Wish You Were Here (6 page)

We were engaged within ten months and, naturally, during that time I went to Scotland and met the Brig and James's two sisters, not spinsters then, just two girls at home with their dad. And Drummond, who'd been out for a good few years by then, seemed just like any boyfriend's father: a little older and crustier, perhaps, because he was, and quite grand and scary in his big Scottish house, but certainly not like anyone who'd spent nine years in Dartmoor.

Just like Eton, Sally told me later Drummond had said, because of course, although James wouldn't talk and I respected that, girls do. And Sally, being the more verbose and vocal of the two sisters, had prattled away in the morning room at Brechallis, on the worn, gold Dralon sofa, hugging a cushion. Up to a point. No one ever discussed
that night, when three sleeping children had awoken to a single blasting shot ringing out. A hideous scream. A father in pieces. But Sally told me about the court case. Swift and conclusive due to a guilty plea, but with lots of old friends giving mitigating evidence, supporting and swearing allegiance to an old friend who'd married the wrong girl. Not a wrong-un – different class and generation that these neighbours were, they could see there was nothing bad about Vicky Murray-Brown. It was just that she was not right for Drummond. And Sally told me about Dartmoor, where they visited him and where their father had been so resilient, so cheerful. Saying they weren't to worry. That he had a splendid view of the moor, the smell of heather, just like home. And that the food was better than he'd had in the army, and he was reading loads, making his way through the classics, which was marvellous. He was in charge of the prison garden, too, eating the vegetables from it, and really making the whole experience out to be so much better than it must have been.

And, meanwhile, the three children were sent to boarding school, and stayed with an aunt – Aunt Sarah, Drummond's sister – in the holidays and kind friends at weekends. And whilst nine years didn't exactly fly by, when it became seven – because, of course, he was a model prisoner, Sally said – suddenly, it did. They'd all assumed he would serve the full term, and no one had told them any differently for fear of getting their hopes up. But then, all at once, Daddy was coming home.

‘And how did you feel about him?' I'd wanted to ask Sally, but didn't. How did you feel about your father
robbing you of your mother with a single shot, which, when I found an old newspaper clipping in a drawer at Brechallis years later, was what had happened. But Sally knew what I wanted to know.

‘The same,' she'd told me frankly, looking at me from the other end of the sofa with those wide grey Murray-Brown eyes, bright in her pretty if increasingly moonlike face. ‘He was still our father. And, yes, we'd lost our mother, but it had been an accident, a terrible mistake. We could either decide to lose both parents, or keep one. Keep Daddy, which we did.'

They all did. All stood, and have stuck by him, which says a lot for Drummond Murray-Brown, and perhaps not a great deal for Vicky, although they never blackened her name either. Whatever she'd done, she didn't deserve what befell her. An invisible veil of intractable silence regarding their mother descended on the family, and what remained of them was tight, for obvious reasons. Almost twenty years into a marriage with one of the siblings, I sometimes wondered if two out of the three had ever got over it. I suspected they hadn't. James was fine, I knew that. I'm even conceited enough to believe that the girls and I had made him so, but Sally and Rachel were not fine, and I think James felt guilty about that. That he'd survived. Escaped, if you like. And they hadn't. Remained trapped in a house full of ghosts and regrets.

As I faced him now in our Clapham kitchen, I knew. Knew that their lives were entangled more inexorably than those of any other family. Knew, too, that just as we had always, throughout our married life, spent almost a
month – a long time in anyone's calendar, my friends were always staggered – with the Brig and Sally and Rachel, so we would now, even in the south of France. It couldn't be avoided. And it had been foolish – selfish of me, even – to imagine it could. To believe that this summer would be any different.

The
ferry crossed the Channel on a rough and churning sea. It felt like a force ten to me, but James assured me it was only a moderate swell, not even a proper gale. You could have fooled me. I'm not one of nature's travellers, though; in fact, on our honeymoon I notched up motion sickness three times in one day: once on the aeroplane to Athens, once on the boat to Zante and, lastly, in the taxi across the island whilst James supplied me with sturdy paper bags and surreptitiously read
The Times
. This time, however, I was not the only one in trouble. Rory was up on deck beside me, clinging to the rail as the others played Perudo in the bar below, no doubt knocking back the rosé, lurching hilariously this way and that as the boat plunged and soared, roaring with laughter as the dice and the cups rolled off the table. Rory and I couldn't look at one another, let alone speak. So intense was our mutual concentration that our knuckles were white with the effort of clinging to the rail, our faces dizzying shades of eau de Nil. It wasn't so much the rise and fall of the great boat in the swell that I had trouble with, it was the uncertain length of the pause in between. The prow would keep rearing up on the crest of a huge wave, hesitating … oh God, the
tension
… and then swooping down again, like a roller coaster at a so-called funfair. The fact that the pause wasn't always followed by a swoop but sometimes by a dead drop, like a lift
plunging from top to bottom, was my undoing. It was this last motion that caused havoc with my stomach and, eventually, despite me gulping desperately into the gale, caused me to vomit over the side. Unfortunately, the wind blew it straight back into Rory's face.

He was terribly good about it. Wiped his face and his pink Ralph Lauren shirt down with a ‘Couldn't matter less, Mrs Murray-Brown', even though I'd ceaselessly told him to call me Flora. But it wasn't my finest hour. Naturally, I was horribly embarrassed, but Tara was mortified.

‘Mum – how could you!' She flew into the Ladies to find me as I mopped myself down, clutching the basin in an effort not to be thrown across the room, as the boat continued to lurch hideously.

‘Well, obviously I didn't intend to throw up in your boyfriend's face, Tara,' I said through my teeth, gritted in case there was more; in case I needed the basin for more than just support.

‘Yes, but it's so gross! I am
so
embarrassed.'

Amelia materialized beside us, pale and tight-lipped, but not from the swell.

‘Toby's just told me something awful. Apparently, you skipped past him on the landing with no clothes on, is that right?'

‘I
ran
to the airing cupboard, Amelia.'

‘
Naked?
'

‘I didn't know he was in the house!'

‘Oh, like you run around the house with no clothes on a lot! You're not doing a Mrs Robinson, are you?' She narrowed her eyes suspiciously at me. ‘Trying to seduce him?'

‘Don't be ridiculous!'

‘Well, you're not making a very good impression, Mum. Try harder, OK? I am not impressed.'

Two pairs of appalled eyes bored into mine and then the sisters stalked off, united in their disgust, flashing me horrified backward glances over their shoulders as they went and murmuring mutinously.

Frankly, I was beyond caring, so sick did I feel. I only felt remotely human again when we got to Calais and I was able to change in the loo in a bar and put my dress and Rory's shirt in a plastic bag in the boot of the car. Even then, I have to admit, the smell still wasn't great and, to be honest, whatever they say in the adverts, having six people in one people carrier is not ideal. We certainly got to know one another pretty well during that ten-hour drive down to the south of France.

Rory's manners were impeccable, really exemplary. But much as I hoped they'd rub off on the rest of us, it was rather exhausting to hear once again how extraordinarily comfortable he was, and did everyone else have enough room? I hoped he'd relax when we got there. Toby and Amelia, at the back, couldn't have been more relaxed, slumped against each other, plugged silently into their music, Toby, whenever I glanced in the rear-view mirror, foraging furiously up his nose with his finger. Tara was engrossed in a book on Virginia Woolf, so it was rather left to Rory to keep the conversational gambits going. He gave us a valiant running commentary on the flat, northern countryside, explaining how the landscape had disadvantaged the Allied troops during the war – did I mention he was reading history? – and how Montgomery had intended to march his men in strict formation over these fields with
a view to accessing the beaches below, but the lack of natural topographical camouflage had hindered him. He told us about pincer movements, back-up plans, resources. It really was all extremely interesting, but there was a limit to how many times I could say, ‘Really?', or ‘That's so fascinating, Rory,' and since it was my turn to drive and James, who'd normally be a willing participant in this sort of conversation, had nodded off, I was rather left flying the flag.

Finally, my mouth dry from chat about the Axis and the Allied powers and eyes glazed from miles and miles of boring French countryside, the vista gave way to more exciting, hilly terrain as we twisted and turned our way across the Alps. James had taken the wheel now and Rory had gone very quiet behind me. I knew why, and truly felt for him – really, I did – but I certainly wasn't relinquishing my front seat. After a while – and quite abruptly – a brightly coloured landscape materialized, as if a roller blind had suddenly been let to fly up. The sky in Normandy had been low and grey – much the same as at home – but now the hefty clouds rolled back to reveal a deep azure blue, uninterrupted by even a wisp of white. As we thankfully opened the windows to greet the warm, still air, heavy with mingled scents of sage and lavender, rows of vineyards and vast fields of sunflowers interspersed with dusty village after dusty village assured us we were indeed in the south of France.

‘Nice was once part of Italy, you know,' said Rory, who'd clearly recovered his equilibrium. We passed a rococo-style villa at the side of an olive grove. ‘Hence the pastel-coloured stucco you see around here, like in Turin. It was called Piedmont until 1860.'

At
least he wasn't reading mechanical engineering, I thought. Or physics.

‘I think I knew that,' said James, with genuine interest. ‘Although, of course, we're not going as far as Nice.'

‘No, but you still see the effects, even this far inland. What are we, about an hour away?'

‘From the coast, yes, but by my calculations we're only about five minutes from the villa.'

Even Toby and Amelia unplugged at this. Sat up. Funny how selective their hearing could be.

‘Five minutes?' Amelia demanded.

‘Just at the top of this hill, according to Camille's directions.' He could have said, ‘according to the directions', but he said her name a lot these days. Also, we'd listened to quite a lot of opera in the car, instead of the usual Lighthouse Family. ‘We should see the villa any minute,' he went on.

‘Chateau,' corrected Amelia as, at that moment, we took a sharp right turn between the endless rows of regimented vines.

At the end of the lane was an elaborate iron gate which gave on to a long, straight drive lined with gently swaying poplar trees. The house rose up before us. Both had been right. It was a villa in the classical Roman sense, flanked by cypress trees and with faded grey shutters, but a chateau in breadth and magnitude. Long, pale and elegant, with a flight of steps leading up to the double front door, which was partly obscured by an extravagant fountain cascading into a round pond in the foreground, it was breathtaking.

‘Beautiful,' I breathed, on the edge of my seat now, the horrific journey forgotten.

This
was what we Murray-Browns needed, I thought as I gripped the dashboard. This was what we had come for. In the distance, beyond the house, the vale spread out palely below: parched grass shimmered lemon in the bright sunshine and was studded with small farms and the odd charming cluster of tiny houses, their red roofs pierced by slender church spires. Further into the distance, the horizon stretched away to the glittering blue Mediterranean, where little boats bobbed and white sails flapped.

We tumbled out of the car into the intense heat almost before James had stopped, so desperate were we to escape the metal box that had encased, and not necessarily enhanced, our jarring personalities: keen to escape, swim and explore.

‘Except we haven't got a key,' I thought out loud, as James and I heaved a couple of cases out of the boot. The children headed off eagerly around the fountain, empty-handed.

‘No need, remember? Camille said her sister – ah. Here they are.'

As if on cue, the front door opened and a youngish couple emerged at the top of the flight of steps. The man was very handsome, with dark, flashing eyes in a narrow, tanned face and wearing a pale-blue shirt and tight jeans. His wife, slight and pretty with auburn curls, was in a white broderie anglaise sundress.

‘You must be the Murray-Browns.' She smiled broadly, a slight lisp combining charmingly with her heavy French accent as she came down to greet us. The man glided quickly to relieve James of his case, just as servants would in one's dreams. Indeed, it felt like a dream as they
introduced themselves as Thérèse and Michel Fragonard, here to look after us during our stay. As he took my bag, Michel looked deep into my eyes. Thérèse, meanwhile, was exclaiming how lovely it was to have us here, shaking our hands as we gushed our enthusiastic responses – both James and I speak French – saying what a fabulous place they lived in and how lucky they were. Introductions to the children were then achieved and the couple led us up the steps and through the front door. In we went, into a huge, double-storeyed hall. It was a tower, in actual fact, or a turret; you could see right up to the ancient wooden rafters. The centuries-old, thick, white walls were plastered all the way to the top with heraldic masonry and crossed swords and there was even a suit of armour in the corner.

‘Oh – it's like a castle!' Tara exclaimed, spinning round like a child.

‘It was once. Well, a chateau,' smiled Thérèse. ‘But a tiny one,
bien sûr.
'

‘Looks pretty big to me,' muttered Toby. I could see that Rory was pink with pleasure, and already going across to examine the shields.

Through double doors, we eagerly followed the petite and delicate Thérèse into an inner hall, and then along a corridor into a thoroughly modern and vast kitchen, complete with a highly polished slate island big enough for us all to sleep on and with enough stainless-steel equipment to baffle me for weeks. I circled around, gazing up at the gallery above. I wasn't sure how it would work vis-à-vis smells drifting up, but it was certainly very dramatic. The kitchen in turn led to a comfy sitting room with an enormous television, and then, again via double doors, into the
more formal rooms, which were of such size and stature that everything in them seemed lost. They were all furnished in the most terrific French taste, with tapestries hanging from the walls and spindly Louis Quinze furniture dotted about, but very much designed for
petites
French
mesdemoiselles
, not hulking great Englishmen.

‘I hope we don't break anything,' I murmured nervously, stroking a tightly upholstered chaise longue and considering Toby's bulk.

‘Oh, it would not matter, it is all
brocante
finds,' Thérèse assured me. She seemed to do all the talking, I noticed, while Michel was more watchful. ‘Camille, she is so clever, and everything she has found is for really very little in the markets. It is not good.'

She meant in the valuable sense, but the whole effect was very good indeed, and it struck me that Camille was surely a woman of many parts to be able to sing like a nightingale and furnish houses effortlessly, when it took me weeks to decide on a rug for the hall.

‘And the bedrooms?' asked Amelia, keen to get to the nub of the matter. We'd been admiring the view over the grand piano in the drawing room down to the olive grove, but Amelia had seen enough olive groves on our drive. Michel, meanwhile, was opening a connecting door to a study, and I saw him glance at James for approval, but my husband was still distracted by the vista.

‘
C'est très jolie!
' I assured Michel quickly, moving across to admire the pretty toile-papered room which housed the computer.

Michel nodded and gave me the smallest of smiles back, but his eyes were still on James as he closed the door. He
had a dark, brooding intensity that was terribly attractive. Lizzie would be all over him, I thought.

‘Yes, yes,' Thérèse was saying smilingly in answer to Amelia. ‘Come, I show you.'

We followed as she turned on her elegant, tanned ankles and led us back through the interconnecting rooms to the front hall, then on up the curling stone staircase. The galleried landing which hovered above the drawing room and kitchen had a long corridor peeling off it which revealed one bedroom after another, all beautifully decorated and at our disposal, apart from a locked one – presumably Camille's – at the far end. With so many to choose from, even I couldn't foresee a fight, although I would definitely make sure I was in charge of allocating them, I thought, as my daughters' eyes glinted with intent.