House of the Hanged. Mark Mills
‘Not new, just different.’
‘It’s a lot smaller than the last.’
‘Ah, but this one doesn’t break down.’
‘Where’s the fun in that?’
She was referring to the previous summer and the day-trip with her family which had turned into a two-day-trip when the big Citroën had resolutely refused to start, stranding them as the sun was going down at a remote beach on the headland beyond Gigaro. There had been just enough food left in the picnic hamper to cobble together a simple supper and they had hunkered down for the night. Lucy’s half-brothers, George and Harry, had slept in the car, the rest of them under the stars around a driftwood fire, cocooned in Persian rugs. Leonard had embraced the setback with his usual sunny good humour, and even Venetia, who relished her creature comforts, had entered into the spirit of the occasion, leading them in a repertoire of Gilbert and Sullivan numbers, which had set Hector howling in protest. Remarkably, Leonard and Venetia had gone a whole evening without arguing, although they had bickered like a couple of old fishwives during the long and dusty march back to Gigaro the following morning.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Tom, ‘I’ve already planned another night at the same beach. It’s on the itinerary.’
‘Ahhh, the famous Thomas Nash itinerary.’
‘Would you have it any other way?’
‘Of course not,’ said Lucy, hugging him again. ‘I need someone to take command of my miserable existence.’
‘Oh dear, are the hardships of student life taking their toll on poor little Lucy?’
She pinched his arm and recoiled. ‘Well obviously you’re too old to remember, but Oxford’s not all honey and roses.’
‘Okay, what’s his name?’ asked Tom wearily.
Lucy looked convincingly aghast for all of a second before her face fell. ‘Hugo Atkinson . . . although I now have a whole bunch of other names for him.’
‘Didn’t he like your hair?’
‘This wasn’t done for him!’ she protested, a touch too vehemently.
Tom was suddenly aware of the porter regarding their little theatre with curiosity. He paid the man off handsomely and opened the passenger door for Lucy.
‘You can tell me all about the bounder over lunch, but I think I might have found just the thing to help you get over him.’
‘Oh God, please, not another Italian lawyer.’
‘Francesco, I admit, proved to be something of a disappointment.’
They both laughed at the memory of the disastrous dinner last summer. Two cocktails on the terrace at Les Roches had revealed Francesco to be a pompous and pugnacious bigot, and even before their entrées had arrived he’d been making eyes at one of the waiters.
In the ordinary course of events Tom would have driven directly from the station to the old port, where a stroll along the bustling waterfront would have been followed by lunch at the Brasserie Cronstadt. That was his customary routine when guests arrived on the late-morning sleeper from Paris. But he had others plans for Lucy, and they involved driving straight to Le Lavandou, skirting the hilltop town of Hyères before dropping down through the pine forests towards the coast.
They chatted lightly about the string of parties which had kept Lucy back in London, sparing her the long drive south through France with Leonard and her mother.
‘I can’t say I missed it. All those detours to cathedrals that Leonard insists on making, the lectures on the transition from Romanesque to Gothic architecture . . .’
‘Is that the real reason George and Harry can’t make it this year?’
‘No, Grandfather really is taking them to Portsmouth for Navy Week.’
‘And you weren’t tempted?’
‘I’d rather gnaw through my arm.’
Tom laughed. ‘Well, I’m sorry they won’t be here.’
‘I’m not. They’ve become insufferable lately.’
‘You mean big sister can’t boss them around any more?’
‘Exactly! The wilful little brutes.’
Le Lavandou, with its palm-fringed promenade and its port backed by a huddle of old buildings, still felt like a frontier town to Tom. Although he visited it often, it lay at the western limits of his ordinary beat and he rarely ventured beyond it. Whenever he did so, returning there was like returning home, even if home still lay a good few miles to the east along the twisting shoreline of the Côte des Maures.
The table was waiting for them under the awning at the Café du Centre, and Pascal appeared within moments of their arrival bearing a bottle of white Burgundy on ice. Nothing had been left to chance. The table, the wine, even the fish they would eat, all had been chosen in advance by Tom when he’d passed through earlier that morning. He wanted the build-up to the big surprise to be perfect.
Pascal was one of the few people in on the secret and he was obviously determined to play his part to perfection. Like a child sworn to silence, though, the burden proved almost too much to bear.
As soon as he had disappeared back inside, Lucy lit a cigarette and enquired, ‘What’s wrong with Pascal? He keeps looking at you in a funny way.’
‘Really?’
‘All weird and wide-eyed.’
‘Maybe it’s lack of sleep. Their new baby’s only a few weeks old.’
This seemed to satisfy her; besides, they had better things to discuss. It was almost six months since they’d last seen each other – during one of Tom’s rare visits to England – and on that occasion there’d been little opportunity to talk openly. In fact, there’d been little opportunity to talk at all, because Lucy’s great friend, Stella, had muscled in on their lunch at the Randolph Hotel. Like Lucy, Stella was a second-year Modern History undergraduate at St Hugh’s College. Unlike Lucy, she seemed to think this entitled her to hold forth at length on any subject that happened to pop into her head. And there was certainly no shortage of those: everything from the worrying rise of Fascism to the latest fashions in women’s shoes. In her defence, Stella was well informed and extremely amusing with it, but Tom could still recall the delightful silence of the long drive back to London from Oxford.
‘How’s the irrepressible Stella bearing up?’
‘Oh, dear,’ sighed Lucy. ‘Poor Stella . . .’
‘What? She’s developed lockjaw?’
‘Worse. She’s gone totally potty on an Irish labourer.’
‘You’re joking!’
Apparently not. St Hugh’s was in the process of putting up a new library, and the college had been crawling with brawny workmen for much of the year, one of whom had caught Stella’s eye.
‘Nothing’s happened,’ Lucy explained. ‘I mean, I’m not sure he even knows she exists, but she spent most of last term moping around her rooms like a sick cat. It’s all very Lady Chatterley and Mellors.’
‘What would you know about Lady Chatterley and Mellors? That’s a banned book.’
‘Which is precisely the reason there are so many copies doing the rounds at university.’
‘As the man who took an oath before God to lead you towards a life of exemplary purpose, I’m disappointed.’
‘As the man who had Henry Miller’s Tropic of Cancer lying around his house last summer, don’t be.’
‘Ah, it’s not banned in France.’
‘Well, it should be.’