‘Netty, Pierre wants to play with his computer game and I want to watch television in my room,’ Olivia said. ‘May we?’
‘Half an hour,’ Nanette agreed, and smiled as the twins dashed away.
‘Nanette, I need to talk to you,’ Jean-Claude said. ‘To explain something.’
Nanette looked at him in surprise.
‘I have to be honest with you. I don’t say anything in front of the twins, but I think you have the right to know. It’s extremely unlikely that Mathieu will be here tonight.’
Nanette waited as a clearly unhappy Jean-Claude ran his hands through his hair.
‘I’ve spent most of this afternoon with my lawyers,’ he said, ‘trying to sort things out, but…’ Jean-Claude shrugged unhappily as he looked at her. There was a pause before he added, ‘Mathieu hasn’t been delayed by business: he’s been arrested.’
5
Three days later, Nanette was enjoying a coffee and a croissant at one of the cafés that edged the La Condamine Monaco flower and vegetable market, when her mobile rang.
‘Hi, Patsy. Everything all right?’ she asked quickly, as her sister’s number flashed on the screen.
‘Yes. Just wondering how you are. Texts are all very well, but I need to hear your voice. I start to worry when we don’t actually speak to each other. I wonder what you’re not telling me,’ Patsy said.
‘Sorry. My silence wasn’t deliberate, it’s just that things have been a bit upside down here since we arrived, but everything’s fine here now.’
‘What do you mean now?’ Patsy demanded. ‘What’s happened? Are the twins all right? Are you?’
‘The twins and I are fine.’ Nanette hesitated. ‘Mathieu wasn’t here when I arrived. He’d been arrested.’ Quickly, before Patsy could draw breath, Nanette continued, ‘He’s out now. They kept him in for twenty-four hours before releasing him on bail. He has to report back once a week.’
‘What’s he done?’
‘I don’t know exactly. Something to do with his business,’ Nanette said. ‘Apparently all he said to Jean-Claude was it’s nothing to worry about and that he’d got it sorted.’
She didn’t add that Jean-Claude was furious with his son for not asking him to put up the bail money. Instead, an unnamed foreign business associate had stood surety. Privately, Nanette thought it sounded more than shifty but she’d kept those thoughts to herself and decided not to mention the incident to Vanessa when she got in touch. Mathieu himself was acting much as normal, which she took as a good sign.
‘I’m sorry I haven’t rung you before, but as you can imagine, trying to occupy the twins and keep the news of their father’s arrest from them hasn’t left much time for anything else. Thankfully, Mathieu has taken them to Marineland in Villneuve-Loubet today to give me a couple of free hours. Jean-Claude is organising an extra computer for them, so they’ll be able to follow Vanessa and Ralph’s progress from this weekend.’
‘Have you heard from them?’
‘Only a quick text to say that she’d tried to phone last night but couldn’t get through for some reason but they’ve arrived safely in Brazil and are enjoying themselves. Their honeymoon will be over next weekend when they fly up into the jungle and meet up with the film crew ready to begin filming the documentary.’
‘When do the twins start school?’
‘Monday, so that’s something else we’ve been busy doing: sorting clothes, buying books and stationery and backpacks big enough to carry everything. Honestly, the amount of stuff they have to carry on a daily basis is unbelievable.’
‘What about you?’ Patsy asked. ‘How are you coping with being back in Monaco? Met up with anyone from your past yet?’
‘If you mean, have I seen Zac, the answer is no. How’s your morning sickness?’ she asked, deftly changing the subject.
‘Slowing down, thank goodness,’ Patsy said. ‘I’d better go – Helen is about to arrive and if she realises I’m on the phone to you, I shall get a lecture about wasting Bryan’s hard-earned money on foreign phone calls – even though its WhatsApp!’
‘I’ll ring you at the weekend,’ Nanette said, laughing. ‘Take care.’
Thoughtfully, she put the phone in her bag and looked around her at the colourful scene. Local housewives and Filipino servants with raffia baskets were busy doing their daily fresh vegetable shop and Nanette could see the walkway up to the palace was crowded with tourists.
It was hard to believe she was back here. If someone had told her last year that she would be living in Monaco again, her immediate reaction would have been outright disbelief. The scars were still too sore then to even contemplate returning. Now, having settled in, and despite the problems of the last few days, Nanette was beginning to enjoy being back. The Principality had always been a special place for her and she’d been sad everything had fallen apart in such a horrendous way.
She realised after she’d finished talking to Patsy that she’d forgotten to tell her about last night when Mathieu had taken her out to dinner after the twins were in bed and Florence was babysitting. Partly to apologise for not being there when she arrived and simply, ‘Because I’d like to,’ he’d said, with a disarming smile when suggesting it. The evening, though, had ended on a strange note.
The small family-run bistro he’d taken her to was a familiar one, hidden in one of the back streets, away from the tourist haunts. Nanette had pushed the thought of the last time she’d been in there with Zac away and tried to ‘live in the moment’, as all the self-help books advised, rather than let that memory cloud the evening.
‘I’m so glad you decided you’d come with the twins,’ Mathieu had said, as they’d waited for their first course to arrive.
‘Can’t understand why you wanted me here really,’ Nanette had replied. ‘Florence lives in, and Jean-Claude seems more than happy to help look after the twins.’
‘Vanessa thought it was important for Pierre and Olivia to have some sort of continuity in their lives. They are used to you looking after them when Vanessa is away. It certainly makes things easier for me, knowing you’re in charge.’ He’d smiled at her and added, ‘And it was definitely less of a worry for me earlier in the week, knowing that you were here with them.’ There was a slight pause before he had said quietly, ‘I have to confess to an ulterior motive too. I also hoped we could get to know each other better. That perhaps you could stop thinking of me simply as the twins’ father and we could become better friends.’
The waiter arriving with their starters at that moment had spared a surprised Nanette from responding. She hoped becoming better friends was all that Mathieu had in mind. There was no way she’d even think about getting involved with him. He was her best friend’s ex-husband, for goodness sake. Thankfully, Mathieu had changed the conversation to more general things once the waiter left them.
‘It’s the Tennis Masters Series soon,’ he had said. ‘I remember you and Zac used to play a lot. I’ve been offered the chance of a couple of tickets for the opening day, would you like to come with me?’