The Villa Matisse

Chapter One

I knew within five minutes of walking into the kitchen of the Villa Matisse that first morning that I should have walked right back out.

I should have said to Luc Mandeville, stick your job, whoever you are – and I didn’t know who he was at that point – and left.

But I’m one of those irritating people who has to see things through.

I’ve never walked out of a play at the theatre or a film at the cinema, even a real lulu, the ultimate golden raspberry.

I have to know what’s going to happen. Maybe that’s part of why I like being a chef.

With a meal there’s a beginning, a middle and an end.

Structure, you see; it fulfils a need in me.

My father once told me that when I was very small and he used to read to me at bedtime, he always had to finish the story.

I refused to let him stop halfway through.

If he did stop or tried to, I would not go to sleep.

And, unlike many children who like the comfort of being read the same old tale over and over again, whatever he read to me had to be new.

Once I knew how the story ended, I didn’t want to hear it again.

As you can imagine, this caused a problem, a relatively minor problem but nonetheless genuine, of supply; there is a limit to how many children’s storybooks exist. Eventually, my father was reduced to making up stories himself.

They weren’t very good, he told me, but I still paid the greatest attention to them.

And I still wanted to know how they ended.

‘So you do exist.’

This was what Luc Mandeville said to me when I walked into the kitchen that first morning at the Villa Matisse.

‘I was beginning to think you were a figment of Nicole’s imagination.

’ He glanced across the room to where the young French girl I had met in the early hours of that morning was filling a coffee machine.

‘Then again, in view of the hour at which I understand you arrived, she might have simply had a nightmare.’

The way he was looking at me suggested he thought that’s exactly what I was – a nightmare.

He offered no other form of greeting, no handshake; he didn’t even stand up from where he was sitting at the huge, raw-oak table which occupied the centre of the kitchen of the Villa Matisse.

Not, you understand, that I expect a man to go in for that little charade where we women are concerned.

But a bit of courtesy would not have gone amiss.

And who the hell was this guy, anyway? I had expected to be greeted by the woman I had spoken to on the phone, the woman who had engaged me, the woman who had blown my ear off with her shrieky voice, made worse by her ending her every utterance with an even shriekier laugh no matter that she had not said anything that could be considered in any way amusing.

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid I arrived much later than arranged. But I did phone to explain. Several times in fact.’ I sat down, uninvited, opposite him at the table. ‘However, nobody answered.’

‘Explain what?’

‘My train from Milan to Nice was cancelled, some kind of industrial action I think, which made the journey very difficult because I had to get a coach and that then didn’t—’

‘Yes, yes, all right,’ he interrupted irritably. ‘I get the picture. The only thing worse than worst journeys is having to listen to people telling you about them. It’s like someone endlessly showing you their holiday photographs.’

Actually, rude as he was, he had a point there.

‘And for what it’s worth, I can assure you the horrors of your journey would not have been a patch on mine.

’ At this point he flexed his shoulders under the tatty leather biker jacket he was wearing and grimaced as if they hurt him.

Then, leaning forward, he seized a smartphone from where it was lying on the table in front of him and started scrolling down.

‘Right,’ he said, squinting at it. ‘It says here that you are Ms Alex Bailey, the temporary cook.’

‘I am. Except it’s Alix not Alex. Alix with an “I”.’

‘Really?’ Flinging the phone down, he looked up in the mildest possible surprise. ‘Alix with an “I”. It sounds Russian, or are we in the gloriously sentimental realms of Noel Coward?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘In Which We Serve. Don’t you know the film? It’s a classic not least for the immortal Celia Johnson playing the epitome of a redoubtable English woman called Alix with an “I”.’

‘I believe my name is actually French,’ I said, feeling slightly flummoxed. (It was such a peculiar conversation to be having.) ‘My paternal great-grandmother came from Brittany, where I’m told there was queen in ancient times called Alix.’

‘Ah, Brittany.’ He gave a whimsical wave of his hand. ‘Dear Brittany. Home of literally revolting peasants, disgusting pancakes and cabbages as big as your head.’

I contemplated him without replying, wondering just how much more unpleasant he was going to get.

‘Still, we won’t hold that against you, will we, Nic?’ He glanced up at the young French girl as she placed a large green pottery bowl full of black coffee in front of him along with a small basket containing a couple of croissants. ‘Not if you’re the cook.’

I debated briefly with myself whether to let this ride. Then decided not. ‘Actually, I’m a chef.’

‘Oh?’ Extraordinary how he managed to make even that little word sound insulting. ‘Is there a difference?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ It really didn’t. In fact, I wished I hadn’t spoken.

‘No, do enlighten me.’

‘Okay.’ I took a deep breath. It would have been better not to get into this but, boy, did this jerk rile me. However, I would keep it simple. ‘A cook follows a recipe. Whereas a chef,’ under his unfriendly gaze I floundered slightly, ‘does… far more,’ I finished, pretty lamely I have to admit.

‘So you do “far more”?’

‘Yes.’ I hurried on: ‘A chef is also professionally trained – as I am.’ I pointed to his smartphone. ‘If you’ve downloaded my profile on that, you will see that I trained with Prue Leith and, latterly, Raymond Blanc.’

‘Is Prue Leith the woman on that excruciatingly boring food show where people bake cakes in ten seconds that look as though they could poison you?’ Before I could respond to this, he went on, ‘I know who Raymond Blanc is, however. He’s the friend of a friend of mine.’

Show-off, I thought, and wondered where this was going next. However, I didn’t get a chance to find out because his smartphone rang and, seizing it, he flapped his free hand at me in one of those aggravating lordly gestures intended to silence you.

‘Darling! How lovely!’ he exclaimed in a tone of voice quite different from any he had used so far with me.

He started listening attentively and then talking animatedly back.

I got up. You can’t sit opposite someone talking on the phone and pretend not to listen to them, however hard you try.

But in another peremptory gesture, he jabbed a forefinger at me to sit back down.

I ignored it, instead crossing the kitchen to the counter where the type of coffee machine you need a barista to operate was bubbling away with subdued enthusiasm.

To my left, the young French girl was washing a few dishes in the sink.

‘Do you mind if I help myself to some coffee?’ I asked politely to her back, but no response.

The back remained studiously turned. Oh, nuts to her too.

Taking one of the huge green pottery bowls from its pile on the shelf above the machine, I poured some coffee and helped myself to a croissant from a paper bag open on the counter.

I should be used to this. In the private catering trade, clients frequently never offer you any refreshment, often seeming scandalised that you should not only need to eat and drink but eat and drink their food and their drink.

I went back to my chair at the table where discourtesy personified was still on the phone.

‘No, I know, darling. It was Granny’s idea. I had nothing to do with it. I had to bike down from Paris overnight. What?’

There was a pause.

‘Oh, thanks, darling. No, it wasn’t great but I’m here now.

Anyway, Gran’s suddenly decided she wants a big family Christmas with turkey and all that crap, as it’s the last one we’ll ever have in this house.

She even wants a blessed Christmas tree, for heaven’s sake.

What?’ Another pause. ‘Oh well, that’s different.

If you want one, I’ll see what I can do… ’