Rachael's Gift (20 page)

Francine struggled to open the rusting door to the studio. It had been built in the fifties as a place for artists to use when they needed space. My grandfather had loved to discover new talent. It was similar to a large greenhouse, trapping as much light as possible. Now covered in cobwebs and dust, the studio was a mess. Francine rummaged through a stack of canvases. ‘Ah yes, here it is.’ She pulled one out. I saw the gilt-edged frame and felt my face colour. ‘Rachelle, when your mother came to stay with us she was a very serious young girl – too serious. She wanted to be a painter, too. Just like you.’

Rachael looked at me, not understanding at first. ‘What?’ She appeared surprised and then dismayed. ‘Really?’ She took it from Francine.

The picture looked like a child’s attempt at painting Halloween. The sky was purple, the moon hung like a white ball in the top right-hand corner, a bare tree curled in the foreground. It was flat and dull.

‘She wanted me to get her into the Beaux-Arts,’ Francine revealed.

Rachael’s expression became dark.

‘I was young and fanciful,’ I said. ‘You bought that frame for it and told me it was wonderful.’

‘We didn’t have the heart to tell you the truth.’ Francine took Rachael’s arm. ‘Lucky for you, my dear, you don’t take after your mother.’

On the way back to the house, Francine announced she was going to the local markets and asked if Rachael would like to come.

‘Better than hanging around here all day,’ Rachael said in an undertone, giving me a sour look. ‘I’d love to,’ she said loudly to Francine.

The two of them left arm in arm like co-conspirators.

*

I wandered around trying to find a signal on my BlackBerry. One bar finally popped up in the old music room. I sent Wolfe a quick email:
Any news on the investigation?
I guessed he would tell me straight away if anything big had happened. The phone bleeped with a voicemail message. I pressed the button to listen to it:

Bonjour Camille, it is Jacques Frey-Duval. My father would like to meet the petite-fille of the famous Anton Delamotte. Can you meet with ’im next Tuesday, midday? If I do not ’ear from you, it is confirmed. I look forward to see you again.

I tucked my phone into my back pocket, and drifted out into the hall, finding myself outside the salon where my grandfather now lived.

Perhaps Jacques’ father did have some news on
La Baigneuse
after all. I wished I could ask my grandfather and felt a pang of sadness again. The art world was so small – they all knew each other, especially back then. Business was conducted via letters. Letters which would have been archived somewhere. Again, I wondered where my grandfather kept his. I twisted the door handle and peeped through the gap in the doorway. His body was motionless, wrapped in his bathrobe, nestled into the sofa. He seemed to be in a deep sleep. I looked at all the piles of stuff and noticed that there were also stacks of loose papers on the floor; reams and reams of it, covered in old-fashioned typewriter script. I could just sneak in and take a quick look. I tiptoed inside and over to the first stack of papers, picking up a few sheets and skimming over them. They seemed to be written in a personal shorthand and made no sense. In another pile, I found a draft of a thesis on Delacroix. On the shelves were a series of notebooks. I slid one out, but a snuffled cough startled me and I turned to see my grandfather sitting up.

‘
Que cherches-tu, alors?
’ His eyes seemed clear and his voice was coherent – perhaps this was one of his rare moments of clarity.

‘Sorry . . .’ I hastily returned the notebook.

‘
Viens, viens, ma chère
,’ he said. ‘
Assieds-toi. Veux-tu quelque chose à boire?
’

I shook my head no, edging towards him, and settled in the armchair to his right.

‘
C’est merveilleux de te revoir, ça faisait si longtemps
,’ he said.

‘Yes, it’s been a very long time. It’s good to see you too,’ I said, feeling jumpy about being sprung.

‘So long, you have forgotten how to speak the mother tongue,’ he replied. His English was careful and slow, his voice still the same hypnotic one I’d always loved.

I smiled cautiously and thought to correct him –
English is my mother tongue
– but said nothing. Was this the disease?

‘Faces I never forget, but names, they tend to escape me,’ he said.

‘Is that so? I’m not very good with names either,’ I said, thinking it an odd thing to say. ‘But you remember mine?’

‘My dear, you must be having a joke, I would never forget yours.’ He crossed his legs and his gown fell open, exposing hairless shins. ‘You’ll never guess what they gave me the other day.’ He was like an excited child.

‘No, what’s that?’

‘
Tellement belle
. . . one of the finest.’ He gestured with his hands. ‘A Delacroix.’ He had an energy that made me nervous and brought back my mother’s last moments of false vigour. Should I call the nurse?

‘Grandfather, you showed me many Delacroix in the Louvre – remember?’

His glassy eyes enlarged further. ‘The Louvre? No, it was at . . .’ He frowned. ‘You call me Grandfather?’

‘It’s Camille, your granddaughter . . .’ I said. Memories returned, goosebumps tingled up my arms. ‘Remember? You taught me? You showed me several Delacroix and many others.’

The muscles in his mouth worked up and down. Finally he said, ‘Who are you? Have you come to take me?’ He began to shiver.

‘No, no. No one has come to get you. Please, calm down. No one’s going to hurt you.’ I touched his arm but his panic only grew. ‘It’s okay. I’m here. I’m not going away.’ I wrapped his gown around him and draped the blanket across his legs. I saw his drink bottle. ‘Here, would you like a drink?’ I held it out.

He accepted the bottle and sucked heavily on the straw. ‘
La musique?
’ he muttered, his eyes fading. ‘
La musique
. . .’ A change came over his face and his eyelids began to droop. Then he opened them again. ‘
Tu lui ressembles
.’

‘What?’

‘
Ta mère
. . .’

‘Marguerite?’ I said, kneeling on the floor beside the sofa and gripping his hand in mine.

He fell quiet and his body appeared to deflate. We sat in silence. His eyes closed and I heard the air escape from his nostrils. I laid my head beside his chest on the edge of the sofa, and forgot what I’d come here for.

*

Rachael and Francine came back from their trip laden with shopping bags. ‘Expensive markets,’ I remarked, and Rachael replied, ‘Do I have to ask you first, Camille?’ I was still puzzled as to what I’d done to upset her. ‘A girl needs a wardrobe,’ Francine interjected. I looked at her. It was easy to see through her behaviour; it was all she knew – how to buy someone.

Dinner was a hotchpotch affair of leftovers from the week gone: boiled eggs and soggy cabbage and a selection of cold meats that were crusty and full of white circles of fat and I couldn’t tell which part of the animal they’d come from. Francine, Rachael and I cleaned the kitchen. I put the dishwasher on and then the electricity whirred, the light bulb blew and we stood in darkness.

‘I have a torch and some candles here somewhere,’ Francine said. There was the sound of drawers and cupboards opening and closing.

‘Does this happen often?’ Rachael asked.

We heard a wail from Grandfather’s room.

There was a rustling coming from where Rachael had been standing and a moment later I heard a match strike and she held up a flame.

‘Where’s the fuse box?’ I asked. Rachael’s match went out.

Francine shoved a candle in my hand. ‘It’s in the basement.’

Rachael lit another match and held it against the wick, then lit a further two candles.

‘Wait here, while I check on Maman and Papa,’ Francine said. She took another candle and the matches with her.

I looked at my daughter, the flicker of the yellow candle turning her expression dour. ‘You shouldn’t take things from Francine,’ I said. ‘You don’t know what she wants in return.’

She folded her arms across her chest. ‘You’re wrong. They’ve been great.’ Her jaw jutted out. ‘You know what I think your real problem is? I think you’re jealous. They like me better than they ever liked you.’

Her attitude confirmed my suspicion. ‘So you
are
upset with me.’

‘I’ve just realised a few things, that’s all,’ she said grimly. ‘Just things I never knew about you.’

‘Don’t be so dramatic.’

‘It’s like I don’t know you at all.’

‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Why didn’t I know about all this?’ She gestured around her. ‘And your own art?’ She paused. ‘And what you did to Francine. All along you’ve been saying it’s them. But it’s you.’

My heart quickened. ‘What did she tell you?’

Candlelight created deep hollows beneath her eyes; her mouth was drawn thin and yet smug in the delight of a secret. My hand twitched; I wanted to slap her. ‘I don’t think you know what you’re saying.’

The light of the third candle floated in, a burning, gliding star. ‘Camille? Can you help me?’

Francine led the way down the hall to the servants’ staircase and opened a concealed door to reveal a stone staircase leading underground. It smelt damp and musty. The corridor was windowless, a place for hiding and storing things, a place that echoed of tragedy. How dare Francine talk to Rachael about me! We came to the boiler room and picked our way between boxes and various bric-a-brac to an old cupboard fixed to the wall. Francine twisted a key. ‘Don’t worry, it may look archaic but things were built to last in those days.’

I held the candle up and saw a mess of wires and old copper fuse boxes.

‘It’s pre-war,’ she said. She handed me her candle. ‘So it’s the entire house that’s gone.’ She began to fiddle with the sockets, pulling out spare parts from a crumpled paper bag. Francine’s pink nails looked odd against the electrical wires and if I hadn’t still been seething I would have laughed at the incongruity of this sophisticated woman getting her hands dirty – plucked straight out of a Helmut Newton photo. ‘If this doesn’t work, I’ll need to have a look at the generator.’ She wiped her forehead. ‘But I’m afraid that’s normally Rupert’s domain.’

Something clinked at my feet; the tiles I stood on were loose.

‘I think it’s this one here . . . and if I just thread this through . . .’

A light trance had come over me. I wanted to tell her off, but the words stuck in my throat. The anger made me shake.

‘There, that should work.’ She walked over to the wall and pulled a cord hanging from the ceiling. A naked bulb switched on and the room filled with bright light. ‘You see? All fixed.’

Our skin looked old and harsh in this new light. I struggled to remain calm. ‘What did you tell her?’ I said, searching her face for signs. For lies. Where did they live? In the eyes, in the lips, in the brow? Where did they hide? In the twist of the muscles?

Awareness flooded her face. ‘I only told her the truth.’ She wiped her hands on a rag.

‘The way you led me on?’ There was an ache in my cheeks, in my throat, in my chest.

Her eyes turned hard. ‘Dear Camille, it must be hard to carry around all this anger,
non
?’ She put the dead fuse in the paper bag. ‘You must stop blaming us. Things were so different back then. We all did what we thought was right; Maman and Papa sent Marguerite away. You are lucky – she was strong-willed and did what she thought was right. It’s nobody’s fault.’

My jaw flexed. ‘Just like you sent me back home.’

‘That was different. You were a little liar.’

She blew out the candles I still held in my hands.

‘You can stop buying my daughter stuff.’

‘Camille, don’t be so paranoid.’

She pushed past me and turned off the light.

*

The girl puts her key into the front door and tries to turn it without making a sound. She frowns. There is a bright light underneath. It’s late. Too late to be night anymore. Perhaps the light has been left on for her. She can hear her own breathing. The door clicks open. She smiles to herself – boy, has she been a devil tonight! She is smug in the knowledge of her little secret. She closes her eyes to a surge of desire and has to steady herself against the wall, it’s so strong. Is it the secrecy that makes it so thrilling? She’d been lazy not leaving earlier, not keeping to her plan and coming home at a reasonable hour, but she fell asleep with her head on his chest and woke up in a fright, not knowing where she was and finding she was alone. She hated when he left her like that, didn’t wake her up. But nothing could keep him away from the canvas.

She closes the door and, yawning, her fingers slip. She steels herself for a loud clunking noise.
Crap
, she mouths, hoping that she hasn’t woken Francine and Rupert. Then she remembers that Rupert is travelling.

She is starving and creeps into the kitchen for a late-night – no – early-morning snack, salivating at the thought of the chocolates in the fridge. She opens the fridge and, squinting against the bright light, reaches blindly for the white box she knows should be at the back.

Camille
.

The girl yelps and hits her head on the top of the fridge.

Camille
, commands the voice again. It’s Francine.

You scared me
, she says, bracing herself; she has been found out at last.

Francine is dressed in a silk nightgown. Her eyes bore into the girl; they are clear and bright and strong, and the girl looks away, scared.

Where’ve you been?

At a friend’s
. The lie pops into the air as effortlessly as a bubble.
You can’t sleep?
the girl says, trying to act casual.

I want to talk to you.
Francine crosses her arms.
You haven’t been calling Emmanuel Perrotin, have you?

The girl’s heart freezes. She shakes her head and exhales.

Emmanuel seems to think I have been calling him
.

She shrugs her shoulders.
Sorry, no idea
. She begins to move away towards the door and the warm, cosy bed that lies only a few rooms away, but she feels something sharp dig into her hand. Francine is driving her nails into her palm.