‘When you think what the bastards pay us,’ he grumbled. ‘It ain’t right, you know.’ At this, he looked up from the magazine, suddenly noticed me and leapt smartly to attention. ‘Good morning, Madam,’ he said, doffing his cap. ‘And how are you, this merry morn?’
‘It’s not Christmas Day yet,’ remarked Billy. ‘That’s when you say “merry morn”. My nan told me.’
‘She was right,’ I said, smiling at him. ‘But it soon will be, and I’ve been commandeered to find a Christmas tree from somewhere.’
‘They sell the blighters in the supermarket,’ huffed Tom, re-assuming his officer tones. It occurred to me that, although I don’t particularly like the idiom, the man was something of a construct. Yet he’d got it so wrong that he simply sounded like a character out ofDad’s Armyexcept in a pathetic way rather than comic. ‘With a nice bit of tinsel too,’ he added.
‘Thanks, but it’s got to be a real one.’ Nicole had turned from the sink to dry her hands. I said to her, ‘Mr Mandeville claims there’s a box of decorations in the store room. Do you know where he means?’
She gave a vigorous nod. ‘I will find these now.’
The moment she’d rushed out, the entrance phone buzzed and in trailed the Villa Matisse’s Mrs Mop making a beeline for her ninety-five dustpans.
‘There’s one outside the back door!’ shouted Billy over the ensuing racket.
‘One what?’ I yelled back.
Billy turned to put his empty mug in the sink, then beckoned me to follow him. The cleaning woman clattered out, laden with hoovers, squeegee mops and buckets.
‘Now you make sure you put something warm on if you’re going outside, Miss Alix,’ Tom said fussily as relative peace returned. ‘It’s parky out there this morning. There’s snow on them thar hills.’
Rolling his eyes despairingly at me, Billy guided me in the direction of the back door.
‘To be fair, the guy’s right,’ he said. ‘It isn’t too toasty out today. Somehow you never, like, expect cold weather in Nice so it’s always, like, a big shock.’ He glanced at me. ‘You got a coat or something?’
I grabbed the old puffer jacket that I had worn to travel from the hook on the back of my bedroom door as we went past.
‘Thereissnow up on the mountains, too,’ continued Billy. ‘Makes everything ever so pretty. You’ll see later when it’s proper light, like. They’ll be skiing up there, you’ll see later. Do you ski, Miss Alix?’
‘Never, but my son has gone skiing with his dad.’
‘You got a boy? Well, that’s nice, innit?’ He threw me a mischievous little grin as he opened the back door and switched on an outside light. ‘But poor Miss Alix, left on her own to look after this madhouse.’
I couldn’t help laughing. ‘Indeed, but let’s drop the “Miss”, Billy. I’m just Alix.’
At that moment we were joined by Nicole, out of breath and shivering even though she had only just come out of the house and was also togged up in a puffer coat,one that looked miles too big for her. I looked more closely at her; the girl was actually shaking, not shivering, in fact, quaking as though something had just given her a nasty fright.
‘Are you all right?’ I asked, touching her arm.
‘Fine,’ she panted, trying to force her lips into a smile, which didn’t work because her teeth were actually chattering. I eyed her coat. You could tell it was very good quality and in fuchsia-pink looked gorgeous with her colouring. But it swamped her, reaching well down past her knees, clearly meant for someone a good deal taller. I suspected charity donation, which made me feel a sudden twinge of guilt. Here was I indulging in self-inflicted angst when for three weeks’ work I was being paid probably more than this young woman earned in six months or longer – if indeed she earned anything at all.
‘I find the decorations.’ Nicole was still breathing hard.
‘Thank you, but there was really no need for such a hurry.’
‘And I place the box on the table of the kitchen.’
I glanced through the kitchen window running along to our left and saw Tom was still slumped at the table, scowling at the said box of decorations and morosely pouring himself another mug of tea from the pot in front of him.
‘By the way,’ I asked. ‘Is Luc… er… I mean Mr Mandeville still around? Or has he gone?’
‘He goes fifteen minutes before,’ Nicole told me.
‘Hewentfifteen minutesago,’ Billy corrected her amiably, at which she tossed her head a little, scowling athim, but Billy just laughed and ushered us on. ‘There you go!’ he cried in triumph as he stopped in his tracks a few metres from the back door. And there we were. Tucked into a narrow flower bed against the outside wall of the Villa Matisse was a small but healthily green-looking little fir tree. ‘I planted him out last year,’ he explained. ‘After Miss Jess and old Mr Mandeville had finished with him.’ His cheerful face darkened for a second. ‘Didn’t like to chuck him on the bonfire somehow.’
‘Good for you,’ I said with meaning.
I knew what Billy meant, because when I was a child I was haunted every year by some fairy tale I’d been read about a fir tree that had always wished passionately to be a Christmas tree covered in glittering decorations. The wish came true and the tree was so happy. Until after Christmas, when the decorations were torn off and the tree was thrown on the bonfire and burnt to death.
