Chapter 5
‘Yeah, just calling to see how you are,’ Nicola said, forcing a cheery tone into her voice.
Harriet saw through it at once, of course. ‘What’s up, sis?’ she said, her tone wary.
‘Just thought we could catch up a bit,’ she told her, picking the corner from the toast she’d made herself for lunch.
She would go get the pastry, as instructed.
Just later. And while she was at it, she’d better get some more food generally if she didn’t want to starve the next time it snowed heavily.
‘Well, not much to catch up with this end. Same old, same old,’ Harriet said, sounding decidedly cheerful about it. ‘Working on my dissertation for uni. Or trying to. Mum’s trying to get me to go Christmas shopping, but it feels too early, you know?’
‘Harriet, it’s, like, three weeks away! Two and a half, really.’
‘Yeah, I know. Told you. Plenty of time!’
Nicola found herself smiling, despite her low mood.
She’d already bought her presents, wrapped and posted them to the family.
Steven’s were upstairs, nestling in their wardrobe.
But Harriet was the archetypal last-minute Christmas shopper, never feeling the need to pick anything up until the season was nearly upon her.
‘Don’t know how you do it.’
‘Ah, you know me. I just like it when everything feels Christmassy!’
‘And when the shops start to discount all their festive stock?’
‘Well, there is that. Penniless student, remember.’
Nicola smiled. She remembered her own uni days, living on a shoestring. It hadn’t mattered because all of her friends were in the same meagre boat. They’d pool pennies together on trips to the local shop, and make a bag of rice last for an inordinate amount of time.
‘So, why are you really calling?’
Nicola sighed. ‘Just a bit down I suppose. You know, about Christmas.’
She picked another paper from the box in front of her. It seemed to be an invoice for a tank full of gas in 1967. She put it through the shredder, watching the paper curl into strips.
‘Down? You are living in a holiday destination full time! You own a gorgeous property, despite all those worries you had that it might all fall through. Remember you told me that if you got this house, you’d never worry about anything again.’
She did, vaguely. ‘Yeah, well, times change.’
‘Damn.’ There was a pause, and it was as if she could hear her sister’s brain cogs whirring. ‘Well, if it helps, my Christmas is going to be even worse than usual with Mum.’
‘Poor Mum. She just loves Christmas.’
‘Yes, but Nicola, she’s so enthusiastic this year and it’s all on me! I feel under pressure to eat every mince pie she bakes, and watch those ridiculous films. And did I tell you she wants us to go carol singing like Victorian orphans?’
Nicola smiled, thinking about her mum’s enthusiasm for the season.
She was a fan of Christmas herself, but Mum took it to the next level.
‘She’s making up for lost years; you know she didn’t have the chance to celebrate much as a kid,’ Dad would say.
‘Just let her!’ But when you’d been forced to watch Christmas movies from 1 November for two decades and your house was festooned with so many lights it should be considered a fire risk, it was hard not to feel a bit overwhelmed.
‘Anyway, Christmas is overrated if you ask me,’ Harriet finished.
Nicola laughed. ‘I know. It’s just… it’s an odd time of year to be completely alone, you know?’
‘Yes, apparently a very well-known band called Mud sang about that.’
‘Very funny.’
‘You’ll survive, you know?’ Harriet said, more seriously. ‘You’re stronger than you think. Always have been.’
It was such a kind and insightful thing for her little sister to say that it almost made her well up.
Nic moved the conversation on to their father, the fact that he was still determined not to retire from his job, despite the fact that he’d promised their mother he’d quit by age sixty-seven. ‘Mum wants them to go on a cruise,’ said Harriet.
‘Oh no! Dad hates the water!’
‘Exactly! It’s hilarious to see his face whenever she brings it up!’
‘Poor Mum.’
‘And poor Dad. You know he’ll end up on a boat one way or another.’
When they ended the call, she felt momentarily buoyant, but then the silence seemed to close around her and she found herself welling up with the tears she’d suppressed while speaking to Harriet.
It was odd: when you lived close to someone, you often didn’t see them for weeks.
But when you were away and couldn’t see them even if you wanted to, the yearning for them seemed to grow.
Harriet had been born when Nicola was fourteen.
She still remembered the embarrassment she’d felt when Mum had told her she was pregnant.
At forty! With such a big age gap they’d never had a close sibling relationship – in the past, it had felt more as if she was Harriet’s aunt sometimes.
But now her sister was in her early twenties, things felt different.
As if they were somehow on an even footing for the first time.
A knock on the door startled her and she looked instinctively at the time on her phone. Horrified to see it was 2 p.m., she hurriedly wiped her eyes, checked her appearance briefly in the hall mirror. Her eyes were a little bit red, but she doubted he’d notice.
She opened the door to find Lucien on the step in his enormous coat and bearing an even bigger smile.
Lucien had completed some of the sketching at home and the picture was already taking shape, the thin pencil lines tracing the bones of what would be a fully-fleshed picture by the time they were finished.
She nodded and explained that they’d proceed by using a water wash to add a hint of colour to the different shapes on the canvas before working on the finer detail with more precision.
She demonstrated on some art paper and watched approvingly as his brush blotted its own blue background on a practice piece. Then he was back at work, adding a shimmer of translucent blue to the sky that would eventually be bright and riotous.
‘It’s looking great,’ she murmured approvingly as he carefully traced along the guidelines, watching the colour seep into the thick paper and stain it with a hint of colour.
‘Thank you.’ He put his brush down in the water and looked at her briefly. ‘But I have to ask,’ he said, shrugging as if admitting something that was completely out of his hands. ‘Do you want to talk about it?’
‘We can go through the techniques as much as you want,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, I thought you’d taken to it so well that I didn’t want to—’
‘No,’ he said, a slight smile on his lips.
‘Not about the watercolour. About yourself.’ He reddened slightly, looking boyish.
‘I can’t help but notice that you seem upset.
’ He waved vaguely at her face as if to indicate that the signs she’d thought were barely visible were more obvious than she’d realised.
‘Oh.’ She put a hand to her cheek. ‘Sorry, it was just…’
He gave a small, soft laugh. ‘No, please. Don’t apologise. I should apologise for being nosey. It’s just… I can see that you are alone and when I noticed you’d been crying I felt worried.’
‘Honestly, you don’t want to hear all my problems,’ she said.
‘It would be a nice distraction from my own,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘And perhaps yours will be problems I can fix.’
He was still smiling. But there was a sadness in his words too.
‘You can’t, I’m afraid. Nobody can,’ she began, then, after watching his eyes widen, she quickly clarified.
‘It’s nothing though. Not really. I’m just a bit disappointed.
’ She briefly explained how she’d hoped Steven would be there for Christmas and how he was now unable to come. Then about the passport.
‘You cannot get an emergency one?’
‘No, tried that. Christmas holidays don’t qualify as an urgent reason to travel, apparently.’
‘Ah.’ He shook his head. ‘But what if Père Noel needed his passport to travel the world on Christmas Eve? That would be an emergency, right?’
She laughed. ‘They clearly haven’t thought the policy through. One rule for all, I’m afraid.’
Lucien shook his head. ‘Ah, merde. Then it is Christmas in Eymoutiers for you. But that is not such a bad thing, I hope?’
‘No, it’s fine. It’ll be fine.’ She smiled. ‘Sorry, it’s just that I’m new here. I don’t know anyone and don’t take this the wrong way… but things seem a little dead in the winter.’
Lucien raised an eyebrow. ‘Dead?’
‘Yes. You know. Empty. No one around.’
‘It is funny that you think this. Because for me, I feel this time of year is almost as busy as summer. There are events, markets, gatherings, meals. My calendar is full.’
‘But that’s because you know people. The only person I’ve met is Monsieur Rémi next door and I’m pretty sure he hates my guts.’
‘Your guts?’
‘It’s an expression. He can’t stand me. At least it seems that way.’ She shrugged – no big deal.
‘I know Monsieur Rémi a little. He used to sit in the café in town on market days. He seems OK. Gentle, like a little cat!’ Lucien grinned broadly.
‘Yeah. Well. Cats don’t like me either. Much.’ She thought back to the old cat they’d had when she was a little girl, how it would stiffen and hiss at her when she reached for it. She hadn’t been a fan of cats since.
Lucien laughed. ‘Then I have chosen the wrong metaphor.’
‘I guess so.’
‘He is a puppy?’
She snorted, imagining Monsieur Rémi with the energy of a Labrador pup. ‘Seriously?’
He picked up a brush and gave her a grin. ‘Well, he is friendly at least. Normally. I am sure he wouldn’t want to have given you that impression.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Anyway, you are wrong. Maybe not about the cats, we will see. But about this place. There is life, Nicola. You just need to know where to look. I will show you.’
She was about to say something terribly British about that not being necessary and that she was completely fine, but stopped herself. After all, when in France… ‘Merci, ca me plairait bien,’ she said instead. I would like that.
Later, when he’d left, she returned to the attic.
She’d filled two bags with rubbish by 10 p.m. and was just about to head to bed for some much-needed rest when she saw a flash of red through a small tear in the third box.
In all honesty, she’d been thinking about just dumping the remainder of the boxed papers – so far she’d wasted about four hours checking through them, finding only musty paper and outdated bills.
But this was something else. A glow of colour on a sliver of light.
Pulling back one of the cardboard flaps, she saw a satin ribbon wrapped around two envelopes, tied together with a bow.