The Secret of Provence House

by Aubrey Rhodes

  Chapter 19

  Deciding it would be rude not to, Laura joined the communal breakfast table and was rewarded by an unexpectedly affable Carmensina. She presented a calm demeanour, had her hair pulled back into a youthful ponytail and was making an effort, noticed by all with approval, to interact with her daughters. Her interventions in the conversation were sparing and low key. Camilla wondered whether there might be some medication at work within her daughter-in-law’s system, while it crossed Laura’s mind that perhaps it was an aftereffect of early-morning sex. Both factors were in play, plus the circumstance that Carmensina was relieved to be returning to London that day, and then back to Barcelona the morning after.

  While Camilla joined her son at Laura’s computer screen to read what they could of the ongoing translation, Laura and Carmensina went for a walk with the girls down to the beach. It was a clear but windy day and the four of them wore windbreakers and wellingtons and spoke in English.

  ‘What is it you are translating exactly?’ Carmensina asked.

  ‘It’s a very old story,’ said Laura. ‘A history of the Mediterranean world with some bits about ancient Cornwall as well, although I haven’t got that far yet.’

  ‘Do you think it really is valuable?’

  ‘I do. I’ve never seen anything like it. Camilla is quite keen to sell it at auction once I’m done.’

  ‘I can’t imagine why,’ Carmensina said. ‘She is very well off. She reminds me of an aunt I had who was the same way, who lived very frugally and then after she died, it turned out she had been sitting like a hen upon a pile of golden eggs.’

  ‘It happens.’

  The girls, walking ahead of them, were having an animated conversation, the sense of which was lost to the wind. Observing them brought back a sadness Laura sometimes felt at being an only child.

  ‘What is her house like in Mallorca?’

  ‘It is in a very beautiful place,’ Carmensina said, ‘with gardens and views of the sea, and it has a lovely pool. But the house itself is droughty and hard to organize, for me anyway. The girls love it and Camilla loves it. It is kind of like a hippie house on the inside, if you know what I mean. Maybe I’ve been too spoiled by modern conveniences, but I like a house that is easy to keep.’

  They went the rest of the way in silence. The wind and the occasional difficulty of negotiating the terrain were sufficient distractions. The tide had gone out leaving exposed, rust-coloured rock formations that ran diagonally to the strand with numerous pools, and the girls walked along them looking for crabs while the two women stayed back on the sand.

  ‘Have you ever been married?’ Carmensina asked.

  ‘No,’ Laura said, taking note that everyone in this family had now asked her this question. ‘I guess I’ve come close a few times, but, no, it hasn’t happened yet.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you like to have children?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I like spending time with the children of my friends. But the idea of having my own feels daunting. Then, sometimes, I get a craving, so it’s confusing.’

  ‘It’s biology.’

  ‘Like almost everything else about us, right? Your girls are very beautiful.’

  ‘They are very different from each other, even though they are being raised the same way. They are our treasure. But I still want a boy.’

  ‘Ah ha. And James?’

  ‘He says he does, but I am not so sure. He may just say it to please me.’

  ‘But you’re trying.’

  ‘Oh yes. All the time.’

  Though she said it almost offhandedly she employed a particular inflection that revealed a smidgen of the other evening’s Carmensina. It was an intonation proclaiming that though she and James were on the verge of middle age, though her breasts and cheekbones might not technically be her own, though Laura might be entertaining fantasies that James was taking a fancy to her, the truth was that the married couple were still screwing like jack-rabbits. On the other hand, Laura had to admit that Carmensina was making a genuine effort to be civil.

  ‘I was an only child,’ Laura said.

  ‘Not me,’ Carmensina replied. ‘We were five and I was the only girl. My mother and father worshipped my brothers, and I sometimes felt unwanted. Being an only child can have some advantages.’

  ‘That makes sense.’

  ‘Sometimes I feel I am mean to the girls. It is a terrible thing. It comes out of nowhere. It comes from my mother. It’s like I am repeating a pattern. It’s why I wanted boys really.’

  ‘Families are complicated by definition, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I do.’

  They walked on in peace with each other and joined the girls.

  This excursion gave Camilla and James almost an hour to read the first draft of Laura’s translated text. Camilla was the quicker of the two and was forced to wait at the bottom of each page for her son to catch up. When they finished the enslavement and rescue episode they read on through the following instalment as well which allowed them to turn the computer off without such a lurid taste in their mouths.

  ‘My word,’ Camilla said, folding her reading glasses into her right hand.

  ‘It’s astonishing,’ he said. ‘Astonishing.’

  ‘Do you think perhaps the teller of the tale, the uncle, might be a bit of an exaggerator?’

  ‘I hadn’t thought of it,’ he said. ‘We can ask Laura’s opinion. But in terms of the effect this will have on the public’s reaction and that of, say, the Vatican, I doubt such a thing will make much of a difference. Exaggerated or not they’ll be screaming for blood – our blood.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd, James. They’ll do nothing of the sort. They’ll try and refute the whole business and take it under study and that will be that.’

  ‘What an extraordinary thing this is. And here it’s been, all these centuries.’

  By the time Laura returned to the house and as Carmensina helped Noelma pack up the girls’ things, there was only time to give James one of her cards that he had asked for, and to answer a few of their questions, one of which was whether anything else particularly scandalous had been revealed thus far. She quickly mentioned the Daphne seduction chapter she had alluded to with James the night before. What she wished to know was their opinion about the translation’s style.

  ‘I think it’s wonderful,’ James said, looking into her eyes. ‘Really.’

  ‘Camilla?’ Laura asked, turning to her.

  ‘It’s not Matthew, Mark, Luke or John, that’s for sure. But it reads very well, dear, very well indeed. Carry on.’

  After James and his family left, Laura found it difficult to work. The house felt more isolated and abandoned than before. She killed time reading until lunch, which she took with Camilla who was in a chatty and animated frame of mind and that cheered her up. After having their coffees, Camilla retired to her room for a nap and Laura decided to take another walk. She could not get James out of her mind. She set a brisk pace and headed back toward the cottage, which took almost an hour to reach walking along the edge of the paved drive.

  The wind had subsided considerably making for a glorious afternoon. Small clumps of clouds moved slowly off to the east, and all of the pastures, lawns, and leas presented a vivid variety of greens. When she reached the cottage, she found the kitchen door unlocked and was pleased to discover the maids had yet to appear to set things right. She realized it might be a day or so before anyone got around to it. It was only when she was satisfied she was alone that she could admit she had come to snoop.

  There were some dirty dishes in the sink, but the refrigerator was empty save for a bottle of Pol Roger that had possibly been there for years. In the living room in front of the hearth she found the remains of a fire, an unfinished Monopoly game, and a quite finished glass of what smelled like whiskey, next to an ashtray filled with Marlboro Light butts whose filters were stained with lipstick. Upstairs she looked into all of the bedrooms and baths, saving the master suite until the end.
It was easy to determine who had slept where. The girls’ room was a mess, the nanny’s room much less so. Letting herself into the master suite she inspected the bathroom first. She gazed at the large shower stall where some spigots were still dripping and where the tiles were still damp. On the floor next to the bathtub was the requisite bottle of Aqua di Parma. Its top was missing. She looked for it, found it, and screwed it back on. She looked at the bidet that had obviously been used and at all of the towels that had been tossed upon the floor. She opened the medicine cabinet and found nothing of interest. When she closed it, she stared at herself in the mirror.

  Then she walked into the bedroom and looked out of the windows, down to the swath of forest she had crossed the day she spoke with Fiona about James. But all she could think of was how James and Carmensina had been in that room only hours earlier. The bed was unmade but the covers had been brusquely drawn up. She drew them back down and saw stains of sex drying on the light blue bottom sheet. She laid herself down and smelled the four pillows, finding the pair that had been his. Then she rolled over onto her back and slipped her jeans and panties down to her knees.

  Chapter 20

  That evening after dinner, she translated the next segment.

  We anchored off a cove at the island known as Insula Maior where the ship’s captain had the profitable custom of trading for salt. An expedition led by the lead mate and a group of slaves headed inland, embarking on a journey that kept us there for two days.

  This captain, a descendant from authentic Phoenician stock, or so he claimed, treated his crew and his slaves with a level of dignity unusual in my experience. During a walk in the nearby countryside I spoke to him about it. He believed the practice of enslavement to be barbaric and, in the end, counterproductive for the Empire. Yeshua stated his agreement. I, who had profited thanks to the labour of slaves over the years, made no comment, once again allowing the Romans to speak for me. ‘Any nation, any leader foolish enough to challenge the spread of Roman law and justice must know he is putting at risk the treasure he hordes, the freedom of his subjects, and the virtue of his women,’ said Lucca. ‘And as you know,’ added Octavius, ‘the condition is not irreversible, and most slave owners are like yourself, just and well-intentioned men.’

  ‘I disagree,’ said the captain. ‘The number of slaves who regain their freedom is very small and from what I have seen abuse is more common than kindness. Resentment spreads among a not inconsiderate portion of the Empire’s population, a portion that will not rally to the Emperor’s or to the Senate’s defence in times of difficulty.’

  ‘And yet your own slaves are not free,’ said Octavius.

  ‘If they were mine, they would be,’ the captain answered, ‘but they belong to the man I work for, my father-in-law, who thinks as you do.’

  We walked through groves of almond trees planted in grassy recesses above the sea. Before turning around, we gained a vantage point up a rocky bluff from which one could look far out to sea and down at the ship afloat in the transparent water. The sun shimmered upon the rocks, upon the furled sails, upon the white sand. It was a sight I made an effort to memorize and hold onto. On the following day we would be off again, en route to Iberia, but then and there, in that moment, all was peaceful and calm, and all of nature that surrounded us was pure and benign. I knew that life was a chain of moments, some of them painful, some fearsome and dangerous, too many of them listless, repetitive and dull. But then there were moments like these, when being alive and the small corner of the world one is in blend together in wondrous harmony. These moments, always fleeting, constitute my true religion.

  My reverie was broken when Octavius informed our small party that certain inhabitants of that island were prized in the Roman legions for their skill with the slingshot. Lucca, who claimed to be born, like Moses, upon the banks of a river, in his case the Tiberis, pretended to take offense and promptly produced a sling with which to prove his own prowess. The walk, now downhill, back toward the beach where the ship rested, had all of us in single file along a steep slope where wild olive trees grew, some of them askew with their branches hanging over the abyss. A falcon flew overhead, and Octavius demanded that Lucca hit it. It took him five attempts accompanied with much cursing that made the last part of the walk amusing for some, including Yeshua, and unpleasant for the captain and myself. And then he hit the elegant creature and it fell like a stone into the Mediterranean just off the side of the ship. As Lucca cheered at the top of his lungs, I watched it struggle in the salt water before it drowned.

  Chapter 21

  Laura made an exception to her rule and printed this section to give to her hostess, knowing she would enjoy reading the reference to Mallorca. Camilla appreciated the gesture and after she read it at breakfast, she went along with Laura and James’s words of caution and had Bidelia burn it in an oil drum used for waste paper that was next to the compost heap behind the stables. At dinner the following evening, both of them were content to have the house to themselves again. Camilla, for the first time, expressed genuine interest in the contents of her heirloom.

  Afterward, Laura took her customary evening stroll and then went up to her room. Before undressing she checked her email. Among the usual assortment of uncaught spam, university notices, some queries from colleagues wondering what had become of her, and three articles from Foreign Affairs sent by Nathan that she would never read, there were two emails that jumped off the screen. One, which she opened second, was from a colleague in Paris who she had written to who specialized in medieval French literature. The other, which she opened right away, was from James:

  Dear Laura – Just a brief note to reiterate (or is it simply ‘iterate’? I’ve never got that one clear in English) my gratitude for what you are doing, the skill and the discretion you are demonstrating, and for bringing all we spoke of the other evening to my attention. I am confident that, between the two of us (plus Mother!) we shall devise the best way of navigating the shoals you are justifiably wary of. I spoke in the most general terms with a good barrister in London and he has promised to look into things. As a plus, his wife’s sister has been with Sotheby’s for years. I have to travel to New York the day after tomorrow on business; the media firm I work for, still too linked to the Spanish economy, is hunting for outside investors. Upon our arrival at the hotel in London on the day we left you, Carmensina had a bad headache and I took the girls to Kensington Gardens, to the Peter Pan statue I have loved since early childhood. I don’t know why I am telling you this. I am currently at a bar in Barcelona, enjoying a solitary brandy, a good one this time, fondly remembering our encounter at The Wounded Hart. I hope this finds you well and not working too hard. Yours, James

  She read it twice. Then she opened the message from her colleague:

  Dear Laura,

  What a pleasant surprise to hear from you after all this time, and how nice to hear you have not abandoned your interest in Medieval France! Believe it or not I know two people who specialize in Gerard of Amiens who might be helpful to you. Both of them work in the States of course where scholars still get paid. Isabelle Diderot at UCLA is one of the most cutting-edge investigators around today. She is a former student of mine. Then, and this would be my first choice because he is such a personage, there is Jean-Paul Bonnerive who is retired and lives in your very own New York where he is a professor emeritus at Columbia. I think you might remember I stayed with him once during a visit to New York when I last saw you. He claims to have actual correspondence of Gerard of Amiens but has never published it. Here are their email addresses. I wish you bonne chance and if you do not come and see me when you next pass through Paris, I shall never speak to you again. Pierre

  Laura decided a quick trip home was in order.

  After some reluctance at breakfast the next day, Camilla supported the idea. James reacted better still, something she endeavoured, with little success, to keep out of her mind. It took her another day to make travel arrangements, pack, and get to L
ondon. Once her plane took off from Heathrow she relaxed and pulled down the shade of her window seat, pleased with the willpower it had required to resist advising either Fiona or Nathan of her travel plans. Fiona she could see on her way back to Cornwall, and Nathan she was mad at. They had ceased phoning each other and his responses to her emails of last week had been unusually sparse and hurried.

  After lunch was served and cleared, she abandoned herself to the wonder of flight despite its discomforts. Then, while many of the other passengers watched a film or attempted to sleep, she opened her laptop and continued with her work.

  Chapter 22

  After leaving the Mediterranean for the Atlantic we arrived at Gades for repairs and fresh provisions. Octavius and I explained to Lucca and Yeshua how the ancient city that juts out into the sea had been founded by Hercules after the completion of his Tenth Labour, the slaying of Geryon. When we described what Geryon looked like, a monster with three heads and three torsos standing upon a single pair of sturdy legs, Lucca’s eyes widened and Yeshua scoffed. A burial mound near the site of the city was believed to be the monster’s resting place.

  The four of us went to visit the temple dedicated to Melqart, a Phoenician deity associated with Tyrian Hercules. It rests on high ground from which one can see the ocean and the estuary on the other side, where flocks of exotic birds gather to rest on their way to and from Africa. A statue of the bearded god stood by an olive tree and a small fountain surrounded by columns from antiquity. That this god was primarily known as a protector of Tyre, the city from where we started on our journey, imbued it with special significance for me.