‘
Alors
. . .’ He gathered himself theatrically, tilted his head back and announced: ‘Last night, I tell my wife I have bought the dog with no nose.’
He cantilevered his body sideways from the waist, swivelled inwards and adopted a simpering expression.
‘
Oh Armand
,’ he quavered in a falsetto, ‘but how does this dog smell?’
He snapped back into position. ‘Completely
terrible
, my dear!’
Diana laughed despite herself. ‘Armand, that joke probably arrived here with the Romans.’
He nodded. ‘
Absolument
. And they left it here especially for you,
madame
. Now, I get your
café
and
le journal
.’
A few minutes later, Diana put down her copy of
Nice-Matin.
She had heard somewhere that no newspaper, however worthy, printed more than a thousand different words in any one edition.
She was certainly finding it progressively easier to understand Nice’s morning paper; her French vocabulary was steadily growing.
She loved this morning routine. The smell of cut flowers lingered on the warm air, and every now and then a passing stallholder would give her a little wave of recognition. She felt completely
at home here, and was surprised not to have experienced even a trace of homesickness since arriving in Provence.
It had been a vile journey down. England was in the grip of yet another freezing winter when they left – almost as bad as the one of 1947–48. The pipes in her house had burst the
night before she left and the new tenants – Diana had decided to keep her cottage after marrying Douglas, and was renting it out – had been furious.
‘Haven’t you heard of lagging?’ shouted the young husband down the phone the next morning. ‘This is 1951. There’s no excuse for burst pipes these days, you
know.’
In between marshalling trunks and cases in the hall of Douglas’s Kensington mansion, looking for her passport which had inexplicably gone missing, and reminding Douglas to bring the
envelope stuffed with high-denomination French banknotes from the safe, Diana had somehow managed to organise a plumber to go to Hever. Then came news that there was a rail strike, and three taxis
had to be booked to take them and their luggage to Dover. They got there too late for the last ferry and ended up having to stay in a horrible hotel for the night. Diana had forgotten the
family’s ration cards so their last meal in England had been one of stale bread, a suspicious omelette made with what she was certain was wartime-vintage powdered egg, and staggeringly weak
tea laced with milk that was definitely on the turn.
Next day they arrived, famished and exhausted, at the Gare de Lyon in Paris. They boarded the waiting Nice train, and as it was lunchtime, walked straight to the dining car. By the time they
were leaving the Paris suburbs behind, Diana was enjoying what she, Douglas and Stella agreed was probably the best meal of their lives. If there was food rationing in France, it didn’t
extend to the first-class express from Paris to Nice. Goose pâté with warm
brioche
had been followed by tender flash-fried steak served on potato slices lightly tossed with
rosemary, with freshly made
crème brûlée
to finish. Wine, brought without being ordered, was a light, fresh rosé from Provence. Stella had some with mineral
water, and summed up the general feeling as coffee, again unasked for, was served.
‘That felt like a dream.’
Indeed it had. In fact, reflected Diana as she finished her coffee and prepared to leave the café, Nice displayed none of the kind of post-war privations that shivering, flat-broke
Britain was still experiencing. A telephone conversation with her father the night before had left her with the distinct impression that things there were getting worse, not better. ‘You
wouldn’t think we’d won the bloody war,’ he said gloomily.
She must invite her parents down to stay, Diana decided as she stood up. They’d love it here and the light would be perfect for her mother’s painting. She’d phone them today to
arrange it all.
She’d hated saying goodbye, back in March. Gwen had insisted that the three of them come to the Dower House for a farewell Sunday lunch, two days before they left for France.
It had not been a happy occasion. Douglas and Oliver respected each other but could never seem to quite hit it off. Douglas had a tendency to become stiff and formal when in Mr Arnold’s
presence – he told Diana he simply couldn’t help it – and Oliver’s attempts at humour usually fell on stony ground.
So lunch had been a stilted affair, the imminent departure hanging like a cloud over all of them. Her parents had tried to put on a brave face, but it was obvious they were going to miss their
daughter and granddaughter enormously. Diana had formed the closest of bonds with her mother and father after John and James were killed. Not at once; in fact, during the year after the double
tragedy, Diana had sometimes wondered if her parents might separate, so isolated from each other by grief were they. She herself was beyond comfort or solace; for a miserable few months the Arnolds
barely spoke to each other.
The arrival of Stella had changed all that.
Diana left a few coins on the table for her coffee and walked out onto the pavement.
A taxi came slowly round the corner, past a little grove of lemon trees that lined the centre of the road. It was a shabby brown prewar Citroën, all the windows down in the spring warmth.
She stood up to hail it, but realised it already carried a passenger and wasn’t going to stop.
As it passed her, she saw the silhouette of a man sitting in the back. He was leaning forward and speaking, in English, to the driver.
‘No, not here. I told you – it’s much further up. Keep going all the way to the Hotel Negresco. And get a move on – I’m late enough as it is.’
Diana swayed and gripped the back of her chair.
Impossible
.
‘Stop!’ she called at last as the taxi reached the top of the square and began to turn on to the Promenade des Anglais. ‘Oh please, stop!’
But the Citroën entered the flow of traffic and disappeared down the long curving road that bordered the sparkling Mediterranean.
‘
Madame?
’ It was Armand, the
patron
, solicitous. ‘Do you have a problem?’
‘No, no . . .’ She sat down again. ‘Everything’s fine, really.’
But she was lying.
Everything was wrong.
Completely wrong.
Tentatively, Armand touched her shoulder. ‘
Madame
, are you quite yourself?’ he asked in a low voice. The Englishwoman’s sudden pallor alarmed him.
Diana wheeled round. ‘I know that man,’ she stated.
‘Who,
madame
? The man in the taxi?’
‘Yes. I’m sure of it. But he can’t be . . . I can’t have . . .’ Diana looked back at the point where the taxi had disappeared, before turning to the concerned
patron
again. ‘Did you hear him, Armand? Did you hear him speak?’
The man shook his head, his pointed moustache ends quivering. ‘
Non, madame
. I only heard you cry out.’
‘He was speaking English. I know his voice. Knew it, rather.’
‘I see. And who is this man?’ Armand sat down beside Diana. The other clients had barely looked up; they were busy smoking, talking, eating and drinking.
Diana looked into Armand’s kind face. How to answer him? She hesitated.
‘I think – I think he is someone I once knew. Knew rather well, in fact.’
Armand stared at her, now more curious than concerned. ‘
Oui, madame
, as you say . . . but forgive me, you seem to be not quite yourself. Is there anything I can do?’
Diana shook her head. ‘No, I’m quite all right, really I am.’ She touched her temple. ‘I think I must have a touch of the sun, that’s all.’
‘Perhaps
madame
should go home and rest,
non
?’
‘Yes, that would be best. Thank you, Armand.
Vous êtes très gentil
.
À demain
.’
‘
À demain, madame
.’
Diana somehow managed to walk away from the café with a semblance of normality, but she felt as though her legs might give way at any moment. Then she heard Armand calling after her.
‘Your flowers,
madame
!’ He was waving the lilies in the air. ‘You have forgotten them!’
She gave a weak smile. ‘You keep them, Armand. Put them in a vase on your counter. That way, we can all enjoy them.’
He shrugged and went back inside his café.
Only after Diana had turned the corner where the taxi had disappeared did she stop, and lean heavily against the building. Her head really did begin to throb now, and quite suddenly she felt
violently ill. She mustn’t be sick here, she simply mustn’t. After a few moments she was able to walk on, taking deep breaths and fighting to quell the nausea that gripped her.
It wasn’t until she saw the distinctive dome of the hotel half a mile away that the obvious course of action presented itself.
‘The Negresco,’ she told the first taxi driver to stop. ‘As quickly as you can.’
The driver shrugged, and indicated the heavy traffic. ‘It will take me a few minutes,
madame
.’
Diana didn’t hear him. She was listening to that voice, over and over again, in her head. ‘. . .
Hotel Negresco. And get a move on – I’m late enough as it
is
.’
The same clipped drawl; the same hint of London accent under the vowels – the confident, slightly arrogant tone of a man used to getting his own way.
James.
Her
James.
She had never been so certain of anything in her life.
The Hotel Negresco’s lobby was crammed with Americans that morning, fresh off a cruise liner that could be seen towering above the harbour tucked in behind
St-Jean-Cap-Ferrat.
The hotel’s interior design veered wildly from Art Deco to Louis XIII. Today, the lobby was also stuffed with potted palms, an experiment by the current manager. It made the place look
even more crowded.
Diana fought her way through to the reception desk. She caught a glimpse of her face in the gilded mirror behind it, and barely recognised herself. Her hair was in disarray; she had been
unconsciously running her hands through it while her taxi made its agonisingly slow progress along the Promenade. There was a wild look in her eyes, and under the tan her face looked almost
grey.
‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for someone. A man.’
The smooth,
café au lait-
skinned receptionist behind the counter raised his eyebrows. ‘But of course,
madame
. Which man?’
Diana paused. It seemed ridiculous, now that she was going to have to say it aloud. Perhaps she should just leave. Then she mentally replayed that clipped drawl, which kept repeating itself over
and over inside her head.
She took a deep breath. ‘His name is – was . . .’ Still she hesitated. ‘He’s an Englishman. He would have arrived here by taxi a few minutes ago. He was wearing a
hat – a Fedora, I think.’
‘
Oui, madame
– but his name?’
Diana closed her eyes for a moment. ‘James Blackwell. His name is James Blackwell.’
There. She had said it. Diana felt a wave of vertigo sweep through her and she swayed slightly.
‘One moment, please.’
The receptionist opened the reservations book in front of him and ran a slim finger down the page.
‘
Non
. This gentleman is not staying with us at the Negresco.’ He clicked his fingers and a bell-boy in a smart blue and gold uniform and pill-box hat hurried over.
‘
Marcel! Cherchez un Monsieur Blackwell. Dans le restaurant, ou le bar . . . vite!
’
The boy scurried off, and the man smiled at Diana.
‘
If this
monsieur
is here, we will find him for you. He is a friend, yes?’
‘Yes, he is. A close friend.’
‘Of course.’ The man nodded as if he had known this all along.
Diana looked around her more carefully. Nothing but Americans, most of them extraordinarily fat. You hardly ever see fat people in England any more, she thought abstractedly. Not enough food to
go round.
There was no one in a hat, or a suit, come to that. She didn’t quite know why, but she was sure that the man – James – had been wearing a suit, a dark one. There had been the
glimmer of a white shirt, too. But everyone around her was in holiday clothes – slacks and golf jackets for the men, billowing floral-print dresses on the women.
The bell-hop reappeared and spoke in rapid French to the receptionist before hurrying away again.
‘I am sorry,
madame
, but my boy says we have no one by the name of Blackwell in this hotel. The restaurant is empty after breakfast and there were only three people in the bar,
two French and one American.’ He shrugged. ‘Perhaps your friend has gone to a different hotel?’
Diana stamped her foot in frustration. ‘He
must
be here! I heard him say so, just now!’
One of the American women glanced curiously over to them.
The receptionist spread his hands. ‘
Madame
, you must calm yourself. There is nothing more I can do.’
‘Of course. I’m sorry.’ Diana’s shoulders dropped and she sighed. ‘You’ve done all you can.’
She stood there a moment longer, considering. Then she took a ten-franc note from her purse. The receptionist looked at the little leather pouch with approval: Chanel.
‘Would you give me change for this, please, in one-franc coins? I wish to use the telephone.’
‘
Bien sûr
.’
A minute later, Diana stepped inside one of the hotel’s beautiful polished wood-and-glass phone booths that lined the rear of the lobby. She slid the door closed behind her and picked up
the delicate ivory handset. After a moment the earpiece crackled and she heard the voice of the operator.
‘I wish to place a call to England.’ Diana gave a number which she knew by heart.
‘How long do you wish to speak for,
madame
?’