‘The Police Station or Santa Marta?’
Luke looks out of the window and sees a sign, Aeroport. ‘All of it.’
‘We were going frantic looking for you.’
‘I’m sorry I’ve dragged you through this.’
‘Someone said you might have gone off to drown yourself.’
‘Rhona?’
‘I said, gone to drown your sorrows more like. If not, a long walk in the mountains. Josh said he’d seen you before his jog and you looked fine and were going for a swim. One search party went to the river, then to the coast. I went with Matthew in his van up to Zonza. When you failed to appear we returned to Santa Marta and waited. Later someone phoned the police.’
Luke is desperate to know whether Alden fell from the bridge because he was startled by the rifle shot, whether he was injured by the fall, or whether he was even grazed by the bullet. He is too scared to ask: the atmosphere of suspicion in the gendarmerie has followed him into the car. He sits back and watches other vehicles overtake, averting his eyes from the mountains on the right.
As they pass through Sotta, Russ says, ‘I packed your bag. It’s in the boot. Your flight’s to Paris, Charles de Gaulle. You’ll have to change. There may be a wait before the flight to Heathrow. I didn’t think you’d mind.’
‘I don’t care if I spend the night on the floor of departures.’
‘I’m treating you to lunch. It’s only a glorified truck stop but Mathilde recommended it.’ Russ turns his head, frowning ‘You might want to change out of that shirt and jeans.’
‘I should be treating you. I feel I owe you my life.’
Russ shakes his head. Luke is unsure whether he is being modest or indicating that he prefers to avoid the subjects of life and death.
Russ leaves the main road and stops at a relais. In the car park Luke exchanges his dirty clothes for a fresh T-shirt and shorts. To be out of the dirty clothes is some way towards being rid of yesterday. They walk through the fierce late morning heat to the restaurant door, but Luke shivers at the sight of a line of bunting above the outside tables and at the menu boards on the door; it is too similar to the restaurant in Porto-Vecchio.
Russ is already at the door. Luke calls him back. ‘Can we eat outside?’
At a shaded table a waiter brings menus.
‘Russ, you choose for me,’ says Luke.
He hears Russ chatter in bad French to the waiter.
When the waiter has left Russ says, ‘He told me the beef ragout with pasta is very good, and I asked him if it wasn’t too much for a hot day and he said that the herbs and spices are . . .’
Luke sinks into his chair, hardly listening. When the waiter has brought bread and mineral water Luke says, ‘How was Alden?’
‘Worried sick about you. We all were.’
‘But was he alright? When I left, Rhona couldn’t find him.’
Russ looks away and says, ‘Well, apparently he fell off the bridge when he was doing his tai chi. He gave his head a bang but staggered along the gulley before heaving himself up the bank. He hardly knew where he was and ended up in the gallery, which is where she found him, dazed, blood all over the floor. But the knock on the head wasn’t as bad as the gash on his leg. She was all for rushing him to a doctor but he wouldn’t hear of it.’ Russ turns to Luke. ‘Then you went missing, by which time he was back to himself and wanting to lead a search party.’ Russ looks away. ‘We were all shocked that he, not Rhona, was more concerned about you. It was no secret you and she had argued. We were worried about your state of mind. Several of the girls, Cassie and Thérèse in particular, were beside themselves.’
‘But Alden’s OK?’
Russ frowns. ‘Apart from a limp.’
‘And Rhona?’
Russ raises his eyebrows and looks away. They sit in silence until their food arrives.
It is not until he begins eating that Luke realises how hungry he is. He finishes his ragout quickly and drinks two glasses of water. Now brave enough for the question, he asks, ‘Did the police come to Santa Marta?’
‘I think a gendarme turned up, but I didn’t see him. Luke?’
‘Yes.’
‘There’s something else.’
Luke sits up, instinctively looking over his shoulder.
Russ says, ‘No, it’s nothing about Alden. Or Rhona. I would like to stay on here longer.’
‘Of course. Have an extra week if you wish. You know what business is like in August.’
‘Matthew has asked me to stay at his house in Italy.’
‘That’s fine. Take two or three weeks. Paid of course – you deserve it. Which part?’
‘Paestum. It could be . . . much longer than a few weeks.’
‘Ah. I see.’
‘It’s been quite a decision, but . . . we seem to have become very close.’
‘That’s great Russ.’ Luke knows his tone is unconvincing. In silence he looks at Russ. ‘You ought to have brought him with you.’
‘I was going to. In fact we drove down from Santa Marta together. But I realised I had to tell you this on my own. We’re meeting up in Porto-Vecchio later.’
‘Russ, this is wonderful news. We should be drinking champagne. Let me order some.’
‘I’m sorry I can’t give you proper notice.’
‘Forget it.’ Luke attempts to ignore the dismal prospect of running the shop single-handed. ‘We must drink to this. I insist.’ He signals to the waiter.
‘I’ll come home for a few days in October to sort my things and put the house on the market.’
‘If I can help in any way . . . I’ll certainly make sure you have a farewell party.’
As Luke looks at the wine list Russ says, ‘Just a glass for me. It’s a long drive back up the mountains and I wouldn’t want another visit to the police station.’
Luke shivers at the comment. He is aware that he has not yet left the island. There remains in his mind the possibility that before lunch is ended a police car will appear. Two of those militaristic uniforms will climb out. They will walk up to their table, one of them holding in a plastic bag a small brass, cylindrical object with a creased open end, and a small dent in the other end where the firing pin struck.
When they each have a glass of wine Luke says, ‘To you – both of you. Good luck.’ He sips, drinking as much to the hope of his own freedom as to Russ’s future. The wine tastes repulsive. He leaves the rest.
Over coffee Luke asks, ‘Was it the police who suggested I leave?’
‘I’m not certain. Mathilde phoned to report you missing. Later Lynton had a prolonged phone call from a brigadier-chef. I don’t know exactly what was said but we were mightily relieved you were safe at the police station. Alden wanted you to be brought back by taxi. He also volunteered to drive down immediately to collect you himself. But Rhona was adamant you should be put on the next plane. More I can’t say. You wouldn’t have wanted to go back, would you?’
‘No. Never.’
At Figari Airport, there is a heavy sadness in Russ’s handshake, deepened as Luke walks towards the check-in among the couples and families in holiday spirit. It is not until the plane moves along the runway that he accepts that the bullet case remains undiscovered. Glancing down at the mountains as the island shrinks beneath him, he is aware less of escape and freedom than the sadness of loss – of Rhona, of Russ, of Eva and also part of himself.
25
In Brick Kiln Cottage, Eva, up since dawn, removes all the drawers and clears out the contents of her desk in readiness for its replacement. It is an opportunity to reorganise papers, to throw away all which is unwanted, to prepare for a new beginning. She is not certain how to dispose of the unwanted desk and its chair. A month ago she would have asked Luke to take it away and place it in an auction.
It is not until early afternoon that she makes a brief inspection of the garden. In less than a fortnight, with heavy crops of fruit on the trees, it has become an autumn garden. She sees that Annie has tended th
e flowers and vegetables with more care than she might have done herself. Annie has even cut back all the delphiniums to the ground and mulched, in the hope of a second growth and a late show of flowers. And in the greenhouse there are more tomatoes and cucumbers than she will ever be able to eat. When she returns to the house she finds some plums waiting in the tray of the fridge. She eats one and goes to her bedroom to dress. Opening the wardrobe for a hanger for Barbara’s dress, she sees that Luke has removed all his shirts. But there is no sadness in the row of empty hangers: before reconstruction, doesn’t the old need to be cleared away? But not necessarily discarded, she thinks – perhaps reincorporated in whatever new life is to be built. But then she notices that Luke has also taken away his books on the bedside table. Their absence, the bare rectangle of the pine table top, signals a departure, more definite, irrevocable, than a few removed shirts. It informs her that the possibility that Luke will play some part in her new life is slight. She is surprised to be unmoved by the thought; in the brief period of mourning laid down by Barbara, perhaps she has also accepted this other loss.
Late afternoon, as promised, the dealer’s son arrives with Barbara’s desk, chair and a box of books. She helps him carry them into the house.
‘Do you have plans for the other desk?’ he asks.
‘It can be yours. I want nothing for it,’ says Eva. ‘Have it to bring you and your father luck with the other items you bought from me.’ She knows Luke would not approve of such generosity; Barbara would have understood.
When the old desk and chair are placed in the van, the dealer says, ‘Are you sure I can’t give you something for them?’
‘Certainly not,’ she says. ‘But if you do well with them feel free to give a donation to St. Colman’s.’
As the van drives away she is annoyed with herself: she had meant to say, St. Anthony’s – a confusion, she tells herself, made by her subconscious still struggling to make sense of Barbara’s last wishes.
Later, she arranges the residual contents of her discarded desk in the drawers of its replacement. There is a pleasing mustiness about its cedar linings. In front of it she positions Barbara’s chair with its old cushion. Stepping back to see if chair and desk suit their new surroundings, she brings her hands together in a single clap of approval. They belong here, and there is a space on the wall to her right where she can hang the painting of the Limerick house. Plumping the chair’s Aubusson cushion, she releases some fine dust into the room. Its smell, more comforting than offensive, transports her back to Barbara’s flat. She looks down at the chair and pictures Barbara seated there. ‘You are still here,’ she says aloud. Slowly she sits, leaning over the desk and running her hands across the width of its scuffed and ink-blotched, green leather top. She examines the marks. Some of are like Rorschach inkblots. They call to mind only her aunt. On one side where, she imagines, Barbara’s arm must have rested, part of the leather is worn through to the wood below. She moves her own arm to cover the wear, and finds a strength in doing so. For the first time she notices traces of gilt in the tooling around the edge of the leather where it catches light from the window. She lifts her head and looks out into the garden along a line of pink Japanese anemones in the border by the fence. They will soon need dividing, she thinks, and the whole bed needs weeding, but those tasks can wait. And I must plant a tree in Barbara’s memory, perhaps a quince, somehow appropriate with the wayward shape of its fruit and what Annie calls the breath of autumn. She relaxes in the chair and feels the upholstered back on her spine. To work here will always be a pleasure.
She places her laptop on the desk. Since Barbara had never owned a computer and the worn surface in front of her had known only pen and paper, it sits as an intruder. The desk, Eva thinks, will have to accept its new companion along with its new owner.
The following morning Luke, travel-weary and despondent, watches rain darken the red brick walls of his garden. He knows he should go to the shop, if not to open it, at least to collect mail. The plan had been for him and Russ to return tomorrow, Thursday, and to re-open the shop on Friday, but now the exigencies of business belong to a different life; the shop’s future, like his own, is uncertain. At the kitchen table he checks his emails in the hope there may be a message from Rhona; perhaps now, after two days of reflection, her anger towards him would have calmed as quickly as it flared up. And how much does she know? How much does Alden know? Does he remember only the crack of a rifle and being startled, falling from the bridge? Or did he at the last moment see the half-concealed weapon pointing towards him? Did he in fact jump? Or – Luke shivers – did the bullet inflict a glancing wound? And how much of what Alden knew, or could remember, did he share with Rhona? There is no email from her.
He hears a sound at the front door. He freezes. Was it a knock? He imagines an English policeman on the step. Has there been contact with the French police? Has further evidence been found? Perhaps he will be hauled in for questioning. Before going to the door, he goes into the front room where, peering through a gap in the shutters, he looks down the street for a police car. There is none. Expecting a second, firmer knock, he goes to the front door. Junk mail is on the floor beneath the letterbox. Suspicious, he opens the door. At the top of the street the postman is on his round. Reprieved, he returns to the kitchen.
Looking out into the garden again, he knows he should brave the wet and pick the last figs. They are being pillaged by blackbirds, others have fallen to the ground; no doubt the wasps are feasting. He thinks of last year’s record crop, Eva and he picking more than a hundred, eating them, making fig crumble, giving them away – Russ had had a basketful. Now it hardly matters if they rot. He frowns at the weeds in the borders and the uncut lawn. And he must get down to the allotment. To have neglected so much is unforgiveable. But he has no energy for the work. Overtaken by sadness and inertia he returns to bed.
On Thursday morning, no less despondent, he carries a strong coffee to the seat under the fig tree where, in an attempt to return to diligent husbandry, he removes some fruit from the lower branches. But after picking a dozen he finds the work pointless, and decides the birds and wasps are welcome to the rest. Finishing his drink, he sits and looks towards the rear of his house. Should he close the business and leave here? He ponders his future until disturbed by the ringtone of his landline. Is it Rhona? He rushes to the back door.
The ringing stops before he seizes the handset. He checks for a message. There is one, but it is from Eva: ‘I’m back from Ireland. Funeral went as well as it could have. Not sure when you return. Hope the play went OK.’
He cannot bring himself to phone her back.
For the rest of the day and all Friday he doesn’t leave the house and seldom moves from the front room where, with shutters closed and curtains drawn, he watches old French films, preferring Jacques Tatti to romantic or violent themes. But on one occasion arguing voices draw him back to the police station. He mutes the sound and watches in silence but the memories replay in his mind, continuing even after he has ejected the DVD. For comfort he looks to his bookshelves and the rows of novels. But their subjects are mainly crime, war and political intrigue. He settles on an anthology which had been a favourite of his mother’s. When he was a child, she had often read to him from it. It seems the least innocuous volume on the shelves. At random he opens a page and reads:
Speak not – whisper not;
Here bloweth thyme and bergamot;
He quickly closes the book, attempting to suppress memories of Rhona’s silence, her whispered confidences, the thyme near the studio door and the pots of herbs at Les Puits. But their images persist, vivid and painful. He drops the anthology on the floor.
Returning to the TV, he searches the channels for an unthreatening distraction. Football alone provides some safety. Watching – it doesn’t matter which teams are playing – he becomes part of a crowd of thousands where eyes are focused on the players, not on him, and if he remains still, even the police, staring up into th
e terraces cannot single him out. Between matches and sometimes during them, he sleeps in an armchair and at odd hours, when hungry, eats the contents of whatever packet or tin comes to hand in the kitchen.
On Saturday the rain returns. Its sound is a palliative; there had been only the remorseless sun on Corsica. At 9.50am, fishing hat pulled down over his head, he walks up to the market place, glad of the wet which will deter any acquaintance from pausing to chat. At the shop, the mundane tasks of unlocking, turning the sign to open, removing mail from the front door mat, are encroachments on Russ’s morning routine, while in the workshop Russ’s presence remains in every neatly-arranged screwdriver, jar of pigment and paintbrush – even his voice lingers: ‘I suppose we’ll get our usual crowd of Saturday timewasters.’ Luke forces himself to repair an Empire frame. It is not an urgent task, there is no client pressing for its completion, but it occupies hands and time and even if it does not remove thoughts about Rhona, it dilutes their intensity. Surely, despite everything, there is still hope? Surely Rhona will regret her outburst. Her accusation that he had attacked Alden was well-founded, but with Alden alive and well she must now believe she was wrong. She may even wish to apologise for her anger, and perhaps her insistence not to see him back at Santa Marta was to prevent any friction between him and Alden. Surely she was protecting, not rejecting him? By now she will have returned from the heady atmosphere of Santa Marta to workaday East Anglia, from the heat of the maquis to dull skies and wet hedgerows. Alden’s powers of persuasion will have waned. She will want to see him again. He hears the shop bell ring and dashes to the door.
He opens it to find Alf, holding a sack.
‘Hope you don’t mind me calling in, but I saw the open sign. Guessed you’ve been too busy catching up with work to look at your vegetables. I’ve bagged you up a few.’ Alf stares him hard in the face. ‘You look shattered. Now don’t worry about your allotment – I’ll keep an eye on it until you’ve sorted yourself out.’
The Mirrror Shop Page 34
