The Last Dress from Paris(4)
“She got you a birthday cake?” She stiffens to attention in anticipation of my answer.
“I made it, Granny.” My smile is exaggerated, hoping she’ll focus on my baking efforts and not . . .
“You made your own birthday cake? Did she remember this year?” Her smile is receding now.
“She’s very busy, we know that. I wasn’t expecting anything. Honestly, it’s fine.” I’m unwrapping the cake and adding it to the biscuit plate. Mum, it has to be said, has never forgotten a hair appointment. Her balayage looks just as fresh from one week to the next. She’s never not up to speed with the morning news. The kind of woman who has strategized her day before her feet touch down in the sheepskin slippers that she leaves carefully positioned by the side of her bed every night.
“A card?” Granny isn’t giving up.
“Ummm, no.”
“A call?” Oh, this doesn’t look good.
“Not yet.” I try to sound cheerful about it. “She will eventually, Granny, you know she will, when she gets a spare moment.”
“Oh, Genevieve.” An irritated sigh huffs out of her as she bows her head and diverts her gaze back to the fire, like this is somehow partially her fault. That my own mother has, in all probability, forgotten my birthday for the fifth year running.
“It really doesn’t matter, you know.” I sound more upbeat than I honestly feel. “She’s been traveling for work again, she never quite knows what time zone she’s supposed to be in, does she?”
She looks at me, her face loaded with disappointment. “You deserve so much more, Lucille.”
Do I? I can’t think of a single thing that marks me out as special or more deserving of love and attention than anyone else. There was a fleeting moment, right at the beginning with my last boyfriend, Billy, when I wondered if perhaps it might happen. I might feel like the center of someone’s world for a while. I might wake up to a warm hand on my thigh, a freshly made cup of tea on the bedside table, a smile that said, I want whatever you want from this life. But the reality was so much more mundane than that, and I decided to manage my own expectations by drastically lowering them. I wouldn’t hope for romantic gestures. I would stroke my own ego, something I have never been terribly good at.
Sensing the moment needs an injection of excitement, Granny claps her hands together.
“The envelope. On the mantelpiece, darling.” She points to a card with my name scrawled across the front. “It’s for you.” Here comes the book token she knows I always appreciate.
But inside is a card, illustrated with a picture of a smart hotel, and at the bottom is printed H?tel Plaza Athénée. I start to read.
Happy birthday, my darling Lucille! You are off to Paris to have an adventure. See things. Do things. Meet people. And bring home something dear to me—something I have longed to hold again for too many years.
With love always,
Your granny Sylvie
I finish reading and my eyes shoot straight back to her. She’s sat there, brazenly smiling at me, like she has just outsmarted MI5.
“What does this mean, Granny?” I can’t be reading it right. She can’t mean actual Paris.
“I’d say it means you’re going to Paris.” She’s actually laughing now. “Look!” She points to the side table, where there is an envelope with the word Eurostar printed across the front.
“But I can’t, I . . .” I pick it up, snatch the ticket out, and immediately clock the departure date. Tomorrow. Friday.
For one heart-soaring moment I wonder if she intends to join me. But of course she doesn’t. She’s a few weeks shy of her ninetieth birthday and rarely makes it beyond the safe triangle of her cottage on Wimbledon Common, the local church, and the village hall for film night and book club.
“I can’t possibly. There’s work and . . . oh no, I don’t want you to have wasted your money, Granny. Did you check you can get a refund or at least change the date?”
“I have no intention of asking for a refund. Natasha booked it for me, and I doubt she stopped to wonder about that.” Granny dismissively waves a hand.
She knows she’s got me, that she is victorious. “So, you want me to go to Paris? On my own?” Maybe a solo trip is exactly what I need. Some time to think about what I’m doing with my life and ask myself the difficult questions I’ve been avoiding. Or maybe not? Maybe I just need a few days not thinking about any of it.
“That’s the spirit! Yes, I do!” And with that she launches a little fist pump into the air.
I look back at the card. There are thirty-two kisses under her name, one for each of my years, which must have taken some time considering the difficulty she has holding a pen these days.
Perhaps this is all an elaborate plan on Granny’s part. Get Lucille to Paris, break her out of her fug. Don’t leave her to a takeaway and Netflix for another birthday (as if there could ever be anything wrong with that). Push her into the arms of some beautiful French boy. Unfortunately, she’s overlooking the fact I’m not blessed with the same perfectly symmetrical features as her, or the wasp waist or the kind of confidence that seems to radiate from the black-and-white portraits lining her mantelpiece.
Sensing I’m not taking this terribly seriously, she suddenly tightens her bony grip on my hand.