Mid morning, the day after Isabella Lake had arrived back in Brittany, following her ill fated sojourn in Paris, the door knocked. She ignored it, but it continued. She got out of bed, leaned out of her window, and looked into the courtyard below. The post lady waved some paperwork.
“Une signature, s'il vous plait !”
The small, yellow delivery van contained three, large cardboard boxes. Addressed to her dad, it hurt, even to see his name. She quickly scribbled on the receipt, took the boxes into his workshop, and closed the door. She had no idea what was in them, and didn't want to know. Three weeks later, another knock, another box. This time, it was addressed to her, but she could see from the label that it had originally been mailed to her in Paris, then redirected.
The box was much smaller than the previous three. Again, she didn't feel in any state to deal with it, and half thought of leaving it unopened, but it did have her name on it, and she was puzzled by the Paris address. She hadn't been there long enough for anyone, other than her parents to know it, and they would have brought anything with them, and besides, she could still see the original postmark, and it was posted after the......... crash. Even thinking the word was raw. Would this feeling ever go away? The thought of the impending funeral, ten days before, had caused her to visit the doctor.
Isabella shared her father's dislike for medical assistance, unless absolutely necessary, to the extent that ordinary prescription medicines, even aspirins, were rarely taken. Nevertheless, she needed something now. A funeral, a double one no less, would be more than she could bear. In the surgery it was almost too much to start to explain. She didn't need to. The doctor already knew, everybody knew. With expert judgement, he delicately set out how he saw things, merely asking that she nod, if he was on the right track.
Her extended family didn't amount to much. An estranged aunt on one side, and a couple of uncles. She wasn't even sure how many were still around. Of course, they'd all made contact now, and tried to say the right things, but what could one say. She knew it, and they knew it. It was fair enough, and she held no particular grudge. That's just how some families were. The doctor, conversely, a man she'd met only once before, knew exactly what to say.
They'd met around two years previously, when, having managed to embed a wood chisel into her hand, Isabella was finally persuaded by her mother, that she probably might be needing somebody, in a professional capacity, to give it a once over. Even her father agreed that it looked suitably serious, and so, miles from the nearest hospital, off they went to the local doctor. Obviously, the doctor had remembered this incident, and had grasped something of the way the Lake's lived their lives. Sixteen year old girls wielding woodwork tools, was clearly the norm. Stitched up and injected, the incident was then forgotten, until now.
He used the small, barely visible scar, as a metaphor. He explained that he could offer her a course of medication, and even counselling, but surprisingly, said he wasn't going to. Like the scar on her hand, this wound would never disappear, and she would always be in some way, marked. That was already obvious to Isabella, but it was somehow comforting to be told that. He would be prescribing something for the day of the funeral, but then asked her to promise to throw the rest of the contents of the bottle away.
“This will dull your senses, but allow you to stay on your feet and get through it. I want you to do your grieving afterwards.....with a clear mind”
He filled out the prescription note, and Isabella nodded.
“It will be intense at first. Remember the pain of that chisel ? Well, this will be much worse, but it WILL fade....don't forget this, it's a natural process, and the drugs will, in my opinion, only mask something that, sooner or later, you'll have to confront”
He handed her his card.
“Here's my number, and you can contact me at any time if you need to. I want you to give yourself twelve months, Isabella. Count them off. Count the days if you need to, but it's important that you fill your days with activity as soon as possible.......”
“I gather that there is still much to do at your house, I assume that by now you know how to hold a chisel properly ? It's what they would have wanted......Don't forget”
She nodded, and burst into tears. It was the only time he'd referred to her parents. He got up, embraced her, and kissed her on the top of the head. His words had calmed her, and without patronising, he'd managed to hit exactly the right spot. She'd felt this logic all along, and Doctor Armand Danze knew exactly how to say it. It worked. The funeral passed in a blur. Visitors came and went. Some days were worse than others, but she held on to his words. The pain would, slowly recede.
She opened the box. A camera. A high quality Hasselblad, medium format. The best of its kind. There was a letter inside, and the mystery of its appearance resolved. It was sometime after the accident, after she'd returned home, that Isabella had realised that her parents should never have been on that particular road. The accident had occurred some distance to the south of Paris, and nowhere near the route that her parents should have taken from the west. In the immediate aftermath, and with the shock she hadn't questioned it, but now the letter of apology from a photographic dealer, not far from Dijon, had put all the pieces into place.
The camera had been purchased in person by her father, the day before the accident, along with all the equipment needed to develop film and print photographs. He'd ordered the equipment, and arranged for it to be delivered back to Les Moulins. The camera itself, was to be taken immediately, and evidently intended as a present for Isabella to have and use, in Paris.
At the last moment, however, and typical of her father, he'd spotted a small problem regarding the alignment of a lens, which would need to be serviced. Disappointed, and not a little angry that they'd come all this way, only to find that it was not in working order, they had no choice but to continue on without it. Terrence paid in full, and arranged for it to be sent on to his daughter's address. With a bit of luck it was still possible that it may even arrive before they returned back home in a week's time. Eleanor and Terry looked forward to a perfect end to their break in the capital. The family reunited, and Isabella, hopefully, a little happier.
She looked at the camera. “....now in perfect working order...” the letter said.
“Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused. We thank you for your custom, and look forward to being of service to you again in the future.”
For an instant she felt like smashing it against the wall. Emotions raged. She was so, so sad, she cried. Then, angry. They always had to put the cherry on the top didn't they? Why didn't they come direct like anybody else? That would have been enough, it was all she really wanted, but oh no, we'll go miles out of our way, take the time, do the right thing, just to feel like this.
She cried until she could cry no more, then remembered Dr Danze's words, placed the camera back in its box, ticked off another day, and went to bed. A few weeks later, she summoned up the energy and unpacked the boxes in the workshop. She knew well by now what was inside of course, and remembering the “It's what they would have wanted” line from the good doctor, decided to build.
Comments