The Family Remains(70)

She followed behind them for ten minutes as they walked across town towards the centre. Soon they were in one of the central squares, lit up for the evening with streetlights and fairy lights and the inviting glow of restaurants and bars on all four sides. Here Lucy and her children stopped. Rachel took a seat on a bench opposite and watched as Lucy laid out a yoga mat behind her, and then a rug. The two children sat on the rug and opened the bags they’d carried with them. Lucy opened her violin case and brought out her instrument. She pulled off her woolly hat and tidied her hair. She applied some lipstick and took off her shapeless coat, revealing a fitted black dress, tiny at the waist, with a soft grey cardigan and a silky neck scarf.

Rachel stared at her, hungrily. There she was. There was Lucy. The apparition turned flesh and bone. Although even here, in three dimensions, there was something diaphanous about her, something not quite real. She looked as if she could fade away into the cold night air, like a frozen breath. And she was beautiful. So beautiful, in a way that Rachel, who had always considered herself to be fairly good-looking, had never been beautiful.

It was five thirty. The day was growing dark now. The restaurants were beginning to fill. The townsfolk and a smattering of out-of-season tourists were beginning to promenade. She watched Lucy angle the violin to her chin and then apply her bow to its strings and burst into a rousing version of ‘Titanium’. This was so unexpected to Rachel that she almost laughed out loud. She’d been imagining Beethoven, Vivaldi, not David Guetta.

After that Lucy played a very snappy version of ‘Valerie’ and then an Adele song and she played these poppy songs seriously, with her heart and her soul. Nobody stopped, nobody threw any money into the upturned bowler hat at her feet. Rachel pulled her purse from her handbag and took out a twenty-euro note. She stood in front of Lucy and watched her until she hit the last notes of the Adele song and then she clapped her hands together and smiled and said, ‘Wow. You are amazing.’

Lucy smiled, but it was a guarded smile, the sort of smile that someone who feels constantly under threat would use. ‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’

Her accent was cut-glass English, like the girls at Liberty, like all girls who’ve never tried to fit in anywhere by flattening, lengthening, twisting their basic elocution, because it never occurred to them that they needed to.

‘Here.’ She handed Lucy the twenty-euro note.

‘Oh,’ said Lucy, looking at the note in surprise. ‘That’s very generous.’

‘Not at all. You’re very talented. And I guess business is slow this time of year.’

‘Painfully.’ Lucy stared at the note in her hand for a moment, before folding it in half and tucking it into the pocket of her dress.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ Rachel asked. ‘Something warm, maybe. A vin chaud? Something for the children?’

‘Oh. Actually. Yes. A vin chaud would be amazing. That’s so kind. Thank you so much.’ She turned to the children behind her and said, ‘This kind lady has offered to get you a drink. Would you like hot chocolates?’

The children both nodded and Rachel smiled and said, ‘Right then. Two vins chauds, two hot chocolates. I will be right back.’

As she waited for her order, she watched Lucy put her violin back to her chin and then play ‘The Whole of the Moon’ so beautifully that it made Rachel want to cry.

She took the drinks back to Lucy’s pitch and handed the hot chocolates to the children who both said thank you very much with a hint of French in their accents, and she placed the wine on the pavement by Lucy’s feet, who smiled at her over the top of her violin. Rachel applauded again at the end of the song and Lucy gave her a small bow.

‘That was so beautiful,’ said Rachel. ‘Did you have a classical training?’

Lucy laughed wryly. ‘No. Most definitely not. I was taught by someone who had a classical training, but she preferred to play pop, so that was what she taught me.’

‘Well, she was an excellent teacher. Cheers.’ Rachel touched her paper cup against Lucy’s. ‘Where are you from?’

‘London originally. Born and bred. But I’ve been in France since I was a teenager.’

‘What brought you here?’

‘Oh, you know, family.’ Lucy took a sip of her wine and then cocked the paper cup towards Rachel. ‘What about you? Do you live here?’

‘No. No. I live in London. I’m just …’ She licked her lips quickly. ‘Having a break by myself. This time last year I was on honeymoon. Now I’m separated. Just fancied getting away from reality for a few days.’

‘Funny,’ replied Lucy. ‘How people think that this isn’t reality.’ She gestured around the square. ‘When every inch of it to me is nothing but.’

‘Yeah. I guess. I mean, this …’ Rachel pointed at her violin, resting in its box. ‘Is this a lifestyle choice for you? Or is it …’

‘Necessity? Yes. It’s necessity. Believe me. I would much rather be wrapped up snug somewhere now in a lovely apartment with a TV and a fire and money in the bank. This …’ She sighed. ‘This was not a plan. Nope. This was not a plan.’

‘So, you’re a single mother?’

‘Yes. Yes, I am. Didn’t expect to be. But there you go.’

‘What happened to their fathers?’