Fatal Inheritance Read online

  He is addressing himself to Jack now, who nods fervently.

  ‘Did they come back here after the war – the Murphys?’ Ruth wants to know, but Sully shakes his bullish head.

  ‘They lost two of their children to illness. After that I think the long days of sunshine and beach parties were over.’

  Eve sees how Rupert puts his hand out to touch his wife’s arm. Parents who have lost children. It is the saddest club of all.

  ‘I went back to the States not long after they did. By that stage I’d written my first novel and wanted to find a publisher. I always knew I’d come back here, though. There is something about the light that pulls you in. And all the women in bikinis don’t hurt either.’

  Garoupe, being out of the way of both Antibes and Juan-les-Pins, is quieter than the other beaches Eve has so far glimpsed, the sand strewn with seaweed. At first she is disappointed in the meagreness of this mythical beach, having expected vast white sands, perhaps a smattering of palm trees, but then she follows the path climbing up the low cliff at the far end, and looks down through the crystal-clear water to the fish swimming in and out of the rocks at the bottom, and her nostrils fill up with the heady scent of a white-budded bush she has never seen before. She looks to the left, past the next rocky promontory where Villa La Perle sits hidden by trees, and sees strung across the bay the city of Nice, dazzling white in the afternoon sun, and beyond it the Maritime Alps, almost purple in the haze, while to the right, further along this winding path, the Aleppo pines tumble down over the red rocks towards the sea, and she feels a shifting inside herself, a sense of something slotting into place.

  Suddenly she has an overwhelming desire to go into the sea, to feel the cool, clear water on her skin, to wash away her worries about Clifford and home and just be here in this moment in this beautiful place. What would they do, she wonders, if she launched herself off this rock into the water? What would they say? Does she dare?

  She returns to the sand and, whipping off her shoes and stockings, wades into the water, gasping at the freshness of it. Though the sun is deceptively hot, it is only the beginning of June, too early for the sea to be properly warmed through. She senses the hem of the old cotton dress she stuffed into her bag at the last minute – which she has been known to wear as a nightgown back home – growing sodden, even though she is holding it bunched in her left hand, but she does not care. It is glorious to be here, in this cold crisp water.

  She turns her back to the sea, waving to the others, who are gathered in a little knot on the sand. Ruth stands and gestures to something behind her, but Eve cannot understand what she is saying until – slap – as if from nowhere a large wave breaks across her shoulders, dragging her completely under the surface of the water. She emerges spluttering, but laughing. And now she is so wet, she might as well stay here. She swims for a few moments out to sea, but the water is too cold, and she feels herself beginning to shiver.

  ‘I am defeated!’ she cries to the others, turning around to wade back to the shore. But, oh, now the small group has become larger, with four extra figures standing over the seated ones on the sand, as if forming some sort of tableau.

  As Eve emerges, ungainly, from the sea, she is conscious of her soaking cotton dress clinging to her breasts and thighs, and plucks at the flimsy fabric to peel it off her skin.

  ‘My goodness, I knew English fashions were lagging a little behind since the war, but is that really what passes for swimwear over there these days?’

  Clemmie Atwood is wearing a white sundress with a pattern of yellow daisies. It has a tight-fitting bodice that shows off her bronzed shoulders and her neat waist.

  Her fiancé leans into his brother, who is standing to his left, and whispers something in his ear. Noel nods and they both turn their faces towards Eve, watching with impassive expressions as she approaches. Only the fourth member of the group, a teenaged girl with freckles and strawberry blonde hair that has curled into damp ringlets around her face, is smiling.

  ‘What a jolly good idea,’ she says, bending down impatiently to unlace her tennis shoes. ‘I was just thinking I wish I’d brought my cossie, and now I see I don’t even need it!’

  ‘Mrs Forrester. This is my sister, Libby,’ says Noel Lester. ‘She is very impressionable, as you can see.’

  ‘If impressionable means I like going for swims in the sea with my clothes on, then I jolly well am.’

  Libby, who appears a lot younger than her sixteen years, smiles at her older brother and Eve watches his face soften, making him look instantly younger and less sure of himself.

  ‘Good idea, Lib, I’ll race you in,’ says Clemmie, suddenly changing her stance. She kicks off her sandals and makes a big production of running after Libby, hitching up her skirt to show her legs and throwing a glance behind as if to make sure her gay spontaneity is being observed.

  She has no sense of herself, Eve sees suddenly, and the realization causes a slight mellowing towards the young woman. She of all people knows how it is to be constantly seeking an approval that never comes.

  ‘Hold up, I’ll come with you.’ Jack Collett already has his shoes and socks off and is busy rolling his trousers up to the knee.

  Clemmie doesn’t seem enraptured to have an extra companion, but still she and Libby wait until Jack is ready before heading into the water.

  ‘What a pleasant coincidence, us all ending up on the same beach,’ Eve says, regretting her impromptu dip now that her wet dress feels so clammy and cold against her skin.

  ‘Oh, it’s no coincidence,’ says Duncan Lester, watching his fiancée’s retreating back with a thoughtful expression. He is wearing a white singlet and a huge straw hat that shades his face. He has sat down beside Sully, who now appears to be fast asleep.

  ‘We made arrangements earlier on to meet up with this idle chap.’ He prods the sleeping American with one of his pale toes. ‘I have to say I didn’t realize he’d be bringing half of Blighty with him.’

  Eve drops to the sand, cradling her knees in her arms and feeling put out, not just by Duncan’s scarcely disguised insult but also by the unsettling realization that plans have been made, meetings had, entirely without her involvement. Though, of course, there is no reason why this should not be so, the certainty that she herself would have formed the main topic of conversation on such occasions gives Eve a jittery feeling.

  ‘So, Mrs Forrester. Eve. I hope you’ve enjoyed your stay here in paradise,’ Duncan continues. He seems more relaxed today, less hostile. ‘You’ll know, I’m sure, that Somerset Maugham, that cantankerous old git, called the Riviera a sunny place for shady people, but that’s exactly why we like it. When will your husband be coming over to make the arrangements for the sale?’

  Eve resents being put on the spot. Whenever she thinks back to that conversation with Clifford, a feeling akin to nausea rises up inside her.

  ‘Actually, we’ve persuaded Eve to stay on here a few days and keep us company,’ says Ruth.

  ‘Some might say persuaded,’ says Rupert. ‘Others might prefer the word “forced”.’

  Eve feels a rush of gratitude to the Colletts for saving her from having to break the news about her change of plans herself.

  Duncan doesn’t look thrilled.

  ‘The thing is,’ he says, ‘the sooner we get on with the business of selling Villa La Perle, the better. There are matters that need to be settled. Death duties. Taxes. That sort of thing.’

  ‘But there’s time for all that,’ Eve says. ‘Bernard told me. And he said your father left an account to cover immediate expenses.’

  ‘That won’t be enough.’ Duncan scowls and Eve is struck by how quickly and easily his face swings from pleasant to downright ugly according to his moods. ‘See, I just don’t think this is right,’ he continues, turning to his brother, who is squatting down on his haunches next to Rupert, his face resting on his hands, his loose white shirt rolled up to the elbows revealing tanned arms with a fuzz of golden hair. ‘Why does she
’ – a nod in Eve’s direction – ‘get to know everything about our private family affairs?’

  ‘Because, for whatever reason, our father wanted it that way.’

  The conversation is taking place right in front of Eve and yet she might as well not be there at all. Their rudeness makes her rash.

  ‘And that’s another reason I’m not going back to England straight away.’ She hugs her arms tighter around her knees so they won’t see her shivering and avoids looking at Noel, remembering the weight of his jacket around her shoulders. ‘Your father had a reason for doing all this. For inviting me here. For leaving me a share in the house. This morning I received a ring he’d intended me to have. This ring.’ She holds out a mottled blue-ish hand.

  Duncan peers at it through narrowed eyes.

  ‘If that’s something that used to belong to my mother, Guy had no right—’

  ‘Not your mother, but mine,’ Eve says quickly. ‘I remember her wearing it in a photograph from when I was a baby but I haven’t seen it since. I need to know what it all means.’

  ‘So go home and ask your mummy,’ says Duncan, still squinting suspiciously at the ring. ‘That’s the most obvious thing. Though whether she’ll tell you the truth kind of depends upon how compromising it is, wouldn’t you think?’

  Ruth hands Eve the blanket they have brought to sit on, and she wraps it gratefully around her shoulders. How can she explain to all these people she hardly knows the relationship she has with her mother? Could they understand how it is possible to live with someone for more than a quarter of a century and for them to remain an entirely closed book? How personal information – memories, favourite songs, likes, dislikes, hopes, dreams – can become something shameful, to be hidden away out of sight. No, the impossibility of asking such questions is something she cannot begin to convey to those who did not grow up in a house like hers.

  ‘On the contrary, I think the answers will lie here. Where Guy Lester lived. I’m sure of it.’

  There is a spray of cold water as Clemmie wades out from the sea, kicking a shapely leg as she does. The hem of her dress is dripping. Libby skips behind her, clothes and hair soaked.

  ‘You should come in!’ cries Clemmie, spraying them all again. ‘It’s wonderfully refreshing. How about it, Noel? Or are you too chicken?’

  Noel wipes the water off his face irritably and stands up, stretching out his legs one at a time.

  ‘Come on, Libs, we should get you home. You’re drenched.’

  ‘I am as wet as the wettest thing,’ agrees Libby, and Eve sees suddenly that she is not like other teenagers. There is something childlike about her, something not quite finished. As if she became stuck somewhere in the act of growing up.

  They get themselves ready to go, and for a moment Eve thinks Noel will leave without ever having properly acknowledged her existence. Then at the last minute he turns to her.

  ‘My father had a friend who lives in Cap Ferrat. Robin Whelan. Well, not really a friend. A contemporary from university. He knew him for decades, both back in England and out here. They weren’t close, but if you wanted to talk to someone who might know if there are any skeletons in his past, Whelan might be a good place to start.’

  Eve is taken aback, though whether by the information being offered or the person doing the offering, she couldn’t have said.

  ‘How will I find him?’

  Noel glances away and then back again. And finally he is looking at her properly.

  ‘I’ll take you. Tomorrow.’

  It isn’t a question. There is no space for her to tell him it isn’t convenient or that she has other plans.

  ‘Well,’ Ruth says as they watch the Lesters walking away, with Clemmie between them in her daisy-print dress like an exotic bloom between two dark stems, Libby dancing ahead. ‘They might have money, but their manners leave much to be desired.’

  12

  4 June 1948

  NOEL PICKS HER up in a gleaming black convertible sports car with a chrome grille on the front that makes it look like it is baring its teeth.

  ‘Triumph Roadster,’ he tells her proudly, running a hand over its bonnet. ‘Hardly any of these around. I brought it down here to sell but couldn’t bear to part with it.’

  ‘It’s lovely,’ says Eve politely, but she can’t help adding, ‘Don’t you think it’s ironic, though, that Britain makes all these beautiful cars to sell abroad, while at home we’d have to wait years to get our hands on something like this?’

  It is something her mother might have said, and Eve is instantly ashamed. Why can’t she be more like Jack Collett, taking unconditional delight in beautiful things?

  Noel’s face closes like a fist.

  ‘I’m sorry you don’t approve.’

  In the car, Eve settles miserably into her seat. She has hardly slept. First she’d lain awake worrying about that strange feeling she has had twice now, that someone has been in her room, disturbing her things. At one stage she’d resolved to ask Sully if Mrs Finch ever went into his room while he wasn’t there, before it occurred to her that it might just as well be Sully himself. What did she really know about him, after all?

  After that she had moved on to fretting about Clifford, wondering whether he might also be lying awake worrying about her, or conversely seething with anger. Abandoning all hope of sleep, she’d lain there fiddling with the ring on her finger, feeling the unfamiliar shape of it, those two words, love eternal, burning through the metal into her skin.

  Could her mother have had a passionate relationship with Guy Lester that explained him coming into possession of her ring? Might the initial ‘F’ be some sort of code between them, an abbreviation of a name no one else would understand? One of the girls she had worked with in the W VS had been seeing an American soldier who always called her Rose, short for English Rose, while she had called him Jimmy because he reminded her of Jimmy Stewart – as if these made-up identities sealed them into a fantasy bubble, separate from the real world in which her husband languished in a POW camp in Burma, while Jimmy’s wife and four children waited for him at home in Missouri.

  Yet no matter how Eve tried to convince herself that this was the obvious explanation, she came up against the brick wall of her own certainty that it could not be right.

  As a consequence of her wakeful night she now feels out of sorts and unable to think straight, watching the road in front of them with dulled eyes.

  ‘Don’t feel obliged to make conversation on my account,’ says Noel after they have driven for five minutes in complete silence.

  ‘I’m sorry if you don’t find my company sufficiently entertaining,’ she says.

  He glances over, then turns his attention back to the road. They are driving along the seafront at Nice, with the sea to their right and to their left a series of grand white buildings with ornate balconies.

  ‘The Promenade des Anglais. Surely you have heard of it?’ says Noel, seeing her blank look.

  Eve shrugs. She has not heard of it.

  ‘What’s that?’ She is pointing out to sea where rows of dark metal pylons rise up from the water.

  ‘That used to be the Palais de la Jetée. A casino built on a pier. So beautiful. You’ve never seen anything like it. The Germans dismantled it for the metal. Copper. Brass. Bronze. Steel. Left it like that.’

  There is something shameful about the bare, desecrated stumps reaching up from the waves to clutch at nothing but thin air, and Eve looks away. The way Noel emphasizes the word ‘Germans’ seems to speak of some deep personal bitterness beyond the general attitude of resigned enmity. She recalls what Sully said about Noel flying all those missions during the war. Who knows how many friends he might have lost? There is no set pattern for grief.

  Noel heads out of Nice along the coastal Corniche, which he tersely explains is the lower of the three winding roads that cling to this part of the coastline. Glancing up to the left, where a sheer cliff rises up into the cloudless sky, she sees the tell-tale gap w
here the middle road must be, and way above that, almost in the heavens, the faint scar of the highest Corniche. A stone village rises up from the topmost peak as if it is growing out of the rocky cliff itself.

  If it wasn’t for her companion’s ill temper and her own nervousness, she would be relishing the dramatic scenery – on one side the vertiginous hillside, part forested, part sheer rock, and on the other the Mediterranean, turquoise and white-flecked as it probes its way into the inlets and tiny coves and beaches and harbours of the meandering coastline.

  ‘How well do you know Victor Meunier?’ she asks, before she is even properly aware that the art dealer is on her mind. Immediately she regrets having raised the subject. She had wanted only to make conversation, but now he will wonder about her interest.

  Noel turns to her, but she glances away to hide her flaming cheeks as if engrossed in the passing scenery.

  ‘I hardly know the man. Sorry to disappoint you.’

  His tone is sharp and Eve thinks it is unsurprising that he and the softly spoken Frenchman should have little in common.

  For the next ten minutes neither speaks. The tension between them builds until Eve cannot bear it.

  ‘Tell me more about the man we’re going to see.’ It is the first thing she can think of to break the oppressive silence.

  ‘Robin Whelan? There’s not much to say as I met him only once or twice a long time ago. He and my father shared digs for a short while at university in Cambridge, but I think it was a question of convenience rather than because they were particularly close. After they left, Whelan wrote a scandalous and enormously successful novel about the adventures of a gilded but ultimately rather callow undergraduate, who was widely assumed to be based on my father. I don’t know if they ever spoke again, even after Whelan moved here in the mid-thirties.’