Stafford retreated into the cool of the house for the rest of the day. I spent the afternoon lying by the pool, while the shade moved from where it merely grazed my toes to envelop me completely.
Stafford had told me that he was as sure as he could be that the baby was Mum. So, it seemed, my mother had been the Frenchman’s daughter.
It was now that I put my secret wish to rest. Since Stafford had first told me of his love for Alice I had harboured some hope that he might, in fact, be my grandfather. I had even – I blushed to think it then – begun to tentatively wonder if my interest in art might after all be something inherent … in my genes. I had come to like Stafford so much that I had longed for this to be the thing that strengthened the bond between us so it could not be broken. I had only allowed myself to explore these thoughts in small, furtive bursts, telling myself not to allow the hope to grow too great, as the disappointment would be all the more bitter if it were crushed. In this I had failed.
As for Alice, she had been twenty-two years old, alone and afraid, in a less forgiving era. Was it enough to exonerate her, for giving Mum away? The rational part of me knew that it probably was. But why send the letter, so many years later? Why that desperate, lonely attempt to get back in touch? Could I forgive her that? I wasn’t sure.
When Oliver came down to swim lengths I feigned sleep, but it felt as though the top layer of my skin had been removed so that I was aware of his every disturbance of the air between us. I did not want to talk to him. I was oddly certain that if I did I would not be able to stop myself from telling him what I had learned.
I heard him clamber from the pool and pad over to the other chair, where he had left his things.
‘Kate?’
I was forced to open my eyes and look up at him.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes,’ I said, cautiously. ‘I’m fine.’
He reached for his towel and began to dry himself. I tried not to look as he did it, at the expanses of taut skin that were revealed by his movements.
‘Gerard and I have spent the morning working on the boat, making sure she’s watertight. I was thinking of how – when we were in Bonifacio – you mentioned going out in her …’
I nodded, flushing to recall the embarrassment I had felt. It seemed a curiously long time ago, now.
‘Perhaps we could take her out later. Would you like to? You could bring your camera, if you wanted.’
‘OK then – yes.’
‘I don’t think we can go as far as the caves – I’m not sure she’s ready for such a long journey – but we could take her along the coast here. It’s flat out there – it’ll be the perfect evening for it.’
So, before supper, we went out in the boat. I did bring my Nikon, and though I’d had misgivings about its safety I was glad that I had. At this time of day the sand of the coves and the rocks that ringed them appeared aflame: a fire that had miraculously found its way across the surface of the water to burn there too.
There was a kind of alchemy to photography back then that has been lost to us in the digital age. Now, we can view a photo on a screen as soon as it has been taken. Then, we were attempting to collect some fragment of what we saw with no guarantee that we would bring back anything of worth. It was akin to a child dangling a fishing net in a rock pool, watching as the life forms seem to swim their way into captivity, only to lift it out and discover that just seaweed remains.
Oliver had brought a tripod with him, and he helped me to fix the Nikon to it. My fingers trembled, ever so slightly, when his hands brushed mine. Then he told me to crouch low in the boat, too, to steady myself.
‘The first time I tried to take photographs from the boat they came out like abstracts,’ he said, ‘blurred shapes and colours – quite beautiful in a way, but not what I had been hoping to achieve.’
I got myself into position, crouching down, thankful that the water was millpond-still. I did not want to risk these photos being ruined. I wanted to get it all exactly as it was. In fact, I felt again that frustration that I could not in some way capture everything else: the marine scent that emanated from the old boat’s interior, the warm fingers of the evening breeze. And there was that hush – unlike anything I could ever experience in London – broken only by the call of swifts catching insects near the shore, where they soared and plunged in extraordinary patterns.
‘I can tell you’re a good photographer,’ Oliver said.
‘Oh? How did you come to that conclusion?’
‘Because of the way you look at things,’ he said. ‘You’re watchful …’
I wasn’t sure I liked the sound of that – it reminded me, uncomfortably, of how he had caught me looking at the photos. ‘Can that be a good thing?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said, intently. ‘It’s not simply good – it’s essential for an artist. I see it in Grand-père too. It has to do with the way you look at everything. An intensity.’
‘You must have that too,’ I told him, ‘to be an architect.’
‘No. It’s much more prosaic, a matter of mathematics rather than art.’
He was being modest, of course. ‘But you take photographs too,’ I said.
‘Yes, and I enjoy it. But I have never been able to take any I am truly proud of. Mine are just a record of what’s in front of me. To make the viewer see something beyond the image – that’s a special skill. As different as one of Grand-père’s works from a paint-by-numbers. I try – but I won’t ever be a great photographer, it’s just not there.’ He paused. ‘It’s important to know your limitations. When I was young I thought I could paint, even decided I wanted to be an artist, like Grand-père. It was quite a long and painful process to discover I would never be good enough.’
He said it without any discernible trace of bitterness, though I was sure that the reckoning would have come as a blow at the time.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘it was a short and painful process to discover I couldn’t dance. Thank God I found out I could at least do something useful with a camera.’
He smiled at this, and I felt rather pleased – his smiles were a rare commodity.
‘I need to stop talking to you and let you concentrate,’ he said then. ‘You’ll lose the light otherwise.’
I realized with alarm that he was right, that the band of brilliant light was slipping down the cliffs, soon to be lost. I put my eye to the viewfinder and took several shots – more than were strictly necessary, just to be sure.
Suddenly a rogue gust of wind whipped my hair across my face, blinding me. Before I could disentangle my hands to sweep it away, Oliver had reached out a hand and done it for me. I turned back to thank him and found him gazing at me with the strangest expression, one that caused the words to stick in my throat. We were trapped by that look, like two animals. It frightened me, the possibility in it, even as excitement quickened in my stomach.
But then Oliver spoke. ‘It looks like we’re starting to lose the light,’ he said, his voice slightly louder than it needed to be. He moved away from me, heading towards the engine – right at the back of the boat. ‘We should make for the shore.’
The moment had disintegrated – almost as though it had never existed.
Oliver started the engine. As we sped across the darkening waters, I tried to tell myself that we had avoided something terrible – something that could not have been allowed to happen. He had done the right thing, for both of us.