Chapter Twelve
Lycos nosed his car forward along the stony driveway. It had rained recently and the sky was overcast. Getting out of the car he felt the chill of the mistral on his back—the cold north-westerly wind that plagued Provence in the autumn and winter. He looked about him.
The mas looked drear and deserted. The faded blue shutters were closed on all the windows and the stone walls un-warmed by any sunshine.
He felt the hollow inside him gape wider.
It had been there for a long, long time now. It had started as he’d watched Arielle walking out of the hotel bedroom, not believing that she was doing so. The shock of it knifing through him, hollowing him out.
He hadn’t known what to do.
Nor did he still.
He stood staring at the mas, trying to work out what he felt, but it was impossible. The hollow inside him seemed to make him numb. He went into the courtyard, the cobbles wet from rain, his footsteps ringing damply on the stone.
It was very quiet and deserted. The livestock was all gone, having been transported to the neighbouring farm.
He walked through into the gardens. The rain and autumn had bleached the colour from it.
The lavender was full of brown deadheads.
The geraniums were limp and drooping. The leaves from the trees remained un-swept and unraked.
The pool had been covered over, the sun loungers packed away.
Water dripped off the roses, which were bereft of any blooms.
He stood awhile, the hollow widening within him.
Becoming wide enough to swallow him up completely.
What am I to do?
The words took physical shape in his head. Hanging there as if heavy weights.
He had come here for one purpose only. To put the place behind him. To put it on the market as he had always said he would do.
To get rid of it.
It was the logical thing to do. It always had been. He hadn’t asked for this place, hadn’t sought it out, hadn’t chosen it. It had just happened to him. Owning it as he did.
So, getting rid of it, taking the money, was the obvious thing to do.
So why haven’t I?
The logic, now, was even more compelling, ineluctable, necessary. After all, his conscience was clear. Completely clear.
I offered it to her and she turned it down.
Turned down not just the mas, but turned me down with it.
He felt the hollow gape wider yet, but something was filling it now. Something worse than the hollow. The hollow was an absence, but this… This was a presence. An unbearable one. An agonising one.
And suddenly, with a clenching of his fists buried in the pockets of his jacket that was keeping at bay the chill of the mistral, he knew what he would do. Must do.
After all, had he not already done elsewhere what he must do? This would complete it.
For one lone, last moment he let his gaze rest on the garden in front of him before looking around and across the frontage of the mas. Then, with rapid and resolute footsteps, he headed back to his car and drove away.
He was done with the mas.
For the mas was done with him. Just like Arielle was.
Arielle opened her voicemail. The call had come in while she’d been expounding French irregular verbs to the adult education class she taught, which, together with the modest income from her father that had funded her at the mas, was funding her there in England.
It was strange to be back in the university town where she’d studied music, but it was the only place in England that she was familiar with.
Other than London, where her father had lived and worked, and London was way out of her price range.
Here she could afford to rent a small flat and pay for the use of a nearby church hall, which came with a piano, so she could give piano lessons.
She had also applied to start training to be a teacher so she’d be able to teach French and music at the local school.
It was not the life she’d wanted, but she knew she had to make it work. Perhaps, one day, she’d be inspired to do something more. But in that moment, she was still too raw. Far, far too raw.
Raw with loss. A loss that the passing weeks had shown her was far, far worse than she had once thought it would be.
Because what I had, is gone and will never, can never, return. And what I had was far, far more than I realised I had.
She felt her heart clench, pain filling it.
With a heavy sigh she held the phone to her ear.
She frowned. The voicemail was from her lawyer, the one she’d spent money she could not afford on when she’d contested her father’s will.
What could the matter be now? Surely Naomi wasn’t trying, again, to get hold of the money her husband had dared to bestow on his daughter, not herself?
But the message was quite different. And when she heard it Arielle could only stare, blankly and disbelievingly. But with something flaring inside her that had not been there before.
Lycos sat in the cocktail lounge of the hotel on Park Lane. It was where he usually stayed when he was in London, for it boasted a casino on the top floor. This time he hadn’t been near it. It held no attraction for him. His mind was focussed on one thing only.
Would she come?
Tension wracked him. It reminded him of his early days, setting out to make his way in the world with his card skills before he had learnt to step aside from all emotion.
Before he’d learnt how to move into the mental state that detached him from the world and generated the intense focus of concentration necessary to his purpose.
But detachment, now, was impossible. Too much was at stake.
More than he had ever thought would be or could be.
Because that was what this was, he knew, with a scything inbreath.
A stake higher than he had ever made in all his life.
Memories bit in him, like the bite of a wolf.
Back in Paris, all those weeks ago, he’d made a stake he’d thought must surely be irresistible.
But it lost me what I most wanted.
What he had most wanted then.
But now?
His thoughts cut out. His gaze fixed on the entrance to the cocktail lounge.
Arielle got off the bus. Autumnal chill hit her at once, raw and unpleasant.
A world away from the summer’s heat of Provence.
She could feel emotion churn inside her as she walked into the hotel.
A sudden, vivid memory of the Viscari Paris assailed her—the evening she and Lycos had dined with the Derenzes.
She looked around the lobby, wondering where the cocktail bar was. Then she saw it and made her way to it. She stepped inside, aware that her heart was thudding like hammers in her chest.
Lycos got to his feet. Arielle was heading towards him. He felt something catch within him, across the hollow that was permanently there. Just to see her again. His gaze clung to her as she approached. But he would not let it show in his eyes.
‘Thank you for coming,’ he said, as she reached him. He kept his voice carefully neutral.
She gave only a slight nod, sitting down in the tub chair opposite his.
The light level in the cocktail bar was subdued, but he could see she looked pale.
The honeyed skin tone he was familiar with had faded, it seemed, out of the Provencal sun.
Her hair was drawn back into a pleat and was glistening with faint raindrops.
She slipped the buttons of her jacket undone, but did not remove it.
Yet even looking as workaday as she was, he still felt his breath catch at seeing her again. Seeing her beauty…
But he must not show his reaction to her. That was not why he had asked her to meet him. A waiter glided up, asking what she would like to drink. She asked for coffee then looked across the low table. Straight at him.
‘Why did you do it, Lycos? This time?’
The question was direct. So was his answer.
‘Because it was the right thing to do. Because it was owed to you.’
She gave a shake of her head. ‘Not by you. You owe me nothing, Lycos.’ She took a heavy, scything breath before continuing, ‘Least of all Mas Delfine.’
Arielle did not let her eyes drop. Would not. She had been here before with this conversation. And, although the reason for it had been completely different, her answer was the same.
‘You know that I can’t accept it, Lycos,’ she said, her voice low. ‘Any more than the last time you offered it to me.’
‘Now is completely different! You must see that!’ he cut across her. His voice was vehement and his eyes flared with anger.
‘Your motive is different, yes, but it’s still one I can’t accept.’
She held his gaze. It was hard to do so. Hard to sit here, so close to him, seeing him again, suppressing all that she felt about him. Those feelings had flared again the moment she’d seen him as she’d walked into the cocktail lounge. Flared as powerfully as they ever had. As they always would—
Because they will. I know that now. It doesn’t matter that I ended it before he was ready to end it.
It doesn’t matter that I have not seen him for weeks and weeks.
That I am making myself make a new life here in England—the one I have to make.
That the memory of our time together will haunt me all my days and my longing for him will haunt me all my nights.
Just seeing him again, here and now, was hammering home that truth. Just as her heart was hammering in her chest.
Just to see him. Just to be here with him.
Emotion crushed her heart, fight it though she must. She had come here because he had asked her to and to refuse would have been ungracious.
Cowardly. Thinking more of her own feelings, than on the gesture he had just made to her. She ploughed on, saying what she knew had to be said. What she knew she had to make clear to him. She kept her voice as calm as she could.