John covered his daughter gently, read a few words from her favourite "Tales of the Norse," and she was asleep.  Two days at Disneyworld and she was exhausted. He smiled at Claire,
    "An early night?"
She turned from the window . The intense heat of the Parisian summer had roasted their room.  She drew him to the window.  Opposite their hotel stood an impressive facade, grey stone slabbed buildings, flank upon flank, rising up.  Each similar, each with long rectangular windows, shutters either side, each seven storeys high, the seventh shaped like garrets. She pointed to the topmost garrets,
    "There! You see? Where the servants or the students may live."
He nodded.
    "Tomorrow Elizabeth will be expecting the Eiffel Tower as her treat and then ..."
    "Then," emphasised Claire, "we will scatter the ashes where mother requested."
  NEXT
 

Her mother, pale and wasted away from her illness, had wanted to see her daughter alone.  The carers at the Hospice wheeled her into a small room, overlooking the garden.
    "There is something I need to tell you before.." She broke off.  "It's  something important."
She drew two notebooks from her bag.  One was old and much handled.  It was a small notebook such as one might keep addresses or jottings, a faded pink, the cover curling at the edges.  The other was a new blue larger notebook, recently bought in Smiths.
    "You know my wishes, " she hesitated her weak voice fading, and sensing her daughter's anxiety as much as her own.
    "I will be cremated, the readings and songs for the celebration of my life you already have.  My ashes will be scattered into the Seine in Paris."

Claire gasped; the latter request she had never heard before.
    "Paris?  The river..?  You want me..."
Her mother, Evelyne, nodded.
    "You and John, of course, and I would like Elizabeth... too... her red hair and blue eyes so remarkable... so... "

Her eyes closed, her pallor whitened.  Claire held her hand tighter. 
    "Mother, you know I'll do it, just as you wish.  But I wish... " NEXT

The rackety lift embraced them in its metal openwork frame, clattered down floor after floor to the basement where le petit déjeuner in its simplicity awaited them.  The dining area, once a cellar housing racks of wine, had curved whitewashed walls, adorned with Parisian memorabilia of the area they were visiting; the Luxembourg Gardens, the Panthéon, the marché in the Rue Mouffetard, chansonniers, writers, poets; the area frequentd by students and artists.

Coffee, croissants, Elizabeth waiting, waiting to explore.  Claire, hesitant, ready to carry out her mother's last wishes.

Hand in hand they made their way, browsing and gossiping, to the Luxembourg Gardens.  There Claire sat down on a shady bench while John took Elizabeth to the children's boating lake.

The first time Claire had read the pink notebook after her mother's death, her shock had been so intense she couldn't even discuss it with John. Now, calmer, she read it again.   NEXT

Claire skimmed the next few pages.

October 2nd.  Ian shocked at my news.  I'm sick every morning. Don't know how I'll manage my studies.
October 4th.  Ian very sweet over the whole business.  Says we'll have a quiet registry wedding, never mind the parents.  We'll manage our studies somehow.
November 21st.  Ian ill.  We don't know what it is.
November 23rd.  It's meningitis.
November 24th.  My light has gone.  Ian dead.

There were several blank pages in the diary, then it resumed.

Christmas. My parents know.  It's obvious anyway.
New Year.  Met Rupert at friend's house.  He's still keen on me.
January 4th.  Rupert says he'll bring the child up as his own. No-one need know it's not his.
January 10th.  I'll have to give up my studies.  Rupert has a good job.
January 12th.  Ian...Ian..

Here the diary ends.    NEXT

Elizabeth rushes up.
    "The Eiffel Tower next?" she questions.
    "Soon," soothes Claire.  "We need to picnic by the river first."
They watch the large boats cruising the Seine, rounding the Ile de la Cité, the tourists gazing at Notre Dame.  Claire takes the casket and throws the ashes out onto the water where they move on the tide, breath, gasp a little, dance and disappear.

She opened the blue notbook for the first time.
    "Dear Claire," she read, "by the time you read this you will be wanting to know all about your father.  His name was Ian Wallace, a Scotsman and very proud of the fact!  We met our first day at University, both of us studying Geography.  We were never apart after that.  He had the most amazing ginger hair and blue eyes..."

    "Mummy, mummy, stop reading!  We can take a boat to the Eiffel Tower..".     TOP