Chapter Fourteen #2
‘Believe it or not,’ she was now saying, ‘by a coincidence so extraordinary it would make Charles Dickens envious, I was actually born and bred near a place called Bedlington. It’s a town in Northumberland,’ she glanced under the table, ‘and where this little chap comes from originally. My best friend when I was a child had a Bedlington terrier. But how on earth have you ended up with one?’
I explained about Henri and his so-called Christmas present to the Mandevilles. ‘Luc said he felt like throttling him – Henri, that is, not the dog.’
Jess smiled. ‘I bet he did. Luc’s got enough on his plate.
’ She pondered a second or two. ‘And of course, if he’s lost his owner, the dog might have his own problems. My best friend used to claim her Bedlington suffered from depression.
What’s the matter?’ She had registered my expression.
‘What have I said? I only mean I remember that because even though I was only about ten I remember thinking at the time that dogs didn’t suffer from depression. ’
I gave myself a little shake. ‘Sorry, it’s just, by another extraordinary coincidence, that’s more or less what Emma is saying about this dog. He’s called Alphonse, by the way, and Emma claims Alphonse has issues and may even be falling victim to separation anxiety.’
Jess chuckled. ‘I can imagine what Luc has to say about that.’
‘Quite,’ I said succinctly. ‘They don’t half wind each other up, don’t they? When they get going, you start checking the exits.’
Jess nodded her head. ‘I know. They always have done, at least they have since Emma has grown up. I think it’s because they’re so alike.’
‘I agree with you, except…’ I hesitated, aware the conversation was getting distinctly indiscrete again, just when I’d resolved to keep my distance from the Mandeville family.
‘Except what?’
Oh, nuts to discretion. ‘Except Luc told me Emma takes after her mother.’
‘Esther?’ Jess frowned. ‘Not really, certainly not physically, as you will yourself have observed. Physically, Emma’s the image of her father.’
‘What did Esther look like?’ I asked, clearing my throat, which seemed inexplicably to have gone suddenly dry.
‘Oh, small, dark and beautiful, very beautiful. Of course, Emma is very good-looking, but Esther was one of those women you double-took at. A perfect figure, a perfect face, perfect bone structure and what have you, with an enchanting smile. Alix? Are you all right? You’ve suddenly gone terribly pale. ’
‘Fine,’ I croaked.
‘And your hands are shaking,’ remarked Jess, looking at them.
‘I… I think I’m just a bit hungry,’ I stammered. ‘I didn’t have any breakfast.’
Jess swivelled round in her chair. ‘Food,’ she announced decisively, beckoning the waiter. ‘That’s what you need – fuel. Cold turkey and bubble and squeak okay for you?’
‘Perfect,’ I said. ‘Just perfect.’
‘Of course Esther was much younger than Luc when they met. It was at university, but she was an undergraduate just finishing her final year and he was actually a senior lecturer in his early thirties. They met at a party.’
‘Was she a historian too?’ I didn’t really want to hear any more and yet at the same time felt compelled to know.
‘What? Oh, I see what you mean. Heavens, no, Esther wasn’t at all academic.
She wouldn’t even have been at university in the old days, but the fashion was taking off for all these new degrees – weird stuff some of them – all just to keep kids out of the labour market, I’d say.
’ Jess puckered her forehead. ‘I think she was reading Sports Science or something equally bizarre.’
‘Except sport is quite a science these days.’
Jess gave a vigorous nod. ‘And how! Drives me insane how seriously people take what amounts basically to a game. Well, that was Esther, massively sporty and massively strong into the bargain – physically, that is, even though she was really quite tiny.’
There was a short pause while we both ate some bubble and squeak.
Then, ‘The complete antithesis of Luc,’ Jess mused, pouring us some more wine from the carafe she had ordered. ‘He’s so bookish. Apart from his obsession with motorbikes, which in a way is a peccadillo he gets from his father, from Johnny, Luc is your archetypal nutty professor.’
‘How did she die?’
‘Esther? How did she die?’ Putting her knife and fork down, Jess looked steadily at me for a moment until suddenly her face crumpled. ‘God, sorry,’ she said, brushing tears from her cheeks. ‘It was seven years ago but it still makes me cry. Aside from being tragic, it was just such a bloody waste.’
I waited, saying nothing.
Taking a shaky breath, Jess gulped some wine.
‘It was a climbing accident,’ she said, blotting her eyes with her paper napkin.
‘Esther was a rock climber – she’d won competitions, championships, whatever; I don’t know about these things.
I only know that she was climbing, here in France in fact, in the Alpes-Maritimes.
’ She jerked her head in the vague direction of the mountains behind us.
‘It was a day in summer, July, a beautiful day, sunny but not too hot, simply beautiful…’
As Jess’s voice faded away, again I waited in silence. Presently she began once more.
‘The school holidays had started and the three of them, Emma, her mother and Luc, had come to stay here at the Villa Matisse with Johnny and me. Johnny was okay in those days, beginning to get more than a bit muddled but still okay, and Emma a child of course. They got on so well together. In some ways, small children are better at relating to Alzheimer’s sufferers than us adults.
They keep things simple. With Emma, if Johnny kept constantly repeating things, which he did all the time, Emma would just tell him she couldn’t keep count of his repetitions because she wasn’t very good at numbers, which made Johnny laugh.
’ She paused and sighed. ‘Anyway, Esther got this offer from somebody, I can’t remember who, to go climbing and Luc didn’t want her to go.
Well, he never did want her to go but… well, he could never stop her.
’ Jess puffed out her lips in a minute expression of impatience.
‘But then you never could ever stop Esther from doing what she wanted to do.’ She looked me straight in the eye.
‘Esther was an amazing person, Alix, truly amazing, but she went her own way. And not Luc, not Emma, not even her own parents, nobody but nobody on this planet could ever stop Esther doing what she wanted to do.’
‘What happened?’ I asked after another short hiatus.
‘She fell.’ Taking a deep breath, Jess became matter-of-fact. ‘It turned out she was actually doing what I think they call free solo climbing, so no ropes or cleats or the usual safeguards, and she fell. She fell and she broke her neck. She was just thirty-one.’
Transfixed, I stared at Jess.
‘Yeah, I know.’ She looked sad. ‘There’s nothing you can say, is there?’
Dumbly, I shook my head.
Jess expelled a long sigh. ‘Well, there you go. I’ve told you.
Now all I can say is, I know Luc’s never got over it.
’ Hands flat on the table, she levered herself to her feet but stiffly, as if suddenly feeling her age.
She picked up the carafe. ‘I’m going to get us some more wine,’ she said, and then paused once again to look down at me.
‘But I’ve said that to you before, haven’t I, Alix? I only wish it weren’t true.’