Shaking her head, sending a spray of drops all over the place, Emma pursed her lips. ‘No, it’s something more but I don’t know what. I mean, I know he’s fed up with Gran, but I don’t think it’s just that. Besides,I’mfed up with Gran and it’s me that’s affected. I don’t want to go back home yet. I mean, like, normally, Christmas down here can get to be a bit of a drag, and I can’t wait to get back home, but this year it’s different. It’s different this year with you here.’
‘Thank you,’ I said, touched.
‘Yeah, I was hoping we might even have gone outsome place together.’
‘That would have been nice, but I’m afraid I’ll probably be going myself now everybody else is.’
‘Oh no! Don’t do that. Dad wants you to stay.’
‘Does he?’ I stared at her. ‘How do you know? Has he said something?’
‘No, nothing.’ Emma picked up a red pepper and stroked it. ‘But I, like, know he does.’
It was the following day, Sunday, the day after Boxing Day, and whether we had been in England, France or Timbuktu, we were into the dead time between Christmas and New Year when nobody knows what to do with themselves and everybody gets ratty and rattier as they try to pretend that they do.
It’s the same every year. If you’ve got kids, they’re bored and sick of playing with their new toys and even sicker of their parents screaming at them to do exactly that. The house is a wreck and the Christmas tree, even if it still possesses some needles, looks as though it’s had quite enough of this particular party. There’s no food that you fancy cooking, and even if you do, everybody’s been eating and drinking far more than they would normally, so they don’t fancy it either. A pall of festive indigestion has descended and what everybody really needs is a massive if metaphorical belch to clear the blockage.
At the Villa Matisse, life was no different.
Emma had arrived home around mid-morning, looking jaded and bent on mutiny. However, when her father told her about the dog, she was fine about it, as he had predicted. Perhaps because she had been moreconcerned with rushing upstairs to wash her hair because, she claimed, it stank of weed, a complaint that caused Luc’s eyebrows to disappear into his hairline, although he wisely kept his counsel. She was less sanguine about the news of her grandmother’s departure but, in her good-natured fashion, seemed to accept it with equanimity.
However, ‘Of course, it’s not the charms of my company Gran is after,’ she informed me, sitting down opposite me to eat her third piece of toast – ‘I’m literallystarving,’ she’d cried.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Oh, she just wants my luggage allowance to take back all the gear I know she will have bought here. I’ll be lucky if I can fit in a change of knickers.’
Although this amused me, I suggested it might be a little cynical.
‘No – realistic,’ said Emma. And then Luc came in.
‘The first flight I can get you both on,’ he said, looking harassed, ‘is tomorrow afternoon, scheduled, which is of course costing the earth.’ He spoke directly to his daughter, studiously avoiding looking at me, which he had done ever since our contretemps of yesterday evening. All the easy camaraderie we had begun to enjoy seemed to have evaporated. We might have been total strangers, or simply he was back to the boss and me the cook.
‘Okay.’ Emma shrugged. ‘It is what it is.’
‘Oh, for mercy’s sake, don’t use that moronic phrase!’
As he barged back out, Emma bit her lip and looked at me. ‘See what I mean?’ she said. Then, before I could reply, she spoke again. ‘Maybe he’s had a row with Caroline. It wouldn’t surprise me.’
‘Do they do that a lot, then?’ I asked casually.
‘Row?’
I nodded.
‘Actually, not really. Not, like,rowsas such. They just fall out when she wants him to do something he doesn’t want to do – usually her socialising stuff.’ She giggled suddenly. ‘It can be quite funny sometimes, like back in June when we were all at home in England, she wanted him to accompany her to a garden party at Buckingham Palace.’ Eyes wide, she regarded me. ‘I mean, can you imagine it? Dad at a Buck Pal garden party? It was pretty dumb of her to even suggest it.’
‘Don’t you like her?’
‘Oh, she’s okay. She’s pretty nice to me I guess. And I like that Dad has someone. She was very nice to him when Grandpa Johnny died back in the spring. It’s just…’ Breaking off, she heaved a sigh. ‘Oh, I don’t know. It’s just I don’t think she’s quite worked out yet what makes him tick. But Gran’s crazy about her – of course.’
‘Why “of course”?’
‘Oh, because Caroline’s distantly related to some duke. Gran loves all that shit. It’s how she was brought up. She foamed at the mouth when Dad refused point blank to go to the garden party.’ She giggled again at the memory. ‘It was very funny really.’ Then she nodded at the chilli peppers I was now de-seeding. ‘What are you making?’
‘Turkey curry. It’s a bit—’
‘Turkey curry! Oh, I love that! Sorry, what were you going to say?’
