The Sea Garden (6 page)

This was not quite the story she had told that morning. Then again, the old lady seemed more compos mentis now. Perhaps she had taken some medication that had restored her balance. “How did you—”

“How did I end up here? That's a very long story.”

Ellie settled, expecting to have to listen for a while, but Jeanne stepped forward.

“Yes, you can get me the telephone now,” said Madame.

An old set appeared, its long cord snaking back to the landline socket. The housekeeper dialled the number.

“Laurent . . . the girl is here.”

She handed the receiver to Ellie.

“Hello?”

“Ah, my dear, I offer my apologies. I have been called away on business. Could not be helped, I'm afraid.”

“I see.”

Now she understood the excellence of his English, too.

“Promise me you will wait until my return. I'm sure you will be comfortable at the Domaine.”

“How long will you be?”

“Not long, only a day or so. But we must discuss the plans before you leave. It's never right if it's not done face-to-face with the drawings, is it?”

“That's true,” Ellie conceded.

“So that's settled then.”

“Well, it's—”

“Excellent. I will see you in a couple of days.”

The line cut dead, without a good-bye.

Ellie handed it back to Jeanne, who was hovering, expressionless.

 

D
inner was a desolate affair, served at one end of a long table in a room that felt empty.

A chicken dish was served, but only to Ellie. Mme de Fayols refused a dinner plate for herself, then accepted the positioning of a side plate in front of her, and a sniff at the fricassee in the serving bowl, but waved it away.

“I don't enjoy eating anymore,” said Madame. “But you go ahead.” She smiled, either oblivious to Ellie's discomfort or enjoying her small social cruelties. Were they deliberate, or a natural result of being a very old lady in triple isolation: on a private estate, on an island, long adrift from her native land?

Though she was hungry, Ellie tried to eat as if she too disdained the practice.

Mme de Fayols sipped at a glass of white wine. “You seem very young. You do realise that to create a garden is to work with time, don't you? It's possible for you to understand nature and growth and change and all the . . . science business—but those who make gardens to last must understand the past and see into the future.”

Ellie restrained herself from offering the retort she would have liked. “What was it like when you first arrived here?”

“It was a wild place.”

“I'm trying to imagine how it was . . . the formal gardens overgrown? The citrus and olive groves and a lot of scrub, like the garrigue land?”

“Much of it had fallen back into garrigue, yes. But the structure of the formal gardens was well established before the war. The hedges were strong. Then there was the apothecary garden, of course, thanks to the doctor. He began that during the war, I believe, when there was no likelihood of receiving any medical supplies. There was a kitchen garden, naturally.”

“And it was you and your husband who first made the memorial garden?”

The old lady nodded. “What do you think of it?”

“It's . . . intriguing.”

“It has a life of its own, our garden.”

Ellie nodded, trying to indicate that she understood while chewing on a sliver of chicken. Moths butted at the glass of the full-length window, closed to the night garden.

“Oh, you really don't know what I mean. This garden that reflects the misfortunes of others, it pulls you in. It has a hold. It doesn't let you go, even if you have to get away.”

“I'm not sure—” Was she referring to Laurent and his sudden departure?

“The greatest shock is to discover that the person you love is not what he seems. As more evidence emerges, it's hard to see him in the same way. And whatever the circumstances, it's always the small things that give us away.”

Ellie swallowed. Perhaps she wasn't supposed to understand. Mme de Fayols seemed to take pleasure in wrong-footing her.

Her hostess plucked at the slack of her shawl, pulling it tighter around her as if she were cold.

“I think you know all about that, don't you, Miss Brooke?”

Ellie was saved from having to find a response as Jeanne reappeared with a tray, set it down carefully, and left the room without a word.

“A cup of tea, Miss Brooke?”

“Actually, that's exactly what I'd like. Yes, please.”

“Good dark tea. It's the one thing that reminds me of home.”

The only sound was the tea being poured from a porcelain pot. Ellie's thoughts drifted off.

“It's haunted, you know.”

“I'm sorry?”

“It's haunted.”

“What is?”

“The garden. It was where he was shot. Executed.”

“He?”

“The good doctor. Did Laurent not explain?”

“No, he didn't tell me that.”

“Tell me, did you feel anything in the garden—any change in temperature, any sense of being watched?”

“The temperature is always very pleasant. It would be inside those high hedges, even in summer.”

“You didn't answer the important part.”

Ellie looked her in the eye. “No. Well, apart from . . . there was someone this afternoon.”

“Yes?”

“A man. I took him to be one of the estate staff. He said he was a gardener and that he could have done the work without any help from me. Or words to that effect.”

“Substantial chap, in peasant's blue?”

“That's the one.”

Falteringly, Madame took out a cigarette from a spring-loaded case and fumbled with a slim lighter. The cigarette wobbled wetly on her bottom lip until, after a struggle, it was lit and a thin stream of smoke exhaled.

“That's Picolet. He wouldn't manage the work. Well past it these days.”

That was rich, coming from a woman of her advanced years.

Madame took another puff in a stagy gesture that might once have been alluring. “No, I don't mean Picolet.” Exhalation of smoke with a tidal rasp. “You are either peculiarly unobservant or you are a liar, Miss Brooke. You know exactly what I mean.”

“I'm not sure I do.”

“Do you ever sense spirits around you in certain places?”

“I don't tend to give such things much thought.”

The cigarette smoke coiled between them. “Ah, what it is to be so sure. Except you're not sure, are you?”

“I don't believe in ghosts, if that's what you're asking.”

“You understand what is meant by haunting, though. How would you account for the phenomena that so many others understand as haunting?”

“I think . . . that these phenomena must be a sign of some inner disturbance.” Even as she heard herself saying the words, they seemed to be coming straight from her subconscious. As if she had no idea this was what she really thought. “Anxiety, stress . . . ,” she continued feebly.

“I see. Anxiety could certainly come into it. But more likely to be a result of a haunting rather than a cause, surely?”

Ellie stared at her hands wrapped around the cup. Unease at the turn of the conversation and the way the woman had been able to insinuate herself into her thoughts hardened into an urge to escape.

“You can't run away from everything, you know.”

Ellie tensed. She put down the cup and sat up straighter. “It's certainly possible to sense a mood in a garden, to read the signals planted there. Gardens can be laid out and planted to capture an atmosphere, just as houses can be furnished and dressed to reflect different tastes and moods. Key pieces, the way light and space are used. In the harsh light of summer here, reds and hard yellows stand out too much—they clash and unsettle the eye and our expectations. It's all about emotional reactions.”

“Ever the practical miss, with her logical explanation.”

Ellie felt drained. Some vital information was seeded in the strange misfire of communications that passed for conversation with the old lady. “What else is there?”

“Do you believe everything can be explained?”

“Well, if you're talking in general terms, then no. But that is only because we don't yet have the knowledge to understand.”

Mme de Fayols smiled disconcertingly. “On that at least, we agree.” She took a birdlike sip of tea. “How long have you been interested in the war, Miss Brooke?”

“I'm . . . the Chelsea garden was a commission from a services charity. They came to me with the theme and some of the ideas, and I worked to their brief all the way through.”

The old woman subjected her to a withering assessment.

“You're not very happy, are you?”

Ellie gave her best professional smile. “I'm fine. What makes you say that? This is a very interesting project.”

There was another long pause.

“I mean in general. Your life hasn't quite worked out as you hoped.”

Ellie stared back, not trusting herself to remain polite.

“The restoration of the garden was not my idea,” announced the old lady, with some malice. A disparaging expression pulled at the waxy creases of her face. “But as my son was determined to go ahead, I thought we might as well have the right person to do it. Perhaps I have made a mistake in choosing you.”

“It was you who asked me to come?”

“I am the one who reads the English newspapers.”

“I'm still astonished how many people saw that piece and how many commissions have come from it.”

“But you're out of your depth here.”

“Why do you say that?”

“It's clear to see. I had hoped you wouldn't be, but—well, we can none of us predict exactly what we'll get, can we? Now I hope you understand that I am very tired. I shall say good night now.”

Mme de Fayols struggled slowly to her feet.

Ellie rose too, waiting to see how she could help but unwilling to touch the old lady. Why did you arrange for me to come here, let alone insist I stayed the night, when you don't even seem to like me? Ellie wanted to ask. Each encounter seemed to confirm that Mme de Fayols was suffering from some kind of psychological disorder. Ellie hesitated to attach a label to it, but something was clearly amiss.

“Good night,” she said.

 

U
pstairs Ellie pulled open drawers, knowing that she had not stowed her phone in one of them, but at a loss to know where else to look.

The second drawer down on the right-hand side of the chest was heavier. She had to jiggle it to slide it out. At first she couldn't make sense of what she saw. Then her blood chilled as the shape seemed to come into focus.

It was a heavy steel revolver, obviously old. Ellie stared at the gun. She reached out instinctively, then pulled her hand back. She must not touch it. Had it been there all the time? Was it loaded?

Carefully she pushed the drawer back in and opened the one on the left. Inside, it too was empty, apart from one item. It was a pillbox with a glass lid. It contained a single tablet.

Through the window she had left ajar to let fresh air into the room, the garden was dark. A violent animal noise rode the darkness and then receded. A wave of sadness broke over her. It was sadness, she reflected, not shock or fear. If the stark presence of the revolver had forced her to confront herself, it revealed nothing to be ashamed of.

Yet was it intended to be a test? If so, it was one that said more about the oddness of the mother and son who had brought her here. Mme de Fayols's voice replayed in her head, along with the sense that she was being mocked.
You're not happy, are you?

Was it so obvious? And what could she do to hide it? No, she wasn't happy, but she was allowed to be unhappy for a while. It would pass, surely. It had to.

 

A
n unspecific pain woke Ellie. For a moment she felt unable to breathe. She put a hand up to her face, and it spread wetness onto her mouth and cheek. She felt for the bedside light switch and gasped as the bed was illuminated. Dark red stains blotched the white sheets.

On the back of her right hand was a wound from which blood was still seeping. A suffocating darkness bore down on her and a rushing noise filled her head. She forced herself to calm down. Somehow she had cut herself. She must have caught her hand on one of the protruding elements of the carved bed head. She turned over to look, and it was obvious that was what had happened. A goat figure with viciously curving horns was well within reach of her right hand.

She got up slowly, slightly queasily, and ran her hand under the basin tap. There were tissues in her bag, and she wrapped several tightly around the wound. For a while she lay awake in the darkness as the panic subsided.

It was not until the morning that she dared to look in the second drawer again. It was empty. She stared, searching for an explanation in the dusty interior of the chest. She must have dreamt it, she decided; she had been trapped in a nightmare so vivid she was convinced she had been awake.

Her phone was still missing, though.

5

The Historian

Thursday, June 6

I
t had been light for hours when Ellie went downstairs. At the foot of the stairs she listened for sounds from the kitchen, but all was quiet. For one odd moment she had the feeling she was the only person in the house. The sensation passed. If there was no one in the kitchen yet, she would make herself a cup of instant coffee.

As she crossed the hall, she looked through the main room to the French doors, closed now. At that precise moment something hit the clear surface with a dull thud. What were the chances of that happening just as she looked in that direction? Shakily, she went over to see what it was. A small black bird was lying on the tiles outside. It must have flown into the glass. The bird had made no sound of distress. It had knocked itself out. Or perhaps it was dead.

Ellie turned away.

There was no one in the kitchen. Surely Jeanne would arrive soon. It didn't feel all that early. She looked at her wrist and saw that she had left her watch upstairs. As she did so, a clock chimed softly. Seven—or was it eight times?

Ellie went back into the hall, then the sitting room, looking for the clock. As she did so another small bird slammed into the window. It was so quick and so upsetting, especially as the corpse of the first was still twitching, that she felt sick.

 

O
ut in the grounds, Ellie was determined to bury her anxieties by thinking about work. She had not yet seen the memorial garden this early, and she should do. Notebook in hand, she mapped the sequence of shadows in the anterooms leading into it and the angle of the sun in the main space.

Sitting on the low stone rim of the
bassin
, she sketched the archway and the precise proportions of the view of the lighthouse and the bay.

At first she thought it was birdsong. Then, when the melody was accompanied by words, she wondered whether one of the gardeners was singing as he worked. Though it was too high for a man's voice, surely. A child of one of the gardeners, then. She strained to get a fix on the source, but could not.

She listened for sounds of activity, but soon the grounds were quiet again. She continued her sketch, looking up quickly and regularly from the page. It was only when she put her pencil back on the paper that the impression formed in her head, as if her mind had only now been able to process the image, however indistinct. Had someone just walked across the view of the sea and through the gap in the arch? She sat completely still and raised her head. She was alone. The once-grand topiary arch rustled in a light breeze that shook loose dead leaves and twigs. The view was uninterrupted.

It was hard not to think about the previous night's conversation with Mme de Fayols. Her instincts were to dismiss the old lady's assertions about otherworldly sensations as a spiteful game. She seemed to enjoy finding ways to disconcert Ellie. It was pathetic, really; she should feel sorry for her. It occurred to Ellie only then that perhaps she was the one who was mad. Had the strange episodes over the past few days tipped her over the edge? All she was sure of was that she needed to talk to Laurent. But she would not be spending another night at the Domaine while she waited for him to return.

 

S
he would do it her way. Ellie cycled the most direct route back to the village and harbour, resolutely keeping her thoughts on normal matters: a late breakfast of coffee and croissants; checking at the hotel to see if anyone had come across her mobile. She was flushed with the effort as she pushed into the wind. When she saw a pay phone on the road leading into the Place d'Armes, she took the chance to use it straightaway. Her fingers trembled as she got some coins ready and pressed in the numbers for Laurent de Fayols's office in Paris.

He was not there.

She gave a moan of frustration. Wait—his mobile number was on the first letter he had written her. The letter should be in her bag. She scrabbled. It was. She tried the number twice; each time it prompted a repeating electronic message that she guessed meant the number was out of order.

As she came out of the phone booth, she felt rattled. It was only a short walk to the friendly hotel on the other corner of the square, but she was grateful for the support of the cycle as she wheeled it. Her legs seemed to be trembling slightly, more than they should for someone as fit as she was.

The Place d'Armes no longer seemed so benevolent. The voices of young children running across the dust sounded from a long way away, as if in an echo chamber. She was gripped by the unpleasant sensation that had begun at the Domaine de Fayols: a profound detachment that placed the world beyond a film of gauze.

The sun was already oppressive, sapping her strength. Yet she knew she needed the safety of crowds. She headed over to a bustling café with tables set out under the eucalyptus trees and propped the cycle against the low stone wall before taking a seat in the shade.

It was frustrating to have come so far, only to find that the job was a dud. But these things happened. She flipped through the pages of her sketchbook. The scrawled notes seemed to jump, and the drawings looked like angry doodles. She pinched the bridge of her nose to dull the pain that had settled behind her eyes.

Her heart sank when the other chair at her table was pulled out.

“Do you mind if I join you?” A man's voice.

“Not at all.” It was an automatic response.

She hardly looked up as he took the seat by her side.

“Are you on your own?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“I can't understand why.”

Ellie gazed out at the square and fixed on the trees and the church until the lines began to melt.

“I'm sorry,” he said, when she failed to respond.

“What?”

He remained silent, looking at her. It was impossible not to look back. Eyes deep brown, with vertical frown lines above the nose. Straight eyebrows. The floppy dark hair and olive skin of Roman genes, she thought, though the process of forming impressions seemed to be too heavy for normal brain activity. She scarcely felt capable of any rational thought.

Ellie dropped her eyes to her coffee cup.

She was so close she could see the seams and the weave of his white shirt. Then the fabric seemed to swim in and out of focus. She thought she might be about to faint. The last thing she wanted to do was make conversation with a stranger. On the other hand, if she wasn't well, it felt better somehow to be with someone.

“How are you enjoying the island?” he asked.

She closed her eyes and dug her fingernails into the flesh of her palms. Her head felt thick, as if she had a bad cold.

“Are you all right? I'm sorry. Would you like me to go?”

His concern was real enough. She gathered herself.

“I'm fine.”

There was something her subconscious was trying to tell her. It almost became clear, then receded. The man smelled of tobacco, sweet and not at all unpleasant. The scent hung in the air between them like perfume.

“Do you live here, or are you on holiday?” she asked, the words ringing hollow as she said them.

He was deeply tanned, with beautiful skin for a man, smooth and unlined.

“My family has lived here for many years—many generations.”

“You work here?”

“Oh . . .” He raised his palms and pulled an expression that said,
Not really
.

“On the mainland, then?”

“No . . . I'm here almost all the time. I'm . . . a historian, I suppose you would say.”

“I see,” she said, though she didn't. “What kind of historian?”

“Military history. I specialize in World War Two. And you?”

“I'm a garden designer. I'm doing some preliminary work at a property here.”

He looked over at the waiter, but the man was busy at the bar and didn't see him. It didn't matter, thought Ellie. Actually, it was reassuring that they could sit undisturbed.

The world slowed. She was starting to relax. In fact, it was lovely to sit next to this man. It didn't make sense, but it was as if she had come home after a long journey. Perhaps it was the intense atmosphere at the Domaine de Fayols; it was only upon leaving it that she realised how strange and overwhelming it had been.

He was telling her about the different beaches on the island, and the groves of mandarin and grapefruit that once grew all along the Langoustier road, trees brought from Sicily to start the citrus groves.

“It must have been a glorious place to grow up,” she prompted, enjoying hearing him speak.

“It certainly was. During the long, hot days we children found shady hiding places and made encampments, ramshackle affairs. When we roused ourselves from these cocoons, we filled up with apricots from the orchard, then walked for hours down the hill to dip our feet in the sea.

“We judged the time by the sun, tiredness, and hunger. When we were parched and covered in dust, we would turn back to the farm.

“We lived in the open air, of course, all summer long. We ate at a long wooden table on the west-facing terrace. Each night the sunset, each night a different composition, in fire colours.”

The way he spoke, she could picture the place exactly.

It was as if all noise and movement had ceased around them. For Ellie, there was a sense of histories large and small unfolding.

“In the winter we hunted, the men and the boys,” he went on.

He didn't much like to hunt, though he learned how to do so effectively with gun and knife. They went after rabbit and pheasant, mainly. But what was the point of using up ammunition, when there was always also the constant risk of a stray bullet hitting a poacher child, of whom there were a surprising number? Better to hunt by night. Easier to track the prey to its resting place and wait, to creep up on a pheasant in the low branches of a tree and rip it from its nest.

“There was always more hunting by moonlight. Not only of game. The fishermen stole grapes at full moon to make their own wine, and it was understood by all that they would. Sometimes you could smell the bouillabaisse they cooked up on camping stoves on the rocks below the vineyards.”

She could see it all, the men with their tin bowls, the shimmer of silver on fish and sea. The cliffs rising steeply.

“If you like history, you should go diving,” he said, his words slipping insidiously inside her thoughts. “The scuba schools are down at the harbour.”

“I've seen them. But I've never done scuba before.”

“You should learn. There are fabulous dives here—wrecked ships and subterranean cliffs. And there's a plane wreck on the seabed to the southwest beyond the lighthouse. You should ask about it.”

“It sounds very exciting.”

“You don't have to scuba—you can just snorkel. The Domaine de Fayols place is just by the Calanque de l'Indienne—that's as good a place as any to start. The water is so clear you can see right down to the bed in most places. But to make the most of it, you need proper equipment. Perhaps I could give you—”

“What's your name? I never asked.”

He smiled, and then stood up. “Ah, well . . . it's a small place. Perhaps our paths will cross again.”

“Perhaps they will.”

Ellie watched him walk away soundlessly on his canvas shoes. It must have been close to noon, for he had no shadow.

Where was he going? She tried to imagine his life on the island: a wife and children, perhaps; a mistress was a distinct possibility. Maybe he was going to see her now, in a house hidden among the pine trees, before returning for an evening with his family. The archetypal Frenchman and his women, his exquisite manners and pragmatic approach to matters of the heart.

His rolled-up sleeves and open-necked shirt, baggy linen trousers and old espadrilles. The panama hat he pulled on as he walked away. By the time she stood up to run after him, he had vanished.

Why hadn't she realised sooner? She should call Lieutenant Meunier. If she hadn't lost her mobile, she would have called him right then and there—wouldn't she?

 

W
here have you been?”

Mme de Fayols carved the air in the hall with the curved point of the horn handle of her cane. In the dim light her pupils were so huge that her stare was completely black.

“You are supposed to be doing a job here! You have to be here to understand. You can only learn so much from the books and the photographs. The rest you have to feel, sense, absorb. Or have you felt it, and wish you had not?”

Ellie said nothing, determined not to pursue this line of questioning.

“You feel it. I know you feel it.”

A deep breath. “I went to the village because I needed to do something.”

“But you're here to work!”

“And I have been working on plans for the garden. You can see them if you wish, but you must understand that they are preliminary ideas rather than plans ready for submission.”

A couple of impatient taps from the cane.

“Actually,” said Ellie, “I've done as much as I can here. Now I need to refine my sketches, which I will do back at the hotel. I'll just collect my things and get on with that as soon as possible.”

Mme de Fayols looked as if she had been slapped in the face.

Ellie found Jeanne in the kitchen. It was an even colder reception than normal. Tersely Ellie told her about her mobile, still missing though Jean-Luc had assured her he would ask all the staff at the hotel.

“So I need to use the telephone here to call Laurent, please.”

The housekeeper indicated the telephone mounted on the kitchen wall. When Ellie rang it, Laurent's mobile was still out of service.

“Are these his numbers when he's away?” she asked, pointing to a list pinned up on the wall. Several numbers clustered around a simple “L.”

Jeanne nodded.

Two calls rang and rang, and one was answered by a hotel concierge. Laurent de Fayols was not currently in residence.