Page 52 of Summer on the French Riviera
‘Gabby, you look so much like her,’ Elodie said.
‘Do I? I don’t mind that at all. Maman, she was lovely,’ Gabby replied, reaching for another photograph.
Harriet, who’d become engrossed in the family Bible, looked up. ‘This is fascinating. Entries go right back to the 1800s. So many people died young, they rarely seemed to live beyond forty. If they’d all lived, there would have been quite a clan of Jacques in Juan in the early twentieth century. There’s a Thibault Jacques who was lost at sea when he was thirty-eight, leaving a wife and two young children, one of whom died six months later. So sad. Do you think he could have been the one on the clipper ships who brought the brush pot home?’
‘We’ll never know, but it’s certainly a possibility, I suppose,’ Gabby said. ‘Oh look, here’s a postcard from the early 1930s showing the Provençal dominating the skyline and towering over Juan-les-Pins. I do wish I’d known it in its heyday,’ she said wistfully. ‘The Jazz Age and the years before the Second World War. And the fifties and sixties were a really glamorous time too with the Film Festival. The Provençal Hotel played a big part in it all, but really when I went to work there its glory days were well and truly over. So sad.’
‘May I see?’ Harriet said and Gabby handed her the postcard and turned to pick up her glass of wine.
Harriet looked at the postcard thoughtfully, an idea forming in her mind. ‘Would you mind if I kept this card out? I’d like to do a copy of it for the exhibition.’
‘Of course you can,’ Gabby said. ‘And I shall come to the exhibition and buy the painting. I can see it now hanging in the sitting room.’
39
The next morning, immediately after breakfast, Gabby carefully wrapped the brush pot in a large towel before placing it in a strong tote bag and walked down to see Colette.
Colette opened the door of the cottage and Gabby handed her the tote with a relieved sigh. ‘I have never been so afraid of dropping and breaking anything as much as this pot.’
‘Coffee? Then we’ll pack it up. The courier arrives here at ten o’clock.’
While the coffee brewed in the Moka pot on the stove, Colette unwrapped the brush pot and placed it in the middle of the table.
‘I know it’s the sensible thing to do,’ Gabby said, looking at it. ‘But I can’t help feeling a bit guilty that, after all these years in the family, I’m the one selling it.’
‘Tch,’ Colette said as the coffee pot hissed and she moved across to the stove. ‘You’d feel even guiltier if you chipped it or broke it. Better for it to be seen by more people. And, like you said the other day, you can help people with the money.’ Colette poured the coffee and handed a cup to her. ‘You can always use some of the money to buy something valuable to replace it. Something you really like but would never have bought without selling the pot.’
Gabby nodded. ‘I’ll maybe do that. The three of us spent some time in the cave yesterday looking at the boxes. It was quite a trip down memory lane for me, so many photographs. You’re in quite a few.’ She took a sip of her coffee. ‘Come to supper soon and we’ll have a nostalgic time going through them together? You need to have a look in the boxes too in case there’s anything there you’d like for the brocante.’
‘Thanks. Right now I’d like a few more customers.’
‘You’re not doing so well?’ Gabby said.
‘It’s summer.’ Colette shrugged. ‘It’s normally quiet, people are too busy enjoying themselves, but it’s quieter than usual. Hopefully, come September, things will be busier as the locals have more time and money in their pockets after the season.’
Once the coffee had been drunk, Colette placed a wooden crate-like box on the table and a large bag of wood wool.
‘Right, time to get to work,’ and she began to fill the bottom of the crate with the wood wool. Then, she cut a strip of bubble wrap and spread it on the table. Gently, Colette placed the brush pot on it and wrapped it up in several layers before placing it in the crate. More wood wool was put around the sides of the pot and then on top before the lid was closed. Once it was closed, Colette went around the lid screwing it closed with a handful of tiny screws. ‘There, all ready for a safe journey to Paris,’ she said.
* * *
Back at the villa, after Gabby had left for Colette’s, Elodie went for a swim and Harriet took a shower before coming downstairs to ready to walk Lulu before she got on with her painting. She seemed to have slipped into the role of principal dog walker, not that she minded, she adored the little dog. As Harriet bent down to put Lulu’s collar on, Elodie walked in from the terrace. Wrapped in a towel, she was talking animatedly into her phone.
‘No, I’m sure it will be fine. We’ll see you later,’ and she ended the call and looked at Harriet.
‘That was Jack. We are both invited to have lunch with him today. I told him yes on your behalf. You’re not working at the gallery this morning, are you?’
‘No, but…’ Harriet protested.
‘Jack seems to think you’ve been avoiding him?’ Elodie said. ‘He also said it’s time just the three of us had a family meal together. So we’re to meet him at twelve o’clock down at the brasserie in Juan. I’ll be in town this morning anyway, got to get some info for a feature, so I’ll see you there.’ She went to go upstairs but stopped on the first stair and turned back to Harriet. ‘If you can’t make it or don’t want to go, just ring and tell him,’ and with that Elodie bounded up the stairs.
Harriet took a deep breath. She hadn’t been avoiding Jack deliberately, it was just that their paths hadn’t crossed since the Belles Rives. It didn’t mean that he hadn’t constantly been in her thoughts. He had. But she wasn’t about to admit that to anyone, and that included Jack himself.
Besides, there had been no effort on his part either to contact her before this summons-like invitation to lunch. She toyed with the idea of turning her phone off and simply not turning up at the brasserie. He would have good reason to accuse her of avoiding him then. Harriet smiled to herself. She wouldn’t give him that satisfaction. She’d walk Lulu, come home, change and then walk into town to have lunch with her ex boyfriend and their daughter.
* * *
Two hours later, as she approached the restaurant, Harriet saw Jack sitting alone at a table. Damn, she’d been hoping that Elodie would be there already.
