Chapter 24 #2
Greenery clings to the limestone cliffs that undulate in peaks and troughs on either side of us, and the sky is a cloudless blue.
We don’t talk much and it’s peaceful; the only sounds are our paddles dipping into the water, the occasional car humming by on the road that hugs the river, and the chirp of birds.
I like that étienne doesn’t appear to be in any hurry. When my arms begin to ache, he takes over, sometimes letting the current carry us and just steering occasionally.
“You’re not that competitive,” I joke as other, more determined kayakers pass us, their boats slicing through the river.
His deep chuckle carries over my shoulder.
Over the next hour or so, we paddle through more rapids and my confidence grows with every minute that my sunglasses stay on my face. The last set we go through before we reach Pont d’Arc is the scariest, but I trust that étienne will keep me safe and he does.
When we round a corner and Pont d’Arc comes into view, I’m overawed.
It’s enormous: a natural limestone arch that soars up and over the river, sixty meters wide and almost as high.
étienne tells me that it was formed around five hundred thousand years ago when the river carved its way through the rock.
As we drift beneath it, I look up to see thousands of birds flying in and out of nests.
“Let’s stop here for breakfast,” he suggests, steering us onto a small beach.
It’s not that busy yet, but I remember how it was when I came here for a picnic as a youngster—there were families and brightly colored kayaks all over the place. It’s nice to be able to enjoy it without too many people around.
As well as coffee, étienne’s brought fresh croissants and a blanket, plus more food for the rest of the day.
“Thank you so much for organizing all this,” I say with appreciation as I dig in, ravenous.
“It’s a pleasure.”
“How’s the black GTi coming along?”
“It’ll be ready in time for this weekend.”
“So you’re having another party?”
“Yep. Saturday. Open house,” he reminds me.
“I’ll be there,” I say with a smile.
He’s wearing sunglasses, but with the way the light is hitting the lenses I can just make out his eyes. I notice his attention drifting to my legs.
“What time is Raphael picking us up?” I ask edgily, feeling the heat of his gaze. “Have we got time for a swim?”
“Around seven, once he’s done with tourists. We’ve got plenty of time.”
I stand up and kick off my shoes, removing my T-shirt and unwrapping my short skirt. I’m glad that I thought to wear my orange bikini underneath my clothes—I was right, it does look better with a tan—but I feel kind of exposed as I walk to the water. I was more at ease around Jackson.
“Are you coming in?” I ask, pulling a hair tie off my wrist and using it to secure my hair in a high ponytail.
I glance over my shoulder to see étienne rising to his feet and simultaneously stripping off his T-shirt, and I almost trip and stumble at the sight of his broad, tanned, leanly muscled chest. He’s not as well-built as Jackson, but he has a natural athleticism about him that is hard to look away from.
He catches me staring and I quickly face forward, wading straight into the water.
Even after all the times I’ve been to the Ardèche, it amazes me how warm the river is compared to the ones back home. I slip straight beneath the green surface and push off from the sandy shore, quickly finding that I can no longer touch the bottom. It’s deeper here than it was upstream.
“If your mum liked cars, could she have taken over the garage?” it occurs to me to ask as I swim backward, watching étienne’s entry.
The gray shorts he was wearing earlier are actually swimming trunks, I realize, and they sit low on his hips, revealing a line of dark hair that disappears into the waistband.
“Her parents left her the house,” he replies as I drag my eyes up to his face. What were we talking about? “Olivier inherited the garage,” he adds.
“That’s right, I remember your mum telling me that she’d lived at the house all her life.”
That was the day Estelle had loaned me her bikini. Initially I’d been a bit scared to go in the river, but Estelle had assured me that it was safe if you walked along the bank a short way; she’d swum in that spot since she was a little girl.
“Jackson’s mum, Sandrine, arrived yesterday,” I reveal, and maybe I should be keeping it to myself, but I add, “She thinks that I’m working as a mole, trying to get you to sell her the garage.”
He stares at me. “And are you?”
“Fuck off.” I splash him.
He splashes me back, smirking, and then he swims away.
“I’ve commissioned a friend of Louis’s to do the mosaic, by the way,” I call to him.
He turns around, treading water. His dark hair is wet and falling into his eyes. He shoves it back. “For the buvette?”
“Yes. We plan to do a grand reveal at the launch party.”
“When’s that?”
“The last Saturday in August.” That’s just over six weeks from now. “You’d better come.”
He turns and disappears under the water.
The sun beats down on us as we kayak on. Soon we enter the Gorges de l’Ardèche, where the high land plateaus out and we’re surrounded by thick oak forest, scrubland, and sheer walls of apricot-and-gray marbled limestone. This is Europe’s Grand Canyon, and I feel very small within it.
High overhead a bird of prey flies, its feathered wingspan stretching wide in the clear blue sky. I assume it’s an eagle until étienne tells me that it’s a vulture. We spot a falcon too, and we’re keeping an eye out for beavers and otters.
Occasionally we see a dark cave in the cliff side, which makes me wonder how many other masterpieces of humanity might still be out there, waiting to be discovered.
It’s scorching hot and I’m worried about getting sunburned, so when we next stop, I get my sunscreen out of my bag and reapply it to my arms and legs.
There were a lot more people back upriver. It’s been ages since we’ve seen another kayaker.
“I might go for another swim. Would you mind applying some sunscreen to my back?” I ask étienne.
I notice a moment’s hesitation before he nods and comes toward me, holding out his hand.
I take off my T-shirt again and turn around, hyperaware of the sound of cream squeezing out of the bottle and onto his palm. Then his hands are on my shoulders and I bite back a moan.
“Do you want me to do you?” I ask as his calloused fingers run over my skin.
My voice sounds as if I’ve smoked a packet of Chloe’s cigarettes.
“Nah, I’ll be all right.” His also sounds a bit rough.
I look over my shoulder at him. “Do you dislike being touched?”
He snorts and lets me go. “What?”
“Every time I touch you, you recoil.”
He balks. “That’s not true,” he replies with a frown.
“Okay, well, some of the time then.”
“It’s not because I don’t like being touched.”
“So you’re not lacking physical affection?”
“What sort of physical affection are you talking about?”
My face heats at his low tone. I can’t see his eyes behind his dark sunglasses now, but his lips are tipped up ever so slightly at the corners.
“Any sort. A hug,” I reply with a roll of my eyes, determined not to let him derail me. “I think I’d die if I never got another hug. Mellie’s are the best.”
Jackson’s are pretty great too.
“I do miss my mum’s hugs,” he admits.
I give him a sympathetic look as he passes me back the bottle of sunscreen.
“There’s nothing like a hug from your mother,” he adds as he walks into the water.
“My mum doesn’t really do hugs,” I confide as I drop the bottle onto a beach towel and follow him in. “I get all of my love and affection from Mellie.”
“Why doesn’t your mum do hugs?” he asks with a frown, submerging himself up to his shoulders.
“She and I have a weird relationship.”
“In what way?”
“She struggles to show love. She never had any from her parents, so it’s hard for her.
She was a bit absent in my early years. She was there, but not really.
I remember drafting a poem in English once.
We had to write about someone in our family and I ended up describing her as a silhouette.
Mellie was color and light and rainbows in comparison,” I say with a smile.
“I missed her so much when she moved to France, but eventually she had to carve out her own life and follow her dreams.”
I’m trying to give the impression that I’m unfazed by this, but in truth I remember just how much it affected me. At the time, it was really confusing—I felt Mellie had abandoned me—but my mum actually stepped up then.
Maybe Mellie had known that she would. Or maybe she just knew that Mum never would if she always picked up the slack.
“My dad feels like a shadowy figure to me,” étienne confesses.
My attention sharpens. “Do you know anything at all about him?”
“I know that his family wanted nothing to do with my mum after he died. He came from a wealthy background and she was a factory worker. They thought she was beneath him. They sure as hell didn’t want to be burdened with her son,” he mutters.
My chest feels constricted at the look on his face. And then I’m doing it. I’m slipping my hands around his warm neck and our bodies come together beneath the water.
I know instantly that it’s a dud move. I’m too skittish to provide comfort. He seems to sense this too, laughing awkwardly as he pulls away.
My face is aflame as I float on my back, kicking away from him. I should know better than to put my hands on him when we’re both next to naked.
It’s a lesson I learned when we were seventeen. I’d been nervous about going in the river so when I tried to swim out to him in the middle, he warned me that I wouldn’t be able to touch the ground.
I went anyway.
“Are you a good swimmer?” I remember asking.
He nodded.
“So if I go under, you’ll save me?”
He grinned and then suddenly he was reaching for me. I gasped with surprise as he wrapped an arm around my waist and drew me against him.
“Relax,” he said as my back connected with his bare chest. “Stay still.”
My heart was hammering as he kicked us toward the shore. It was all over very quickly, but as soon as my feet touched the sand, I wanted him to do it again.
The slickness of his skin, his warm firm chest: it fed an addiction I hadn’t known I was suffering from.
I’d had a boyfriend, Sam, the previous summer, but apart from a few sloppy kisses and wandering hands at house parties, we’d played it safe. Neither of us had been allowed in the other’s bedroom; his parents and my mum had watched us like hawks.
But on that day with étienne, teenage hormones well and truly kicked in. I sought his touch again without thinking.
“Let me try.”
He let me hold him against my chest for about three seconds before he broke away, looking flustered.
I had seen a similar look on Jackson’s face after he and Chloe had been playing water volleyball. I knew he wanted her.
Did étienne want me?
Does he want me now?
I stare at his broad shoulders glistening in the sunshine and get that restless feeling again in the pit of my stomach.
The day wears on. We take our time, stopping often to cool down in the water. At one point we pass a naturist campsite and I can’t help quipping, “Was this your plan all along? To bring me out here and get me naked?”
“If I wanted to get you naked, I could think of better ways,” he replies in a low, deep voice.
My heart jackrabbits.
We stop soon after that for one last break before our final stretch. While I’m brushing my fingers through my hair, trying to detangle it, étienne searches through the waterproof barrel.
“I keep meaning to ask,” I say as he pulls out his phone and unlocks it. “Have you signed the contract?”
“Not yet,” he replies distractedly.
“Jackson brought it up yesterday.”
“Merde,” he swears.
“What is it?”
“A truck has crashed into a bus on the road.” He looks up from his phone, his brows drawn together.
“I don’t think anyone has been seriously hurt, but it’ll take hours to clear before Raphael will be able to get through to us.
We’re supposed to be off the river by six.
No tourists have done the thirty-K route today so he’s just coming for us. ”
“Shit.” I repeat his curse in English.
“I want to tell him to turn around and go home to his girlfriend,” he says hesitantly.
“Which would mean what for us?”
“He’ll collect us in the morning.” He stares at me for a long moment before asking: “How do you feel about wild camping?”