then to the door to indicate where I should go, Gaston – who no longer seemed half as tricky a proposition, compared with this other Parisian driver; was suddenly looking kind, even – added: ‘
Mademoiselle.
’
Keeping his face averted and his nose high in the air, Gaston swept past the remaining Russians without acknowledging them, and entered the building.
10
The frail shape in the bed was so thin, the hair so dull and tousled on the pillow, that I couldn’t help my gasp of shock.
There was just one faint lamp glowing on a table in the corner of the room, and a plump woman who must be the housekeeper – Gaston’s wife, too, I guessed, because he went straight to her – stirred in an armchair beside the bed, as if the sound of our entrance had disturbed her from a doze. There was a tray on the floor beside her, I could see, but nothing had been eaten.
Nodding to the housekeeper as she rose clumsily to her feet, I stood near the enormous feather bolster under Grandmother’s head, looking down. Gaston and his wife were at the other end of the bolster, side by side, looking expectantly at me. I realized they were waiting for directions. They were only servants, and I was family – the only family there was, too. It hit me right in the gut. I’d have to take charge.
The left side of Grandmother’s face had sagged. She wasn’t asleep – she raised anxious prisoner’s eyes to me, and a trembling right arm, though her left side did no more than twitch. I took both the raised right hand and the stiffleft one in mine, and pressed them very warmly in mine. Hers were frail and papery, blue-veined and brown-spotted, and cool. But the right hand, at least, gripped mine with bony urgency. ‘MMMM,’ she mumbled, out of one side of her mouth. Her voice was shockingly loud.
I didn’t know how to respond. ‘Dearest Grandmother,’ I started in a whisper, gazing back into her mute, imploring face with a mixture of tenderness and pity and fear. I hadn’t expected to be in a situation where I was so very out of my depth. ‘I’m here. I’m so happy to see you,’ I stumbled on, relieved to find I had the presence of mind, after another moment’s wordless panic, to at least add, ‘but I’m so sorry to find you unwell.’
Even like this, I’d known her as soon as I’d seen her. I could now picture us together, long ago, on the island. It was a very precise memory: the two of us laughing together. I could clearly picture the charisma and glamour Grandmother had had back then. We’d been dancing … yes, that was it, to Russian violin music that kept getting faster and faster. And then Mother had walked in. I could remember the moment she did as if it were now: my arms outstretched and my head raised rapturously, spinning around with my slender, breathlessly smiling giant of a partner.
Now that same face, though diminished, was lying before me, in a pitiful halo of thin, too-black hair. Her mouth opened, and there was a frantic message in her eyes. But the only sound that came out was another strangled ‘Mmm …’
It wrung my heart, and it frightened me a bit, too, that the person I remembered so alive had become this spittle-stained, moaning ruin. I tried to concentrate on the factthat there was so clearly something this new version of Grandmother wanted to tell me, and couldn’t. ‘What is it, darling?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice soft and appealing because I could see she needed me; trying not to remember myself asking the same anxious question of Mother so very recently. But still no words came, just more gurglings.
It was a relief when the housekeeper diverted me by nodding towards something on the bed that showed Grandmother had been trying to communicate in writing.
It was a lap desk – one of those awkward boxes you fold out to make a sloping writing surface. There was writing all over the blotting paper on top of it. The housekeeper – who must have set the thing out on the bed – was
Mademoiselle.
’
Keeping his face averted and his nose high in the air, Gaston swept past the remaining Russians without acknowledging them, and entered the building.
10
The frail shape in the bed was so thin, the hair so dull and tousled on the pillow, that I couldn’t help my gasp of shock.
There was just one faint lamp glowing on a table in the corner of the room, and a plump woman who must be the housekeeper – Gaston’s wife, too, I guessed, because he went straight to her – stirred in an armchair beside the bed, as if the sound of our entrance had disturbed her from a doze. There was a tray on the floor beside her, I could see, but nothing had been eaten.
Nodding to the housekeeper as she rose clumsily to her feet, I stood near the enormous feather bolster under Grandmother’s head, looking down. Gaston and his wife were at the other end of the bolster, side by side, looking expectantly at me. I realized they were waiting for directions. They were only servants, and I was family – the only family there was, too. It hit me right in the gut. I’d have to take charge.
The left side of Grandmother’s face had sagged. She wasn’t asleep – she raised anxious prisoner’s eyes to me, and a trembling right arm, though her left side did no more than twitch. I took both the raised right hand and the stiffleft one in mine, and pressed them very warmly in mine. Hers were frail and papery, blue-veined and brown-spotted, and cool. But the right hand, at least, gripped mine with bony urgency. ‘MMMM,’ she mumbled, out of one side of her mouth. Her voice was shockingly loud.
I didn’t know how to respond. ‘Dearest Grandmother,’ I started in a whisper, gazing back into her mute, imploring face with a mixture of tenderness and pity and fear. I hadn’t expected to be in a situation where I was so very out of my depth. ‘I’m here. I’m so happy to see you,’ I stumbled on, relieved to find I had the presence of mind, after another moment’s wordless panic, to at least add, ‘but I’m so sorry to find you unwell.’
Even like this, I’d known her as soon as I’d seen her. I could now picture us together, long ago, on the island. It was a very precise memory: the two of us laughing together. I could clearly picture the charisma and glamour Grandmother had had back then. We’d been dancing … yes, that was it, to Russian violin music that kept getting faster and faster. And then Mother had walked in. I could remember the moment she did as if it were now: my arms outstretched and my head raised rapturously, spinning around with my slender, breathlessly smiling giant of a partner.
Now that same face, though diminished, was lying before me, in a pitiful halo of thin, too-black hair. Her mouth opened, and there was a frantic message in her eyes. But the only sound that came out was another strangled ‘Mmm …’
It wrung my heart, and it frightened me a bit, too, that the person I remembered so alive had become this spittle-stained, moaning ruin. I tried to concentrate on the factthat there was so clearly something this new version of Grandmother wanted to tell me, and couldn’t. ‘What is it, darling?’ I asked, trying to keep my voice soft and appealing because I could see she needed me; trying not to remember myself asking the same anxious question of Mother so very recently. But still no words came, just more gurglings.
It was a relief when the housekeeper diverted me by nodding towards something on the bed that showed Grandmother had been trying to communicate in writing.
It was a lap desk – one of those awkward boxes you fold out to make a sloping writing surface. There was writing all over the blotting paper on top of it. The housekeeper – who must have set the thing out on the bed – was
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