It started, like a bad play, with the ringing of the telephone.
In the spacious, centrally heated flat, high above the traffic and with a clear view over the park, everything was ready for Christmas. The Georgian furniture, each piece exactly right, stood elegantly polished; greetings cards and messages from all over the world were piled neatly on a silver salver; the piano had been tuned and the Aubusson rugs shampooed; in the kitchen, quietly, confidently, Maxine and Odile from Jamaica were making the early preparations for the two dinner parties and the one cocktail party that had been arranged.
Fleur herself, satisfied that nothing had been forgotten and that all was going exactly as she had planned it should, was resting with her shoes off and her legs up on the pale gold damask sofa, reading beauty hints for the over-forties in a shiny magazine. Her hair had been done, her nails manicured, and she had already arranged the flowers for the table decorations. Nothing had been left until the last minute, for today was Christmas Eve.
The telephone was by her side and its ringing shattered the excited silence of waiting for Christmas.
It was a Continental call, and Fleur sat up, the magazine sliding to the floor, as she waited to be connected with Paris.
‘Mummy?’ The voice was faint, the line crackling.
‘Noelle! How are you, darling?’
‘I’m fine. Mummy, I’m coming home for Christmas.’
‘Oh, Noelle, that makes everything perfect. I shall keep it as a surprise for Daddy. What time do you arrive? I’ll come to meet you.’
‘There’s no need. I’m at the airport now, waiting for the plane. And Mummy …’
‘Yes, pet?’
‘Mummy, I’m bringing someone …’
‘That’s fine, darling; the spare bed’s made up. What a wonderful Christmas we’ll all have together. Who is it?’
‘Mummy, it’s Graham.’
‘Graham?’
‘It’s Graham I’m bringing home. Graham Gardner. We want to get married.’
Fleur held the telephone receiver away from her a little and stared at it. Then she said, ‘Noelle, darling, what on earth are you talking about?’
‘Graham’s here in Paris. He’s been here ages. He has a wonderful job in Kenya, starting after Christmas. I love him and we want to get married.’
Fleur blinked at the Christmas roses in the silver vase on the mantelpiece and said nothing.
‘Mummy, are you there?’
‘Noelle. Noelle, dear, you must come home at once. We’ll have a talk. I should never have let you go. We can discuss everything with Daddy. Of course you can’t get married, not for ages. Don’t worry, dear. Just come straight home. We’ll sort everything out. It’s so difficult with this crackly phone …’
‘And it’s all right to bring Graham?’
Fleur thought. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I think Graham had better come with you.’
When Noelle had rung off, Fleur replaced the receiver and put on her shoes. There was a knock at the door.
‘Come in.’
A head appeared. ‘The pineapple au kirsch in the silver or the crystal, madame?’
‘Not now, Odile.’ Fleur waved her hand. ‘The silver … no, the crystal. Anything you like; don’t worry me.’
She dialled the number of the gallery where Simon had an exhibition of his paintings, and waited for what seemed far too long while they tried to find him. When he finally came to the phone, he listened carefully to what she had to say. Then he said, ‘I’ve always rather liked Graham. He’s a good chap.’
‘Simon, do be sensible; she’s talking about marrying him and going to Kenya or some such place. We shall have to be absolutely firm, Simon, without being too unkind. What time will you be home?’
‘Not before eight. I have to see that everything’s properly covered.’
‘Try to be earlier. Noelle always listens to you. And do remember, Simon, she’s only a child.’
‘Of course,’ Simon said, ‘it’s out of the question. Don’t worry, my darling. See you later.’
From across the park, drowning the noise of the traffic, Christmas bells began to ring. Fleur shut the window to keep out the noise so that she could think. Sitting tensely now on the very edge of the sofa, she lit a cigarette and remembered that it had been the week before Christmas that Noelle was born. But then there had been no Aubusson, no gold damask and no Christmas roses.
Noelle had been born in Paris, in a room at the very top of a tall old house on the Left Bank. It was snowing. Large flakes drifted down from an uncompromising sky, covered the Ile de la Cité and settled on the rich apartments of the Avenue Foch and the blank-eyed dwellings of Montparnasse with silent impartiality until everything was white and frozen. There was no escape from the cold. They had an oil stove that did little or nothing to heat the vast, draughty room, which was bedroom, living room, dining room, nursery and studio, and whose rent they could barely afford to pay.
It was the coldest Christmas Fleur had ever known, and her first away from the comfortable home where she had been born. Looking back, she was unable to feel the draught that swept day and night through the shut windows and under the door, or the icy chill of the floorboards beneath her bare feet, as she slipped reluctantly out of a warm bed at the first thin, pathetic wail of her week-old baby. On Christmas Eve, Noelle, born a week early, lay sleeping in her crib. Fleur, in layers of jumpers, with her dressing gown topping the lot, watched from the window, searching the early twilight for Simon. It was Christmas, but there was only ragôut for dinner, and there would be no presents. In Paris, city of dreams, artists were two a penny. Fleur’s parents, unwilling to see their daughter living in one room, had been helpless in the face of Simon’s pride.
When he came, his stiff, cold fingers fumbling with the doorknob, he was smiling and there were parcels in his arms.
‘I sold a picture, Fleur. They want more!’
She kissed him, brushed the snow from his hair and opened the wine he had bought and the babas au rhum which would turn the dinner into Christmas. Little Noelle slept, and they sat huddled together round the stove, stiff with cold but oblivious with happiness.
One parcel was yet unopened and Fleur could still remember the thrill of her first Christmas present from Simon, the cheap red slippers with the silky pompoms to keep her feet warm when she got out to see to the baby in the night. That Christmas Eve had been the first rung of the ladder and they had never looked back. Today everyone had heard of Simon Bellamy, and he often joked that he couldn’t afford to buy his own pictures. After Noelle, there had been no more babies, but Fleur saw to it that she grew up unspoiled. When she’d left school, Fleur had sent her to Paris for a year to learn the language, and next year she planned a big coming-out dance for her before she went up to Cambridge. As for Graham, the son of good friends of theirs, the Gardners, she had nothing against the boy, but the idea of Noelle marrying him, before she had really had a chance to meet anybody else, was quite fantastic. She tried to recollect what he had taken up. Photography or something, she thought, but couldn’t quite remember. Fleur was a great planner and the plans she had made for Noelle were the biggest and best of them all. They did not include marriage for many years to come.
The peace of waiting for Christmas had melted in the heavy, centrally heated atmosphere. Fleur inspected the already tidy flat, told Odile that there would be two extra for dinner, put soap in the guest bathroom. She looked again at her present for Simon – a slim gold pencil with his initials on it – and wondered whether he had remembered about the sapphire pendant from Cartier. She was sure he had.
They always adhered to the same routine. Simon was the most generous husband in the world but, like all men, he hated shopping. A few weeks before Christmas or her birthday was due Fleur would say casually, ‘I saw the most wonderful clips at Asprey’s. They match my ruby set and they’re keeping them for me …’ or ‘My crocodile handbag is absolutely finished and I saw exactly the one I wanted at …’ and she knew that when the time came Simon would solemnly present her with the gift she had chosen herself. There seemed too many hours until Noelle was due to arrive, and she wished Simon were home so that they could agree on what they were to say to her without upsetting her too much.
Fleur was in the bathroom putting on her mascara when Noelle arrived. She looked even younger than she was, her face flushed with excitement above the fur collar of her coat and her dark hair shining.
When she had hugged her, inhaling the cold air clinging to Noelle, Fleur said, ‘Now tell me all about it, darling.’
Noelle needed no encouragement. Graham was a journalist. He had been offered a wonderful job as a foreign correspondent in Kenya. They were in love. They wanted to get married. It was as simple as that.
‘How long has this been going on?’ Fleur said.
‘About three months. Ever since Graham’s been in Paris.’
‘You never mentioned him in your letters to us.’
‘We thought there was time. We didn’t know this job was going to crop up.’
Noelle sat on the edge of the bath. ‘Mummy,’ she said, and her face was serious. ‘I know what you’re going to say about being too young. But I’m not too young, and although one part of me doesn’t want to leave you and Daddy and go so far away, Graham and I love each other, and that’s all there is to it. I’m sorry to spring it on you like this, but it just couldn’t be helped.’
‘How much does he earn? How will you live?’
‘We’ll manage.’
‘Manage!’ Fleur thought of the life Noelle had led. Her bedroom with everything a girl could want, her wardrobe, expensive schools, riding lessons, violin lessons, dancing lessons, skating lessons.
‘Have you thought,’ Fleur said, carefully outlining her brows with a pencil, ‘that things might not be just as you’ve been used to? The life abroad; the heat …? It may all sound very romantic and adventurous, but I’m older than you, darling, and …’
Noelle stood up and she was no longer smiling. ‘I don’t think you quite understand, Mummy. I love Graham and I don’t care where he goes – I’m going with him. I want you to understand.’
Fleur looked at her daughter’s determined face in the mirror.
Her own was equally determined. ‘I’m sorry, Noelle,’ she said, ‘it’s quite out of the question.’
Noelle turned and left the room.
It was after eight o’clock and still Simon didn’t come. The atmosphere was getting unbearable. Fleur had exchanged all the pleasantries she could think of with Graham and he sat, his long legs jutting awkwardly, on the spindly chair by the window, holding his drink.
Fleur could understand Noelle’s falling for him. He was tall, good-looking and had deep brown eyes, which almost every moment sought her daughter’s blue ones. ‘Noelle,’ she wanted to say, looking at her daughter, beautiful in midnight-blue velvet, ‘you have it all before you. Please, please, don’t throw everything away.’
She thought she could stand it no longer when at last she heard Simon’s key in the door. He looked tired in his distinguished way. He kissed her, hugged Noelle and shook hands with Graham.
‘It’s started to snow,’ he said. ‘Sorry to keep you all from dinner. I must just have a drink, then I’ll be ready.’
Fleur gave him a drink. ‘You look tired, darling.’
‘I shall have a rest over Christmas. Noelle, you’ll find some presents on the hall table.’
Noelle brought in three parcels. Fleur looked for the long slim box she expected from Cartier. It was a family tradition to open their presents on Christmas Eve.
Noelle hesitated. ‘Which is Mummy’s?’
‘The large oblong one.’
Fleur looked at Simon, but he was busy with his drink.
Puzzled, she undid the string, then the paper, then slowly took the lid off the shiny, oblong, white box. From what seemed miles away she heard Noelle exclaiming excitedly over a bracelet, and Graham thanking Simon politely for his tie.
She took her box over to the window where the curtains were not yet drawn, and watched the snowflakes drifting softly through the darkness. She saw them fall not on to the park but, as though it were yesterday, on the corner patisserie, the naked chestnut trees, the muddy waters of the Seine.
‘Mummy, what have you got?’ Noelle’s voice was insistent.
Slowly Fleur drew from the box the shoddy scarlet slippers, their pompoms already damp with tears.
Not understanding, Noelle looked from her mother to her father, trying to interpret the look that passed between them.
Fleur bundled the slippers back into the tissue paper.
‘Thank you, Simon darling,’ she said. ‘They’re just what I needed. Now do let’s have dinner. If you two are going to get married, we shall have a great deal to discuss.’