Page 9 of Be Less Panda

‘It’s alright for the upper classes like your family and the Forbes to swan around abroad. But it’s not for my daughter.’

There it was - the enormous chip on his shoulder. Nancy’s father had been a grammar school boy. Nancy’s mother, on the other hand, had gone to a private girls’ boarding school and grown up in a mansion in Devon. Her family hadn’t always been wealthy. Nancy’s great-grandparents had purchased Dashford Grange in 1886 using a generous financial gift from the then Prince Edward to keep Nancy’s great-grandfather quiet while the Prince was having a torrid affair with Nancy’s great-grandmother. However, one generation later, Nancy’s grandmother chose to forget about her family’s meteoric rise to the upper classes, acting as if they had been members of the landed gentry for centuries. She was very much of the opinion that her daughter had married beneath her station when Nancy’s mother walked down the aisle with the son of a Midlands factory owner.

Nancy also wondered what her mother saw in her father, though in their wedding photo, he did look handsome in his wartime army uniform. It was difficult to believe that the slim, smiling man was the same person as the balding, red-faced lump of pure rage currently sitting at the end of the dining table.

‘You were swanning around abroad at my age,’ Nancy said in disgust.

‘Swanning around! I was fighting the Nazis, I’ll have you know, young lady.’

‘There weren’t many Nazis in the army stores, as I remember, dear,’ Nancy’s mother chipped in.

Nancy’s father ignored his wife. ‘I won’t hear of it.’

He threw his napkin on the dining table and marched into the hall. They heard his heavy footsteps as he stomped across the parquet floor, followed by the slam of his study door.

‘That went well,’ Nancy said to her mother.

‘He’s had a bad day.’ Nancy’s mother sighed.

Nancy was furious.’ Please don’t make excuses for him, Mother. I’ve had a bad day too. I’m going to Paris regardless of what he says.’

7

Six weeks later, after leaving a note for her mother and sneaking away from home at 4 am, Nancy walked out of the Porte Dauphine Metro station and into the unseasonably warm early spring air. She sprang back from the edge of the road as a green frog-eyed 2CV rushed past, blowing its horn. That had been close.Concentrate, Nancy! Otherwise, this is going to be the shortest trip you’ve made anywhere.

She tried again, safely reaching the opposite pavement this time. She pulled the now ragged letter out of her coat pocket. Olivia had drawn a map of how to get from the station to her apartment at 27 Rue de la Dordogne. It should be just around the corner here. Nancy turned into a narrow street and headed uphill, counting the numbers until she arrived at a large brown door. An ornate brass Art Nouveau doorbell push was mounted on the yellow-painted plaster wall next to it.

Nancy pressed the bell. She heard a distant ringing, followed by a door slamming, then footsteps. The front door creaked open, and a 60-something woman peered around its edge. She must be Madame Morceau, the concierge that Olivia had mentioned in her letter.

‘Oui?’ the woman said.

At least Nancy understood that. ‘I’m here to visit Olivia Forbes,’ she said in her faltering schoolgirl French.

‘Hmmm.’ Madame Morceau opened the door wider to let Nancy into a small courtyard.

‘Là,’ she said, pointing to another brown door in the corner of the courtyard.

‘Merci, Madame.’

Nancy staggered across the courtyard, pushed open the door the concierge had indicated and stepped into a dark hallway with some tatty stairs going up. Whoever had chosen the decor had been a fan of brown - the walls and the woodwork were all painted the same dull, muddy colour. Olivia had been right when she said it wasn’t the Ritz.

Olivia’s apartment was on the top floor. The stairs seemed to go on forever. Nancy’s suitcase felt like it was getting heavier with each step. She was gasping for breath by the time she reached the top landing. She banged on the door. Please let Olivia be in.

‘You look washed out,’ Olivia’s familiar voice said as she opened the door with a smile. ‘I’ll make some tea.’

‘I’m so pleased to see you. It’s been such a long day. I swear my arms are three feet longer than when I set out this morning. I’ve been lugging this bloody thing around for hours.’ Nancy dumped her suitcase by the door and made straight for the sofa. ‘Those stairs were the last straw,’ she added as she took off her shoes and flopped down into the pile of cushions.

‘You’re here now. And you’ll be running up and down those stairs easily within a week. It helps burn off the bread and cheese.’

‘Bread and cheese?’ Nancy had hoped they’d be eating something more interesting than bread and cheese.

‘It is French bread and cheese - not a slice of Hovis and a lump of cheddar. That’s all I can afford to eat most weeks,’Olivia said as she went into the kitchenette area and put a kettle on to boil on the hob.

‘I thought you said your job paid well?’

‘It does, but I have a nasty habit of spending it on wine and clothes, not necessarily in that order.’

Nancy wasn’t surprised. Olivia was always smartly dressed in the latest fashions, whereas Nancy preferred a more casual look. But she might have to up her game now she was here. She’d noticed that most of the women she’d encountered since landing at Charles de Gaulle airport looked much more stylish than she did.

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