Chapter Seven #2
By this time we had turned into a large gallery and shop that seemed to sell everything Biot could offer.
While Jules ran a practised eye over the goods on offer, I found myself looking at the jewellery section.
I don’t wear a lot of jewellery as a rule.
You can’t wear it at work in my profession, and besides, I seldom see anything that would suit me.
Delicate little necklaces and earrings look ridiculous on someone of my size: Gulliver in a Lilliputian bauble.
But in one section of the shop – it was really more of a sort of indoor market with lots of independent stalls – I saw these fantastic chokers for sale.
They were made out of ‘found’ objects, all manner of stuff in different metals and probably what most people would call junk.
There seemed to be a Picasso influence about them, I thought, remembering Picasso’s passion for trawling through scrapyards and recycling his finds into art.
One necklace in particular caught my eye.
It was huge, brutalist, on a heavy metal chain, attached at random to which were nuts and bolts, an old key and, best of all as far as I was concerned, what looked like some twisted remnants of cutlery; a truncated fruit knife, half a bent teaspoon and a tiny dessert fork with most of its tines missing.
‘You like this?’ Jules asked, arriving at my side.
‘It’s incredible,’ I said. ‘I love it. But we’re here to buy a present for your mother.’
We moved on. Jules had gone suddenly uncharacteristically quiet, but perhaps shopping had a bad effect on him after all. He brightened up, however, when on another stall I spotted an elegant hand-blown blue glass vase that I suggested might please his mother.
‘I was thinking of a tablecloth for her,’ he said dubiously. There were great stacks of tablecloths on sale all over the shop, a cornucopia of colour in the vibrant Provencal traditional blue, yellow and red patterned fabrics.
‘A tablecloth is a bit sort of, well, ordinary for a Christmas present for your mother,’ I ventured. ‘A bit mundane.’
‘Isn’t a vase mundane?’
‘Well, I suppose you could argue that. But it looks more special, more as though it was chosen with particular care. Especially if at the same time you give her a lovely bouquet of flowers to go in the vase.’
His face lit up. ‘I’ll buy it,’ he said happily, and gently squeezed my arm. ‘Thank you. You’re brilliant.’
***
Now, as we finished our oysters and waited for the main course, he asked me what I thought of the restaurant.
‘Oh, it’s wonderful,’ I said, looking round.
And it was. Tucked away in an arcade opening onto a small square with a crumbling church at its end, the exterior was in the Italianate style, so Italianate, in fact, that it reminded me of that scene in The Godfather when Michael Corleone marries Apollonia.
As we went in, I had half expected to be accompanied by two guys in black suits and caps, clutching rifles.
‘I love the way they’ve hung the walls with paintings by local artists. ’
‘Do you think the artists get a free lunch for their pains?’
I smiled. ‘Like Picasso and the rest of the gang at La Colombe d’Or handing over their masterpieces in return for a square meal when they were starving?’
He chuckled. ‘That’s right, if that story is not apocryphal.
’ Then he seemed to think for a moment. ‘Tell me,’ he said abruptly, ‘how are you getting on at the Villa Matisse? Leaving aside the fiasco of yesterday evening’s dinner, which was due to absolutely no fault on your part and quite disgraceful.
’ He went on, ‘Are you enjoying yourself, enjoying the job?’
Enjoying myself? Enjoying… now, there was a word. I looked levelly at the man in front of me.
‘The answer to your question is, quite frankly, no, I am not enjoying myself. In fact, this is turning out to be by far the most unenjoyable job of work I have ever taken on in my life.’
Jules didn’t seem at all surprised. ‘I surmised as much,’ he murmured thoughtfully.
‘But listen.’ I wished I’d kept my counsel.
‘It is a job of work. I am employed by a member of the Mandeville family even if I’m not certain which member and therefore, at the risk of sounding like some pompous old fart in Westminster trying to defend himself against the latest sex scandal, I don’t think it appropriate for me to comment further.
I’ve already said more than I should,’ I finished, adding, ‘sorry, but there it is.’
Jules waved a hand as if to dismiss my apology. ‘No, no, I quite understand.’
Our main courses arrived and we both sat back to allow the waiters to put the plates down. I picked up my fork.
‘So, please, let’s talk about something else.’
There followed a short pause while, staring down at his marmite de poisson, he seemed to be considering what I had said. Then all at once, he leant forward again.
‘You know, Luc is a very nice man.’
‘Really.’
‘Yes, really. I don’t want you to think badly of him.’
‘I don’t want to think anything of him,’ I said sharply, which, the moment I’d said it, I realised wasn’t quite true and therefore added to my rising feeling of irritation.
‘It’s just the poor guy’s got a lot on his plate at the moment.’
‘Yes. I know. I know. Jess told me. In fact, I’d swear she used exactly the same words.’ I looked challengingly at Jules. ‘Are you two in cahoots or something? Witnesses for the defence of Luc Mandeville? Getting your story straight in case I play good cop-bad cop and start interrogating you?’
Jules gave an uncomfortable little titter. ‘No, of course not.’
‘Then let’s drop the subject.’ Looking down at my plate, I forked up a morsel of sole à la Normande and put it in my mouth.
It was overcooked, a bit like the conversation.
‘And your fish stew is getting cold.’ I nodded at it, but Jules just continued to sit there, staring so sorrowfully at me I relented.
‘Look.’ I put my fork down. ‘It really doesn’t matter.
In fact, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. ’
‘You are not being treated with courtesy,’ Jules said gravely.
‘Well, I wouldn’t worry about that if I were you,’ I said, affecting nonchalance. ‘I’m much tougher than I look.’
He looked interested. ‘Are you?’
‘Yes, and I’m having a very nice time today with you. Are you having a nice time?’
He nodded.
‘Good. So let’s not spoil it. Let’s eat up and then afterwards, if you fancy it, I’d love to see the famous Fernand Léger museum up the road. We could walk round the gardens – if you’re not busy this afternoon, that is?’
‘No.’ He shook his head, spreading his hands. ‘Today I am devoted to you.’
‘Now there’s an offer.’ I smiled at him, deliberately provocative.
We both laughed and the rest of the lunch passed calmly, the conversation casual but interesting and, to my relief, focusing on anything but the aggravating behaviour of Luc Mandeville.
We didn’t talk much in the car on the way back to the Villa Matisse.
A couple of desultory comments along the lines of ‘Wasn’t that wonderful?
’ and ‘The Fernand Léger museum is incredible, isn’t it?
’ and suchlike, when we both instantly agreed with whatever the other had said.
However, the conversational ball had lost its bounce.
It was now around six o’clock, almost dark, a pale moon rising.
Feeling tired and sleepy after the wine at lunch, the museum and the fresh air, I found myself reflecting on the conversation at lunch about Luc Mandeville.
For his part, Jules seemed equally preoccupied with thoughts of his own.
I found myself puzzling about why had I been so thorny on the subject of Luc Mandeville.
I had been brusque with Jules almost to the point of downright rudeness.
Okay, so Luc Mandeville had been blessed with a mother who was a headcase, but what did that matter to me?
She was his cross to bear. It was stupid to let the man get under my skin.
Moreover, whatever further unpleasantness lay in store for me at the Villa Matisse, in this one day I had made two potential friends; I’d had a good time.
Jess I had liked immediately and Jules equally so.
In fact, I knew my liking for Jules Croisset sprang from something rather poignant: he reminded me of Giancarlo.
It wasn’t simply that where women were concerned they had all the practised chat; the two men shared the same ability to charm without effort.
Both were men who, unless you were somehow charm-resistant, you could not help but be charmed by.
When I met Giancarlo twelve years ago, I believed I had found love.
I was only in my mid-twenties, but nevertheless I was at that stage finding myself increasingly baffled as to why relationships never seemed to go the full mile.
It wasn’t in any way that I was desperate to get married or ‘commit’ as we rather irritatingly called it in back in the day, there was time enough for all that.
Throughout my three years at university and afterwards, I’d dated guys, I could say I’d had my fair share of boyfriends.
Some were great, some absolute no-goes, some just…
neither here nor there. But even with the great ones nothing happened.
It was like a game of snakes and ladders.
The ladder would be there and I’d climb it energetically, only to land on a snake two squares later and slide back down with a bump.
Until I met Giancarlo. And then there seemed to be no snakes on the board. Only ladders.