Chapter 16
16
Francine looked around the present-day attic room and wondered what Oscar had done with all the white modern Swedish furniture he’d chosen to try and bribe her with all those years ago. Zazz’s belongings were spread out over the few good quality practical pieces that were now in the room. Francine took in the laptop, the notebooks and files, the camera and its tripod. The curtains on the alcove wardrobe were open and Zazz’s clothes were hung crammed together on the rail, underwear and a hoody were on the shelves alongside.
Smiling to herself, Francine went back downstairs. Zazz clearly took after her. Edwin always teased her about the size of her suitcase whenever they went away. She always overpacked, worried that she’d need another top, an extra cardigan or even a strapless bra to wear under the off-the-shoulder blouse that she’d thrown into the suitcase at the last moment. The art of minimalistic packing was clearly not in their family genes.
On the first-floor landing, Francine moved on past the bathroom before stopping in front of the door of the bedroom her parents had shared, her hand on the white porcelain doorknob.
The memories she had of this room were almost sepia-coloured in her mind, belonging as they did to her early childhood, before Agnes had run away with her to England. Happy memories in the main, involving her and Agnes reading or sipping hot chocolate, snuggled up together in the big bed when Oscar was out. Events that Francine knew had to be kept secret from her father. He would have considered Agnes to be spoiling her. Very few of her memories of this time featured Oscar. He’d been a bystander in her early childhood, never an active participant, despite Agnes urging him to relax and simply play childish games with her.
When she’d visited as a teenager she’d instinctively realised this particular room would always be strictly off limits to her, although Oscar had never indicated that in so many words. The one time she’d peeped inside the room, all the feminine accessories, like the toile de jouy curtains and matching bedspread her mother had decorated the space with, had disappeared. Instead, it had been turned into a stark masculine room, with grey walls and dark bed linen.
Francine tightened her grip on the doorknob and slowly turned it, pushing the door open, unsure as to what she’d find.
The big bed was unmade, a crystal chandelier hanging over it cloudy with grime, the dressing table dusty. An air of abandonment and neglect hung over everything. Francine pulled the door closed again and turned away. Where had Oscar slept in recent years? There was only one room left.
Curious, Francine opened the door of her childhood bedroom, the one she’d suggested Zazz slept in. To her surprise, this room with its no-nonsense furnishings, pale blue walls and cream scatter rugs on the terracotta tiles appeared to have been Oscar’s bedroom. The bedclothes were roughly pushed back as if Oscar had just got up, pyjamas left in a heap on top of the duvet, a towel untidily placed on the rail, a discarded shirt flung over the back of the cane bedroom chair. An old-fashioned four-drawer bureau stood in front of the window, a French vanity mirror placed on its top. Francine remembered helping Agnes to clean the dressing-table mirror and polish its fancy wooden frame with its two shallow drawers when it had been in the old bedroom. On the bureau top was also a comb and a pair of nail clippers. One of its drawers was open, filled with neatly folded socks. Francine turned away.
Back down in the kitchen Francine put the kettle on, found a teapot and tea bags and stared out of the window, her thoughts, like the water in the kettle about to boil, bubbling away, untamed. The house needed to be cleared. What were they going to do with everything? How would Agnes react to being back in the house? How long had Zazz stayed with Oscar for? Had Theo started the process of contacting people to tell them about Oscar? What to do with the ashes once he’d collected them? How long would they have to stay in Le Suquet? And why did the prospect of a long stay fill her with anxiety? Oscar was dead. He was incapable of hurting them any more.