Chapter 8
8
Lucie opened the door, smiled, and took a long look at this young man on the doorstep, much more grown-up than she’d expected, who was saying hello enthusiastically, calling her Aunt Lucie and holding out his hand to shake hers.
He was on the short side and slim with chestnut skin and a short bob of dark, faintly curly hair. He’d obviously inherited much of his looks from his dad – Selvi. Lucie cast her mind back and came up with the memory that Selvi was a Tamil refugee from Sri Lanka, who’d come to the UK in the 1980s. He and Melissa had met at university, had three children and divorced around ten years ago or so.
‘Never liked him much, she’s probably better off without him,’ had been Miles’s take on it, while Lucie had quietly thought to herself, Never liked her much, he’s probably better off without her .
Deva was casually dressed in jeans and a t-shirt with bright white, bouncy-soled trainers and a big set of white headphones round his neck. There was a messenger bag slung over his shoulder and a sizeable, wheeled suitcase beside him.
He looked nervy, a little twitchy almost, but smiley and eager to please.
‘Hello, Deva,’ she said as she shook his hand, ‘how nice to see you again – all grown up. Please come in.’
She showed him where to park his bag and then ushered him through the house.
‘We were having some tea and cake in the garden, with my dad. I was trying to think if you’d met him before… maybe at a family get-together, but you might not remember him. I’m afraid he’s not very well.’
‘Yes, Mum told me. Very sorry to hear about that. I’m afraid I don’t remember meeting him.’
So the introductions were made, both to Lucie’s dad and to Zoe, who’d come back out to the garden. Then Deva settled into a chair, answered ‘tea please, no milk’ to Lucie’s question about something to drink and brought out what looked like a stack of buttered rice cakes from his messenger bag. ‘The joy of being gluten free,’ he explained.
‘Oh dear,’ Lucie’s dad sympathised. ‘Off to France and no baguette or croissants for you.’
‘I’m used to it,’ Deva said amiably, taking a sip of tea and a small bite from a rice cake.
Then Domenica appeared to usher Lucie’s father in for ‘rest-time’.
‘I’m definitely not allowed to call it a nap.’ She smiled at them as she led her patient away, leaving Lucie, Zoe and Deva outside together.
Lucie led the conversation, sticking strictly to topics that wouldn’t rile Zoe all over again. She asked after Deva’s mother, father and sisters. She asked when they were arriving in France for the wedding, where they were staying and the usual kind of things.
She couldn’t help noticing that it was a little heavy weather trying to chat with Deva. His answers were very brief. He never seemed to pick up the conversational ball and run with it, so she would be left in the silence to come up with more and more questions of the small-talk variety. He also kept touching the headphones, which were still around his neck, as if he longed to pull them back over his ears.
Meanwhile, Zoe was saying very little and not exactly helping her out. If this kept up, it was going to be a very long drive to Perpignan. She pictured Deva in the back of the car with his headphones on and Zoe sitting in stony silence beside her for mile after mile after mile. But it was too late to back out now.
‘What time do we leave here?’ Deva asked her suddenly. Before she could reply, he followed up with, ‘And what time does the ferry set off across the Channel? And what time are we due to arrive in Calais?’ All the questions sounded a little nervy.
‘Well, the ferry doesn’t leave till 10.30p.m., so I thought we’d have a light supper and set off at about seven-thirty,’ Lucie told him. ‘That gives us loads of time to get there, check in and get on board. The crossing takes about two hours, but because of the time difference, it will be about 1.30a.m. when we arrive. My plan is we park at a service station and have a bit of a sleep. It’s a big, comfortable car, so we should manage a nap. Then we set off again when it gets light. After about seven hours of driving, we’ll break the journey with an overnight stop in a little town about halfway down France and set off the next morning. We should be at the venue by early afternoon on Friday.’
Deva was nodding his head vigorously at all these details. Then he surprised her by launching into a long monologue about the route, explaining that there were two directions they could go along the ring road around Paris – to the east or to the west – and then the various options that would take them down towards Perpignan.
‘You’ve given this a lot of thought,’ Lucie told him with a smile. ‘Sounds like I won’t need to rely too heavily on Google Maps then.’
‘No!’ Deva looked anxious. ‘The Massif Central of France is quite sparsely populated, so Wi-Fi coverage can be patchy. Do you have a road map of France? We should bring one with us.’
‘That’s a good idea. I bet Dad has one lying around and if it looks too old, we’ll buy a new one at the ferry port,’ Lucie said, hoping to reassure him.
This didn’t seem to put Deva’s mind entirely at rest and he began to suggest a route through the mountains of the Auvergne.
‘Smaller roads, but it might save some distance,’ he explained. ‘And there are some interesting towns on the way.’
‘Right… well, maybe we can look at the map on the ferry and see what we think looks best?’ Lucie suggested. A long conversation about routes was what she really did not want right now. She needed to head upstairs, check over her luggage and make sure she’d packed everything.
‘Did you know that Coco Chanel grew up in the Auvergne region?’ Deva asked now. ‘I’m doing a project on the evolution of the Chanel brand, but to be honest, I’ve been obsess— fascinated,’ he corrected himself, ‘by her for years.’
‘Oh really?’ Lucie smiled. This was unexpected. Deva in his plain t-shirt, jeans and trainers didn’t exactly look like a young man with a Chanel fascination.
‘Yes… I know just about everything about her. I could probably go on Mastermind ,’ he joked. ‘And if we drove through the Auvergne, we could go to Brive la Gaillarde and Aubazine, which were both very important places in her childhood and early years.’
‘Oh, well, I’m not sure there will be much time for sightseeing,’ Lucie replied.
‘No,’ Zoe added, ‘we’re on a pretty tight schedule. Maybe you could go when you’re heading back?’
‘Mum’s booked me on a flight,’ Deva said gloomily.
There was a pause. Lucie felt as if she’d offered quite enough with the lift to Perpignan; she wasn’t going to make any rash promises about visiting obscure little towns on the way. Even if Coco Chanel had grown up there.
Chanel… Just the name sent her on an unwanted trip back down memory lane, towards her past glories. Yes, believe it or not, there was a time in her past when she had been a Chanel customer. She tried to nip those thoughts in the bud, because it honestly seemed like a dream now, so long ago, but then Deva took her by surprise.
‘One of my first encounters with a real Chanel item was seeing you carry a beige 2.55 handbag when you came to Granny Marshal’s birthday party, Aunt Lucie.’
‘Really? My goodness!’ Lucie was astonished that Deva, who must have been eleven or twelve at the time, would remember a detail like that.
‘That’s what got me started,’ Deva said with a smile that looked as if he was remembering happier times. ‘Everyone was so impressed by that bag, talking about it, wanting to feel it, open it – and I just had to find out why. Then the story of this incredible woman in France began to unfold. Have you still got that bag? Or any of your Chanel things?’ he asked, closely followed by the painfully blunt, ‘My mum said you might have had to sell all your expensive things when you and Uncle Miles went bust.’
Lucie nearly squirted her tea and Zoe couldn’t help giving a snort of suppressed laughter.
‘Oh, that’s quite a personal question, Deva,’ Lucie said gently.
A look of surprise mixed with embarrassment came over Deva’s face. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he began. ‘Sometimes, I forget what I’m allowed to ask and what I’m not allowed to ask. My mum said she told you quite a long time ago that I’m on the autism spectrum, but she thought I might need to remind you.’
Now it was Lucie’s turn to feel embarrassed. Here she was wondering why Deva didn’t know what the right thing to say was, and now she was in exactly the same situation.
‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she began. ‘I don’t think I really know what that means… or what I’m supposed to…’
Now Deva was smiling at her. ‘Then that makes two of us,’ he said.
‘Mum!’ Lucie had earned herself another glare from Zoe. ‘You can’t say you’ve never heard of autism or the autism spectrum?’ she blurted.
‘Well, not really, not in detail, not in person. Sorry, Deva.’
‘It’s fine, honestly, just be yourself,’ Deva said, ‘and I’ll try not to be myself,’ he added with a shrug.
‘No, Deva,’ Zoe protested. ‘You do you and we’ll be fine with that, honestly. I know we don’t know each other well, but we’re family.’ She gave him a smile. But now they were all somewhat stranded in an awkward silence.
After several interminable moments, Lucie suddenly had a bright idea to help some of the time pass before their light supper and departure. ‘You know,’ she began, ‘I didn’t sell any of my Chanel things. They’re in boxes here at Dad’s house in the spare bedroom. Would you like to come and have a look, Deva?’
‘Oh! My goodness! Of course,’ Deva replied, jumping up from his chair with such excitement that he knocked over his empty teacup.
It had been a full two years since Lucie had looked inside these precious cream cardboard boxes. She had quite deliberately packed them up and stored them here at her dad’s, hoping that out of sight would also mean out of mind.
If she had been on her own opening the lids and delving into the tissue paper for her most treasured possessions, she would be instantly sad. She would be raking over the ashes of the glory years – when maybe she had turned a blind eye to the fact that she and Miles were drifting apart because both of their businesses were so time-consuming and so successful and there was so much money floating around. Enough to be an occasional visitor to the New Bond Street Chanel store, enough to be able to drop ￡400 on a pair of sunglasses and thousands of pounds on handbags and dresses, without even thinking too much about it.
But with Deva sitting on the floor beside her, gasping with astonishment as each item was revealed and showcasing his incredible depth of knowledge, it was a different experience altogether. She put her feelings about the past to one side and felt as if she was seeing these items properly, not just as flashy possessions that underlined her previous success, but as works of art in their own right.
He was clearly thrilled and, giving her a running commentary, he pointed out all kinds of things she hadn’t known about these clothes and bags.
‘Look at this armhole!’ he gasped. ‘Look at the craftsmanship here.’ He picked up the soft, camel-coloured jacket and examined the stitching where the sleeve met the body. ‘She was obsessed with armholes. Did you know that? She thought that the placing of the armhole was the most important element in the fit. If the armhole is right, you can swing your arms and be comfortable, plus the armhole dictates how much fabric is available to cover the body, without the need for a bust dart. Genius, right?’
‘If you say so.’ Lucie smiled. ‘I’ve never thought about it like that.’
‘Oh my!’ Deva picked up the beige quilted handbag with a look of awe on his face. ‘Here it is, here’s the bag where it all began for me!’
He ran his hand along the glossy surface and lifted the flap to reveal the distinctive red leather lining.
‘She was a very good rider,’ he added, making it sound almost as if he knew Coco Chanel personally, ‘absolutely loved horses, and the saddles and bridles and all the workmanship that went into them – the design of this handbag was testament to that, carefully quilted and padded leather. And it was revolutionary because it was based on a soldier’s haversack, and it had straps, which let women put it over their shoulder or dangle it from the crook of their arm, so they could have their hands free – to dance, to smoke, to drink a cocktail. Before this bag, a lady had to carry her purse in her hands.’
‘I did not know that,’ Lucie admitted.
Deva was already pulling back the tissue paper to see what else he could find.
‘No!’ he gasped. ‘Not a black lace evening dress! I can’t believe you have one of these!’
Tenderly, he lifted the dress up from the box in all its slinky, lacey glory.
‘I bought it for an awards ceremony,’ she said, remembering the occasion, ‘it was a big, important, glittery event. Miles was on the shortlist, but he didn’t win.’
‘This is breathtaking!’ Deva exclaimed, standing up to unfold the dress to its full length. ‘I need to take some photos of all of these things.’
‘Of course,’ she agreed, and she was glad she was seeing him like this – his excitement, enthusiasm and obvious knowledge allowing him to forget his nervy awkwardness.
‘And, Aunt Lucie, will you be taking these things with you to France?’
‘Oh no, they’re in storage here. They’re safe here.’
‘But you should wear Chanel to the wedding,’ he insisted.
‘Oh!’
Lucie realised he didn’t know about her plan to drop them both at the venue and get away as quickly as possible to the little hotel beside the sea that she’d booked for herself for two nights, a full hour and a half’s drive away from the wedding venue. She’d booked a room with a terrace overlooking the beach. Because she had decided she would drink the wine, eat the cheese and swim in the sea, just as her dad had suggested.
‘I’m taking you and Zoe there, Deva. I’m not going to the wedding.’
‘My mum said you were invited but you probably didn’t want to go.’ Tipping his head to the side, he added in a gentle and sympathetic voice, ‘Chanel had a lot of hard times with men in her life. The love of her life died in a car crash when she was thirty-six.’
‘Oh…’ Lucie hadn’t known this tragic fact.
‘And the man she was in love with for a decade married someone else, because he needed an heir and Coco couldn’t have children.’
‘Oh… I didn’t know that either,’ she said.
‘Her clothes are soft and wearable, but they are also made to protect you and help you to be strong. So, if you did decide to come to the wedding, you should wear your Chanel.’