Page 52 of A French Adventure
‘No, I didn’t mean Pascal, although you are right – I’d have loved him as a grandfather. No, I was thinking of Gilles.’ Natalie glanced at her mother mischievously. ‘I saw you give him your card.’
Vivienne smiled to herself. Gilles Rocher, like his father, certainly had charisma in spades and she hoped that he would ring her when she’d settled in at Valbonne. Today had proved to be the end of her dream of finding her real father but the day had brought two new men as friends into her life and that couldn’t be bad.
As they arrived back at the apartment, Vivienne and Natalie bumped into Olivia and Thierry, who were taking Topsy for a walk. After introducing Natalie to them, Vivienne impulsively invited them to supper that evening. ‘Topsy is more than welcome too.’
Pleased when they accepted, she rang Maxine when she got upstairs and invited her too.
‘If your daughter is still staying, please bring her. Olivia and Thierry are coming, so she’ll have younger company. And I’ve got lots to tell you about Puget.’
Maxine happily accepted and hoped that Leonie would agree to come.
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Maxine put the phone down and turned to Leonie. ‘My friend Vivienne and her daughter Natalie have invited us both for supper tonight. You will come with me, won’t you?’
‘I’m not sure. I’m not good with lots of unknown people,’ Leonie said.
‘There won’t be lots, the apartment isn’t big enough. Six at the most and you’ve met Thierry, so that’s somebody you know already, and Olivia is lovely. Please come.’ Maxine hesitated. ‘I like the thought of introducing my daughter to my friends.’
Leonie bit her lip. ‘This evening I was going to ask if we could look at the box of things you mentioned.’
‘We can do that now,’ Maxine said instantly. ‘I’ll fetch it.’ She stopped and looked at Leonie. ‘Promise me, though, you’ll come with me this evening if we do this now.’ Leonie gave her a reluctant nod accompanied by a smile. ‘Good.’
Maxine dragged the plastic container out from under the stairs and Leonie helped her to lift it onto the table. Maxine sensed that although Leonie wanted to see the contents she was nervous.
‘Please don’t be disappointed at the contents,’ Maxine said. ‘They’re special to me because they were all I had to keep you close, but they’re mostly everyday things.’ She lifted the lid off as she spoke and Leonie leant forward in anticipation.
It was mainly small clothes on top. A pink dress Maxine remembered wrapping in the tissue paper that Leonie carefully pulled back to take a closer look at before placing it on the table. Maxine lifted out small T-shirts, socks, a vest and a pair of trousers in a summery flower print. ‘It’s mostly what Daiva didn’t have room for in the two suitcases he took.’
Leonie gave an acknowledging nod, as she picked out a pair of red wellington boots with white daisy flowers stamped over them and looked up at Maxine. ‘Did we play puddle jumping? I vaguely remember a flooded park and standing in the middle of the biggest puddle ever splashing up and down wearing these.’ She looked at Maxine, who was smiling.
‘It was one of your favourite games to play. You loved a rainy day.’
‘Still do if I’m honest, but not too many, one after the other.’
At the bottom of the container were several picture books all about the adventures of the mouse called Anatole by Eve Titus. Maxine pickedAnatole et Le Chatout of the pile. ‘This was your favourite. I read it to you so many times.’
‘I wanted a cat for my eighth or ninth birthday, could have been my tenth, but Papa said no. Wouldn’t even talk about it. He bought me a china cat for my bedroom. Which was not the same. I’ve promised myself I will have a real cat one day.’
The last item in the bottom of the box was a childish hand-drawn card. Lots of colourful crayoned squiggles and circles and crosses. Leonie glanced at Maxine.
‘It was the first Mother’s Day card you made for me when you went tol’ecole maternalle.I had to stop Daiva from tearing it up and throwing it away.’
‘Why would he do that?’
‘He was furious and jealous that you hadn’t made him a card for Father’s Day. Refused to acknowledge the fact that you hadn’t been at school then.’ Maxine paused. ‘I received a black eye for that particular error.’
Leonie gave her a thoughtful look. ‘I made him a card one year when I was thirteen. He hated it and said it was about time I grew up and realised people preferred shop-bought cards, not amateur childishly made ones.’
‘Not everyone,’ Maxine said quietly. ‘I put this card out every Mother’s Day for, oh, at least fifteen years, after he’d taken you. And every time, I’d say a little prayer that the next year I would have a new one. It took that long for me to finally accept that I’d lost you and there was very little point in the exercise, which was when I put it safely at the bottom of the container. It was such a precious memento of a life I’d lost.’ She carefully placed the card back in the container and started to replace the other things.
‘Thank you for sharing that with me,’ Leonie said. ‘I am truly beginning to realise how badly Papa treated both of us and accept that a lot of the things he did were criminal. Nothing was done out of love for me, despite him telling me that was the sole reason he took me away. I realise now it was all about his addiction, controlling me and causing you pain.’ She wiped a tear away as she looked at Maxine. ‘I’m so sorry I believed the lies he force-fed me about you. I should have challenged him more.’
‘Non, ma cherie.’ Maxine opened her arms. ‘He wouldn’t have liked that and it could have been even more disastrous for you. Come here. It’s my turn to give you a hug.’ And Maxine pulled Leonie into her arms and held her tight.
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After a flying visit to thesupermarchéto buy food and wine for the evening, Vivienne and Natalie made sure the apartment was visitor friendly – ‘Especially Olivia friendly,’ Vivienne laughed. ‘As she’s my landlady.’ Afterwards, they both had a refreshing shower and sat out on the terrace sipping a glass of rosé, watching the Mediterranean and waiting for people to arrive.
