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“You should have heard her blood curdling scream.” Hal climbs out of the pond and finds his glasses by his towel. These are new glasses, he had to take a day out and go to Jersey for a replacement. He flops down and helps himself to one of the sandwiches we brought.
“I think I’m going to write a book about this.” Pierre too comes out of the water and wraps herself in a voluminous tie-dyed purple scarf that matches her hair. “The discovery of theL’abri Cachéeand the story of the Montagues.” Then she waves Gabriel over. “You know, you should take pictures of this.” She points up at the hill. “It’s so gorgeous, seen from below, it’s like an avalanche of white and pink flowers.”
“Ahead of you.” Gabriel finds his camera and shows us the pictures he already took earlier in the day with the sun high over the landscape. He then explains he wants to photograph the whole area, the clearing, the pretty pond, and Ada’s secret house, too but at different times of the day and night for different effects.
“The path down will need fixing,” Hal tells him. “So, if you give me a couple of weeks to clear it properly and have wooden steps laid…”
“Isn’t this going to delay your own work? I don’t mind the briars.” Gabriel talks as if he doesn’t notice the scratches on his arms, some of them deep enough to leave thin bloodied lines.
“I have to landscape the hill anyway.” Hal glances towards me. “I just need to finalise the design of the gardens.”
“Gardens? Plural.” Gabriel looks intrigued.
“Meet the new Nebuchadnezzar,” I say. It’s been our joke for a while. “He’s making the hanging gardens of La Canette.”
Both Pierre and Gabriel are very excited and insist on hearing the full plan and all the details. By the end they can barely contain their enthusiasm.
“I can photograph the results for you if you like. The chalets, the gardens, the decks and everything so you can use them on your promotional website.”
“Take him up on it.” I encourage him. “You don’t turn down professional photography from a talented artist like Gabriel.”
Hal seems a bit uncertain. “If I can pay you in instalments.” He says tentatively.
“Shut up!” Gabriel says. “What the hell is wrong with you? I’m trespassing on your land to photograph Ada’s secret house; you don’t expect me to pay you.”
“The thing is this isn’t quitemyland.” He points to his chest. “The history of this place goes back centuries. I’m only …” Hal’s face is curiously…thoughtful? Affected? I can’t quite read the emotion there. “I’m just looking after it and preserving it for the next generation. And you…” he looks at Gabriel, “You creating a book about it is a service to the island and its history, something we should all want.”
I make an effort not to let my mouth hang open. This from the man that used to hate La Canette?
“By the same logic,” Pierre answers. “Your gardens, your holiday homes are a service to the island.”
I let them argue back and forth, talking about La Canette, how beautiful it is and what each person can do to contribute. But I just watch Hal.
He hasn’t just mellowed; he’s starting to talk and act as if he belongs here. That prickly distrust he used to have, that quick flinching at the tiniest sign of attack, it seems to have melted, leaving a generous happy man in its place. I wonder if this is the real Hal, the man he’s always been on the inside, behind the bad memories.
And the question that is now raising its hand like a schoolgirl at the back of class, a question that wants to be answered. Does this mean, Hal might change his mind and stay?
It takes a superhuman effort for me not to ask him later that evening when we say good night.
He hugs me and whispers, “Why don’t we go back down next Tuesday?” He presses a kiss below my ear. “We can barbeque fresh fish and eat by the pond. Maybe skinny dip and sunbathe afterwards?”
I agree and go home to check on Grandad, to thank Nurse Ann for looking after him and then go to bed, the question is louder than ever in my head. Will he change his mind and stay. What has he got to go back to? A job he doesn’t like? A life that was slowly draining all the fire out of him? He has changed so much, even in the few weeks we’ve been together; he has come alive just like the bushes in spring. Even as an architect, what he’s built here will attract attention, will make him a name. He might get commissions to design more homes like his jigsaw arboreal chalets with their upside down layout.
Surely, he can’t go back to a world that wants him to be nothing more than a dried-up functionary shuffling papers for estate agents.
Chapter Forty-Five
Hal
“Harrison!” My mother’s voice is half shocked, half outraged.
This conversation was never going to be easy, and my prepared argument doesn’t seem to have worked.
“Mum, you can’t judge when you haven’t even seen the changes.” I am standing between two of the new chalets, Hazel and Rowan “Every balcony has a sea view—”
“I don’t care if it looks like Windsor Castle. You can’t stay there. That place is cursed, it will ruin your life. Just like it did to everyone else in your family.”
“Not everyone. Before the war, the Hemingways were happy enough.”
