‘Come and join me,’ Emma says. ‘Mum’s coming to see me before she heads back to the South of France.’
Emma did eventually manage to get hold of her mother on the phone, and she was adamant that there was no other information on her husband’s family. All she would say was that her husband’s father came from a distinguished family of wine growers.
So that was it– a dead end. Still, she can’t help feeling there’s something her mother isn’t telling her.
Betty breaks in on her thoughts. ‘Don’t you want to see her on your own?’
‘Not really. In fact, definitely not,’ Emma says, pulling out a chair. ‘I used to think I had something I needed to say to her. A conversation that would– oh, not make things good between us– but resolve some things, particularly to do with Dad.’
‘But now?’ Betty prompts.
‘There is no conversation.’
‘No conversation that would make it right, you mean?’
‘No, it’s simpler than that. My mother and I havenoconversation. We don’t connect in any way I can think of. You might think we’d share a love of my father, but thinking about it, I’m not sure she even liked him.’ She pauses. ‘What did you think of her when you met her?’
‘Well, I wouldn’t say I actuallymether,’ Betty says, evasively.
Emma looks at her in surprise. ‘But you must have seen her when she came to the hospital?’
‘Oh, I don’t know… I mean, it was very brief…’
‘But surely you spoke to her?’
‘I’m not sure she really knew who I was or how I fitted in… I think, to start with, she thought I was a hospital cleaner.’
Emma looks horrified.
But Betty starts to laugh. ‘I think your mum would get on well with my sister.’
Before Emma can answer, the staccato tap of her mother’s heels announces her arrival. She pauses in the doorway– an elegant woman of indeterminate age: sleek, ash bob, precision cut; oval face with the perfect coral mouth; alabaster ankles in nude heels; a charcoal linen skirt with no hint of a crease; an immaculate cream silk shirt. She pulls large sunglasses down to look around the room, pauses a few seconds longer, confident that the room will now be looking back at her.
Then she moves across to their table.
Emma notices that her mother’s face has a new, tighter look and a peerless sheen, and she fleetingly wonders if Mathias is a surgeon.
‘Ah, there you are, Emma.’ She frowns at her daughter, although her face does not move. ‘I must say you’re looking better than in that horrible hospital– although why you decided to come to Paris in August I’ll never understand.’ She air-kisses Emma and sits down. She ignores Betty. ‘Now, I can’t be too long as I have a taxi booked and I still have some shopping to do.’
‘How long are you going to be away?’ Emma asks.
Her mother looks sideways at her, distracted. ‘Really, Emma, cerise pink, with that hair. If you can’t get it right, at least keep it simp—’
‘Cheerful?’ Emma interrupts.
Her mother looks confused. ‘No, I was going to say—’
But again Emma interrupts. ‘So, you’re getting the train South this afternoon?’
‘What? Well, yes.’ Then, still frowning at Emma’s cerise sundress, her mother embarks on a long description of who she will be staying with, where they might go next and who will be there if they do. The names are all new to Emma, but she is barely listening.
As her mother talks and the waiter brings their coffees, she crosses her legs, the soft folds of her new dress settling around her. She can just see the tips of her new lime-green pumps peeping at her from under the table edge.
‘Did you like Will?’ Emma asks suddenly. The question has come to her from nowhere, and she sees Betty look up from her coffee in surprise.
‘I beg your pardon?’ her mother says, startled.
Emma waits.
