Escape to the French Chateau

Chapter 10

Chapter 10

They began their search for Red in the car park. On Johnny’s insistence they double-checked around the vehicles, and in the vicinity of the bushes he’d checked out earlier. Portraying himself as a complete cat novice, he suggested he might have missed a vital clue, but no sign of the cat meant it wasn’t long before they began to trail their way through the gardens. Fran suggested they search away from the manicured formal areas, making the assumption it would be easier for Red to conceal himself in one of the large banks of lavender and the borders filled with ornamental grasses.

It wasn’t until dusk bade its final farewells and the dark determination of the night took over that Fran realised she hadn’t thought to bring a torch. She didn’t even have a torch – funnily enough it wasn’t one of the items she’d thought to include when she’d packed for what should have been a lazy week lounging by the chateau pool.

‘If I’m being honest, I’m struggling to see anything useful, now,’ Johnny said. He sounded disappointed, then brightened. ‘Hang on, phone app.’

A weak beam illuminated a border, fronds of a tall grass swaying in the LED beam from his phone.

‘We can give up if you want,’ Fran said, swiping at her own phone to find its torch and adding the beam to Johnny’s.

‘Hell no,’ Johnny replied. Fran could see his grin in the failing light. ‘I haven’t felt this cool for weeks. I’m loving it out here. Never mind the cat, I think I might turn nocturnal until this heatwave passes.’

Fran agreed with him, the drop in temperature now the sun had gone was very welcome.

‘It’s a shame they close the pool at night,’ Johnny said, his torch sweeping the grassy border. ‘I reckon a swim right about now and then a stint on a sun lounger – or perhaps that would make it a moon lounger – would be fantastic.’

Fran noticed the beam of her own torch tremble at the thought of him in the pool. An image of him, pulling himself from the water and padding across to a lounger, flooded Fran’s brain and did strange things to the base of her stomach. She did her best to shake the image from her mind.

‘I might even feel cold. Do you remember that?’ Johnny asked.

‘Remember what?’ His question caught her off-guard.

‘Feeling cold. Wanting to put on a jumper. Hot drinks in front of an open fire. Winter …’ He sounded wistful.

‘I love walking along the beach in the winter. When the sea’s broiling and crashing, it’s so windy the seagulls can hardly hold out their wings and you can taste the salt in the air.’

‘You live near the sea?’

‘I grew up in Lyme Regis.’

‘I think I went there once when I was a kid. Great big curving harbour wall and loads of fossils, is that the place?’

‘Did you go out to the ammonite pavement? It’s a bit of a walk from the main seafront, but it’s so worth it. I used to spend ages out there when I was young, making up all sorts of stories as to why so many ammonites ended up fossilised there.’

‘Ammonite apocalypse – that sort of thing?’ Johnny swung his torch beam around, then apologised when she shielded her eyes from the glare before he turned the light back onto the plants.

‘Funnily enough, some of my imaginings were a bit apocalyptic. Ammonite family picnic gone wrong, ammonite stampede, ammonite on the town turned bad.’ She grinned in the darkness, wondering if he would notice her play on words.

‘Ammonite on the town?’

Fran heard his stifled laughter, and it made her grin even broader. ‘I had a fertile imagination when I was a child, what can I say?’

‘And a decent sense of humour too, it sounds like. Was it just you, or did you have brothers and sisters to help you sculpt your tales of ammonite picnic massacres?’

‘Just me. It was always just me and my mum.’ She remembered her formative years, wondering why she had no father. The clashes she’d had with her mother when she’d asked who he was, and her mother wouldn’t discuss him past telling her they were better off without him. Her later, more adult, reasoning that perhaps her mum had suffered some kind of an attack, maybe had become pregnant against her wishes, and that was why she wouldn’t talk about it. That thought had been enough to make Fran stop asking.

‘Is your mum still in Lyme Regis?’

Fran sucked in a sharp breath, inching it out before replying. Perhaps the pause was enough of an answer, but not answering him wouldn’t change the facts.

‘She’s not with us anymore. She was hit by a car and, well, she never recovered from her injuries.’

‘Oh, God. I’m so sorry. Trust me to put my size nines straight into my own mouth.’

Fran shook her head. ‘It’s fine. How could you have known?’ She switched the focus away from herself, she didn’t want him digging any deeper. ‘How about you? Just the one brother?’

‘That’s right. Noel’s a few years younger than me.’ Johnny didn’t elaborate, instead he sighed into the darkness, then his frame gained purpose and he swung the torch around with increased vigour. ‘It’s always been the two of us, I suppose. So, where are we going to look next?’

As Fran led the way around the rear of the chateau’s boundary line, towards a cluster of outbuildings the outlines of which Johnny could just about make out, he was grateful Fran hadn’t pushed him any harder for family details. It wasn’t as though he had anything to hide, it was more that their parents’ difficult relationship had meant he and Noel had relied heavily on one another when they were growing up. It wasn’t a lightweight tale, certainly not something with which to impress a girl. His relationship with Noel had always been complex and remained so, but it had been by far the longest surviving fixed point in his life.

For the first time, it struck Johnny that Estelle might end up being an only child. Until this moment he’d not stopped to consider how that landed with him. The fact she wouldn’t have a brother or sister to stand with her as she faced the world, or how it would be for Estelle after he and Natalie were gone. Because, as Fran had alluded to, life was precarious – being hit by a proverbial bus was no further away for anyone than a roll of the dice. How would Estelle cope with life if she was all alone?

‘The chef seems to think Red might hide out in here,’ Fran was saying, as she tugged at one of the shed doors.

Johnny cast his torch beam around inside the cluttered space, but his mind was elsewhere. He supposed his worry about Estelle was no more than him overthinking. Again. And although there was certainty in the understanding that he was never getting back together with Natalie, he supposed there was no reason why Natalie wouldn’t go on and find a new partner – might already have found him. There was no reason to assume she wouldn’t choose to have more children with the bloke. So, Estelle would have half-siblings. Somehow the thought brought a hint of comfort to Johnny.

A fruitless search in and around the buildings had Fran visibly frustrated, and Johnny’s well of knowledge about how to track and find a feral cat had dried up a while ago. In fact, there hadn’t been much in the way of water in the well to begin with. Perhaps he should go online and do some research.

‘I think we should call it a night,’ Fran said.

‘Agreed.’

As they headed back towards the chateau’s subdued outside lighting, Fran turned to thank him. She looked tired, disappointed. A smudge of vulnerability clouded her gaze.

‘Are you planning to give up on Red?’ he asked.

The shake of Fran’s head was instant and carried enough strength to make strands of her dark bob swirl around her face. ‘No way.’

‘Good. Me neither.’

A quizzical expression chased away the vulnerability. ‘Do you mind if I ask why you care about a stray cat?’

Johnny caught himself in time, before the words left his mouth. Before he told her his primary interest did not lie with the cat. He’d already decided he wasn’t going to go down the relationship route again, so why was he permitting himself to be impressed by this woman? Why was he getting carried away, allowing himself to enjoy spending time with Fran? No, he needed to shut it all down, and he opted for a move of what he imagined would be unparalleled self-sabotage.

‘My daughter loves cats, and I know she’d want me to help Red.’

By the time Penny heard Fran finally return to the staff quarters, she was almost ready for bed. She’d hung around with Harry while he cleaned down the kitchen, then bummed a couple of Gauloises from Chef Louis before he went home, to share with Harry on the steps outside the linen room. As they smoked the cigarettes, they’d chatted and laughed just like always, and yet still Harry made no move. She’d done her best to steer the conversation onto flirtier topics, but he hadn’t taken the bait. Penny wasn’t sure how to make her intentions any clearer, bar knocking on his door at two in the morning wearing nothing but a sexy smile.

The weird thing was that usually men couldn’t wait to get Penny into bed. To be honest, they didn’t always wait that long. If Penny had to make a list of all the places she’d ended up being inappropriate after a drunken night out in one of her local clubs back home, she’d need a decent-sized piece of paper. So, it wasn’t as though Harry needed to treat her like she was some delicate flowery female, all soft and fragile and ready to burst into tears at the first sign of trouble. No, Penny was tough. She knew what she wanted when she saw it, and generally speaking, she got what she wanted, especially where blokes were concerned. This was the first time she’d been made to play the long game. Which was why Harry was, quite frankly, driving her bonkers.

Assuming she wasn’t going to knock on his door in the small hours of the morning, then, with a rose clamped between her teeth and a silky negligee covering nothing but the essentials, maybe at some point over the next couple of days she should just come straight out and ask him whether or not he was interested. Then she could stop beating herself up about it and put the whole Harry thing to bed. Ha. The irony.

With a late-night digestive biscuit raided from the staff biscuit box in one hand, and thoughts of seducing Harry on the back-burner for this evening at least, Penny was about to head for her room when Fran padded down the corridor towards her, flat black shoes in one hand and a look of exhaustion on her face.

‘Where on earth have you been?’ Penny asked.

‘Looking for Red. One of the guests was helping me.’

‘You what?’ Penny grinned. ‘You’re roping in the hotel guests now?’

After Fran had explained about the lone guy from the honeymoon suite stopping her in the car park and their subsequent clandestine search for the cat, Penny’s grin had ratcheted all the way up to full power. ‘Seriously? You think the guy’s interested in the cat? Get a grip, Fran.’

‘Well, that had better be all he’s interested in.’

In Penny’s opinion, the pucker of skin between Fran’s eyes didn’t tally with her words.

‘Why?’

‘Because that’s all I’m interested in.’ The pucker became a full-blown crease, and Fran shook her head. ‘Anyway, he just told me he’s only helping look for Red because his daughter loves cats and I assume he wants to be able to go home and tell her about him.’

Penny considered Fran’s words. She supposed it could make sense. Although, if Fran was to stop still and take a good, hard look in the mirror, Penny reckoned any guy choosing to spend time with her in the dark had to be some kind of a saint if he was doing it purely to be able to tell his kid about their search for a cat.

It was perfectly conceivable that the guy was a happily married family man, and he was telling the entire truth. Although Penny wondered how it would work for him, going home and explaining to his wife how he spent the latter part of an evening in the company of a drop-dead gorgeous member of the chateau staff solely to look for a stray moggy.

‘He’s married, then?’ Penny asked.

Fran’s frown intensified. ‘I presume so. Not that it matters.’

‘Yeah, I know you keep saying how little it matters.’

Fran noticed the rise in Penny’s eyebrows. ‘I’m not interested. End of.’

‘OK. No need to get all flustered. Does he wear a wedding ring?’

‘No.’ Fran answered way too quickly, her cheeks colouring as she took in Penny’s amused expression. ‘At least, I don’t think so,’ she added.

In Penny’s opinion it was a thin attempt by Fran to muddy her previously crystal-clear waters of a reply.

‘And anyway, that doesn’t mean anything,’ Fran finished with a defiant edge to her words.

‘True enough,’ Penny conceded, stifling a yawn. ‘I don’t know about you, but I need some sleep. Another day at the coalface tomorrow.’ She’d probably only manage to get a few hours’ decent sleep, but for once she actually did feel tired. Trying to work Harry out was exhausting her, mentally if not physically.

Fran sighed. ‘I already need a day off, and I’ve only been here two days.’

‘Well, see Madame Beaufoy tomorrow and sort out your shifts properly. So far, you’ve been doing everything.’

‘I haven’t done anything more than you.’

‘Yeah, but I’m a bundle of pent-up energy. Amongst my many other shortcomings, my family thought I had ADHD when I was a kid, but I never got an official diagnosis. After a while they settled on “pain in the arse” as an unofficial diagnosis, tolerated my craziness as best they could, and when I said I was going travelling for a while, they all breathed a collective sigh of relief.’

Fran couldn’t help but feel a twinge of sympathy as Penny wished her a cheerful goodnight and headed for her room. She was putting a positive spin on it, but somehow Fran thought it must be far worse to still have people at home whom you loved, but weren’t bothered if you were there or not.

Whereas, for Fran all that remained at home was her rented flat. She was still coming to terms with calling it hers. The place was still chock-full of reminders of her mum, from the spatula her mother favoured hanging on the utensil rack, to her winter coat hooked on the back of the door. Fran hadn’t managed to face sorting through, let alone clearing out, any of her mother’s possessions. Not yet. It was all still there, as if her mum was going to walk back in. As if she was still on her way back from the shops and had simply been delayed. By six months. As if the drug-driver hadn’t careered down the Lyme High Street in his van, mounting the pavement by the gift shop at the top of the hill and skittling pedestrians in all directions. As if there hadn’t been several hospitalisations as a result of his actions, and one fatality. Fran’s mum.

It had been in all the papers, splashed across social media with everybody wanting their say. How terrible it was for the driver to have felt so depressed that he’d had to resort to drugs. How the local council, or the police, or the driver’s employers, or the government were to blame. How the antiquated design of the roads in central Lyme Regis had been an accident waiting to happen for decades. How there should have been bollards or a more defined pavement, or better traffic calming methods in place … How lucky it was that no children were killed, that the only fatality had been an older woman. As if a woman in her fifties was somehow disposable.

Fran bit back her anger, all over again. Of course, she was happy no children had been injured; nobody would want that. But her mother had been the only constant presence left in Fran’s life.

A subsequent phone call had set Fran’s life spinning in a completely different trajectory and was the reason she found herself at Chateau les Champs d’Or. It promised her a future she’d least expected, but her fragility remained.

Maybe that went some way to explaining her determination not to give up on Red. The need for connections to other living beings still existed within Fran, even if the need was so fragile right now that she was only able to extend the offer to a cat.

Levering the tiny window open as far as it would go, Fran breathed in a little of the fresh night air. Confident she was tired enough to sleep through anything, the need for fresh air outweighed the worry about noise nuisance. After a cool shower, Fran left her hair damp and pulled on a thin T-shirt, slid underneath a single sheet, and closed her eyes.