PART VI
Rennes-le-Château October 2007
CHAPTER 44
TUESDAY 30TH OCTOBER 2007
Meredith woke the next morning with a thudding head after broken sleep. The combination of wine, the whispering of the wind in the trees and her crazy dreams had made her restless.
She didn’t want to think about the night. Ghosts, visions. What it might mean. She had to keep focused. She was here to do a job, that’s what she should be worrying about.
Meredith stood under the shower until the water ran cold, took a couple of Tylenol, drank a bottle of water. She towel-dried her hair, dressed in comfortable blue jeans and a red sweater, then went down to breakfast. A supersize plate of scrambled eggs, bacon and baguette, washed down with four cups of strong, sweet French coffee, and she felt human again.
She checked her purse – phone, camera, notebook, pen, sunglasses and local map of the area – then, a little nervous, went down to the lobby to meet Hal. There was a line at the desk. A Spanish couple complaining about having too few towels in their room, a French businessman challenging the additional charges on his bill, and, by the concierge’s station, a mountain of luggage waiting to be taken out to the coach of an English tour group en route to Andorra. The clerk looked strung out already. There was no sign of Hal. Meredith was prepared for the fact he might not show. In the cold light of day, without the courage that comes with alcohol, he might be regretting the impulse that had led him to ask a stranger out. At the same time, she kind of hoped he would come. No big deal, all real low key and she wouldn’t be devastated to be stood up. But, at the same time, there was no denying the butterflies in the pit of her stomach.
She occupied herself by looking at the photographs and paintings hanging on the wall around the lobby. They were the standard oil paintings to be found in every countryside hotel. Rural views, misty towers, shepherds, mountains, nothing remarkable. The photographs were more interesting, clearly all chosen to reinforce the fin de siècle ambience. Framed portraits in sepia tones, brown and grey. Women with serious expressions, tight-nipped waists and big skirts, hair swept up. Men with moustaches and beards, in formal poses, straight-backed and staring into the lens.
Meredith ran her eyes over the walls, taking in the general impression rather than the specifics of each shot, until she came to one portrait tucked in right by the curve of the staircase, just above the piano she’d noticed last night. A formal pose in brown and white, the black wooden frame chipped at the corners, she recognised the square in Rennes-les-Bains. She took a step closer. In the centre of the photograph, on an ornate metal chair, sat a man with a black moustache, his dark hair swept back from his forehead and his top hat and cane balanced across his knees. Behind him, to his left, was a beautiful, ethereal-looking woman, slim and elegant in a well-cut dark jacket, high-collared shirt and long skirt. Her black half-veil was lifted off her face, revealing light hair pinned back in an artful chignon. Her slim fingers, sheathed in black, rested lightly upon his shoulder. To the other side was a younger girl, her curly hair arranged beneath a felt hat and dressed in a cropped jacket with brass buttons and velvet trim.
I’ve seen her before.
Meredith narrowed her eyes. There was something about the girl’s direct, bold gaze that drew her in, sending an echo slipping through her mind. A shadow of another photograph like it? A painting? The cards maybe? She dragged the heavy piano stool to one side and leaned in, racking her brains, but the memory refused to come. The girl was dazzlingly pretty, with tumbling locks, a pert chin and eyes that stared straight into the heart of the camera.
Meredith looked back to the man in the middle. There was a clear family resemblance. Brother and sister maybe? They had the same long lashes, the same unswerving focus, the same tilt of the head. The other woman seemed less definite, somehow. Her colouring, her pale hair, her slightly detached air. For all her physical proximity to the others, she seemed insubstantial. There, but not there. As if, at any moment, she might slip from sight altogether. Like Debussy’s Mélisande, Meredith thought, she carried a suggestion of belonging to another time and place.
Meredith felt her heart lock down. It was the same expression she remembered, looking up into her birth mother’s eyes when she was little. Sometimes Jeanette’s face was gentle, wistful. Sometimes it was angry, distorted. But always, on good or bad days, that same air of distraction, of a shifting mind settling elsewhere, fixed on people no one else could see, hearing words no one else could hear.
Enough of this.
Determined not to be disabled by her bad memories, Meredith reached forward and lifted the photograph away from the wall, looking for some kind of confirmation that it was Rennes-les-Bains, a date, any identifying marks.
The creased brown waxed paper was coming unstuck from the frame, but the words printed on the back in block capitals were clear.
RENNES-LES-BAINS, OCTOBRE 1891, and then the studio credit, EDITIONS BOUSQUET. Curiosity took the place of her unwelcome emotions.
Beneath that, three names.
MADEMOISELLE LÉONIE VERNIER, MONSIEUR ANATOLE VERNIER, MADAME ISOLDE LASCOMBE.
Meredith felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end, remembering the tomb at the far edge of the cemetery in Rennes-les-Bains: FAMILLE LASCOMBE-BOUSQUET. Now, on a photograph hanging on the wall, the two names joined once more.
She was certain the two younger figures were the Verniers, brother and sister, surely, rather than husband and wife, given the physical similarities between them? The older woman had the air of someone who had seen more. Lived a less sheltered existence. Then, in a shot, Meredith realised where she’d seen the Verniers before. A snapshot of a moment in Paris, settling the check in Le Petit Chablisien in the street in which Debussy had once lived. The composer looking down from the frame, saturnine and discontented. And beside him, his neighbours on the restaurant wall, a photograph of this same man, this same striking girl, although with a different and older woman.
Meredith kicked herself for not paying more attention at the time. For a moment she even thought about calling the restaurant and asking if they had any information about the family portrait they displayed so prominently. Then the thought of having such a conversation in French, on the telephone, made her dismiss the idea.
As she stared at the photograph, in her mind’s eye, the other portrait seemed to shimmer behind it, shadows of the girl and the boy, the people they had been once and were now. For a second she knew – thought she knew – how, if not yet why, the stories she had been following might be interlinked.
She hung the frame back on the wall, thinking she could borrow it later. As she pushed the heavy piano stool back to its original position, she noticed the lid of the instrument was now open. The ivory keys were a little yellow, the edges chipped like old teeth. Late nineteenth century, she reckoned. A Bluthner boudoir grand.
She pressed middle C. The note echoed clear and loud into the private space. She looked round, guilty, but no one was paying any attention. Too wrapped up in their own affairs. Still standing, as if sitting down would commit herself to something, Meredith played the scale of A minor. Just a couple of low octaves in the left hand. Then the arpeggio with her right. The chill of the keys on her fingertips felt good.
Like she had come home.
The stool was a deep mahogany with ornate carved legs and a red velvet cushion stapled to the lid by a line of brass studs. To Meredith, snooping around in other people’s music collections was as interesting as running one’s fingers along a friend’s bookshelves when they stepped out of the room for a moment. The brass hinges creaked as she opened the lid, releasing the distinctive scent of wood, old music and pencil lead.
Inside was a neat pile of books and loose sheet music. Meredith went through the stack, smiling as she came across sheet music for Debussy’s Clair de lune and La Cathédrale engloutie, in their distinctive pale yellow Durand covers. The regular collections of Beethoven and Mozart sonatas, as well as Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier, volumes one and two. European classics, exercises, a little sheet music, a couple of show tunes from Offenbach’s La Vie Parisienne and Gigi.
‘Go ahead,’ said a voice at her shoulder. ‘I’m happy to wait.’
‘Hal!’
She let the lid of the stool fall shut with a guilty snap, then turned to see him smiling at her. He looked better this morning, good in fact. The lines of worry, of misery had gone from the corners of his eyes and he wasn’t so pale.
‘You sound surprised,’ he said. ‘Did you think I was going to stand you up?’
‘No, not at all . . .’ She stopped and grinned. ‘Well, yes, maybe. It crossed my mind.’
He spread his arms out. ‘As you can see, present and correct and ready to go.’
They stood, a little awkward, then Hal leaned over the piano stool and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’m sorry I was late.’ He gestured at the piano. ‘Are you sure you don’t want—’
‘Quite sure,’ Meredith cut across him. ‘Maybe later.’
They walked together across the tiled floor of the lobby, Meredith aware of the small distance between them and the smell of his soap and aftershave.
‘Do you know where you want to start looking for her?’
‘Her?’ she said quickly. ‘Who?’
‘Lilly Debussy,’ he said, looking surprised. ‘I’m sorry, isn’t that what you said you were hoping to do this morning? A little research?’
She blushed. ‘Sure, yes. Absolutely.’
Meredith experienced a rush of embarrassment at jumping to the wrong conclusion. She didn’t want to explain her other reason for being in Rennes-les-Bains – her real reason, she guessed – it just felt too personal. But how would Hal know what she’d been thinking about at the moment he arrived? He wasn’t a mind-reader.
‘Absolutely,’ she said again. ‘On the trail of the first Mrs Debussy. If Lilly ever was here, I’m going to find out how, why and when.’
Hal smiled. ‘Shall we take my car? I’m happy to drive you wherever you want to go.’
Meredith thought about it. It would leave her freer to take notes and look around properly, check out the map.
‘Sure, why not.’
As they walked out the door and down the steps, Meredith was aware of the eyes of the girl in the photograph on her back.