Chapter Sixteen
‘Knock, knock.’
‘Who’s there?’
‘Luc.’
‘Luc who?’ I said warily.
‘Luc Back in Anger.’
Despite myself, I laughed. ‘Very good,’ I said to Emma.
‘Actually, it isn’t,’ she said seriously, sitting down at the kitchen table where I was chopping onions and peppers.
She had just washed her hair, which was dripping wetly all over her shoulders.
‘John Osbourne quips aside, I don’t know what’s the matter with Dad.
I mean, he can be pretty grumpy normally, but I’ve never known him this grumpy. ’
‘Christmas hangover?’
Shaking her head, sending a spray of drops all over the place, Emma pursed her lips.
‘No, it’s something more but I don’t know what.
I mean, I know he’s fed up with Gran, but I don’t think it’s just that.
Besides, I’m fed up with Gran and it’s me that’s affected.
I don’t want to go back home yet. I mean, like, normally, Christmas down here can get to be a bit of a drag, and I can’t wait to get back home, but this year it’s different.
It’s different this year with you here.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, touched.
‘Yeah, I was hoping we might even have gone out some place together.’
‘That would have been nice, but I’m afraid I’ll probably be going myself now everybody else is.’
‘Oh no! Don’t do that. Dad wants you to stay.’
‘Does he?’ I stared at her. ‘How do you know? Has he said something?’
‘No, nothing.’ Emma picked up a red pepper and stroked it. ‘But I, like, know he does.’
It was the following day, Sunday, the day after Boxing Day, and whether we had been in England, France or Timbuktu, we were into the dead time between Christmas and New Year when nobody knows what to do with themselves and everybody gets ratty and rattier as they try to pretend that they do.
It’s the same every year. If you’ve got kids, they’re bored and sick of playing with their new toys and even sicker of their parents screaming at them to do exactly that.
The house is a wreck and the Christmas tree, even if it still possesses some needles, looks as though it’s had quite enough of this particular party.
There’s no food that you fancy cooking, and even if you do, everybody’s been eating and drinking far more than they would normally, so they don’t fancy it either.
A pall of festive indigestion has descended and what everybody really needs is a massive if metaphorical belch to clear the blockage.
At the Villa Matisse, life was no different.
Emma had arrived home around mid-morning, looking jaded and bent on mutiny.
However, when her father told her about the dog, she was fine about it, as he had predicted.
Perhaps because she had been more concerned with rushing upstairs to wash her hair because, she claimed, it stank of weed, a complaint that caused Luc’s eyebrows to disappear into his hairline, although he wisely kept his counsel.
She was less sanguine about the news of her grandmother’s departure but, in her good-natured fashion, seemed to accept it with equanimity.
However, ‘Of course, it’s not the charms of my company Gran is after,’ she informed me, sitting down opposite me to eat her third piece of toast – ‘I’m literally starving,’ she’d cried.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Oh, she just wants my luggage allowance to take back all the gear I know she will have bought here. I’ll be lucky if I can fit in a change of knickers.’
Although this amused me, I suggested it might be a little cynical.
‘No – realistic,’ said Emma. And then Luc came in.
‘The first flight I can get you both on,’ he said, looking harassed, ‘is tomorrow afternoon, scheduled, which is of course costing the earth.’ He spoke directly to his daughter, studiously avoiding looking at me, which he had done ever since our contretemps of yesterday evening.
All the easy camaraderie we had begun to enjoy seemed to have evaporated.
We might have been total strangers, or simply he was back to the boss and me the cook.
‘Okay.’ Emma shrugged. ‘It is what it is.’
‘Oh, for mercy’s sake, don’t use that moronic phrase!’
As he barged back out, Emma bit her lip and looked at me. ‘See what I mean?’ she said. Then, before I could reply, she spoke again. ‘Maybe he’s had a row with Caroline. It wouldn’t surprise me.’
‘Do they do that a lot, then?’ I asked casually.
‘Row?’
I nodded.
‘Actually, not really. Not, like, rows as such. They just fall out when she wants him to do something he doesn’t want to do – usually her socialising stuff.
’ She giggled suddenly. ‘It can be quite funny sometimes, like back in June when we were all at home in England, she wanted him to accompany her to a garden party at Buckingham Palace.’ Eyes wide, she regarded me.
‘I mean, can you imagine it? Dad at a Buck Pal garden party? It was pretty dumb of her to even suggest it.’
‘Don’t you like her?’
‘Oh, she’s okay. She’s pretty nice to me I guess.
And I like that Dad has someone. She was very nice to him when Grandpa Johnny died back in the spring.
It’s just…’ Breaking off, she heaved a sigh.
‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s just I don’t think she’s quite worked out yet what makes him tick.
But Gran’s crazy about her – of course.’
‘Why “of course”?’
‘Oh, because Caroline’s distantly related to some duke.
Gran loves all that shit. It’s how she was brought up.
She foamed at the mouth when Dad refused point blank to go to the garden party.
’ She giggled again at the memory. ‘It was very funny really.’ Then she nodded at the chilli peppers I was now de-seeding. ‘What are you making?’
‘Turkey curry. It’s a bit—’
‘Turkey curry! Oh, I love that! Sorry, what were you going to say?’
‘Do you?’ I smiled at her enthusiasm. ‘Well, I was going to say it’s a bit naff, although this is a good one.’
‘I bet it is. My nan used to make it – my mum’s mum, that is.
Gran couldn’t open a can of beans to save her life, but Nana was, like, a really ace cook.
’ She paused and frowned. ‘I say “was” because Nana’s dead now, as is my grandfather, her husband.
They weren’t so old, you know? But I think they kind of gave up on life after Mum died.
’ Looking up at me from her pepper-stroking, she read my expression.
‘Yeah,’ she agreed sadly. ‘I guess I know a lotta dead people.’
Two hours later found me trotting on my way to the Cours Saleya to see Jules Croisset at the café where we had originally met.
I had phoned him yesterday evening after making Luc a club sandwich – on a tray – which he ate all right but did not trouble himself to thank me for, leaving me thinking that whatever I ended up doing with it, I could not avoid thanking Jules for the necklace, not unless I was bent on being as churlish as Luc Mandeville.
In truth, however, I didn’t quite know what to do with the necklace.
My first instinct was to give it back. I was not in a relationship with Jules and not intending to be in one.
He might get the wrong idea about me if I kept his gift, although that was a bit of an outdated way of looking at things, and besides, I had the distinct impression that Jules Croisset was the sort of man who would get the wrong idea about any woman if it suited his purpose.
In the end, I decided to take the necklace with me and test the water, putting it still in its box in my shoulder bag and resolutely ignoring a persistent little voice in my head telling me that if I were being honest with myself, I badly wanted to keep it because it was so fantastic.
***
Luc and Emma had departed for their separate day, Luc apparently to take his mother out for a farewell lunch and Emma to some bar in town with Josh where they had ‘like, a really cool ska band’.
Luc informed me my services were not required for the day – and yes, he did use exactly those words – at which Emma promptly turned to me and said, ‘Do you see what I mean? He’s even being nasty to you. ’
‘Don’t be silly, Emma,’ Luc said crisply, holding up his hand in his favoured stopping-a-bus gesture before Emma could open her mouth to answer back.
He turned to me. ‘However, dinner this evening, please, Alix, for three. And on Wednesday dinner for four or possibly six, but we’ll discuss that later. ’
‘Who’s coming to dinner on Wednesday?’ Emma asked.
‘Caroline and some friends of hers. Nobody you know.’
‘I know Caroline.’
‘I’m aware of that.’
Emma hesitated as though she was about to say something but then thought better of it.
‘Who is the third person you’ve asked for dinner this evening?‘ she asked instead. ‘Or did you just mean Alix?’
‘No, I did not just mean Alix, I meant Jess. I’ve invited Jess as you won’t have another chance to see her now you are going home tomorrow.’
‘Oh.’ Emma looked more cheerful. ‘Good. Thanks, Dad. That’s nice of you. Is she bringing Alphonse?’
‘Jess is indeed bringing the dog.’
‘I’ll have to, like, say goodbye to him.’ Her face puckered a little. ‘And that’s gonna be a bit emosh. I’d best grab a couple of boxes of man-size Kleenex while I’m in town.’
For a split second at that point, Luc caught my eye, a small glimmering smile seeming to twitch at his mouth, only for him to look away so instantly I wondered if I had imagined it.
And that was that. In due course, father and daughter disappeared and I phoned Jules again.
I’d left him a message yesterday evening, to which he had replied by text, asking me out to lunch today if I was free.
I wasn’t crazy about seeing him, but I had to sort out this necklace business and, who knows, it might be a little light relief.
***
‘Alix!’ he cried when I arrived, leaping to his feet as if he hadn’t seen me in ten years. Then he kissed me on each cheek not just twice but three times. ‘There! That’s traditionally Belgian,’ he said with satisfaction.
‘So I’ve heard.’