The reason for the call he was confronted with as soon as he arrived.
‘Aunt Camille has arranged dinner for us all, and you know how fastidious she is.’ His mother looked anxiously at her watch. ‘Already it looks like we’re going to be ten minutes late. She’ll give us hell.’
A twenty-minute run to the far side of Amite, they decided to all go in his car.
‘If you’d called and told me, I’d have made sure to be on time,’ Jac said as he made the turn back onto the highway.
‘She didn’t tell me until very late.’
But as he glanced across, his mother looked slightly away. Either she had been told late — probably because his aunt’s last dinner invite he’d begged off with an excuse — or his mother had decided to delay telling him, for much the same reason. Either way, his lack of enthusiasm for his aunt’s company was now out in the open. Official.
Aunt Camille’s house was a sprawling Southern mansion complete with Doric columns on its front facade, straight out of Gone With the Wind. A servant with white tails and gloves greeted them and served them dinner. Perpetuation of the plantation-era image, except that he was white. Hired from an Atlanta-based agency that specialised in English servants, because she’d heard that they were the best.
That must have caused her weeks of mental anguish, thought Jac: choosing between what was considered traditionally ‘correct’ and what was best.
To her friends and those wishing to be kind to her, Camille was a colourful eccentric, a character. To nearly everyone else, including Jac, she was an impossible snob and social aspirant.
Camille waited until the second course before broaching the subject. Everything with a purpose, but also very much in order. Arranged liaisons with the Blanquette de Veau.
‘I suppose Catherine has talked to you about Jennifer, the Bromwell’s daughter?’
‘Yes… yes.’ He caught his mother’s eye fleetingly before, slightly flushed, she brought her concentration back to her plate. ‘She mentioned that she was very nice.’
‘Yes… nice.’ Camille aired the word as if it had scant relevance in her world. ‘She also happens to be the daughter of one of the richest men in the state, Tobias Bromwell. And I have to tell you, he was more than a little intrigued when I shared with him the noble line running through our family.’
‘Ooooh… right.’ As Jac let out the words with a tired exhalation, his eyes drifted to the coat of arms on the far wall. Soon after arriving in America, Camille had traced her family history back, she claimed, all the way to Louis XV. In fact, it had only been a distant cousin of Louis XV, a grand duke with an estate in Bourges. But she’d used that relentlessly as her ticket to every society gathering she could, as well as to attract her husband, one of Louisiana’s leading property realtors, dead these past eight years. When she’d previously pressed home the importance of their royal lineage, they’d argued, Jac pointing out that the relevance of royalty to most French people, including himself, had probably been best demonstrated by what they did to Marie Antoinette. Camille, though, was hopelessly blinkered and, having gone that route herself, she no doubt saw it as the way forward for everyone else: the use of their royal lineage, however tenuous, to snag a wealthy partner; money meets respectability. But as he went to answer, he caught his mother looking across anxiously, hoping that he wouldn’t make a scene. ‘Yes… I can see how that might intrigue him.’
The sarcasm was lost on Camille. Her knife and fork hovered only a second above her plate before she continued. ‘Of course, Jac. This isn’t France, you know, where there’s fallen royalty in practically every other hamlet. Here in America, such things are a rarity. You’ve got to make best use of it where you can.’
‘Yes, I appreciate that better now.’ Again, it went at a mile above Aunt Camille’s head, or didn’t penetrate her rhino skin. But as Jac pushed a tight smile, he caught his mother suppressing a smirk at the corner of her mouth. He’d handled it the best way.
‘So… good.’ Camille placed her cutlery in line on her plate as she finished. ‘I can take it then that you’re keen to see Jennifer for a date?’
‘Well, I don’t know, I…’ He was about to comment that he didn’t want to rush into it, but caught again his mother’s anxious look.
‘You know, opportunities like this with girls like Jennifer don’t come along every day,’ Camille said. ‘And if we snub her or dally around, the door will probably be closed straight in our faces — never to open again.’
Jac felt the pressure like a tight coil at the back of his neck. His aunt pushing, persuading, controlling, like she did with so much in her life — almost second nature now. And his mother subservient, living in her shadow, afraid to go against her. The way they’d lived practically since his father’s death. Over three years now, but at times it felt like a lifetime — probably because so much had changed. Their life now held no resemblance to their life before. Sun-glowed days at their Rochefort farmhouse or Isle de Rey beaches, his parents both carefree, relaxed, his mother smiling and laughing at his father’s comments and quips. Not a care in the world. And his mother now: her eyes dull and haunted, shoulders slumped as if holding the weight of the world, chewing at her bottom lip as she panicked over what he might say next.
‘I know, I… I…’ Jac felt terribly torn: his mother urging him to acquiesce, anything for an easy life, his father telling him to fight back, don’t stand for it anymore, break the cycle now or you might never be able to.
Perhaps his aunt had been right on one front, even if her comment had been intended as just another snipe: ‘ Surely you can’t be serious, doing criminal instead of corporate law? Corporate is where the money is, and you’ve already got your feet under the table. You don’t want to end up a pipe-dreamer like your father. I mean, look where that got him.’
At least with the money from corporate law, he’d have been able to free his mother and sister from Camille’s clutch. And now, like his father, his life was becoming a series of diminishing options.
‘I… I think I should…’ A tingle ran up Jac’s spine. The vital element he’d missed earlier with Durrant suddenly hit him. He delved into his pocket for his cell-phone, holding one hand up in apology as he dialled. ‘One minute. Sorry… someone I remembered I have to call.’
As it rang, Aunt Camille contemplated him with rueful impatience, as if convinced the call was just a ruse, a diversionary tactic. His mother looked away awkwardly, her face flushed. On the third ring it went to an answerphone.
‘You’re through to the office of Thomas. J. Haveling, Chief Warden of Libreville prison. I’m either away from my office right now or unavailable, so please…’
Jac was about to ring off and try his assistant Pete Folley, but then had second thoughts: he didn’t know how far Bateson’s grapevine of influence went, whether Folley could be trusted. Any passing of information between them, and the game would be up.
He left a message asking Haveling to call him back urgently.
‘So. What do you want me to tell Jennifer Bromwell?’ Camille pressed.
‘Sorry — just one more minute.’ Haveling might not pick up the message for hours, or perhaps not until the next morning. Jac couldn’t risk the wait; he needed to put something in motion immediately. Every second could be vital. He dialled out to John Langfranc, who thankfully was there and answered quickly.
Jac explained the problem, looking away from his aunt as she held one hand out in exasperation and lifted her eyes heavenward.
‘The best guy I know for that sort of thing is a private eye and writ-server called Bob Stratton in Morgan City,’ Langfranc commented. ‘It could take him a couple of hours to get out to Libreville. And from the sound of it, you don’t want to lose even that time. Worth a try though, in case you’re stuck or he knows someone closer.’