The Sea Garden Read online

  It might have been Laurent, so she waved. He did not respond.

  The lighthouse was set on a great solid base, like a chimney rising from a bunker. What looked elegantly well proportioned when framed by the arch of the memorial garden was a monumental structure closer up.

  Ellie pushed the bicycle towards it. Birds shrieked from high trees, among them the Wasp-eater, the Thin-Beak, and the Stormy Petrel, according to the guidebook. Giant fennel plants, showstoppers of the plant kingdom, offered globes composed of hundreds of yellow flowers; the towering stalks of these relatives of the hemlock contained a resin that could sicken grazing livestock and even kill. There was no sign of livestock here.

  She walked around two sides of the lighthouse before she saw the door. The handle was rusty, but it opened easily.

  Inside was a tiny museum—or rather, as there were few display cases but a considerable number of photographs and framed information sheets on the walls, a simple room offering a potted history of the lighthouse.

  Ellie reached instinctively for her notebook, already scanning the walls for a complementary mirror view across the bay to the Domaine de Fayols.

  The largest photograph was garlanded with a draped French flag with a plaque bearing the date: August 22, 1944. It showed the lighthouse dirty and run-down. To the left of this was a poster-size photograph, with a bilingual caption, of Senegalese troops led by General Magnan, breaching the beach defences to liberate the island under covering fire from American marines in their corvettes. To the right was another large photograph, of a line of islanders walking into the Place d’Armes led by the Abbé le Cuziat. According to the caption, they broke spontaneously into a rendition of “La Marseillaise,” the song echoing in the still air as the stout abbot hurried to the bell tower from which he raised the tricolour flag. Several houses on the left side of the square, as well as the beautiful Fournier house known as Le Château, were still smouldering in the wake of the departing Germans.

  On a glass-topped table in front of these was a large, open ledger filled with rows of dates and figures, open to August 1944. A pair of well-worn gloves was attributed to Henri Rousset, the guardian of the lighthouse and recipient of the cross of the Légion d’Honneur in recognition of his heroic wartime actions.

  Ellie spent a few more minutes looking around but found no connections to the domaine across the bay. She pulled the door closed after her and walked slowly to the edge of the cliff.

  Patchy rock and scrub stretched out in the sun like old animals that were losing their fur. She almost tripped over a tall stone, so dazzling was the light. She looked down at her feet and saw that the stone had been placed deliberately by the path. Sunk into it was a lead plaque that read:

  Angelo, bel Angelo Gabriel

  Se tu non festi un angelo

  Non vole resti in Ciel

  Chanson

  The sun pulsed ever warmer on her skin. Ellie stared down with a sudden sense of joy, which just as quickly dissipated, as if she had been on the brink of some profound understanding that fled from any scrutiny. It was the thought of war, she rationalized, like the death of the boy on the ferry. Everything led back to Dan. The loss and terror was the same, whether that war raged within the pages of picture books, fought with chariots and winged horses and pomegranate seeds against the dark powers of the underworld, or with cannonballs sent from ships to Napoleonic forts on islands, or in the searing deserts of Helmand.

  She wished she believed in silent communication, in delicate signs that some spirits still burned, but she did not.

  Yet something made her look back, up at the lighthouse lamp, and the words came into her head: the light of the world. The thought caught her by surprise. She had never been particularly religious, even less so after Dan.

  The man was standing quite still, studying her.

  He was about ten metres away, maybe less. His hands were pushed deep into the pockets of baggy trousers. It was hard to make out his features in the glare of the late morning sun. Her first thought was that he had something to do with the lighthouse, that he had come to ask her whether she wanted to make a donation to the homemade museum. She opened her mouth to give a tentative “Bonjour” but replaced it with a weak smile when he backed away. His retreat was curiously mocking, his palms held up in apology. She felt stupid, as if she had made some groundless accusation.

  She looked away. Could he be the man she had waved to across the bay? She tried to recapture the scene in her mind, but it refused to materialize.

  When she looked up a moment later, he had gone.

  I had another idea last night. It came to me after you left,” said Laurent de Fayols. “What do you think about a garden landscaped to be seen from the air?”

  They were in a book-lined library, mercifully cool and softly lit after the harsh morning sun over the sea. Her photographs and sketches of the memorial garden were spread across a table.

  “It would be a piece of fun, with a serious purpose,” Laurent went on, obviously enthused. “You have heard, I imagine, of Jacques Simon? No? OK, so since the early 1990s he was involved with what they call land art. Jacques Simon planted fields so that their designs and pictures could be visible from the air. Mainly these fields were on land close to airports, so they came into view when the planes took off and landed.”

  This was so different from what they had previously discussed that she was at a loss. “You think you might want to try a design like that here?”

  “There are many pleasure flights around here—it might even be a clever way of getting publicity for the wine we make.”

  Ellie hesitated, feeling blindsided. He seized on her bewilderment to usher her out of the room, onto the terrace, and down into the grounds. “Come, come! You’ll see what I mean.”

  Instead of taking the wisteria walkway towards the memorial garden, he led her through orchards of apricots, peaches, nectarines, and almonds, trying to explain his vision for this set piece as they approached the vineyard.

  It would have to be cleverly done, she thought, with reliable plants, but why not? If it was done well, it would be the talking point of the garden, and would generate good publicity for her as well as the vineyards at the Domaine de Fayols. It would be a unique modern creation. As a commission it had some distinct advantages over the historical restoration.

  “All right . . . I’m just thinking out loud here. . . . If you want to dream up the kind of picture you’d like, then I’m very happy to discuss the practicalities, how it might be achieved. You want this as an alternative to the memorial restoration?”

  “No, in addition of course. I’m not sure yet how I want it to look. It’s just the beginning of an idea at the moment, you understand.”

  “Of course.”

  As she looked up, a small plane passed overhead. A white scratch opened across the dense blue of the sky.

  “Gardens have always been about history and symbolism,” said Laurent. “The earthly paradise, the enclosed retreat from a cruel outside world.”

  “I agree. That’s the fascinating dimension—”

  “I knew you would see it that way!”

  “But”—she struggled to find a way of putting it diplomatically— “this is completely new . . . not at all what I was prepared for.” Only a day into the project, and Laurent was already revealing himself to be one of those maddeningly indecisive clients who constantly change their minds.

  “But I believe in you, Miss Brooke. I have no doubt that you could achieve anything you wanted. And it is not impossible, is it?”

  She pulled a face. “It can certainly be done,” she said when she saw how optimistic he was. So it could be, though it would require considerable extra work. “Can you describe what you have in mind?”

  He rattled off ideas. He took her through the types of vines planted on the estate: monistel, grenache, queue-de-renard, clairette-pointu, cinsault, rosé d’Aramon. He proposed they taste the wines; she could study the subtle differences in their colour
; it would be an amusement that she would enjoy.

  But before they even reached the vineyard, Laurent veered off on yet another path. “Come, I want to show you what remains of the Greek wells. . . . That part of the estate opens up some most interesting possibilities. . . .”

  She left that afternoon with an aching head. Whenever she had tried to discuss the memorial restoration, Laurent had quickly reverted to his new agenda, to advertise the vineyard from the air. His vision involved a river of red and pink to represent the abundant flow of wine. An interesting idea, but Ellie had to consider the practicalities. Rivers of lavender had been done. Waves of red, though—planted with what? Roses, pelargoniums, dark red oleanders? The best designs were all about patterns and playfulness, though there was a line between creative ingenuity and silly excess. And what about the labour-intense maintenance each year, and the poor longevity of such a scheme? Even a river of lavender would only last for a decade or so without careful tending.

  Close to the most northwesterly point of the island, the wooded path sloped gently to meet the tideless sea. The beach was empty. She swam at last in the sea, feeling herself revive in water that slipped around her limbs like satin sheets.

  Birds pecked at the shoreline. At one point someone else came down to the sand, then a dog ran past. The next time she looked back, both dog and owner had gone.

  Her arms felt strong as she made for the rocks at the arm of the bay. The water was so clear it was like a discovery of a silent new world of cave entrances and subterranean flowers. A deeper dive, and she would be able to touch the bed. A few kicks, and she went down. She was almost there when, from nowhere, the thought welled up that she might never make it up again. She stroked harder, watching her own pale arms draw closer to a constellation of starfish, a night sky above a coral garden.

  A dull pain in her chest intensified. The water darkened all around her, and she panicked. If she didn’t act now, she would lose consciousness. She turned back, in a sunlight-shattering, froth-churning, choking rush for the surface. As she broke the water, the thought came to her: You nearly drowned.

  She splashed to the nearest rock and held on, panting, blinking the salt from her eyes. She was fine. How ridiculous. Nothing was wrong. Yet the feeling persisted, hardening into an image of her own body on the seabed, the only movement from her hair waving slowly like weeds.

  To prove her vitality, she swam crawl and backstroke until the sky was catching fire.

  Shops and restaurants lined the harbour waterfront like a string of amber beads in the gathering night. To the whicker of bicycles moving past, returning sailors leapt from their yachts and shouted greetings and gathered to relay news of the day’s winds and triumphs.

  Ellie parked the bicycle outside the rental shop.

  “You want again for tomorrow?” asked the proprietor.

  “Yes, please.”

  “You have a nice time?”

  “Very nice, thank you.”

  She realised she was relieved to be among other people—people who were not scrutinising her—and to have a friendly, inconsequential exchange. Back in her room at the Oustaou, she checked the messages on her mobile as her laptop powered up. There were a couple of messages; she called the office first.

  Her business partner, Sarah—the May of Brooks May—picked up on the second ring. “At last! I’ve been trying to get hold of you and kept going straight through to voice mail.” It was reassuring to hear Sarah’s voice, to visualize the red curls bobbing as she tried to do six tasks with her spare hand, still at the office attached to the nursery just outside Chichester.

  “I was with the client most of the day.”

  “So how’s it going?”

  “Well . . . not straightforward, but it’s a stunning place. All sea and sky and light—except for the site of the restoration, unfortunately. But there’s plenty of scope. It could be sensational.”

  “But?”

  “But . . .” How could she explain? “There’s no ‘but.’ The amount of work the client’s talking about is a bit overwhelming—more than just the memorial garden. There’s a lot to be done to the gardens leading into it.”

  Sarah’s silence on the line seemed to question whether it had been a good idea to take this on. But they had rehearsed all the arguments too many times: this was business, a game-changing opportunity to expand internationally.

  “You don’t always have to be so . . . tough, so hard on yourself, Ellie. You can say that it’s too much.”

  Ellie hesitated, then decided not to tell her business partner about the boy on the boat; reliving it would not help.

  “Look, I’ll call you in a day or so and let you know how it’s working out here. There’s a lot of mind-changing and . . . I don’t know, a bit of a strange vibe. It’s not going to be straightforward.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, I’m just . . . perhaps I’m tired. I can’t seem to think.”

  “Sure you’re all right?”

  “Yeah . . . I need to do some more research. It could be a huge job for us, a real chance to prove ourselves, but obviously I need to be sure we can deliver.”

  “Given the obvious difficulties, perhaps the most practical solution would be to offer some designs and let them arrange construction?”

  “You may well be right. But to get full credit we’ll need to oversee the whole project. I’m sure it can be done, but it will require some thought. Perhaps we could think about subcontracting or sharing the jobs of building and purchasing the plants with an established landscape company on the mainland.”

  “Do you want me to come out? The Akehurst job will be finished in the next few days; I could get on a plane.”

  “No, it’s not worth it. I’ll be home myself soon enough. But you might do a bit of research on landscape and garden firms based in Provence that we could approach.”

  “But it might be helpful to—”

  “No, really, the extra expense . . . Laurent de Fayols is only paying for one of us to get here. If nothing comes of this, we’ll barely cover costs, and the office will be closed in the meantime.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  “ ’Course.”

  She didn’t go far that evening, eating dinner at one of the tables laid out under the Oustaou’s red canopy. No sign of Lieutenant Meunier tonight. She felt the pocket of her jeans. His card was still there.

  “You are very serious, thinking all the time,” said Jean-Luc as he placed a platter of Provençal hors d’oeuvres in front of her.

  “Yes. . . . Jean-Luc, do you know a man on the island who wears a panama hat, white linen shirt?” Even as she was saying the words, she felt stupid. “No, forget it. There must be hundreds of men here it could be. I’m—”

  “Sooner or later, you meet everyone here.”

  He smiled as if he knew why she was asking.

  She let him think what he liked. He was right, though: the Place d’Armes was clearly the beating heart of the island. In the slightly sticky heat, men played pétanque. The evening crowd seemed to be mostly families with younger children, and older couples, self-consciously dressing down. The few teenagers were of university age, roaming in well-behaved packs. The atmosphere was the same as any holiday island with good sailing: full of the quietly well-to-do and the bourgeois families, bon chic, bon genre, who had been coming here for decades, all meeting each summer, their children growing up together during long days full of healthy activities.

  When she had finished her meal, Ellie strolled out among them, people-watching carefully. She lingered at the many ice cream shops so as not to look conspicuous walking round and round the square. They sold extraordinary flavours: lavender, liquorice, apple tart, candied orange, bitter caramel, and an unfathomable blue confection labelled “Stroumph.” She did not try any, nor did she see anyone resembling the man she’d spoken to on the boat.

  4

  The Restoration

  Wednesday, June 5

  She arrived
at the Domaine de Fayols by nine o’clock the next morning, hoping to show Laurent her preliminary sketches of the memorial garden and get his reaction.

  “He has gone to Paris,” said Jeanne.

  “Oh.”

  The housekeeper gave a smile as thin as her body. “Did he not tell you?”

  “No.”

  “He left some information for you.”

  On the library table was a botanical dictionary dedicated to the region topped by a note, again written with a fountain pen. “Another idea! An apothecary garden as part of the memorial? The doctor experimented with growing the medicinal plants he needed.”

  That was all. No polite excuse or explanation for his sudden absence. She looked up into a shaft of sunlight that fizzed with dust motes. In the brightness Ellie noticed for the first time how worn most of the furniture was, the faded colours of the rugs on the tiled floor.

  It occurred to her for the first time to question whether there was enough money to pay for the restoration job, let alone the daunting new projects Laurent now seemed to envisage. She stared into an enlargement of one of the age-speckled photographs with a rising annoyance. It would not be the first time she had been inveigled into wasting time on what had turned out to be nothing more than a fantasy of self-importance.

  This time Ellie recognised the tapping on the stone floors. The sound of waves—breaths in, breaths out—preceded the entrance of Mme de Fayols.

  “Bonjour, madame.”

  The woman waved away her greeting, paused unsteadily, and then approached with the irritating inevitability of a wasp to an August picnic.

  “After the fire, I had to have someone to live here with me, or that was what the mayor decided when he came down to see me with his deputy and a woman from the commune I had never met. As if they felt I needed to be looked after like a child. It was only a small fire, but it left this room blackened to blazes.”

  She rasped a strange laugh at her choice of words. “It looked worse than it was. The couple who came to look after me covered it over with cheap paint, but I couldn’t bear to be in there; the smoke marks didn’t take long to break through the thin white skin, so the room was shut up.”