I told him I could get by.
‘Yes, everybody says that, don’t they?’ He sighed, irritable all over again. ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if for once an English person said, “Oh, I speak impeccable French, totally fluent, been working at it all my days.”’
Flat Cap came bustling back into the kitchen at that point, which was just as well because I was on the verge of saying something far from polite.
‘Who was that at the door, Tom?’ Mandeville asked.
‘A gent delivering the part I need to repair the Citroën.’
‘What’s the matter with it?’
‘I have diagnosed a mechanical problem with thesteering mechanism,’ Tom said pedantically.
‘The steering?’ Mandeville frowned. ‘That sounds to me as though the car should be with the garage.’
Tom looked affronted. ‘Well, if you don’t trust me, sir…’
‘Oh, forget it.’ Mandeville stood up, bending and stretching and flexing his back and shoulders. As I’d judged, he was tall, very tall, a good six four or more. But so thin he could have passed for a stick insect. He glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve got to go. I’m due in town in an hour and I need to get out of this gear. Have we any sort of car I can use, Tom? My back’s killing me from too long on the bike.’
‘Only the old SUV, sir.’
‘I thought you’d got a buyer for that.’
‘Dropped out, I’m afraid.’
‘Bugger. Well, I’m not barging around Nice in that tank. I can’t think what my father was doing buying the bloody thing. This is the Côte d’Azur not fucking Chelsea.’
‘I’m very sorry, sir.’ Tom now looked so operatically humble that I wondered for a second whether he was taking the piss. ‘But you see, we weren’t expecting you till next week.’
‘Yeah, well, I wasn’t expecting me till next week either. Look, forget it. I’ll call a cab.’ He turned to me, taking a card from a wallet he withdrew from his jacket inside pocket and flicking it across the table at me. ‘Here, you do the same,’ he said. ‘Use cabs from this firm if Tom can’t taxi you for the shopping.’
I thanked him.
‘Oh, and one more thing,’ he said, turning back onhis way to the door and taking another card from his wallet. ‘And this is vitally important. You’ll possibly have observed there’s quite a comprehensive security system in this house. This is the key card you use to get in.’ He passed it to me. ‘There are only three in operation. Nicole has one, I another and you’d better have this third. The security firm won’t authorise more than that.’
‘Okay.’
‘Just make sure when you leave the house by either the front or back doors that you close them very firmly behind you, including both security gates, because if any are left even slightly open it mucks up the settings or, at its worst, sets off an intruder alarm at thepréfecturewhereupon we get vanloads of the localflicsdescending on us. Do you understand?’
‘Yes, of course I understand, but why then…?’
I was going to ask why then the front gate and door had been standing open when I had arrived in the early hours of that morning. However, glancing across at the young French girl, I saw her suddenly freeze as if turned to stone in the act of washing the coffee bowls at the sink, and I hesitated.
‘Why then, what?’ demanded Mandeville, jigging impatiently from foot to foot.
God, the girl was completely rigid, with what looked remarkably like fear. ‘Oh, nothing,’ I said quickly, looking back at him. ‘I was thinking of something else. I understand about the security. Sorry.’ I gave him a reassuring smile for good measure, but Mandeville didn’t return it. He just marched out without another word and looking even more boot-faced – if that were possible.
Two minutes later and everybody else had also cleared off about their day – also without a word. From rivalling the M25 on a Friday evening, the kitchen at the Villa Matisse was suddenly deserted.
I looked down at the wad of five hundred euros on the table. I looked up at the lovely room. I looked at the hanging racks of gleaming copper pans, the beautifully distressed antique dresser with its stacks of exquisite old French crockery. I looked at the polished, converted oil lamps, the magnificent Bocuse cooker, the vast American-style double fridge. I looked down at my own hands on the table, spreading my fingers out and stroking them over the smooth, raw oak as if the answer could be felt there. In a way, everything was as it should be; everything was precisely what I had dreamt of, what I had hoped for. The Villa Matisse kitchen as a place to work was like something out of a top-class design magazine. Until the encounter with Luc Mandeville, I had been imagining how once back home I would boast about it to Ros and enjoy teasing her about her misgivings. Despite the difficulties of my arrival, I had imagined I was going to enjoy myself. Now, having experienced Mandeville’s attitude – on departing he had not even said ‘Goodbye’ or ‘See you later’ or ‘Do you have any questions?’ – all my confidence had evaporated. In the face of his sheer, downright bloody rudeness, my first and overwhelming instinct was to get out, to pack my bags, clear off and leave MandevilleLe Misanthropeto cook his own stupid meat and two veg.
Yes. Leaping to my feet, I hurried back to my room to do exactly that.
Chapter Three
No sooner had I got there, however, and started shoving things angrily back in my suitcase, than my phone rang. Levering it out of my skirt pocket, I answered it without even glancing at who was calling.
‘Hello, darling!’ I cried, stuffing the bunch of pants I was holding anyhow into the case and sitting down on the bed. ‘I was just about to ring you. I’ve got some really great news!’ Carl would be delighted to hear I was dumping the Villa Matisse and making my way back to him. Although he’d tried to be nice about it, he too had thought the whole idea a bit iffy in the first place. Now it seemed he was right, didn’t it?
