Chapter 7

We were back home, and the roast was cooking, when Geraldine appeared. There were ghostly tears pouring down her cheeks.

“I’m sorry to tell you that Albert passed away this morning. Before he went, he was aware for quite a few minutes. I spoke to him, and we talked about the old days. He was convinced that I was an angel, come to help him die. Whatever, I comforted him as he went, leaving as his daughter came in to weep over him. He told me that he had loved me, and I told him that I had loved him. We made an appointment to meet on the other side; that is if there is another side.”

We comforted her as much as you can with someone that has no substance. For once, we could tell her our news and it was a surprise to her. I started thinking about what we needed to do over the four weeks. Then I had a lightbulb moment.

“If we have the house ready for the two of us to live in next week, we can shift all of Maisie’s things in. The Tate have told us that we will have enough to buy the house soon. If I put a lock on the cellar door, we can put all the valuables down there for safe keeping, and then get a company in to replace the old bathroom and the downstairs toilet and organise a tiler to do both rooms. We can hire a camper van and take a pre-honeymoon holiday to the South of France, to see where you grew up, Geraldine.”

“I might be able to see Jacquie if she’s hanging around. What about the wedding?”

“We’ll be back in time for that, and we’ll have a modern bathroom and toilet to use. I can finish the other rooms after we get back.”

“If we do that, I want new appliances, Marcie. The washer and drier are all right, but we will need a new oven, range and rangehood. The sink in the scullery a bit ancient as well.”

We made a list of all the things that needed changing and that would mean us having to be out of the house. On Monday, we went to see a camper hire firm and booked one for two weeks from the following Monday, paying for it, and insurance, with my credit card. That would give us a full week at home to be ready for the wedding. We also rang the local plumbers to organise a visit to the house. I went down in the cellar and washed the walls, swept, and vacuumed the floor.

We transferred the contents of the nursery, except for the clothing, and, together, we moved the dresser back to hide the door. We ate at the Duke that night and contributed to a fund to give Albert a good funeral. We were in the car, ready for Maisie to take me home, when Geraldine asked us to sit for a while.

We sat and kissed until she got back. On the way home, she told us that she was becoming more aware of things that she had owned. We were parked near the bank, and she had picked up on something, tracing it to the bank deposit box room. Maisie came in with us as we went into the house, moving the dresser so that I could bring the jewellery box out. We went through her things and found a safe deposit key with a number on it. Geraldine told us the code number and Maisie wrote it down.

After Maisie had gone home, I asked Geraldine what was in the safety box.

“I had my better jewels in there, as well as the paperwork for the house. Maisie can look fabulous when you marry. I would really go to town for Embassy events. There should be a few things that Charles de Gaulle gave me when he was President. You had better give her enough time to get a good dress, and you, young Marcello, will need a good suit.”

Tuesday was busy. The furniture for the lounge came first, with the men bringing it in and taking off all the wrappings. When the buffet was set up, I got one of them to help me carry the TV and set it on top. I would connect it all when they had gone. Some asked who the beautiful woman was, and she arrived as they were tidying up.

The man from the plumbers arrived, and we showed him the scullery, the downstairs toilet, and the upstairs bathroom. We left him to take measurements while we had a sandwich. He said that he would be back the next day with his tiler and some catalogues for us. He wanted to know what we would be doing while they did the work, and we told him that we would be away for around ten days.

He hadn’t been gone long when the bedroom suite arrived. We stayed back as they took the two wardrobes, the vanity table, the bedhead, and the bed up the stairs. When they had put it all in the room, Maisie put the dresses that she was keeping from Geraldines collection into her wardrobe, while I transferred my things from the other room. She went down to her car to bring up a suitcase containing some of her own clothes, her cosmetics, her bathroom items and a pile of underwear, which went into the drawers in her wardrobe.

After that, there was only one thing we needed to do, so we went to the local bedding supplies and bought three sets of sheets and pillowcases, four new pillows, and a doona top. The house was generally warm with the central heating. Back home, we made up our bed and put the spares in the linen cupboard. Maisie then opened her suitcase again and pulled out a slinky nightie and gown, which she laid on the bed and smiled.

She took the suitcase back down to her car and we went off to the Duke for dinner, with her ordering us a dozen oysters as entrée. That evening, she drove us home and we went to bed.

We slept late in the morning, having been awake for some time in the night. I opened my eyes to look across at my wife to be who was gazing at me. We had a morning kiss and went off to the bathroom to relieve ourselves. This time, we didn’t have to go anywhere so went back to bed for another hour. We had showered and dressed when the doorbell rang. It was the plumber with the tiler. They had a look at the rooms together and then sat with us at the kitchen table while we looked at catalogues and chose what we wanted. It would be a total stripping of both wet rooms, and all new connections. We chose to do away with the bath we never would use, and to have a larger shower and a two-basin vanity instead. The toilets would be modern and dual flush, and the tiles we picked would be perfect.

We told them that we would be away from the next Monday, so they had plenty of time to do a good job. We paid a deposit with their hand-held unit, gave them the key, and showed them out. Next thing was to go and choose the new kitchen appliances, with them being able to be fitted on Friday. We were barely home when my mobile rang.

“Marcello, it’s James from the V and A. I’ve shown those photos of the vases to a colleague of mine. He’s an expert on pottery. He tells me that those two vases are typical for a kiln with heat problems. He has a picture of the one that was obviously what was aimed at, and he tells me that the colours on yours are consistent with the final colour, had they not been underfired. I have spoken to a friend who has a Picasso Museum in Barcelona, and he wants to buy yours, if they’re for sale. He will pay you five thousand Euro, each.”

“Give him my number. I agree on his price. We will be away for a couple of weeks. If he calls me, two weeks from today, we can arrange for them to be collected. I can’t guarantee safe delivery if I was to package them myself.”

“That’s understood. He’ll probably get me to collect them and give you the money, that way, we can ship them with all proper packaging. Have a good holiday.”

Maisie put her hand on my arm.

“That’s a good deal. They are far too big and rare for us to have them on display. They’ll be enough Picasso in the cabinet when the plates are displayed. I wonder why he didn’t mention them.”

“They will need a lot of looking at catalogues and auction sales to make sure what’s original. You’re right. I tried to think of those vases on the lounge mantle. I’d be afraid to dust. Now. We have another trip to make. We need to go to the bank and see what’s in that deposit box.”

We locked up and she drove us to the bank. My poor Yamaha wasn’t getting much use these days. In the bank, we showed the manager the key and he asked us who had been the original depositor. We gave him Geraldines name and the code number. That was good enough for him to get it brought up to his office. He left us alone to open it.

What Geraldine had told me was basically what was there. What I didn’t realise was the difference between what was in the box in the house and what we were looking at. When she said ‘good jewellery’ it hadn’t sunk in. As we looked at it, she appeared and told us when each piece was obtained, and who had given it to her. We took out the paperwork for the house, as well as a couple of photo albums, and called the manager back in as we closed the box.

“Can we keep the deposit box here, but change the depositor name to Marcello and Maisie Gambino?”

We filled in the paperwork and walked out with the key in Maisie’s bag. At home, I looked at the papers. It was deeds to the house, with all the previous owners from when it was built and up to Geraldine and her husband. We had a light tea and watched a bit of TV in our bright and cosy lounge until it was time for bed.

Thursday, we were both awake a little earlier. When we had showered and dressed, we had to strip the sheets as we had made quite a large damp spot. We remade the bed and put the sheets in the washing machine before we got breakfast. While we were eating, I had a call from Doc, at the Tate. He told us that the money had been deposited overnight and that the next amount would be a month away. I told him that I would give him the account details before that. We both checked our accounts online, and we had both received four hundred thousand. I called the estate agent and asked If I could come and see him, making an appointment for later in the morning. I took some pictures of the bedroom and lounge for him to look at, and then Maisie drove us to his office.

When we saw him, I introduced Maisie to him, and we told him that we were getting married in a month. I showed him my best pictures of the lounge and the bedroom.

“Are we sure that this is the same house?”

“It is. We have had a windfall and would like to buy the house. As you can see, we have been doing it up as if it were ours. When we spoke last, you said that you would take six-fifty as a doer-upper. Is that still the case?”

“Well, I have spent a bit on the decorations with you. I’ll take six-seventy. Do you have that kind of money?”

Maisie laughed.

“We do, sir. Marcie sold some paintings, and we can bring you bank cheques, two in the amount of three thirty-five each.”

“I’ll need time to find the deeds. The previous owner of the agency bought the house as a deceased estate over forty years ago.”

“We have them here, up to the previous owner of the house. I expect that it has been a rental since he bought it.”

He looked at the paperwork and smiled.

“All good. You must have done well with your paintings to have that kind of money, Marcie.”

I showed him the lounge picture again and enlarged it to show the picture of Marcie.

“That’s one of mine. I’ll be having a showing in London when I have more finished. Some are abstracts and geometrics, but there will be more normal pictures. The conservatory in the house makes a magnificent studio and I’m really energised when I paint in there.”

He said that he would draw up a sales contract and would let the utilities know to change the name of the end user when it all went through. We said that we would bring in the bank cheques in the morning.

In the car, I said that the dining room wouldn’t need a lot of work, as it had hardly been used. It was mahogany panelling, with a mahogany floor, and would only need some fresh stain to come up shiny and new. We went to the hardware, and I bought a big tin, and some more brushes. Then we went to the place where we had bought the lounge furniture and looked through their showroom. We saw a big table and eight chairs that we liked, marked down as old stock, and paid for it, with delivery, on the proviso that they would deliver it on Friday. Now a valued customer, it was all agreed.

Then we stopped for a light lunch and went to my bank to get a bank cheque, which took a lot of time. After that, we went to Maisie’s bank for her to do the same. They both wanted to know what we were buying, and when we said a house, they both wanted us to buy household insurance. We stopped off at the accountants’ and left a message about our purchase, asking if he could organise insurance on house and contents, with a million-pound total value. That evening, I finished the middle bedroom, now it could be carpeted.

On Friday, Maisie took the bank cheques to the agent, while I cleaned the dining room. The floor was only dirty and there were just a few scuffs to restain once the table had been delivered. I left the tin unopened with the brushes. That would be done when we got back.

I looked up a gardening firm and asked them if they could come and give me a quote to bring the garden back to life and maintain it on a regular basis. When the table arrived, it was not an easy job to get it in, but it, and the chairs, were eventually in place and they left, leaving any packaging in the bin.

I sat at the table and looked at the two photo albums for the first time. Geraldine appeared and told me what each picture was. One album was all taken in France, before she had come to England. There were a lot of Madoura Pottery, with Picasso and Jacqueline. There were family groups, school pictures, friends of hers, and general pictures of what I now was told was a commune, rather than a town. The other album was all in colour and in England, with her shown in magnificent gowns, bejewelled, and standing with a lot of eminent people. I could tell de Gaulle without needing to ask, as well as Churchill. Both albums were snapshots of her life, and the world in which she lived.

There were a lot of pictures of the house and garden in the second one. Some with a younger Albert smiling for the camera. These will be handy when the garden people want to know what we wanted. There were a few with her in the garden, but none with her husband. With his past, I expect that he didn’t want any pictures taken.

Maisie came home and I showed her the albums, asking if she agreed that the garden should be as close to the pictures as we could make it. She thought it would be wonderful. She also thought that the dining room just needed a couple of chests, and it would a great place to have our family over for dinner. That made me realise that I hadn’t met her family yet. She laughed and told me that they had taken themselves off to Spain five years before.

She went to the kitchen to make us dinner, while I opened up the stain and crawled around on my hands and knees to dab at the scuffs to hide them. When I was sure I had got them all, we sat at our dining table and had our dinner there for the first time. I felt quite the lord of the manor.

After we had cleaned up, we sat in the lounge and watched some TV before bed. Once the downstairs toilet had been finished, most of this floor would be done. When we went to bed, it was a feeling that it was where we belonged.

Saturday morning, the garden guy came around and we showed him around the garden, the album in hand, and discussed what was needed to reclaim the old ambiance.

“Look, you two. Most of what’s in that album is still here, just grown out of all proportion. The grass will need stripping and we can replace it with turf to give an instant look. We can bring in a small tipper with new gravel to bring the drive and walkways back to life. The shrubs will look a bit bare until they grow new shoots, you’ll need to give it a good year before it looks like the photos.”

We agreed on a price and told him that we would be away for the next two weeks, but that the plumbers would be working in the house. He would invoice us when we got home again. After that, Maisie went to pack her things for the trip, and I worked on the dining room wall. It went pretty quickly, as it just needed a single coat of stain to bring it to its shiny elegance. It would be dry and hard before we get back.

I packed my own case after dinner, mainly summer clothes for the south of France. That evening, we sat at the kitchen table with an atlas and worked out our drive in France. I was looking forward to it and Geraldine had started to tell us the places we should stop at for a look.

Sunday, we were back in the church and confirming our wedding plans. The preacher was very cheerful, and we spoke to several people who Maisie knew and who would be at the wedding. That made us realise that we needed to send out invitations. We stopped at an open shop and bought a big swag of invitations, with envelopes, and they also sold us some stamps as well. That evening we wrote out the invitations and addressed them. With the stamps, we would post them in the morning when we went to get the camper van.

On Monday, we went for the camper. I drove it and Maisie followed. We parked it in front of the house and put her car around the back, blocking the Yamaha. We spent some time loading the van with essentials, added our cases, made sure we had our passports, licences, cards and some cash. We would draw out some Euro on our way. Before we left, Geraldine told me to find the jewellery box and pointed out a brooch that I had noted before.

“This was given to me by Jacquie. It was given to her by Pablo. He had it made about the same time as that ring. If we do find her spirit, it may allow you to see her. I can’t promise anything.”

After I had closed the cellar door and shifted the dresser back to hide it, we went around the house, closing windows and locked up as we left on our road trip. We drove down towards Kent, stopping overnight outside of Dover. We had a booking on the cross-channel ferry on Wednesday. Our first night on the road was interesting, but we made the best of the cramped space.

When we were through the immigration in France, we headed south, via the places that Geraldine had noted. We went from Calais down to Boulogne for our first night in France, getting used to driving on the wrong side of the road. From there, we cut inland to Abbeville and then south to Rouen for our second night.

From there, it was down to Le Mans and on towards Tours for our third night, with the fourth at Lyons. The next day we would be near Vallauris. We made an early start as we would be in a lot of traffic, as Vallauris was between Cannes and Nice. All the way, Geraldine had been prompting us with our school French, so that we were able to get on with the locals.

She had told us that it would be easier for us to cross the hills, which I thought were more like mountains, through Digne. We were now close enough to book a site for two nights, going into Vallauris the next day. There was a car park near the Atelier Madoura, and we walked to visit the pottery. To me, it had been developed as a tourist attraction, with cheap copies of Picasso plates. We didn’t buy anything, and Geraldine declared that it wasn’t her home any longer.

When we left, Geraldine directed us to Mougins, where Picasso and Jaqueline had lived, and where she had committed suicide. It was getting towards evening when we parked close to the outer wall of the grounds.

“You two stay here, I know that there are things that I gave Jacquie in the house. I can go and have a look.”

We made a cup of French bought coffee each and sat by the roadside as the sun went down.

It was half an hour before Geraldine appeared in front of us, with a huge smile on her face.

“She was here, and we met. Sorry about taking so long but there was a lot to talk about. We think that there is a way how we can move on. Get that brooch that we picked out and take a hold of each end.”

I found the brooch and Maisie stood next to me, holding one end, while I held the other. Slowly, Jacqueline appeared in front of us and said Hello. The two were now dressed in fifties outfits. Geraldine had her left hand to her face, with the Picasso ring that I was now wearing on her ring finger, along with other rings that we had already seen. Her right hand was in Jacquie’s left, with her wearing the brooch that we were holding on to. Both were smiling. Geraldine spoke.

“We are going to leave you, tonight. I want to thank the two of you for allowing me to be freed and to let me free my cousin. Jacquie isn’t used to speaking to mortals, so I’ll say goodbye for the two of us. Thank you, again. Oh! Before we go, when you paint the nursery, make sure you use pink. And buy two of everything. Have a wonderful life.”

As she said the last words, they both smiled at us and faded from view. We both started crying, whether sadness at her leaving, or as happiness for the two of them. We didn’t move anywhere else that night. Sleeping in the van and peeing in the grass. The next morning, we didn’t need to discuss anything. I started to drive back to England and our home, now without the resident ghost.

Marianne Gregory © 2024