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I’ve just spoken to Lol on the phone. John’s gone. She left a window open in her flat and he’s gone. I’m devastated. It just feels like the end of everything. I know what you’ll say—he’s just a cat. Just a big old silly old cat. But he was more than that. Much more. I mean—what responsibilities do I actually have, Zander? None—that’s right. No children, no mortgage, no job, no family. I’m not even really responsible for you. High Cedars is responsible for you. And come September, you won’t need me at all. The only creature on this earth who I had any responsibility for, who needed me, and he’s gone. Probably squashed flat somewhere on some dark lonely road. Or stolen. Stolen and sold to some fat woman who’ll feed him cream buns and give him a heart attack.

I’m feeling heartbroken, Zander, and so, so guilty.

Now that you’re moving on with your life, now that you don’t need me anymore, and now that I don’t even have John to concern myself with, I can’t see the point of lying anymore. I’ve realized something this week—I’ve had enough. I’ve had enough of patching over things, of compromising, of living half a life. And in order to stop feeling like this I’m going to have to do something I never ever thought I’d do. Something that will mean the end of you and I. Forever. I’m going to have to tell you about 1986…

chapter thirty-five

december 1986

Bee hated this driving-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-road business. Especially in the dark. Especially when she was tired. Especially in a rental car that she’d only been driving for an hour. And especially when there were tears blurring her vision.

She’d landed at Bordeaux airport at nine o’clock and was now heading up eerily quiet Friday-night roads toward her father’s house near Angoulême. The small granite towns that stood flush to the road were all deserted, even the occasional strip-lit café or bar was empty.

Gregor had bought his old town house about four years ago, had it renovated at great expense, and now spent most of his time here. Bee couldn’t see the attraction herself. She really wasn’t that keen on France: French food, French architecture, the French countryside, French music—or the French themselves, in fact. She preferred Italy. Or Spain. Or Holland. Or anywhere, really, on the European mainland apart from France. Her father had, on the other hand, become a complete Francophile. He could speak fluent French and was a popular figure in his adopted second hometown, where he went everywhere on his pushbike in a beret and neckerchief, stopping just short of the stripy Breton top and the string of garlic around his neck. But there you go—to each their own.

She steered the Panda left onto the dirt track that ran down the side of Gregor’s house and pulled up behind his 1961 Alvis. All the lights were on in the cottage, and it looked warm and inviting on this cold, black night.

“Hi-ee,” she called, pulling her weekend case from the back seat and heading for the back door. Her father was standing in the kitchen, wearing a striped butcher’s apron and stirring something in a huge blue Le Creuset casserole pot. He looked at her through the steamed-up windows and his face split open into an enormous grin. He put down his wooden spoon, wiped his hands on his apron, and came to the door.

“Hello, darling,” he said, smothering her in a big, fragrant bear hug. He smelled of cologne and garlic. Bee squeezed him back, her arms barely meeting around his fifty-inch chest.

“Hello, Dad.”

“You smell like a cigarette,” he said, grabbing her head and sniffing her crown, “like a little red Marlboro. When are you going to quit?”

Bee ignored him and dropped her bag and her coat on a red chaise longue. He passed her a huge glass of red wine. “What’s cooking?” she said, kicking off her high heels and padding across terra-cotta tiles toward the stove.

“Oh,” said Gregor, smiling at her over his wineglass, “just a little something I’ve been working away on for an entire day, that’s involved driving to three separate markets and bribing the farmer down the road with a liter of red.”

“There aren’t any pig parts in it, are there?” she said, peering over the edge of the pot.

“What?”

“You know—trotters, ears, snouts?”

He laughed his laugh and Bee smiled at him. He was so much more mellow since he’d retired last year and since this place had finally been completed. He’d adored directing but had hated the financial responsibilities involved in his profession, had always borne the pressure to direct a profitable production very heavily. He used to have this air about him of someone who was trying too hard to look relaxed. His smiles had always looked a little glued-on, and his back had given him constant pain. Now he really was relaxed and it was a joy for Bee to behold. He and Joe spent most of their time here in the Dordogne, just shopping, cooking, reading, and drinking. At home he went out to eat, saw friends, was on the board of a couple of AIDS charities and another charity for impoverished actors. He was finally, at the age of sixty-one, a truly, serenely happy man.

She looked up at her big bear of a father, at his cheeks all pink with kitchen steam and red wine, his thick salt-and-pepper hair, his wiry beard, and his trendy Lacoste sweatshirt tucked unfashionably into enormous corduroy trousers. He was wearing soft, pastel Burlington-checked socks on his size-eleven feet and his trademark neckerchief around his now-jowly neck. He looked a mess. A big, happy, lovely mess. She felt overcome by a wave of love and affection and planted a kiss on his hot cheek.

“Where’s Joe?” She peered around the corner toward the living room. Joe was Gregor’s partner of ten years. He was a set designer, fifteen years Gregor’s junior. Gregor could have had his pick of ambitious, beautiful, six-packed young actors, but he’d fallen for the slightly geeky-looking set designer, Joe, with his goatee and his little pigeon chest and his sensible lace-up shoes. When Joe and Gregor walked around together they looked like father and ever-so-slightly awkward son. But Joe was actually highly intelligent, and he loved all the things that Gregor loved—France, food, people—and Bee. He adored Bee, almost worshipped her, in fact. When her first single had come out, he’d spent the entire weekend in the HMV on Kensington’s high street forcing complete strangers to buy it. He kept a beautiful scrapbook of every last piece of press and publicity she got, writing to magazines for back issues sometimes if he missed something. Joe was her greatest fan, greater even than Gregor. Bee thought of him as a slightly nerdy but lovely big brother.

“Oh. Joe’s not here.”

“Where is he?”

“He’s in Angoulême.”

Bee waited for Gregor to elaborate. He and Joe were usually completely inseparable. Bee couldn’t actually remember the last time she’d seen one without the other. But Gregor didn’t say anything, just started chopping a bunch of something green and leafy.

“Is it me?” she said jokingly.

“Oh. Nooo. Don’t be silly, Bee. No—he, er—he had some unexpected business to attend to.”

“Oh,” said Bee. “Right.” She resisted the urge to pry any further. There was something untoward going on here. But she’d leave it for now. They could talk about it over dinner.

“So,” he said, going back to his pot, “what has my little popstar been up to, eh? Fill me in, fill me in…”

Bee raised her eyebrows and flopped onto the chaise longue. “You don’t want to know,” she said.