Bella... A French Life (37 page)

The two downstairs bedrooms are tidy. Only the mirrors in the rooms and in the en-suite bathrooms are a little grey and need cleaning. I close the heavy chintz curtains throwing the rooms into darkness. I close each bedroom’s door. I wonder where Tony of Colorado will holiday next summer.

The house’s marble floors I will not attempt to clean. They are not dirty anyway.

Upstairs, I need to clean only the two bedrooms which have been used since Honorine and Martine’s cleaning. At the door of the ‘White Room’ I hesitate at the door. Inhaling deeply I walk in. There is no dust on the furniture. Did Colin dust before he left? Nonetheless, I try writing my name on the surface of the writing table: I cannot. So he did dust. He must have worked fast because he also had to pack his belongings and carry all downstairs to the motorcycle. In the bathroom, I sit down on the side of the bath. I can smell mint. Am I imaging it? Is Colin’s smell filling my nostrils because I so much want him to be here? No. I can definitely smell mint. I take the toilet rolls from the toilet and lift the seat and in the water lie three small sachets of mint-scented bath oils. One sachet has been opened and is empty. Having discarded the sachets, he had not flushed the toilet. I take the sachets from the water and wrap them in toilet paper. I will throw them away. I pull the sheets off the bed. Again, the scent of mint fills my nostrils. Having folded the sheets neatly, I put them on top of the bed. I sit down beside them. Immediately, I jump up, glance across the room and walk, almost run, from it. I leave the door ajar.

Frantically, I dust in the library room. Darkness has fallen, and I am running out of time, time to do what I must do. Do before it is another day.

On the desk lies the small volume of Shelley’s poems Colin gave me. I sit down at the desk. I need to read the poem he read to me.
The fountains mingle with the river
… I hear his voice. It is as if he is here in the library room with me, standing here at the desk. I hold my hands over my ears: I do not want to listen.

With a red pen I draw a circle around the last lines.
And the sunlight clasps the earth … and the moonbeams kiss the sea … what is all this sweet work worth … if thou kiss not me?
 

I leave the little book on the desk, open as it is at this poem.

The postcard of Van Gogh’s
Sunflowers
has fallen from the book. It lies on the floor. I pick it up and I put it on the desk beside the little book.

-0-

A storm is raging. Rain drops, like hail, grate against the window panes. I take a long draw of breath and I pick up my car keys. The telephone starts ringing. The answerphone is on, so I let the ringing continue.

In the courtyard, the overhanging branches sway in the wind. A streak of lightning falls on the bench where Colin and I sat on the day of his arrival.
Maybe I should not have allowed him to stay.
 

I walk on to the parking bay.

I do not look back at the house.

I did not close the back door. The front door I did close, but lock it I did not.

The clock I had silenced.

-0-

I swing the Mercedes from Le Presbytère’s driveway onto the road to the coast.

-0-

Back in the house the tape of the answerphone is turning.

“
Bella … hello … this is Jean-Louis. You will … you may remember me. With all my heart I hope you do.
 

“
Bella, listen, I’ve left Colette.
 

“
I only returned to her because of the girls and now they are grown-up and they no longer need me. Carmen is pregnant.
 

“
I stopped loving Colette a long time ago. When I went back to her I did not again become her lover.
 

“
Bella, I never forgot you.
 

“
Bella, I never left you. In my heart I never left you.
 

“
I am calling to say I will be in Normandy this weekend. I am coming to see you. I have to see you. I will come to the house.
 

“
Bella, I missed you.
 

“
Bella, kiddo, I never stopped loving you.”
 

-0-

Epilogue

Both the drawing room and the kitchen of Le Presbytère are packed with people. Captain Contepomi, a head taller than the others in the house, is clutching a notebook into which he scribbles whatever those he talks to are saying.

Gertrude, Honorine and Martine sit on the sofa in the drawing room. Never have they allowed themselves the audacity to sit down anywhere in the house but in the kitchen. Fred too is in the drawing room. He stands underneath the niche. He is not looking up at the crucifix formed by the holes, but he may all the same be seeking comfort from knowing it is there above his head. He is crying, crying bitterly. The handkerchief he is clutching and with which he dabs at his eyes and his runny nose is wet. Every now and then he shakes his head: he appears to be unable to believe what is going on at the house.

A car, a Maserati, comes driving up the driveway. The man behind the wheel - he is the only one in the car - frowns seeing police vehicles parked in front of the house.

“Fred?” he asks, walking into the drawing room. “What is going on here? Why are the police here?”

“Mr … Mr Jean-Louis …,” mutters Fred.

“Come on, man, what is going on here? Tell me! Where is Bella?”

Gertrude jumps to her feet and rushes over to Jean-Louis.

“Mr Jean-Louis, Miss Bella is gone.”

She too is now crying.

“Gone? What do you mean gone? Gone where? Has there been a robbery here? Has Bella been hurt?”

Captain Contepomi walks up.

“You are who,
Monsieur
?” he asks.

“It’s Mr Jean-Louis, a friend of Miss Bella,” explains Gertrude.

“
Monsieur
, when did you last see Doctor Wolff?” asks the captain.

“What is that to you, Captain?” replies Jean-Louis.

He has become angry.

“Mr Jean-Louis, Miss Bella has killed herself.”

It was Fred who said this.

“No, no, no!” cries Gertrude. “We must not say this. We do not know she did. We must hope.”

Jean-Louis, white in his face, steps back to lean against the wall behind him.

“Captain, what is going on here?” he asks.

“Come, sit down,” says the captain.

The two men walk over to a corner of the room and sit down on two upright chairs.

“I regret to have to inform you,
Monsieur
, that we have found Doctor Wolff’s vehicle abandoned beside the shore, the key in the ignition, but the doctor is missing. We believe she went into the water deliberately to end her life,” says the captain.

“It can’t be. Why would she have done that?” asks Jean-Louis.

“Maybe you can tell us,
Monsieur
.”

“I have not seen the doctor for quite a long time. A few years.”

“So I understand, yes. You left a message for her …”

“On her answerphone, yes.”

A young gendarme walks up, whispers something to the captain who gets up immediately.

“We will speak again,
Monsieur
, but for the moment I will offer you my condolences. So sad. So sad. And she was making money here. The place was thriving. A goldmine, if you ask me.”

Jean-Louis remains sitting on the chair. After a few minutes Fred, no longer crying, but his face wet with tears, walks up to him.

“Mr Jean-Louis,” he says, “why are you here?”

He sits down on the chair from which the gendarme captain has just risen.

“I want to speak to Miss Bella. I need to say something to her which I should have said a long time ago, Fred.”

“Mr Jean-Louis, Miss Bella is dead.  She killed herself. Went into the water. There where she went into the water that is where she used to go with a boy from her class to sunbathe on the rocks. His name is Baudelaire Brodard and he lives in Paris. His father was … but no, it is not a time to speak of that now. Beau - we all called him that because he was such a handsome kid - used to tease her because she couldn’t swim. Never learnt, you know.”

“Fred, why would Bella have killed herself?”

“I can’t tell you that, Mr Jean-Louis, but there was Colin …”

“Colin who?” Jean-Louis breaks in.

“Colin Lerwick. He was the last guest here.”

“And?”

“Just that. He was the last guest here at Le Presbytère.”

“Colin Lerwick? You said Colin Lerwick?”

“Yes. He was Miss Bella’s last guest.”

“Colin Lerwick! But I know him!”

The End

SONGS AND POETRY

Chapter 6:
-
I know that my redeemer liveth
… from George Friderik Handel’s ‘Messiah’ written in 1741.

Chapter 7:
-
Pray that your loneliness
… (Dag Hammerskjöld, Swedish diplomat, second United Nations Secretary-General, and Nobel Peach Prize Laureate;

-
Here’s to you
from the song ‘Ballad of Sacco and Vanzetti’, released in 1971, lyrics written by and sung by Joan Baez, music by Ennio Morricone;

-
In restless dreams
… from ‘The Sounds of Silence’, released in 1964 and a new version in 1965, sung by Simon and Garfunkel, lyrics and music written by Paul Simon.

Chapter 9:
-
Non, Je ne regrette rien
… from the song of which the music was written by Charles Dumont, the lyrics by Michel Vaucaire and first sung by Edith Piaf in 1960

Chapter 22:
-
My my at Waterloo
… from ‘Waterloo’, the music and lyrics by Benny Anderson, Björn Ulvaeus & Stig Anderson and performed by Abba for the first time in 1974.

Chapter 23
:
-
Hello! Is it me
… from ‘Hello!’ written and sung by Lionel Richie for the first time in 1984;

-
It’s now or never
…from ‘It’s Now or Never’, the lyrics written by Wally Gold & Aaron Schroeder and based on ‘O Sole Mio’ by Eduardo di Capua and performed by Elvis Presley for the first time in 1960;

-
Out of the night that covers me
… from the poem ‘Invictus’ by William Ernest Henley (1849-1903).

Chapter 24:
-
It swept it swept on all the earth
… from the poem ‘Winter Night’ by Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1890-1960) written in 1946.

Chapter 26:
-
Say me, say you
…from ‘Say Me Say You’ lyrics and music by Lionel Richie and sung by him for the first time in 1985.

Chapter 27:
-
Petit Papa Noël
… from ‘Petit Papa Noël’ written by Raymond Vincy & Henri Martinet and first sung by Tino Rossi (1907-1983) in 1946.

Chapter 29:
-
Nessun dorma, nessun dorma
… from the aria of the final act of Giacomo Puccini’s opera ‘Turandot’;

-
Ma n’atu sole
… from ‘O Sole Mio’, lyrics written by Giovani Capurro and music by Eduardo di Capua in 1898

-
Fallen leaves can be picked up
… from ‘Feuilles Mortes’, the lyrics written by Jacques Prévert (1900-1977) and the music by Joseph Kosma (1905-1969) in 1945 and performed by Yves Montand (1921-1991) in 1946.

Chapter 31:
-
Take good care of my heart
… from ‘Take Good Care of my Heart’, music by Stephen Hartley Dorff and Peter James McCann, lyrics by Whitney Houston (1963-2012) and first performed as a duet with her and Jermaine Jackson in 1985.

Chapter 32:
-
The fountains mingle with the river
… from the poem ‘Love’s Philosophy’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley’s (1792-1822) written in 1820. 

Also by Marilyn Z. Tomlins

Die in Paris

A spring night in Paris. The most beautiful city in the world is dark and silent. Uncertainty devils the air. As does normality: war time normality. The Nazis’ Swastika flutters from the Eiffel Tower. The Parisians are huddled indoors.

Suddenly the night’s stillness is shattered by sirens and excited voices. For days foul smoke has been pouring from the chimney of an uninhabited house close to the Avenue des Champs-Elysées. Police and firefighters are racing to the house to break down the bolted door. They make a spine-chilling discovery. The remains of countless human beings are being incinerated in a furnace in the basement. In a pit in an outhouse quicklime consumes still more bodies.

Neighbors say they hear banging, pleading, sobbing and cries for help come from inside the house deep at night. They say a shabbily-dressed man on a green bicycle pulling a cart behind him comes to the house, always at dawn, or dusk.

The house belongs to Dr Marcel Petiot – a good-looking, charming, caring, family physician who lives elsewhere in the city with his wife and teenage son.