by Unknown
Speaking seemed to release in her a new surge of panic. Kitty is dead, then. This voice is not hers. Kitty is dead in her crumpled little car . . .
‘Ah,’ said Madame Besson. ‘OK. I’m sorry to disturb you.’
Veronica understood that Madame Besson was about to hang up and said quickly: ‘Is anything wrong, Madame Besson? Did my brother go to see the house?’
Madame Besson cleared her throat. ‘He had the keys at eleven o’clock,’ she said. ‘He told me he would return them by two. But he has not returned them and now I have another couple wishing to see this house.’
‘Oh,’ said Veronica. ‘Well, I’m sorry. I think he planned to go for a walk somewhere up there . . .’
‘Yes? But he said he would be back here by two o’clock and it is now almost five.’
Veronica blinked. ‘I’ll call Anthony,’ she said. ‘He’s got his mobile with him.’
‘Thank you,’ said Madame Besson. ‘I’m leaving the office in half an hour. Please ask your brother to get the keys to me tomorrow morning. I have only the one set and the owners are in Switzerland.’
When Veronica dialled Anthony’s phone, there was no sound from it.
She tried a second time and it was the same: no beep or tone or buzz or anything. Only silence.
Veronica made mint tea and sat at the kitchen table, sipping it. She had no urge to cry now. She felt sick and hoped the tea would alleviate this. The thought of cooking the calves’ liver and the lardons made her gag.
When the nausea diminished a little, it was replaced by a feeling of exhaustion and Veronica made her way with slow steps up to her bedroom. She kicked off her shoes and lay down. She stared at the pillow next to hers, the place where Kitty’s head always lay. She reached out and clasped the pillow to her and closed her eyes.
When she woke up, she was aware that darkness was beginning to shadow the room, not night yet, but a blue and lonely dusk. Then, she became conscious of a sudden intrusive sound. It was the telephone. Veronica reached out, still groggy from her sleep, and just held the phone to her ear, waiting for whatever news was going to come from it.
‘Veronica,’ said Kitty’s voice. ‘It’s me.’
Relief surged in, almost as sweet as sexual pleasure. But then anger followed and Veronica began yelling at Kitty: why hadn’t she called or sent a text or picked up her phone? Why had she let her go mad with worry? How could she be so selfish and unimaginative?
‘I’m sorry,’ said Kitty. ‘I’m sorry . . .’
‘But WHY?’ shouted Veronica. ‘You said you’d call. I left tons of messages. I thought you were dead!’
‘I’m sorry,’ said Kitty again. ‘I couldn’t call. Or text. I just couldn’t.’
‘What d’you mean, you just couldn’t? And you sound drunk or something. What happened?’
‘Nothing happened,’ said Kitty. ‘That’s exactly it. Nothing. So yes, I am a bit drunk. I’m at a hotel.’
‘A hotel? What are you talking about? I thought you were going to stay with André and Gilles.’
‘Yes. Couldn’t face that either . . . I called them . . .’
‘Kitty, what in the world—’
‘Don’t make me say it, Veronica. Don’t make me say it.’
‘Say what?’
‘Don’t make me say it!’
Veronica was silent. She felt all her crossness subside, cursed herself for not understanding sooner what had happened. Then she said quietly: ‘All right. I’ll say it. The gallery turned you down.’
Veronica swung her feet off the bed. At the window, now, the sky was darkening all the while. She could hear Kitty crying.
‘Kitty,’ she said, ‘there are other galleries. Are you listening to me? There are hundreds of other galleries we can approach.’
After Kitty had hung up, contrite, consoled a little, promising to get some supper and go to bed, Veronica made her way downstairs and found the house dark and silent. It was near to eight o’clock. She took the calves’ liver out of the fridge and unwrapped it and began slicing it. She kept looking up, thinking she heard Anthony’s hired Renault coming down the gravel driveway, but no car appeared.
Audrun knew she had to do everything calmly and carefully now, and in the right order.
First, she put all her clothes into her washing machine and set it on a long, hot programme. She tried to stop herself from thinking about that other washing machine, that old American one, turning in the night, long ago on Fifth Helena Drive, but she couldn’t prevent this image from coming into her mind.
Next, she ran a bath and washed every part of herself, including her hair, then scrubbed the bath with abrasive cleaner and ran the shower hose round and round the tub until it shone.
When her hair was dry, she tugged on a cardigan and went walking in her wood. She picked some bluebells and took them home and put them into a jar and admired them and breathed their scent. Then, she got into her little rusty car and drove down to the village. She knocked on Marianne’s door.
She noticed Jeanne Viala’s Renault parked outside the house and she went in calmly and greeted Marianne and her daughter. She recognised on Marianne’s face that smile of contentment it wore whenever Jeanne came to visit, and she thought how fine it might have been to have had a daughter – the daughter of somebody she loved. Raoul Molezon had two grown-up daughters by his wife, Françoise, and Audrun had nobody.
‘Don’t let me disturb you,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to come and say a petit bonjour.’
‘You’re not disturbing us,’ said Jeanne. ‘Come and sit down.’
They embraced each other; this cheek, that cheek, then this cheek again – the threefold greeting the people of the midi had always favoured. Then they sat around the kitchen table. Marianne was boiling snails – the delicacy Jeanne asked for whenever she came back to La Callune. Jeanne was thirty now, and dedicated to her job as a teacher in Ruasse. She looked like a younger version of her mother, slim and dark, with a slow, sweet smile.
‘How are the schoolchildren behaving themselves?’ asked Audrun. ‘I don’t know any children any more. Tell me what they’re like.’
Jeanne Viala unclipped the tortoiseshell comb holding back her hair, then gathered the hair up and fastened it again. In time, Audrun thought, especially if no husband comes along – no man kind enough – Jeanne’s face will begin to look severe.
‘They’re restless,’ said Jeanne. ‘It’s really difficult to get them to concentrate on any kind of lesson for long.’
‘I’d heard that said before,’ said Audrun. ‘I expect it’s the city that makes them like that, is it?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose computer games and television and all those indoor things play a part. And they don’t know any history, so they often don’t understand what they’re looking at. It’s shocking, for instance, how little some of them know about this region. They were born here, but they haven’t really learned about its past.’
‘And yet,’ said Audrun, ‘its past is so long . . .’
‘Exactly,’ said Jeanne. ‘They haven’t, for instance, any true idea how productive the Cévennes used to be. I’m arranging visits to an olive oil factory and to the Museum of Cévenol Silk Production, to learn how the worms were reared, and about the filatures, and we’re going to visit some working farms.’
‘Ah,’ said Audrun. ‘We could tell them a lot about the farms, Marianne, couldn’t we?’
‘Yes we could,’ said Marianne. Then she got up to stir her snail pot. On the table were the garlic and oil and fresh parsley she’d soon use to make the sauce. Jeanne lit a cigarette and offered the packet to Audrun, who waved it away.
‘I bet Aramon still smokes, doesn’t he?’ said Jeanne with a smile.
‘Oh yes,’ said Audrun. ‘He does. Cigarettes and cheroots. It’ll kill him one day . . .’
‘I hear he’s leaving, anyway.’
‘What, Jeanne?’
‘I hear he’s selling the mas.’
Audrun l
ooked down at her hands on the table. She felt slightly cold in the room, despite the heat under the snail pot and the evening sun at the window. She said: ‘Money’s all he thinks about now. That’s the way he is. Money and drink and cigarettes. But I don’t think the sale of the mas is going to go through . . .’
‘No?’
Audrun reached out and laid her veined brown hand on Jeanne Viala’s arm. ‘There’s a crack in the front wall, Jeanne,’ she said. ‘A structural fault. Raoul came and stuck a bit of render in it and then slapped on that coat of yellow paint and Aramon thinks he can pull the wool over everyone’s eyes, but don’t tell me a simple survey wouldn’t reveal a structural fault. Eh? Would you buy a house with a fissure in the stone?’
‘No . . .’
‘Aramon should make everything good again, make it sound, but he hasn’t done it and he never will. He’s always denied the things that are right there in front of his eyes. And so now . . . well . . . it’s my opinion that he’s going to be disappointed. He won’t get that huge sum he’s asking. And when that fact comes home to him, he’s going to get angry, eh Marianne? He could do something irrevocable.’
Both Marianne and Jeanne looked up and stared at Audrun.
‘What d’you mean?’ asked Jeanne.
Audrun plucked off a parsley leaf and held it to her nose and smelled its clean, unobtrusive fragrance.
‘All I mean is . . .’ she said, ‘Aramon was always ungovernable. I should know. He’s obsessed now about this particular buyer: some rich English artist type. But I can tell you, that man’s not going to buy the Mas Lunel. I’d stake my life on it. And when Aramon wakes up to this fact . . . Mon dieu! He’s going to curse and rage. He could even do somebody some harm.’
Jeanne exchanged a glance with Marianne. She took a long drag on her cigarette.
‘It’d be sad to sell it to foreigners, anyway,’ she said, ‘wouldn’t it? They say foreigners are taking over all the nice old stone places. I read about it in Ruasse Libre. But the mayor has said it has to end.’
‘That’s right,’ said Audrun. ‘The mayor’s right. Because people from outside don’t understand how to care for the land. Everybody thinks these days that it’s just houses that matter, but it’s not: it’s the land.’
There was silence in the room for a moment.
Audrun turned and turned the parsley leaf in her hand and she thought of the drum of her washing machine, still turning.
‘If Aramon sells the mas,’ said Jeanne Viala, ‘where’s he going to go?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Audrun. ‘You tell me. Where on earth?’
Kitty Meadows lay in a hotel room and watched the green neon light of an all-night pharmacie winking on and off on the opposite side of the drab street.
She hadn’t wanted to spend much money on a hotel and this one, called Le Mistral, was the cheapest she could find, a two-star establishment where the walls were thin and Kitty’s bed was narrow and hard. The keening of the hotel elevator kept jolting her awake the moment she closed her eyes. Up and down, up and down it went, carrying people yearning for love or for rest – for the sweet rest that love can give.
At least I’m alone, thought Kitty. Although she was fond of her friends, André and Gilles, she hadn’t been able to bear the idea of their pity, their sad smiles concealing smug judgements: ‘Sorry, Kitty chérie, but I’m afraid we just knew that a gallery like that, with that kind of reputation, was never going to take your work . . .’
Better to be here, in an impersonal hotel room with an annihilating quantity of drink inside her, than to be with them on this night of humiliation. And although Kitty might have liked to be comforted by Veronica, the idea of returning to Les Glaniques and Anthony Verey’s undisguised delight in her disappointment was impossible.
In fact, one thing which Kitty couldn’t even bear to think about was how that eventual return was to be faced. Since Anthony’s arrival, it was as if she’d been prevented from taking any comfort at all from the home she shared with her lover. She’d found refuge in her studio – away from both Veronica and her brother. She was happiest there, alone with her work and her dreams. But now she had to face the agony, not only of returning to live under Anthony’s disdainful gaze, but also with something more terrible: coming face to face with the fact that the work she loved doing so much and tried so hard to do well was, when judged by the highest standards, no good.
All right, she’d managed to sell in small galleries and shops, but now a serious establishment had looked at the watercolours and pounced, like a heartless tiger: I’m sorry, Madame Meadows . . . the Internet photographs of your work did look quite interesting to us, but now that we see the actual pictures . . . your sense of colour is very nice, but there are some shortcomings of technique. So voilà, I just don’t think we’d be able to make a sale here . . .
Kitty lay and shielded her eyes against the maddening pharmacie light and told herself that, at least, she’d be able to continue her work for Gardening Without Rain – both the watercolours and the photographs. And perhaps, when the book was published, somebody somewhere would think that her illustrations had some merit.
But how ardently – how desperately – she’d longed to be taken on by a reputable gallery! How often had she imagined the brochure that gallery would produce: RECENT WATERCOLOURS by Kitty Meadows. And then the fabulous night of the vernissage . . . the red ‘sold’ stickers accumulating . . . the smile of pride on Veronica’s face . . . the beautiful money in the bank . . .
Kitty’s mobile rang: Veronica’s name on the display. Kitty looked at her watch and saw that the time was almost one o’clock.
‘Veronica?’ said Kitty quietly.
‘Sorry it’s so late. Were you asleep?’
‘No,’ said Kitty. ‘No chance.’
‘OK then, well, listen, darling, something’s very wrong.’
Kitty sat up, glad to be distracted, glad to be reminded that there was a world outside her own misery.
‘Tell me . . .’ she said.
She heard Veronica dragging on a cigarette.
‘It’s Anthony,’ she said, coughing as she exhaled. ‘He said he’d be back for dinner. I even asked him this morning what he wanted to eat and he said calves’ liver and I went to the boucherie and got it. He said he’d definitely be back. But he hasn’t come home, Kitty, and it’s one in the morning.’
Kitty held the phone close. For a moment, she couldn’t speak, so thrilling did she find these words. Cinematic light flooded her brain.
She saw a winding road high up above La Callune and she saw Anthony’s hired car sliding too fast into a hairpin bend and then spinning round and flying out into the void and falling and breaking on the rocks below . . .
‘Right,’ she forced herself to say gravely. ‘Have you tried his mobile?’
‘Yes. Nothing. Absolutely no sound from it.’
‘No voicemail?’
‘No sound at all. And the agency woman phoned and said Anthony never returned the keys to the house.’
‘Right . . . well, we’ve got to think what might—’
‘I’ve got a terrible feeling about it, Kitty. There are accidents up in the Cévennes all the time. People drive far too fast and Anthony doesn’t know how to manage that kind of corniche. I’ve just been sitting here waiting and waiting and I keep thinking I see headlights, but it’s only cars on the Uzès road. What am I going to do?’
Kitty took a gulp of water and swung her legs off the bed. The pharmacie light kept up its relentless welcoming green flash: here to help you, here to help you, here to help you . . .
‘We’ve got to think clearly,’ said Kitty, but she was all the while conscious of the alcohol in her blood and the movie of the falling car spooling round in her head.
Anthony Verey dead.
Dead at last.
Kitty wondered whether Veronica could detect in her voice or in her breathing the hectic excitement she was feeling.
Kitty breakfasted ear
ly and drove home with a headache darkening her vision, like some peculiar clouding of the windscreen glass. She longed for tea and a deep sleep.
She found a police car parked in the driveway at Les Glaniques. Veronica, looking pale and with her hair in a strange tangle, was in the salon, talking to two agents, a man and a woman. When they all turned and saw Kitty at the door, Veronica got up and came to her and Kitty put her arms round her and tried to smooth down the tangle of her hair and she heard the agents murmuring something to each other in low voices.
‘Any news?’ whispered Kitty.
‘Nothing,’ said Veronica. ‘No report of a car accident. I suppose that’s something.’
‘Any theories?’
‘Well, one. It’s just possible he left the car and went for a walk and got lost or hurt himself and his phone was dropped and broken. They’re going to search with a helicopter,’ said Veronica. ‘It’s on its way now.’
‘Good,’ said Kitty. ‘Good. Easy to get lost up there. But they’ll find him.’
Kitty slipped away to make her tea. Her tiredness was now compounded by the wearisome idea that Anthony had escaped death – just like he’d escaped punishment for his vanity and selfishness across sixty-four years. Probably, he’d be back at Les Glaniques by the end of the day. And Veronica would cling to his scrawny neck and tell him how important he was in her life and how she longed for him to be settled in France, and then the days would go on as before, just as before, only without the salvation of her dream of a gallery.
Kitty had imagined the police would leave her alone. She was just ‘a friend’. Anthony Verey was nothing to her, and what could she – who had been undergoing her mauling by disappointment at Béziers – know about any accident in the Cévennes? But when she looked up from spooning out her tea, the woman agent was standing in the kitchen.
‘Just a few questions,’ she said. ‘You speak French?’
‘Yes,’ said Kitty. ‘Would you like some tea?’
‘Tea? Ah non, merci.’
It was routine, absolutely routine, said the agent, but she just had to verify Kitty’s movements in the last twenty-four hours. Had she been anywhere near the hills above Ruasse?
