaning under his breath. My eyes fly open, staring up at him in sudden dizzying shock. ‘No,’ he insists, his face darkly flushed. His voice is hoarse. It sounds almost as though he hates me. ‘Not yet. Not today.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I have to see her first,’ he whispers, and I don’t understand what he means. But I can read the agony in his face.
‘Who? Aunt Tamsin?’
‘Take me to Emily’s grave. Will you do that for me?’
I’m bewildered. ‘Right now?’
‘I need to visit the grave, to see where they laid her. I know you won’t understand but this is important. There’s something I haven’t told you. Something nobody’s told you.’ He looks away, and his teeth press down hard on his lower lip, almost bruising the skin. ‘Something about Emily.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Emily’s fresh-dug grave looks smaller than it did this morning, now all the mourners have gone and the dusty heap of soil has been shovelled back in, concealing her ornate casket under the earth. We leave the white-gravelled main path and approach the grave from the side, stepping silently and as respectfully as possible between headstones. The sun has moved round in the sky, and the rows of cypress trees cast long, melancholic shadows as we pass beneath them. The subdued gloominess of the place seems fitting, even if it does not make me feel any better about her death.
It seems incredible that Emily, only a couple of years older than me, has been taken from us so young and in such a senseless way.
A simple plaque stands over the slightly rounded mound of earth where I saw her coffin lowered. It bears her name and dates, nothing more. An expensive black marble headstone with gold lettering has apparently been ordered. But Aunt Tamsin told me it won’t be ready for some weeks yet.
I look sideways at Robin. It’s still a shock to see him beside me. To know that we are together again. I’ve spent so long over the years dreaming about him, imagining what I would say if I could see him again.
‘There’s a headstone coming. A proper job, Tamsin told me. It should look good.’
He says nothing, staring down at our friend’s grave.
A proper job.
Like I’m a Cornish yokel.
My cheeks hot, I search for something less crass to say at this moment. Something eloquent and comforting. Something about the nature of loss. The kind of thing my father would say to a grieving relative.
The only things that come to mind are platitudes.
And perhaps my father’s sayings are also platitudes. But his dog collar somehow gives them added gravitas.
I study the mounded earth, feeling nothing but emptiness. Robin’s silence mocks and accuses me. I struggle to connect the vibrant young woman I’d known with this grim place, the wreath placed so artfully below her plaque. It’s as though Emily’s death has revealed a hollow space at my centre. Sensing it in recent years, I tried to fill that space with work and Dad’s illness and occasional fumbling nights with Madern, and thought myself okay.
But I’m not okay.
I’m very far from okay. I’m only now beginning to realise that, now that I’ve met Robin again. Meeting my teenage crush has brought me a rare sense of perspective on how my adult life has panned out. And the view is not brilliant.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, and pick my words as carefully as possible. ‘You and Emily were so close. When we were kids, I thought …’
I can’t finish. I want to comfort him. But I don’t know this man anymore, and I don’t have a clue what to say.
Robin’s hand creeps out though. Takes mine and squeezes it. It’s an act of solace, and a kind of encouragement.
‘Thought what?’
‘That you two would make the perfect Hollywood couple one day. Emily an Oscar-winning actress, you a well-known, well-respected film producer like your dad. That maybe you’d marry, have kids of your own. You know, the whole American dream.’
Robin says nothing. But he’s still holding my hand.
My heart beats a little faster.
I tell myself not to read too much into these strange, unexpected attempts at intimacy. Robin is bereaved. He’s feeling lonely and off-balance, just as I am. He needs a friend. Not the lover I would like to be.
‘What did you want to tell me about Emily?’ I hesitate, certain I know what he’s going to say. ‘Were you two lovers?’
‘What?’
His head swings back towards me. He looks shocked.
‘Were you lovers?’ I repeat.
His eyes narrow on my face. ‘Would it upset you? If I were to say yes?’
‘Does that matter?’
He hesitates. ‘It matters to me.’
‘Look, I’m not interested in playing the blame game. I just want to know wh
at’s going on.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘With you. With Aunt Tamsin. She used to like you so much, Robin. She thought the world of you when we were kids. What happened?’
His face reacts at my aunt’s name, closing up. He’s looking haggard now. Hunted.
I should back off, let him grieve in peace. But something won’t let me. Jealousy gnawing at me, perhaps.
‘Oh, come on,’ I say. ‘Whatever it is, it can’t be important anymore. Not now Emily’s gone.’
‘Caitlin, don’t …’
‘Were the two of you seeing each other?’
I don’t know why I’m persisting with this, given his reluctance to come clean. My instincts tell me Robin’s trying to deflect me from the truth, to hide some secret he doesn’t want me to know. But whatever he’s concealing, it’s left him bereft and wary of me. What else can it be except an affair with Emily behind her mother’s back?
And now Emily’s dead. So what possible harm could it do to get the truth out into the open?
‘Is that why Aunt Tamsin won’t hear your name spoken?’ I ask him, frowning. ‘Because you were having a relationship with Emily, and she didn’t approve? Did she think you weren’t right for Emily? Or did it cause issues between her and your dad?’
Robin looks down at the grave. The air is still warm, suffocatingly so, but the shadows are lengthening all around us. Soon dusk will fall and the cemetery will close. I can see him thinking. Calculating what he can safely tell me, what he can’t. And I suddenly feel sick.
‘Robin, for God’s sake –’
‘Hell.’ He closes his eyes, clutches at his dark hair. ‘Yes, yes, all right. We were lovers.’
I take a step backwards, an instinctive recoil I can’t control.
I’m aware of a horrible, burning sense of disillusion. It rattles me. Had I been hoping Emily and Robin, despite being neighbours on the Cap when both families were in residence, would ignore that electric frisson between them and stay away from each other? Or that Robin would turn out, perhaps, to have been secretly carrying a torch for me all these years? The same torch I’ve been carrying for him? If so, I’ve been a fool.
‘Go on,’ I say, struggling to hide my disappointment.
‘Emily and I … We tried not to …’ He groans. ‘You don’t understand. It’s not what it seems.’
‘Then tell me.’
‘I can’t.’ Robin drops to his knees and sinks his forehead onto the freshly-dug earth of her grave. Like he’s praying to her beneath the earth. ‘Please, I can’t.’
‘You have to tell someone, sooner or later. Or you’ll go mad.’
His voice is muffled. ‘I tell you, no.’ He digs into the soft soil with both hands, grabbing fistfuls of dirt. He sounds almost demented already. ‘You don’t understand.’
‘Because I don’t know what’s going on. So tell me, please.’ I hesitate. ‘Maybe I can help.’
He makes a noise under his breath, his shoulders heave, and I realise he is crying.
I look away, embarrassed in a very English way, not sure what to say or do, how to comfort someone in such extreme distress. I’m ashamed too. I’ve pushed him too far, that’s what this is. I couldn’t take no for an answer, and now …
Staring out across the rows of headstones, a terrible suspicion strikes me and I look back at him. ‘Oh my God. Is that why Emily drowned?’
His fists clench in the loose soil, like a muscle spasm. Then he kneels up again, stares round at me.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Did something go wrong between the two of you?’ I ask him. ‘Did you have an argument the night she died? A fight?’
His eyes are wide now, his mouth closed tight. There’s a smudge of dirt on his forehead. I stare at his face, struggling to read his emotions.
‘Is that why she went into the water that night? Alone in the dark?’ I swallow, suddenly sure I know the answer. ‘Did Emily kill herself because of you, Robin?’
He gets up, dusting himself down. ‘Caitlin …’
‘I want an answer.’
‘For God’s sake, I can’t give you an answer. There is no easy answer. Emily’s death was a tragedy. But it wasn’t my fault.’ I turn away and he grabs me by the shoulders. ‘Yes, okay, I loved Emily. It was hard not to, she was so captivating, such a beautiful woman. And we were lovers for a while, I won’t deny that. But it didn’t last. Emily wasn’t the easiest person to love. You only knew her as a kid. As Emily grew older, she changed.’
‘Changed how?’
‘Hard to say exactly. She hid it so well.’ He pauses, his face torn. ‘She grew twisted inside, stopped caring what people thought. And she started to do things –’
‘You’re just trying to offload your guilt over her death.’
But he shakes his head. ‘I’ve seen it before, out in Hollywood. Growing up in celebrity does strange things to you, trust me. And Emily didn’t have an easy time, not with a mom like Tamsin, so famous, always surrounded by the press. She learned early on not to give too much away.’ He takes a deep breath, as though steadying himself for some revelation. ‘To show one face to the world, and another to the mirror.’
‘Right.’ I nod. ‘Easy shots, given Emily’s not here to defend herself.’
I try to pull away, but his grip on my shoulders tightens. ‘Wait, you have to listen to me.’ A muscle jerks in his cheek. Then he says flatly, ‘There’s more.’
‘Such as?’
Robin hesitates. ‘First, promise me you won’t repeat what I’m about to say. Not even to Tante Tamsin.’
‘Why?’
‘Because there are things your aunt doesn’t want anyone to know about her family.’ His face darkens. ‘Least of all you, Caitlin.’
The way he says my name all but unravels me.
We’re standing so close now, our bodies are almost touching. The air in the cemetery is still and warm. I can smell that musky aftershave on him and it works powerfully on my senses.
I recall my feverish lust for him as a teenager, how dizzying I found his attention when we were finally alone together in my attic room. How for years afterwards, I imagined Robin must surely have been in love with me, to do the things he did, say what he said. With those memories clamouring in my body, it’s hard to shut off from physical desire, to listen instead to the cooler voice in my head. The voice that told me he was in love with Emily the whole time. That he had only been using me to get to her that night. Or more accurately to get at her, to get under her skin. To make her suffer as she used to make him suffer.
‘Such as?’
‘The real reason Tamsin didn’t want me at the funeral today.’ He leans forward to whisper the rest in my ear. Words meant for me alone, a secret passing between us. ‘Emily wasn’t alone the night she died.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
A few days after the funeral, once all the guests who stayed over have gone, amid much air-kissing and tearful farewells, the chateau stands silent once more.
Too silent, perhaps.
I head outside early the next day and wander the grounds in a cheap, market-stall sundress, conscious that the material is so thin it’s practically transparent. I try not to think about what Robin told me about Emily, to put it out of my mind. But it’s hard.
Everything he said about Emily only raises more questions for me. Questions even Robin can’t or won’t answer. Questions with answers that might terrify me, perhaps.
The sky is cloudless and azure-blue, the sun already beating down steadily as I hunt for a quiet place to sunbathe and forget.
A short distance away, Jacques weeds one of the flowerbeds, even more scantily clad than I am. He looks round at me curiously but I say nothing, choosing a tranquil spot beside a statue of some nude Greek male. I throw my towel down onto the white patio stones, and stretch out on it. Soon my pale skin is shimmering with coconut-scented sun oil, and I’m engrossed in the latest thriller.
I’ve only been there an
hour when my aunt calls me in from the garden, insisting that we go out sailing for the day. She has a friend with a yacht, apparently, and it’s all arranged.
‘To lift our spirits,’ Tamsin says bravely, only the hint of a quiver in her voice, then adds, ‘Emily would have approved, I’m sure. She wouldn’t have wanted us to mope.’
‘Of course not,’ I say, and give her a quick hug.
‘Oh Caitlin, I’m so glad you decided to stay on. I felt so low last night. It’s only now beginning to hit me that she’s … she’s gone.’ There are tears brimming in Tamsin’s eyes. But she straightens her back, refusing to cry again. ‘Then I remembered you were still here. So I rang … Oh, what’s his name …?’ She struggled for the name briefly, then smiled. ‘Pierre, that’s it. And by some miracle, he was free. You’d like to sail along the coast with us, wouldn’t you?’
‘That sounds lovely.’
‘Pierre’s a darling boy. He said he met you at the funeral.’
I remember him. The attractive thirty-something in the executive suit. By some miracle, he was free. I suspect Pierre is always ‘free’ for Tamsin, regardless of his schedule.
‘Yes, we met. Though only briefly.’
‘Oh, you’ll love Pierre. As he loved Emily. They were such good friends.’
I smile back at her, wondering what that means.
She studies my summer dress dubiously. ‘I’m not sure about your outfit though. A bit see-through, isn’t it? Shorts are better on deck. And bring a swimsuit or bikini. Emily always loved to dive in off the side of his yacht. We had such lovely days together, sailing the coast, the three of us.’ Her chin trembles. ‘But of course perhaps you don’t like boats and swimming … Oh, you must do as you wish.’
‘I’d love to swim.’
This seems to please her. ‘Shall we say twenty minutes? Pierre’s sending a car.’
‘I’ll run upstairs and change.’
Her hand grabs at me as I turn away, a steel claw clamping down on my wrist. ‘We need to talk later though. Is that understood?’
I’m surprised by her sudden force. ‘Of course, Aunt Tamsin. Is something wrong?’
