Chapter Seven #3
It was only long after we broke up that I understood what had actually happened.
I’d been charmed, charmed as effectively as if I had been a snake myself and Giancarlo sitting before me cross-legged, wearing a turban and loincloth, tootling sweet airs on a pipe.
Charm, it takes you in. And, more dangerously, charm disguises. It disguises a lack of substance.
Oh, I’m not engaging in a character assassination of Jules Croisset. Perhaps the charm was simply part of his pleasing manner. But I didn’t intend to be taken in. Once was quite enough.
‘I’ve got a proposition for you,’ Jules said, jerking me out of my reverie as we drew up outside the Villa Matisse.
Here we go, I thought, but said, ‘Go on.’
‘This company I run. I’m always on the lookout for temporary chefs.’
Taken aback, I played for time. ‘Surely if your clients are wealthy, they stay in five-star hotels with five-star chefs at their beck and call to satisfy their every five-star prandial whim?’
He chuckled. ‘Well, yes, the majority of them do. But there’s also a significant section of my clientele who prefer to rent villas or apartments.
They prefer the privacy and the freedom that confers, especially if they’re holidaying in a group or a family party.
They want self-catering but…’ He hesitated.
‘They don’t want to cater for themselves.’
Jules turned to me. ‘Precisely,’ he said.
‘Golly.’ Twisting round in my seat to face him, I said, ‘This sounds like you’re offering me a job.’
‘I am, if you’re interested. It would be temporary positions, two or three weeks at a time, your travel fully paid and seriously good remuneration.
It would be almost exclusively in the spring, autumn and winter months.
Because my clients are older, they almost always prefer not to visit the C?te d’Azur during the summer when it’s hot and crowded.
Of course,’ he waved a hand, ‘a century ago that is precisely what happened. Nobody worth their salt holidayed here in the summer. It was always the cooler times of the year when the rich and privileged arrived en bloc.’
‘But you know so little about me,’ I said slowly. ‘You don’t even know whether I can cook.’
‘Yes, I do, and not just on the strength of two spoonfuls of soupe au pistou.’ He touched his head. ‘Apart from looking up your profile online, I have a mind for these things.’
‘Like Hercule Poirot?’
We both laughed. Then I thought of Carl and, inevitably, my experience so far the Villa Matisse. The latter was not encouraging.
But as if he could read my thoughts, Jules said quickly, ‘My clients are never difficult. They tell me exactly what they want, and I ensure they get exactly that.’
‘I can imagine you do,’ I murmured. I simply did not know what to say. He’d put me in a complete quandary.
‘Listen, don’t give me your answer now. I’m flying home to Brussels tomorrow to see my mother before Christmas. She’s going to my sister for the day itself. I’ll be back here on Christmas Eve. We can discuss it further when we meet again.’
I nodded at him. ‘Okay, thank you. And thank you for a lovely day.’
‘The pleasure,’ he said, rather pedantically, ‘was all mine.’ And leaning towards me, he cupped his hand under my chin and kissed me very firmly full on the lips.
‘I’ll see you soon. Until then, keep smiling, Alix.’
‘You’re back, then.’
Closing the front door behind me ultra-carefully as per strict security instructions, I stepped further into the hall, craning my neck upwards in the direction of the disembodied voice to see Luc Mandeville leaning on his elbows over the balustrade of the mezzanine gallery above me.
The television was squawking away in English behind him.
From the shrieks and screams that seem indispensable to any ‘family’ viewing these days, it sounded like one of those game shows where the main aim seems to be for all the contestants to make complete idiots of themselves.
‘I am,’ I replied, resisting the temptation to add ‘obviously’.
‘Where have you been?’
‘Oh, just out and about.’ There was no way I was going to tell him about my date with Jules; he was undoubtedly the type who would take a very dim view of downstairs fraternising with up. ‘Nobody was in need of my services,’ I said diffidently.
‘Well, somebody is now.’ He disappeared for a moment, and the television was turned off. ‘Could you make me something to eat?’ he said, coming back into view. No ‘please’, I noted. ‘I haven’t eaten a square meal since… well, since when I can’t remember.’
‘Certainly.’ I thought quickly. There was inevitably a lot of stuff remaining from yesterday evening, although I’m not as a rule very keen on cobbling together leftovers. But at least it wouldn’t all go to waste. ‘Do you like curry?’
‘Whatever.’ He gave a shrug as if he couldn’t care less and glanced back over his shoulder at the now silent television. ‘Now, can you explain to me why people keep on hugging and kissing each other every second of every programme on British television?’
It was a slight exaggeration, but I knew what he meant. However, I imitated his shrug.
‘No idea.’
‘Emotional incontinence has gone viral.’
‘When would like to eat?’
He thought a second, then glanced at his watch. ‘Make it an hour,’ he ordered before disappearing again, this time along the landing in the direction of his bedroom.
Again no ‘please’ and certainly never a ‘thank you.’ No, Luc Mandeville was certainly not a charmer.
In my room, I quickly took off the lovely blouse Nicole had lent me, pulled on a navy-blue fisherman’s sweater and, grabbing my apron, knocked on her door to return the blouse to her. She was sitting at her desk wearing headphones.
‘No, please to keep him,’ she said, swivelling round and taking them off.
I couldn’t do that, I protested. But she was adamant.
‘I have no use for him and he looks very, very lovely on you. Please, I give you him as a cadeau.’ Her face suddenly illumined. ‘A Christmas present!’
There was no way I could get her to accept a refusal, so I settled for asking her if she’d like to have something to eat, but it turned out she’d made herself a sandwich earlier.
‘But M’sieur Luc, he is coming home hungry.’
Didn’t I just know it.
The kitchen was quiet, clean and tidy. For a teenager, Nicole was certainly out of the ordinary when it came to clearing up after herself.
Putting on some chopped onions and a couple of chillies to sweat and stripping the chicken carcasses, I glanced up at the wall clock and decided to risk a quick call to Carl.
He’d be expecting me to phone this evening.
But I needn’t have worried. Once I got through to him, he was so full of his first afternoon on the ski slopes that I think he’d forgotten I had said I would.
‘To stop, you do a thing called a snowplough, Mum.’ Did I know that?
(You bet I did. A snowplough had nearly crippled me for life.) We chatted briefly; he said they were all getting ready to go out for the evening.
All? Then I remembered Giancarlo’s two daughters from his two marriages were joining the party, Carl’s half-sisters.
That would be nice for him. The first must now be around ten or eleven, the other much younger.
Carl is just coming up to the age when he is starting to find girls interesting, or at least he has begun to notice girls exist. The older girl would probably boss or mother him, though, neither of which he would appreciate.
The call ended, leaving me once again missing my son so desperately it hurt.
Except this time, no matter how hard I tried to distract myself with cooking, I could not stop it hurting.
In the warm, beautiful room with its pools of amber light spreading from the lamps Nicole had left burning, I could see Carl as if he were there beside me.
He would be intrigued by the Villa Matisse, I knew.
Not simply for its faded luxury and air of celebrity glamour but more for the cast of quirky characters that inhabited the place.
Carl adores drama; he loves make-believe.
He’s very into acting at school. He finds people interesting; he likes imagining he is someone other than himself.
The pain grew and grew until, despite the nice day I had just enjoyed with Jules, I felt overwhelmed by a crippling sense of loneliness.
No, not loneliness. It wasn’t loneliness.
That was not right. It was alone-ness. I felt alone, alone as if I was the last person on the planet and everybody else had left or died long ago.
I sat down suddenly at the kitchen table. Not for the first time I bitterly regretted ever coming to the Villa Matisse.