Chapter Eight
With a sigh, I turned over onto my back.
There was no point in trying to get back to sleep at that hour, but nevertheless, I lay there for ages, staring sightlessly at the ceiling while gingerly re-examining my black mood of early yesterday evening.
It seemed to have dispelled, but only partly, because a troubling sense of disquiet still lingered in the back of my mind.
My train of thought felt out-of-sync, jumbled.
I couldn’t think clearly. I didn’t feel like me.
I wondered whether it was because, contrary to my usual strictures, I’d allowed myself to be drawn into the private lives of the occupants of the Villa Matisse.
Whatever, it felt disturbing. But who was it who said we all go a little mad sometimes?
Then I remembered: Norman Bates in Psycho.
Well, that was an encouraging thought, especially in the light of Luc Mandeville’s mother.
All at once I realised what was the real matter with me.
I had a bloody hangover; I’d drunk too much yesterday evening.
And because of that, I’d made a complete idiot of myself.
I’d been overfamiliar with Mandeville, intrusive about his personal life when I had no right to be and well…
condescending, patronising even. The paranoia induced by the morning-after-the-night-before syndrome increased to the point where I cringed to think how I’d behaved with Mandeville.
And he was my employer! My whole body felt on fire with embarrassment.
I’d never be able to look the man in the eye again.
I doubted very much he’d want to look in mine given what a total prat I’d made of myself.
I lay there feeling worse and worse, overwhelmed by a temptation to pull the sheets over my head and stay there forever.
Nobody would notice my absence, then, at a suitable juncture, I could creep away under cover of darkness and never grace the portals of the Villa Matisse again.
Nobody would miss me; they would all be relieved I’d gone.
Alix Bailey, who fancies herself as a professional chef but has a little problem – she can’t hold her drink.
With a sudden movement, I wrenched myself out of bed; this would not do.
Hangover paranoia or not, it was far too uncivilised an hour for self-analysis.
Besides, I was aware of the unpromising beginnings of a cracking headache.
I opened the curtains. It was still dark outside, ink-black dark; there were no security lights outside the servants’ wing of the house.
Probably minions weren’t deemed worthy of protection from burglars or vagabonds.
The Villa Matisse seemed totally silent.
I could hear nothing. Nobody was around or, if they were, they were being very quiet about it.
With a little shake, I told myself I’d be fine once I got going.
That is, if today there was anything happening at the Villa Matisse to get going with…
In the bathroom cabinet, I found a packet of Nurofen – Neurofene because we were in France, but they’d do – and swallowed a couple with a scoop of water from the cold tap.
My mouth felt dry and dirty even after I’d cleaned my teeth about ten times, so I gargled with some mouthwash I also found in the cabinet.
This improved matters, if leaving my mouth stinging and doubtless with ruined taste buds forever.
Nothing loathe, I treated myself to a boiling-hot shower, following it up by a deluge as cold as I could tolerate.
I felt better. Nevertheless, I still needed coffee and orange juice and possibly a new personality.
Fifteen minutes later when I entered the kitchen, I found the usual suspects: Nicole, Billy and old Tom, the latter sitting at the table with a pot of tea and a mug in front of him, wearing his English country gent’s gear plus flat cap and leafing through a glossy magazine that looked like the French equivalent of Country Life.
‘Will you just look at the bleedin’ prices of the houses round ’ere,’ he was saying. ‘There’s one advertised for money that could buy a whole bleedin’ town from where I come from.’ His previous clipped army officer tones were not in evidence.
Nicole was at the sink washing up, and Billy, standing next to her, was leaning back against the draining board with a mug in his hand.
Over Billy’s cat-on-the-head black hair, he had pulled on a pair of felt reindeer antlers on an Alice band.
Both were completely ignoring Tom, but it didn’t stop him droning on.
‘When you think what the bastards pay us,’ he grumbled. ‘It ain’t right, you know.’ At this, he looked up from the magazine, suddenly noticed me and leapt smartly to attention. ‘Good morning, Madam,’ he said, doffing his cap. ‘And how are you, this merry morn?’
‘It’s not Christmas Day yet,’ remarked Billy. ‘That’s when you say “merry morn”. My nan told me.’
‘She was right,’ I said, smiling at him. ‘But it soon will be, and I’ve been commandeered to find a Christmas tree from somewhere.’
‘They sell the blighters in the supermarket,’ huffed Tom, re-assuming his officer tones.
It occurred to me that, although I don’t particularly like the idiom, the man was something of a construct.
Yet he’d got it so wrong that he simply sounded like a character out of Dad’s Army except in a pathetic way rather than comic.
‘With a nice bit of tinsel too,’ he added.
‘Thanks, but it’s got to be a real one.’ Nicole had turned from the sink to dry her hands. I said to her, ‘Mr Mandeville claims there’s a box of decorations in the store room. Do you know where he means?’
She gave a vigorous nod. ‘I will find these now.’
The moment she’d rushed out, the entrance phone buzzed and in trailed the Villa Matisse’s Mrs Mop making a beeline for her ninety-five dustpans.
‘There’s one outside the back door!’ shouted Billy over the ensuing racket.
‘One what?’ I yelled back.
Billy turned to put his empty mug in the sink, then beckoned me to follow him. The cleaning woman clattered out, laden with hoovers, squeegee mops and buckets.
‘Now you make sure you put something warm on if you’re going outside, Miss Alix,’ Tom said fussily as relative peace returned. ‘It’s parky out there this morning. There’s snow on them thar hills.’
Rolling his eyes despairingly at me, Billy guided me in the direction of the back door.
‘To be fair, the guy’s right,’ he said. ‘It isn’t too toasty out today. Somehow you never, like, expect cold weather in Nice so it’s always, like, a big shock.’ He glanced at me. ‘You got a coat or something?’
I grabbed the old puffer jacket that I had worn to travel from the hook on the back of my bedroom door as we went past.
‘There is snow up on the mountains, too,’ continued Billy. ‘Makes everything ever so pretty. You’ll see later when it’s proper light, like. They’ll be skiing up there, you’ll see later. Do you ski, Miss Alix?’
‘Never, but my son has gone skiing with his dad.’
‘You got a boy? Well, that’s nice, innit?’ He threw me a mischievous little grin as he opened the back door and switched on an outside light. ‘But poor Miss Alix, left on her own to look after this madhouse.’
I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Indeed, but let’s drop the “Miss”, Billy. I’m just Alix.’
At that moment we were joined by Nicole, out of breath and shivering even though she had only just come out of the house and was also togged up in a puffer coat, one that looked miles too big for her.
I looked more closely at her; the girl was actually shaking, not shivering, in fact, quaking as though something had just given her a nasty fright.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked, touching her arm.
‘Fine,’ she panted, trying to force her lips into a smile, which didn’t work because her teeth were actually chattering.
I eyed her coat. You could tell it was very good quality and in fuchsia-pink looked gorgeous with her colouring.
But it swamped her, reaching well down past her knees, clearly meant for someone a good deal taller.
I suspected charity donation, which made me feel a sudden twinge of guilt.
Here was I indulging in self-inflicted angst when for three weeks’ work I was being paid probably more than this young woman earned in six months or longer – if indeed she earned anything at all.
‘I find the decorations.’ Nicole was still breathing hard.
‘Thank you, but there was really no need for such a hurry.’
‘And I place the box on the table of the kitchen.’
I glanced through the kitchen window running along to our left and saw Tom was still slumped at the table, scowling at the said box of decorations and morosely pouring himself another mug of tea from the pot in front of him.
‘By the way,’ I asked. ‘Is Luc… er… I mean Mr Mandeville still around? Or has he gone?’
‘He goes fifteen minutes before,’ Nicole told me.
‘He went fifteen minutes ago,’ Billy corrected her amiably, at which she tossed her head a little, scowling at him, but Billy just laughed and ushered us on.
‘There you go!’ he cried in triumph as he stopped in his tracks a few metres from the back door.
And there we were. Tucked into a narrow flower bed against the outside wall of the Villa Matisse was a small but healthily green-looking little fir tree.
‘I planted him out last year,’ he explained.
‘After Miss Jess and old Mr Mandeville had finished with him.’ His cheerful face darkened for a second.
‘Didn’t like to chuck him on the bonfire somehow. ’
‘Good for you,’ I said with meaning.