The house behind the villa

I’m often asked where the inspiration came from for ‘The Villa Matisse.’ Well, there is that love of France of course. I was a child when I first went on holiday to France with my parents and brother. It’s a state secret what year that was but if I tell you the first toll motorway in France had just opened, then you can safely assume it was quite a while ago. Nobody spoke English, you could only take the equivalent of £50 in French francs out of the country and it was strictly forbidden to drink the water. Nevertheless, France was declared a success and we continued to holiday there as a family over the years. When I met Colin, practically the first thing we shared was a passion for France. Four months after we first met, we bought a cheap tent and went camping in the Auvergne. It rained nearly all the time, the tent leaked like a sieve and my car broke down. But we stayed in love with France and, perhaps more surprisingly, even each other.

Then there’s Nice and Henri Matisse, both personal favourites. But in truth, first and foremost, the inspiration for ‘The Villa Matisse’ was actually a house, and a house not in France but in Cyprus.

In Cyprus we lived in this amazing place that went with Colin’s job. An elegant villa perched on a little eminence, it boasted a spectacular view of the Kyrenia mountain range running along the north coast of the island. In the garden, olive trees cast their silvery light with wild orchids springing from the seemingly barren earth. Bougainvillea trailed over the front porch where swallows nested before setting off on their summer migration to cooler climes. You had to be careful opening the massive oak front door or the swallows sneaked inside to swoop endlessly round the huge atrium entrance hall. In Cypriot culture a house with swallows is a blessed house. It certainly enchanted me; there seemed a kind of magic about the place.

An idea suddenly struck me and almost before I knew what I was doing, I had moved the house lock, stock and barrel from Nicosia to Nice. Audacious, I know, but the house didn’t seem to mind. It came with me quite happily. Recently, another reader wrote in her lovely review of ‘The Villa Matisse’ that the house itself actually seems like a character in the novel. I could not be more delighted with this perceptive comment because that’s exactly how it has always felt to me. Maybe sometimes places are more powerful than people.

However, as for the storyline of ‘The Villa Matisse,’ there is a tiny clue to my inspiration for that at the end of Chapter Three. Forgive me for teasing you with a little riddle but it’s not too difficult to solve if, like me, you love the first – and I mean the very first - enemies-to-lovers novel in English fiction.

Intrigued? Let me know if you spot it.