However, Luc saying this frightened her even more. She became hysterical. She had a bag with her, an old grip, and, seizing it, tried to run away from him. With great difficulty, he persuaded her to sit down again and eventually she calmed a little and told him her story.
‘You know what, Alix?’ he said, breaking off from his account. ‘I’ve heard some nasty stuff in my life and I’m not unaware of what can go on in some misguided Muslim families. But what Nicole told me shocked me to my core.’
It had all started when her mother died. Nicole’s father had always been a strict parent, devout in his faith, but he had also always been a kind man, wholly devoted to his wife and daughter. With the death of his wife, he changed, changed so completely that Nicole feared for him. It started with him telling her she must wear her hijab, not only to the mosque, which she always did anyway, but whenever she stepped out of the house, which she had never done, having been brought up as a modern Muslim girl, relaxed about her religion. To begin with, she obeyed. Believing her father to be suffering from grief, she wanted to please him. Quite soon, however, he demanded that she be fullyveiled everywhere, and when Nicole reminded him that girls in France are not allowed by law to be fully veiled at school, he said she would be leaving school immediately. When she objected to this, he hit her, beat her, in fact.
‘She looked at me at this point,’ Luc said. ‘And remarked quite calmly that she knew we white Christians thought Muslims were all fundamentalist madmen, but it simply was not true. It’s only a very small minority who are like that, she told me, and they disgust everyone. Islam, she said, is the kindest creed on the planet. But as time went on, she began to fear her father had become precisely that – a madman. It struck me how intelligent she was, how perceptive but also how very young and helpless.’
The signs for the turn-off to Nice were now appearing, rushing past the car as we sped on into the night. Listening to Luc’s calm, richly toned voice, I felt almost as though I was hearing a play on the radio, except this wasn’t fiction, it was fact.
He resumed the story. The crisis came soon after. One morning, her father told Nicole they would be flying to Benin the next day. By this stage she was effectively a prisoner in her father’s house but asked him nicely whether they were going there to visit his family. He had been born in Benin. No, he replied. She was going there to be married. He had found a husband for her and Nicole would be married as soon as possible after they landed.
‘Don’t tell me,’ I muttered. ‘A man she’d never met before in her life and three times her age.’
‘That’s about the sum of it.’
‘So, she ran.’
‘She ran. As soon as her father was asleep in bed that night, she broke out of the house and fled.’ Luc glanced sideways at me. ‘What’s the matter? You’re looking puzzled. Don’t you believe her story?’
‘Oh no, I believe it all right. It’s just that Benin, I thought, is a mainly Catholic country. It’s a former French colony. I’ve been there.’
‘Have you, indeed?’ Luc looked surprised. ‘Well, I think you’re largely correct. I did my homework and you’re right. But it has a Muslim population and in recent years there’s been a bleed over the extreme northern border of Benin from Islamic fundamentalist sects in neighbouring Nigeria. It was to the far north that Nicole’s father was going to take her.’
We were silent for a moment.
‘Anyway,’ Luc said presently. ‘At the time I didn’t know what to do with her. I couldn’t justleaveher there. She was a child – virtually. Still is to me.’
‘So you brought her back to the Villa Matisse.’
‘And she’s been there ever since. I phoned Jess immediately and asked for her advice. I had some thought that Jess might be able to help and, Jess being a woman, it seemed more… appropriate. But with my father dying, Jess was in a very bad state herself at the time. However, she did help because she offered to talk to the Imam of the mosque in Nice nearest to her. He regularly eats at her restaurant, and she’s been friends with him for years. According to Jess, he’s a lovely man, sensible and completely trustworthy. Well, his advice was to sit tight, and he would make enquiries about Nicole’s father. He duly did this but nothing much came of it savean unsubstantiated rumour that the father had genuinely gone off his head and been hospitalised.’
‘Oh, no.’
‘I know.’ Luc scratched his chin. ‘In the end, Jess and I, and Emma as well actually, decided the best thing to do – the only thing we could do – was to wait until Nicole’s eighteenth birthday this coming March. She’s still a minor at present under French law, which means she could be returned to the custody of her father if he so demanded. Once she’s reached her majority, however, she will have the protection of the French legal system if he tries to force her into an arranged marriage or effectively attempts to abduct her by taking her out of the country against her will.’
I nodded. ‘That looks like the only way to go for now. But what a bloody awful situation for the girl. What will happen to her? I wish I could help.’
‘You have already. You’ve been a friend to Nicole, which is enormously important. She needs all the support she can get.’ He threw me an apologetic smile. ‘I’m sorry for all the cloak-and-dagger malarkey. It just seemed safest to keep Nicole’s whereabouts as secret as possible from as many people as possible in case her father somehow managed to find her and drag her off before we could stop him.’
After this, we both went quiet again. I sat back, thinking about Nicole and her predicament. What could the future hold for the girl? Would she ever be able to lead the safe and happy life she deserved? Presently, however, lulled by the feeling of warmth and security in the old car and tired from the long day, my head dropped down onto mychest, and I drifted off to sleep. When I woke with a jerk, we were on the Grand Corniche, the Mediterranean once again coming into view as we coasted round the hairpin bends, the water glittering sublimely in the moonlight.
I sat up, massaging the stiffness from my neck, and suddenly had a thought.
‘I’ve just had an idea,’ I said, turning in my seat to Luc. ‘About Nicole and her future. It might not be any good, but it’s something I think is worth exploring.’
‘Leave it till we’re home.’
He sounded at once rather terse, sharp even. But he must have been tired too. Then I noticed he had slowed the car right down to a snail’s pace and was gripping the steering wheel so hard the knuckles of both his hands were white.
‘Are you okay?’ I asked, perturbed.
‘Fine,’ he replied curtly.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled up outside the Villa Matisse, yanked on the handbrake and promptly slumped forwards over the steering wheel.
‘Luc? Luc!’ I cried, now thoroughly alarmed. ‘What’s the matter? Are you all right?’
Slowly he raised his head. ‘Jesus,’ he muttered. He was breathing hard. ‘There’s something gone wrong with the steering. It started going funny on me about thirty minutes ago and now it’s practically kaput.’
