The Ghost Who Fed Them Bones (3 page)

I turn under her and she slips onto her side without the slightest resistance or noise. I worry for a second whether she might be dead or in a coma but, on careful examination, I can detect her breathing softly.

Mike has left the breakfast things out on the table on the patio which is masked from the line of sight of neighbours by a thick covering of trees bordering the farm track which is used by vine-harvesters. I like to sit here naked having my breakfast, even when I do not have a guest, but it is more exciting when I do. Occasional y I misjudge the occupancy of the house, and a girlfriend of Mike’s discovers me there, so I always lay a towel on the tiles beside me, just in case. Once Mum barred me at the last minute from making naked acquaintance with the wife of the Mayor who was visiting. If Mike is bringing anyone back by car, he phones to warn me. I have always preferred to be without clothes, and isolated, discrete, Valflaunès is the perfect place for it.

Natalie arrives downstairs just as I finish my third cup of coffee. She is wearing my dressing gown. She skirts round behind me and drapes her arms over my shoulder, al owing her right hand to squirm down my stomach while she kisses the back of my head.

She moves round to my front to ease herself on top of me. “Good morning,” she says.

We speak in French. I can chat up girls in three languages - English, French and Nederlands. Mike can do English and Nederlands, but remains embarrassed about the hesitation in his French, although this disappears with repeated applications of alcohol.

“Where is your brother?” Natalie asks me.

“He has driven off somewhere, probably to see a girl in Freyrargues.”

“Are you sure?”

“I am sure that the car isn’t here. It is usual y parked at the bottom of these steps here, or in that parking bay over there, and I heard it being driven away earlier.”

“Just checking. I didn’t want to embarrass myself.” She gets up, eases off my robe, settles herself in the chair to my left and helps herself to a coffee. “It is very peaceful out here,” she comments. “I love having breakfast with the sun shining directly onto my skin. Nobody can see us?”

“Nobody. The grounds are completely fenced in and the trees are too thick to see through.”

“Do you ever make love out here?”

“Sometimes.”

“You are a love-them-and-let-them-go type, are you?” she suggests, starting to conduct sufficient personal research to indicate that she wishes to extend our relationship beyond a one-night stand.

“Not necessarily. I don’t like to hold onto people against their wil and I don’t like to kick them out either. It is normal y a question of mutual consent when we break up.”

“What is the longest you have ever had a girlfriend?”

“I was with someone for nine months. She was probably my most serious relationship.”

“Not very serious if it was only nine months.”

“It was, but her parents moved on to Hong Kong. People don’t stay in Brussels for more than three or four years.”

“That must be frustrating for you.”

“It hasn’t mattered too much yet.”

“And have you had many girlfriends around here?”

“Yes, I have had a few. We have been coming here most summers for the last fifteen years.”

“So you have summer flings, then.”

“I have whatever happens. I don’t plan anything much.”

“What happens in Freyrargues?”

“We met a family there are few weeks ago. They are there en masse – the parents, their daughter Fiona, her husband John, John’s parents the Hardings who were involved in a kidnapping a few years ago, their daughter Sarah, who was also kidnapped and who is the one that Mike is interested in, a friend cal ed Peter, another older friend they picked up cal ed John who is a retired policeman, and us, which includes my parents when they are around. It is an endless party over there – quite fun, actual y.”

“Where are your parents now?”

“They have gone across to Agay, the other side of Saint-Raphael, to visit friends. We used to live there once. They’l be back on Tuesday.”

“So you can do what you like until then.”

“We can do what we like at any time. They never stop us doing anything, although Mum can blow up sometimes, usual y at my Dad.”

“They argue?”

“Constantly.”

She wrinkles her nose. “That can’t be nice.”

“We are used to it. It is no big deal. It worries Mike sometimes. It doesn’t bother me. They aren’t going to split up or anything. It is quite reassuring to be surrounded by people who behave worse than we do.”

“I hate it. My parents argue al the time too. I cannot bear being there.”

My chances of seeing Natalie again may be fading – stil it is better to know now.

She gets up. “Do you mind if I have a shower?”

“Help yourself.”

“Do you want to join me?”

The prospects are looking up again.

* * *

Mike returns mid-afternoon to say that we are invited to Freyrargues this evening, if we wish – Natalie too.

Natalie agrees to come, but we have to swing by her parents’ house for her to change, which entails making polite conversation with them for half an hour over a suze-cassis. The father is a bal of fire who keeps flinging me 'Have you just been fucking my daughter?' looks. Just to goad him I make it extremely obvious that I have, several times, and maybe with another bout to fol ow later.

Natalie’s parents even argue in front of us over something to do with an aunt, and then over what happened to his screwdriver he left in the kitchen, and then he started questioning whether Natalie shouldn’t be staying home tonight, a speculation crushed emphatical y by Natalie who has not the slightest intention of being grounded.

“Bye, Dad. Bye, Mum. Enjoy yourselves.”

“These two tel us that you are going over to the château at Freyrargues.”

“Yes.”

“And you are invited?”

“Natural y.”

“And where wil you be sleeping?”

“Don’t wait up. That isn’t decided yet.”

“We would like you to come back here within a reasonable time.”

“Night, Dad. Don’t stay up,” at which point she saunters out towards the car. Mike and I shake hands with her parents and fol ow sharpish.

* * *

We find a huge party of people spread around the garden and into the swimming pool, with the Earl and Countess of Affligem (Fiona’s parents) presiding magisterial y, if self-effacingly, over the throng. We should probably go and pay our respects but they are surrounded by people. The Earl does wave at us though.

“We need a swimming costume for Natalie,” Mike decides. “I’l ask Sarah.”

“I don’t think Sarah’s would stay on Natalie,” I caution.

“Oh, they have mil ions of spare costumes lying around. She can have any size she likes. Do you want to swim, Natalie?” Mike asks her belatedly.

“Yes,” she replies.

“Come this way then,” Mike encourages her – smooth talker. He wants to check her out and to demonstrate to Sarah what a kind-hearted chappie he is, which he undoubtedly is. I keep tel ing him that girls prefer the bastards to the toadies, especial y English girls, but he ignores me. “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride,” I mutter to myself. If he real y wants Sarah, he is going to have to listen to me sooner of later.

He is facing stiff competition. There are al sorts of new faces at the party, most of them seemingly intent on picking Sarah up, and some of them real y knowing what they are doing. Wel , only one looks to be a real threat – a real y foxy guy who gives the impression of being half-artist and half-banker – ‘soulful financier seeks impressionable English woman for conquest’. I watch them talking for a second or two, trying to figure out whether there is a real threat to Mike’s chances here and, if so, how I can help him, while Natalie stands there smiling enchantedly. She has resisted Mike’s invitation, so he has gone off on his own. I nod towards Sarah. “That is the one that Mike is after,” although that has become obvious as Mike approaches her to inquire about a costume for Natalie.

John, Fiona’s husband, comes over and I introduce Natalie. “What’s going on?” I ask as there is suddenly a shrapnel of shock that emerges from a group of people near the Affligems.

“God alone knows,” John replies. “When you are as bored as this lot are anything can shock you.”

“Why are they bored?” Natalie asks, breaking into a perfectly acceptable English.

“Too much money, not enough brain power to spend it on,” John comments dismissively. “Party al day, party al night.”

John’s friend Peter approaches, winks at Natalie, and drapes himself over John in much the same way as Natalie did with me on the patio this morning. “You wil never believe it,” he begins to confide exclusively to John.

“What?”

“Inspector John claims to have found an arm rotting in his garden – a woman’s right forearm. He thinks it has been there some time except that it should not stil have so much flesh on it. He is baffled.”

“Real y?”

“Real y.”

“What was that?” Natalie asks me, her shock confounding her understanding. I explain. “Oh how horrible,” she adds appropriately.

“Wel , there is a daughter of the house missing, apparently,” Peter continues, “but she disappeared years ago and the police dug up the whole garden at the time. So they don’t think it can be her, unless she came back. Anyway, John expects them to start digging up his garden al over again in the morning.”

Natalie turns to me. “Is that the house you found so spooky?” she asks me in French.

“Yes,” I reply, not wishing to elaborate.

“You did?” Peter chal enges me.

“The house had a funny atmosphere,” I add.

Fiona joins us and Peter brings her up-to-date to the point where I had found the place spooky.

“What kind of spooky?” she asks me.

“How many kinds of spooky are there?” John throws in.

Fiona sighs at John. “I meant why did he find it spooky?”

“It was just spooky,” I confirm. “That’s al .”

“Are you clairvoyant, Paul?” she asks me.

“Not normal y.”

“Do you know whose arm it was?”

“Haven’t a clue.”

Peter cackles. “And he wouldn’t tel us if he did.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Fiona shoots at me.

“How would I know who it was?” I counter in exasperated self-defence. “I am not even from around here. It could be anybody in France, for al I know.”

“So you think it was a French girl / woman?” Fiona perseveres.

“I don’t even know that,” I say. “Al that happened was that Inspector John took me round to his house and I felt a real y unsettled atmosphere. That is al .”

“Do you live around here?” Fiona asks Natalie.

“No, I live in Montpel ier.”

“Oh wel , at least it is something to talk about beyond yachts, share prices, night clubs and restaurants, and who is shagging whom, of course. I need a drink,” Fiona adds.

“I’l get you one, Darling,” John offers.

“That’s OK. I also need a walk.” (A feat she accomplishes very nicely).

I always prefer it when there are less people about, which is a luxury anywhere near the Affligems at Freyrargues. They seem to be al ergic to sparse populations and to one-to-one contact. Every time I have been over there, there have been ten to twenty guests, some staying at the house, some passing through on the way to their own holiday homes or to a luxury Riviera hotel, some locals, and some merely hangers-on of people in the other three categories. I suppose that it is like an extended country house weekend party, except that it is held rather more exotical y in the Languedoc than in Shropshire or Oxfordshire or whatever, and the weather is more reliable and, at the whacky prices they pay, the wine is better too.

There is a hard core of attendees – the Affligems, Fiona, John, Sarah, and Peter, and then a revolving kaleidoscope of others, al of whom seem equal y at home here, helping themselves to as much alcohol as two hands and two feet wil grab them, and seating themselves at the long table on the terrace that stretches elastical y to accommodate everyone. They just keep adding extensions. I have seen them doing that. Twenty people, thirty people, forty people, al settling into place in clusters of animated conversation punctuated by social exhaustion.

The hard bit is conversation management. Sometimes there are lul s that last an hour during which nobody says a word when they should be exploding with sparkling provocations. Conversely, everyone has told us at least seventy-seven times that al discussion is formal y banned at breakfast on pain of paying for lunch in the local “waterhole” (not my word), not the one in this vil age which is quite nice but shunned for some reason, but the one five kilometres away which has inedible food at indigestible prices (thanks for that witticism, Peter), probably on the back of al the château guests who violate the rule. Even venturing “good morning” or shaking hands can land you with the bil for the entrées.

Mike and I have never been at the Château for breakfast, nor at Le Pied Noir, reputedly the only restaurant in the area to describe what it serves directly in its name. Most of the Château guests have added the word ‘cheesy’ to it, so it is referred to in English as “the Cheesy Black Foot”, reflecting its penchant for serving the type of cheese that likes to get up and walk around before being eaten – shades of ‘The Restaurant At The End Of The Universe’, which is its other nickname, based on some British comedy show which made the Affligem crowd ‘hoot’, but which I have never heard of.

Nor have I ever yet shared a thought with Lord Affligem. He is very affable, he smiles, he nods, he waves, he grunts, but he doesn’t speak to people like me – too young, too distant, too spiky? – nor to anybody that I have ever noticed. He bobs up and down in a group and stays silent, coughing occasional y. His wife, the Countess, is very different – terrifical y sociable and terrifyingly articulate. She quizzed me on my views for about thirty minutes the first time I came round here, and it was the most scary half-an-hour of my life, and I thought that Mum was a ruthless cross-examiner. She has nothing on the Countess. You need to be wearing a Kevlar suit and it is stil better to stay wel outside thrusting distance. We al know what she wil be like when she is dead. It wil only be a question of which house she chooses to haunt and whether she prefers to clank chains or howl like a wolf.