Perfectly Ordinary People(122)

‘I mean, how did your . . . I’m tempted to say “love triangle”, but there were four of you, so . . .’

‘How did our love rectangle work?’ Igor offered with a grin.

‘Exactly. That must have been complicated, mustn’t it?’

‘Sometimes it was,’ he said. ‘But mainly it worked quite smoothly. I’ve never really tried to analyse it before, but I suppose you could say that there were two couples, two very lucky couples, and—’

‘Lucky because?’

‘Oh, because we were very much in love,’ Igor said. ‘That’s not as common as people like to think. Ethel and Genny were . . . fusional, I suppose you’d say. I think you can sense that from the transcript. They were almost like one person. They never even argued that I can recall. And being apart simply wasn’t an option.’

‘Yes, you can see that from the way Genny follows Ethel to London,’ I said.

‘Exactly. And they were always like that. We used to joke that they were joined at the hip. Chris even used to refer to them as “Gethel”. Whereas your father and I . . . Our relationship was more soupe au lait. I’m not sure how you say that in English. I think I’ve been living here too long.’

‘Milk soup?’ Dad offered, looking confused.

‘Yes, but it means someone who boils over easily. The way milk does in a saucepan. So we’d argue and shout and fall out and make up again. But we always did make up, because we loved each other.’

‘And the four of you?’ I asked, doing my best to ignore the fact that my father was shuffling in his seat and trying to catch the waiter’s attention. ‘Did you all get on together?’

‘Ha!’ Igor laughed. ‘Not always. But there were two very powerful friendships in there holding it all together. Genny and Chris, obviously. It’s hard to explain, but they were almost like a married couple too. I mean, they lived as a married couple for years, so maybe that’s why, but I suspect it was the other way around. I suspect they were able to do that because they loved each other so deeply. It’s a chicken and egg situation, isn’t it, so you never really know. But I often thought Genny understood Chris better than I did. When we argued – and we argued a lot – it was often Genny who’d calm me down. It was Genny who’d explain what Chris had meant and how I’d misunderstood.’

‘So you were close friends with Genny?’

Igor nodded, albeit vaguely. ‘Sure, we got on fine. But her allegiance in any argument was always to Chris. The one I really liked, other than your grandfather, obviously, was Ethel. I thought Ethel was great. She was so sharp and witty and sarcastic and I loved that about her. She really made me laugh.’

‘So there were two couples in love. And two sort of diagonal friendships between you and Ethel and Genny and Chris,’ I said.

‘Yes. Yes, that’s a very good way of putting it. And don’t get me wrong, we all loved each other. We all respected each other deeply. But when we found ourselves together as a foursome, Genny would always end up talking to Chris while holding hands with Ethel. And I would invariably end up yakking away with Ethel.’

‘While holding hands with Grandpa?’

Igor laughed. ‘Not so much. We weren’t demonstrative the way Genny and Ethel were. But we’d often end up talking diagonally, do you know what I mean? If Genny was opposite Ethel and I was opposite Chris, Genny and Chris would end up talking about one thing and Ethel and I about another. It was just the way the . . . in French they’d say, it was the way the current flowed.’

‘The current?’

‘The electricity. It was the way it flowed most easily.’

‘Oh, I see. You must have been devastated when she passed away. Especially the way it happened.’

‘Oh, I was. Absolutely. Not so much by how it happened because I suppose I understood why. After everything they’d lived through together . . . And now they were gone and she was alone, and in pain? Who could blame her? She was tired, I think. She felt she’d had enough. Plus, I knew she wasn’t afraid of death.’

‘She wasn’t?’

‘No, death was something she’d made her peace with. She’d had to, really. After everyone she’d lost. Her whole family . . . So she had this theory, and she used to say how before we were born, we were nothing. And that lasted billions of years . . . since the dawn of time. And it wasn’t horrible, was it? It wasn’t anything. So she thought that dying was just about going back to that state of nothingness. “Why would we be scared of that?” she used to say. “Why would anyone?” But I miss her, obviously. I miss them all, horribly.’

We were interrupted by the waiter then, and once we’d ordered, Dad started asking questions about life in Arcachon, making it impossible for me to carry on talking about Grandad and Ethel and Genny.

Igor seemed happy to go with the flow and talked about life in the region and how the seasons were defined by the ebb and flow of tourists. After that Igor started asking me about my life, so I told him about Dan and Lauren and our interlinked apartments and my job.

At the end of the evening, as we walked back to the hotel, Igor invited us to lunch at the house and before Dad could put up any objections I accepted on both our behalves.

‘Good,’ Igor said. ‘Because I have something specific I need to talk to you about.’