Free The French for Love by Fiona Valpy Page B

alternatives here.
    The first is that Liz meant to ‘clear away’ the photo before she died, as she had methodically tidied away the rest of her life, but had hung on to it and then been taken sooner than she’d expected. It’s a distinct possibility.
    The second is that she never meant the photo to be discovered beneath the picture of the magpies, which seems unlikely and risky.
    And the third, which dawns on me as clearly as the bright sunshine which is now streaming in through the window as I chew a mouthful of crust, almost unconsciously savouring the sweet tartness of the black cherries, is that she meant me to find it. That in fact it is a message to me from beyond the grave. But why not just put it in an envelope addressed with my name?
    Because it’s still a secret never to be told. But perhaps Liz wants me to know, now that both she and Dad are gone.
    And maybe the person she wants to protect by keeping the secret is not her niece, but her sister.
    ♦ ♦ ♦
    When the going gets tough, the tough get cleaning. I suppose it’s a way of trying to impose some sense of control when every other area of my life has collapsed into uncertainty and disarray. I’m still awaiting the arrival of the France Télécom engineer to sort out my Internet connection and I need to do something to distract myself from the thoughts, threatening to verge on the unhealthily obsessive now, that go round and round in my head. Like a hamster running desperately on a wheel in its cage, I’m getting nowhere fast.
    Cleaning is a good way of using up the angry energy that’s fizzing in my veins, refusing to allow me to settle down peacefully with a good book. And, if I’m honest, there’s always the possibility that I might uncover some more bits of the jigsaw and begin to piece together exactly what went on between Liz and Dad. So I set to work methodically, room by room, scrubbing, dusting, polishing. I even open up and clean the sitting room (scarcely used) and dining room (never used), moving the ancient, solid pieces of furniture to hoover beneath them and sending long-undisturbed spiders scuttling frantically for new cover. Other than dust and cobwebs, I find nothing.
    When I’ve finished cleaning, I start washing. Perhaps I’m trying to wipe the slate clean so that I can live in a state of happy denial and transform my family history back into the neat storybook facsimile it used to be. I wash bedding and cushions and chair covers, hanging them to dry on the line stretched between two apple trees in the garden. The turnaround is gratifyingly fast in the hot sun so I work unremittingly, dragging load after load out of the machine, carrying armfuls of dry, sun-warmed fabric from the line back into the kitchen and sweating over the ironing board where clouds of hissing, angry steam from the iron create the perfect backing track to my mood.
    After several days of this frenetic activity, I smooth the freshly laundered toile de Jouy bedspread over the mattress in the spare room and stand back to survey my handiwork. There’s nothing else to wash or dust or polish. I regret the fact that there are no curtains at the windows which would have kept me going for a few more days, other than the small ones under the eaves in the bedroom upstairs that I laundered yesterday. I move to the window to close the shutters against the midday heat that’s now building to a stifling crescendo of sun glare and cricket song, the humidity making my T-shirt cling limply to my clammy skin.
    Triumphantly, I realise that here’s my next project. The shutters are in dire need of a fresh coat of paint. They are a sun-cracked red which has faded with a drab brown tinge, like a bottle of old wine that’s gone past the point of drinkability. While I’m at it, I think I’ll change the colour completely. Make my mark on the house. And—yes, I know—symbolically try to blot out a bit more of the past. It’s called catharsis, isn’t it?
    I jump into the