Page 48 of The Dressmaker's Gift
The juice is slightly sludgy khaki colour, but whatever is in it tastes absolutely delicious.
Simone kicks off her shoes and props her feet on my bed and we spend a happy hour or so eating chocolate and chatting. She fills me in on the news from Agence Guillemet and tells me that everyone sends their love.
A nurse comes to shoo her out at last, saying that I need to rest, and Simone gathers up her things. Then she hugs me again, a gesture of solidarity, and sisterhood, and friendship. And, as she stands up and heads for the door, she pauses, turning back to say, ‘By the way, my whole family are demanding that I come home and that I bring you with me. They all want to meet you. To thank you in person for saving me. Especially my grandmother, Mireille. She says she wants to tell you more about Claire ... about what happened afterwards. And she has something for you.’
My father comes in at lunchtime, bringing me some little savoury pastries from acharcuteriethat he passed on the way to the hospital from his hotel. We share them as he tells me how excited my sisters are to be coming to visit at the end of October. My stepmother’s already booked the Eurostar tickets. ‘They miss you, you know, Harriet. They’re looking forward to spending some time with you. We all are.’
He takes my hand in his and holds it tightly. ‘I owe you an apology,’ he says.
‘What for?’ I ask, genuinely taken aback.
‘For not handling anything very well when you most needed me to. I’m so sorry, I could see how badly you were grieving when Felicity ... well, when she died. I was so consumed by my own sense of guilt, of having failed you, that I just couldn’t find the words that needed to be said to help you get through it. I should have reassured you, kept you with us instead of sending you away to boarding school. I thought it was the right thing to do at the time, giving you your space, not forcing a new family and a new home on you. But now I think it was probably the last thing you needed. We should have stuck together and muddled through. Worked things out a bit better. I should have been there for you.’
I give his hand a squeeze. ‘It’s okay, Dad. I think we were all trying to make the best of a horrific situation. I know you wanted what was best for me – I just don’t think any of us knew what that was, though. I can see, now, how hard it was for you as well. For all of us. But we’ve come through it. Older and wiser, eh? And I think we’re all ready for a new beginning.’
I can see now, with the benefit of hindsight and a large pinch of perspective, that it really was tough for him as well as for me. It must have been hard for my stepmother, too, but now I realise how hard she tried to care for me and to make me a part of the new family into which I’d been catapulted.
Dad gently touches the charms on the bracelet around my wrist. ‘Felicity always loved that bracelet, wore it all the time. It was her link to her own mother. It’s good to see you wearing it too. She would have been happy to know you’ve carried on the tradition.’
Then his eyes fill with tears and I pull him closer so that we can hug each other. He strokes my hair, like he used to do when I was a little girl and, through his tears, he smiles. ‘I couldn’t bear to lose you, you know, Harriet. It would have been too much. I love you and I’m so proud that you’re my daughter.’
After he’s gone, I reflect on what I’ve learnt about the paradox of love: when the price of losing it is too high a risk to take, we draw back and protect ourselves from that loss, even though that means we stop ourselves from loving wholeheartedly. After Mum died, I think Dad and I were protecting ourselves from ever feeling that way again. But maybe now, at last, we can both put the burden of our grief aside and walk on, together. Bringing comfort to one another.
The father and daughter who were left behind.
Harriet
Staying in south-west France with Simone’s family is like being swept into a fast-flowing river of noise and love and laughter. Her parents envelop me in hugs that last almost as long as those they bestow on their daughter. Her mother, Josiane, weeps tears of joy and relief over us both and thanks me over and over again for saving Simone’s life. Her father, Florian, is a man of few words, a stonemason like his father before him, who works in the family firm with his three brothers. But he, too, enfolds me in a bear-hug which speaks volumes and leaves me gasping for breath.
Simone’s older sisters are a little shy at first, but quickly relax over the supper that gathers us all around a long table outside under an arched trellis hung with jasmine and fairy lights. At first the evening is filled with laughter and chatter as the family catches up with local news. Later, though, we talk more sombrely about the accident and how lucky we both were.
By the time I fall into bed in the Thibaults’ spare room, I scarcely have time to turn out the light before I sink into one of the deepest sleeps I’ve ever enjoyed.
Next morning, I join Simone at the breakfast table. She’s been up a while already, I can tell, eager to spend time with her family, and has picked a bunch of autumn flowers to take to hermamie, Mireille. The fresh bread which Josiane puts on my plate is the perfect combination of soft and crusty, and I slather it with white butter and a generous helping of amber apricot jam. It tastes better than any creation from the finest of patisseries in Paris ever could.
As Simone and I walk up the hill to the little cottage where Mireille lives, we’re accompanied by half a dozen swifts who swoop and soar overhead, filling the perfect blue dome of the sky above us with their complex, never-ending dance. This far south the season is slower in turning, the last days of summer lingering longer here than in Paris. The sun warms my back, but at the same time there’s a mellow softness to the light and a sense that the swifts are flexing their wings, preparing to make their long journey south for the winter.
We turn into a lane and pass the end of a driveway lined with tall oak trees. A large black cat, which has been dozing in the shade, gets to its feet as we draw near and stretches luxuriantly. Simone bends down to scratch behind his ears and he purrs loudly, butting her hand rapturously with his broad head. ‘Hello, Lafitte,’ she says. ‘Where are my little cousins today?’ She explains that one of her uncles – another of Mireille’s stonemason sons – lives in the house with his English wife and their children, and that the old cat is very much a part of the family.
We carry on up the lane, escorted by the cat as far as Mireille’s house. He watches as we turn in at the gate and then, tail held high, makes his way back down the lane to his lookout post under the oaks once more.
Mireille’s cottage is surrounded by vineyards hung with grapes which, Simone tells me, will be harvested in a few weeks’ time. Bright geraniums blaze in pots at every window. Simone knocks and then pushes the front door open, calling, ‘Coucou!’
‘Come in!’ The voice that replies is cracked and softened with age. ‘I’m in the kitchen.’
Although she will shortly be celebrating her one hundredth birthday, I would still recognise Mireille from the photograph of the three girls on the Rue Cardinale. Her hair is pure white now, but a few unruly curls still make their escape from the bun at the nape of her neck, refusing to be constrained. Her deep brown eyes are still bright, her gaze birdlike as she smiles up at us. She’s sitting in an old armchair which dwarfs her diminutive figure, and has a bowl of peas on her lap which she’s been shelling into a colander, her claw-like fingers still deft in their work despite being gnarled with arthritis. I picture those same fingers in years gone by, flying over fine fabrics, a needle flashing as it laid down one tiny stitch after another.
She sets aside the bowl, smoothing down the apron she wears, and hauls herself to her feet, embracing her granddaughter. ‘Simone,ma chérie,’ she murmurs, cupping her face between those gnarled hands, letting her know how much she is treasured.
Then she turns to look at me. ‘Harriette.’ She pronounces my name as though it were French. ‘Here at last.’ She nods, as if listening to internal voices that we cannot hear. ‘You have a lot of your grandmother in you. But your eyes are those of your grandfather. And, of course, your great-aunt too.’ She pulls me close, with a surprising amount of strength for such a diminutive and elderly lady, peering into my face as if she is reading all that is written there. Her bright eyes seem to pierce to the very core of my being. She nods again, apparently approving of what she has seen there.
Then she clasps me in an embrace that is tender and loving, and for a moment I am overcome with the feeling that there are three people holding me, not just one. It is as if she is the keeper of their spirits: Claire and Vivi are here, holding me as well.
‘Bring the tea things,’ she says to Simone, gesturing towards a tray. ‘We will sit in the garden.’
She takes my arm and I help her outside. To one side there’s a neat bed of vegetables, the well-worked soil as dark as chocolate, nourishing a rich treasure trove of ruby tomatoes, emerald green courgettes and the amethyst and silver thistle-like heads of artichokes. Pea plants scramble up a bamboo wigwam, the last of the summer stems clinging on with their thread-like fingers. We make our way to the shade of a lime tree whose leaves are just beginning to be edged with gold, and sit down on a bench beside a little tin table.
Mireille reaches for a thick, leather-bound photo album which sits on the table, moving it to make space for Simone to set down the tea tray. ‘As you can see I like a proper pot of tea, in the English style.’ Mireille smiles. ‘I had an English neighbour who taught me to appreciate such things.’ She gestures towards the sprawling stone house that we passed on our way here, where Simone’s cousins live, just visible beyond the oak trees that surround it. ‘My friend is gone now, alas. But her niece is married to my second-youngest son and they live in the house these days, so happily I can still visit for tea sometimes. It’s funny, isn’t it, how the strands of our lives interweave themselves in unexpected ways?’ She tilts her head to one side, her bright eyes shooting me another piercing glance.
