Chapter 4
ANTIBES. LAST WEEK IN NOVEMBER
Evie Sampson stood in front of the Picasso museum on the Antibes ramparts and took a deep breath filled with both the fresh Mediterranean air and pure joy as she stared out to sea.
As bizarre as it felt in her jet-lagged brain, she was actually here in the South of France, standing in a place she’d dreamt about for as long as she could remember.
Great-Grandma Evelyn, or GeeGee as she had always called her, had filled her head with tales of a sojourn she’d enjoyed in Europe, stories about her favourite place in the world, Juan-les-Pins, the people she’d met, the blue skies, the French culture.
‘So different to our own American culture,’ she’d said.
GeeGee had been silent for a long moment before shaking her head. ‘Returning could have damaged my memories of the place and people. Sometimes it is better to leave those old memories intact rather than try to add to them when the place, the people, will all have changed.’
It had been shortly after that conversation, and a day or two before Evie’s twenty-first birthday, when GeeGee had called Evie into her room.
‘I need to give you some things before it is too late,’ she’d said.
The ‘some things’ had turned out to be several vintage dresses and also her jewellery.
They were all things Evie had loved dressing up in and wearing as a young child.
Later, she’d even borrowed a couple of the dresses to wear to parties.
She’d loved that she was the same size as GeeGee had been in her twenties.
As Evie had said her heart felt thank yous, GeeGee had pressed a large envelope into her hands containing a battered black oilskin-covered notebook.
‘That journal is precious to me. The papers with it are mementoes of my visit. There’s no rush to go, but promise me you will go to France soon.
Visit Antibes. Read the journal while you’re there being entranced by the beauty that is the Riviera. ’
‘Is this an original Moleskine notebook?’ Evie had asked, stroking the black cover with its rounded edges and elastic closure band.
‘Yes. I bought that in France.’ GeeGee had looked at her. ‘After you’ve been to France and read my journal,’ she’d hesitated, ‘you might want to talk to your mother.’
Evie had given GeeGee a curious look, but her grandmother had shaken her head. A month later and GeeGee was gone, dying peacefully in her sleep.
* * *
Evie gave an involuntary jump as the clock on the H?tel de Ville building less than fifty metres behind her boomed out the hour with seven loud clangs.
Time to return to the rental where she’d dumped her bags before heading out, keen to start exploring this exciting place where the sea under the afternoon sun had looked as blue as the Caribbean.
The fact that she should have been on her honeymoon in the actual Caribbean with Perry this very month had morphed into an incidental casualty of her life now she was standing alone in this dream destination of hers.
Not that she hadn’t been hurt at the time when she had broken off their engagement five months ago, after she’d caught him cheating with a friend of hers.
But the hurt had faded, replaced by relief that a disastrous marriage had been avoided and she was free to enjoy living in Europe for several months.
It had been Daisy, her mother, who had encouraged her to apply for a three-month visa.
‘Use some of your legacy from GeeGee,’ she’d urged.
‘She always credited France with opening her eyes to what Europe and the rest of the world offered and was sad when she had to return home. Just think of the features you’d be able to write for different magazines now you’re freelance.
As for that novel you keep threatening to write?
’ Daisy had raised her eyebrows at that point suggestively.
Evie had given a thoughtful nod. ‘What about Granny Charlotte though?’ she’d said. ‘I don’t like to leave you alone in case, you know.’ She shook her head. ‘I know the care home is brilliant, but you and I usually visit together because it’s hard seeing Granny Charlotte like she is now.’
‘The doctors have said Granny Charlotte can live for several years, so don’t worry about that. I shall continue to visit on my own. A lot of the time Granny doesn’t know who we are,’ Daisy had said sadly. ‘And I promise if she does deteriorate, I will phone and you can fly straight home.’
So the visa had been applied for and the flight booked. Forty-eight hours ago when Evie had said her goodbyes as she left to catch her flight to Europe from JFK, her mom had hugged her tight.
‘Go follow in GeeGee’s footsteps, I know she longed for you to do that,’ she’d said. ‘See what she loved with your own eyes. I wish I was coming with you in so many ways, but I can’t leave Granny Charlotte.’
‘We can go together another time,’ Evie had said, giving her a tight hug.
Back at the small apartment she’d rented at the top of one of the tall buildings lining the Cours Masséna where the Marché Provencal was held most weekdays, Evie looked at the welcome basket on the worktop somebody had kindly left her.
The local cheese and the rosé wine she placed in the fridge, along with the butter and the milk already there.
A baguette, a couple of slices of local ham, cookies of some description, a small jar of coffee and some tea bags made up the rest of the welcome basket.
Enough to keep her going until the morning, she decided, when she would go shopping for croissants for breakfast and stock up with other supplies.
Right now all she really wanted, as a wave of tiredness threatened to overwhelm her, was a ham baguette and a cup of coffee, followed by a long sleep.
Tomorrow she’d settle in properly, maybe, if it was warm enough, even venture out for breakfast onto the roof terrace she could see through the kitchen window.
* * *
A loud gun-like bang woke Evie at five-thirty the next morning and she sat up clutching the duvet to her, startled and discombobulated.
What the hell? France gun laws were a world away from American ones she knew.
Nobody in France routinely carried a gun.
But then it happened again, followed by raised voices this time.
She got up and ran towards the window in the sitting room that overlooked the Marché Provencal and breathed a sigh of relief.
The trash was being collected and it was metal bins banging against the refuse lorry, not a gun at all.
Thankfully, the raised voices were coming from two men, both wearing headgear that clearly hampered their hearing, as they laughed and joked together as they cleared the street alongside the market.
Now wide awake, Evie decided against going back to bed and made for the bathroom.
Three quarters of an hour later, having battled with a temperamental shower that one minute almost scalded her with hot water only to cool her down with a deluge of cold as she desperately tried to readjust the tap, she was dressed and had unpacked both her suitcases.
Her clothes were hung up, lost in the voluminous wooden double door wardrobe with its full-length mirror, drawers and shelves as well as a hanging rail in one side.
Before closing the wardrobe doors, Evie made sure the vintage dresses GeeGee had given her were hanging properly on their silk padded hangers.
She sighed as she noticed the small tear halfway up one of the sleeves; she’d forgotten about that.
Hopefully it wouldn’t show if she did wear the dress.
Evie had packed them because, thrilled they fitted her, she loved wearing them at any opportunity, particularly the blue chiffon one when she wore it with the rhinestone and blue emerald-like brooch that decorated the neckline perfectly.
There just had to be a party somewhere on the Riviera where she could wear that dress whilst she was here.
The now redundant suitcases had been pushed under the bed out of sight. Her laptop was on the small table by the sitting room window, plugged in and charging.
GeeGee’s envelope with its wartime memento papers and the battered Moleskine notebook she’d given her was alongside it.
She was looking forward to reading that now she was finally here in Antibes.
She’d wait a little while longer until she was jetlag-free and could give it the attention she intuitively knew it deserved.
Buying a beautiful notebook to record her own French adventure in, rather than simply type her thoughts onto the laptop was high on her to-do list. Now, it was time for her first coffee of the day.
Evie took her coffee and stood in front of the sitting-room window watching the market coming to life.
Cheese, fruit, vegetables, olives, soap, fish, herbs, wine, meat, bottles of olive oil – all were being arranged attractively on stands or in refrigerated display cabinets in the case of the cheeses and meats.
Already, customers were wandering up and down, buying things and placing them carefully in straw baskets.
Suddenly, Evie wanted, needed, to be out there, to be part of the scene she was witnessing; to smell the cheese close up, to stand and watch the accordion player she could hear playing something that sounded suspiciously like ‘Jingle Bells’, and to simply lose herself in the French market ambience that was already full of Christmas spirit.
Leaving her coffee cup on the table and grabbing her denim jacket along with her phone, keys and some euro notes, she slammed the apartment door shut and ran down the stairs.
Her French adventure was about to begin.