When the noisy Land Rover finally drew to a stop, they could have been anywhere. It was pitch black and Siena only had Jason’s word for it that they had arrived at the correct destination.
Jason opened the door, and waited for her, his breath rising into the icy air in a plume of steam. She followed quickly. This was the house she’d grown up in. She lived here until she was six. They’d been a proper family here. A mum, a dad and two sisters. Nails digging in her palms she looked around. A narrow hallway opened up in front of them, with a beautiful wooden staircase leading upstairs.
Siena blinked as he flicked on lights and smiled at the sight of the natural oak spindles on the staircase, which had a striped runner lining the centre of each step with brass stair rods. A large mirror, framed in rustic oak, reflected the antique brass light in the centre of the ceiling. This was lovely and not at all how she’d pictured the house from her mother’s dismissive comments. She waited for a moment. Not a shred of recognition. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.
‘Lounge. Kitchen.’ Jason nodded to closed doors on the right.
‘Your room is upstairs at the back. Bathroom in the middle.’
Siena blinked and picked up her bag, back ramrod straight as she held back the sudden inexplicable tears. They had no business here. She needed sleep. That was all. Today had been lots of things, none of which she wanted to tax her brain with at the moment. All she knew was that her eyelids felt heavy, her head felt heavy and her stupid heart heavier still. What had she been expecting? A sense of homecoming? If she didn’t get to bed now, she’d never make it up the stairs and she had to see her bedroom.
Rummaging through her bag she pulled out her purse. Euros would have to do.
‘Thanks,’ she said thrusting a ten euro note into Jason’s hand. Without looking back she clattered up the stairs. She heard the front door slam with some force but she was too intent on her room to look back. She took the last four two at a time.
Perhaps it would feel different up here. In her room. The room her older sister had decorated for her. The room she’d slept in every night until she was six and ten-twelfths, before her mother took her to France, leaving Laurie and the father she didn’t remember behind.
Stopping at the closed door, she took a deep breath, grasped the handle and stepped into the warm glow cast by one of the bedside lights. Someone had left it on for her. The soft light made her feel welcome, as if she were expected, as did the bed, piled high with cushions with shadowed furrows in the deep feather duvet. It made her want to dive right in. The room looked perfect. She touched the little white painted chest at the foot of the bed as she took in every bit of the English cottage-styled loveliness, from the shiny spars of the brass bed, to the delicate lacy curtains at the window, through to the sanded floorboards and the pretty rug under her feet. The room looked exactly as it had in the photograph. But that was her only sense of recognition.
Panic clutched at her chest.
Once she’d seen a rescue team on the mountainside digging desperately for survivors. She felt like one of them, frantically shovelling through her memories, desperate to find one that confirmed she’d once played with toys, got dressed and slept in this room. But there was nothing. Bleakness settled on her. Had this been a stupid mistake?
She took a deep breath and pushed her shoulders back. Crazy thinking. So she didn’t remember the house. It didn’t matter. Tomorrow, Laurie would be here and they’d be sisters together. They could have a proper sister sleepover with wine, chocolate, a chick flick like in real chick flicks and she could forget about Maman. And Yves. And engagements. And weddings. And letting the family down. And everything. She closed her eyes. Maman was bound to have found the note by now.
But she was an adult. She didn’t have to ask permission to go away. She’d told Maman she’d be back for Christmas. For Harry’s party.
With reluctance she pulled out her phone and looked at the series of missed calls. Ignoring the anxiety spiralling through her chest, she switched it off and buried it deep in her handbag.
The double bed looked so plump and inviting. As she turned back the covers, the feather duvet rustled and shifted with a siren call promising comfort.
Stripping off her clothes and scattering them on the floor, she pushed the pile of cushions aside and slipped between the sheets, immediately sinking into the mattress. Did it feel like coming home? She lay cocooned in the crisp white cotton and listened. Outside, a few cars rumbled past. They sounded very close and so loud. So different from the Chateau.
As her head sank into the pillow and she drifted in that half-awake, half-asleep dream world, she thought she heard footsteps on the stairs but it was too much effort to open her eyes again. Laurie was home. She fought sleep for a minute but it overcame her. They could have breakfast together.
The bathroom, with its Victorian styled sink and bath, had a damp used-not-so-long-ago taint to it but there was no sign of Laurie.
Siena’s eager tour of the downstairs of the house had taken precisely eight minutes. She almost checked the walls to make sure she hadn’t missed a secret passageway or a door leading to another wing. Nope. The hallway of the Chateau had more furniture than this whole house.
Where was Laurie though? Siena figured she must have gone out to get some groceries as the fridge was almost bare apart from something called shepherd’s pie, although it didn’t look like any pie she’d ever come across, and a tiny bit of milk in the oddest glass bottle she’d ever seen.
Conscious of the dryness of her mouth, she squeezed past the pine table big enough to seat four, stopping to take a closer look at the cheerful place mats covered in jaunty chickens in reds, yellows and oranges before switching on the enamel red kettle. The cosy country kitchen made you want to stay awhile, sit at the table and chat. It was easy to picture evenings in here, sitting in the spindle-backed chairs, sipping wine at the table with her sister. She sighed. She couldn’t wait to see Laurie. They were going to have so much fun and hopefully she wouldn’t mind her staying a bit longer.
Reaching above into the distressed cream-painted wooden cupboard, she found an assortment of china mugs, each patterned with different flowers. Making herself a cup of tea, she leant against the counter and studied the eclectic collection of china egg cups and pottery jugs which lined the shelves of the wooden dresser on the other side of the room.
Taking her tea, and crossing the terracotta tiled floor which felt cold under her feet, she went through to the tiny, tiny lounge. The whole room was smaller than her dressing room in the Paris apartment but despite that, the cottage style sofa with its floral print purple wisteria trailing across the plump feather-cushioned sofa strewn with perfectly co-ordinated fat cushions in muted colours, was charming. The room even had a proper open cast-iron fireplace with a surround of flower painted ceramic tiles and a clutch of brass fire-tools in a stand beside it. Twists of newspaper piled with coal sat in the grate waiting to be lit. Feeling a little bit like Goldilocks but sure that Laurie wouldn’t mind, she picked up the box of matches from the crowded wooden mantle. There were several framed pictures including one of Laurie and her boyfriend Cam laughing their heads off at something out of the shot and a faded black and white photo of an older man. Siena
