‘Of course not!’ said Henri.
‘We have to stay with her until she goes to sleep,’ said Félicité, ‘and of course, make sure you’re not cruel to her.’
‘Fair enough,’ said Alexandra, wondering if she should actually supervise the teeth-cleaning and then deciding not tonight.
She wandered round the room looking at things and came across a china model of a horse that was in several pieces. She was examining the head when Stéphie came back. ‘It was an accident!’ she said, suddenly upset.
‘We know,’ said Félicité gently. ‘It’s OK.’
Alexandra put down the horse’s head. ‘I may be able to mend that for you later.’
‘Our last nanny didn’t read to us much,’ said Stéphie. ‘She said we were old enough to read to ourselves.’
‘And of course you are,’ said Alexandra. ‘I understand that. But I still love being read to.’
Henri and Félicité settled on to the second bed while Alexandra lay down next to Stéphie and opened the book.
She’d read one of the stories and then saw that Stéphie was fast asleep. The other two seemed to be enjoying being read to but she asked them quietly, ‘Shall I go on? Stéphie’s asleep.’
‘No,’ said Félicité quickly. ‘Milly-Molly-Mandy is a bit young for us.’
Alexandra got off the bed carefully, so as not to disturb the little girl, pulled up the covers and tucked her in. Then she went to the broken horse. ‘Would you like me to mend this? Would Stéphie like me to?’
Félicité shrugged in a very Gallic way. ‘Stéphie would like it. I don’t care. But it was mine.’
‘I need to get my things up from downstairs,’ Alexandra said. She tried not to look at Henri in a meaningful way but he took the hint anyway.
‘I’ll get them.’
‘You mustn’t take advantage of Henri. It wouldn’t be fair. He’s very kind and helpful,’ Félicité said as he left the room.
‘OK,’ said Alexandra, following him out and making her way to her own bedroom, Félicité trailing behind.
She had brought her handbag up with her. She knew she had glue suitable for china mending in it because she’d found it when looking for make-up, before her interview. She remembered buying it just before her friend’s wedding and it had been kicking around in the bottom of her bag ever since. She took her bag over to the table.
‘If you go and get the horse, I’ll see what I can do.’
As Félicité went, Alexandra realised that in spite of her nonchalant attitude towards it, the ornament obviously meant a lot to her.
Twenty minutes later, Henri and Félicité were sitting on Alexandra’s bed while she sat at the table, scraping glue off the edges of the broken china with her penknife.
‘It is odd for a girl to have a penknife in her handbag,’ said Henri, unable to keep silent about the oddness any longer.
‘It’s a Swiss Army knife,’ said Alexandra. ‘A friend from London gave it to me. He said everyone ought to have one.’
‘Was he a boyfriend?’ asked Félicité.
Alexandra looked up and smiled. ‘No. He is my best friend, probably, but there’s nothing romantic about us.’ She thought about David, who had kept an eye on her and later her friends, in London. He was more like an older brother, and homosexual, something they never really spoke about, so their relationship was never going to be anything different.
‘Why are you scraping all the glue off?’ said Henri. ‘Why put it on if you’re going to take it all off again.’
‘It’s to make sure there isn’t any excess to ooze out when I put the pieces together.’ She paused. ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any sort of tape? Sticking plaster would do.’
Henri, who was obviously fascinated by the mending process, obligingly fetched a roll of sticking plaster. It was rather old and took Alexandra a while to get into but eventually the little horse was sitting on the table, together once more, his pieces held together by strips of sticking plaster.
‘That’s amazing!’ said Henri. ‘It looks as if he’s been patched up in hospital.’
‘He’ll look better tomorrow when we take the tape off,’ said Alexandra, hoping her china-mending skills hadn’t deserted her. ‘I’ll show you how to do it if ever there’s anything else that needs mending,’ she said to Henri.
