‘Have I said something funny?’ he asked pleasantly but, before I could answer, held up his hand to stop me. ‘I know. I sound like that old comedy on television that you English love. I have an English friend who is always telling me the same.’Allo ’Allo!’, is it not? It’s very funny,’ he added.
‘I thought everyone despised it in France – I mean, the French, that is,’ I quickly corrected myself. ‘I don’t know about Belgium.’
‘The same, but only those with no sense of humour.’
There followed another little pause as we both smiled at each other.
‘Actually,’ I said. ‘That sort of humour can get you in very hot water these days in the UK. You can be arrested, cancelled, hung, drawn and quartered.’
‘I know. It’s the same all over. Boring, isn’t it?’ He hesitated a moment, glanced quickly at his watch and then said regretfully, ‘I have to go, I’m afraid. However, perhaps this will meanIam about to be hung, drawn and quartered, but would you like to have lunch with me tomorrow? There is a very good restaurant just a step away from here.’
‘Will it be full of intellectuals?’
He laughed. ‘Yes, but all eating like horses.’
You know, in any other circumstances, I would have accepted. Okay, it was a pick-up and he was a charmer, but he was likeable, not at all creepy, and seemed entirely genuine. And how else are you supposed to meet someone these days? I’m not subscribing to Tinder or any of that rubbish – thatiscreepy, mega-creepy. Thanking him, Iexplained I didn’t know what hours I would be working yet as I had only just arrived.
‘It’s not an excuse, honestly.’
He nodded rather solemnly and withdrew a mobile from his inside jacket pocket. ‘Then may I call you? You will surely have some time off from your work?’
Five minutes later, having exchanged numbers, we parted company as decorously as we had met, I to the shopping and he to whatever business had brought him to Nice. The exchange seemed slightly unreal as I set off round the stalls, leaving me almost inclined to giggle. Doubtless Ros would go into deep shock, but the encounter had actually been rather sweet, sweet to be smiled at if nothing else and sweet to be treated with deference.
Back at the Villa Matisse, there being no sign anywhere of its not-so-deferential inhabitants, I unpacked the shopping, put the food away and then lingered in the kitchen for a bit. However, nobody appearing in demand of my services, I scrambled some eggs for myself and then went back to my room. On the way, I tapped lightly on Nicole’s door but the French girl, it seemed, had also vamoosed. Just to be sure she wasn’t there – she seemed so vulnerable that she worried me a bit – I knocked louder, whereupon the door swung open slightly. She wasn’t there but, without stepping into the room, a mirror image of the one I was in, I could glimpse a modern Ikea-type desk against the far wall where the old-fashioned dressing table was in my room, bearing an open laptop and a stack of books which, peering across at the titles, seemed all to be English language teaching texts. Well, that was relieving. Perhapsshe really was a student on a holiday job or the equivalent of an au pair or something. And maybe now she had gone to an English lesson, although that rather gave the lie to her saying Luc Mandeville did not like her to go out. Odd, very odd, but I sighed, not my business.
Closing the door quietly, I went to my own room and decided to phone my parents.
‘Hello, dear.’
This is the endearment my mother uses with everyone. A lifetime of teaching primary school children whenever my father’s career would allow has left her treating everybody as though they are six years old.
‘How nice to hear from you.’
‘How are things in Cyprus, Mum?’
‘Cyprus?’ she repeated vaguely, as if she’d forgotten where she was. ‘Oh, very nice, dear. Although I must say Cyprus hasn’t changed much since we were here twenty-odd years ago.’
‘How’s Dad?’ It was pointless asking to talk to him. Dad hates telephones with a passion. If ever he picks up when I call, which is hardly ever, it’s always, ‘Just wait while I get your mother!’
‘He hasn’t changed much either – grumpy.’
I asked why that was.
‘Oh, it’s that meze stuff they serve everywhere. He hated it when we were here and he hates it still. Yet David and Sally insist on taking us out to restaurants where meze is absolutely theonlything they have on the menu.’
‘Surely David knows that?’ David is a year younger than me and, like me, had been at boarding school whenmy father was stationed in Cyprus, but we’d both spent the holidays there. ‘If he’s forgotten, remind him.’
‘Oh, I couldn’t do that, dear.’ My mother sounded shocked at the suggestion. ‘He and Sally are being so kind. Although I must say,’ she said, lowering her voice as if fearful someone might be in earshot, ‘the children are not very well-behaved.’
My brother and his wife have twins, a boy and a girl.
‘It’s because there’s two of them. They work each other up. And then they’re only seven, Mum. David and I were doubtless exactly the same at that age.’
‘You most certainly were not!’ she cried with sudden energy. ‘I wouldn’t have allowed you to be. And I certainly would not have allowed either of you to run about all over the place screaming in restaurants and disturbing all the other customers. It all comes down todiscipline.’
This was an all-too-familiar refrain to which it was best not to respond, so I kept quiet and there followed a little pause until an audible sigh came down the line.
‘Never mind, dear. Wearehaving a nice time.’ Despite the emphasis, she didn’t sound in the slightest bit convinced about this. ‘What’s more important is how are you? Are you all right – and Carl, is he all right as well?’
