Villa of Sun and Secrets Page 3

  She suspected he didn’t even realise she knew about any of the others. Elaine the dentist, Fiona his bank manager were just two she remembered from down the years. And now this unknown Lisa. Did she work with David? A new secretary he’d employed? Maybe she was one of the new assistants he’d talked about employing and taken on to ease the workload.

  Carla shifted restlessly as she remembered toying with the idea of leaving when Maddy and Edward left home for university, but by then her life with David had morphed into a habit. It had been easier to stay than go.

  Water gurgled its way along a pipe above her head as Josette brushed her teeth in the small bathroom across the landing. Carla sighed, picturing her aunt getting ready for bed. She hadn’t exactly welcomed her with open arms, but at least she’d let her stay. Hopefully she’d mellow as they got to know each other, although she was certainly living up to her family reputation of being a loner. Self-contained and undemonstrative were the words used by Amelia once to describe her twin sister to Carla. She clearly hadn’t changed as she’d aged.

  The bathroom door opened and closed. A tap on the bedroom door before Josette pushed it open. Carla turned her head and regarded her aunt.

  ‘I don’t sleep too well these days,’ Josette said. ‘Five thirty usually finds me downstairs. Don’t feel obliged to get up early – although I doubt that you’ll sleep beyond seven o’clock anyway. Bonne nuit.’ The door closed before Carla could answer.

  3

  There was no sign of Josette when Carla made her way downstairs the next morning. Josette had been right about Carla not sleeping after seven. When the nearby town hall clock had boomed the hour, she’d woken with a jolt.

  There was a note on the kitchen table: Croissants in the tin, help yourself. Coffee ready to go. See you later. J. Was Josette deliberately avoiding her?

  Taking her breakfast out into the courtyard, Carla thought about the day ahead. Ringing Maddy was the first priority. She needed to speak to her before she turned up at the house and discovered her absence. Edward was away for at least another three months so she didn’t need to bother him right now. He’d promised to try and get back for her big birthday later in the year. Things should have sorted themselves out by then. One way or another.

  Carla looked at her mobile. 8 a.m. here, 7 a.m. in the UK – Maddy would be busy getting ready for work. How do you tell your grown-up daughter that her parents’ marriage had suffered an earthquake fracture off the Richter scale? Risk the blunt truth – ‘Dad is having another affair and I had to get away’ – or try to soften the news – ‘We’re having a few problems so we’ve decided to have some time apart to sort things out.’ Make it sound like a joint decision – not hers alone. Was there a chance that this separation was not permanent – that David would break it off with his latest mistress, grovel and apologise and promise to behave in the future? Was that what she wanted to happen?

  The booming chimes of the Hotel de Ville clock striking once again died away as Carla selected Maddy’s number and listened to the ringing tone. When the message service clicked in, she switched off. Leaving Maddy a message about the current situation wasn’t an option. She had to break the news to her in voice, if not face to face.

  A break in the sound of footsteps in the street was followed by a bang on the front door. Carla hesitated. Should she open the door? Her limited French was rusty and she dreaded struggling to make herself understood with a stranger. As she stood there undecided, she heard the footsteps walking away. Relieved not to have to take any action, Carla realised she’d been holding her breath.

  Josette was still not back when Carla left to explore the town. She knew little about the place where her mother and aunt had been born other than it had long been an ancient trading port, with its fortifications built by the French engineer Sebastien Vauban. The town’s modern marina, Port Vauban, was named in his honour.

  A brisk onshore breeze was whistling around the narrow rues of the old town as Carla walked away from the market area. A narrow ally led her to the ramparts and she walked along the coastal road until she reached the bottom of Boulevard Albert Premier, near an open park area.

  Without stopping to think, Carla stepped off the pavement, looking to her right rather than her left, and found herself jerked from under the wheels of a car by a man who pulled her back onto the pavement. A furious fist wave and an angry honking of the horn from the driver emphasised how close the car had been to knocking her down.

  Shocked, Carla tried to stop shaking. In a daze, she realised the man had his arm around her shoulders and was leading her to a nearby cafe.

  ‘Deux cafe, s’il vous plait,’ he called out to the waiter, while he gently eased Carla onto a seat. ‘Prendre des respirations profondes,’ he instructed, sitting down opposite her and watching her.

  Carla closed her eyes and tried to stop the thumping of her heart. How could she have been so stupid?

  ‘Vous Anglais?’ the man said.

  Carla nodded. ‘Yes.’

  ‘In that case – I translate. You need to take deep breaths.’ He watched her for several seconds, making sure she did as he said. ‘Your habit is to look right. Here you ’ave to look left. It is a mistake the English make all the time.’

  Two coffees were placed on the table in front of them, a sachet of sugar and a small biscuit in each saucer. Whilst the man opened his sugar packet and poured it into his coffee, Carla automatically placed hers to one side. She’d stopped taking sugar in coffee a long time ago.

  ‘May I suggest you take the coffee with sugar this time, good for shock I think?’

  Carla sighed but obediently emptied the sugar into her coffee, stirred it and took a couple of mouthfuls. She pulled a face. Gross. She looked at the man. ‘Thank you for what you did. I was lucky you were there, otherwise…’ she shuddered.

  ‘I think you will remember better to look both ways now,’ he said. ‘Good – you ’ave stopped shaking and the colour it returns to your face.’

  Carla picked up the biscuit, tore the plastic open and took a small bite.

  ‘You are at the beginning of a vacance?’ the man asked, picking up his demitasse coffee cup.

  Carla nodded. ‘Yes. I am visiting my aunt for a few days.’ Easier to agree than to admit to a stranger she’d run away.

  ‘I hope you enjoy your stay,’ he answered. ‘Now I must go. I am late for a meeting.’ He stood up and placed a few euros on the bill in the saucer that had arrived with the coffees.

  ‘Please let me pay for the coffees,’ Carla said. ‘I owe you that at least.’

  The man brushed aside her protest. ‘Non. It is my pleasure, but please, remember to look left in future.’

  ‘Definitely,’ Carla promised.

  ‘Ciao,’ and he left.

  Carla finished her biscuit and, when the waiter came to clear the table, ordered a fresh cup of coffee, which she drank without sugar. Feeling better, she was about to make a move when her mobile rang. Maddy.

  ‘Mum? Your phone sounds funny. Are you okay? What’s going on? I’ve had Dad on the phone saying you’ve left him.’

  Carla caught her breath. Damn. David had got to Maddy before her. She took a deep breath. ‘I’m fine. I was hoping to talk to you before Dad did. I just need some time away to think about the future.’

  ‘Why? What’s happened?’

  Carla took a deep breath. David clearly hadn’t explained his part in her decision to leave. Time for Maddy to learn the truth. ‘Dad’s having an affair.’

  Maddy’s shocked ‘What?’ was barely audible. The question that followed ‘How d’you know?’ was a little louder.

  Conscious of the interested looks from a couple at a nearby table who clearly understood English, Carla kept her own voice low.

  ‘Maddy, I’ll call you later. I’m in a cafe at the moment. It’s not very private.’

  ‘That’s another thing – where are you? Dad thought you might be with me. I think that’s why he rang me.’

&nb
sp; ‘I’ll ring you this evening and explain everything,’ Carla said. ‘Seven o’clock a good time for you?’

  ‘Yes. Mum?’

  ‘I love you.’ Carla pressed the off button on her own phone. What a morning.

  Josette had told Carla the truth when she said she didn’t sleep well and was up early most mornings, but getting out of the house and walking along the coast road was not a part of her normal routine. Generally, she made for one of the cafes in the market for a coffee. Today though, she’d needed to get out and walk by the sea in an effort to try to organise her thoughts before Carla started to ask her inevitable questions about the family.

  As Josette strode along, she thought about Carla. The last person she’d expected to see when she’d opened the door yesterday. How big was the crisis in her marriage? How long was she planning on staying? How little she knew her. How much family history could she divulge without devastating her world? Did she need to know the truth? How would she react? Would she accept a sanitised version of the family history? Or would she want to dig deeper, ask more questions?

  Sitting on a bench by the Plages de la Salis and staring out over the Mediterranean hoping for inspiration, the questions continued to go round and round in Josette’s mind. Answers though were elusive. Watching a pair of seagulls fighting over the remains of a discarded takeaway burger, a troubled Josette came to a decision. A promise was a promise, even if it had been made under pressure decades ago. She’d carry on keeping it. Any question of Carla’s she could answer honestly – and for Josette that was the key word – she would. Any others, she’d shrug her shoulders and say nothing; keep her fingers crossed that Carla would learn enough to satisfy her and not press for more information.

  In the meantime, she’d try and enjoy having Carla as a house guest and introduce her to some of the Cote d’Azur sights. Life could be lonely at times, having company for a little while would be good. Maybe some bonding would be possible even at this late stage, if she dodged the problem questions and skirted around others carefully.

  Walking home, she stopped off at the market and picked up salad and some sardines, a baguette and two individual tartes citron from the artisan boulangerie stand and that was lunch sorted. She’d cook Carla lunch on her tiny barbecue in the courtyard.

  Josette had been home for ten minutes when Carla banged the door. Letting her in, Josette took a key off a hook near it.

  ‘You’d better have this while you’re here,’ she said, handing the key to Carla. ‘Don’t lose it. It’s my last spare one. Lunch will be ready in about ten minutes. Wine’s in the fridge.’

  Carla set the table and made the salad before pouring two glasses of wine and taking them out to the courtyard while Josette barbecued the sardines.

  ‘Santé,’ Josette said, taking her glass. ‘Did you have a good morning exploring?’

  Carla laughed. ‘Yes, thanks – apart from when I nearly walked under a car.’

  ‘Ah, the old right versus the left mistake?’

  Carla nodded. ‘Thankfully, this man grabbed me and literally pulled me to safety. Took me ages to stop shaking. I had fun exploring afterwards though. A couple of places I vaguely remembered from when we came to Nanna’s funeral. The market for one, oh, and the Picasso museum.’

  ‘Did you see the old family home?’

  ‘No. To be honest, I wouldn’t recognise it if I saw it.’

  ‘We’ll take a walk sometime and I’ll show you. It’s rented out at the moment, but the current tenants leave soon,’ Josette said. ‘Which means I have weeks of hassle trying to find new ones. So many fraudsters about these days.’

  ‘I would have thought the villa would have been sold years ago?’ Carla said. ‘When Grandpapa died.’

  ‘Under French law, Amelia and I inherited it together. Whilst I was keen to sell, Amelia refused to agree. She didn’t want anything to do with the place but was determined to stop me benefiting. Insisting any monies went into a special fund that neither of us could touch. Said the next generation could fight over it when the time came. The notaire, he try every year to get her to sign a release mais… she always refuses.’ Josette’s voice faded away as she stared at Carla, a look of consternation on her face. How could she have forgotten about Villa Mimosa? ‘Have you heard from the French lawyers about Amelia’s will?’

  ‘No. Her will was an English one basically leaving everything to me, with small bequests to Maddy and Edward. A few thousand each. After the house sells.’

  ‘And there was no mention of Villa Mimosa?’

  Carla shook her head.

  Josette picked up the bottle of wine and, despite Carla’s protest, topped both their glasses up. ‘In that case we need to make an appointment with the notaire to organise things legally.’

  ‘What things?’ Carla asked, puzzled.

  ‘Principally the fact that you, as Amelia’s legitimate heir, now own half of Villa Mimosa with me. Santé.’

  4

  That evening, a few minutes before eight o’clock, Carla switched on her laptop ready for a video chat with Maddy. Josette had surprised her earlier by giving her the password and telling her to use the house broadband internet connection. Carla hadn’t been expecting her aunt to be a silver surfer. Besides, there was no sign of a laptop, not even an iPad, in the house. Josette had shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly at Carla’s surprise.

  ‘C’est difficile not to be online these days. The French government close offices, create websites and expect everyone to become computer literate overnight. I keep my tablet in the bedroom so I can play online poker at night when I can’t sleep.’ The fact that Josette played poker surprised Carla less than the fact she did it online.

  Carla scribbled a couple of things she wanted to say to Maddy on a piece of paper so she didn’t forget them, before bringing up Skype and pressing Maddy’s name and struggling to marshal her thoughts into a logical and sensible order while waiting for Maddy to answer. She didn’t want Maddy knowing, or even suspecting, how terrified she was of what the future held. If she could hold it together and make her daughter believe that she was coping and wasn’t about to dissolve into a teary blob, then there was a chance she might convince herself too, that things would come right. The smile she greeted Maddy with was genuine, even if the first words her daughter uttered were almost guaranteed to make the mask slip.

  ‘I phoned Dad after I spoke to you and we’ve had a major bust-up over his affair. He told me to grow up and stop being such a child. These things happen. You and I apparently have to learn to live with it.’ The name she then called her father made Carla wince.

  ‘Maddy, don’t. That’s a horrible name to call him. He’s right though – I do have to accept the fact that it’s happened and I’m afraid you do too.’

  ‘No way. He’s even suggested I meet this Lisa. Thinks I’ll like her and we’ll get on. He’s delusional as well as being a…’ Maddy bit back on saying the word again. ‘Have you spoke to Ed? I tried to ring him but couldn’t get through.’

  ‘I was waiting until he came back later in the year,’ Carla said, swallowing hard. David wanting to introduce Maddy to this woman was something she hadn’t anticipated. He was obviously serious about her. ‘Ed is so far away, I didn’t want to worry him. Besides, there’s nothing he, or anyone, can do.’

  ‘Are you in a hotel, Mum?’ Maddy asked. ‘Dad thought you might have gone to Gran’s house but said there was no sign of you when he went round there.’

  ‘No, I’m not in a hotel. I’m… I’m staying with a friend.’

  ‘Which friend? Mavis?’

  ‘No one you know.’

  ‘Why aren’t you telling me where you are?’

  ‘Because, in all probability, Dad will demand you tell him and I don’t want him knowing yet.’

  ‘But it’s not fair not to tell me – I’m on your side. Tell me.’

  Carla sighed, looking at her daughter’s red-rimmed eyes. ‘Sorry, I can’t. Not yet. I promise I’ll tell you soo
n. I just want some time away from everything, to think, calm down and make plans.’

  ‘If he gives up this tart will you go home? It’s got to be just a midlife crisis. It’s not as if he’s ever done it before, is it?’ Maddy said, rubbing her nose, a nervous habit she’d had as a young child. When she realised Carla hadn’t answered, shock registered on her face. ‘He has, hasn’t he?’

  Carla nodded. ‘Several times. I don’t think he knows I know about most of them though.’

  ‘So surely this won’t be any different, he’ll be back with his tail between his legs in a couple of months – maybe even weeks.’

  Carla was silent, working out in her own mind what was so different this time. Was it just that she was so much older? That she didn’t have to stay for the ‘sake of the children’? Or was it because she was tired of being married to David and condoning his affairs? She’d spent enough years in a loveless marriage, surely she deserved a life of her own? Besides, did she even have the option this time of forgiving and forgetting?

  ‘Dad talking to you about this Lisa tells me this affair could be different. It’s not clandestine like the others were. It seems he’s happy for this one to come out into the world for everyone to see. Saying he’d like you to meet her is a clear indication that he wants to be free of me. To move on,’ Carla took a deep breath, trying to force a note of optimism into her voice. ‘I wouldn’t have chosen to end my marriage this way, but joining the ranks of divorced women at my age doesn’t signal the end of my life. I’ll treat it as an opportunity to try new things, go to different places, enjoy a new direction.’ The thought And try to rediscover the woman I used to be she kept to herself. Was that even possible?