Ella’s voice tails off and her eyes close for a moment as her memory drifts from its course. But then she opens her eyes again, focusing on my face with an effort. I sense she’s struggling now.
‘Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, the bowl. So, there we were in the gallery, about to come back to Edinburgh. And Caroline took it from its plinth and said, “Do you remember what I told you? About the philosophy behind this? That something which is unique has its own beauty that can never be destroyed; that it’s always worth mending, even when it’s broken; and that the fractures and the scars become part of the beauty too, making the piece even more remarkable, even more precious.” And then she said, “Heal your heart, Ella. Let Angus help you. Mend your marriage with veins of the purest gold and remake it, better and stronger than before.” And we did. Because, you see, Kendra, I fell in love with your grandfather all over again. Caroline was right: our love was worth mending. In the end, we made the scars part of the beauty of our marriage.’
She pauses, smiling, remembering. Then goes on, her voice growing a little stronger for a moment. ‘And Christophe was right too. He was my first love, but Angus was my lasting love. I’d always thought I wanted a second chance with Christophe, that life had cheated me of it. But, in fact, the second chance I got was with Angus. How lucky I am, to have loved and been loved by two such good men.’
For a few moments she’s lost in her thoughts again, her mind wandering where the tangled skein of her memories takes her.
But then, once more with an effort, she pulls her attention back to the bowl on the cabinet beside her bed. ‘When you give Rhona the manuscript, give her the bowl as well. Tell her that I’m sorry for the damage I did, but show her that it can be mended. Tell her that I know it will be, even if it’s after I’m gone.’
I pick up the bowl carefully and stir the collection of white shells that lie within it with my forefinger.
‘And the shells, Granny? Is the one that Christophe gave you in here?’
She smiles again. ‘But of course it is! And the one Angus gave me is too. Along with other shells I’ve collected on Atlantic beaches as reminders of perfect days. And shells my children found and gave me, which are some of the most treasured ones of all. Souvenirs. Memories. Such richness . . .’
Her voice is growing weaker once more, her eyes misting as her mind fades again. I bend close to her to hear the words she whispers.
‘Keep them for me, Kendra. The shells. Add them to your own collection of memories and keepsakes. With Dan and Finn. To remind you to find the beauty in your life, even in the most difficult times.’
‘I will. And I’ll be back tomorrow, Granny,’ I promise. Before I go, before I kiss her forehead one last time and smooth back the fine white hair – hair that was once the sun-kissed blonde of the grasses that grow amongst the sand-dunes on that wind-swept island – I whisper another promise to my grandmother.
‘I’ll tell her, Granny Ella. I’ll give Mum your story to read. And I’ll make sure she understands as well.’
I stand to leave, gathering up the manuscript, and the bowl of shells which I wrap in my winter scarf to keep safe.
In the doorway of her room, I hesitate for a moment, listening to her soft breathing. It’s changing, slowing: a shallow sip; a pause; a sigh.
She’s beyond my reach now, slipping further away with each breath. I hope she’s with them, the ones who have gone before. If they are holding her in their arms again at last, then maybe I can bear to let her go.
2015, Île de Ré
There’s no hint of what lies ahead as we skirt La Rochelle, passing a chaotic jumble of ugly signs advertising the offerings of the superstores that flank the city’s by-pass. But then I realise that there are subtle changes all around us: there’s a new freshness in the air as Dan winds down the window to let the early summer warmth wash into the car; the vegetation has changed too and the road is now lined with scrubby pines and silver-leafed shrubs that are tough enough to withstand the scouring of a salt wind. And the light is different all of a sudden. It has a clarity which heightens the colour of the tamarisk trees with their plumes of rose-pink froth and paints the heads of the bulrushes that grow in the ditches alongside the road a rich velvet brown, as they dance in the slip-stream of the passing cars.
We negotiate a roundabout and pay the toll for the bridge. And then suddenly we are swept into the air on a soaring arc of concrete that, these days, spans the channel separating the Île de Ré from the mainland. For a moment I regret that there’s no longer a ferry to catch; I would have enjoyed retracing that step of my grandmother’s journey. Has the bridge made a difference, I wonder? Has being physically tethered to its motherland made the island lose the sense of otherworldliness, that feeling of stepping off the edge of the world and out on to the ocean that she talked about?
To our left I glimpse the serried ranks of cranes in La Rochelle’s busy port, which stand to attention behind the busy to-and-fro of white-sailed yachts in and out of the harbour.
‘Look, Finn, can you see the boats?’ I try to distract my son from his rocking. It’s been a long day’s journey for him and he’s never comfortable in unfamiliar surroundings.
And then I look to the right and I catch my breath. For there is the Atlantic, a sweep of green water, dappled golden over shallow-lying sandbanks, just as Ella must have seen it that first time. And far out, along the horizon, is a strip of deeper colour, a wash of green-blue that is hard to define. ‘Viridian,’ I murmur. ‘The colour of the ocean beyond the point.’
I needn’t have worried. The island – changed though it must be after all these years – is still an island. I sense it immediately. Even though it’s now referred to as ‘the Twenty-First Arrondissement’ because allegedly le Tout-Paris comes to holiday here in its chic little towns and on its beautiful beaches, there’s no way this low-lying land of salt-marshes and sand-dunes can ever be truly tamed: it will always belong more to the ocean than to the land.
We pass fields of wildflowers, where cornflowers, poppies and Queen Anne’s Lace weave their own exuberant version of the French flag, and fields of purple scorpion weed abuzz with insects. The lush, fresh green of vineyards is interspersed with the old gold of cornfields, scarlet-spattered with yet more poppies. The soil at the roadside is sandy, bound by sprawling tendrils of wild vines which have escaped from the constraining trellising of the vineyards and made a bid for freedom amongst the spikes of silver sea-holly and santolina that thrive in the salty air.
Following the directions Caroline has sent, we turn off the main road and into Sainte Marie de Ré, where Dan negotiates the car through the narrow streets between rows of whitewashed houses. And hollyhocks. They are still here, just as Ella described. Tall spires of tissue-paper flowers in shades of raspberry, apricot, cream and plum.
I glance again at Caroline’s letter. ‘Turn left, following signs to the campsite. Pass the vineyard on your right-hand side and just beyond it you will find the house. Sandrine will leave a key on the terrace at the back, under a blue ceramic pot of geraniums. Make yourself at home. I shall be staying in the apartment above the gallery in Saint Martin, and I look forward to meeting you all the day after you arrive. Come to the gallery at midday and we will go and have some lunch together and make our plans.’
I’m here because Ella asked me to come. When Robbie and Jenny went to collect her things from the nursing home they found a note in the drawer of her bedside cabinet, addressed to me.
It had been an emotional few days; first, the phone call from Robbie to say that she’d gone, and then the conversation I’d had with my mother, telling her about the manuscript. She’d answered the phone in her customary way, with a crisp, ‘Rhona Mitchell speaking.’ Her voice became a little more gentle though, softening when she realised it was me, and she’d asked as fondly as always after Finn and Dan. But when I broached the subject of Ella’s funeral, that defensive tone returned.
‘I don’t know when I’m coming up,’ she’d said. ‘The timing’s not very convenient. I might not even be able to get away.’ There was a finality in the way she said this that allowed no room for argument, so I let her words sit there, heavy as a gravestone.