I could have done without the word “killer” and the mounting pressure on me to come up with the goods was beginning to unnerve me.
Tommy’s head was resting on my shoulder. I looked down at his sleeping face and, as always, liked what I saw. He has a pleasant face. Wide. Open. The thing about Tommy is that he looks safe. People trust him.
And the thing about Buzz, I reflected, was that he looked dangerous and that was why I was attracted to him. His face had a streak of cruelty, something about the mouth.
I could tell the minute we stepped down from the train at Cahors that my mother was in a state of high excitement about our visit. She was pacing up and down the platform, rubbing her palms together in front of her, a habit she’d adopted ever since she gave up smoking five years ago. She was whippet thin. How could she have lost even more weight since I’d last seen her? She has a small head perched on a long neck and her face is all bones—cheekbones, prominent nose, pointed chin—and huge eyes. I’ve always thought she had the eyes of a wicked child. They have a constant look of amusement, as if she’s just done something terribly naughty and you won’t scold her, will you? Because if you do, she’ll giggle and swear she didn’t do it. I noticed her hair was expertly cut, very short and close to the head exposing the angular bones of her face. But I was troubled that despite the fact she had turned up the collar of her jacket in rakish fashion, it did not detract from the roundness of her shoulders and the by now quite prominent hump at the top of her spine.
My mother was lithe and she prided herself on her energy level. But in the way that you can observe a person with added incisiveness when you have been separated from them for a while, I noted a change in her. She stooped a little, she no longer held her head quite so high, she was, I realized with a sudden pang, growing old.
What I hadn’t realized was that in a way Tommy and my mother were two of a kind. Overenthusiastic people who threw themselves into projects without really taking the time to think them through. The way she’d thrown herself into my father’s plan to go and live in France was a case in point. Just as my father had been about to retire they’d taken a holiday in the Dordogne and moved on to explore the Lot whereupon my mother had suddenly decided, while driving along the river through one of the beautiful gorges, that this was where they would live. To give her her due, she had masterminded the move single-handed, even going so far as to take French lessons at night school in order to be able to deal with the intricacies of buying a house there. Unfortunately her accent was so atrocious that no one could understand a word she said. The upshot of this was that instead of taking their time to look for the perfect retirement home, my parents had vastly overpaid for what was little more than a cowshed in 1989 and then spent a small fortune—and several years—converting it into a habitable two-bedroom barn. It stood just outside a village, perched on top of a hill in the middle of a field. Granted, the view was spectacular, but it was a far cry from the comforts I enjoyed in the house they had left behind in London.
“And how are you, Tommy?” asked my mother as soon as she had packed us into her little Deux Chevaux, “I can’t tell you how delighted we are that Lee was able to bring you.” Her voice was high and squeaky and somehow too girlish for her age. She always chirped like a bird rather than spoke.
“Listen,” said Tommy, “I’m the one who’s excited. I’ve never been to France before.”
“No!” My mother was suitably amazed. “Not a single pop across the Channel?”
“Not a one. Don’t know why. Been to Spain on a plane but never France.”
“Spain on a plane. You’re a poet, though you didn’t know it.” My mother giggled.
I almost groaned out loud. How long were they going to keep up this inane patter?
“How’s Dad?”
“Don’t worry about your father. He’s in heaven,” was my mother’s rather peculiar answer. “Tommy, tell me all your news. Are you still at the BBC? What are we going to do with you while you’re here? Do you bicycle? There are some marvelous views.”
“Mum, it’s the middle of winter,” I pointed out.
“Well, we can’t just sit indoors doing jigsaws and playing cards,” she said. “It’s Tommy’s first visit to France.”
“How do you play poker in French?” asked Tommy and my mother giggled happily and said, “Oh, it’s going to be such fun having you here.”
I didn’t need to worry about them, I realized. I sat in the back of the car—my mother had insisted Tommy sit in front beside her so he wouldn’t miss anything—and listened to them chattering away. They thrived on the kind of banal small talk that I always found such a struggle. Tommy was just carrying on the conversation he had begun with the passengers on the plane. He liked to chat, didn’t really matter to whom, and my mother was the same. I could probably get through the entire Christmas break never having to open my mouth again.
There was no sign of my father when we arrived at the house.
“Damn him.” My mother stopped in the middle of the yard in front of a pile of wood. “I told him to call the farm and get them to send a boy to split the logs. What are we supposed to put on the fire?”
“Don’t worry about another thing.” Tommy began rolling up his sleeves. “I can take care of that.”
“Give me your nice new sweater first.” I took his bags from him. “I’ll take these upstairs.”
“What an angel you’ve got there,” said my mother as we went indoors.
He was an angel fit for absolutely nothing when he staggered upstairs an hour later. He was so hopelessly unfit that splitting one log—let alone twenty—left him gasping for breath.
“I’ll run you a bath,” I told him, “then you’d better have a nap before dinner otherwise you’ll never go the distance.”
“This is a bit short,” he complained when he lay down on the lit bateau—a sort of mini-Napoleonic bed shaped like a boat that my mother had insisted on putting in the guest bedroom.
“It’s French,” I pointed out to him, “and from now on you’re going to love everything that’s French. Like these coarse linen sheets that will scratch our sensitive skin and the long stiff bolster that’s so hard it’ll probably give us a headache. What do you think of my mother by the way?”
I lay down beside him and looked around the guest bedroom, thinking that it must seem a little strange to him. There was no plaster or paint on the old stone walls because my mother had thought it amusing to preserve the original cowshed image. Medieval-looking tapestries were hung all over the place made from untreated wool obtained from the local shepherds. They had a rather unusual smell and as far as I was concerned it wasn’t wise to go too close to them.
“She’s a darling,” he said, yawning. “Why do you ask?”
“Do you think she’s happy living out here?”
“Haven’t a clue,” said Tommy helpfully. “What do you think?”
“I think she’s lonely. Look how excited she was to see us. I think maybe she got it wrong and she doesn’t like to admit it.”
“Got what wrong?”
“That retiring to France would be a great idea. As you’ve probably already noticed, the house is a disaster. Some people are blessed with vision and can look at a broken-down cowshed and see the idyllic rustic home that can be made out of it. My mother isn’t one of them. She just sees the picture in a coffee table book of someone else’s dream and imagines hers can be conjured up just like that. She’s always trying to be something she’s not. She’s not meant to be buried in the countryside like this. I’d be better off living here than she would.”
Tommy opened his eyes and looked at me in alarm.
“It’s all right, I’m not moving,” I reassured him. “It’s just it makes me sad to see how things don’t work out for my mother, that even after all these years she isn’t getting what she wants.”
“Maybe she doesn’t know what she wants. That’s probably what the trouble is.”
I glanced at Tommy. S
ometimes he can hit the nail bang on the head when he’s not even trying.
“But you can’t say that about me. It must be hell for her having a daughter like me. I don’t think I really satisfy her on any level. She used to want me to be a high-flyer like her. Now that she’s resigned herself to the fact that I’m just a writer, her words, she’d still prefer a daughter she could go shopping with, someone who’d give her grandchildren, someone she could compare recipes with. I imagine she wishes I were a best-selling novelist with her picture in the paper rather than the ghost behind the scenes.”
“Yeah, I see what you mean. The last thing she needs is a reclusive writer who never lets her boyfriend anywhere near her. No chance of a coffee morning deciding what the bridesmaids are going to wear. No knitting needles clicking for the grandchild. What a miserable old age she’s going to have.”
“You’re a beast.” I kicked him. “Anyway, we seem pretty close right now.” It was true. Somehow our arms had become entwined and we’d fallen into our familiar embrace. It felt good. Not exciting like it did with Buzz but comfortable and relaxed. I felt a rush of affection for Tommy.
“Come here.” He pulled me to him and we rubbed noses. It was something we did. Tommy had started it after what had become known between us as my Polar Bear Speech to Cath. She was gone and I missed her but my stupid pride would not allow me to show my misery to Tommy. Until one day he very firmly took me in his arms and announced, “If you’re going to be a silly polar bear for the rest of your life, you’ll need an Eskimo kiss from time to time to make you feel at home.” Whereupon he nudged my nose with his in such a gentle, tender movement that I opened my mouth without thinking and the ice melted.
I was so stupid to have worried about this visit. Tommy knew exactly how to make my mother happy. I was the one who was going to have to work overtime to show her that her efforts were appreciated. And I would. My mother and I were not on the same page, a favorite expression of Tommy’s in view of the fact that I was a writer. Indeed, this was the kind of infantile sense of humor he shared with my mother. There were times when I felt we weren’t even in the same book given the extent to which we failed to get the point of each other.
Tommy fell asleep in the middle of kissing me. Looking down at his rather wide head resting uncomfortably on the bolster, I was reminded of a Labrador retriever. Somehow Tommy had taken on the role of pet in my life. He was faithful and trusting, he was occasionally allowed to sleep on my bed, and he looked forward to his meals. He didn’t like being parted from me and he loved me unconditionally. And I loved him. But I had relegated him to a kennel on the edge of my consciousness, infrequently petting him and paying attention to him as one would a dog.
But unlike dogs, you couldn’t take Tommy for a walk unless the path led straight to a pub, so I took the opportunity to slip out of the house without him. I remembered my own special route to the village, taking a path down the hill that led past a place where a natural spring gushed out of the rock into a pool. One half of it formed a drinking trough for cattle and in the other the local washerwomen still came to rinse their laundry and scrub it on the large stone slabs, shooing away any cows that came too close. Although in late December I didn’t expect to see any.
There was a reason I was making for the village. I had a handful of Euros in my pocket and Buzz’s number scrawled on a piece of paper.
He wasn’t in. The phone rang and rang until I realized with a shock that the answering machine wasn’t on. There was no way I could communicate with him.
Tommy had awakened and joined my mother in the kitchen when I returned. She was showing him how to make an omelette aux truffes for supper and a dressing for the salad using the local walnut oil. I was tempted to point out to her that he would have much preferred egg and chips or beans on toast but I refrained. But I did produce a jar of Branston I’d brought with me for my father who liked a plowman’s lunch as much as the next man and Tommy’s face brightened.
My father came home around seven and I noticed my mother didn’t greet him or ask him where he’d been. As with my mother, I noticed a distinct change in my father but if anything he looked younger than when I’d last seen him. He had always been an attractive man who took care of himself but now he seemed especially vibrant. Unlike my mother he still held himself reasonably erect and at six foot three he was even taller than Tommy. He was a vain man who took excessive care of his appearance, but whereas my mother tended to overdress, my father always got it absolutely right. His well-worn corduroy trousers and Shetland polo neck looked like they afforded him the good quality comfort he’d expected when he bought them. His once black hair had turned completely white, his face was creased with wrinkles and folds in skin that had been roughened in all weathers but his eyes were the same eyes I had looked into as a child.
I looked into them now as he reached for me, enveloping me in one of his bear hugs.
“Nathalie, my favorite daughter,” he said. He never called me Lee and the “favorite daughter” line was an old joke between us. I was his only child.
He turned to Tommy. “Fancy a drink? Bottle of Guinness do you? I keep a few for special occasions. You need a reward for splitting all that wood.”
As I watched him put Tommy at his ease I thought what I always thought about my father: That he was this charming stranger. He had the gift of switching all the attention onto you and making you feel wonderful but at the end of the day you realized you had no idea what he was thinking. But when a man behaved like that with his own daughter, could it still be described as a gift? In his own manipulative way, my father was as much a loner as I was.
Supper was unexpectedly enjoyable, for the first half at any rate, before the conversation took a rather difficult turn. My father, usually the more silent of the two, always the listener, was surprisingly loquacious.
“Where do you live in London?” he asked Tommy suddenly after they’d exhausted everything there was to say about the Chelsea Football Club. I hadn’t known my father was a Chelsea supporter. In fact I strongly suspected he might have become one at the beginning of supper just for the purposes of finding a common topic of conversation with Tommy.
“East End,” said Tommy. “Bow. Vanessa, this really is yummy.” He was enjoying a second helping of the gateau de marrons my mother had whipped up since our arrival. “Can you teach Lee how to make this?”
“I can teach you, Tommy. How hard is roasting chestnuts? I’ll show you how to make the caramel tomorrow and of course you mustn’t forget the brandy.”
“Like I’d ever forget about the brandy,” said Tommy. “Isn’t she amazing, Lee?”
“Utterly,” I agreed. She really was. Her cooking lessons were one of the few worthwhile things she had taken up and not abandoned. But what I most admired was the way she never made a big deal of it. Anyone could do this, was her attitude.
“Good part of the world, Bow? Bit of an up-and-coming area?” My father was still looking at Tommy. “What do houses go for around there these days?”
Pointless thing to ask Tommy who had never had a clue about property. He’d never owned a house. He rented his flat.
“So how are the renovations to our house coming along?” asked my mother as I had known, inevitably, she would.
“Fine,” I said.
“What renovations?” asked Tommy before I could give his shins a good kick under the table. “Oh, you mean the summerhouse.”
“The summerhouse?” echoed my mother.
“Yes, it’s great. She’s gone and got a renter in there. Put in a heater and everything. It’s dead cozy.”
My parents stared at me.
“Is this true?”
I nodded.
“Well, you’d better get him or her out immediately.” My mother’s tone was quite sharp. I looked at my father, expecting him to reassure me it was fine.
“What kind of lease arrangement do you have with this person?”
“Well, nothing really. It’s all on a fr
iendly basis. There’s no lease as such.”
“No lease!” My mother was shocked. “But suppose you have to get them out. They probably have squatter’s rights by now.”
“I don’t want to get her out.”
“You may not want to but what about us? It’s our house in case you’d forgotten.”
“Any French people in the neighborhood?” inquired my father. An odd question; I couldn’t see the connection.
“In Notting Hill? I expect they’re a few,” I replied. “I don’t come across them much if there are. They probably prefer to be down by South Kensington, near the Lycee.”
“Your father’s got a bee in his bonnet about all these French tax exiles.”
“What French tax exiles?”
“Oh, there are loads of them. Didn’t you know? Sixty-five thousand Britons in France and two hundred and fifty thousand frogs in the UK. The French are desperate for properties in England.”
“Don’t call them frogs,” said my mother.
“I’ll call them what I like,” protested my father. “It’s a term of endearment for them. No one could accuse me of being anti-French.”
“Lord knows, that’s true,” said my mother, rather sourly I thought.
“I haven’t told you about our murder,” I said, knowing that would ensure their full attention. “That children’s television presenter, Astrid McKenzie, died at the end of our road.”
“You know, I think I read something about that,” said my mother. “I had no idea she lived in Blenheim Crescent and I didn’t realize she was murdered.”
“She lived in the mews and it’s a pretty sure bet she was murdered. They’re holding a man who works in the market.”
“Not anymore,” Tommy interrupted me. “While you were out for your walk I called the BBC. I always feel sorry for the poor sods who have to work over Christmas, wanted to wish them season’s greetings and all that. They’ve let that bloke go. Even though his wife said he wasn’t at home, no one actually saw him at Astrid’s either.”
How to Seduce a Ghost Page 12
