a text. ‘I’m just sending them a message now.’ She bites her lip, pressing send and then anxiously checking for a reply.
After a couple of minutes, her phone pings and I watch her face, which is still creased into a frown, as she scans the screen. ‘They’re okay,’ she says. ‘They’re stuck in a bar just off the beachfront and there’s been some sort of incident. The police have sealed off the city centre, apparently. But they’re all safe.’ She and I both breathe again.
We try to concentrate on the show as the sky lights up with fireworks. But there’s an air of tension and distracted preoccupation all around us. As soon as the last sparks fade against the black of the sky, we begin to make our way home. Simone checks the news reports that repeatedly light up the screen of her phone and she relays them to me as we walk. ‘A truck has hit a number of bystanders on the Promenade des Anglais. They’re saying there are some injuries, perhaps some deaths. It sounds bad.’
Subdued, we climb the stairs to the apartment on the fifth floor and retreat to our rooms in silence.
The next morning I wake early. Simone is already up, watching the television in the sitting room. She glances up as I join her on the sofa and I can see she’s been crying. As the news reports continue, I understand why. A terrorist drove a truck down the main road along the Nice beachfront last night. The promenade had been blocked off for the Bastille Night festivities and it was crammed with holidaymakers. But the lorry had been driven into the crowds, deliberately targeting people on the pavement, carving out a swathe of destruction and devastation. The early morning reports estimate that over eighty people have been killed and more than four hundred injured, some critically.
‘Is there any more word from Florence and the others?’ I ask, when I can speak.
Simone nods. ‘They are at their hotel, packing up to leave. They’ll be back later.’
We sit in silence for a moment, feeling thankful that the people we know are safe, but unable to get out of our minds the thought of so many others whose lives have been brutally ended or changed for ever.
Feeling sickened, I pull on a jacket and head out to get some fresh air. The early-morning city is quiet after the noisy celebrations of last night which have been forgotten now, overtaken by this latest terror attack on French soil. Without planning where I’m going, I head towards the river. I cross the road and stand for a moment, leaning on the wall opposite the Île de la Cité. At first I hardly see the landscape before me. A kaleidoscope of nightmarish images plays in my mind, of a truck careering down a crowded street, and of the concentration camps that I’d researched yesterday. What is this world where human beings can be the perpetrators of such inhumanity against their own kind? I’m trying hard not to let the rising panic overwhelm me and I press my hands against the wall, taking deep breaths.
As my breathing quietens, I realise that I’m looking at the downstream end of the island. And then I notice it: Mireille’s willow tree. It’s still there, on the point at the very tip, its branches trailing their green fingers in the flow of the Seine. I cross the bridge and find the narrow stairs that lead down to where the boat trips depart from the island. The cobbled quay skirts a small public garden and I follow it to the tree. In the middle of the city, I am in an oasis of solitude. The noises of the first of the rush-hour traffic on either side of the river are muted by the veil of leaves and the quiet sounds of the river lapping at the stones that reinforce the banks of the island. Just as Mireille found sanctuary here all those years before, I sit with my back against the trunk of the tree, leaning my head against its reassuring solidity, and my mind calms enough to be able to think more clearly. Setting aside the horror of the terror attack in Nice for now, I mull over what I’ve learned about my grandmother, longing for her to ground me and reassure me.
It was a miracle that Claire survived. I realise that if Vivi hadn’t been there to encourage her and support her, she never