‘I had worked like a dog to get that far, and there I was leaving with my tail between my legs, I think I even felt guilty. I even had to ask them to forgive me. In the space of a few hours I abandoned everything I had: the man I loved, ten years’ worth of studies, my friends, my adoptive country, my weak strains, my DNA, my papayas and even my cat . . .
‘Matt came with me to the airport. It was awful. I said to him, I’m sure there are plenty of fascinating projects in Europe, too . . . We were in the same field . . . He shook his head and said something that haunted me for the longest time: “You only think about yourself.”
‘I was crying as I went through the gate. Imagine, someone like me who’s been all over the place, to plantations the world over, I have never been on a plane since that day.
‘I still think about him sometimes. When I’m here, lost in this godforsaken place, in my wellies, half-frozen, watching Sam train his donkey, with my decrepit dogs and old René and his incomprehensible patois and all the village kids perched on the fences, cheering me on while I’m baking the latest cake, I think about Matt, and what he said, and a magnificent fuck you warms my heart a whole lot better than my old friend in the kitchen . . .’
‘Who’s that?’
‘The cooker, my Aga . . . The first thing I bought when I arrived here. That was madness, too.
‘All my savings went into her. But my nanny had one in England and I knew I wouldn’t manage without . . . It’s funny, I had a French friend, whose English was a bit wobbly, who used to say “cooker” when she meant “cook”, and her confusion always seemed especially apt to me. For me, for all of us, my Aga is the cook, a real person. A sort of fairy godmother, warm, kindly, always there for you, and we’re always cuddling up to her. The bottom oven on the left is particularly useful, for example . . .
‘When the children are in bed and I’ve had it up to there, I sit down in front of the Aga and put my feet inside that little oven. It’s lovely . . . Fortunately no one ever comes here! The wolf lady with her feet in the oven, they would dine out on that for years! We may have had a really crap car back then, but we did have a Wedgwood blue Aga that must have cost me the equivalent of a Jaguar . . .
‘Anyway . . . where were we? My parents went back to England, the au pair made it clear that my mother had been the hardest one to deal with and . . . And then . . .
‘It was a very tough time.
‘Samuel began wetting the bed again. Alice had nightmares and kept asking me every day when her Mummy wouldn’t be dead any more.
‘I took them to a child psychiatrist who said, Ask them questions, engage them constantly, force them to verbalize their angst and, above all, never let them sleep with you. I said, Yes, fine, and dropped everything after three sessions.
‘I never asked them any questions but I became the world’s greatest expert on Playmobil, Lego and coloured sticky labels. I closed the door to Pierre and Ellen’s room, and we slept all three together in Sam’s room. Three mattresses on the floor . . . Apparently that’s a criminal thing to do, but I found it terribly efficient. No more nightmares, no more bed-wetting and lots of stories before lights out. I knew that Ellen spoke to them in French but read them Enid Blyton, Beatrix Potter and all the books we grew up with in English, and so I picked up where she’d left off.
‘I didn’t force them to “verbalize their angst” but Samuel often stopped to correct me and explain how Mummy used to read that particular passage and also that she would imitate Mr McGregor’s gruff voice, or Winnie the Pooh’s, much better than I did. Even now, with Yacine and Nedra, we’re reading Oliver Twist in the original. But that doesn’t stop them having dreadful marks at school, I can tell you.
‘And then came the first Mother’s Day, the first of a long series that always leaves us a bit shaken. I had to go and see their teachers, to ask them to stop going on about their bloody Mothers’ Hour. Something Alice told me one evening. That it made her cry all the time. “And now, children, put on your coats because it’s time for Mothers’ Hour!” I asked them if they couldn’t add “and Aunties’’ but it never really caught on.
‘Teachers . . . they really are my bêtes noires. Do you realize that Yacine is bottom of his class? Yacine? The most brilliant, the most curious little boy you’ve ever seen? And all because he can’t hold a pencil properly. I suppose no one ever showed him how to write. I did try, but there was nothing for it, no matter how he tries it’s illegible. A few months ago he had to put together a presentation on Pompeii. He spent ages on it, and it was amazing. Alice had done all the illustrations and we even made some plaster models on the kitchen table. Everybody pitched in. Well, they only gave him 10 out of 20, because she said the captions had to be handwritten. I went to see her to assure her that he’d typed it all himself, but she answered that it was “only fair to the others” . . .
‘“Only fair to the others.”
‘I hate that expression.
‘I despise it.
‘Only fair to the others – what has our life been about for the last nine years, huh?
‘A shipwreck?
‘A jolly shipwreck.
‘For the moment, I’m keeping a lid on it because Nedra is coming up behind him, but when we’re done with primary school I’m going to go and see that woman and say, “Madame Christèle P., you are a fucking stupid bitch.” Yes, I may be vulgar, but I don’t regret it, because being vulgar earned me a very nice reward . . .
‘I was telling this anecdote to someone, I don’t remember who, how I would go and insult that stupid cow one of these days, and Samuel was there with his mates and he said with a big sigh, “My real mother would never have dared do that . . .” For me that’s a reward because things have been pretty rough with him lately. Typical adolescent crisis I suppose, but much more complicated in our case. Never has he missed his parents more than now. All he ever wears now are his father’s and grandfather’s clothes and, obviously, Auntie Kate with her cakes and carrots in the window box, all that has become a bit lightweight as role models go . . . Fortunately, those little words, which he said tenderly, reminded me that the ungrateful good-for-nothing spotty glutton still has a sense of humour. But I won’t let that deter me for a moment, I’ve got her number, that bitch.’
Laughter.
‘And how on earth did you end up here?’
‘I’m getting there. Pass me your glass.’
Charles was drunk. On her stories.
‘So I did what I could . . . Often I was utterly useless, but the kids showed me exemplary kindness and patience. Like their mum. Their mum, whom I missed so much. Because in fact, I was the one who was crying at night. When they were unhappy, I wanted so badly for her to be there, and when they were happy, it was even worse. I was living in her flat in the middle of her things, I used her hairbrush and borrowed her jumpers. I read her books, her little notes on the door of the fridge, and even her love letters, one horribly distressing night. There was no one I could talk to about her. My dearest friends were only just getting up when I was on my way to bed, and there was no Internet or Skype in those days, or all those amazing satellites that have transformed our big planet into a little chat room . . .
‘I wanted her to teach me to do Pooh’s voice. And Tigger’s. And Rabbit’s too. I wanted her to send me signs from up there to tell me what she thought of all my hare-brained schemes, and whether it really was so bad for us to sleep all hugger-mugger in our unhappiness. I wanted her to confirm that my boyfriend hadn’t been worth it and that I’d been right not to give him a chance to get back together with me. I wanted her to hold me in her arms and make big bowls of hot milk with orange blossom, for me as well.
‘I wanted to ring her and tell her how hard it was to be raising children who belonged to a sister who had disappeared, a sister who had been so careful not to say goodbye in order not to make them sad. I wanted to rewind the whole thing and say, Let them go off the two of them to drink their wine, let’s stay here and finish the
sherry and I’ll tell you stories about papayas and sex on campus.
‘She would have loved for me to talk to her like that. Was expecting it, really . . .
‘I think I was going a bit barmy, and it would have made more sense to move, but I couldn’t force that on them along with everything else. Besides, it wasn’t that simple. I’ve forgotten to tell you the whole . . . technical side of the matter. The Family Court, the summons to the judge about guardianship, the lawyers and all the hassles to get the wherewithal to bring them up . . . Are you interested in this, too, Charles, or shall we head straight for the country?’
‘I’m very interested, but . . .’
‘But?’
‘Aren’t they going to get cold, splashing about this late?’
‘Nah . . . They’re indestructible, those creatures. In two minutes the boys are going to chase the girls and everyone will get quite warm again, I assure you.’
Silence.
‘You’re the attentive sort, aren’t you,’ she said.
He blushed in the dark.
The slap distributor had just rushed past, shrieking, followed in close pursuit by Bob Dylan.
‘What did I tell you . . . By the way . . . would you put condoms in the saddle room, if you were me?’
Charles closed his eyes.
What a roller-coaster ride with this girl . . .
‘I put a few . . . by the box of sugar for the horses. When I told Sam, he looked at me completely horrified as if I were some sort of dreadful perv, but in the meantime the dreadful perv has her peace of mind!’
Charles refrained from adding to the discussion. Their shoulders touched from time to time, and the topic was rather . . . well . . .
‘Yes. I am interested in the technical side,’ he smiled, contemplating the bottom of his glass.
In the dark it was hard to tell, but he thought he could hear her smile.
‘It will take a while,’ she warned.
‘I have as long as it takes . . .’
‘The accident happened on 18 April, and I filled in as guardian up to the month of May, but then they had to constitute what they call a Board of Guardians, in other words three people from each side of the family. On our side, it was straightforward: Dad, Mum, and me; on Pierre’s side, things were a lot more complicated. This wasn’t a family, it was a nest of vipers, so to speak, and by the time they could agree, we’d already had to cancel a first meeting.
‘I saw them coming and I felt a huge rush of tenderness for Louis and his son. I understood why Louis had no longer wanted to see them and why Pierre had fallen madly in love with my sister. They were . . . how can I describe them . . . very well-armed people . . . Yes, that’s it . . . Well-armed against life. There was Louis’ older sister, her husband, and Édouard, Pierre’s uncle on his mother’s side . . . um . . . are you still following?’
‘I’m still following.’
‘Uncle Édouard had a nice smile and presents for the children; the other two – let’s call them the “chartered accountants”, since that was his profession, and her obsession, accounts that is – began by asking me if I spoke French. Off to a really splendid start!’
She laughed.
‘I think I’ve never spoken French as well as . . . as on that particular day! I got out all my Chateaubriand and my finest subjunctive imperfects for those two hicks from the provinces!
‘So, first issue: who would be appointed guardian? Right . . . no one was exactly queuing up. The judge looked at me and I smiled. The matter was closed. Second issue, who would be appointed surrogate guardian? In other words, who would police me? Who would “supervise my guardianship”? Oh, my! Right away, agitation in the cashmere camp. If the children had earaches or nightmares, or made drawings of people without arms, that was no big deal, but their inheritance, watch out!’
As she mimed their behaviour, Kate gave him frequent gentle nudges with her elbow . . .
‘What would you have me do against such formidable opponents? Suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or . . .? I looked at my old dad’s face as he took notes, while my mother wrung her handkerchief and moaned, and I listened to the other two making their pitch to the judge. Poor Eddy was worth nothing, it was on Louis’ side that there was some cash . . . A flat in Cannes and another one in Bordeaux, not to mention Pierre and Ellen’s place. Well, Pierre’s place, principally . . . The chartered lady was more familiar with the deed of sale than I was . . . The problem was that Louis and his sister had been embroiled in a lawsuit for ten years or more over some plot of land or I don’t know what and . . . in short, I’ll spare you the details.
‘Good Lord, I could tell we were in for a bumpy ride, all this business . . . In the end it was Louis’ brother-in-law who went away with the title. Civil Code article 420 and following, quoted the judge, the role of the surrogate guardian is to represent legally incompetent minors when their interests are in opposition with those of the guardian. We all came to an agreement while the clerk did her clerking, but I remember that I was already miles away. I was thinking:
‘Seventeen years.
‘Seventeen years and two months with that lot watching over me . . .
‘Help.’
‘On the way out of the courthouse, my father finally opened his mouth: “Alea jacta est.”
‘Well, brilliant. That was a big help. And because he could see that I was upset, he added that I had nothing to fear, according to Virgil: “Numero deus impare gaudet.”’
‘Which means?’ asked Charles.
‘That there were three children, and that Divinity favours odd numbers.’
She looked at him and chuckled: ‘And here I was, telling you I felt alone! After that there were numerous meetings with the lawyer to draw up a financial support schedule, with a sum that would be paid me every three months, and that also included the assurance that the children would be able to go to university if I looked after them properly in the meantime . . . Which was, I won’t hide the fact, an enormous relief. Seventeen years and two months, even with such a small income, I could manage, and unless they went off with the dough at the age of 18 to blow it all at the casino, they would have a good start in life . . .
‘Anyway. We shall see. As I was saying, earlier on: one day at a time. Right, last glass each, just enough to get us as far as the stream . . .
‘In the middle of all those appointments and hundreds of phone calls, life went on.
‘I lost their vaccination booklets, bought shoes for the summer, met the other mums, heard a lot about Ellen, smiled vaguely, opened her mail and sent death announcements or photocopies of death certificates; I started cooking, I learned to convert pounds and ounces, cups and tablespoons, feet, inches, and all the rest, I took part in my first school fête, I began to do a good job with Tigger’s ludicrous voice, I held up, I cracked, I called Matthew in the middle of the night, I disturbed him during some important manoeuvre in the lab, he couldn’t talk, he’d call me back. I cried until dawn and had the number changed for fear he really would call me back and find some more convincing arguments to lure me back there . . .
‘Then it was summer. We went to my parents’ cottage near Oxford. Dreadful weeks, terribly sad. My father was devastated with grief and my mother continually mixed up Alice and Hattie. I never knew that the school holidays were so long in France . . . I felt as if I had aged twenty years. I wanted to put my lab coat back on and shut myself away with my germs . . . I didn’t read them as many stories, but I helped Harriet take her first steps and . . . I had trouble keeping up with her . . .
‘It was the backlash, I suppose. As long as we were still in the scaffold – scaffolding?’
‘Of what?’
‘Of our new life . . .’
‘Try scaffolding, it’s less hard on the neck and it’s even used for cathedrals . . .’
‘Oh? As long as we had had that scaffolding, I was active, fighting, but now that was over. There was nothing left to do but hold out for sev
enteen years and one month. I had five people on my hands, and I cut short the holidays, they were really getting me down. Because I’d lost a lot of weight and left everything back there, I was wearing Ellen’s clothes more and more often and . . . I wasn’t doing well at all.
‘In Paris it was stifling, the children were going round in circles and I gave Samuel his first spanking. Then, on a whim, I decided to rent a self-catering flat just outside a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. The village was called Les Marzeray and we walked every day with the pushchair to get our supplies and have a drink opposite the church.
‘I learned how to play pétanque and I started reading books that were again full of sad stories, but at least they were invented ones. The woman who had the grocery-café told me about a farm where I could find fresh eggs and even a chicken. The man wasn’t the friendly type but I could always try . . .
‘The children had colour in their cheeks, we walked a lot, we picnicked and had siestas in the meadows, Samuel went into raptures over a donkey and her foal, and Alice started a magnificent herbarium. It’s in the blood . . .’
Smile.
‘I was like her, and I discovered, or rediscovered, nature in a different form, other than through the microscope. I bought a disposable camera and asked a tourist to take a picture of me with the children. The first one . . . It’s on the mantelpiece in the kitchen and it’s my most precious possession . . . The four of us, in front of the fountain next to the bakery in Les Marzeray, that summer. Recovering, sitting precariously on the edge of the fountain, hardly daring to smile at this stranger but . . . alive.’
Tears.
‘Sorry,’ she said, wiping her nose against her sleeve, ‘it’s the whisky . . . What time is it? Almost one . . . I’ve got to get them to bed.’
Charles, who felt buoyed up after all these stories, offered to carry Nedra.
She refused.
Yacine was walking next to him, silent. He felt sick. Harriet and Camille followed, dragging their sleeping bags behind them.