by Liz Byrski
Andrew stares at the chaise, sits on it and lies back, discovering the same uncomfortable broken spring that Kerry had found the day she had lain here. He locks his hands behind his head, resting back on the faded cushion. He has a strange feeling that Gerald is still there, his spirit caught perhaps in the deep folds of the curtains, or watching him from the top of the tallest bookcase. ‘So, Dad,’ he says aloud. ‘What now? Do you know what happened? Well, Linda and I split up. I know you’ll think that’s all my fault because you liked her so much. You two got on well, didn’t you? She was your sort of person, you said so the first time I brought her home. You were right in a way and that might have been part of the problem. But it was only partly my fault and you don’t need to know all the details. Anyway, I think it’s sorted now. And then I fell off my bike, yeah I know, not the first time. I’m okay, but I landed on a car and then on the kerb, my butt is stitched up and I almost broke my neck. Riding too fast, you see, not paying sufficient attention to the conditions of the bike path and … smash, there I was, bouncing around like a shuttlecock. I know you’ll want to give me a lecture, I can almost feel you bursting with frustration that you can’t tell me what you think. But it doesn’t matter, because I know what you think, and you’re right – irresponsible, reckless and, worse still, Brooke was with me, very bad parenting.’ He pauses, looking around the room for something, lord knows what, a sign, the twitch of a curtain, a paper dislodged from the desk fluttering to the floor, but nothing happens.
‘Well, you’re right, of course, you were often right, and even when you were wrong I believed you … mostly. But there were times …’ he pauses, sighs, listens, ‘… times when – oh well, it doesn’t matter now. You did your best, what more can a boy ask of his father than that he does his best? You loved me, all of us, but you were incapable of saying it and you often had a funny way of showing it. I’ve wondered if you were happy, Dad – ever. Did your heart sing with joy when you looked at Kerry and me as mine does when I look at Brooke? I don’t think it did, and I’m sorry if you didn’t have that because it’s a feeling like no other.’
Andrew takes another deep breath and stands up. ‘I know so little about you and that’s my fault as well as yours.’ He hesitates, feeling suddenly awkward, embarrassed, as though any minute Gerald will emerge, laughing at his stupidity and telling him to bugger off and do something useful. He looks around again. ‘I loved you, I should have told you that when I still had the chance, and you should have told me too. But it’s too late now. So I just came to say goodbye, and … well, rest in peace, Dad.’ And he stands for a moment in the silence and then walks quickly to the door, runs down the stairs and out through the kitchen into the bright cold air of the garden, buries his face in his hands and, for the first time since Gerald’s death, he sobs violently for what seems like a very long time.
Back in the house he splashes cold water on his face and then wanders through the rooms again, feeling lighter than he has for a long time, feeling his spirits lift as though he has shed a burden. In the lounge he runs his finger along the shelf of CDs, searching for something other than Connie’s classics and jazz, and finds it, something of his own left behind years ago. Smiling, he slips the disc into the slot, turns up the volume and waits, feet wide apart, head thrown back, grasping the remote control in lieu of a microphone. And here come the drums, then the guitars, and he is Freddie Mercury striding across the stage at Wembley Stadium, in a white singlet. He knows the words, he knows the moves, all he needs now is for Freddie to break out the first line, and he’s there with him, strutting, swinging, singing ‘I want to break free …’
*
Suzanne is not at the airport; there is no sign of the yellow Renault, which, Flora reminds herself, is just a year old and jointly owned, unlike the hotel’s Citroën van, which belongs to Suzanne. So how will they sort this one out?
She signals for a taxi and the driver slings her bag into the boot as she slides into the backseat. It’s almost six o’clock, a mild, clear evening with a light breeze. The pavement tables will be packed, the wait staff rushed off their feet, chaos in the kitchen, Gaston yelling at the sous chef, Suzanne putting the fear of God into the staff but bestowing welcoming smiles on the customers. What a joy not to have to step straight back into all that. Flora wonders how Suzanne and Xavier have divided the work between them, whether he is pulling his weight. He’s a man who likes his own way as much as Suzanne likes hers. It’s probably been a fiery few weeks as they’ve settled in together.
She winds down the window and watches the familiar countryside unfold, seeing it this time with the eyes of one who has arrived only to leave again. She knows she will always be drawn back to this part of France, the traditions she has learned to love, the small bright towns and fishing ports, the pines along the cliffs, the wide sandy beaches and craggy outcrops. Perhaps she will bring her new family here one day; the coast itself is not dissimilar to where they live now in Cornwall. She would like to come with Geraldine, she thinks, and Bea and the children, introduce them to Suzanne, walk them to the furthest tip of the cape and swim with them off the beach where she and Connie swam on that unseasonably warm day not so long ago. Back then she had thought that one day Connie’s children and grandchildren might come here too, but the prospect of that now seems to be fading into the distance.
But she can’t dwell on that for long because the weekend in Cornwall comes back, jostling for her attention. They had welcomed her with genuine warmth, plied her with questions about her life, about France and Australia, and when she, Geraldine and Bea were alone they had talked about Gerald, the one that she and Bea had known and the man that Flora thinks he may have become.
‘And my step-brother and sister,’ Geraldine had asked, ‘do you have any idea what they’re like? I know it’s years since you saw them but do you have any photographs?’
‘I thought you might ask that,’ Flora had said, and fetched her iPad from her bag. ‘These are some pictures of the family that Connie’s sent me over the years.’
She’d felt strangely uneasy about sharing the photographs without Connie’s permission, but the desire to connect the two sides of the family with each other in even the smallest possible way was too strong and she didn’t hold back.
‘He’s so like me,’ Geraldine had said, peering closely at a photograph of Andrew, ‘and is that his daughter?’
Flora had nodded. ‘That’s Brooke, taken a couple of years ago.’ She flicked to the next photograph of Kerry and Chris with Ryan and Mia. ‘Kerry is much more like her mother.’ She’d heard herself speaking as though she really knew them, and the words stuck in her throat.
She turns her attention back to the road now as they head into Port d’Esprit along the main street, past the post office, the church and the square and turn finally onto the quayside and make their way towards the hotel. It’s just as she expected: busy with tourists and locals – Jean-Claude and his cronies as always at a corner table, and in an opposite corner Nico, the baker’s son, playing accordion. Flora gets out of the car and is paying the driver when she feels a hand on her arm.
‘Flora, Dieu merci,’ Suzanne says, hugging her. ‘I can’t tell you how thankful I am to see you.’ She picks up Flora’s case and steers her across the wide pavement, between the tables, in through the restaurant to the office off the kitchen and closes the door behind them. ‘I have made a terrible mistake,’ she says immediately. ‘Flora, this man, I cannot work with him, he does not listen to me, always he does what he wants and it is different from what I want. C’est impossible. You must stay, Flora. Somehow we work out how to live, the three of us.’
Flora’s lips twitch into a wry smile. This is so typical of Suzanne, her needs always come before anyone else’s, even before the pleasantries that one might expect in these circumstances. She slips off her jacket and lays it over the back of the office chair. ‘Thank you, Suzanne,’ she says. ‘Yes, I did have a good holiday, it’s nice of you to ask.’
Flora puts up her hand to stop her. ‘Hang on, Suzanne,’ she says. ‘You actually can’t rely on me for anything. I’ve just come back to pack up my things. I’m flying back to London the day after tomorrow.’
‘But no, this is your home, Flora, and the business, it needs you. I need you.’
Flora sits down on the swivel chair and turns gently from side to side. ‘You have Xavier now. It’s what you wanted – to buy the place next door, convert our flat and live with Xavier. You told me it was what you both wanted. And I knew that it was time for me to go, not just for your sake but my own. Time to do something different. I have other plans now.’
‘No,’ Suzanne says sternly, putting a hand on the arm of the chair to stop her swaying. ‘I was wrong, I am sorry, Flora, I was very wrong. Mon Dieu, how wrong. I love Xavier, yes, but I cannot work with him.’
Flora knows Suzanne well enough to detect the note of desperation that underlies her confident tone. She grips the hand that is steadying the chair. ‘Did you read my messages?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Suzanne replies, ‘but now there is no need for you to take this bookshop job. You can stay here, as we have been so long, à deux, a great working partnership. It is what you want.’
Flora shakes her head. ‘It was good, Suzanne, very good. But it’s over now. It’s time for me to go, get a place of my own, live in England again.’
The conversation is long and increasingly painful. Meanwhile, Flora can only imagine Xavier cruising between the tables, stopping to take a drink with some locals, signalling a waiter to fetch something for him. She listens as Suzanne tells her the same things over and over again until she finally runs out of steam and sits down suddenly on the small sofa in the corner.
‘So you see …’ Suzanne says with a shrug, ‘there is no other way.’
‘There is always another way,’ Flora says, ‘and you are resourceful, a wonderful patronne, full of energy and ideas, and you’ll find that way. You will hire someone, or two people perhaps, rearrange things a little, and in a while, a very short while, it will seem normal, and you will wonder how you ever did it any other way.’
‘But …’
Flora shakes her head. ‘I’m going back to London. That’s how it is.’ She knows that the firmness of her tone will be strange to Suzanne, that she will struggle to match the Flora she has known for years with the one speaking to her now. She is different, she has the confidence that comes with choice, and with the satisfaction of feeling grounded elsewhere. ‘I have a great job with good people, Suzanne. And better still I have a family in England now. It’s time to go home again.’
*
It doesn’t take long to pack her things and tie up the loose ends of the last fifteen years, to catch up with people and say her goodbyes. On the last morning she slips out early and rides her bike to early mass for the last time, sitting at the back of the church, wondering whether or not she will take communion, thinking that what she would really like is a chat with God rather than a formal mass. A chat of the sort she had had as a young woman when she had been considering life in the convent. But she seems to have lost the knack. I want that back, she thinks, walking slowly down to the communion rail. Help me, please, help me to get that back. And she swallows the host and sips the wine, crosses herself and returns to her seat and stays there, for the rest of the service and for some time after, sitting in the silence, waiting until it feels right to leave.
Once outside she unlocks her bike and rides slowly around the town for the last time. She waves to the pharmacist as he rolls back the blinds, and swerves to miss the slosh of water from a waiter’s bucket as he swills it across the pavement, then she turns back to the quay and swings the bike down the side way into the backyard, and parks it against the kitchen wall.
Gaston is taking a tray of croissants from the oven. He smiles and rolls his eyes. ‘You don’t change your mind?’ he asks hopefully.
She shakes her head and glances at her watch. ‘I leave in a couple of hours. But why are you baking croissants, hasn’t Nico delivered this morning?’
Gaston puts down the hot tray and wipes his hands on his apron as Pierre slides the croissants off the tray into the baskets ready for the tables.
‘Monsieur Xavier,’ he says with a shrug, ‘he thinks we will make our own. It is, how you say in English, authentic? I say to him, Nico père has made our croissants for years, Nico fils delivers them – how is this not authentic? But he does not answer.’
Flora smiles and pats his arm. ‘Suzanne will stop it very soon, I’m sure,’ she says. ‘Just hang on a week or so and you’ll see.’ She nods towards Pierre. ‘Can I borrow him a moment?’
‘Of course,’ Gaston says. ‘But one moment only.’
‘I have something for you, Pierre,’ Flora says, and beckons him to follow her out into the yard where she points to her bike. ‘I’m going back to England,’ she explains in French. ‘I won’t need this anymore and I want you to have it. Perhaps it will help you get to work on time.’ And she smiles and pushes the bike towards him and Pierre grasps the handlebars in delight.
‘Vraiment?’ he says, a huge smile splitting his long, pale boy’s face.
‘Yes, really,’ she says. ‘You’re doing well, Pierre. Madame Suzanne will never tell you this herself, but I will tell you now that she thinks highly of you. She will think even more highly if you get to work on time.’ And she pats him on the shoulder and goes back inside.
‘So, you will come back to see me?’ Suzanne says later as she walks out with her to the taxi. ‘You will come for a holiday?’
‘Of course,’ Flora says, close to tears now. ‘I’ll come so often you’ll probably get sick of me.’
Suzanne shakes her head. ‘Never,’ she says. ‘And I can never repay you, for all the years … for …’
And she turns suddenly and runs back inside through the restaurant and Flora sees her disappear up the stairs. It is the first time she has seen Suzanne cry since her tears after Jacques’s death, and it moves her deeply. But she turns back to the taxi and climbs in, this time beside the driver.
‘Allons y,’ she says, and he slips the car into gear. As they move slowly on down the quay she leans back in comfort and watches as the past slips away behind her, sadness jostling for attention with a growing sense of excitement about what lies ahead.
Thirty-one
‘The room I’d really like,’ Brooke says cautiously, obviously wondering how this will be received, ‘is Granddad’s old study.’
There’s a silence in which the proverbial pin could have been heard to drop. Andrew draws a breath, wondering how Connie will take this. His father’s study has been sacred ground for so long. ‘Oh, I don’t think so, Brooke …’ he begins.
‘Would you really, dear?’ Connie asks. ‘I thought you’d prefer Andrew’s old room.’
Brooke looks from one to the other, then shakes her head. ‘Really, Nan, if I’m going to spend the holidays here from now on, and if you’re really okay with it, I’d have the study, but maybe you want to keep it as …’
‘As a memorial? Of course not,’ Connie laughs. ‘It’s just that it’s a bit cut off from the rest of the house and small compared to the other rooms.’
‘Perhaps you prefer Kerry’s room?’ Farah says. ‘I can move to …’
‘No, please, Farah, don’t move,’ Brooke says. ‘I really would love the study. It’s cosy – like a tiny apartment up there, all on its own with its own little shower and toilet. I think it would be heaven.’
Andrew looks at Connie and raises his eyebrows, wondering how she really feels.
‘Well, then, that’s what you shall have,’ she says. ‘But it needs clearing out.’ She looks at Andrew. ‘Do you thi
nk … ?’
‘Of course, Brooke can help me. If we sort through the books and papers, and the small stuff, I can get Ted next door to help me with the furniture.’
‘Should you be doing that?’
‘I’m fine,’ Andrew says, ‘much more comfortable since the stitches came out.’
‘So I can really have it?’ Brooke asks.
‘Of course you can. Do what you like with it. I’m sure Granddad would have loved to see you up there.’
‘I think we might chuck out the chaise,’ Andrew says. ‘I sat on it the other day, there’s a broken spring.’
‘Oh, please let me keep it,’ Brooke says. ‘It’s so cool. I don’t mind the broken spring.’
Connie tilts her head on one side and looks at Andrew. ‘When were you up there?’
‘When you two were out shopping the other day.’
‘But why?’
‘Just having a last chat with Dad,’ he says, feeling himself flush.
‘But when we got back,’ Brooke says, ‘you were singing to Queen. You should’ve seen him, Farah, it was really embarrassing.’
‘All right, all right,’ Andrew says, blushing.
‘I thought it was rather nice, you singing like that. When you were much younger you used to do it to Boomtown Rats – “I Don’t Like Mondays”. I’ve got a photo somewhere …’
‘Well, we won’t bother looking for that,’ Andrew says. ‘But on the subject of photographs, you didn’t show us any of those friends of Dad’s that you met in London. Phillip, was it? And I can’t remember the woman’s name.’
