The Book of Lost and Found

by Lucy Foley

  Before I had time to grasp what it was he was about to do, he moved away from the edge by a few feet then took a great run towards it, arms and legs pumping, flinging himself over in a swan dive, the water opening to receive him with the barest commotion.

  I blinked at him as his head emerged. ‘You could have broken your neck.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ve done it before. Grand-père taught me, in fact.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ It was impossible to imagine Stafford, calm and gentle as he was, doing such a thing. But then I remembered the other Stafford I had come to know: young, impetuous – even reckless. They were one and the same, after all.

  Oliver turned over to float upon his back, kicking lazily. He was different now, almost joyful: as if the place, the water, had energized him. He was close enough that I could see how the water had separated his eyelashes into glossy spikes, and the way his slicked-back hair had exposed that secret white line of skin beneath his hairline.

  I swam some distance away from him and allowed myself to sink beneath the surface. I liked the brief cocoon the water made for me: how it felt to be sheltered from light and sound and air, from everything but the cool press of the water against my skin.

  We returned to the beach to eat our lunch. Oliver pulled on a T-shirt and shorts, and it was a relief – and also a disappointment – not to be troubled by my awareness of his unclothed body.

  We sat a couple of feet apart on the sand, gazing out over the dazzling surface of the pool.

  After a few moments of silent chewing, Oliver spoke. ‘Will you tell me, now, why it is that you’re here?’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ I said.

  ‘We have time.’ He looked at me, expectant, challenging.

  I was trying to come up with an excuse not to tell him when it suddenly occurred to me that it would be easier to simply do so.

  Once I had started, I discovered that it was surprisingly easy, that it felt like a release. Oliver sat very still, listening intently to everything I said.

  I told him about Evie, about the drawing, the visit to Stafford’s sister. When I got to the part about Stafford’s involvement, the reason for not telling him suddenly presented itself to me – and I cursed my lack of foresight. His beloved grandmother – the woman he grieved for, still … and here I was, about to introduce the fact of Stafford’s love for another woman. But I knew, too, that it was too late to stop now that I had started. I could only try to make him understand that Alice had been a part of his grandfather’s past, long before – as I assumed – he had met Elodia.

  ‘I know about her,’ he said. I looked at him in surprise. ‘Grand-père’s never spoken to me of her,’ he explained, ‘but I’ve seen the drawings.’

  ‘Which drawings?’

  ‘There are quite a few. When I was young I found a chest of them in his old studio. Like all kids, I was fascinated by anything that was locked – saw it as a challenge. I spent months looking for the key – only to find it in the top drawer of his desk. There were maybe fifty works in there – sketches, watercolours …’

  ‘Did he find out?’ I asked, thinking that I had to come up with a way to ask Stafford to show them to me.

  ‘Yes. I thought I had been so careful, but I must have left some clue to give myself away, because he knew.’

  ‘Was he angry with you?’

  ‘No – that’s not his way. I think he was more concerned that I understood what they meant – that they were a part of his past, not the present he shared with Grand-mère, and with me. He said she had been a very great friend of his. Even then, I knew from the way he said it that he had loved her. He did, didn’t he?’

  ‘Well …’ I said, carefully, feeling that I should be economical with the truth, ‘possibly – but it was a long time ago.’

  ‘I thought so,’ he said, quietly.

  ‘I think your grandfather might not have told you what we were discussing because it concerned her.’

  ‘Maybe. But he needn’t have worried. I lived with him and Grand-mère for most of my childhood, and I know they did love each other. It may not have been the wilder sort of love, and perhaps it was more like friendship, but they were very fond of one other, that much was clear. That seemed to be enough.’

  He reached for a peach and bit into it, the juice escaping down his chin. ‘So now you want to find out everything about her,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, I do. Very much. I have such a strong idea of her – what she was like.’

  ‘Will you try to find her?’

  ‘I – well, I don’t even know if she’s still alive. From the way he talks about her, I don’t think your grandfather has seen her since he was a young man.’

  Oliver nodded, thoughtfully, and the conversation lapsed into silence, both of us looking out upon the water before us. After a few minutes, he turned to me again. ‘Do you think’ – he chose his words carefully – ‘that your mother would have wanted you to find her?’

  This threw me. It was as if he had spoken aloud my own concern, the one that had travelled with me since I boarded the plane – or even before that, when I had listened to Evie on that terrible afternoon.

  ‘My mother was brave,’ I said, ‘and determined. It was what made her such a talented ballerina. She never knew anything of Alice, and I can’t say for certain that she would have wanted to, but I like to think that she would have wanted me to keep following the thread, once I had discovered it.’

  ‘Then that’s what you should do,’ he said, with conviction.

  I looked at him, gratified. In that moment I could hardly believe that this was the same person who had been so hostile towards me. Yet until a scant couple of days ago I would have assumed that coldness went to the very centre of him.

  *

  Stafford was at the house when we returned, the day fading to a blue twilight and the bats beginning to wheel and dart above us. He smiled at us. I can’t explain exactly what it was about that smile, but I felt then that he saw more than I would have wanted him to see.

  He did not give any explanation for his disappearance that day. At supper he asked a continuous stream of questions about our trip to the pools – even more solicitous and curious than he might usually have been. If I had not known him better, I might have suspected him of guile: of purposefully keeping the subject away from himself and his own excursion.

  At eleven o’clock Stafford went to bed. Usually I followed not far behind. Listening, I had discovered, can be strangely exhausting, especially in the case of a history like the one unravelling before me, so vivid that it felt as if I were experiencing it as much as hearing about it.

  Tonight, however, I decided to linger a while on the terrace. It was an unusually clear night, more so than the evenings that had preceded it – and there was a delicious texture and savour to the air, cool and smoky. I wanted to enjoy it for a while longer, so when Stafford said goodnight I remained in my chair.

  Oliver remained too. Silently I willed him away. I had been surprised by how much I had enjoyed spending the day in his company, but now I wanted to be on my own, alone with my thoughts. Yet he stayed there on the other side of the table from me, his face drowned in shadow so that I could only make out the barest impression of his features.

  ‘You aren’t going to bed?’ he asked, and I realized then that he, too, might be wishing to be alone, wishing me gone.

  ‘No,’ I said, decisively. ‘I thought I’d stay out here for a while.’

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Would you like a drink?’

  I saw that my wineglass was empty, but more wine would only make me sleepy, and on this exceptionally clear night that would be a shame. I was about to decline when he said, ‘We could have a Corsican drink – a digestif?’

  My interest was piqued. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s made from myrtle berries – the bushes grow all over the island.’

  ‘All right – I’ll try a bit.’

  He returned with a bottle,
and two tiny glasses, which he filled with the darkish liqueur. I took a sip and immediately felt it warm my mouth and throat – the taste bittersweet, strange, and, I decided, quite delicious.

  ‘Good?’ I looked up to find him watching me, waiting for my opinion.

  ‘Yes. Dangerously so.’

  He nodded. ‘I had my first experience with it when I was eight. I came across it in the drinks cabinet and thought I’d try it – I’d always seen my grandparents having it after supper. I poured myself a whole wineglass of it. I’ve only recently been able to drink it again.’

  I took another sip. Far below us I could make out the splish and plunk of the water spending itself – gently, lazily – against the cliffs.

  Then, for something to say, I asked, ‘Don’t you think the air has an odd feel to it tonight?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s sometimes like this before the Mistral – exceptionally clear. But it’s not always the case; sometimes nothing happens – it turns out to be a false alarm.’

  Mistral: the word was vaguely familiar. ‘Do you mean the wind?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s more than a wind – practically a supernatural force. When it’s blowing, you can’t think of anything else. Afterwards, the sky is the most beautiful sight you could imagine, incredibly clear and blue.’

  I hoped it would come.

  ‘Another?’ Oliver gestured at my glass.

  Realizing it was empty, I held it out to him. ‘Yes, please.’

  He filled it up and leaned across to pass it back to me. As he did so I caught the scent of his skin – and it was not unlike the scent of the maquis: complex, warm, savoury. Immediately, without warning, I was confronted by an image of his naked torso – the breadth of it, the soft, secret line of dark hair beneath his navel. I sat back quickly, in alarm, thankful for the darkness that meant he would not be able to see my face – and the colour that had flooded it.

  We sat for a few moments in silence, and I tried to quash the image – disturbingly, unprecedentedly arousing – that kept presenting itself to me, like some sort of optical loop.

  But Oliver’s next words banished it far more effectively. ‘I’ve been thinking about your mother,’ he said, and stopped, probably seeing me stiffen. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No,’ I told him, ‘it’s fine – go on.’

  ‘I mean, I don’t want to presume to guess how you must be feeling … but when Grand-mère died, I was a wreck. I know losing a grandparent is different to losing a mother … but to be honest she was more like a parent to me than my own mother was. She and Grand-père were the ones who taught me about the world, how it worked, how to behave in it …’ He trailed off, apparently feeling that he had spoken too lengthily. ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘I don’t quite know what I meant to say.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. His awkwardness was rather touching. He wasn’t merely offering me platitudes, as so many did.

  I took another sip of my drink, feeling it burn a fiery trail all the way to my stomach. And then, perhaps because he had tried, and because the darkness seemed the place for such confidences, I said, ‘She was my best friend. I mean, I had other friends’ – I chose not to linger upon my use of the past tense – ‘but none of them were like her. I couldn’t tell them everything, as I could with her.’

  Oliver didn’t try to find a solution, which I was grateful for. He simply nodded. Then he fished a pack of cigarettes from his pocket, with a rather surreptitious look. ‘Would you like one?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  He took one for himself and lit it. ‘I’m trying not to,’ he said. ‘Grand-père hates it. But every so often …’ He peered at me. ‘You won’t tell him, will you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Thank you.’ He inhaled deeply and made a noise of satisfaction, blowing out a cloud of smoke. ‘I don’t know if this is the wrong thing to say, but in a strange way I’m envious of you. I never had that, with my mother.’

  ‘Oh.’ I had never quite considered it like that – that what Mum and I had might be particularly unusual. It had been the best thing in my life, absolutely, but I had rather taken it for granted. I remembered how, greedily, I had for most of my childhood longed for a large family: doting grandparents, siblings and cousins. What at times had seemed a lack now, considering Oliver’s words, seemed like a richness.

  ‘But you had your grandmother, Elodia.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, thoughtfully. ‘And I had Grand-père. Can I tell you something?’

  I nodded.

  ‘He’s not actually my grandfather. Not in the biological sense, at least. My mother was born before Grand-mère met him. You’ve probably noticed we don’t look anything like one another. But I love him more than anything – I can’t imagine loving anyone more.’

  I flushed, remembering my tactless remark to Stafford about how unalike they were. How callous I must have seemed. I thought, too, of how different their relationship was to the one I had with Evie.

  ‘Well, I envy you that,’ I said. ‘You see I—’ I stopped, wondering if I dared go on. ‘My adoptive grandmother, Evie—’

  ‘The one who hid the letter?’

  I felt the need to defend her. ‘Yes – though she was also the one who saved my mother, the one who got her into ballet. I mean, when it came to Mum, she was completely selfless, wonderful …’

  ‘But?’ Oliver interjected, quietly.

  ‘But …’ I paused – was I going to tell him? – then, heedlessly, I went on: ‘I never actually felt that we were that close.’ I waited for Oliver to say something, to condemn me, even, but he remained silent. ‘It was only at the end,’ I said, ‘after she’d died, when I realized how much I missed her. I never expected to. Sometimes I even wondered whether we liked each other, let alone loved one another.’

  I looked over at Oliver now, desperate for a reaction – of any sort.

  ‘Do you think that’s terrible?’ I asked.

  I could just make out the slow shake of his head. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t. I think … I think it’s human.’ I hadn’t known how much I cared what he thought until I heard him say this. ‘And you miss her,’ he added. ‘Perhaps that tells you everything you need to know.’

  ‘Do you miss your mother?’ I asked him.

  For a moment I thought he hadn’t heard me. Then he said, ‘I miss the idea of her, I suppose.’

  I wondered what that meant, exactly. ‘What was she like?’ I asked, shamelessly curious about the woman I had seen in the photograph.

  Oliver took a long drag on his cigarette, exhaled slowly. ‘Always very busy,’ he said, putting a strange emphasis on that last word. ‘She was a model, but what she truly wanted was to be an actress.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘She wasn’t a bad model, I think. She was certainly beautiful.’

  Even had I not seen the photographs of her in the hallway, I would have known it from the legacy of beauty I saw in her son, that which had only just been revealed to me.

  ‘She was no actress, though. I saw a film with her in once – she played a sort of femme fatale character. It was a bit part, barely five minutes on screen, but even so it was obvious what a dreadful actress she was. Getting that role had been a bit of a fluke – most of the directors she approached told her to stick with the modelling. The worst part was that she decided they were all wrong, and she kept trying.’

  I remembered watching videos of my mother dancing, the gasps and applause from the audience, the hot surge of pride I’d feel in my chest. How terrible, I thought, to bear witness to your parent’s failure – to be embarrassed for them in that way.

  ‘Even when she was still alive, I’d often come down to Corsica for the holidays,’ Oliver said. ‘She wanted to be in Cannes for the summer, you see, and Cannes, she told me, was for adults.’

  ‘So you always spent the summer apart?’

  ‘Yes – not that I minded. In fact I looked forward to coming here. Grand-père would collect me from Paris, and we’d drive al
l the way down through the country, stopping overnight to break up the journey. Sometimes he would have brought a tent with him and we’d camp somewhere.

  ‘Those weeks down here, staying with my grandparents, were the happiest of my life. I didn’t enjoy school much – I’m dyslexic, so I did badly and everyone thought I was stupid. It was an international school, and the other children didn’t know what to make of me – they were all English and American, civil service parents and that sort of thing. It was all paid for by my grandparents – Maman could never have afforded it. I’d live for those weeks when I got to stay with Grand-père and Grand-mère.’

  ‘Did your mother come, too?’

  ‘No … well, rarely. For a week at a time, maximum. She left the island as soon as she could. She was so different from my grandmother, who was – I think the expression is “the salt of the earth”? I’m fairly sure she felt Grand-mère had let her down.’

  ‘For what?’

  He stopped, suddenly, and gave a short bark of a laugh. ‘You could be an interrogator, you know.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, embarrassed. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No,’ he said, ‘I don’t mean it like that. It’s that I find myself telling you things I don’t intend to. I have no idea why. Perhaps you were a hypnotist in a previous life.’

  He took another long drag of his cigarette, and I watched the tiny, fierce ball of fire created by his breath.

  ‘Anyway,’ he went on, ‘my real grandfather was an Italian, a soldier. He was one of the Occupiers here during the war. Grand-mère never, ever talked about him.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘But my mother was obsessed with the idea of him. She convinced herself that he must have been someone special, an Italian count, or something. She used to talk about him as if she knew this for a fact, that she wasn’t just some Corsican farmer’s granddaughter, she had noble blood. She blamed Grand-mère for not being able to hold on to him. Then, when she had me, and my father was nowhere to be seen, she claimed that it was the bad example she’d been shown.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘The truth is, he’s always been my grandfather,’ he said, speaking now of Stafford. ‘I’ve tried to use him as my guide, for how I should behave. Even if I haven’t necessarily managed it.’