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“Just come back, Hal.” Mum breaks into my thoughts.
“I have to go to the Municipalité tomorrow. There’s a public meeting.”
“No Harrison.” Mum only uses my full name when she’s in lecture mode. “You don’tneedto go. We owe them nothing.”
“It would be wrong if none of us bothered to show our face, as if we’re ashamed.”
“What does it matter, now? Your father’s gone. That book can finally be closed.”
Why am I even surprised she never told us the truth about how Dad lived? She’s always protected us from the truth. Twenty years ago, when we first landed in England with nothing, Mum found us a cheap flat in the cheapest neighbourhood in Milton Keynes. My sister had burst into tears at the stained carpets and lumpy mattresses. Mum had hugged us and said, “Wait and see, we’ll make it beautiful, don’t worry. I’ll get a job and we’ll have money, and we can make this into the best home in the world.”
And she tried. She got a job in an office and worked extra hours on weekends, and slowly, we saved up for better beds and clean carpets. It was only years later that my sister and I discovered that her ‘office job’ was in fact as office cleaner, and her weekend job was a hotel chambermaid.
My plan was to make enough money from selling off the antique furniture to pay off her mortgage so she could retire.
This house is the only asset we have left, and it won’t fetch much. Not with the artificially low property prices here.
I collect my discarded clothes and shove them back into my suitcase, click it shut and go downstairs.
In my head the numbers roll like a tape measure. £10,000 to pay off what’s left of Mum’s mortgage, £20,000 to add to her pension so she could afford to retire. £20,000 as a safety net for Haneen. Once all that is settled, I can afford to finally change careers and get a job I actually love.
Now that plan lies in ruins because my father survived by selling off everything he owned. A surge of anger burns in me hot enough to dry all my clothes. Every room I walk into reeks of neglect, failure, and pain.
There’s nothing left of my family here. I may as well sell it. It won’t fetch much, but it’ll be better than keeping it like a reminder of what we lost. If the seigneur wants our empty house, he’s welcome to buy it.
I walk out slamming the door behind me. The sooner we can all close the book on this horrible island and our troubled history, the better.
Chapter Six
Elodie
Where is the clinic?
Standing in the small cobblestone square, I look around; I need to talk to the doctor who treated Grandad. But I can’t see a clinic.
Beyond the fountain, several shops squeeze next to one another, Appletree Dairy has a display outside with lots of cheeses. The next shop, The Magic Wand, has a sign with a witch on a broom flying over a pile of vegetables, yet the shop seems to sell nothing but pumpkins and squashes, all of them gleaming orange and gold. Then the Fat Pig is predictably a butcher with strings of sausages hanging in the window. I feel like I’m in a children’s fairy-tale book. All that’s missing is an overflowing porridge pot.
A woman in a white tabard comes out of the cheese shop. “Hello, you must be Elodie.” She gives me a welcoming smile.
Am I wearing a name tag? “Yes…” I walk towards her, more than a little surprised.
“Pierre said you were coming, and Hedge’s been expecting you.” Her voice warms when she says Grandad’s name.
“Gosh, news travels fast. I came to get a little shopping and hopefully some nice cheese.” I scan the display. Andrew had a dairy allergy and wouldn’t even let me put cheese in the fridge.
“How was the roast chicken?” she asks.
I don’t have the heart to tell her about the burning lump of black in our back garden. But she seems to be an exceptionally well-informed woman. “I was looking for the clinic.” I wave a hand at the circle of shops around the square.
“It’s over by the cider press.”
“And where’s that?” I swivel to look at the two main alleys leading out of the square.
“Oh, not in the village. If you go up Mill Lane and keep going past all the apple orchards, you’ll be able to see it. But you don’t have to go there, if it’s Dr Mortimer you want, he’s just gone to the pharmacy.” She calls to a boy wiping windows and sends him to find the doctor.
Dr Mortimer, when he joins me, is younger than I expected and very approachable. He too has heard about my arrival and is happy to answer all my questions.
I want to know his prognosis for Grandad’s neck and what care he needs until he recovers.
