Perfectly Ordinary People(123)

As we watched him drive away in his little Citro?n, I asked Dad what he thought that was.

‘Not sure,’ Dad said. ‘Maybe Grandad’s ashes. I’m not sure what they did with them. Or the house. Perhaps we’re going to inherit it one day. I don’t think Igor had any children.’



Despite an ominous weather forecast, the next morning turned out to be sunny. As it was our last full day there, we returned to Moulleau Beach for a swim, after which we nabbed two sunbeds next to the tiny hotel pool.

While Dad re-read his favourite novel – a Steinbeck – I alternated between roasting in the sun and cooling off in the pool, all the while trying to think what questions I wanted to ask Igor.

I struggled to come up with anything specific, though, because the things I wanted to know weren’t really facts. I just wanted some kind of way in to understanding who my grandparents had actually been.

‘You found it OK?’ Igor said, meeting us at the front gate.

‘Yes, I remembered it from last time,’ Dad told him, which was an absolute lie. We’d been driving around in circles for at least fifteen minutes.

The house was a bit of a disappointment, really. I’d been hoping for something a bit exotic; if not a chateau, at least a few drystone walls or some pretty louvred shutters.

Instead, the house was a generic seventies-build bungalow, its only saving grace the well-tended garden surrounding it, and it was there that Igor started our tour.

Dotted among the shrubs were various cats, and one by one, Igor made loving introductions. The old one was Pedro, and that one was Patty. The big ginger tom over there was Gaspard.

After the garden, Igor led us through the house, and had it not been for the presence of three more cats, Mangui, Paloma and Titus, it wouldn’t have taken long. There were two boxy bedrooms and a bathroom with original seventies wall tiles. The only room to have been renovated appeared to be the kitchen.

One nice thing was that there were photographs of Grandpa Chris everywhere – photos I’d never seen before. On top of the television was a black and white image of him in a three-piece suit, and on the bookcase another showing him rowing a boat. The fridge had more recent colour pictures clipped to the door with magnets.

‘I’ve never seen any of these,’ I told Igor, studying another image of Grandpa outside a theatre.

He crossed the room to join me and laughed. ‘I’m not surprised,’ he said. ‘That’s me.’

‘Gosh, you looked alike!’ I said, straightening. ‘Dad, look!’ But Dad was busy studying a photo of Igor and Grandpa together.

‘We would have looked alike,’ Igor said, ‘if it hadn’t been for the age gap. But as it was, I always looked the way Chris had looked five years earlier. But you’re right. People often say that whenever they look at our photos.’

Lunch – a simple omelette with home-grown salad – was served beneath a little gazebo at the bottom of the garden. While we ate, Igor explained that he and Chris had bought the place together, but he now needed to write a new will in case anything happened.

‘And let’s face it,’ he said. ‘Sooner or later something happens. There’s no escaping that one.’ He and Chris had no other descendants, he explained, and so he wanted Dad’s permission to leave it to him.

Dad seemed embarrassed about this, but in the end, when Igor said that it had been Christophe’s explicit wish, there was nothing to do but accept gracefully, and to my relief that’s what Dad did. Whether we ended up having holidays here or selling it, I could see very little downside to one day inheriting a house in France.

About three, Igor started glancing at his watch, so I asked if he had somewhere he needed to be and it turned out he had a dentist’s appointment.

‘I don’t want to go at all,’ he said, ‘but I think I really need to. I’ve a tooth that’s been playing up for months.’

‘Please,’ Dad said. ‘Feel free. We’re fine, aren’t we, Ruth?’

Once coffee had been served, Igor asked if there was anything else we wanted to ask. ‘If I’m honest, I was expecting more questions,’ he said.

‘Not really,’ Dad replied, and for some reason I didn’t believe him. I could almost hear some massive, unanswered question sitting on the tip of his tongue.

‘And you?’ Igor asked, looking at me.

I gritted my teeth and sighed. ‘I don’t know . . .’ I said. ‘I sort of wanted . . . I guess I hoped to find out who he was. Because I don’t feel like I knew him.’

‘Ask,’ Igor said. ‘Ask anything.’

I shook my head and tutted in frustration. ‘If I’m honest, I don’t know what to ask either. What was he like, maybe? How did you see him, perhaps?’

‘You sound like you never met him,’ Dad commented, sounding annoyed with me.

‘No, I did. I know I did. It’s just that he was . . . I don’t know . . . A bit austere, maybe. A bit . . . distant? He always seemed very guarded somehow.’

Igor nodded. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘It’s a disease. A gay disease. Or it used to be in our day.’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘It was our circumstances, you see. It was how we had to be back then. Or how we thought we had to be, anyway.’