Though I was not about to tell Verity, there is, of course, a valid reason I wear the gloves, crochet in summer, or in colder months, very soft, supple leather ones in various colors, sometimes even red because what the hell, if I have to wear them, why not make them gorgeous? And you are right, the crochet gloves are not gorgeous but they are cool on these warm days in the South of France. As I said, a neighbor makes them for me. She’s in her early nineties now and can barely see the crochet hook and the fine cotton she fashions them from, but she says cheerfully it’s all instinct by now anyway. “No need to look, my fingers just keep on doing it,” she explains, making me laugh. So of course I have a handy stack of them in my new home, in all colors and weights of thread, even cashmere, stashed in the third drawer of the bedroom chest on top of a pile of old love letters I still have not had the heart to get rid of. I’ve always believed that when love walks out then so should the memento mori—the now-dead love letters and the small, once-sweetly-thought-of gifts, the withered roses and old memories—but when it came time, I could never do it. I simply took them with me. Still, as I said, I was mostly instrumental in having the lovers leave. I was never cruel or even unkind. “Listen babe,” I’d say. “I reckon it’s time to move on. We had such fun, didn’t we?”
This was not always greeted with smiling acceptance, as you can imagine. Quite a lot of bad words were flung my way, along with the withered bunches of roses, but I kept my head, and my heart, and tried to move on without too much hurt going down between us, the feuding parties, the ex-lovers, the thank-God-never-marrieds. And I never, in my entire life, ever took another woman’s husband; not that the opportunity did not present itself, but I had enough responsibility keeping my own life together without taking on somebody else’s problem. And they were problems better kept away from.
So, now, here I am, forty-two years old and the new owner of this gorgeous villa overlooking the Mediterranean, bluer, as I said, than my eyes on a good day, and gray as the wind on a day when the mistral blows everything to bits. And also, to my surprise, “mother hen” you might call me, to a small canary bird, yellower than twenty-carat gold, named Sing.
Now, I’ve never been one for pets, never been one for owning a big house either, and certainly never owner of a Siamese cat like the one called Ming that seems to think it owns this villa and which has blue eyes and cream fur and chocolate-brown ear tips and tail, and on whose head the yellow canary perches to sing its song. To complete this nutty inherited household is the long rust-brown dog, obviously some remote relation of a dachshund with a lot of beagle thrown in, and that answers to the name of JonJon or to a piercing whistle. Now, never having learned the art as Lauren Bacall so succinctly put it in that old movie, of just putting your lips together and blowing, I bought a small silver whistle that hangs around my neck on a blue cord and nearly strangles me when I forget about it, but is useful for summoning JonJon, who I’ve refused to call by that ridiculous name and is now known as Sossy. Because he’s a “saucy little bugger,” you see. The word is the only one that fits his mercurial temperament. Oh, but he makes me laugh, and when the canary sings, she makes me smile, and when the cat slinks under my feet and gives me an affectionate little head-butt, I realize how empty my life was before them, and how fortunate I am to have inherited this small family, along with the big house. If it was the wonderful Jerusha that first brought the ancestors of these small creatures home to the Villa Romantica, then I owe her more than I can say.
Jerusha. Her name conjures up fantasies, images, scandals, love stories, and tragedy, though most of it has been hidden, or buried long ago. Now that I own her house, I shall make it my business to find out more about the fabled musical artist, singer, dancer, actress, and sex-symbol who captured Paris in the thirties, and who disappeared, forever it seemed, only a few years later. That is, after the death of her lover and his new mistress. Who knows, perhaps I should amend that and say “one” of his mistresses.
What was Jerusha’s life really like? Did she love the man? Was he her only lover? What happened to the children she was said to have fostered, even adopted? Were they simply whisked away when Jerusha’s world came tumbling down, and only the small animals, her pets, left to console her?
Jerusha is a mystery that belongs to the Villa Romantica, and now, therefore, to me, shared with my young guest, Verity.
I’m sitting on the terrace, smoking a forbidden cigarette, forbidden by myself I might say, when I hear a footstep behind me. An arm snakes around and the cigarette is whisked from my lips before I can even protest.
“Filthy habit,” Verity said, dropping into the cushioned sofa opposite. “And it’ll kill you in the end.”
“Like poison, you mean?”
She threw me a you-know-what-I-mean glance, then stubbed out the cigarette in the yellow ceramic ashtray labeled PASTIS, stolen in a moment of great daring from a cheap boulevard café in Marseilles. I treasured that ashtray and my own bit of daring and gave her a frown to show my displeasure.
“So. What about you, now?” I said coldly. “I see the tears are finished. Are you all set to go back to that bastard you ran away from? Give it one more go, the way all good girls do?”
She said, “I’m no good girl. I’m staying here with you.” And then she burst into tears again.
I should have kept my mouth shut.