Chapter 9
When she called, she was told by the receptionist to simply come in and bring the animal with her. Grabbing the nearest coat, the green one she’d found in the attic, she pulled it on and stepped into the cold air.
Across the way, Monsieur Rémi was back in his front drive, kneeling on a little mat to weed a flower bed. As she shut the front door, he looked up and seemed to pale. His mouth dropped open. She raised a hand, but he seemed not to notice – it was as if he were looking straight through her.
Feeling awkward, she took the steps down to her car and felt relieved to shut the door, with Gabrielle carefully stashed in her box on the front seat.
* * *
‘You are keeping her?’ the vet, Monsieur Claude, asked once she’d been shown into his practice room.
He looked to be about sixty, with kind brown eyes and a mess of curly grey hair. He wore a white coat over jeans and a woollen jumper, and pushed his glasses up on his head whenever they weren’t required, like an Alice band.
She’d sat patiently in the small waiting room for twenty minutes while he treated a dog who’d come in before her, but had seemed not to mind that she didn’t have an appointment and that her French, when it came to animal care at least, was rudimentary at best.
The kitten was a female, about three months old, which meant Nicola could buy regular kitten food for her. He’d checked and, as the kitten wasn’t microchipped, had told her she was likely a feral cat, or stray.
‘Keep her? Um, well, I’m not sure.’
‘For now perhaps, at least? The sanctuaries are very full.’
‘OK. For now,’ she said. Gabrielle looked up at her, her eyes huge and cartoon-like.
Monsieur Claude laughed. ‘Ah, she knows,’ he said. ‘She can tell that she is safe for now.’
There had been nothing wrong with her basic checks; he’d given her a flea treatment to be on the safe side and her first set of vaccinations. Suddenly, Nicola had gone from being a person who’d rescued an animal to becoming a pet owner herself.
The odd thing was that she didn’t actually mind.
The idea of having another living soul with her in the house, even if that living soul required a sandbox to poo in and expensive pouches of kitten food, felt reassuring.
Ridiculous really. What was the kitten going to do if she were burgled, for example?
Fling her tiny body into the face of one of the thieves and try to scratch his eyes? Well, it was better than nothing.
‘I guess we’ll see how it goes. But, who knows, I think I might actually be falling in love with my cat,’ she said as she lifted the kitten back into her box.
‘Wonderful,’ the vet said slowly, something in his tone making her look at him. ‘I’m sorry, madame, it is probably not best to describe her that way in public.’
‘Why not?’ Was there some law about owning cats that she wasn’t aware of?
‘You did not say anything wrong as such,’ he said. ‘It is just the expression.’ Here he flushed red to his roots. ‘Um, ma chatte. It can mean something altogether different when you say it in these words.’
‘But she’s a female cat.’
‘Yes.’ He cleared his throat, clearly desperately uncomfortable. ‘But in England too, I think, there is also a word for cat that is not always used for the… for the animal.’
What on earth was he talking about? Then. ‘Oh,’ she said.
‘Yes. You understand.’
‘I do. Thanks for letting me know.’ A sudden thought. ‘So if I were to say, “Elle est gelée! Ma petite chatte!”, some people might think I’m talking about my… well, you know. Private parts.’
The blush was back. ‘Yes, I would not advise those exact words. Unless perhaps you are at the doctor’s.’
‘Oh dear.’
On the way back home she wondered what Monsieur Rémi had thought when she’d stood on the doorstep, shivering, and called out to him that her pussy was frozen, with no cat visible to his eyes. It would explain his hurried dash back to his house at least.
She slapped her hand on the wheel in annoyance. Yes, this would probably become a funny anecdote in the fullness of time, but that had been the first time she’d had a meaningful exchange with her neighbour and she’d scared him off.
He’d always seemed to avoid speaking to her, and this had been their first proper exchange. Great. Now he probably thought she was mad, or that the cold had gotten to her brain or something.
An idea struck her and she pulled up rather sharply outside the patisserie, said a quick goodbye to Gabrielle through one of the holes in the box, cracked a window open – probably unnecessarily in the cold weather – and dashed inside.
The patisserie itself was tiny – tucked inside one of the old buildings in the town, and fronted with a small glass window.
Inside, trays of decadent pastries gleamed and tempted customers: colourful macarons, trios of profiteroles sticky with sugar glaze, millefeuille in paper baskets, chocolate-filled eclairs and strawberry tarts.
Her stomach rumbled. She’d pretty much devour everything in sight given the chance, but what might Monsieur Rémi want? She selected a tart and an eclair and the server placed them neatly in a box and tied it with a ribbon for her. Hopefully it would be enough.
It was strangely nerve-racking to find herself opening Monsieur Rémi’s small metal gate an hour later, brandishing her gift before her like a buffer.
She’d left Gabrielle curled up on her discarded coat, leaving herself half-frozen, but she couldn’t bear to move the little creature.
Part of her hoped that he wasn’t in, that she could simply leave the box on his doorstep for him to find and rush away unseen.
Like some sort of French pastry fairy or early Père Noel.
But as she pressed the hard, plastic round of his ancient doorbell and heard the loud chimes echo through his hallway, she knew she was probably out of luck. ‘Pull yourself together,’ she whispered sternly. After all, he was her neighbour. It was time they got to know each other a little better.
The door was pulled open sharply and she almost dropped the box of cakes in shock.
‘Oui?’ Monsieur Rémi said, looking at her suspiciously.
His grey hair was combed into a side parting, and he was wearing another of his knitted jumpers.
He had overused slippers on his feet, almost threadbare, his socked feet showing through in places.
‘Oh hello, Monsieur Rémi,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to bring you something.’ She held the box out to him.
He stared at it for a moment, then grudgingly took it, setting it on a hallway chair, then looked at her again. ‘Thank you,’ he said curtly. ‘You are well?’
‘Yes. Yes, thank you.’ She didn’t know whether he was referring to her comment this morning and she certainly wasn’t going to ask.
He grunted something she couldn’t catch and appeared to be about to close the door again, then something in his features softened. ‘But she is too young to be out in this cold weather, surely?’ he said, looking over Nic’s shoulder.
She turned and saw the tiny black kitten trying to claw its way up the bottom of the three steps that led to Monsieur Rémi’s front door.
She must have escaped somehow, slinking through the gap in the door when Nicola wasn’t looking.
It was kind of nice that the cat had decided to follow her, but worrying too that she’d been unable to keep the vulnerable creature safely tucked away.
Before she could pick it up, the little cat seemed to gain purchase and leapt forward, up towards Monsieur Rémi’s feet.
He startled and for a moment Nicola thought he might kick the little bundle of fur by his slipper.
Instead, with a painful groan, he bent down and gathered Gabrielle into his arms, bringing her towards his torso and stepping back into the comparative warmth of his front hall.
‘Come,’ he said to Nicola, almost as an afterthought.
She duly stepped in too, pushing the door almost closed behind her to trap as much of the warmth in Monsieur Rémi’s house as she could. ‘You are not wearing a coat.’
The old man cooed and fussed over the little kitten, stroking its tiny black head with a single gnarled finger.
Gabrielle purred gamely, the noise so loud it was almost as if she were putting on a performance.
Then, after a moment, he handed her back to Nic, who gathered the kitten to her and kissed her gently on the head.
‘She is yours?’ Monsieur Rémi said.
‘Yes.’
‘Ah, she is beautiful,’ he said, his eyes suddenly far away. ‘My wife, she used to love cats.’
‘Is that her?’ Nicola asked, pointing to a picture of a beautiful woman, about twenty years old, in black and white print, on the hallway table. Her hair was light, gathered into a chignon, her hair sprinkled with flowers.
He nodded briefly. ‘Yes.’
Nicola had been going to ask a couple more questions, but something in Monsieur Rémi’s tone stopped her. It was gruff and forbidding, worlds away from the near-baby voice he’d used for Gabrielle.
‘Right, well,’ she said, ‘I’d better go.’
‘She died,’ he added.
Nicola looked at him and saw that despite his glowering expression, her neighbour’s eyes were shining.
‘I’m sorry.’
He nodded, cleared his throat. ‘Yes, well, it was a long time ago.’
‘Still, you must miss her.’
‘Every day. Every single day.’
As he handed Gabrielle back to her and began to open the door, he paused. ‘Your friend,’ he said. ‘The one who visited earlier. Where was she from?’
‘A friend?’
‘Yes, in the green coat. She was on your doorstep. I felt as if…’ He trailed off. ‘She was a friend, yes?’
Nicola shook her head. ‘It was probably just me.’
He held her gaze a moment, then nodded. ‘Maybe. My eyesight is not so good. It is hard to make out features. But she looked like someone. Someone I knew once.’
* * *
She was just turning the key in her lock, hoping that the fire she’d lit before taking Gabrielle to the vet’s was still revivable, when her phone rang in her pocket. Opening the door, she set Gabrielle down gently in the hallway, then answered.
‘Hi.’ Steven’s voice was flat.
‘Hi, Steven. Sorry I haven’t called. I’ve just been so busy. Lucien’s market was great, and I’ve also got—’
‘Who’s Lucien?’
‘My painting pupil, you remember? He took me out to a Christmas market. And you should have been there, Steven. It was magical.’
Her husband was silent for a moment. She could hear the clang of a locker. ‘OK,’ he said, the flat tone back.
‘Steven, are you OK? You sound a bit… down.’
‘I know. It’s just… well, it’s weird being so far away from you, is all.’
‘I get it.’ She wanted to say more, but couldn’t think of a way to emphasise how difficult she’d probably find it at Christmas without sounding as if she were criticising him. ‘I miss you, you know.’
‘Promise?’
‘Of course. Especially the cuddles.’
There was a pause.
‘You miss me too, right?’
He sighed. ‘Do you really need me to tell you?’
‘Is it really so hard to say it?’ She tried to dampen down the frisson of annoyance.
Yet another silence. ‘Well, you know I do.’
Ordinarily, they barely paused on the phone to each other. She desperately tried to think of something to lighten the mood.
‘At least I now have someone here to cuddle up to.’
‘You’ve what? Hang on. Are you talking about this French guy?’
‘No. I’m being silly!’ She laughed a little nervously. ‘I wasn’t thinking. No, another friend altogether.’
She told him about Gabrielle, the little kitten who’d cried on their doorstep.
‘But you hate cats?’
‘Well, maybe. But not this one.’
‘Wow, so miracles really do happen! Hold on a minute…’ The sound went muffled and she assumed that Steven was covering the mouthpiece with his hand.
But she could still hear a female voice asking him who he was talking to.
‘I’m just talking to my mum,’ he said to whoever had spoken to him.
‘She hasn’t been well. Yes. I’m sorry.’ He was back a moment later. ‘I’d better go.’
‘Work stuff?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Steven?’
‘Yes?’
‘Why did you just say you were talking to your mum?’
‘Oh, you know. They’re cracking down on personal calls at work, all that. Only on breaks. Look, I’d better go,’ he said hurriedly, and the line went dead.
It seemed fair enough. He’d had a new shift manager start recently and it seemed she was already making changes. The sooner he was out here and away from all that the better.
The light had begun to fade, and the fire had become a mass of rapidly dying embers.
She quickly made her way over and shoved some more paper into the glowing fragments, letting flames begin to lick before carefully placing a few small kindling sticks.
Then, as the little kitten made her way towards the fire, she picked her up and held her in her arms.
There was a time when she and Steven would have spoken for hours – she would have mentioned her language faux pas and he would have roared with laughter; she’d have told him about Monsieur Rémi and the cakes, about how she’d found a kitten in the snow.
About the market and the bauble ride and her painting lesson.
For the near-decade they’d been together, it had always been like this. They could tell each other everything. And she’d never tired of listening to him.
But they’d never been away from each other for so long. And it felt sometimes that things between them were stretched so tight they were in danger of breaking.