‘Absolutely.’ I expelled a little sigh. ‘Three weeks after I moved back home, Carl was born.’
For the next couple of hours we didn’t talk much, but it wasn’t an uneasy silence; rather, it was relaxed, companionable, as if we were old friends accustomed to each other’s company and used to our lapses in conversation. Above all, I felt Luc had understood what I had imperfectly tried to explain. He understood where I was coming from, why I couldn’t have stayed withGiancarlo. Not many people did at the time, not even my mother, particularly when Giancarlo offered – and I believe he meant it sincerely – to divorce his wife and marry me. My father, of course, went completely apeshit as only fathers of daughters can, threatening to hunt down Giancarlo and punch his lights out. And although it might sound weird given he was a professional soldier, my father abhors violence. Fortunately, it never came to fisticuffs, but the threat of them gave me a few more sleepless nights.
Then, in the aftermath, the one thing absolutely nobody could understand was why, once Carl had arrived, I still chose to name him after his father. ‘Carl’ is a shortening of ‘Giancarlo’. But you see, when I found out I was expecting a boy, and all the days and weeks and months when he was inside me, that was what Giancarlo and I had called him. To me, he became Carl, hewasCarl, long before he was born. I couldn’t change that simply because the two supposedly sane and sensible adults who were his parents had made an almighty cock-up of everything. In the same way, despite lots of well-meaning people telling me I should, I adamantly refused to forbid Giancarlo from seeing his son. No matter how bitter I felt, no matter the pain, I did not have the right to deny Carl his father. I still don’t, and I never will have.
Although I didn’t tell Luc about any of this, I somehow knew that he would have understood it all as well.
Just over the border with France, we stopped to get petrol and a quick cup of coffee from a machine.
‘By the way, I’ve been meaning to say how much I’menjoying your book,’ I said as we stamped around the car park stretching our legs in the freezing air. ‘In fact, I agree with what Emma said; it reads like a good novel.’
In the smoky blue gloom from the neon lights, Luc gave the ghost of a smile. ‘You know, most historians wouldn’t take that as a compliment. They’d assume you weren’t taking them seriously.’
‘Oh, dear, would they? I’m sorry.’
‘No, don’t apologise! I’m not most historians, so I’m suitably flattered, but then I don’t take myself very seriously at all. Or rather, I keep trying very hard not to.’
‘Are you succeeding?’
He chuckled. ‘Don’t know. You’d best keep an eye out and let me know.’
Back in the car, he said, ‘We’ve made good time. We should be home in an hour or so.’
‘Do you think you should phone Nicole? She wouldn’t be expecting us back, and I don’t want to give her a fright.’
He smiled at me. ‘You’re fond of her, aren’t you?’
‘I am. She’s lovely.’
‘Actually, I tried to phone her while you were in the loo just now but there was no reply. She’s probably gone to bed or is studying with her headphones on and wouldn’t have heard the ring. But I shouldn’t worry too much. She’s used to me coming home unexpectedly at odd hours of the night.’
I knew what that meant; it meant the nights he was with Caroline. I looked away, pushing the thought from my mind, and concentrated on something else that had been nagging at me.
‘Luc?’ I said cautiously. ‘I know it’s none of mybusiness, but can you please tell me what exactly Nicole is doing at the Villa Matisse? Why is she living in your house? It seems so odd. She almost seems to be… well, to be in hiding. Is she an illegal immigrant or something?’
He started back in his seat. ‘Oh, good heavens, no! Although I can see why you might think that. No, she’s a French citizen. She was born in France.’
‘Yes, she told me that herself.’
‘Did she tell you anything else?’
‘No, not really.’ I hesitated. ‘She seems uncomfortable,frightenedalmost, to tell me anything, as though someone has ordered her to keep quiet.’
There was a pause while Luc seemed to be thinking. ‘She is frightened,’ he said at last, ‘very frightened. And in her shoes you would be too.’
Then he explained.
It had been back in the early spring, a few days after he had buried his father.
‘I was in a bit of a bad way at the time,’ he said awkwardly. ‘Dad had been so terribly ill that I’d fully expected to feel relief when he died. But when it came to it, I didn’t feel relieved in any sense whatsoever. I felt… bereft.’
I could understand that. Jess had said much the same thing.
He’d gone out very early one morning, Luc continued, when he couldn’t sleep and his mind was whirling with thoughts he could not bear to examine. He’d walked down to the Promenade des Anglais in the hope of clearing his head, and that’s where he came across Nicole. She was huddled like a lost child in one of the sun shelters,shivering with cold, terrified and crying her eyes out.
‘At first I thought she’d been attacked,’ he said.
But no, it turned out that she’d run away from home. She’d run away from her home in Marseille, spent all the money she had on a train ticket to Nice, walked as far as she could and then didn’t know what to do next. Luc immediately wanted to call the police; she would be listed as missing. Her parents would be looking for her. They would be frantic. They had to be told.
