‘Okay, Mum, but listen, there’s something I need to give you. So, if you’re really not going to come for the funeral I’ll have to send it to you. And I want you to promise me you’ll read it. Will you?’
‘What is it?’ She was suspicious now, distrustful. ‘Something your grandmother’s cooked up?’
‘Please, Mum. Just read it. Then we can talk afterwards.’
She’d sniffed, and I wasn’t entirely sure whether it was a scornful sound or an attempt to disguise the fact that she was crying.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Of course, I’m okay. Why shouldn’t I be?’ A pause . . .
Then she’d said, ‘Don’t go to the trouble of sending whatever it is. Of course, I’ll be there. We’ll stay at Robbie’s. It will be a good opportunity to come and see you all as well.’
‘Okay, Mum, it’ll be lovely to see you.’ I’d hung up the phone and let my hand rest for a moment on the kintsukuroi bowl which sat on the kitchen-dresser weighting down the sheets of paper that tell Ella’s story. I ran my finger lightly around the rim, feeling the almost imperceptible ridge where the vein of gold joins the deep blue shards of pottery, binding them together.
‘She’s coming,’ I’d whispered. Although I don’t know who I was telling it to, standing there in my empty kitchen.
Then I’d picked up the note, written in Ella’s shaky italic script, and re-read it.
My dearest Kendra,
You have been my faithful ally, writing down my story so that Rhona will finally understand. I hope that she will forgive me, although I accept that forgiveness may be too much to ask. But her understanding of the truth will be enough. So you have given me peace of mind, at last, and for that I thank you.
You’ve already helped me so much that I hesitate to ask more of you. But I would like you to go to the Île de Ré, sometime when you can manage it amongst the many demands of your busy life. Would you do that for me? Go to the island and find Caroline. She knows my final wishes.
I should so like you to meet her. And perhaps you might enjoy a visit to that place – I know you’ve grown to love it already through writing about it. I hope you will find some of the freedom and peace there that the island has brought me over the years.
Thank you for being such a wonderful granddaughter. And thank you for telling my story.
Your loving grandmother, Ella.
So my mother came to Scotland for the funeral and we all hugged one another and cried as Ella was laid to rest alongside Angus, her lasting love.
I gave my mother a large envelope, containing the manuscript, and a wrapped box containing the bowl. ‘Open the box after you’ve finished reading this,’ I told her.
She nodded briskly and, without giving them a second glance, stowed both envelope and box into the capacious bag in which she’d brought presents for Finn. I haven’t heard from her in the past fortnight, so I don’t know if she’s begun to read Ella’s story. Or if she’s finished it and decided not to mention it yet. But I understand that she needs time. Plucking up the courage to face the truth may take a while; realising how much more there was to her mother’s story – and her father’s – and allowing the defences of her anger and pride to be dismantled will take considerably longer.
In the back seat of the car, Finn is growing restless. He’s never been on such a long journey before and we’ve been nervous about how he may react to being in strange surroundings. We usually stay at home in the holidays, so that he can be in his familiar environment and stick to his usual routine. Any changes can agitate him, although it’s been a while since he last had a full-blown meltdown. But Dan and I had decided that our need for a holiday outweighed Finn’s need for the safety of familiarity this time, and Caroline’s offer of use of the house was just too tempting to pass up.
Dan’s been struggling, I know, no matter how manfully he’s tried to pretend otherwise. The community garden’s been closed down: government cuts, no funding. That seemed to be the final blow to his confidence. Still jobless, he’s picked up bits of work here and there, doing the accounts for a couple of small local businesses, work that he does late at night once I’m home and can take over Finn’s care. I know how tough it is for him, and how desperately he needs a break – in all senses of the word.
‘You alright back there?’ Dan glances anxiously in the rearview mirror.
‘We’re nearly there, Finn,’ I soothe him. ‘What a good boy you’ve been. Just a few more minutes.’ As I hand him his comforter, a worn scrap of blanket he’s had since he was a baby, I notice he’s bitten his lips until they’re cracked and bleeding. He hangs on to it tightly, bringing it close to his face to smell its reassuring scent of home.
‘Look, there! That must be the house. See, Finn? The white house with the pale blue shutters.’
Dan pulls up on to the sandy verge, alongside the whitewashed wall that surrounds the house and its garden. I’d half prepared myself to be disappointed, expecting that it might be run-down now, the garden overgrown or – worse – levelled to a patch of easily maintained lawn. But Caroline and her assistant Sandrine – the granddaughter of the original Sandrine and Benoît – have looked after the property with loving care over all these years. It’s just as Ella described it and I feel a sense of excitement and relief.
I hold my breath as Finn clambers out of the car at last – he’d refused at first, so we’d left him sitting in his seat as we opened up the house and began to unload the bags. He sat there with his comforter, crooning softly to himself, which is one of his self-soothing techniques when he’s feeling anxious or stressed. Dan and I exchanged a guarded glance, both wondering whether this trip was going to turn out to be another horrible mistake to add to the list of abortive attempts at holidays we’d had in the early days, before we gave up trying.
I pretend to rummage in one of the bags as Finn walks up the path and stands in the doorway, his slight frame backlit against the sunshine beyond. A waft of breeze lifts the white muslin curtains on either side of the French doors in the kitchen and they billow voluminously, filling like the sails of a ship. Automatically, I tense, bracing myself for his high-pitched scream if he is panicked by this unfamiliar sight. But, to my amazement and relief, he begins to laugh. I feel my shoulders drop as they relax, and I laugh too, with joy, at his rarely heard response. Because he laughs so seldom, it’s all the more precious when he does.
He points. ‘Look, Mummy, it’s ghosts. Friendly ones, like Casper.’
For a second I wonder whether he truly is seeing spirits, whether his mind allows him to glimpse worlds the rest of us cannot. And it seems plausible that he might, because the house feels full of friendly ghosts. It’s already welcoming and familiar, even though we’ve only just walked into it, filled as it is with the spirit of Marianne’s gentle kindness, and Monsieur Martet’s love for his family, and Christophe’s passionate sense of beauty. But when I turn to follow Finn’s gaze, it’s just the joyous, billowing dance of the curtains in the sea-breeze that is amusing him so.
‘Come upstairs and see your bedroom. I think it might have curtains like that too.’
With calm acceptance, he takes my hand – another treasured rarity – and we climb the stairs together.
‘I like holidays, Mummy,’ he tells me as he stands on the bright rag rug in his room, watching as I open the shutters and allow the sunlight to flood in. I know better than to scoop him up in my arms and hug him tightly to me, even though, instinctively, it’s still what I yearn to do. But I hold my hand up, fingers spread like a starfish, and he presses his own tiny starfish hand against mine in our agreed gesture of love.
I nod, smiling into his wide green eyes, so like the eyes of his great-grandmother in the photographs when she was young. ‘I like holidays too.’
After supper, he settles under the counterpane on his unfamiliar bed without a murmur. I pull the shutters to, but leave the window open, drawing the curtains across. ‘Look,’ I whisper, ‘the friendly ghosts are keeping you company.’