Page 1 of Secrets Beneath a Riviera Sky
1
Agnes stared out at the rain-soaked garden as Theo’s voice, suitably sombre, but without an apologetic, ‘I’m sorry for the sad call’, informed her of the death of his brother, her husband. The phrase ‘Oscar is dead’ hung in the silence of the airwaves for several seconds and failed to elicit the correct emotion in her.
‘Had he been ill?’ She pulled herself together enough to ask.
‘Non. He fell off his boat and drowned.’
Theo’s matter of fact voice lacked any sorrow or regret in its measured tones. Perhaps it was the telephone line masking his emotions? It was his older brother after all, even if they were constantly falling out. Agnes knew though that she and Theo were emotionally as one on the subject of Oscar Agistini. Thankfully, and seemingly knowing without asking, that she wouldn’t be rushing over to France, Theo told her he would deal with the funeral arrangements and call again with the details.
‘Would you like me to phone Francine and tell her?’ Theo asked finally.
‘Non merci. I will tell her.’ She knew her daughter would have a similar reaction as her own to the news. When the call ended, Agnes found it impossible to remember it in detail. In truth it had been a strange, one-sided conversation. She, unable to express an unfelt sorrow, Theo simply doing his duty informing her of the facts. Conversation about the event would follow later without a doubt.
How was she supposed to feel about the death of a man she hadn’t seen for far too many years to count, Agnes wondered? The truth was she didn’t feel a thing – no sadness for his death, no regret for the way things were, no guilt for her part in… anything. She might still bear his surname but Oscar had ceased to have a meaningful existence in her life over forty years ago. She’d routinely wished him dead and buried for so long that the unexpected, if welcome, news of his demise was hard to take in.
Had there been any truth in the power of murderous thoughts, the ones she’d harboured and sent his way down through the years should have been enough to kill him off a long time ago. As should the straw doll she’d kept hidden in the dressing table drawer and stuck pins into on and off for years. Relieving her frustration over her situation by repeatedly jabbing an old hat pin into the stuffed doll and slamming it hard against the wall had been so therapeutic. Until it came to an abrupt end a decade ago. After a particularly upsetting row with Oscar, she’d managed to stab her own finger rather than the doll and got blood all over it. Soaking the doll in warm water in an effort to clean it proved to be a bad idea as it disintegrated so she’d thrown the remains in the rubbish bin.
Age had thankfully worn away her frustration with certain life events and she rarely felt the need to vent her feelings these days by sticking pins in dolls. If she did, she merely stamped her feet like a petulant toddler for thirty seconds or so before pouring herself a small sherry and letting the feeling go. Sherry. She could do with one right now. Taking the bottle of her favourite dry sherry out of the fridge Agnes poured herself a glass and took a sip.
The day she’d left France all those years ago she’d vowed never to return to the Riviera while Oscar was still alive. Now he was dead and she could return. Thoughtfully she sipped her drink. But was it all too late? If only he’d died thirty, forty, years ago there would have been a point in returning, time would have been on her side. But now? Agnes gave a mental shrug.
The world had moved on, she was officially an old woman and even if she did return it would all be so, so different. Life here in Dartmouth, South Devon had settled onto an even keel over the years and was good. Going back would surely drag the past into the present, bringing a bundle of regrets with it that would weigh her down rather than uplift her.
The foolish thing though, was that she wasn’t sure she could deny herself one last opportunity to try and make peace with the past.
2
Francine was quick to take advantage of the dry spell when the rain finally stopped to get out into the garden and trim back the rambling rose over the side trellis. She was holding the shears above her head and stretching for a tall errant offshoot when her mother stepped out of her room onto the terrace.
‘Fancy a cup of tea in about five minutes?’ Agnes called. ‘I need to talk to you.’
‘Please. There’s a lemon drizzle cake in the tin if you fancy a slice.’ Francine glanced across at Agnes but she had already disappeared back indoors. Cutting away at the lower, overgrown tangle of rose offshoots Francine’s thoughts wandered to worries about Agnes. It was several years since there had been that stressed tone to her mother’s voice. Definitely not since she and Edwin had moved into Francine’s childhood home to live with Agnes fourteen months ago now. Was she ill? Maybe the results of a recent blood test had come back and there was a problem. Please no. The thought of her mother being ill made Francine herself feel bad. Gathering the cuttings into a green garden waste bag she dragged it up the garden towards the gate ready for Edwin to dispose of it.
Agnes carried the tea tray with its flowery china cups and saucers, slices of lemon cake on matching plates out to the terrace and sat waiting for her. Before joining her mother Francine went into the kitchen to wash her hands. The rinsed sherry glass on the draining board surprised her. Four o’clock in the afternoon and Agnes had been drinking? Something must have seriously upset her.
Agnes poured the tea as Francine sat on the wrought iron chair with its scarlet cushion. ‘Lovely to be able to sit out here again. I think spring has finally arrived after all the rain,’ Francine said. ‘Shame it didn’t arrive in time for Easter. So, what do you need to talk to me about, Maman?’ she asked before taking a sip of tea and swallowing. ‘Is it your blood test results?’
‘Non. They are good.’ Agnes muttered something under her breath in rapid French which Francine couldn’t quite make out, and her heart sank. Agnes had a habit of reverting to her native French whenever stressed or agitated over something. Whatever she needed to talk about was clearly serious. Francine waited.
‘Uncle Theo rang me this afternoon.’
‘How is he?’ Francine was very fond of her uncle Theo. He’d been very kind to her down the years on the numerous occasions she’d met him.
‘He’s well. He rang about your father,’ Agnes said quietly.
‘Like he couldn’t ring himself,’ Francine said.
‘In this case he couldn’t. He’s had an accident.’
At the look on her mother’s face, Francine stopped herself from making another sarcastic comment. Seeing Agnes take a deep breath, Francine knew instantly why she’d needed a drink that afternoon.
‘He’s dead, isn’t he?’
Agnes nodded. ‘Yes.’
Francine stayed silent, trying to assess her own feelings. Her father was dead. The father she barely knew; the father she’d not seen since she turned eighteen, thirty-six years ago. Her childhood memories of when he had been in her everyday life had faded, distorted, into unreliable pictures of her time growing up in France before the word ‘separation’ and all its consequences had become a presence in her life. She looked at Agnes.
‘Ça va, Maman?’ Francine asked gently. What was Agnes thinking? Her marriage might have ended many years ago but there was bound to be some sort of instinctive gut reaction to the news. Francine suspected it would be similar to her own – indifference – but in her mother’s case, it would be laced with bitterness. She knew her mother well enough to know that the love between her parents, if in fact it had even existed in the beginning, had died a long time ago with Agnes ending up hating Oscar Agistini. Even if she had tried for years to hide that hate from her daughter. Agnes’s lifelong maxim had always been ‘the past is past, it’s the future we need to worry about’.
