would have been relegated to the back seat behind Papa, because that was the only seat belt in the back of the Audi that worked and it would have been Celeste that died instantly when the truck hit the car.
Then Camille would have gone to the hellhole school that was Allemagne and Celeste would have gone to heaven with Uncle Henri and Pépère, and everything would be as it should be.
She used to wonder what it was like in heaven. Every imagining changed according to her age. One year it was bowls filled with sweets on pretty little tables and talking goldfish that swam in ponds, then it was filled with every fabulous item of clothing she could imagine, and then it was champagne and cocaine and dancing without ever needing to sleep.
Now, as she wandered through the dark villa belonging to her mother, she wondered if heaven was actually being able to sleep through the night.
She could hear the sounds of the waves on the rocks below and she wondered about her uncle for a moment, and then pushed the thoughts from her head.
Why did the darkest thoughts always come when there was so little light?
She checked her phone and saw the missed messages from Paul in Paris.
Instead, there were over twenty messages from the press. News of her affair with the Minister of Trade had just been leaked by someone, probably that little shit who worked for him, she thought. He was always flouncing around wearing too much cologne and his pants too tight. Now it would be in the news tomorrow, unless Paul tried to put a stop to it by offering something in return.
A text came through from him as she peered at her phone.
Celeste, we need to talk. Now!
She snorted at her phone. He had a night free from the confines of the family home and he thought her worthy enough to give her his company, except she was in Nice and he wasn’t happy about it all, judging by the tone of his text.
He could wait for a change, she thought, as she sat on the cane chaise and covered her long legs with the cotton blanket her mother had left at the end of the lounge. The sun must be nearly up, she thought, as she peered into the darkness. On the horizon, a light glimmered, and Celeste was thankful the night was nearly over.
Matilde was so thoughtful to her guests, thought Celeste, as she straightened out the blanket. It was just her daughter she forgot about. The only time she had been nurtured by Matilde was when she had her tonsils out when she was six, the year before Camille died. Matilde had put her daughter into clean sheets and rubbed lavender onto her temples when she had a headache. Camille had sat at the end of the bed and had read her Babar, and Papa had bought her little honey sweets to soothe her throat.
Her mother certainly hadn’t been in this mood when Celeste arrived unannounced from Paris the day before.
‘Celeste, what are you doing here?’ she had asked, surprise showing in her blue eyes. At fifty-five years old, Matilde Le Marche had retained her figure, her married name, and her love of socialising.
‘I needed to get away from Paris,’ was all Celeste had said, pushing through the door of the villa.
‘Married men make women crazy and women make married men crazy. It is better to be single,’ said Matilde as she’d picked up her tennis racquet, which was next to the front door. ‘Look at me.’
Celeste knew better than to open the door to the conversation that would start if she commented on her mother’s statement. The only thing Matilde liked to do more than gossip was to complain about the affairs her father had had while they were still married.
Of course, Matilde had learned of Celeste’s affair with Paul Le Brun from the nephew of a friend, whose ex-boyfriend was in love with Paul.
Too many visits under the guise of decorating his office had brought attention to their relationship, and since then Paul had been retreating from seeing Celeste as often.
Was it just her, or was the sex a little less intense also, or was that because he was nearing fifty?
What if he died while they were making love? She had heard of such stories, and the idea of Paul dead on top of her while still inside her made her shudder.
Celeste tried to shake her morbidity and closed her eyes, the cool air caressing her face. Her phone chimed again and she rushed to turn it down and saw a text message from her father.
Grand-Mère passed last night
So much death in this family, she thought, as she read the message.
Her father Robert was not one for extreme displays of emotion and the news of Grand-Mère Daphné’s passing was handled in his usual taciturn way.
She thought about messaging him back, but what could she say to ease her father’s relationship with his mother?
She had enough problems with Matilde. The idea of her mother was far nicer than the reality. It was the same with Grand-Mère Daphné. She was always frightening to her as a child and she hadn’t seen her in a year, not since Daphné’s heart went into failure and she had gone into hiding.
‘I’m surprised she has a heart to fail,’ her father had quipped over their quarterly lunch at La Tour d’Argent, which Celeste loathed but knew it was vital to attend if she were to keep her measly allowance from Papa.
Daphné Le Marche was never a warm person to Celeste or anyone else, but she had rescued her granddaughter from her time at the Allemagne school and that alone was worth a moment’s silence for the old woman.
She would organise the funeral, she thought. It would be an elegant event, like Daphné. God knows what it would turn into if her father was left to manage the details. If he had his way, her grandmother would be shipped out to sea in a cardboard coffin, and not even a prayer offered.
Perhaps she should have said more to her grandmother over the years, especially after that telephone call from Allemagne, made to Daphné when she was sixteen, which saved her life. Robert and Matilde were so immersed in their own grief and self-destruction that they didn’t see their surviving daughter was dying at boarding school.
It was the only time in her childhood that Celeste had had a champion. It was Daphné who had told Robert that Celeste was anorexic, and a victim of extreme bullying and that she had tried to overdose on painkillers. It was Daphné who had told Matilde to step up and be a mother or she would lose both children. It was Daphné who had organised Celeste to attend hospital and finish her final classes at home with a tutor.
And it was Daphné who had ruined the school’s reputation with Europe’s elite when it refused to acknowledge any wrongdoing and turned a blind eye to the beatings of Celeste, the urine-soaked bed, courtesy of the girls in her dormitory, which Celeste was forced to sleep in most nights, and the ostracising of her from every meal and every social event.
What were once rumours of a culture of bullying at the school soon became absolute truth once Daphné made calls to certain important families. Soon there was a removal of some of the most elite students by their families and the school never quite regained its footing among the upper classes again.
Celeste never knew why it was her who had been chosen as the victim of the bullying. Was she too tall? Too thin? Too blonde? Too something?
The
