‘You have a lovely home,’ Rach remarked, eyes on stalks at the chandeliers hanging from the ceiling and the stair banisters through which wound gold and red ribbons with fir cones and bells dangling from them.
‘Thank you,’ Silvie answered. Keeley thought their host sounded suddenly a little subdued. Perhaps it was the word ‘home’. She knew herself that home didn’t really feel quite the same without Bea there. She suspected Silvie felt exactly the same without Ferne.
‘Good evening.’
It was Louis, appearing in the entrance hall. He was wearing smart trousers, a white shirt with a pale lemon-coloured jumper over it. He smiled at them both and Keeley watched Rach look a little nervous, her fingers going to the hem of the dress she was wearing that she bought from the market.
‘Hello,’ Rach replied.
‘Come through,’ Silvie insisted. ‘There is much more to my house than the hallway.’
*
There was a great deal more to the Durand’s home than the elaborate hallway. The house flowed under archways and into a reception room where chaise longues hung out with large urns full of festive flowers and bright red berries, fir cones drizzled with silver. Then it was a lavish sitting room with elaborate floral-patterned sofas straight out of the pages of a magazine and fur rugs that hopefully weren’t as real as they looked. They’d had canapes in this room, just the four of them, plus two very attentive staff filling up their glasses with a rather crisp, clean white sparkling wine. Then they have moved into a dining room fit for royalty. The table was huge for four. It would have been huge for ten. And it was beautifully laid out, a dramatic miniature fir tree in the centre spot, around which was a ring of candles creating a warm glow.
Keeley had a warm glow on her cheeks now and it was most definitely the wine. A dry, rich, white that was meant to complement the goose they were eating. It was actually a Christmas Day spread from the giant bird to the roasted potatoes and mix of legumes.
‘Tell me,’ Silvie said, pausing in her eating for a moment. ‘What did you do today?’
‘Well,’ Rach began, enthusiastic after more glasses of wine than Keeley had indulged in, ‘I did my very best to wear Keeley out taking her on a tour of all the best boutiques and then she wanted to go to a flea market. I thought that sounded pretty un-chic until we got there and I saw how ginormous it was and… I found some designer bargains amid the old stuff.’
‘We went to Les Puces,’ Keeley elaborated. ‘In Saint-Ouen.’
Louis and Silvie shared a look, both smiling a little as if Keeley had said something in secret code.
‘Ferne liked to go there,’ Silvie remarked, smiling as one of her staff came and topped up her wineglass.
‘Really?’ Keeley remarked. Despite the things she had learned about her donor, she had envisaged Ferne being more on the Rach side of shopping, except maybe with more Parisian flair than bootleg bargains.
‘Ferne always thought she could detect an heirloom from a million miles away. Something that had been discarded as rubbish,’ Louis told the table. ‘I remember one time she arrived home with the most hideous clown. It was a wooden puppet, almost life-size, with the most crude artwork.’ Louis shook his head. ‘What did she call it, Mother?’
‘Augusto,’ Silvie jumped in. ‘And she said it with such an Italian accent.’
‘Augusto!’ Louis proclaimed, his hand gesturing out in front of him as he sat, like he was introducing the dessert as a dinner guest. It was funny but Rach laughed a little louder and harder than anyone else, eventually having to cover her mouth with a napkin.
‘Even at eleven years old, Ferne was determined that this puppet was the first work from a great modern-day sculptor…’ Silvie began.
‘Or, at the very least, one of his toys,’ Louis added.
‘Did you have it valued?’ Keeley asked, finding herself sitting forward on her chair.
Silvie laughed. ‘No! Of course not! You only had to look at it to see the stallholder must have thought all his Christmases had arrived when someone actually wanted to take it from his hands.’
Keeley felt aggrieved on Ferne’s behalf. However, she supposed, if it was found to be worthless in monetary terms that might have broken a little girl’s heart more than the never knowing. But, still, perhaps the puppet might have been a treasure of some kind. It obviously already had been to Ferne.
‘If you saw the horror you would know what we are talking about,’ Louis said.
‘I still have it,’ Silvie announced, sipping her wine.
‘You do not!’ Louis said.
‘I do,’ she insisted. ‘It is in Ferne’s bedroom. Hidden in the cupboard so it does not scare the staff.’ She smiled a little then. ‘Ferne and her strays.’ She shook her head. ‘And now the animal charity having a say in how we run the hotels.’
‘You run hotels?’ Rach asked, eyes out on stalks. ‘A chain of hotels?’
Already Keeley could see that Louis was about to go a few rungs up the ladder as far as romantic suitability was concerned.
‘Oh!’ Silvie gasped. ‘Did I not say? Not over lunch?’ She pressed her napkin to her lips.
‘You told me that Ferne was in hospitality but…’ Keeley began.
‘We are… Perfect Paris!’ Louis announced. Keeley half expected him to do jazz hands to highlight the point. So, the hotel they were staying in was owned by Silvie and Louis?
‘Are you for real?’ Rach asked. ‘That’s amazing. I mean it’s… spectacular! The gourmet food and the… animatronic festive things… I might have thought Sleeping Beauty on ice was a bit out there on a rink the size of a postage stamp but… it’s artsy, isn’t it? People love artsy, especially at Christmas time.’
‘Keeley,’ Silvie said softly. ‘Is everything OK?’
Keeley knew she had gone a little quiet but she was processing. Somehow it felt a little odd that they had been staying in the hotel where Ferne had worked. Had Ferne actually worked there?
‘I’m… fine.’ Keeley took a sip of her wine from her glass. ‘Did Ferne work at the hotel? The one we are staying in?’
‘Sometimes,’ Silvie replied. ‘Although her office was at the flagship hotel in the Opera district. Perfect Paris was her dream after she stopped buying puppets. She wanted to create a haven of luxury in the middle of the city.’
‘And it is luxurious,’ Rach agreed, smiling at Louis.
‘But times are changing,’ Louis said. ‘One of the reasons I am here was to arrange the sale of the hotels. We had a number of larger brands interested in buying the chain but, there is now an obstacle to overcome and—’
‘And we do not need to talk about such boring matters as business at the dinner table,’ Silvie interrupted.
‘What was the other reason for you being here?’ Rach wanted to know.
‘To meet Keeley, of course,’ Silvie said softly. ‘Tell me, how was the ballet the other night?’
Keeley’s heart arrested. Had Louis not told Silvie that Rach had met him at the ballet instead of her? Now she didn’t know quite what to say and she hurriedly filled her mouth with food so someone else had to answer on her behalf. The goose wasn’t slipping down quite so easily now.