As Jess’s voice faded away, again I waited in silence. Presently she began once more.
‘The school holidays had started and the three of them, Emma, her mother and Luc, had come to stay here at the Villa Matisse with Johnny and me. Johnny was okay in those days, beginning to get more than a bit muddled but still okay, and Emma a child of course. They got onsowell together. In some ways, small children are better at relating to Alzheimer’s sufferers than us adults. They keep things simple. With Emma, if Johnny kept constantly repeating things, which he did all the time, Emma would just tell him she couldn’t keep count of his repetitions because she wasn’t very good at numbers, which made Johnny laugh.’ She paused and sighed. ‘Anyway, Esther got this offer from somebody, I can’t remember who, to go climbing and Luc didn’t want her to go. Well, he never did want her to go but… well, he could never stop her.’ Jess puffed out her lips in a minute expression of impatience. ‘But then you never could ever stop Esther from doing what she wanted to do.’ She looked me straight in the eye. ‘Esther was an amazing person, Alix, truly amazing, but she went her own way. And not Luc, not Emma, not evenher own parents, nobody butnobodyon this planet could ever stop Esther doing what she wanted to do.’
‘What happened?’ I asked after another short hiatus.
‘She fell.’ Taking a deep breath, Jess became matter-of-fact. ‘It turned out she was actually doing what I think they call free solo climbing, so no ropes or cleats or the usual safeguards, and she fell. She fell and she broke her neck. She was just thirty-one.’
Transfixed, I stared at Jess.
‘Yeah, I know.’ She looked sad. ‘There’s nothing you can say, is there?’
Dumbly, I shook my head.
Jess expelled a long sigh. ‘Well, there you go. I’ve told you. Now all I can say is, I know Luc’s never got over it.’ Hands flat on the table, she levered herself to her feet but stiffly, as if suddenly feeling her age. She picked up the carafe. ‘I’m going to get us some more wine,’ she said, and then paused once again to look down at me. ‘But I’ve said that to you before, haven’t I, Alix? I only wish it weren’t true.’
Chapter Fifteen
Arriving back at the Villa Matisse in the late afternoon, I found Nicole in the salon, madly hoovering up pine needles.
‘Hello! Did you have a nice time with the girls from the mosque?’
Switching off the vacuum cleaner, Nicole wrinkled her nose. ‘I think so,’ she said but sounding so doubtful I smiled.
‘Well, only you can know.’
She pondered. ‘They are sograve,’ she said at last but with emphasis. ‘No,serious. The English word I am needing is “serious”. They are good, good women, but they are extremely serious.’
‘Ah.’
‘They find this life is serious. They are not like you – always smiling, always happy, always making the joke.’
‘Oh yeah,’ I muttered. ‘I’m a laugh a minute.’
Nicole blinked. ‘Pardon?’
‘Nothing. Sorry.’ I looked at the forlorn little Christmas tree. ‘I think he’s finished, don’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, looking glum. ‘He is very dead.’
‘Billy can take him away on Monday.’
‘Okay. But I am forgetting!’ Nicole cried as I made to go. ‘I find a present for you under the pins!’
The pins? ‘Oh, you mean the needles, the pine needles.’
‘Pine needles,’ repeated Nicole carefully as she always did with new English words. ‘I find a Christmas present for you under the pine needles. I put him on the table in the kitchen.’
A present for me? ‘Who is it from?’ I started to askbut, turning away, Nicole had switched the vacuum cleaner back on. She probably didn’t know anyway, any more than I did for that matter. Who at the Villa Matisse would give me a Christmas present? Nicole must have made a mistake, and it was one Susan Mandeville had missed from her tottering pile.
The kitchen was warm and rosy from the one lamp burning, smelling faintly of the Welsh rarebit Nicole must have cooked for herself, having become addicted to it ever since I had showed her how to make it. Chucking my jacket over the back of a chair, I switched on the kettle. Then I picked up the present. It was quite small, shop-wrapped in green shiny paper with a pattern of holly berries, a ribbon tied in an elaborate bow and a little tag attached in the shape of a fir tree withMerry Christmas, Alixwritten on it in ink in an old-fashioned, ornate hand that could have passed for copperplate. Nothing else, no name of the giver, no smiley face or cross for a kiss, just those three words:Merry Christmas, Alix. It felt odd, almost spooky. Maybe somebody’s idea of a joke. I put it back down unopened on the table.
Luc came in, staggering across the room as if his long legs were about to give way under him, and collapsed heavily onto the nearest chair.
‘Talk about bloody retail therapy!’ he groaned.
‘Oh dear,’ I said sympathetically. ‘Bad, was it?’
‘Bad? I’m traumatised. Tell me, are you a shopaholic?’
