Chapter Twelve #3
‘What, you mean you’ve asked and the university has refused? That’s very unusual. In fact, I don’t think they can refuse—’
‘No, I haven’t asked.’ She waved a hand to cut me off. ‘I haven’t asked because I can’t change because history is Dad’s subject and he has always wanted me to do that and I promised I would.’
In the silence that followed, I looked at the bowed head of the young woman opposite me.
‘Emma?’ I said at length. ‘I think you’ve got things a bit muddled.’
She – and the dog – looked up. ‘What do you mean?’
I took a deep breath. ‘What I mean is, I really don’t know your father well at all, but—’
‘He likes you, I can tell he does.’
‘Well, that’s as may be,’ I continued awkwardly, ignoring an involuntary spurt of pleasure.
‘As I say, I don’t know him well at all, but I do know this about him.
Your father would not want you to do anything you did not want to do yourself – just for his sake.
And he would never want you to be unhappy.
Of this I am one million per cent certain.
You must tell him what you’ve just told me. ’
Contemplating me for a long moment as if mulling over what I had said, Emma suddenly looked crafty.
‘No, I’ve got a better idea,’ she said. ‘You tell him for me. He’ll take it from you. You tell him.’
Taken aback, I stared at her. ‘Now wait a minute,’ I began when the swing door banged open and Luc loped in.
‘Oh my God,’ he said, seeing the dog. ‘I’d forgotten him. What on earth can Henri have been thinking of? In fact, I can’t believe he would do this to me.’
This struck me a mite excessive, but Luc Mandeville looked like a broken man.
‘Now, on top of everything else, I’ve got to rehome a dog!’
‘Oh no, Dad! We’re keeping him. He’s lovely, and anyway,’ Emma rushed on, ‘he needs stability after what has happened to him. He’ll have issues – serious, life-changing issues. In fact, he may well be suffering from separation anxiety.’
‘Issues? Separation anxiety? He’s a bloody dog, for God’s sake! Oh, I give up. We’ll discuss the dog later. Listen, Emma, I’ve got to go and pick up Gran in a minute. Would you be a love and go and keep Uncle Henri company while I’m gone?’
‘Yeah, no probs. Give me five.’ Carefully lowering Alphonse to the floor, whereupon he promptly tried to get back on her lap, Emma jumped up.
‘Five what?’ snapped Luc, looking infuriated all over again.
‘Minutes – give me five minutes.’
‘Well, bloody well say that, then!’
‘Dad, I’m heading on out! Just gotta change my gear.
’ She indicated her clothes, a pair of jeans so artistically ripped they were virtually in tatters and a greyish-white sloppy joe sweater that seemed to have done business lining a dog basket.
Perhaps now it would come into its own. ‘Dad, just be kind to the dog,’ she said. ‘Listen to his story.’
‘His story, a dog’s story?! What the bloody hell—’ Breaking off, Luc ran his fingers through his hair.
‘Oh, forget it. I could throttle Henri, frankly. I know he’s always been eccentric – going to Eton did that for him – but in his dotage he seems to have adopted an Oscar-winning impersonation of Michael Caine in Zulu.
Added to which, my daughter has transformed into Miss American Psychobabble. ’ He stomped back out.
Looking at me, Emma raised her eyes to heaven. ‘He does know how to lose it, doesn’t he? By the way,’ she continued, ‘we dress up a bit for Christmas dinner. Gran demands it. That is, if you don’t mind?’ She gestured towards my own jeans and jumper.
‘Um, sure.’
It had been established over dinner yesterday evening that I would sit down to eat with everyone, an arrangement that had struck me as not just difficult but wholly inappropriate.
However, despite my protests, in what I was beginning to recognise as her determination to get her own way – a touch of her grandmother possibly?
– Emma had been insistent about this. I’d ended up hoping she might have let it go by this morning.
It seemed she had not. So although I had been intending to wear my usual working black skirt and white shirt, I realised this would make me look like a waitress who’d sat down uninvited at your table.
‘It’s just I haven’t really brought anything smart with me,’ I muttered, more in hope than expectation. As I spoke, I thought fleetingly of the lovely blouse Nicole had given me, but I didn’t want to risk spoiling that farting around with a turkey dinner.
‘No worries. I’ve just the thing, a lovely little black dress I can lend you. I can’t wear it as Dad doesn’t like me wearing black, but it would look great on you. I’ll bring it down with me.’
‘Won’t he mind me wearing black?’
‘He won’t even notice.’ And on that slightly discouraging note, she was gone.
I looked at the pile of sprouts, vaguely aware Emma had peeled far too many.
You always do at Christmas. Then I looked down at the dog.
But I was not really registering sprouts or dog.
Another line had been added to my mental portrait of Luc Mandeville, leaving me more than ever with an unfinished picture.