Chapter 22
22
She didn’t want to leave.
But she couldn’t stay.
Up early enough to watch the sunrise, Ellie was sitting out on her terrace with a mug of hot coffee as the craggy outlines of the closest mountains – the baous – became visible and the deep shadows of La Maisonette’s lemon orchard and olive grove lifted to reveal the now familiar shape of the trees.
So familiar. And knowing that she would soon be leaving them behind made it increasingly clear how much she loved this garden.
Yet again, the suggestion Julien had made on the day of the storm and that terrifying accident echoed in the back of Ellie’s mind. There was still time. She did own a third of this property. She could talk to her sisters about the idea of the three of them keeping ownership or, if they weren’t interested, looking for finance to buy them out of their shares. There was no reason not to do that, was there?
Yes, there was a reason.
She would be Julien Rousseau’s neighbour and that would, quite simply, be too hard.
It had been hard enough this week, seeing him only briefly in passing on his way to or from the hospital where Theo was a patient. Even worse had been the time he’d come and knocked on her front door – the front door – to tell her that Theo was recovering well enough to be able to leave the hospital. He would take him back to Roquebillière so that his grandmother and great-grandmother could devote themselves to his care and Julien could tackle the mounting backlog of his own patients needing his attention. The escalating level of stress in his life had been palpable.
A sick son.
A mother who was already caring for her own mother.
Longer distances to travel to work – a stress all on its own – to treat other sick children who had frightened families needing reassurance.
Ellie had watched his face, her heart aching, as she’d stood on her doorstep and listened to his words beneath the arch of roses that had become such a profusion of pale yellow flowers she was bathed in their fragrance. It had occurred to her that, for the rest of her life, the scent of Banksia roses would remind her how it felt to have such an intimate connection with another human being but, at the same time, to see them through an invisible but totally impenetrable barrier.
Julien was holding himself – and his life – together. To anyone else, he would seem to be the epitome of an adoring, deeply concerned parent, but Ellie knew that he was struggling with that extra emotional blow: the proof that he wasn’t Theo’s biological father. He hadn’t seen that coming. Such a formal visit, using the shiny brass knocker on the old wooden door to announce his arrival, instead of feeling comfortable enough to scale the fence and wander through the garden, had been a very clear signal that he had to come to terms with that devastating news by himself, in his own way.
She could respect that.
It would be hypocritical not to, in fact, given how she’d shut out her own friends and family for the same reason in the terrible aftermath of losing her baby.
Ellie sipped her coffee, lowering her gaze from the mountains to the small white dog lying beside her, his chin resting on her bare foot. Pascal had barely left her side since she’d come home in that police car. If he sensed that she, too, was struggling, he certainly wasn’t going to allow any barrier to prevent him offering the comfort or reassurance she might need, and Ellie loved him for it. He was a big part of why she knew she was going to get through what had suddenly become a huge challenge, and it had made something else very clear. There was no way on earth she was going to leave Pascal behind when she went home.
He lifted his head, with that one floppy ear, as Ellie spoke aloud.
‘I rang Mam yesterday,’ she told him. ‘Just to check that she won’t mind you coming to live with her until we can find our own place. I think we might be able to buy a house, so we won’t even have to worry about whether pets are allowed in a rental. When this place sells, my share should be more than enough for a good deposit. Maybe we can find a little fisherman’s cottage in Oban. Or it might be nice to go and live on Mull. Would you like to be an island dog?’
Pascal’s tail thumped the stones of the terrace, but he settled his chin on Ellie’s foot again to wait for her to finish her coffee. Feeling the trusting weight of that little head made her smile.
Aye… she was going to succeed in navigating this challenge. And maybe she’d needed it to happen, because otherwise she might not have discovered the well of strength she could draw on that certainly hadn’t been there when she’d arrived in the south of France. She was a very different person. One who could face life and embrace it far more than she ever had before.
Ellie had so much to be thankful for. If even one piece of this particular puzzle had been missing, she might not have discovered this new version of herself.
Even that impulsive decision to stay here for the summer had been a unique combination of puzzle pieces. The soft light here and the way stone buildings and streets seemed to have soaked in the warmth over so many centuries. The music of the language and comfort of food that could be both homely but utterly delicious at the same time – like a wedge of fresh baguette wrapped around some ham and cheese.
This little house had played such a huge part in Ellie’s journey that it felt like it had a personality she’d fallen in love with as she’d coaxed – and perhaps, sometimes, bullied it a little – away from its sad, unloved submission to abandonment.
And then there was Julien…
It was still far too soon, but Ellie knew she would be forever grateful for the cracks in the protective layers around her heart that had grown wide enough to allow Julien – and Theo – to capture a part of what lay behind them. Her heart might be going to ache for a long time, but the reminder that it was love that matters most in life had been what had healed her soul.
‘At least you’re going to come home with me.’ Ellie reached down to scratch Pascal behind his floppy ear. ‘I’d better look into the rules about taking you on the plane.’
She wouldn’t be able to take her beautiful red bicycle on the plane, of course. Even that rag rug from the second bedroom would be far too big to fit into her suitcase. And what about the bottles of limoncello that were still waiting to be tasted? It would be very disappointing if they got broken in transit. Ellie needed to start searching for a removal company that could help. She needed to find a new home for Marguerite and Coquelicot because it would be impossible to take them home with her. Margot might need a new home, too. Hopefully with someone who would appreciate all the quirkiness of a classic tin snail.
Unless…
‘What if we drove home?’ Ellie wondered aloud. ‘It would take forever, and Margot might break down, but it would be… epic, wouldn’t it?’
A massive challenge. An adventure. A way of turning the end of something precious into the start of something else that might be life-changing in a good way?
Was she brave enough to try?
Was it even possible?
Ellie rang Laura the next day.
‘You’re mad,’ her oldest sister told her. ‘Completely bonkers. Legally, the car doesn’t belong to you, so you could run into all sorts of trouble. You’d need the registration details and ownership papers, and goodness only knows where they are.’
‘I might be able to get a copy. I’ll need to get the mechanic that came to get Margot going in the first place to come back and make sure she would be able to make the trip. He should know what I need to do. If I had the ownership papers and you emailed me a copy of Uncle Jeremy’s will, I’m sure I could talk my way around any complications.’
‘You’re asking for trouble.’
No. Ellie was asking for a distraction from the trouble she was already in. A way to get through the pain of a heart that was threatening to shatter, like Humpty Dumpty, into too many small pieces to ever be able to be completely put back together again.
‘Send me a copy of the will,’ she begged. ‘Please… So I can, at least, try.’ She wanted to end this conversation before she could be persuaded that her idea was, indeed, crazy. ‘I need to go, Laura. I’ve got a lot of things to do and places to go. While I’ve still got time…’
There was still time to go back to places that would be a part of Ellie’s soul for the rest of her life.
Where it all began, in St Paul de Vence with the mosaic pebble flowers in the streets of the walled village. This time Ellie recorded every variation she could find. She was confident that she would be able to create her own new designs as well, and put together a plan and portfolio for the business she couldn’t wait to start.
She drove Margot alone, for the first time, to one of the beaches near Nice and she and Pascal spent an early morning, before it got too hot, wandering beside the waves, filling a bag with flat, round and oval pebbles that were exactly what she needed. When they found a place to live with space for a studio, Ellie would make her first stepping stones and choose the best one to photograph, or perhaps paint, for her studio logo. She’d choose a font she loved with the name ‘Stone Flowers’ above the image and put a subtitle underneath to capture her inspiration – ‘A touch of France’.
It wasn’t going to be a problem finding suitable stones to work with in Scotland, but she wanted her prototypes to have genuine French stones. Maybe, in years to come, she would feel ready to come back and visit again. It was too soon to be thinking of weighing down her luggage with stones when her heart already felt too heavy, but collecting these few now was a step towards a future that Ellie was trying very hard to embrace.
On the Friday that Julien had come to tell her he was taking Theo to Roquebillière, Ellie had ridden her bicycle into Vence with Pascal in the basket and they’d queued up for socca, like they had the day that Julien had saved the life of that choking child and Ellie had known how easy it would be to fall in love with that man.
‘ Une part ?’ The man at the socca oven had smiled as if he recognised Ellie.
‘ Oui . S’il vous pla?t .’
‘ Le sel et le poivre ?’
‘ Oui . Merci .’
‘ Vous mangez tout de suite ?’
‘ Bien s?r .’ Ellie had grinned, happy to show off how much her French had improved. ‘ C’est si bon . Je veux le manger tout de suite .’
Her words and her accent were probably far from perfect, but the tilt of the man’s head and his smile had made it obvious that he’d understood perfectly well. And that he’d appreciated the compliment about the food.
More than that. It had kind of made her feel like she belonged.
Laura sent through draft copies of the brochure she and Noah were creating for La Maisonette, and Ellie helped choose the photographs to be included. The first must-have was a picture of the little stone house from the road, with Margot visible in the open garage and the iron gate open as an invitation to walk towards the front door, also ajar, under its wreath of yellow roses. Another was the view from the terrace, on which Laura had cleverly adjusted the lighting so that the streak of the Mediterranean could be clearly differentiated from the cloudless summer sky. Ellie wanted to keep the close-up shot of the brass door-knocker, too, because she remembered telling Laura that it looked new because all it had needed was a bit of love. Like everything else in La Maisonette had.
Including herself?
Aye… including herself.
She’d fallen in love with this little house and its garden. With cobbled flowers and sunsets, the smell of lemons and the sound of the most beautiful language in the world. With a small dog and a tall man and…
There were tears gathering that were very close to falling, but they were happy tears.
Because it wasn’t just this centuries-old, tiny stone house that had come back to life, was it? And okay… maybe the price she would have to pay for this happiness was getting closer every day, but right here, right now, it still felt totally worth it.
She let her breath out in a sigh that felt like one of relief. Because it felt like she was turning a corner.
The photograph that Ellie loved the most wasn’t going to go in the brochure, but she was going to have it framed to go on her bedside table because it managed to encapsulate the most important aspects of what had changed her life so much. At first glance, it was simply a couple of sleepy donkeys under some olive trees and a small white dog with a floppy ear sitting at a respectful distance, watching them. For Ellie, however, there was so much more. She could see the exact spot she’d found Theo asleep that evening and the shape of Julien’s house in the background and… she could still hear the echo of Theo calling her Maman …
She would print a small copy of this particular photograph, and perhaps she could find a heart-shaped frame to enclose it.
There was another photograph that she wanted to keep for ever, as well, although she might not be brave enough to keep it on view in a frame. The one taken by the random tourist who’d been there when she and Julien had taken Margot out for the first time and had stopped to admire the view of Tourrettes-sur-Loup. It wasn’t the view of the pretty medieval village in the background that made the photo so precious, though. It was that, while she and Julien were both smiling so happily, neither of them had been looking at the photographer. They were looking at each other.
There was no time to allow herself to sink too far into how much she was leaving behind, however, and every reason to avoid even thinking about it. Distraction was, in fact, remarkably easy because there was so much to sort out. She had the practical details of her trip home to organise, using online maps to plan the long drive. Booking a ferry ticket. Finding out about and organising the requirements for vaccinations and a pet passport for Pascal.
It had been a small reprieve when Laura had passed on information from Noah that, even if they had an offer the first day La Maisonette got put on the market, it could be months before the property would actually change hands due the extensive paperwork and legal requirements for buying and selling property in France. Ellie would have time to think about how to make sure Marguerite and Coquelicot would not get separated and that they could find a home where they would be safe. And loved. Perhaps Julien wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on them for a little while. He’d done it for months, after all, without anyone asking. She would write him a note and leave it in his letter box.
Her last day was rapidly approaching. The date that had been highlighted in her calendar ever since she’d decided how long she would stay.
Till the last summer market.
Next Tuesday evening.
Hurriedly, Ellie found something else to think about. She still needed to find a way to ship her red bicycle home. And, if space on a truck was going to be booked, she might as well take some other things she loved so that she could give her new home, well… a touch of France.
The rag rug was first on the list but there were other things, too. Like the half-glazed pots and the beautiful antique lace bedcovers. That huge mirror from her bedroom with its ornate brass frame, and even the rusty, old Moroccan candle holders from the terrace. She loved the bed itself, but that might be an unwise choice. How could she ever sleep in it without being reminded of every time she and Julien had made love?
Oh, help …
She might have been very close to happy tears only minutes ago, but the heartache was there, wasn’t it? Hovering, like the menacing storm clouds had been on that fateful day of the accident that had torn everything apart with far more harshness than she was ready to deal with. Keeping so busy was saving Ellie from the storm breaking, but a few spots from the approaching clouds broke through occasionally.
… go home, Ellie… We don’t need you…