The Perfect Retreat

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO




Lucian picked up Custard the bear and walked downstairs. He could hear his mother and Merritt talking heatedly in the kitchen. Kitty wasn’t around, nor was Poppy. His father had left the house a while back. He found George asleep in the drawing room and he picked up the small puppy. Tying a long red hair ribbon of Poppy’s around the dog’s neck, he dragged him out through the French doors, out onto the terrace, and found himself on the lawn.

He looked each way. Where to go? he wondered. He reached down and patted the dog, and then set off in his red jumper and blue jeans.

He walked through the trees and came to a fence. Clambering under it, he was in a large field, and he looked around again. He let go of George’s ribbon and George ran ahead. Lucian chased him and they ran to the other side of the field, and soon they were both exhausted.

Coming to a road, Lucian put out his foot and stepped on the trail of ribbon to pull George back to him. He must be careful on roads, he always remembered Kitty saying that.

He walked up the road further. He had no idea where he was going, he just wanted to be away when his father tried to take Poppy and George away from him. He didn’t mind Poppy going so much, she was annoying, always talking when he was trying to find the words, but George was another story. George and Custard were his only friends. And Merritt, but he was a grownup after all, and you can’t trust grownups.

Taking a small path off the road, he walked along a bit further; but he felt tired. So tired. And hungry.

He sat down under a large tree and George settled in next to him. Lucian sat and closed his eyes for a moment. The sun on his face was nice. He liked the country, he thought. He liked lots of things, but no one understood him. No one tried. Maybe Merritt, a little, and Kitty; but not his mother or father. At the thought of his father, Lucian started to cry. Big fat tears rolled down his little face and he cried with sheer abandonment. He knew more than people thought; he had things he’d say one day. He knew stuff, plenty of stuff, if someone would listen.

George looked up at him and jumped up and licked the salty tears from his face and Lucian laughed. ‘George,’ he said in a faltering voice, and the small dog wagged his tail.

‘George,’ he said again. George would listen, he thought, and then he fell asleep.





PART TWO





To George Middlemist

27 Rue du Moulin Vert, 14ème

Montparnasse

1865

George,

You have broken my heart. You have broken it and I will never forgive you. I have been left alone with this house and our children and nothing else. What can I do? What shall I do?

I am now faced with a future that is uncertain, except I know you are no longer in my heart.

You promised me the world and delivered me nothing but your lies. I hate you. I loathe you.

When you were with her and not with your wife, you destroyed everything wonderful we had.

I gave up everything for you. I have no family; no country; no art. I have destroyed all your paintings so I will never see your name again.

I have poisoned the orange and clementine trees; dug up your garden; salted the earth. It will be years before anything grows here again.

Things only grow when there is love, and there is no love in the earth at Middlemist any more.

Do not write to me, do not visit me. You will never see your children again. Ever.

If not for them then I would die, but they give me reason to go on.

Fin.

Clementina.





Autumn