Prologue
Fleur
West Sussex, October 2015
Fleur sat down in her grandmother’s chair, placing the satin ballet shoe on her lap and her hands gently on the armrests. Closing her eyes, she brushed her thumbs across the sun-faded upholstery. Whenever Fleur thought of her grandmother, Lydia, she always pictured her sitting here, in the crook of the bay window, looking out across the green with the sound of the sea lapping at the shoreline just beyond the next row of houses that enjoyed their superior sea-fronted position.
Fleur drew in a deep breath and could detect the faintest trace of Lydia’s favourite perfume – one Fleur had bought for her on many a birthday. It was Rive Gauche by Yves Saint Laurent. Lydia had been wearing the 1970s classic for as long as Fleur could remember. It was only in the last few months that Fleur understood the significance behind the name of the fragrance, which referred to the southern side of the river Seine – the Left Bank. But then Fleur hadn’t known very much about her grandmother’s past until recently, certainly not the time during the war when Lydia was a ten-year-old child living in Paris under the German occupation and attending the school opposite what was now the Musée d’Orsay in the Left Bank district of the city.
Fleur released her breath and opened her eyes, her gaze settling on the Pierre Valois miniature watercolour hanging in the alcove by the fireplace, depicting a ballerina at the barre. Another hidden connection to Lydia’s past that had been in plain sight all these years.
Fleur’s gaze travelled to the ballet shoe and her heart contracted as it had done ever since she’d found out the story behind it. The fabric was worn from hours of dancing and now delicate from the passing of time. The ribbon was frayed at the edges but still intact. It was a shoe that had graced the boards of the dance studio in Paris; pirouetting, skipping and hopping, rising and falling. It was a shoe that had held so much love and hope over many years. Another connection between past and present. A connection for Lydia and to Lydia. One Fleur knew she would always cherish, one that made her cry and made her smile, one that made her feel proud.
And, now that Fleur knew everything, it was also one that broke her heart.