spare room, I scarcely have time to turn out the light before I sink into one of the deepest sleeps I’ve ever enjoyed.
Next morning, I join Simone at the breakfast table. She’s been up a while already, I can tell, eager to spend time with her family, and has picked a bunch of autumn flowers to take to her mamie, Mireille. The fresh bread which Josiane puts on my plate is the perfect combination of soft and crusty, and I slather it with white butter and a generous helping of amber apricot jam. It tastes better than any creation from the finest of patisseries in Paris ever could.
As Simone and I walk up the hill to the little cottage where Mireille lives, we’re accompanied by half a dozen swifts who swoop and soar overhead, filling the perfect blue dome of the sky above us with their complex, never-ending dance. This far south the season is slower in turning, the last days of summer lingering longer here than in Paris. The sun warms my back, but at the same time there’s a mellow softness to the light and a sense that the swifts are flexing their wings, preparing to make their long journey south for the winter.
We turn into a lane and pass the end of a driveway lined with tall oak trees. A large black cat, which has been dozing in the shade, gets to its feet as we draw near and stretches luxuriantly. Simone bends down to scratch behind his ears and he purrs loudly, butting her hand rapturously with his broad head. ‘Hello, Lafitte,’ she says. ‘Where are my little cousins today?’ She explains that one of her uncles – another of Mireille’s stonemason sons – lives in the house with his English wife and their children, and that the old cat is very much a part of the family.
We carry on up the lane, escorted by the cat as far as Mireille’s house. He watches as we turn in at the gate and then, tail held high, makes his way back down the lane to his lookout post under the oaks once more.
Mireille’s cottage is surrounded by vineyards hung with grapes which, Simone tells me, will be harvested in a few weeks’ time. Bright geraniums blaze in pots at every window. Simone knocks and then pushes the front door open, calling, ‘Coucou!’
‘Come in!’ The voice that replies is cracked and softened with age. ‘I’m in the kitchen.’
Although she will shortly be celebrating her one hundredth birthday, I would still recognise Mireille from the photograph of the three girls on the Rue Cardinale. Her hair is pure white now, but a few unruly curls still make their escape from the bun at the nape of her neck, refusing to be constrained. Her deep brown eyes are still bright, her gaze birdlike as she smiles up at us. She’s sitting in an old armchair which dwarfs her diminutive figure, and has a bowl of peas on her lap which she’s been shelling into a colander, her claw-like fingers still deft in their work despite being gnarled with arthritis. I picture those same fingers in years gone by, flying over fine fabrics, a needle flashing as it laid down one tiny stitch after another.
She sets aside the bowl, smoothing down the apron she wears, and hauls herself to her feet, embracing her granddaughter. ‘Simone, ma chérie,’ she murmurs, cupping her face between those gnarled hands, letting her know how much she is treasured.
Then she turns to look at me. ‘Harriette.’ She pronounces my name as though it were French. ‘Here at last.’ She nods, as if listening to internal voices that we cannot hear. ‘You have a lot of your grandmother in you. But your eyes are those of your grandfather. And, of course, your great-aunt too.’ She pulls me close, with a surprising amount of strength for such a diminutive and elderly lady, peering into my face as if she is reading all that is written there. Her bright eyes seem to pierce to the very core of my being. She nods again, apparently approving of what she has seen there.
Then she clasps me in an embrace that is tender and loving, and for a moment I am overcome with the feeling that there are three people holding me, not just one. It is as if she is the keeper of their spirits: Claire and Vivi are here, holding me as well.
‘Bring the tea things,’ she says to Simone,