She climbed ahead of him, past the first landing and then up the narrow flight of stairs to what must once have been the attic.
There was a single door at the top. She pushed it open slowly and stood in the doorway. It was a long, wide room with windows
on both sides. The quality of light changed as it brimmed against the ceiling, casting dancing patterns against the smooth
white walls. The bed was large and low with a white embroidered counterpane and a profusion of richly coloured pillows. A
bowl of scented peaches stood on the dressing table, slowly releasing their heavy perfume into the air. An intense feeling
of well-being flooded through her just as Aaron entered the room. She turned to him and put her hand on his arm. ‘It’s perfect,
Aaron. Absolutely perfect.’ The bag he was carrying slid slowly from his grasp and landed with a gentle thud on the floor.
He kissed her.
‘I’m glad you like it.’
‘I do.’
She put a hand on his chest and laid her head against his shoulder. His body was warm. He kissed her, hard, and his grip tightened
suddenly. She could feel his heart racing underneath her fingertips as he began to unbutton her shirt. They sat down
together on the bed and turned to each other. Through the furry sweep of her lashes she caught a glimpse of his face, dreamily
diverted as his body began seeking its own pleasure. He ran a hand down her stomach, fingers sensitive to the trembling his
touch produced, stopping every now and then as if to check her reaction before sliding into the sweet wetness in a move that
brought a sudden gasp from her throat.
‘Aaron,’ she whispered, ‘I—’
‘Shhh.’ He moved inside her, his eyes closed, hands reaching for hers. He held her steady, pinned underneath him, increasing
the tempo until he too exploded, an inarticulate sound coming from his own chest. ‘Julia.’ Slowly his whole body relaxed,
becoming heavier by the second until the even, uninterrupted sound of his breathing told her he’d fallen asleep.
The sounds of unfamiliar birds pulled her slowly out of sleep. She lay beside Aaron, listening to the soft warbling call of
a cuckoo and the answering sing-song of a bird she couldn’t name. From somewhere over the hill came the distant sounds of
construction – a mechanical drill and the whine of machinery – but even they failed to break the bubble of peace and tranquillity
that surrounded the farmhouse. She got out of bed and surveyed the room. Their clothes lay scattered around – Aaron’s jeans
flung comically over the end of the bed, one leg still attached to his ankle under the bedspread. She slid it carefully off
and picked up the rest. She pulled on her own jeans and slipped her shirt, still half unbuttoned, over her head. The floorboards
creaked as she walked but Aaron slept on, undisturbed.
She walked downstairs and into the kitchen, her toes curling up under the cold flagstone surface. Someone had clearly been
into the house that morning – there was a basket on one of the counters covered with a bright red-and-white checked cloth.
She lifted it – inside were half a dozen fresh eggs, a white butter dish, and a brown paper bag of tomatoes. There was a jug
of fresh milk on the table and two long, thin baguettes. She was suddenly hungry. She pulled off the tip of one of the baguettes
and ate it whilst looking for a pot to make coffee. There was one in the cupboard – a silver stove-top affair like the one
Diana used in London. She fiddled about with the flame on the enormous cooker before getting it right. She set it to boil
and walked over to the window. The garden was wild and lush, extravagant bursts of colour and texture, different from the
manicured lawn in Islington. A flock of birds – swallows? – cut across her line of vision and disappeared beyond the distant
grey-blue line of the hills. She turned on the tap and slowly filled a glass with water. She drank dreamily, a part of her
still left behind in the low bed where Aaron slept. There was a collection of photographs on the large French farmhouse dresser
by the door. She wandered over and picked one up. She’d noticed the same silver frames at Diana’s house but lacked the courage
to look at them. She studied the photograph – there was Diana, and Harvey … and the three brothers. She couldn’t get over
how different Josh was. He was glowering into the camera, his body partially turned away from everyone, as if marking his
distance. A sudden sound behind her made her jump. She nearly dropped the photograph.
‘What’re you doing? I woke up and you weren’t there.’ It was Aaron. There was a hint of sulkiness in his voice.
‘Nothing. I just came down to make coffee. D’you want some?’ She put the picture down carefully.
‘What’re you looking at?’
‘Just a photograph. I was just thinking about how different you are … you know, from him.’ She pointed to the picture. ‘Josh.
Did … did something happen between you,’ she asked delicately. ‘You never talk about him.’
‘No.’ Aaron’s voice was flat. ‘He’s abroad.’
‘You never talk about him.’
‘Can we drop it? I’ve no intention of ruining the first day of the holiday talking about him.’
Julia looked at him in surprise. She’d never seen his face so tight and closed. ‘Of course,’ she murmured, putting the picture
down. She walked to the stove. ‘Coffee?’ she asked, as lightly as she could.
He nodded. There was a strange look on his face. He held the expression for a moment, then all of a sudden it was gone. He
came over to where she stood and buried his face in her hair. She put up a hand to touch his face. They stood like that for
a moment, both breathing deeply. It was the first discordant moment since their relationship had begun. Slowly Julia felt
his body relax against her. Something wasn’t quite right, she thought to herself as she caressed his face, but she had no
idea what. A falling-out, a deeply buried fight, an estrangement in the family? But wasn’t that just the way of families?
Some childish fuss that had refused to die? She was an only child; she had nothing to compare it with, nothing to offer Aaron
except her embrace.
DIANA
Mougins, July 1997
Harvey braked suddenly and stopped the car. Diana was dozing – she felt the sudden lull as he switched off the engine and
woke up, but he was already gone. A few minutes later, he pushed several thin batons belted in tissue paper through the back
window. The car was immediately full of the yeasty scent of freshly baked bread. Diana’s stomach was rumbling. It had been
a while since lunch. She reached behind her and pulled one of the flour-dusty
ficelles
towards her. The crust crackled under the pressure of her hand. She brought the stick to her nose like a flower and carefully
broke off a piece. She handed it silently to Harvey and broke another one for herself, chewing it slowly. She looked out of
the window. Children in school uniform – the red and white check pinafores she remembered from childhood – were being dragged
reluctantly along the street by young
mothers in impossibly high heels and miniskirts, the firm, tanned flesh showing in glimpses as Harvey changed lanes and sped
up. Tables outside bars were small islands around which old men in singlets clustered, clutching glasses of pale yellow
pastis
.
Sunlight pricked through the trees that bordered the highway – as they drove into the hills away from the town, the forest
grew thicker and denser until they were finally driving under a canopy of green. She gazed out of the window at a day without
landmarks. They rounded one bend after another; quick flashes of roadside flowers, some turned ashy with dust. Behind them,
the blue tent of the sea tilted from side to side. They crested one hill and a lavender-blue valley, still shrouded in mist,
spread out before them. ‘It’s spectacular, isn’t it, darling?’ she murmured to Harvey. ‘Doesn’t matter how often we come,
I always forget how beautiful it is.’ He laid a hand on her thigh without speaking; it was often his way of responding to
a question that didn’t need an answer.
The tyres crunched gravel underfoot as they rolled slowly down the track towards the house. At the gate, Diana got out, enjoying
the feel of sun on her face and the chance to finally stretch her legs. Harvey drove through; she closed the gate behind him
and walked slowly down the driveway, her arms wrapped around her waist. There was a white car parked under the shade; Aaron
and that girlfriend of his were already there. Rafe and Maddy would arrive later that evening. She walked into the kitchen;
Mme Poulenc had already been in that morning. The place was spotless, as usual, and the fridge was stocked. A large casserole
dish of something delicious was on the stove, gently cooling. She picked up the kettle and took it to the sink. First things
first – a cup of tea.
Oh, les Anglais
… she could practically hear Mme Poulenc’s voice. She waited for it to boil and brought out two mugs from the dresser.
‘Cup of tea, darling?’ She turned as Harvey walked into the kitchen. His head practically touched the low ceiling, she noted
with amusement. It was the same with all the boys. She could
remember the summer when Rafe had suddenly shot up – he’d spent most of it holding his head in his hands. All the old dimensions
had suddenly changed. Every room he went into, he’d had to duck. The following year it was Aaron’s turn, and then a couple
of years later, Josh’s. She felt a peculiar lurch in the pit of her stomach when she thought of Josh. How afraid she’d been
that he wouldn’t grow to be as tall as the others. Silly fear – he was now an inch or two above even Harvey.
Harvey came to stand beside her whilst they waited for the kettle to boil. For a few moments, there was no sound in the house
except their own breathing. Then she heard the gate creak open and the heavy tread of Mme Poulenc’s feet on the gravel. She
always insisted on coming to greet them in their first hour in the house. Diana slipped out of Harvey’s arms and turned towards
the door. Mme Poulenc stood in the doorway, her face beaming in welcome. It was a ritual that hadn’t changed in twenty years.
Harvey was in the shower; she could hear his deep baritone as he hummed a few bars of the Chopin they’d been listening to
on the way down. The two suitcases lay slack-jawed on the bed by the window; clothes and hangers in hand, she walked back
and forth to the small dressing room that led off the bedroom, putting away clothes so that the suitcases could be stowed
in the attic. She finished hanging up the last of them and was just about to close the sliding door to the dressing room when
her eye fell upon the trunk pushed to the back of the rack of clothes against the wall. Her fingers went automatically to
the thin gold chain that she’d worn around her neck for more than thirty years. The key to the trunk was one of the four gold
charms strung on it. She touched it lightly, as if to remind herself of its presence. It had been a few years since she’d
opened the trunk; she was suddenly overcome with a longing to delve inside it again, but the sound of the shower being turned
off and the bathroom door being opened stopped her. Harvey had once asked her, years ago, what was inside it. ‘Oh, just the
usual childish stuff. You
know, letters, trinkets, postcards, that sort of thing.’ Dear Harvey – he’d taken her word for it, of course, and had never
asked again. She’d had a copy of the original brass key made for her a few months after she’d bought it, and since then, it
had never been off her person, not once. Not even when she’d been admitted to hospital with a ruptured appendix. She’d made
such a fuss about having to remove all her jewellery that Harvey had arranged for her to keep it on. The colleague who’d done
the operation was a friend after all.
But there was really no need to be so paranoid. Neither Harvey nor Mme Poulenc, the only two people who, so far as she knew,
were aware of the trunk’s existence, would ever dream of trying to open it. No, her things were safe. Only she knew what was
inside it; only she would ever know.
MADDY
Mougins, July 1997
Brushing aside the thick, cloying flowers and leaves that jumped out on either side of her, Maddy made her way down the overgrown
path to the pool. She’d been at the villa all of three days and this was the first day she’d had entirely to herself. She
sighed luxuriously. A whole day free of the demands of others, free of Diana and her acerbic wit, of Julia’s sharp tongue,
free of everything except her own thoughts. She pushed through the last branch and came upon the pool. She gasped. It was
beautiful. A slick turquoise skin, rolling in on itself gently in the breeze. Someone – Diana, in all likelihood – had organised
for the sunloungers to be laid out. She put the large pannier down; in it was a novel, some sun cream and a chilled bottle
of white wine. She sat down, slipped her sunglasses on and turned her face up to
the August sunshine. Slowly, the tension of the previous three days began to dissolve around her. She picked up her novel,
turned to the page she’d bookmarked and began to read. It was wonderful and hot. The air was a warm, soft lick against her
skin. In the hazy spell of warmth, her pulse slackened; her hand lazily brushed at the insects that flecked the page. She
pushed a strand of hair away from her face. The faint wasp-like stutter of a nearby motorcycle drifted through the air; a
minute or two later it was gone. She lifted a hand to shade her eyes as she read, but the print danced and blurred and her
mind ran free of the text. She dozed.
She woke with a start. Someone’s hand was on her knee, slowly making its way up her thigh. She pushed herself upright; in
those blank few moments between waking and sleep, she struggled to remember where she was, who she was … and who the man sitting
on the edge of the sunlounger with his hand halfway up her bare leg was. ‘Rafe,’ she murmured weakly, happily, as it all came
flooding back.
I’m Maddy. I’m on holiday in Mougins. This is my husband
. ‘You scared me.’
‘Why’s that?’ His hand did not stop at her thigh. It floated higher, sliding a finger underneath the thin stretchy fabric
of her bikini.