‘So what day are you leaving?’ she’d sobbed.
‘I’m not exactly sure yet. I want to wait and see when your father is being discharged,’ Colette said gently. ‘But I will be gone before you get back. There’s less that ten days to Christmas and your grandparents are coming over to London. I need to have the house prepared. I’ll tell you what, depending on what’s happening, I’ll come back in February and stay with you, how’s that?’
‘Oh please promise me you will,’ Jazzy implored as they walked through the foyer of Le Parker Meridien.
‘I promise,’ Colette said, hugging her tightly. If there was one good thing to come out of this fiasco it was the strengthening of their mother–daughter relationship, Colette reflected, waving her daughter off in a taxi to meet Jackson, after their farewell brunch in Norma’s, one of their favourite restaurants. Colette had cried, walking home along Fifth Avenue, and never felt more miserable in her life.
‘Don’t think about it now,’ Colette told herself, standing in what was once her marital bedroom. She had stripped the bed and it looked bare and unwelcoming. Encarna could change it later, for when Des arrived home the following day. Colette would be spending her last night in New York in the Plaza, courtesy of her husband’s credit card. She had booked her room online with it. She would be travelling first-class to London on the same card and had ordered, and paid for, a car to meet her at Heathrow.
She gazed out at the corner view of Central Park in the distance. She loved that park; she’d miss her daily jogs around the reservoir. She would get into a routine in London, she comforted herself. The Serpentine would be just as beautiful to run around.
The trees were grey and skeletal, their long, bony branches bare and forbidding. She was very glad she wasn’t leaving in the spring when the buds were bursting into bloom and the warmth of the sun hinting at summer. Would she ever summer in Nantucket again? she wondered sadly, remembering blissful days when she was alone and not entertaining, lying on the deck listening to the roar of the ocean, sipping Pimm’s and reading Elin Hilderbrand novels under the shade of the canopy.
Those days were gone. The past was the past. She had to move on, Colette told herself sternly, her heart giving a leap when the concierge rang to tell her that the removal men were on the way up.
Colette took a deep breath and straightened her shoulders and walked out to the door and stood waiting for them in her lobby. ‘Good morning,’ she greeted the team of men. ‘Everything I’ve labelled is to be packed. They are antiques for the most part. And you know to be particularly careful of the paintings. I want my walk-in closet cleared of everything. And I have some linens to go also and some books. You can start now and if you’ve any queries ask me.’
‘You heard what the lady said. Let’s do it room by room.’ The man in charge gave the thumbs-up and the packing began.
Two hours later, with the paperwork all in order, Colette watched the container carrying all their antiques, paintings, costly linens and most of her clothes, shoes and personal items disappear down the city street below on the first leg of its journey to the UK. She had deliberately undervalued the contents hoping that UK Customs and Excise would not see them as more than normal removal items for a relocation. It was a risk she had to take.
She stared around at the bare walls and the space in the den where the desk used to be. Des would miss that desk more than anything else she had taken. The thought, strangely, gave her no pleasure. She walked through the hallway to Jazzy’s old room. It was the only room in the apartment that had nothing removed from it. It was exactly as it had always been, even to the line of cuddly toys on the bed. Her daughter would be able to close the door and pretend everything was the way it used to be.
The phone rang. ‘Mrs Williams, your Town Car is outside,’ the concierge informed her.
‘Thank you, Davy, can you have my luggage collected, please?’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘You go down and send the lift back up to me. I just have one little chore to do,’ Colette instructed the young bellboy who loaded her luggage into the lift. She walked into the kitchen and placed two envelopes on the counter, side by side. One addressed to Encarna with a letter of thanks and a hefty gift voucher for Saks, purchased on her husband’s card. The second envelope, addressed to Des, was bulkier. She was sorry she wouldn’t see his face when he read her note.
She closed the kitchen door behind her and stood in the hall surprised at how bare it was now that the console table and the paintings were gone. She wondered how long Des would stay in the apartment. How long could he afford to? That wasn’t her worry. It was time to go. Colette lifted her chin, draped her Chanel faux-fur coat over her shoulders and picked up her bag. Without a backward glance she strode out of the door, locked it, and stepped into the elevator. She took a fifty from her wallet. Davy was her favourite concierge. She was glad
