12

So where was Esmé in all of this?

In a way, she was the rain that you forget. If Sofi asked about her, I told her not to; it was best to block the blackbird out.

Pip took up the tray and Badoit alone. ‘It’s just sometimes,’ he’d say when he came down. But that summer it was nearly always. She stayed upstairs, alone, in the dark. Once, when Pip thought we were outside doing back crabs in the garden, we heard him come down with a bag of clanking bottles.

‘There’s something in the water,’ Sofi said one evening when we were getting ready for the Mermaid, ear by ear in the bathroom.

‘There’s always something in the water on islands.’

‘You know what I mean,’ (index finger to the ceiling) ‘Her water.’ She mimed drunkenness by crossing her eyes.

I finished my mascara and said that it was none of our business.

During the day, at our round table, when one of us talked too loudly (Sofi), the other two would point to the ceiling. Esmé’s bedroom was directly above us, and a finger to the sky became shorthand. Esmé above was a strange crown, though not exactly a thorned one. She made us quieter, but she also made so many things funnier, the way it is in school assemblies, when you know you’re not allowed to laugh. And we were not stupid. All of it – the morning rosé, the sunburn, our laziness – all of it felt safer with some sort of parent around.

On Sunday morning, every Sunday, she went for a long walk. She always left at eleven, and when we asked Pip why, he told us that it was her version of church.

‘Where does she go though?’

‘Just around.’

‘Around where?’

‘The island.’

And she did. She walked almost the full perimeter of the island. Sometimes if we went out on a Sunday, we’d see her in the distance – near the powder blue hydrangeas of La Sablonnerie, or on the slopes down to Bec du Nez – and change our path. Sofi asked if we shouldn’t say hi, but Pip said it was best to leave her, that it was her way of thinking.

‘It’s weird though,’ Sofi said to me, when we were alone. ‘I always thought she was anachrophobic.’

‘What’s that?’

‘Scared of the outdoors. Space.’ When she said space, she made her eyes big too.

‘Ag oraphobic.’

‘Exactly.’

Even if we didn’t see her, I thought about Esmé on her walks. I imagined her not taking paths, and how small she’d be against the open fields. In my head, it was always windy, and she walked with her arms around her waist and her head dipped. The wind was almost strong enough to blow her over. I always felt a strange relief when she came home. I think we all did.

She was important. Sofi didn’t smoke inside, because Esmé would have smelt it. We slept at Bonita’s and mostly observed mealtimes and washed up, because somewhere, there was Esmé. We used her when she was needed. It was Pip who mentioned Lord of the Flies.