by Fanny Blake
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For my family
1
Paris, 1954
A porter grabbed May’s luggage and pushed ahead of her towards the taxi station. She followed, trying to keep close, fearful of losing him in this unfamiliar chaos. The Gare du Nord teemed with people and echoed with noise as they threaded through the crowd that surged around them. May felt disorientated by the Parisian spring light, slicing down from the high glass roof into the diffusion of steam, and by the hissing engines, whistles, shouts and incomprehensible tannoy announcements. Moments later she had tipped him (too much, probably, but she was too excited to care) and was handing the taxi driver a paper with Monsieur and Madame Dubois’ address. He took the Gauloise from his mouth, said something she did not catch and they set off. Her heart was pounding.
The Paris streets were like nothing she had seen before. Bicycles and motor scooters wove between cars and vans, bells and horns blaring warnings while uniformed policemen with peaked pill-box hats stood in the centre of things, directing the traffic with batons. A green-and-white bus overtook them with the word DUBONNET running along the side of the roof. Green newspaper kiosks stood on street corners, bedecked with postcards and papers, and cafés were busy with tables set out on the pavements shaded by bright blue and green Pernod umbrellas. A green cross on the side of a building marked Pharmacie, striped awnings, unfamiliar words on buildings, in shop windows: a kaleidoscope of new impressions. Even the people looked different: women in elegant suits with nipped-in waists, hats at a jaunty angle; men in baggy dark suits or gaberdine macs. They passed monuments May had seen in pictures: the monumental Arc de Triomphe, the sycamore-lined Champs Elysées and the Louvre. They drove over a bridge that crossed the mighty Seine and passed the elaborate façade and towers of Notre Dame. This side of the river, the streets were narrower, darker, intriguing. May watched everything from the safety of the car, on the very edge of her seat.
Eventually they pulled up outside a once-elegant apartment building on the other side of the road from what looked like a huge park. The paintwork was peeling, the stonework grubby but it was beautiful. This was it. She had arrived. She stepped out of the cab and while the driver got her luggage, she counted out the right number of francs, not used to the unfamiliar coins. As he drove off, she pulled the bell by the heavy doors. What would her employers be like, she wondered with a sudden sense of misgiving.
More importantly what would their son, her charge, be like?
The door swung open to admit her to a courtyard. She stepped inside and waited, feeling very small as the apartment blocks reared up round her. A tabby cat, lying in a small patch of sunshine, stared at her and blinked. She could smell cooking and perhaps even – though she hoped not – drains. After what seemed an interminable wait, she heard footsteps on one of the interior stone stairways that led up into the building. A petite woman who looked like a ballet dancer stood in front of her, soignée, her dark hair scraped into a tight bun at the nape of her neck, her features aquiline but friendly. ‘Miss May Campbell? I am Madame Dubois. Come wiz me,’ she tried. ‘My English is not so good.’
But May couldn’t have cared less. After attending the lessons she was enrolled in, there wouldn’t be any need for English between them. She was already entranced by the language and everything she had seen. Her adventure had begun.
2
Edinburgh, March 2019
As Isla opened the mirrored doors of the wardrobe, a faint drift of perfume brought her dead mother into the room. Memories rushed at her, prompted by the row of May’s neatly hung clothes: her leaving all gussied-up for a night out with their father; a favourite coat pulled on against the Edinburgh weather; the dress she wore the previous Christmas; the old jacket she always put on for gardening. How much easier to shut the door on it all, to pretend nothing had changed. But everything had.
She glanced at the wall by the wardrobe and at the familiar pencil markings where May had once measured the heights of Isla and her two sisters as they grew up.
She, herself. Always the tallest. Her mother had disliked the fact that Isla had matched her in height by the age of fifteen. Her height had also set her apart from her sisters. And her red hair, like her father’s. And her longing for independence.
Morag. Much shorter and wider, with dark hair and a fierce temper.
Lorna. As dark as Morag, but of slighter build. The baby of the family who worked out early on how to get her way.
Looking at those measurements made Isla catch her breath. All their childhood seemed encapsulated by them.
May’s death had taken them all by surprise. A doughty Scottish woman who seemed as if she would go on forever had been struck down by a sudden fatal heart attack. Goodbyes were left unsaid, alongside a multitude of lingering regrets. Standing in her mother’s bedroom that was so redolent of her, Isla longed for one last cup of tea and a final chance to unpick their differences. As it was, she would never know now why they had drifted apart over the years or be able to make up for it. The house felt diminished, but expectant too, as if their mother were about to walk through a door, be sitting in her favourite chair, or outside in the garden, swishing a stick at plants she didn’t like.
The glowering sky made the room even more gloomy than Isla remembered. Faded photos of long-dead relatives and antique Scottish etchings collected by her father hung on the walls. The furniture was dark and heavy, the chintz curtains faded. She had never liked being in here, even when the sun shone. As a child, she would stand outside, hand poised to knock because she needed her mother, half-hoping not to be answered.
A branch scratched at the window, making her jump.
Dealing with their mother’s affairs and organising the funeral was affecting all three sisters, tickling at the old tensions between them. So far emotions had been kept reined in, almost as if their mother was still with them, ready to correct anyone who stepped out of line. An unsentimental woman herself, she would not want them grieving her death. ‘Part of life,’ she’d say. ‘And you must get on with yours.’ The flowers; the hymns; the readings and speakers – all potential triggers for disagreement – had been strictly divided between them. No interference or comment allowed. In twenty-four hours, it would all be over. In the meantime, at Lorna’s suggestion, they were looking for May’s will.
Downstairs Isla could hear the sounds of Lorna going through the bureau in the sitting room while Morag searched their late father’s study. May would have put a copy of her will somewhere safe. If they couldn’t find it, Isla would call the solicitor in the morning. She sat on the edge of the bed, her mother’s tweedy perfume rising from the pillow, the flowery edge of her brushed cotton nightdress peeking out from under it. She picked up the book on the bedside table, touched to think this history of Scottish gardens had been the last book her mother would have read. She flicked through the pages, removing the half-written letter that served as a bookmark. She immediately recognised her mother’s scrawl. May would disapprove of her reading it but… well, she wasn’t here to stop her.
‘My dear girls…’ she read. Isla stopped, surprised that it should be addressed to her and her sisters. What a strange coincidence. She took a breath and began to read on. ‘Here’s a list of everyone you might need to contact when I’m gone.’ She separated a second piece of paper from the first. Their mother had always been a prodigious l
ist maker: school uniform; holiday packing; the books she’d read; the things she needed to do; Christmas cards; party invitations. You name it. Life had been reduced to a series of tickings-off. This was just another: a list of everyone involved in her affairs from her accountant to the electricity company, from her solicitor to her bank details, almost as if she had a premonition of her impending death.
Isla returned to the letter. ‘John Donaldson, the solicitor, has my will. There’s a copy in your father’s desk. Isla, dear, I’m leaving you the painting Daddy had in his study. It may not seem much, but one day you’ll understand. After so long, I can’t begin to tell—’
That was it. Unfinished and unsigned. How extraordinary to find it at that moment, as if fate was putting it into her hands. Isla wondered what else her mother had been going to say. Had she had second thoughts about writing the letter at all? Or had she begun it the night before she died at the bridge table, never returning to finish it off. Leaving something so inconclusive was not in her mother’s nature, but she had been taken without warning. Isla picked up the biro that lay by the bedside light and twirled it in her hand, thoughtful. May must have been the last person to touch it.
‘Isla! Lorna!’ Morag’s voice carried up the stairs. ‘I’ve found it.’
Isla shut the wardrobe doors and went downstairs, taking the letter with her, to find her sisters in the study. The leathery, smoky bookish smell was the same as ever. Shelves lined the walls, books piled higgledy-piggledy on them. A battered leather sofa and chair flanked the tiled fireplace. The old-fashioned lamps cast a flattering golden glow over everything. The last time Isla had seen her father he was sitting by this fire, reading, surrounded by a fug of sweet tobacco smoke from his pipe. Nothing much had changed. Even the tam o’shanter and blue-and-green tartan scarf still hung on the back of the door. Morag had opened the lid of his desk and scattered the contents of the cubby holes over it. She had the will in her hand.
‘Let’s have a look.’ Before either of them could stop her, Lorna had snatched the envelope from her sister and was pulling out its contents. ‘We might as well confirm what we already know. Her estate’s divided between the three of us, and we’ll be the executors.’ She began to leaf through it with the focus of a bird of prey.
Her sisters couldn’t have been more different, Isla thought, watching them. Morag’s outdoors complexion was tanned and lined. She wore jeans and a fleece, indifferent to her appearance, unlike Lorna who was sleek and smart, not a hair out of place. Who knew how much she spent on looking her best?
‘What? This can’t be right.’ Lorna’s attention was on one particular page. She ran a perfectly manicured finger along one line then the next. ‘But she can’t do this to us.’
‘What’s happened?’ Morag went to look over her shoulder.
‘Look here.’ Lorna pointed. ‘There must be a mistake.’
‘Let me see.’ Morag took the will back and read it again. ‘No! She can’t do that to you, Isla.’
‘What’s happened?’ Her sisters’ shocked faces made her uneasy.
‘You’d better read it for yourself.’ Morag held the document out. ‘But you won’t like it.’
‘I won’t?’ Isla took the will to the chair by the window, conscious the other two were quite still, watching her, waiting for a reaction. She had to read the relevant lines twice to make sure she had not made a mistake and, as she did so, a knot tightened in her stomach. ‘I don’t understand.’ The hand holding the will dropped to her lap. Was that what her mother had been about to explain in the letter?
‘You’ve been cut out.’ Lorna’s shock was tempered by a visible anger. ‘Mum’s left half her estate to Aunt Aggie and the other half to Morag and me. She’s only left you that dreary picture that used to hang in here. What happened between you?’
Her sister’s voice sounded far away as if the words were tumbling down a long tunnel towards her, losing their impact on arrival. Isla was only conscious of her disbelief, her hurt, the dawning realisation that her mother’s dislike of her had not been imagined after all. All those years of treading on eggshells had obviously not been enough. But this! She blinked back tears. ‘I need a few minutes.’ She put the letter and the will on the desk and left the room, desperate to be on her own.
She ran up to her old childhood bedroom, now a pretty but impersonal guest room. She lay on the bed, numbed, unable to process what had happened. She was hardly the first person to have a difficult relationship with their mother but this was far worse. This was a total rejection. But why?
There was a knock at the door before Morag put her head round it. ‘Are you okay?’
Isla took a ragged breath and managed what felt like a feeble smile. ‘Sort of. It was just the shock. I’m fine. Really.’
But she had never felt so far from fine.
3
Isla eventually went downstairs for a scratch supper of omelettes and salad that Morag and Lorna organised. They were joined by Aunt Aggie and Lorna’s husband, Andrew, whom Lorna sniped at whenever she got the chance, making it quite clear she wished he had stayed at home. They all sat together in the dining room, picking at their food, each of them too preoccupied to eat.
As soon as she could, Aggie disappeared to the kitchen ‘to clear up the debris’. Andrew took his chance and escaped to the living room a moment later with the second bottle of fine red wine he had brought with him and was now watching Match of the Day at full volume. Isla sometimes wondered how Lorna put up with him.
Lorna took a sip of her wine, brushed a crumb from her front. ‘Of course we could always challenge the will, say Mum wasn’t of sound mind.’
‘But she was.’ Morag poured herself another drink, clinking the bottle against the glass.
‘We should sell Braemore.’ Lorna ran her finger round the rim of her glass, as if she had been thinking whether or not to say so.
‘But it’s not ours to sell!’ Morag looked shocked. ‘What about Aunt Aggie?’
‘There are some wonderful sheltered housing schemes,’ said Lorna. ‘And her share of Braemore would more than cover the cost of one of them.’
Money bought Lorna out of almost any tight corner, reflected Isla. ‘You know she’d absolutely hate it. Besides, what’s wrong with her going on living here?’ She wanted to stand up for her aunt, who had reliably provided a port in a storm during Isla’s rocky teenage years.
‘Well, why don’t you ask her?’ suggested Morag. ‘She’s only in the kitchen.’
‘Not yet.’ Lorna’s face was determined. ‘We need to agree a way of persuading her first.’
Isla could imagine her chairing meetings of the local charities she was involved with. Terrifying.
‘I don’t understand why you want to get rid of the old place.’
Lorna shifted in her chair, her eyes defiant. ‘Because it makes sense.’
They had grown up in Braemore, the house that had been in her father’s family for generations. This was their family home. Isla knew every nook and cranny of the handsome Victorian farmhouse, from which boards on the upstairs landing creaked loudest to the hole behind one of the tiles in the sitting-room fireplace where she used to hide her pocket money. Most of the farmland had been sold off long ago, leaving the large grey stone building surrounded by an acre of private garden and several paddocks where Morag’s pony had once grazed that were now rented to a neighbouring farmer. The house might be too big for Aggie alone, but it was home and full of memories and reminders of lives gone by. Despite everything, Isla wasn’t ready to say goodbye to it either.
‘No it doesn’t. Isla?’
‘I’m with Morag.’ Though May had made sure it had nothing to do with her.
‘Why do you both always make a point of disagreeing with me?’ Lorna’s hands were on her hips, like the recalcitrant schoolchild she once was.
‘Only when you’re in the wrong.’ Morag looked at the posed family portrait on the heavy sideboard. They looked a perfect family – except Isla
wasn’t there. May had booked the photographer when she had been at a music exam. Isla had always suspected May had done it deliberately, although her mother had always denied it.
She couldn’t wait for the evening to be over. If only May was here to answer her mounting questions. Instead she was with her sisters, their relationship twisting and turning back on itself like gnarled old tree roots. Isla had always yearned for that unquestioning familial affection, that undivided loyalty she had seen in other families. But long ago, she had recognised that was not them. She drummed her fingers on the table. ‘I thought we were going to discuss things calmly and rationally.’ Instead, she felt them heading towards the explosion they had been skirting round since they arrived.
‘Don’t be so saintly. Selling Braemore makes sense. We don’t want it and it’s far too big for Aggie.’ The bit was between Lorna’s neatly capped and whitened teeth.
‘No! It’s our family home.’ Morag’s voice was raised. ‘I’m glad we’ll be able to visit. I—’
‘Everything all right, girls?’ Andrew sauntered in, his rubicund face blurred with drink, an empty glass in hand. ‘Not fighting already, are we?’
With the door open, they could hear the radio and the sounds of Aggie washing up coming from the kitchen.
‘Go away, Andrew. This has nothing to do with you.’ Lorna waved her hand dismissively. ‘Why don’t you help Aunt Aggie?’
His joviality disintegrated. ‘I know when I’m not wanted.’ He slammed the door as he left the room.
‘That’s the trouble. You don’t.’ Lorna muttered under her breath before turning to Morag. ‘How often have you actually come here in the last five years?’ She banged her palm on the table. ‘Twice a year at most. I’m the only one who visits Mum and Aggie regularly. For my sins.’
‘Only because you live a few miles away.’ Morag zipped up her maroon fleece before wrapping her arms around herself.
