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“Not that you have the option of a social life.” My mother pipes up for the first time. “Not in a place where everyone hates you. It’s not as if you’ll be invited next door for a glass of sherry.”
“What’s next door?” Haneen asks.
“The LeFevres,” Mum’s voice crackles with supressed temper. “Or have you forgotten that horrid old man who made it his mission to destroy us?”
“Yes Mum,” Haneen tries to calm her down. “But it was all a long time ago. The war isn’t a big deal anymore.”
“Not a big deal in England, maybe, because the British were never actually under occupation. But island people have long memories.”
I stare out of the window at the hazel and cedar trees, remembering George du Montfort’s words.The past can’t be fixed, we can only do things differently now. “Mother. How can the past be put to rest if you keep bringing it up? For God’s sake, my great-grandfather would not have had a choice. He was the only baker on the island, if the army ordered him to sell them bread, he could not have refused without endangering his family. And in the end, he died in a German prisoner camp.” I know this story inside and out, front to back and left to right. We’ve grown up with it. “Hector Hemingway was as much a victim as anyone else.”
But my mother isn’t impressed. “Hal, don’t try that argument. It has never worked, not on the people on La Canette. They’ve been calling us collaborators ever since and it has ruined everyone’s life. I still remember the day your grandfather Howard was forced to close down the bakery because people stopped eating bread rather than buy it from him. That proud, proud man walking home with his head bent. And his sister Helen who died alone, and...” There’s a catch in her voice. “Your father. What happened to our marriage. And – and” she almost stutters with agitation.
I am helpless to stop her, to say anything to calm her. Hearing the pain in her voice reminds me of my own long buried sorrow.
“That island is a curse,” she finally says. “And if that weren’t enough, you’re living next door to the LeFevres?”
“There’s only Hedge and his granddaughter, now.” I try to minimise.
Mum is momentarily distracted. “Which granddaughter? Sophie?”
“No, I think it’s Elodie.”
“Elodie?” Mum asks slowly. “That must be the younger one, anyway it doesn’t matter.” Her words speed up again. “It would have been her father who kicked you out of school and her mother who took our Laliques.”
I had my mouth open to say something about … I can’t remember … probably about it being too long ago, but the mention of the Laliques stops me. I’d forgotten them. Half a dozen beautiful, small 1920s glass figurines. My only memory of my own grandfather was how carefully he dusted and polished the exquisite bowls, his hands carefully smoothing over the art nouveau miniature bottles. “Our family bought these from Rene Lalique himself.” He would say.
“What do you mean she took them?” I can’t help asking.
“Hedge’s daughter-in-law would always turn up on our doorstep, bringing a couple of jars of honey and pretending to be a good neighbour. Always walking around our house admiring things. I trusted her, she made me trust her, so when she suggested we hold an auction to sell a few things, I agreed. Your father said no, but we couldn’t even pay our bills and you know the shops would never extend credit. No one would give your father work. So, in the end he agreed because he was desperate. He agreed to auction off the Laliques becauseshe—” my mother’s voice shakes on the pronoun. “She suggested they would be ideal to sell. And you know what? She turned up at the auction and bought them all, for a song. Your father wept that day to see them all wrapped in paper and given to her.”
I don’t know what to say, and the silence stretches on the phone, in the end it’s Mum again who breaks it.
“I’m telling you this island is a curse, please come back before it kills you like it killed your father, and his father, and his aunt Helen.”
“I’m not going to be here long enough for any curse to kill me.”
“It’s already killed your relationship with Lynsey.”
“MI6 have nothing on you, Mum. How do you even know this.” It’s barely been a week since we broke up. “Besides it wasn’t the island’s fault. We were just … over.”
“Harrison, don’t talk down to me.”
I sigh, there’s no arguing with Mum when she gets into lecture mode and starts calling me Harrison.
“You were happy with Lynsey until you went there.”
“I’ll be back in England as soon as the building is done, I promise.”
“So, what are your plans for the building, how will you design it?” Haneen, the peacemaker, moves the discussion away into a neutral subject.
“I was thinking three small cottages, something modern but rustic-looking so it fits into the character of the island. And maybe upside-down living.”
Haneen laughs. “What’s upside-down living, walking on the ceiling?”
“It’s where the bedrooms are downstairs, and the lounge, kitchen, and dining rooms are upstairs so you can see over the treetops out to the sea.”
It’s one of the few ideas I’ve had so far. Not enough to make the cottages special and unique but it’s a start. After we finish the call, I walk around the house trying to visualise the space in different ways. I lay a hand on some of the grey limestone that make the outside walls. The cement crumbles a little under my fingers, but the stones are sound, a beautiful cream-grey, a pity to lose them. Surely, there must be a way to integrate this into the new building.
