Josette straightened several of the framed photos she’d hung in the privacy of her bedroom. Photos that were representative of her life for the past fifty years and ones that she was proud to have taken. Hanging them elsewhere in the cottage would have felt like showing off and Josette had never been one for bragging. Placing them in full view of visitors would also encourage questions about her past. Questions that Josette preferred not to answer.
Most of the photographs were black and white ones she’d taken all over Europe during the course of the last fifty years. Subjects ranged from young children to old women, from deluxe buildings to bombed-out streets in war zones, from crowds to solitary figures in a landscape. Some had won awards.
Getting ready to meet Gordon for a day out, her eyes were drawn as ever to a certain photograph. A young child, no more than two years old, reaching out to be picked up by the father. Her camera had captured the father’s look of pure unadulterated love as he bent down towards the child. It had always been one of her favourite photos. Josette closed her eyes as the familiar wave of sadness that had swept through her the day she’d realised how a man’s life had been destroyed by the loss of that simple unconditional love, swept through her again.
Picking up her bag, a pashmina and putting on her straw sun hat, her hand hovered over her camera on the dresser, where the sun streaming in highlighted the dust particles forming over its case. Once the Nikon would have been an automatic accessory every day, but in recent months the desire to take photographs had died. Today, though, the camera’s neglected presence stirred memories as well as a feeling of sadness at what she had given up.
Maybe it was time she dusted off the camera, but not today. Gordon had promised her a fun day out and they were off to Monaco. If she wasn’t careful, she’d be late meeting him down by the station. Josette ran downstairs and out of the cottage, slamming the door behind her.
‘Sorry, am I late?’ she said as he greeted her with the usual cheek kisses. ‘We’ll have to hurry getting our tickets.’
‘Today we don’t need tickets. Come with me,’ and Gordon took her by the hand and led her in the direction of a white convertible MG vintage sports car parked nearby. ‘I thought we’d travel in style today,’ he said, moving round and opening the passenger door for her. ‘If madam would take a seat.’
Josette did as she was told and fastened her seat belt and waited while Gordon did the same. ‘I didn’t think you had a car?’
‘I’ve hired this little beauty just for today,’ Gordon said. ‘We can pretend we’re young again and can afford a fun car. The coast road, I think,’ he said, pressing the start button. ‘Monaco, here we come.’
Josette put on her sunglasses and took off her sun hat before the wind could whip it off her head as Gordon drove fast and expertly along the bas corniche. The small waves of the blue Mediterranean on their right gambolled in the sunlight, rolling up the pebbled beach and back again. In the sky, planes making their descent for Nice airport travelled a faster parallel line to the coast road before disappearing from view to touch down gently on the runway.
It was only yesterday that Carla had taken off in one of the planes flying in the opposite direction. She missed her already. The telephone call early this morning had been an unexpected surprise. She sighed and sensed Gordon giving her a fleeting glance.
‘Carla rang me this morning to check I was all right. Wasn’t that kind of her? Things are falling into place for her to move over and live in the Villa Mimosa.’
‘That’s good,’ Gordon said.
‘I’m not so sure,’ Josette sighed, ‘I’m not used to being involved with family. All I’ve ever wanted from the day Amelia and I inherited the place was to sell it and close that part of my life. Now, when it seems the opportunity has finally arisen, I cave in and agree to Carla not just moving into Villa Mimosa but running a chambre d’hôte in the future.’
‘Why were you so desperate to close that chapter of your life?’ Gordon asked.
‘I have some unhappy memories of the place.’
‘No happy ones at all?’
‘Probably my own fault, but the unhappy ones have, over the years, pushed the good ones out of my mind,’ Josette said.
‘It seemed a happy place to me when we were there the other evening. The garden was lovely too. I think Carla will make a success of her business and in a few months you’ll realise how much you like having family around you.’
‘Maybe. Having close family nearby is something I’d accepted would never happen because of the feud with Amelia. Anyway,’ she added determinedly, ‘today I’m not going to think about what the future may hold. I’m going to enjoy the fun day you promised me.’
Josette sat up straighter and pushed herself back against the car seat. A phrase her mother would have used ‘blowing the cobwebs away’ came into Josette’s mind minutes later as the car flew along, eating up the kilometres and the invigorating wind blew around her head.
‘I love this car. Wish I’d had one like it when I was young,’ Josette said. ‘It’s years since I’ve been along this road. We always came to Monaco by train. It was easier.’
‘We? And why?’
‘Amelia and I. And the why was because our father agreed with Somerset Maugham’s words, “it’s a shady place for shady people”, and didn’t approve of us visiting. We used to come in secret.’ She glanced at Gordon. ‘D’you know Monaco well?’
‘In a previous life I used to be a regular visitor. Almost bought an apartment here.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s changed a lot since those days. But it still has a certain je ne sais quois.’
Gordon rarely mentioned his past life and Josette waited, hoping he’d enlarge on his comments. When he didn’t, she said. ‘Life’s a funny thing, isn’t it? Changes of which we are aware happen, we even instigate and accept some of them. Then, ten, twenty, years pass and you realise certain of those changes had an unseen domino effect on other things, and almost without noticing you’ve lived a whole different life. One where you forgot your dreams.’
‘That’s a sad reflection,’ Gordon said quietly. ‘It’s never too late to have dreams, you know.’
‘Maybe not, but turning them into reality could be a step too far, too late. C’est la vie.’
Gordon, concentrating on overtaking a lorry, didn’t answer.
‘Tell me what you have planned for today?’ Josette asked once they were safely past.
‘After parking the car, I thought we’d walk up through the town and start with coffee in the Café de Paris, followed by a visit to the casino, where we’ll play the slot machines. After which I’m hoping we’ll come back down and my plan for lunch in the Automobile Club happens. There is a fair amount of walking involved in these plans as you probably realise.’
‘That’s fine. J’adore me promener around the principality. There’s always something or someone to see.’
Leaving the car in the underground car park on the quay, the two of them wandered along the wide harbour front, strolled up the hill past the Princess Grace Theatre, along Avenue de Monte Carlo with its designer shops and into Place du Casino. By the time they sank onto chairs on the terrace of the Café de Paris, they were both ready for a reviving coffee.
Waiting for the coffee to arrive, Josette smiled at the scene in front of her. Numerous tourists, under the watchful eye of the uniformed security man, were busy posing as close as possible to the luxury cars parked in front of the casino for photographs. All around them was a babble of international languages: Japanese, Dutch, English, Russian, Italian and, of course, French.
The waiter placed her coffee on the table. ‘Merci.’
‘Amelia and I used to love coming here when we were teenagers,’ Josette said. ‘We’d pretend we were famous, talk in loud voices, giggle together over something that had happened “on set” and haughtily ignore everyone. The reality, of course, was that nobody was the slightest bit interested in us anyway. C’était amusant quand mȇme.’ She drank some coffee, conscious of Gordon watching her. ‘I took one of my more infamous photos here too.’
‘Infamous as in of famous people behaving badly?’ Gordon said.
Josette nodded. ‘It was of the Burtons having a major tiff on the casino steps,’ Josette said. ‘I was lucky in that the paparazzi that usually hung around had all gone off to chase Rainier and Grace. That photo has earnt me a few euros over the years.’
‘I’ve never seen you with a camera in your hand. Do you not miss taking photographs these days? Just for your own pleasure.’
Before Josette could answer, Gordon’s mobile pinged with an incoming text and the moment was lost.
Reading the message, Gordon pulled a face.
‘Sorry, lunch at the Automobile Club is a no-go. Never mind. I know a good restaurant in rue Princess Caroline. Come on, time to gamble with the fruit machines first.’
Josette and Gordon decided twenty-five euros worth of tokens each would be enough for them to have fun with and they joined the crowds in the slot machine room. Josette wandered around for a while watching other people and trying to work out how to play the modern electronic devices. ‘Wish they still had the old-fashioned models,’ she said, stopping to watch Gordon. ‘I knew how to play them. All these flashing lights confuse me.’
‘Just choose one and dive in,’ he replied. ‘You’ll soon get the hang of it. If not, it’s only a small amount of money you’ve gambled.’
So she dived in as instructed and doubled her money on her first play, after which she was hooked. When Gordon tapped her on the shoulder half an hour later saying it was time to make their way back down and find a restaurant, she smiled at him.
‘That was so much fun,’ Josette said. ‘And while I didn’t exactly break the bank at Monte Carlo, I’ve still got my original twenty-five euros.’
‘In that case, you can buy a cream gateau later to take home with us for tea.’
‘It’s a deal,’ Josette said, laughing.