Liberty Silk (46 page)

Unfortunately, I have little in the way of valuable jewellery to bequeath – the little sapphire is not worth a great deal – but the Picasso will leave Cat very comfortably off. I have also made provision for you in my will.

I hope I have said everything I needed to say. I could have said so much more – I could have written pages and pages and pages! But now, of course, I’ve run out of time. It’s been a funny old life.

Tell Cat I love her. I met her in my dreams before I met her in reality, you know, and loved her then. I’ve loved her since the day she was born, and carried her in my heart everywhere in the world I went; but I couldn’t have entrusted her to parents more wonderful than you and Dónal. Thank you for rearing a beautiful daughter.

Lisa

WHEN NICK CAME
back from Roundstone, he brought with him a heap of prawns for supper, still in their shells. ‘Prawns for dinner tonight – fresh off the boat!’ he announced, with satisfaction.

‘You’re a thoughtful creature,’ Róisín told him, ‘but once those are peeled you’ll be lucky if there’s enough for two.’

‘You and Daddy go off down to Foyle’s Hotel,’ said Cat with alacrity. ‘My treat. Nick and I’ll stay in and have the prawns.’

Róisín took the hint. After she’d given Nick instructions on how to shell and devein the shellfish – ‘And don’t overcook them!’ – she and Dónal got into their Sunday best and left Nick and Cat together in the kitchen.

‘I have some news,’ Cat said, as Nick threw the prawns into a colander.

‘Oh? What’s up?’

‘You know the aunt I told you about? The one who used to be a film star?’

‘Lisa somebody?’

‘Yeah. Well, it turns out that she was actually my mother.’

Nick smiled. ‘Nothing much surprises me about you,’ he said.

‘She’s dead.’

Nick crossed the kitchen floor and, hunkering down, took Cat’s hand in his. ‘Oh, Christ, sweetheart! I’m so sorry.’

‘Yeah. It was all a bit shocking earlier, when Mam told me. She – Lisa – wrote a letter, saying how much she loved me.’ She gave him an apologetic smile. ‘That’s why my face is so blubbery – I’m all cried out.’

‘I didn’t notice anything blubbery about your face. You look ravishing,’ said Nick, loyally.

‘Stop stalling and get on with my dinner,’ commanded Cat, scared that she might cry again.

Nick jumped to it. ‘How did you find out?’ he asked.

She told him the story while he peeled the prawns.

‘A
Picasso
?’ he said, when she’d finished. ‘What are you going to do about staking your claim to it?’

Cat shrugged. ‘I don’t know. It’s there in Antibes waiting for me.’

‘If it belonged to your grandmother there might be something about it in her letters.’

‘We’ll read them after dinner, shall we?’

‘Sure.’

While Nick decapitated the prawns, Cat had a look at the book by Patrick Lawless that had arrived in the package from Lisa.

‘Maybe you should think about getting a gig in Tahiti,’ she said, leafing through the pages.

‘Could do,’ said Nick. ‘I’ve covered nearly all of Europe now.’

‘Listen – here’s a description: “in the morning all the beauty and youth of the island forgather in the market-place place to purchase their daily needs: mangoes, avocados, limes, guavas, melons, and passion fruit in profusion, pyramids of bread-fruit, baskets of crayfish and all the gossip of the day”.’

‘Their
daily
needs?’ remarked Nick. ‘Imagine having to shell basketfuls of these buggers every day.’

There were stories in the book of picnics by lagoons with whole roast suckling pigs and wine fermented from oranges, and hula dancers in grass skirts, of spear-fishing expeditions and encounters with sharks and love affairs with native girls. There were descriptions, too, of the other refugees from real life who’d wound up on the island, blow-ins from all over the world. One Frenchman had devised rudimentary scuba from a clothes peg and a length of hosepipe; a Chinaman was full of stories about Gauguin that had been passed on to him by the local barber; an Englishman had made a fortune dealing in pearls. They’d all been given nicknames by the native Tahitians: Mr Lawless was ‘Big Fella’ on account of his great stature; a man living by a signpost became ‘Six Kilometre Brown’; a white man with a bad case of sunburn became known as ‘Blackie White’; and one individual, a Scottish painter, was named ‘Sandyman’ from the French
sans main
, on account of his missing hand.

‘You’ve
got
to get to Tahiti,’ Cat said, as Nick set plates piled with prawns in front of them. ‘It sounds like heaven on earth.’

‘If I go I might never come back,’ said Nick. ‘Why don’t you come with me?’

She closed the book with a smile. ‘Thanks kindly for the invitation, mister. I just might take you up on that.’

After supper, Cat and Nick took themselves off to the front parlour to read through Jessie’s letters. Cat was wearing the cabochon sapphire that Lisa had said was ‘not worth a great deal’, but which was to Cat’s mind invaluable.

When they finished, Cat looked at Nick with perplexed eyes. ‘They sound like such a lovely couple, Scotch and Jessie.’ She picked up the last of the letters, the one that Jessie had written in pencil on the beach at Finistère. ‘Listen to this. “We are as fit as fiddles, and Scotch is so brimming over with energy and good health that he can’t leave me in peace for two seconds.”’

‘They must have had one hell of a honeymoon.’

‘I guess they were the original backpackers. That was a tough itinerary – especially post-war. Imagine ending up in Finistère! You know what it means, in French?’

‘I do. It means the end of the earth.’

As their eyes met, Cat knew that they were each thinking the same thought.

‘Well . . .?’ said Nick.

‘We’ll do it, shall we?’ said Cat, her eyes shining. ‘Follow in their footsteps?’

‘Except we’ll take the Citroën.’

Sliding down from the sofa, Cat joined Nick on the floor. She reached for her satchel, and produced pen and notebook. ‘Let’s start on an itinerary. Tell me where they stayed.’

Nick picked up a letter at random. ‘In Florence they stayed at the Pensione Balestri. I know that guesthouse! It’s still there – it overlooks the Ponte Vecchio.’

‘We’ll stay in that very same place then, shall we? We’ll trace their journey as faithfully as we can. Tell me more places.’

‘Um. Paris, rue du Sommerard, number 15; Florence, Albergo Romaqua; Chambéry, Hôtel Central; Pont-Aven, Hôtel Simonet; Siena, The Bandini Palace – Posh! This is going to be some road trip. Don’t forget to put Antibes on there.’

‘They didn’t go to Antibes.’

‘No. But you’re going to want to visit your mother’s grave.’

‘Oh, God. Yes, I am.’

‘And you’re going to want to lay claim to that Picasso.’

‘I’d forgotten about the Picasso.’

Nick laughed. ‘You are some blasé broad!’

‘I’m not so blasé, really. I can’t wait to get started. When’ll we go?’

‘When I’m done covering Ireland, I guess.’ Nick raised an eyebrow at her. ‘I hope you travel light. The chick who came on my last trip practically needed a sherpa to carry all her luggage.’

Cat didn’t want to hear about the last chick. She was about to retaliate with a random story of her own about her bad boy, but something told her Nick wouldn’t be impressed.

He was distracted, anyway, perusing one of the letters. ‘He had exquisite copperplate handwriting, your grandfather,’ he observed.

‘How do you know?’

‘This PS was written by him,’ he said. ‘Listen:

“Dear Pawpey
,

Have just made Jessie bubble with laughter by asking her how I should address my father-in-law! It was sporting—”

Sporting
! Cool word!

“—it was sporting of you to help us with the wherewithall to get to Venice, especially as I think myself to be the most hopeless person at money matters. The past fortnight in the hill villages could not be beaten, and on the whole life seems to be impossibly good. We were befriended by a Greek aristocrat who has adopted one of the sweetest kids I’ve seen in my life. He has great plans of proposing me to carry out some work in Corfu under the Greek government.”

Then there’s stuff about his new niece, blah blah blah. The writing is meticulous – look. It’s amazing to think that he was an amputee.’

Cat took the proffered letter and stared at it.

‘And an artist, to boot,’ continued Nick. ‘Hey! Maybe that’s where he ended up – working for the Greek government. Cat? Do you think he might have ended up in Corfu? Are you even listening, Cat?’

‘Yes, I’m listening,’ said Cat. ‘And I don’t think he ended up in Corfu. I think he ended up in Tahiti.’

Dear Mr Lawless
,

I recently came across a memoir written during one of your sojourns in the South Seas. I am writing to ask you for some information about one of the characters you describe. You mention a Scottish artist, with just one hand. I have reason to believe that this man, whom you call ‘Sandyman’, is my grandfather. He was born in 1898, and his real name was Albert Charles McLeod. I wonder if you can tell me if he is still alive? I should be most grateful for any news of him.

Yours sincerely
,

Caitlín de Courcy

Dear Miss de Courcy
,

Thank you for your letter. It was forwarded to me from London by my father’s publishing house.

I regret to have to tell you that my father Patrick Lawless passed away ten years ago after a full and adventurous life.

How interesting to think that your grandfather may be the famous Sandyman, of whom there is frequent mention in my father’s diaries, recalling many pleasant evenings spent over a dram or two of Scotch whisky! He had been living in Tahiti for several years when my father first arrived there, inspired to come – like numerous other artists – by the work of Gauguin. My father records that Sandyman was a demon at snooker and had volunteered during the Great War in France, helping to rehabilitate soldiers who had, like him, lost limbs.

While his nickname was bestowed on account of his missing hand, my father wrote that it seemed to him that Sandyman was directionless, without any great hope for what the future might bring. He described him as ‘a lost soul’. Sans demain, as I’m sure you know – literally translates from the French as ‘no tomorrow’. I have one of his watercolours – a beauty of the old school.

You might try writing to your grandfather at the village of Papeari, where he lived not far from my father. I wish you the very best of luck.

Yours sincerely
,

James Lawless

AT THE BUSTLING
airport in Papeete, the capital of Tahiti, Cat and Nick chartered a motor to take them southeast to Papeari, along bumpy, potholed roads. Away from the town, the countryside was wild and luxuriant. They drove through a landscape dense with trees dripping moss and looped with vines, and past vertiginous hills with peaks lost in mist, and slopes awash with waterfalls. They passed palatial millionaires’ pleasure houses and shacks so wretched it was difficult to imagine how people could live in them. These were patchwork houses of haphazard construction, with roofs of corrugated iron. Goats capered and chickens scratched in the mud by the side of the road. Most of the dwellings were painted in vibrant colours – cerulean blue or hibiscus blossom orange – and decorated with jewel-like patterns, but much of the paintwork was faded and peeling, and Cat was appalled to find herself contemplating how picturesque poverty could be.

The house was not hard to find: a man cutting bananas with a machete pointed it out to them, and gave a smile at the mention of Sandyman. It was a bungalow constructed from bamboo panels and supported by palm stumps. The roof was thatched with pandanus; the door and windows protected by mosquito lattice. It stood on the edge of a lagoon with a small pier and a ladder that descended into a bathing pool.

They climbed the steps of the veranda, and as Cat raised a hand to jangle the silvery chimes that hung by the door she felt beads of sweat trickle down her ribcage. There was no response to the ringing. She knocked: still nothing. Turning the handle and pushing the door open, she called a cautious ‘Hello?’, then stepped across the threshold, followed by Nick.

The main room was furnished simply, with a table and chairs, an armchair and a rattan sofa draped with a bright pareu. There was a nook for cooking, with utensils and crockery lined up neatly on a shelf. On other shelves, books and periodicals were stacked: bundles of the
London Mercury
in their yellow covers, a batch of
The Times Literary Supplement
. There was a scattering of carved curios, a portfolio was propped up against a low divan, and paintings – displayed in unassuming frames – covered one wall. They were watercolours; some landscapes, some townscapes, all bearing the signature A.C. McLeod.

‘Oh, God,’ said Cat. ‘I feel as if I’m a detective in my own story.’

‘The pieces are all falling into place,’ said Nick. ‘That’s Rouen Cathedral. And there’s the Ponte Vecchio in Florence near where they stayed . . . the Piazzale Michelangelo . . . the Boboli Gardens . . .’

Cat moved to a windowsill, where a leather-bound book lay next to a woven straw hat. The book was embossed with three simple fleurs-de-lis and secured with leather strips. She untied the thongs holding the book shut, and opened it. On the first page, she read in her grandmother’s handwriting, the following:

This book is the record of an impromptu birthday. It came as a ray of sun and illuminated with its glow a whole day. It is a festive book, and is the child of a happy Love whose face is always smiling and contented, but who has moments of thoughtfulness and moments of wild unrestrained joy. It first saw the light opposite the Strozzi Palace amid an aroma of delicious tea and delectable cakes.

A present to my true-love!