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“Claire?” Iris frowned, thinking of Pierre’s childhood friend who, on finding herself on her own at the age of forty and desperate for a child, had conceived her daughter using a sperm donor.
“Yes. Pierre said it wasn’t, he was angry when I suggested it, and when I said I would ask Claire myself, he became even angrier. I asked him to tell me who she was, this woman he had slept with and who had borne his child, and he said it was someone he’d met on a business trip, that they had got drunk and had ended up sleeping together.”
“So why do you still think it’s Claire?”
Laure gave a hollow laugh. “How can I believe anything Pierre tells me when he has lied to me for the past six years?”
“Is that how old his child is?”
“It’s how old Claire’s daughter is.”
Iris nodded. “What did Pierre say when you told him you were leaving?”
“That he understood. And that it would give him time to think. That’s what I don’t get—think about what? He said he doesn’t want to make trouble for the woman, so what does he need to think about? Unless he wants to find someone younger, someone he can start a family with.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Iris said indignantly. “He can start a family with you, if that’s what he wants. It’s not too late.”
Tears welled in Laure’s eyes. “Yes, it is. I’m already into the menopause, I started it early, so it would be very difficult for me to conceive now. And why would he want to have a child with me when he could have someone younger?”
“Because he loves you.”
“That’s the problem.” Laure’s tears spilled over. “I’m not sure that he does. He hasn’t called me once since I arrived. I think he’s with her, Claire.”
“You don’t know that,” Iris said, reaching across the expanse of sofa and giving Laure a hug. “Gabriel will call him this morning; we’ll know more then.”
5
Hearing the murmur of voices in the sitting room, Gabriel crept past the closed door and headed for the kitchen. Desperate for a proper cup of coffee, he was worried that the noise of the beans grinding would bring Iris and Laure through, and settled for already-ground coffee instead.
Reaching for the kettle, he ran the tap at a trickle and filled it through the spout. While the water was heating, he searched the cupboard for the tin of coffee and shook some into the cafetière, ignoring the measuring spoon wedged into the brown powder. He wanted to phone Pierre, but he needed a coffee first. And he wanted to speak to him without any further input from Laure.
He was having a hard time believing Pierre had slept with another woman. On their many holidays together, Gabriel had seen the way women looked at Pierre. Pierre might not be good-looking in the classic way but he had an easy charm and elegance that automatically drew others toward him. He was of average height—he towered over Laure but was no taller than Iris—and slight of build, and had a wide, engaging smile which gave the impression that he was always happy.Yet Gabriel knew that Pierre sometimes struggled with depression, a legacy of his father’s tragic death when Pierre was just eleven years old. They’d been walking home from school, and were crossing over to the boulangerie where they always stopped to buy Pierre anéclair au chocolatwhen they’d been struck by a lorry. Pierre had not only been physically scarred, but seeing his father trapped beneath the lorry’s wheels and hearing his agonizing screams of pain, had left him so mentally and emotionally traumatized that on the anniversary of the accident, Pierre would retreat into himself and disappear for a few days to Brittany, where his family were originally from. Gabriel often wondered if it was why Pierre had never wanted children; he hadn’t wanted them to be left without a father in the event of anything happening to him.
The coffee made, Gabriel slid open the patio doors as quietly as possible and carried it onto the terrace. He was about to sit at the gray wrought-iron table when he realized that Iris and Laure could come through at any moment and find him there. And he didn’t want to be found, not this early in the morning, not after so little sleep.
As he walked to the end of the garden, his heart was heavy with thoughts of Winston, his beloved Great Dane, who should have been walking by his side. When his partners had spoken to him about taking compassionate leave, citing not just Charlie’s death but also his father’s four months previously, he had waited for them to mention Winston, who had died two months before his dad. They hadn’t, and it had made him irrationally angry, because Winston’s death had hit him as hard as his father’s, and had left the same-sized hole in his life.
Finding a bench hidden from the house, alongside the old walled garden, Gabriel perched his mug on its wooden arm. The walled garden was another thing to feel guilty about. When he and Iris had first moved into the house fifteen years ago, he had vowed to restore it to its former glory, to plant vegetables and hollyhocks, and salvias and hibiscus, flowers that had abounded in the garden of his childhood. But keeping on top of the rest of the garden, with its wide lawn and flower-bed borders, took up the little free time that he had.
He reached down and when his hand found only air, he cursed the reflex that he hadn’t yet managed to overcome, to pat Winston’s head as he lay at his feet. Sometimes, he would feel a nudge against his leg and would look down, expecting to see Winston there. Whenever it happened, Gabriel would wonder if Winston was trying to tell him something. He’d felt Winston’s presence the day his father died, and had taken comfort from it.
Gabriel shook his head at himself. If Winston were here, and if he could speak, he would be telling Gabriel to get a grip. But he felt so damned useless. His job had defined him; now that it had been taken away from him, he didn’t know how he was going to fill his days.
The sun warming the ancient stone of the walled garden drew his eyes to the once-green wooden door, its paint almost entirely flaked off by sun, wind, and rain. Leaving his mug where it was, he walked over and pushed open the door. Warped from being exposed to the elements for so many years, it groaned in retaliation at being scraped along the gravel, then sagged sorrowfully as it came to a stop, its hinges no longer capable of holding it fully upright. As he stood on the threshold, Gabriel felt a little like Mary Lennox inThe Secret Garden, almost expecting to see a robin on the branch of the gnarled and withered apple tree that stood to the right of the path. It wasn’t a big garden, maybe thirty yards by fifteen, and it certainly wasn’t beautiful. But maybe it could be.
For the first time in months, he felt a surge of something like excitement.
6
Leaving Laure to move her things into the guest room next to theirs, Iris went to find Gabriel. She’d heard him come downstairs while she and Laure had been talking—the fourth step creaked, no matter where you placed your foot—but she hadn’t blamed him for not coming to join them.
Finding the patio door ajar, Iris crossed the terrace and walked down the path, her nose picking up the sweet scent of lily of the valley. There was a lawn to the left of the path, a couple of sheds and her office on the right, and tucked away at the far end, a walled garden—or rather, a walled wilderness. They hardly ever went that far down the garden nowadays, so Iris was surprised to find the faded wooden door pushed open, and Gabriel standing on the threshold.
“Morning!”
He turned at the sound of her voice.
“Morning. How’s Laure?”
