Matilde was so thoughtful to her guests, thought Celeste, as she straightened out the blanket. It was just her daughter she forgot about. The only time she had been nurtured by Matilde was when she had her tonsils out when she was six, the year before Camille died. Matilde had put her daughter into clean sheets and rubbed lavender onto her temples when she had a headache. Camille had sat at the end of the bed and had read her Babar, and Papa had bought her little honey sweets to soothe her throat.
Her mother certainly hadn’t been in this mood when Celeste arrived unannounced from Paris the day before.
‘Celeste, what are you doing here?’ she had asked, surprise showing in her blue eyes. At fifty-five years old, Matilde Le Marche had retained her figure, her married name, and her love of socialising.
‘I needed to get away from Paris,’ was all Celeste had said, pushing through the door of the villa.
‘Married men make women crazy and women make married men crazy. It is better to be single,’ said Matilde as she’d picked up her tennis racquet, which was next to the front door. ‘Look at me.’
Celeste knew better than to open the door to the conversation that would start if she commented on her mother’s statement. The only thing Matilde liked to do more than gossip was to complain about the affairs her father had had while they were still married.
Of course, Matilde had learned of Celeste’s affair with Paul Le Brun from the nephew of a friend, whose ex-boyfriend was in love with Paul.
Too many visits under the guise of decorating his office had brought attention to their relationship, and since then Paul had been retreating from seeing Celeste as often.
Was it just her, or was the sex a little less intense also, or was that because he was nearing fifty?
What if he died while they were making love? She had heard of such stories, and the idea of Paul dead on top of her while still inside her made her shudder.
Celeste tried to shake her morbidity and closed her eyes, the cool air caressing her face. Her phone chimed again and she rushed to turn it down and saw a text message from her father.
Grand-Mère passed last night
So much death in this family, she thought, as she read the message.
Her father Robert was not one for extreme displays of emotion and the news of Grand-Mère Daphné’s passing was handled in his usual taciturn way.
She thought about messaging him back, but what could she say to ease her father’s relationship with his mother?
She had enough problems with Matilde. The idea of her mother was far nicer than the reality. It was the same with Grand-Mère Daphné. She was always frightening to her as a child and she hadn’t seen her in a year, not since Daphné’s heart went into failure and she had gone into hiding.
‘I’m surprised she has a heart to fail,’ her father had quipped over their quarterly lunch at La Tour d’Argent, which Celeste loathed but knew it was vital to attend if she were to keep her measly allowance from Papa.
Daphné Le Marche was never a warm person to Celeste or anyone else, but she had rescued her granddaughter from her time at the Allemagne school and that alone was worth a moment’s silence for the old woman.
She would organise the funeral, she thought. It would be an elegant event, like Daphné. God knows what it would turn into if her father was left to manage the details. If he had his way, her grandmother would be shipped out to sea in a cardboard coffin, and not even a prayer offered.
Perhaps she should have said more to her grandmother over the years, especially after that telephone call from Allemagne, made to Daphné when she was sixteen, which saved her life. Robert and Matilde were so immersed in their own grief and self-destruction that they didn’t see their surviving daughter was dying at boarding school.
It was the only time in her childhood that Celeste had had a champion. It was Daphné who had told Robert that Celeste was anorexic, and a victim of extreme bullying and that she had tried to overdose on painkillers. It was Daphné who had told Matilde to step up and be a mother or she would lose both children. It was Daphné who had organised Celeste to attend hospital and finish her final classes at home with a tutor.
And it was Daphné who had ruined the school’s reputation with Europe’s elite when it refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing and turned a blind eye to the beatings of Celeste, the urine-soaked bed, courtesy of the girls in her dormitory, which Celeste was forced to sleep in most nights, and the ostracising of her from every meal and every social event.
What were once rumours of a culture of bullying at the school soon became absolute truth once Daphné made calls to certain important families. Soon there was a removal of some of the most elite students by their families and the school never quite regained its footing among the upper classes again.
Celeste never knew why it was her who had been chosen as the victim of the bullying. Was she too tall? Too thin? Too blonde? Too something?
The only time it had been discussed was when Matilde had called her on the telephone as Celeste was being put on a drip for dehydration and a low heart rate.
‘They don’t like you because you’re too beautiful, like me. Women don’t like women like us, we’re a threat,’ Matilde had slurred down the phone.
So Celeste grew to view all women as the enemy, even her own mother.
She opened her eyes, as she heard the sound of birds stirring in the bougainvillea, scratching and fighting to wake first. I envy them, she thought, it must be easy being a bird. She looked out at the growing light in the distance, colours of sherbet orange filling the sky and, for a moment, her eyes pricked with tears for Grand-Mère. She said a little prayer for Camille to look after her when she arrived in the afterlife.
She was under no illusions though that her grandmother would have thought of her on her deathbed. The woman barely had time for Robert, let alone his daughter. All she cared about was her business.
Now Le Marche would belong to Robert, and he would sell it to the Japanese as soon as he could. She pulled the cotton blanket up to her chest and wondered about Sibylla.
Did she know? Who would tell her? Would she come to the funeral?
But Celeste had no idea how to contact her cousin in Australia.
God, that was so far away, she thought. She struggled even travelling to London. Everything she needed was in Paris, Paul was in Paris. With his family, playing the perfect husband and father. That would be all over tomorrow if the news got out about their affair.
But if that were true, she thought, why had she run to Nice?
There were too many thoughts to try to put into order, so, instead, she watched the sun rise like fire in the distance.
But her thoughts came back like the waves below the villa, crashing into the cliff.
Was Paul at home in his bed with his wife, while their children slept peacefully in their little beds? Was he watching the sunrise from his balcony? Would he think of her as he showered? Would he think of her undressing as he dressed?
Did he sip on his coffee and wonder if she was thinking of him also?
Did he love her like she loved him?
Tears burned so harshly, she squeezed her eyes shut, even though Grand-Mère had always told her to never line her face with anything other than a smile.
A half sun sat on the horizon now, and Celeste felt more at peace in the glow.
Darkness was her worst time. Nights like this were hard to bear alone.
Thirty years old and the mistress of a politician. Thirty years old with no discernible career, except as an occasional interior designer and stylist. Thirty years old and still taking an allowance from her father.
What a joke she was. She lived off her father’s meagre