Unravelling Oliver(42)

By that time, Dermot had joined me as ma?tre d’ while I cheffed. Despite the awkwardness of our first meeting, it turned out that in fact Dermot was very good with people, remembering their names, their birthdays and their favourite tipples. He was also a super organizer and managed to poach the best waiters from all over town. People returned to the restaurant as much for the superb service and attention to detail they received from Dermot and his team as for the food.

The restaurant was housed in a mews building, and I lived comfortably in the flat on the floor above the dining area. I specialized – naturellement – in rustic French cuisine, referred to pejoratively as ‘peasant food’ by one particularly nasty critic, but quite sophisticated for Dublin at the time, and because we had a liquor licence and took late bookings we quickly became popular with the theatrical crowd; a mixed blessing really – they drank like fish and added some glamour to the place, but often couldn’t pay the bill or had to be put to bed in the lounge area at closing time. The stories I could tell of backstage antics in Dublin would put gossip columnists out of business, but we pride ourselves on discretion and Dermot drives me mad sometimes because he won’t even tell me who’s sleeping with whom.

I was happy to hear from Oliver after so long and glad to organize his wedding reception. Also, I wanted to show him that I, too, was successful and in a committed relationship, and that I wasn’t a freak.

I was surprised by his choice of bride. Alice. She was pretty, I suppose, but Oliver was known for the beauties he dated and Alice just did not measure up to the usual criteria. She was no Laura. Poor Alice. Whatever happened later on, she was very happy that day. Oliver had no family at his wedding reception. I had long suspected that the hints he dropped about his wealthy parents were a cover. I thought he was probably an orphan, and the lack of family at his wedding confirmed it for me.

I haven’t seen Oliver for years now, apart from his occasional TV appearances. I don’t think he’s been in the restaurant for a long time. When he became a successful writer, I was very pleased for him. Not having children of my own, I read only one or two of the books, and I’m aware that I’m not the target market for them, but I could see how special they are. There have been film adaptations with big-name Hollywood stars, so I’ve seen more than I have read. His name cropped up regularly in the media, and I could never think of him without thinking firstly, with acute embarrassment, of my self-ejection from the closet, and secondly, with acute sorrow, of my beautiful sister Laura.

Now that the truth about Oliver’s character has been revealed, I have been forced to consider if somehow Oliver caused Laura’s breakdown. It was over a year after our visit to France when she died, but I can’t help feeling more certain than ever that something awful happened between Laura and Oliver that summer, something so terrible that she walked into the sea with rocks in her pockets.





19. Véronique


Michael did his best to persuade Laura to leave Chateau d’Aigse with him, but she refused. She was determined to stay in Clochamps to have her secret baby. She used my tragic situation, claiming that she could take a year out to help me and that she could not simply abandon me, the grief-stricken, childless orphan. Her brother was surprised by her sudden devotion to me. He came to ask me if I was sure that Laura could be of assistance.

I did not tell him the truth of Laura’s predicament. I needed help though. My hands were still bandaged, and while my neighbours were generous and kind, I was on my own. Michael insisted that he and his friends would take no payment for their work. It was gracious of him. They were truly sympathique. He and Laura were good, good people.

I witnessed Oliver’s leave-taking of Laura from my bedroom window. I was afraid that she would make herself pathetic, but she took his hand and whispered earnestly into his ear. She surreptitiously pressed his hand to her belly, but he snatched it away, and never once during this encounter did he meet her eyes. He stood at a distance, fidgeting with his wrists. I thought then how cold he was, how insensitive and uncaring, and I wondered how my father and my son could have loved him. As he followed the others into the truck that was to take him to the city, Laura began to weep and Michael, knowing nothing of the baby, must have thought her tears were marking the end of her affair with Oliver. He hugged her quickly and gave her his handkerchief. I could see he was trying to persuade her to change her mind about staying, but she was shaking her head. They hugged again, and he got on the truck, and it drove away. She waved as it motored up to the gates, and when it was out of sight she looked towards the spot on the horizon where it had been, and then she looked down and said some silent words to her belly. Even within my grief, I felt sympathy for the girl.

I got to know Laura then. Without the other English speakers around, her French improved rapidly. She was a brave and determined young lady. By the time the others left, she was in her third month of pregnancy, barely showing, but she was more settled now that she had made a plan. When the baby was born the following March, she would give it up for adoption at the Sacred Heart convent in Bordeaux and then return home and go back to her normal life. She had been educated by Sacred Heart nuns in Ireland and trusted they would be kind. I very much doubted that she had any idea what a mother might feel for her newborn baby, but, like I say, I was too preoccupied with trying to inhale and exhale to put much thought into it.

Laura was enormously helpful to me, although it took me time to realize it. At first, it irked me that she would insist on saying prayers for me and with me, lighting candles and blessing herself as she passed the ruin of the east wing. As if any God would allow a child and a war hero to burn to death, but gradually I began to see that there was some comfort in the ritual and that it kept the darkness at bay. Laura’s faith assured her that there was a purpose, a reason, and that, while it may never be revealed to us, it was for the ultimate good of mankind. To this day, I cannot say that I subscribe to such a theory.