Chapter 10
The imminent arrival of Albert and Marc gave Brigitte the impetus to sort the file of photographs and memorabilia that evening and find a picture frame ready to take to the shop in the morning.
She chose a picture frame and took the rest of the frames to her own room and pushed them under the bed out of the way.
After dinner, and under Monique’s watchful eyes, Brigitte took everything out of the folder and spread it on the kitchen table, trying to decide which photos would work together.
Several of the photos were of her Grand-Maman Florence taken at various events prior to World War Two and after the war had finished.
Monique shuffled the photos around before picking up one of the black-and-white photos and turning it over to read the faded pencil writing on the back.
‘I remember Grand-maman Florence telling me she hated the Americans and I was to avoid them,’ Brigitte said.
‘Which is impossible. I’ve met some really nice Americans.
’ She picked up the photo and looked at it again.
‘In many ways, I wish we’d kept a couple of Grand-maman’s dresses when we started Vintage Vignettes.
I know they didn’t fit me, but I should have kept one as a souvenir.
This one was lovely, I remember. Too late now, but I’m glad that we at least kept the dress clip that came with it. ’
‘One of a pair, I might remind you, which should never have been separated,’ Monique said, an angry tone to her voice. ‘Clipped together and worn as one brooch, they made a real statement.’
Brigitte smothered a sigh, hoping her maman was not going to start moaning about an incident that had caused problems in the family decades ago and was best forgotten. They at least still had the one dress clip. She quickly picked up another photograph in an effort to stop her.
‘This is you, I think, years later, in the same dress with my papa. No description on the back, though.’ She glanced at her mother questioningly.
Monique looked at it. ‘Casino de Juan-les-Pins. We’d gone to see Maurice Chevalier sometime in the sixties before you were born. I wore that particular dress a lot then. Sadly I couldn’t get into it, or any of the others, after you were born.’
‘So sorry about that,’ Brigitte said laughing, relieved she’d managed to divert her mother. ‘I think I’ll put these two close together in the frame and then this publicity photo of Josephine Baker in her banana costume underneath them for contrast.’
‘I always wanted to go to one of her shows, but your papa didn’t, so we never did. He preferred to listen to the American jazz bands that played in Parc de la Pinède or, better still as far as he was concerned, on street corners.’
Brigitte, concentrating on placing the photos and the poster in position before clipping the frame back together, glanced at her maman.
‘I met a very pretty young American woman this morning. A journalist. Her great-grandmother urged her to visit. She came in with Nadia’s new house-sitter to collect the last of the mended dresses. ’
‘Americans, Americans,’ Monique shrugged. ‘I can’t remember a time when there weren’t Americans in town. They come. They go. Replaced by a never-ending stream of their compatriots.’ She gave an ironic laugh. ‘Before you say it, I know – I sound like my maman.’
‘You know the Americans are good for business; lots of our customers are from the US,’ Brigitte said. ‘Evie has already said she’ll be buying things to take home.’
‘Sometimes I think you should never have opened the shop. Selling our heritage away to a foreign land,’ Monique grumbled. ‘There will be nothing left one day for French people to have as a keepsake.’
‘French people buy in the shop as well.’ Brigitte glanced at her mother. ‘You’re in a funny mood tonight. Has something upset you?’
Monique gestured towards the loose photographs still on the table.
‘Just thinking about the past and my parents. Life could have been so different if we hadn’t had to…
’ Her voice trailed away before she took a deep breath and looked at Brigitte.
‘Let’s change the subject. I thought we might have a Christmas tree in the sitting room early this year as it’s going to be a family Christmas with Albert and Marc here.
You can go see Hervé tomorrow, choose one and ask him to deliver it. And one for the terrace for the party.’
‘You can telephone him and give him the order,’ Brigitte protested. ‘Or you can go to the shop. I don’t need to go.’
‘I want you to go. Stupidly, you let him slip through your fingers when you were younger, now he’s back you should make more of an effort. Life has given you a second chance, you should at least try. You need a good man in your life to look after you when I’m gone.’
Open-mouthed, Brigitte stared at her maman for several seconds.
‘Stop pushing me towards Hervé. I’m not a teenager any more.
I’m fifty-six years old and I am perfectly happy single.
You need to forget about Hervé and I getting together again other than as friends.
It is as likely to happen as… as you putting a fake Christmas tree with tinsel on its branches in the sitting room. ’
Monique stared at her for a second or two before giving a sharp brittle laugh. ‘If that is all it’s going to take, I shall buy a fake tree and a packet of tinsel tomorrow.’
Brigitte glared at her before picking up the finished picture frame. ‘I’ll put this in my room to take to the shop tomorrow. Then I’m going for a walk to try to forget this conversation. Maybe I’ll see you at breakfast – if you are up early enough.’
* * *
Brigitte bought a cup of mulled wine from the stall at the entrance to the Christmas market and wandered around deep in thought.
Various local stallholders waved out a greeting, which she acknowledged, raising her mulled wine in their direction, but she didn’t have it in her to stop and chat.
Maybe later. For now, she wanted to lose herself in the crowds. And in her thoughts.
Monique had never been one of those parents who let their children learn from their own mistakes.
She would determine which mistake her only daughter was about to make and step in firmly to prevent it.
Brigitte remembered her teenage years as being fraught and full of arguments with her mother as she started to rebel against the control.
Her father, Pierre, caught in the crossfire, was always trying to gently point out they were both in the wrong to some extent – Monique, because she had to let Brigitte make her own mistakes, and Brigitte, because she simply refused to listen to Monique about anything.
It wasn’t until she left home for university and limited her visits home that she and her mother slowly started to rebuild their relationship, and Monique’s control on her life diminished.
Brigitte’s five years of independent living near Bordeaux, working for a wine producer after she left university, had ended abruptly when Pierre had phoned and asked her to consider returning to live at home to help Monique look after Florence.
Of course she’d returned, family was family.
But when Pierre was killed in a car accident a few months later, and just weeks before Florence died, her own fate had been sealed.
There was no way she could leave her mother at that time.
And she herself had welcomed the sanctuary of home while she grieved the father she’d adored.
Thoughtfully, Brigitte sipped her mulled wine.
She loved Antibes; she loved her life here; she loved Vintage Vignettes; deep down she even loved her mother – if only she wasn’t determined to keep interfering in her life.
She’d thought the days of Monique trying to control her love life were far behind her.
But tonight’s scene had unexpectedly raised a big question in her mind that she’d never really asked herself before: would she even have returned here if she’d known she’d still be living at home with her mother twenty-eight years later?
What path would her life have taken if she’d stayed upcountry?
She’d had made friends there, and loved her job, organising and running the tours of the vineyard and managing the marketing and wine tastings.
She and Adam, son of the owner, were good friends and she’d known he would like their friendship to be more, but she’d always held back.
Now, as she wandered around the Christmas market thinking about Adam, with hindsight keeping him at arm’s length had probably been a mistake.
If she’d married Adam, she would probably have had a family, as she’d always imagined she would growing up, which would have pleased her mother, who had often talked about longing to be a grandmother.
Far too late for regrets about that now. Brigitte let out a deep sigh.
‘Evening, Brigitte.’ Hervé’s voice broke into her thoughts and she jumped in surprise.
The last person she wanted to see was standing looking at her, a questioning look on his face, the red beret on his head, the handlebar moustache twirled neatly.
‘That was a deep sigh. Something the matter? Can I help?’
‘Non. It is just my maman being impossible,’ Brigitte said.
‘Truly? Monique being difficult. Surely not.’
Brigitte glared at him before shaking her head and laughing at the truth underlying his words.
‘That’s better.’ Hervé gave her a smile. ‘This is like old times. You complaining about your maman to me. What has she done now?’
‘Just suggested I do something that I have no intention of doing. I’m a grown woman and she’s still telling me what I should do.’ She shook her head in amusement.
‘Ah, the old problem. You going to tell me what the suggestion is this time?’
Brigitte shook her head. She could hardly tell him that he was the suggestion. ‘Non. I’m just going to forget about it.’ She finished her wine and looked around for a waste bin.
‘Can I get you another wine?’
‘No, merci – but I think I’m going to treat myself to a piece of socca.’
‘Good idea. As you keep refusing my offer of lunch, I’ll treat you if I may?’ Hervé said, sniffing the air. ‘It’s this way, I think.’
Brigitte, about to protest she wanted to be alone, stayed silent, remembering times in the long-ago past when Hervé had consoled her after a row with her maman. It seemed she had come full circle in some respects.
Five minutes later, both of them munched a slice of the traditional chickpea speciality of the area.
‘I’d forgotten how good this stuff is,’ Hervé said. ‘It’s not something I eat regularly these days. Good socca was never that easy to find in Paris, so I simply stopped wanting it.’
Hervé mentioning Paris reminded Brigitte that his two daughters still lived there. ‘Are you going to the girls for Christmas?’
‘They’re both coming here,’ Hervé said. ‘Which makes me so happy until I remember the amount of preparation I have to do. Kate has promised they’ll do a big shop when they arrive, but there will still be lots for me to organise.
’ He glanced at Brigitte. ‘If you and Monique would like to join us for dinner on Christmas Eve, you’d be more than welcome? ’ he said quietly.
‘Albert and Marc are coming to live with us before Christmas, so thanks for the offer, but I’m guessing Maman will be cooking a special dinner that evening,’ Brigitte said.
‘She is beyond excited at the thought of having her brother back in town.’ Brigitte wiped her hands on the paper serviette that had accompanied the socca.
‘That was delicious, thank you. Now I’d better go home. ’
‘I’ll walk you back, shall I?’ Hervé said.
Brigitte hesitated before shaking her head. ‘Thank you for the offer, but honestly there is no need. à bient?t,’ and she quickly reached up and kissed his cheek fleetingly, managing to avoid the moustache that she hated, before turning away to walk home.
There was no way she could accept Hervé’s offer. If Monique happened to look out of the window and see Hervé walking her home, she’d never hear the last of it.