Page 21 of The Little Island Flower Stall
‘I’m sure she mentioned someone named Violette, didn’t she? Yesterday, I mean, when she came to talk to you.’
‘Violette, yes. An old friend of ours. We lost touch many years ago. The last I heard of her, she’d been taken into a retirement home.’
‘Her family must still live here? On Jersey, I mean? Some of them, at least.’
‘Some of them do.’ Celestine looked confused as she poured some tea into the cup and offered it to Bella. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘A man came to the stall while you were away. He wanted some flowers. He told me he was looking for his family…Hisgrandfather’s birth family. He said his real great-grandmother is a lady named Violette Le Saux…’
‘For someone who only stopped to buy flowers, he gave you a lot of information,’ Celestine said briskly. ‘I hope you didn’t tell him too much – you’ve no clue who he is.’
Bella tried not to frown. She felt as if she was being spoken to like a child and she hardly deserved it. That wasn’t all. Celestine seemed suddenly evasive. It was obvious she didn’t want to talk about Violette, and yet Bella couldn’t let it go. Should she mention the letter? Perhaps Celestine would offer to translate after all. ‘They – his family – found a letter in his grandfather’s things after he died earlier this year. A photo and a newspaper clipping…I think the letter was from the mother – Violette, I mean. I think it might have been written in?—’
‘What business is it of ours?’ Celestine asked sharply.
‘Well, none, really. I wanted to help him, that’s all. The letter he showed me was in old Jersey French. I know you speak it, so I thought you might be able to?—’
‘No!’ Celestine snapped. Bella stared at her. ‘I don’t have time to look at it, if that’s what you’re going to ask.’
‘OK…’ she replied slowly. ‘So you wouldn’t be able to tell him anything at all? He only wants to know more about his grandad’s past.’
‘I doubt it,’ Celestine said briskly. ‘Certainly nothing of note.’
Nothing that she was prepared to share. Bella didn’t know much about it, but she could see that much from Celestine’s expression. Her aunt knew more than she was letting on, but for some reason, she didn’t want to say so.
‘Only I told him I’d ask you.’
‘I don’t know why you’d do that. I’m not the parish records, you know.’ She paused and then gave Bella a strange look. If she didn’t know better, she’d have said her aunt was genuinely distressed. ‘What does he look like?’
‘The man who came to the stall?’
Celestine nodded and Bella shrugged.
‘Really blue eyes, dark hair. Slim.’
‘Handsome?’
‘I suppose…yes, you could call him handsome.’
‘How old would you say he is?’
‘Forties, I suppose. I’m rubbish at telling people’s ages, to be honest, so I could be way off.’
‘Hmm…’
Celestine turned her gaze to the sea and rubbed at her temples. Bella sensed an atmosphere like a heavy curtain suddenly falling over them.
‘Anyway,’ she said with false brightness, ‘I obviously couldn’t tell him much. I told him I’m not from round here. Probably never hear anything about it again. That’s how these things usually go…Right, Celestine?’
Her aunt turned back, as if responding to her name and not to anything else Bella had just said. ‘Of course.’
Bella’s attention was diverted to someone walking along the promenade very deliberately towards them. It was the stallholder who sold the beach goods.
‘Celestine! I meant to pop over to visit! How lovely to see you out and about – how is your ankle?’
Celestine seemed to brighten as she began to talk to the stallholder. She gestured to Bella briefly, explained that she’d be helping out at the flower stall, and then their conversation turned to local matters such as potholes and street signage and the summer floral displays around the town. Bella went back to her tidying. The stall didn’t need tidying, but she needed to occupy her hands so that her thoughts wouldn’t send her berserk. What had just happened with her great-aunt? Why had she suddenly got so weird about a man asking after Violette’s family?
Once the stall had been locked up for the day, Celestine and Bella made their way home. Their route took them past the harbour, which was busy at this hour with fishing boats arriving home. One of the skippers hailed Celestine.
