‘My goodness, what a lot of adventures you’ve had and it’s only the first morning of your holidays! I’m sorry I slept in and missed so much.’
‘That’s alright. We’ve saved some adventures for you too. Like going out in the sailing boat. It’s called Bijou and it’s a she.’
‘That’s right, Robbie,’ said Caroline, with a smile. ‘And now, let me introduce you to her captain. This is Christophe, my brother.’
‘Hello.’ Robbie shook Christophe’s hand, man-to-man. ‘I’m Robbie Dalrymple and this is Rhona. She’s my sister.’
Christophe nodded, the light in his eyes belying his grave expression. ‘I’ve heard a lot about you both and I’m very pleased to meet you.’ As he crossed to shake Rhona by the hand, his pronounced limp became apparent. Robbie eyed him, appraisingly.
‘Have you had polio too?’
‘No, Robbie. I encountered a German shell one fine morning. And then I spent several years in a prison camp, which didn’t help matters much.’
‘Coo, that’s ripping! Can you tell me all about it?’
Just then the bell sounded again as a couple of tourists stepped over the threshold.
‘Maybe we should save that for later?’ Ella intervened gently. ‘I think we’d better leave Caroline and Christophe in peace for a little while as they have work to do. I need a coffee and my breakfast.’ She held up the paper bag. ‘And then we can go to the covered market to buy some things for lunch.’
‘Alright.’ Robbie lifted his hand in salute. ‘See you soon then, Caroline. Christophe, will you come and have lunch with us too? And, Mummy, we can show you the ice-cream shop.’
The island worked its magic on them all. As the weeks passed, Robbie grew stronger in the sunshine and sea air – and perhaps the daily caramel au beurre salé ice creams helped too. His discarded brace rusted in a corner of his bedroom whilst he cycled and swam and ran through the dunes to build fortresses of damp sand on the beach. His favourite game was to build Stalag Luft VIII-A, the prisoner-of-war camp that Christophe had told him so much about, and then to dig tunnels with an oyster shell to allow the hermit-crab prisoners incarcerated there to escape back into the sea.
Rhona’s cheeks grew rosy, with a scattering of freckles just like her mother’s. The wind teased waves into her sand-gold hair, ruffling it out of its usual severe Alice band so that it curled in soft tendrils about her face. She followed Caroline like a miniature shadow and loved helping out at the gallery, her confidence growing to the point where she could even speak a few words of French to the clients who stepped in out of the heat of the day to browse amongst the artworks.
Ella settled back into the rhythm of the Île de Ré, the busyness and constant clock-watching of life back in Edinburgh dissolving in the holiday atmosphere of the island. Slowly but surely, she began to feel more relaxed, less burdened, her tension and unhappiness melting away into the background. Once again, the narrow strip of water separating the island from the mainland became a gulf so wide that the realities of life slipped from view, Edinburgh lying far beyond the horizon. She knew it was just a brief interlude, as ephemeral as the sunlit dreams that illuminated her nights as she slept, but she let herself sink ever deeper into that summer, luxuriating in the beauty of the place, comforted by the wondrous memories of those other times, not allowing herself to think about the journey back to their real lives that awaited them in a few weeks’ time. In place of sadness, she chose joy, finding the beauty once again, even amidst the pain and the anguish.
Best of all were the days when they loaded a picnic basket into Bijou and headed out between the high stone walls of Saint Martin’s harbour into the ocean.
One day, as the summer was nearing its end, Christophe showed the children how to sail her, letting Robbie haul in the sheets and Rhona take the tiller, as they tacked westwards on a broad reach towards the far tip of the island. Ella’s eyes met Christophe’s above her children’s heads and she smiled her gratitude to him. When they moored up for lunch in the Fier d’Ars, the shallow lagoon that borders the salt-pans, he pulled out a sketch pad and tore off a sheet of paper for each child. ‘Right, we’re going to do some drawing now. What shall we sketch?’
‘Let’s draw Mummy!’ Robbie pointed to where Ella sat watching the three of them, resting her head against the doorway to the cabin.
Ella blushed. ‘I think you should find something else . . . the beach perhaps?’ The thought of forcing Christophe to look at her made her feel uncomfortable. There was still an awkwardness between them, a sense that they shouldn’t let one another get too close.
‘No, that’s much too difficult, Mummy. We’re going to draw you, so you have to sit very still.’
‘Yes, Ella, sit very still please.’ He was teasing her now, sensing her embarrassment and trying to put her at her ease. He handed each of them a pencil and they began to draw her.
‘No rubbing out, Rhona.’ he stopped her as she tutted and reached for his tin of pencils. ‘Use the line you’ve already made and correct it. You see, like this. You can draw several light lines until you start to build up the right shape. That’s it, good. Now go over that one and make it a little darker . . .’
Caroline wasn’t with them that day; she had stayed behind at the gallery to prepare for a drinks reception that she was holding that evening to launch an exhibition of her brother’s latest work. They’d promised to come back early and lend a hand polishing glasses and folding napkins. All at once, Ella felt self-conscious about being without their chaperone. How ridiculous, she thought, as if I were seventeen again. It’s not as if anything can possibly happen between him and me. She sat still, as directed, gazing out to sea, all the while conscious of his eyes skimming her eyes, her lips, her throat as he drew her.
They presented her with the three sketches. ‘Very good. What a brilliant drawing, Robbie. And, Rhona, yours really is excellent.’
‘I’m going to keep it and send it to Daddy.’ Rhona took hers back and put it in the bag that contained her sun-hat and sandals.
Ella handed back the other two drawings, noticing that Christophe tucked his between the pages of his sketch-book before starting to unpack the lunch things. Would he keep it? Or would it just be thrown away when he got home?
And why, all of a sudden, did that seem to matter so very much to her?
‘I’m sorry. Have we been introduced? Why, Rhona and Robbie, it’s you! I didn’t recognise you in your smart clothes.’ Caroline, looking radiant herself in a black cocktail dress, with her hair piled up in a loose chignon, stooped to hug the children.
‘Your team of helpers, reporting for duty.’ Ella gave a mock salute. ‘Give us our orders.’
‘Robbie, can you go and find Christophe upstairs? He’s filling ice buckets to chill the wine and I think he might need a hand breaking up the ice block with a hammer and chisel. Make sure he doesn’t do any lasting damage either to himself or to the kitchen. And, Rhona, please could you finish folding these catalogues – like this – and then lay out a few piles of them here and there?’
‘It looks wonderful, Caroline.’ Ella admired the newly displayed exhibits.
Caroline nodded. ‘His work gets better and better, doesn’t it? I hope it will be well received. We have quite a number of my Parisian clients coming this evening – the island is becoming such a fashionable place to holiday these days. If they like what they see, they could be influential in spreading the word back in the city. His work is starting to command Parisian prices, even on the Île de Ré.’
As the evening shadows began to lengthen across the cobble-stones, the first guests started to arrive.
The children handed round glasses of chilled Sancerre and were exclaimed over and proclaimed ‘charmants’. The two rooms of the gallery were soon filled with an elegant and sophisticated crowd, and Ella circulated, eavesdropping on the guests’ appreciative comments and admiring remarks about the artist and his work. Caroline introduced her to a former colleague from the Louvre, who regaled her with anecdotes from the museum during the war years and reassured her that all the artworks that had been hidden in safe locations around France had survived and had now been returned to their rightful home.