The Book of Second Chances

by Katherine Slee

  On the other side of the photo was a pair Emily hadn’t ever seen before, a man and a woman who seemed a little detached from the rest of the group. Her head was dipped to the ground, hair falling down either side so that Emily couldn’t make out her face. Next to her was an angelic figure of a man, with delicate features and light blond hair. He was stripped to the waist, wearing tight jeans that flared at the bottom. He had broad shoulders, taut muscles, and a wide, relaxed grin with a gap between his two front teeth. He had to be Antoine.

  Emily couldn’t help but stare at the sight of all that beauty in one person, smiled at the idea he could have been someone her grandmother once loved. She looked a little closer, tried to determine if any of his features were akin to her own, then glanced again at Noah, but found no obvious similarities on either man that might have given her a clue as to whether she shared DNA with one of them.

  Below the photograph someone had scribbled a quote from Alice in Wonderland, along with a smiley face and the date.

  “It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. 12 July 1965.”

  Did you write this? Emily wondered as she followed the loops and kinks of the inky script, stared at the happiness on her grandmother’s face, at the ease with which she held herself. When did it all change, and which one of those breathtaking men broke her heart in two?

  Turning the page once more, Emily stopped when she saw a photograph of her grandmother standing at an easel by an open window. Her hair was mostly pinned on top of her head in a haphazard bun, with a few loose curls at the back and around her ears. The painting was of a pair of bluebirds, perched on a branch and sharing, or fighting over, a worm. It was a painting that hung in the study back home in Norfolk, but Emily had never before known it was painted here, by her.

  “This is the last one I have of Catriona,” Madeleine said as she perched against the desk. “Before she left.”

  “With Antoine?”

  “With Antoine.”

  “Not Noah?”

  Madeleine gave a wry smile. “Seems you don’t need anyone’s help to figure it out after all.”

  “Why did she leave?” Emily wished she could make them all come to life somehow, or that she could dive into the past, experience what it was like to be her grandmother, just for a day. The beginnings of an idea, of a picture, wavered at the edges of her mind, and she automatically looked around her for a pen.

  “I don’t know all the details. But my mother did say that Antoine and Noah never did get along. She often spoke of those six like they were her own children, she was so proud of them all, more than any other group before or since. But the two men were at constant odds with one another.” She looked carefully at Emily, at the curve of her lip, the brightness of her eyes that never rested for long on any one thing. “Not surprising when you look at the woman they were fighting over.”

  “Can I keep these?” Emily seemed not to notice the way her tongue lisped over the last word as she flicked between the two photographs. So preoccupied was she with the images from her grandmother’s past, she didn’t give herself time to understand how much more easily the words were now falling into place.

  Madeleine took a deep breath, hesitated before replying. “It’s just…they belonged to my mother.”

  The picture in Emily’s mind was gone in an instant, replaced by the image of a metal ladder swung down from a hatch in the ceiling of her upstairs landing back home. A square of black into which she climbed, over and over.

  “It’s okay.” Emily understood, because she wouldn’t have wanted to give anything away either, which is why the loft of the cottage in Norfolk was fit to burst with boxes filled with her grandmother’s belongings—items that Emily had no need for but couldn’t bring herself to give away or sell, along with dozens more she was certain contained things that once belonged to her mother. Things Catriona had clung to but never looked at.

  The memories of people hiding away in darkened spaces, collecting dust, collecting nothing but time.

  “Why did you show them to me?”

  “I thought it might help, with the treasure trail.”

  Emily’s eye fell on another box, half open, containing dozens of pages stapled together along one edge. She lifted the top copy out, saw a name and date written on the first line.

  “Celine Dubois, 1979,” Emily read aloud, skimming the rest of the page but understanding only half of what was written there in colloquial French. She turned to the next page, saw another name, date, and collection of words, then looked at Madeleine with an unspoken question.

  “Everyone who stayed here had to leave something behind. Usually a short autobiography, but sometimes more.”

  “More?”

  “Before you ask,” she said, putting the pages back and closing the lid to the box. “Hers is missing. She left a whole notebook behind, apparently. Filled with poems and snippets of a story. But my mother tidied it away somewhere for safekeeping when she realized how valuable it was and then couldn’t remember where she’d put it.” Madeleine sighed, looked around the room at the stacks and stacks of boxes. “I suppose it could be in here, for all we know. Or she gave it away. Or someone stole it. I guess that’s the curse of being famous. Everyone wants a piece of you.”

  They had always wanted more. But Catriona had been so very good at keeping Emily away from that part of her life. Kept her hidden from view.

  “Maman told me Catriona and Gigi were always playing tricks on people, how Catriona refused to allow any customers to buy what they claimed they wanted. Said she had a knack of understanding what it was someone wanted, or needed, to read. That they always left here believing it had been their idea all along.”

  Catriona Robinson was always so very good at persuading people to do her bidding. Even, it would seem, when she was no longer alive, she had the ability to make everyone run around doing exactly as she had planned.

  “So many people have come back, telling their stories about the day she sold them a copy of Animal Farm, A Room of One’s Own, or The Grapes of Wrath. One man claimed he left here carrying a copy of Pride and Prejudice, despite him arguing with Catriona about how Austen was nothing more than a load of sentimental nonsense. Apparently he met his future wife on the way home, who saw the book and commented on how much she adored the Bennetts.”

  “What was her story?” Emily wished upon wish it was there, that she could read it, discover the very first one she ever wrote.

  “Quoi?”

  “The one she wrote here.”

  Madeleine smiled. “It was about a woman who lived at the edge of a forest, trapped by her own fear of the outside world. But at night she turned into a bird and soared high above the earth, looking for her long-lost love. Do you know the story?” Madeleine asked as they went back downstairs.

  “No,” Emily replied, seeing that the café was now half full of people, most of whom stood by the door, listening to the sound of someone singing. The tone of voice was like butterscotch, sweet but with a bite, and it weaved through the air to slip inside of Emily without warning, reaching a part of her that had been ignored and neglected for as long as she could remember.

  She found herself moving through the small cluster of early risers who had gathered to listen and went outside to see a man sitting on a woven metal chair with a half-drunk coffee on the table next to him.

  It was Tyler. His fingers moved deftly back and forth across the strings of the guitar, conjuring up a rather mournful song. She watched the movement of his lips as he played.

  The song came to an end, and he nodded his thanks to the small audience and their soft ripple of applause, picked up his guitar, and ambled over to Emily and Madeleine.

  “Are you blushing?” he said, creasing his forehead.

  Emily’s hand rushed to her cheek. “What? No, I’m not.”

  “It looks good on you,” he said, before turning to Madeleine, placing one hand on his chest and giving a little bow. “Enchanté, madam
e, you must be Madeleine?”

  The two of them fell into an easy conversation, all in French, and Emily tuned out the words. She stopped trying to listen to what was being said, but rather intuited through the subtle movement of eyes across to her, the dip of Madeleine’s face, the slow blush on her skin as Tyler gestured to the shop behind.

  Tyler always had been at ease with himself. Charming, with the ability to talk to anyone and, if all else failed, Emily now realized, he had his guitar. His voice did more than simply carry a tune, it was deep and rich and full of emotion, but it was more the rhythm of his fingers, the soft vibrations of sound he created, the concentration on his face and how he lost himself in the song, that made her pay attention. It was hypnotic, and it only made him all the more attractive.

  But underneath it all, she could now see a boy afraid of disappointing an overbearing father. Someone who first played to try and make the doubts, the fears, go away. Just like she did with her drawings, losing herself in another world, where her feelings didn’t exist.

  She looked up to the attic window, tried to remember the moment at which the idea of a picture had first trickled into her consciousness. She was vaguely aware of how the fingers of her left hand were moving against her thigh, drawing the shape of something she couldn’t quite picture in her mind.

  “You ready to go?” Tyler was talking to her, and it took Emily a second to come back to the here and now, to focus on what it was he was saying, and that he was saying it to her.

  “Go?”

  “St. Tropez. Next stop on the magical mystery tour.”

  Emily saw he was holding onto her suitcase, along with his own, which meant he had packed her things, simply tossed them all into a case of yellow battered leather and brought them here.

  Emily made a mental list of all the things he could have seen, all her private things she had no desire for him to lay his hands upon.

  The fact he had somehow gone into her room, without permission, went through her belongings, made her feel violated somehow. But he clearly didn’t seem to think he had done anything wrong. Did he not think it would have been more prudent, more polite, to wait until she returned, or at the very least asked if she was ready to go?

  Why was he in such a hurry to leave Paris?

  She bent down, unzipped the outside pocket of her case and reached inside, then let go her breath as she realized her sketchbook was still there, along with both of the books and diary entries.

  “I hope you find what you’re looking for.” Madeleine pulled Emily into an embrace, kissed her on each cheek, then pressed something into her palm.

  “Thank you,” Emily whispered as she saw the two photographs she had asked for.

  “Au revoir,” Tyler called over his shoulder as he led Emily away, and she turned to look one last time, allowed herself to hope that maybe, just maybe, she would get another chance to come back to this incredible corner of Paris.

  Another train. Another journey. It all felt the same, yet each passing second brought something new to contend with, to push into a box inside her mind and try not to think about. Thinking would lead to remembering, which would lead to nothing she could cope with right now.

  They were sitting on the top deck—a double-decker train, who knew?—by the window in faux-leather seats that reclined not quite far enough to be comfortable, with an armrest in between. A polished table with fold-down flaps was covered in magazines and a make-do picnic of bread and cheese that Tyler was slowly eating his way through, and there were two more, empty, seats opposite.

  Emily looked down at the photograph of her grandmother standing by an easel. It made her think of the finished painting that had always hung on the wall in the study, along with a chair by the fire, just big enough for two, where Emily liked to sit, listening to an old French fairy tale about a prince who was turned into a bluebird by an evil queen, and a beautiful princess locked away in a tower.

  L’Oiseau Bleu. Emily knew there was a copy of the seventeenth-century story in one of the boxes in the attic, but once again she had never thought to question why her grandmother had it. Emily had simply loved the ornate picture on the front, of a girl reaching out for a bluebird swooping down from the sky.

  But why would she paint a pair? Emily’s eyes blinked back fatigue as she turned all the questions, all the possible answers, over and over.

  She knew that bluebirds were only ever found in North America, and the males were possessive, protecting the nest, their mate, from any other suitors. Did it mean there was a link from the book back to both of the men Catriona shared that summer with? A book that seemed to have inspired a painting she kept close, one that she looked upon each and every day.

  Emily’s head fell back against the seat as the train picked up speed, the constant motion forcing shut eyes that for days had been too anxious to properly close.

  As she slept, her fingers twitched in perpetual movement and her mind filled with dreams of pictures both drawn and still to come. Pictures of all the places her grandmother wrote down and asked her to conjure up onto the page, filling blank sheets of paper with color and light. Memories too, that when awake she could not bring herself to remember. Memories of the two faces she missed most of all.

  On the seat beside her, Tyler sat, reading her grandmother’s books, scouring the pictures, seeking out the treasures hidden in each and every one. He smiled at the roller skates hung over the wardrobe door, a Star Wars poster on the wall, or a brightly painted train set. Details from Emily’s childhood, tucked away in the corners of every story, details even she seemed not to realize were there—the faces of the characters, or the shoes they wore. A sleek, black convertible that once belonged to Tyler’s father, complete with GB sticker on its boot. A car that could never be driven again.

  It was as if Emily had painted her past in order to take it from her mind, to free herself from the agony of remembering a life cut short.

  He set the book aside and looked over at Emily, at the stillness of her face. Then he waited one moment more before reaching inside her bag and taking out a plain white envelope, inside of which were more sheets of palest blue.

  5 September 1965

  “Yes: I am a dreamer. For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight, and his punishment is that he sees the dawn before the rest of the world.”

  Oscar Wilde, The Critic as Artist.

  It is late, or very early, depending on how you look at it. Either way, I am sitting on the rooftop of our tiny one-bed apartment, staring up at the moon. Thinking of how it is always there (silly, I know), of how no matter where you are in the world, you can sit and stare at it and think of someone you hope is missing you as much as you are missing them.

  It’s been just shy of a fortnight since I left. A week more since I last saw Noah and there has been no word. Which I should take as a sign, I know. All the logical parts of my brain are telling me I should, but I don’t want to. Perhaps he doesn’t even know where I am? More likely he is distracted by a bevy of Italian beauties and can barely remember what I look like, let alone my name. I could always go to him. I know exactly where he will be. On a lake, with his boat and his dreams. Alone, but free.

  I can’t go to him. That’s just too much of a cliché. And weak. I am not weak, not anymore. I will not be the sort of woman who goes running after a man, simply because he claims to love her. Although I do so want to see the lake. To sail past terra-cotta mansions and shorelines dotted with Cypress trees. I want to swim in the clear waters, dive as deep as I can, hold my breath, feel like a mermaid, like a creature who lives in a magical lagoon.

  But it is beautiful here, in the town that is known as St. Tropez (sounds like the beginning of a song). I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but there’s a simplicity to this place, if you look beyond all the glitz and glamour. A way of life that follows the tide and the sun. Fishermen who have learnt their skills from generations long since dead and buried. Farmers and artisans hidden in amongst all the mill
ionaires who finally seem to be disappearing back to wherever they go once the summer is done.

  The light at dusk here is breathtaking. A muted rainbow of pinks and purples that slowly fade to gray, dipping beneath the horizon and mixing with the constant movement of sea. Crisp, salty air that you can feel rejuvenating you from the inside out. Sunlight that has turned my milky skin golden brown, covered from tip to toe in a crazy dot-to-dot of freckles. Antoine keeps threatening to join them all up, to see what secret pictures there are on my skin.

  He is like no one else I have ever met. I feel so at ease, so comfortable around him. He makes me believe I can do, be, anything I want. Tells me I mustn’t hide the truth from myself, which is incredible given how much he has to hide.

  I know I am here to help him, as much as the other way around. I know my presence allows him to pretend, for appearances’ sake, that he is just like everyone else. For we all have secrets squirreled away in our hearts, and he seems less capable of concealing them here than in Paris.

  On the journey south he presented me with a ring. A single, emerald-cut diamond on a gold band that once belonged to his grandmother. He told me that my mouth hung open like a giant grouper fish when he held it out to me. Then the whole bus began to cheer and holler as he slipped it over my finger and placed a kiss behind my ear, whispering that could we please pretend, at least for a little while.

  Because the apartment we are renting is owned by a formidable woman named Esmerelda, who carries her rosary beads like a weapon. With hips that fill a doorway and lines so deep between her brows, she is not someone to be trifled with. She stood in the tiny makeshift kitchen that consists of little more than a sink and hotplate when we first arrived, reeling off a long list of rules (all in French, none of which I understood but Antoine said were mainly about no parties and no cats), all the while looking me up and down. Her gaze rested on the third finger of my left hand, before she disappeared with a curt “bon,” followed by a door slammed shut.