Unravelling Oliver(40)

Jean-Luc alternated between sleeping in my room or his papi’s. His own bedroom was rarely used. Both Papa and I had a small cot bed perpendicular to our own at the foot of our beds. It was very common at the time in French homes. If Papa was telling Jean-Luc a particularly good bedtime story, Jean-Luc could not be persuaded to return to my room. Sometimes the stories were a little bit scary and the walk from Papa’s room in the eastern side of the house to mine in the west wing was too much of a challenge for him. Papa would stay until Jean-Luc nodded off, and then, as it seemed a little cruel to move him as he slept, we would let him spend the night there.

I do not know what started the fire. My father’s pipe, a cigarette, a stray ember from the charcoal oven, we will never know. My memory of the night is quite unclear; I was woken by a noise like a strong wind rushing through the corridors, and then the sound of shouting. I thought I must be dreaming. Even when I got out of bed and looked out the window and saw the east wing in flames, it was so unreal and absolutely unexpected that I still did not comprehend how much of an emergency it was. I wandered through the smoke-filled hall in my nightdress before I fully understood the horror before me. When I was shocked out of sleep, I was disorientated and lost my sense of direction, but as I ran along the gallery towards what I thought was the east wing, the searing heat and smoke drove me back. I began to shout for my beloved father and son, but the only response I heard was a hiss and a crackle and the splintering and spitting of wood. I became hysterical and batted my way into the flames to get across the gallery to the eastern side of the house, but the floor beneath me was smouldering and I could smell my singed hair. When I realized I was at the top of the burning staircase, I knew I could go no further. I do not know how I burned my hands so badly. At the time, I did not even feel the pain. I do not recall how I got from the upper gallery to the courtyard, but I remember being restrained there by Michael as I kicked and bit him, trying to get away from him to rescue the only people in the world that I loved.

I did not know it then, but I later came to understand that Jean-Luc and his papi died of smoke inhalation, probably in their sleep. It is something of a comfort to me, as I spent months afterwards in the nightmare of imagination wondering if they had to watch each other burn to death, screaming for my help, after desperately trying to save each other.

The chaos of the night comes back to me in small pieces: the surprising sound of my own screams; the grasping arms of Michael and Constantine, who held me back from the flames; the smell of the fire and my own sweat; the women from the dorm crying; the men taking control and becoming important, busy men of action. Quite separately, I remember secretly pregnant Laura hysterical and clinging to Oliver, who seemed not to know she was there.

I was heavily sedated in the days that followed. I have no memory of the funerals, but they tell me I was there. I stayed in the house. The western side was structurally unaffected; there was some smoke damage, but it was minimal. The thick stone walls between the east wing and the hallway stopped the fire from reaching my side of the house. The kitchen, salon and my bedroom, among others, were intact. Hundreds of people came and went, bringing food, prayers, reassurances, blessings, and shared experiences of loss, but it was weeks before I began to see that my future was exactly what Papa had always feared for me.

Some of the labourers left shortly after the fire, apologetically bidding farewell: it was obvious that we could not pay them. The vineyard was abandoned, but the Irish students stayed for another month. Most of them had come to France for the experience rather than out of financial necessity. Michael was wonderful and readily took control of the kitchen. I had no interest in anything, and my hands would take time to heal. The others did their best to clear the wreckage of the east wing. They had to return to college then, as they had already missed the first weeks. Oliver was in shock and barely spoke to anyone. I admit that I resented his grief because I felt he had no right to it. He had known them for a matter of months, but they were my life, and I felt bitter anger every time I saw him sitting absently on the terrace steps with his head in his hands, as Laura tried to cajole him back to life like one of our vines.

When it came to their leaving, Laura asked me if she could stay. She confided that she had told Oliver about the pregnancy in a moment of desperation, hoping that it would shock him into some reaction, but that Oliver did not want to know and insisted that he would never be a father again. Again? What did he mean, ‘again’? Laura explained that Oliver had a game with Jean-Luc where he and Jean-Luc pretended to be father and son, and that my father had taken part. I do not know if this was true, but maybe Oliver really felt that he had become Jean-Luc’s father in a way, and Papa’s son too. It was a foolish game, but finally I understood his pain and grief, and without ever speaking of it, I forgave Oliver.

I told Laura she could stay. I did not think that she would be with me for a whole year, or that she too would die soon afterwards. So much death.





18. Michael


Laura’s moods were erratic in the months following her return from France. My parents were concerned. She returned to college that October of 1974, but dropped out again in November. And then, in the first week in December, she went missing.

I got a phone call in the restaurant on a Thursday morning from Mum to ask if I knew where she was. She’d gone to bed the previous night at about ten o’clock, but when Mum called her that morning, there was no answer. Her bed had not been slept in and nobody had heard her leave the house. We rang around friends and neighbours, but nobody had seen or heard from her. When she still hadn’t returned on Friday morning, my mother was out of her mind with worry. Laura had been very calm when my mother last spoke to her on Wednesday morning, to the extent that Mum thought Laura had turned a corner. They’d talked about going shopping for a new pair of boots at the weekend. Mum had seen a pair that she liked, and thought they would suit Laura. Mum said they’d go into town together to a particular shop on Saturday. Laura said she was looking forward to going back to college and getting back to normal, admitted that the year in France had been a bit of an ordeal, and said that she should have come home with me. Mum reassured her that everyone understood, that once she got back into a routine, things would fall into place. We made Mum go over that conversation again and again, every mundane detail, but could find nothing sinister or disturbing about it. Except that the brand-new boots that Mum had admired were later found in a box in Laura’s wardrobe, but not in Laura’s size. In Mum’s size, bought and paid for on Wednesday afternoon.