Wish You Were Here (4 page)

‘I've already rung Sally, just to check,' said Tara, helping herself to some water. She had the grace to blush. ‘She's cool about it.'

‘You've already …' I blinked.

‘Just so you'd have one less thing to stress about. I wasn't going round you or anything.'

Well, she was, but at least she'd done it. So I didn't have to. You had to hand it to my daughter, she'd be our girl in Africa one day.

‘What did she say?'

‘Well, she was thrilled I'd rung, obviously –'

‘Obviously!' I could well imagine Sally's delight. She was at her most natural with Amelia and Tara, finding security, I personally thought, in reverting to her youth.

‘And then we had a lovely girly chat about which room I could put him in – the blue one, she thought – and how we might be able to drag out the rowing boat, oh, and check out the new Chinese in Kincardine. She thought you'd like it.'

Tara
grinned. Sally was a cook by profession, for Scottish house parties mostly, and was frighteningly competitive with me on the culinary front – not just that front either: don't get me on the identical shoes and handbags. She couldn't understand why I wrote chiefly about London restaurants when there were so many good country ones I ignored. ‘We do have restaurants around here, you know, Flora,' she'd say, frosty and offended. It didn't matter how many times I told her I simply followed orders and did what Maria, my editor, told me, she felt snubbed, and my current ruse of sampling the eateries and then pretending Maria had vetoed the review was wearing thin.

‘Also, she had news, too. She's got a boyfriend.'

‘
Sally
has?' I put my fork down.

‘Yeah, I know, I nearly dropped the phone. She met him at a house party, apparently. Where she was cooking.' Tara grinned at me. ‘The mind boggles.'

‘Doesn't it just!'

Sally was mid-forties, pretty – once very pretty – but my heavens she was huge. If you know your P. G. Wodehouse, she looked like that girl who'd been poured into her clothes and had forgotten to say ‘when'. To my knowledge, she hadn't been with a man for about twenty years. I gawped, gripped by this information. I picked up my fork. ‘Good God. How long? Have Grandpa and Rachel met him?'

‘No idea, that was all I got. Except that she's potty about him.'

‘Oh,
good
!'

‘I know, isn't it?'

It was. It really was. If Sally had a life of her own, it took the heat off me. And my daughters. Who were my life,
obviously, since, as Amelia had told me the other day – I believe in all seriousness – mine was pretty much over and I was clearly living vicariously through them.

I sighed, but there was relief in it as well as fatigue.

‘Well, it looks like you and Sally have got it all sewn up, Tara. Do I have any choice?'

‘Of course you do. I just thought it would help if I did the spadework for you. What's this sauce, by the way?'

‘Ginger. Is it not nice?'

‘No, it's fine, just a bit … no, it's lovely actually.'

Tara was fond of Fellino, too: his family had owned this restaurant for two generations.

‘What about yours?'

‘Good,' I said, making a quick note on the pad on my lap that the addition of cumin had been masterful, even if I privately thought the infusion could have been done with a slightly lighter touch. The Jerusalem artichokes, however, I noted, had been a lovely and unusual accompaniment to the liver, which had arrived pronto, together with another anxious smile from Fellino. I watched him hasten back to the kitchen. How would he feel about his seventeen-year-old daughter bringing her boyfriend on holiday, I wondered? Well, it wouldn't happen, would it? The lad would be sent packing with a clip round his ear. But then we weren't a patriarchal Sicilian family steeped in Catholic traditions.

‘Yes, fine, darling,' I said, taking the path of least resistance. ‘But at either ends of the house, OK? The blue room for him and you in your usual.'

‘Cool – thanks, Mum.' She whipped out her phone and texted away happily, one hand forking beetroot salad into her mouth, her eyes on the reply.

‘Oh,
Mum, just one tiny thing.' She coloured slightly. ‘Would you mind ringing Rory's mum?'

‘Why?'

‘Just so she knows the arrangements and everything.'

‘Why can't she ring me?'

‘She wants to know he's – you know. Been properly invited. And what the arrangements are,' she said again.

‘What arrangements?'

‘You know, the …'

‘Sleeping.'

‘Yes.'

I crunched hard on my artichoke. So I was to look like the super-keen mother dragging her son to Scotland, and she was to need reassurance that her darling boy wasn't the innocent victim of some sort of honey-trap. No, don't be silly, Flora, I told myself; she just wanted to know the invitation was official, that's all, and that they weren't sharing a bed.

‘OK,' I said shortly. ‘I'll do it when we get home.'

‘You couldn't do it now?'

I gave Tara a level look over our supper. ‘No. I couldn't do it now.'

When we got home, Fellino's reputation and Michelin star intact, plus a good review in the bag, or at least in next week's edition, I promised, as he pressed both my hands in his at the door, it was to an uncharacteristic greeting. As I went down the hall to the kitchen to kick off my shoes, put the dishwasher on, swallow a couple of paracetamol and stagger up to bed after what had been a very long day, I heard, ‘Hi, Mum!' from the sitting room.

I
froze mid-stride. No one ever greeted me without reason. Just ignored me. ‘The Thing in the Kitchen', as they'd once jokingly referred to me – I'd stupidly laughed so, naturally, the title had stuck. Without enough irony, to my mind. Suspicious, I retraced my steps, but they were already breaking out, coming to meet me. At least Amelia and Toby were. So the Trog had clearly crawled out of his own bed at home and come across to occupy one of ours, light his strange cigarettes. Oddly, Mum and James were not far behind, their faces animated and excited.

‘Have you checked your phone?' demanded Amelia, steering me back in the direction of the basement kitchen, keeping step with me all the way.

‘No, I turned it off. It kept buzzing with some strange number. Why?'

‘That was easyJet. They rang us on the landline in the end. Kept trying you because you booked the tickets.'

‘Tickets?'

‘To Paris.'

‘Oh. Problem?'

‘No, quite the contrary.' Amelia's eyes were shining as I bent down to start the dishwasher. I straightened up. ‘You know the girl Dad saved on the plane?'

‘Well … yes.' I glanced at my husband, who'd slid around the other side of the island to face me. He shrugged modestly but was looking very pleased with himself, blinking behind his glasses. My mother, too, was very bright-eyed, puffing eagerly on a cigarette.

‘It was Camille de Bouvoir's daughter. You know, the opera singer? Does glam rock, too?'

‘The … opera singer?'

‘Didn't
you recognize her on the plane?'

‘No!' I scrolled my mind back to the flaxen-haired beauty. Tiny, but big-chested – of course, big lungs and therefore voice. And, now I came to think of it, perhaps with more make-up, and her hair up, making a guest appearance on
Strictly
… in a long, pink, sparkly gown, singing whilst the dancers performed their routine in front of her …

‘Oh! Was that her?'

‘The very same. And she's grateful, Mum.
Really
grateful. Oh God!' Amelia clasped her hands with glee and gave a little involuntary jump. ‘This is good. This is
such
good news I can't tell you!'

I looked at the row of shining, animated faces around me: Amelia, Toby and Mum didn't try to hide their excitement and even the famously composed James was having trouble.

‘How much?' I breathed, before I could stop myself.

‘Oh no,' said Amelia, looking shocked. ‘It's not money, Mum.'

‘We couldn't possibly accept that,' added James, with a disapproving frown.

‘No, no,' I agreed, secretly thinking, Yes, yes. I'd like to see anyone in this room turn it down.

‘But what she
has
got, right,' went on Amelia, ‘is this amazing place in the south of France. Which she's not using at the moment – not using at all this summer, in fact, because she's touring – and she's asked if we'd like to borrow it!'

‘Oh!' I sat down heavily on a kitchen stool.

Tara whooped. ‘Where is it?' she shrieked. ‘On the coast?'

‘No, about an hour inland. Provence. Up in the hills. Sleeps eighteen, stunning infinity pool' – Amelia ticked off the amenities on her fingers, sounding like an estate agent – ‘tennis court, party barn, cinema room – all the toys. You name it, we've got it.' She leaped up to embrace her sister, and they danced wildly around the kitchen
together, carolling loudly, already lying by a turquoise pool in their bikinis, paperbacks in hand, pina coladas beside them.

I gazed at James, bug-eyed. ‘Seriously?'

‘Seriously.' He grinned. ‘She was so nice.'

‘You spoke to her?'

‘Yes, you'd written down my email wrong, which was why she had to contact us through the airline. She is so amazingly grateful. The girl is the apple of her eye apparently, an only child. And, to be fair, it's not like she's really
giving
us anything. I felt we could accept the loan of a house, don't you think?'

‘Of course you can flaming well accept!' I said with feeling. ‘Oh my God – how amazing!' I shot my hands through my hair.

Already, Brechallis House in Kincardine, with its forbidding grey stone walls and black-framed windows flanked on all sides by dark, pine woods and, invariably, cloud and rain, was being replaced – courtesy of a wavy film dissolve – by a white stucco villa complete with vast terrace and pool, surrounded by sun-drenched olive groves and swathes of sage and lavender, not a damp gorse bush or a plague of midges in sight. Oh, the
midges
! I unconsciously scratched my neck just thinking about them.

‘When can we have it?' I breathed, snatching up one of Mum's cigarettes from a packet on the island, which I only do in moments of extreme stress or extreme euphoria. I lit it and inhaled greedily. France: my favourite country in the world; the south, this time. Already I was in a sundress – or capri pants perhaps – and a straw hat, off to market under an azure sky to buy
saucisson
and salad to prepare for lunch.
Not to Kincardine under a slate sky in the bone-shaking Land Rover to buy mackerel whose slimy bodies I'd have to gut before cooking.

‘Any time we want – it's just sitting there. So we thought – well, same as usual, pretty much the whole of August, just as if we were going to Scotland.'

‘And it's got these amazing views, Mum, which you'll
love
,' Amelia told me, eyes alight. ‘You can see the sea in the distance, this dear little bay, just like a Cézanne painting, with tiny red rooftops and sweet little fishing boats. Look!'

She was busy on her laptop, flicking up photos.

‘Oh! How did you …' I moved across to peer over her shoulder.

‘She sent us the link,' explained James, looking pretty pleased with himself, I have to say. And why not? For creating such joy in his family, such delight: the girls were flushed with pleasure.
Why not?
I put my arms around him and he squeezed me back as Amelia explained that this was the front, OK, an unbelievable-looking palace, with turrets – towers even. More like a castle than a villa.

‘It's like a chateau!' I exclaimed.

‘It is,' she said. ‘Chateau de la Sauge. Look, it says.' She flipped to a picture of an ornate sign on a wrought-iron gate. ‘And this is the terrace … and the walled garden with the pool inside … and the tennis court … and the badminton and boules courts … and some of the bedrooms – this is the master one, yours, I imagine. With a four-poster. And the galleried kitchen and the dining room … drawing room … table-tennis room …' And so it went on.

James and I stood, our arms around each other, gazing in disbelief at this slide show, Tara shrieking with delight at
every new picture. Toby punctuated proceedings with approving grunts: ‘Oh man.' ‘Get in.' ‘Epic.'

‘This would cost a fortune to rent,' I observed.

‘Wouldn't it just,' agreed James.

‘Megabucks,' confirmed Tara.

‘And it comes with a housekeeper, too,' James told us.

‘You are
joking.
' I dropped my arms and turned to look at him properly.

‘No, she lives in the lodge cottage with her husband, who gardens.' He took a deep breath. ‘She does all the cooking.'

James knew he'd delivered the lottery win. The
pièce de résistance
. He'd been saving it. Perhaps even sworn the girls to secrecy. Because, forget the pool. Forget the court and the table-tennis room. Forget the snooker room. We had a cook? Blinking heck. I wouldn't be buying cold meat in the market, I'd be buying floaty dresses and espadrilles!

‘Pretty nice to have someone to look after us, don't you think?'

‘It's more than nice – it's bloody marvellous. And you, my darling, are a complete star.' I reached up and kissed him squarely on the lips, a rare display of public affection in this house. The girls cheered and clapped.

Bottle it, I thought later, as I went to bed, having said goodbye to Mum as she trotted out to her little red Polo, yet another fag on the go, and thence to her cottage in Fulham: these moments should be preserved, to uncork at a later date when they were most needed. When things were back to normal again, turgid even, to remind us of how we could be, how life should be. That's what I'd like
to do. Even Toby had looked almost attractive – what you could see of him amongst the facial hair – brown eyes shining, socks and shoes on for a change, hiding his great hairy toes, as he told us about the time he'd spent in Aix, as a waiter, the previous summer. Picking grapes, too. What a great place Provence was.

As I slapped night cream on my face in the bathroom, my reflection smiled back at me. We'd had some pretty gritty times recently, James and me. I'd had to work that much harder since his private practice had dwindled, forcing us to rely almost exclusively on his NHS salary, and, consequently, I'd been that much grumpier and bad-tempered. The stress of Amelia's exams had taken its toll, plus her disappointing grades, and there'd been a general feeling of battling on amid the strife. To jet off to the sun, to switch off and forget all our petty troubles, to soak up a completely different way of life for a few weeks was surely just what we needed?

We even made love that night, which, let's face it, we were too knackered to do much these days. Well, I was. Despite having just been to Paris for the weekend, that side of things hadn't been an unqualified success, what with both of us being too tired the first night, James too pissed the second, and us having a flaming row about Amelia and what James called ‘her spectacularly selfish streak' the third. But tonight, in our own bed, in the house we'd lived in for nineteen years, ever since we got married, tonight it was good.

Afterwards, we lay on our backs, if not still entwined, as we would have been nineteen years ago, at least holding hands. Next door we could hear Amelia and Toby talking.
I hoped no more, but there was nothing I could do about it so I shut my mind to it. Refused to let it spoil things.

‘I'll have to explain to Dad, of course,' James murmured.

I turned my head towards him on the pillow. ‘I know. I was just thinking that. But he'll understand, surely?'

‘Oh, yes. Might be a bit disappointed, though.'

‘Mm. We could go up in September?'

‘We could.'

We both knew we wouldn't. Couldn't afford the time.

‘And the girls …' Not ours this time but James's sisters, who, I told him repeatedly, he couldn't be responsible for, not for ever – but I wasn't going to get into that argument tonight.

‘Sally will be pleased not to have to help cook for us all?' I hazarded. ‘And, you never know, she might even be relieved to conduct her new relationship in private. Not to have to expose her beau to the entire family immediately.'

James grunted non-committally. He'd been as floored as I had about the man's very existence when I'd told him earlier, but he hadn't wanted to sound disloyal.

‘I'll probably have to invite Lizzie,' I said cautiously, something I'd already thought about when I was brushing my teeth. ‘After all, she was coming to Scotland.'

‘But not for the whole time.'

He'd clearly considered it, too, brushing his.

‘No, not for the whole time,' I said quickly. ‘Just a week or two.'

‘A week.'

‘Well …'

Silence.

‘Who's
she boring the pants off at the moment?'

‘That nice chap, Jackson, the jazz pianist. You liked him.'

‘Oh, yes. Well, that's something, I suppose. Although, knowing Lizzie, it'll be all change by August and she'll saddle us with some God-awful toyboy again.'

Lizzie's taste in men got younger as she got older. Jackson was no exception, but it had been dark in the jazz club when James met him. Plus, I'd lied a bit. Told him he was a metrosexual – which I'd then had to explain meant he was pampered and well-preserved, not gay.

‘And then there's the age-old question of what to do about your mother,' he said.

‘We'll have to ask her, too.'

‘I know.'

He did. We'd both seen the light in her blue eyes, although she'd sweetly said nothing. She'd spent her younger, even more beautiful, years jetting around the bays of Juan-les-Pins in speedboats whilst
en vacances
from Paris. She hadn't been back for years. Her lover at the time, my stepfather in all but marriage, had been the wealthy politician Philippe de Saint-Germain, and he'd run my mother blatantly alongside his wife. At his funeral in Paris, both women had been at the graveside, in tears, just as two women had at Mitterrand's. It was the French way. Where had I been, I'd wondered? I don't mean at the funeral – I'd been there beside Mum, just across from his two sons – but in the Juan-les-Pins days? Bouncing around in a Moses basket in the back of the speedboat? I'd asked, one day. Mum had looked vague. Drawn vacantly on her cigarette and her past, and said, ‘D'you know, darling, I've absolutely no idea.'

‘With
a nanny? Back at the hotel?' I'd suggested sarcastically.

‘Yes, that'd be it,' she'd agreed, possibly believing it. There was no guile with Mum. Just forgetfulness.

‘But that's it on the hangers-on front.' James turned away from me on to his side. He bunched up his pillow and punched it hard. ‘We don't want hordes of freeloading friends of Amelia and Tara, or any appendages of your mother. You know what she's like.'

I did. I also thought it probably wasn't the moment to mention Rory, who would no doubt be swapping Scotland for France in the blink of an eye, and, since it was further away, would likely be with us for longer. I'd already decided to veto Will and Jess, but who knew how long Toby would stay? He practically lived with us as it was.

‘I'm going to see Camille tomorrow. Tell her our plans.'

I blinked. Sat up. ‘Oh?' I gazed down at his immobile form in the darkness. ‘Is she coming here?' I went hot at the thought of the frayed stair carpet, the Ikea throws covering the tired sofas, the damp on the sitting-room wall. Wondered, wildly, if I had time to paint it? Who was it who'd said that the smell of fresh paint followed her everywhere? Oh, yes. The Queen.

‘No, she's at the Albert Hall this week and rehearsing during the day, so she's invited me to lunch at her hotel.'

‘Oh! How lovely!' I was stunned for a moment. Not me, of course. No, of course not me. But why couldn't we both go? ‘Are you free?' I demanded. I certainly was. ‘Don't you have clinic tomorrow? Private patients?'

He rolled over enough to peer at me over his shoulder in the gloom. ‘Free to have lunch with a famous opera
singer at the Hyde Park Hotel? Who's lending us a ten grand a week house for the entire summer? I think so, Flora. Peter Hurst is covering my list for a couple of hours; I've emailed him.' He rolled back.

‘Oh. Right.' I lay down again. I couldn't help thinking he'd been to enough smart restaurants with me not to get excited about the Hyde Park Hotel, but I forced myself to be the bigger person. ‘Do tell her we're completely thrilled, won't you? That we're enormously grateful.'