Once we were on holiday, though, out of the French jurisdiction, we lived like multi-millionaires alongside American movie stars in Swiss or Italian hotels in Bürgenstock, Zermatt or Ascona. Our Christmases were spent at the Winter Palace in Luxor or the Danieli in Venice, and there my mother came to life.
As soon as she arrived, she would head straight for the luxury boutiques to buy clothes, jewellery and perfume, while my father did his rounds, harvesting brown paper envelopes stuffed with cash. In the evenings, he would draw up at the front of the hotel in the white convertible Thunderbird that somehow managed to accompany us on our offshore peregrinations. The same went for the Riva, which would appear as if by magic on the waters of Lake Lucerne or the Grand Canal in Venice.
I still have lots of photos from these Fitzgeraldian holidays, but there are two that convey it all.
The first is of my mother wearing a pink-flowered dress, posing next to a palm tree that’s cutting the summer sky like a green spray. She’s holding up her hand to shield her already weak eyes from the sunlight.
The other is a photo of me beside Audrey Hepburn. It was taken at the Belvedere on August 1st, Swiss National Day. I’m eating a huge strawberry melba ice cream drowning in Chantilly cream and syrup, and there’s a magnificent fireworks display which is reflected in Lake Lucerne. My parents are on their feet, dancing to a Shirley Bassey song. I’m tanned and wearing a blue Liberty dress with smocking which brings out the Patience-blue of my eyes, as my father had taken to describing their colour.
It’s a perfect moment. I’m radiating well-being like an atomic pile.
The actress must have sensed my immense happiness because quite spontaneously she came to sit next to me and asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up.
“A fireworks collector.”
“A fireworks collector! But how are you planning to collect something like that?”
“In my mind. I’m going to travel the world and see them all.”
“Why, you’re the first fireworks collector I’ve ever met! Enchantée.”
Then she called over one of her friends to take a photograph so he could immortalize this unscripted moment. She had two copies printed. One for me and one for her. I lost mine and forgot it had even existed until I happened to see hers again in an auction catalogue, with the description: The Little Fireworks Collector, 1972.
That photo captured the promise of my former life: a life with a future far more dazzling than all the time which has now passed since that August 1st.