Page 10 of High Season
It always struck Nina as a tremendous hubris, to build a house so close to the water. As though you were tempting nature to tear it to shreds.
“They’re out on the terrace,” Sandra, the Draytons’ housekeeper, says when she opens the front door.
She doesn’t comment on the fact that she hasn’t seen Nina for three years, or the panicked phone call that she answered yesterday. She just steps neatly back into the large, cool entrance hall, almost untouched since Nina’s grandfather first carved the huge stone staircase.
Nina thanks her and leaves Ryan behind, unloading their bags from the taxi. She knows which terrace Sandra means. They only use one terrace now, the smaller of the two, located at the back of the house. They avoid the larger terrace, jutting out toward the sea at the side ofthe property. Evelyn was never quite able to match up the tiles when the pool was filled in, and so the shadow of it remains, sketched out in lighter stone. A pale, rectangular ghost that none of them can stand to look at.
Nina can see her mother and Blake before she reaches them, the patio doors that lead from the kitchen closed tight against the heat. They sit in the shade of bougainvillea, a knot of vines as old as the house, an open bottle of wine on the table between them. As if nothing has changed.
Nina takes a deep breath and pushes against the door.
“Darling.”
As usual, Evelyn looks beautiful and undone. Nina is used to her mother turning heads. She was an it-girl in the seventies and eighties, a newly minted heiress who had walked runways and been the muse of artists that she still liked to mention after a couple of glasses of wine. Nina has seen the pictures of her, too skinny, too much thick black eyeliner, her hair always looking artfully messy.
Now in her sixties, her look has barely evolved. Her long auburn hair is half-knotted on top of her head in an elaborate arrangement. She wears a silk dress as if she’s heading for cocktails at the Ritz rather than waiting for the arrival of her daughter. A cigarette hangs from her hand, even though the last time Nina saw her mother back in London she had sworn that she was giving it up. Her most recent boyfriend, Jonas, is a health freak at least twenty years her junior. Evelyn has been considering taking up running.
“You decided to grace us with your presence then.” Evelyn’s voice is artificially bright as Nina swoops to plant a careful kiss on her cheek. “Honestly. Most people woulddiefor a holiday home in the South of France, and here’s my daughter having to be practically dragged here!”
She lets out a high, girlish laugh.
“Well, sit down, darling, sit down,” she says. “Sandra will fetch you a glass. Blake picked up this gorgeous bottle of white.”
“You’ll love this, Nina.” Blake is lounging back in his chair, tapping the bottle with one finger. “It’s really good stuff.”
“I’m OK, thanks.” Nina slides into the seat opposite her mother. She can already hear that her voice is tight. This place still sets something off inside her, makes her feel like the world is slightly too narrow, like everything has come a little too close, in spite of the wide vistas of space around them. “We need to talk.”
“Oh, yes?” Evelyn says mildly. “What about?”
Nina’s head twitches between Blake and her mother.
“I called you about this yesterday,” she says. “It’s the whole reason I came—”
“Oh,that.” Evelyn waves one hand, dispersing a cloud of cigarette smoke. “Well, surely you haven’t come back just to talk aboutthat, darling? And anyway, you’ve only just arrived. I’m so thrilled to have you here. Can’t we just enjoy this evening? Can’t we just have a lovely time, the four of us?”
Sandra emerges from the kitchen, delivering two wineglasses without being asked. She places them down on the table and slips wordlessly away.
“I’ve been so looking forward to this, darling,” Evelyn is saying. Her voice is light. Hopeful. “Both of my children. Back in my favorite place in the world. Well, it’s just like old times, isn’t it? I don’t get enough of the two of you. That’s the sad thing about your children growing up, you know? You think that you have them forever, and then they grow up and go, and it feels like the time has just disappeared from you—”
“We’ll have plenty of time to talk about the email, Nina,” Blake says, quietly. He lifts the bottle to fill Nina’s glass. “But you must be knackered. Will Ryan want a glass, d’you think?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. He’s just putting the bags upstairs…”
Nina trails off, her gaze twitches between her brother and mother, dazed. She’s not been able to think of anything else since she received the email. For the last thirty-two hours, the words have been wedged somewhere between her throat and her heart, rising up every now and again like bile.
Social media sleuths. Flawed testimony. Josie Jackson.
“They emailed you, too, didn’t they?” she says.
“Oh, darling,” says Evelyn. She taps her cigarette against a glassashtray. “You know I don’t read emails. Blake’s filled me in a bit, of course, but really. It just seems like a load of old nonsense, don’t you think?”
“They’re making a documentary,” says Nina. “They’re coming back here to film. They’re going to interview Josie Jackson. And they think I lied about what happened to Tamara.”
Her voice tremors. They never say Tamara’s name out loud, not in front of Evelyn. Her mother’s face doesn’t move, but Nina sees a muscle twitch in her neck. Sees her drag more deeply on her cigarette.
“Come on, Nina,” Blake says, level. “They’re not saying youlied. It’s just a theory. Just a silly theory, made up by people with too much time on their hands. People have said all sorts over the years about what happened.”
“We just have to do what we always do,” Evelyn says, cutting loudly across Blake. “We don’t engage. We ignore them. And we threaten them with legal, if needed.”
