Chapter 23
23
The gargouille in Saint-Martin-Vésubie looked exactly as it had when Theo had first played in it two weeks or so ago.
Miraculously, Theo also looked almost exactly as he had then. Before the accident. Before the surgery and his thankfully swift recovery.
Before the shocking revelation that Julien was not his father.
The days since then had tumbled past, with even the shifts from day to night sometimes blurred beyond recognition. Julien had barely had time to visit his home in Tourrettes-sur-Loup between commitments to his practice in Vence, his rosters and on-call work in the hospital in Nice, and the travel each day to and from Roquebillière so that he could spend every possible moment with Theo.
With his son.
The realisation had come gradually from the mists of the shock and grief and… fear, even. But it had come.
Thanks to the words that Ellie had said that dreadful night. That he was the only father Theo had ever known. That, as far as Julien was concerned, he’d been his son since the moment he’d held him in his arms, and that bond would never be broken. One day he’d have to tell Theo the truth about the accident that had killed his mother. It might be possible to discover whether the man she’d been leaving with was Theo’s biological father, but perhaps his son would feel the same way as Julien did – that biology was irrelevant compared to their bond.
That Ellie had spoken the truth when she said that love was the only thing that really matters.
He could hear an echo of her voice.
‘ Of course he’s your son…’
He could remember the way that a soft emotion had made the golden shade in her hazel eyes more obvious, as if empathy – or possibly love – was doing the impossible and melting something internal.
But maybe anatomical melting wasn’t impossible after all, because Julien could feel it happening inside himself as he remembered how much Ellie understood.
How much she cared.
He’d barely seen her since that night. He’d gone to tell her that Theo was well enough to be discharged, and he’d been about to go again recently but there had been a car parked in the road with the signage of a well-known estate agency based in St Paul de Vence and he knew that Ellie would be too busy to talk to him. It was also a reminder that the house was about to go on the market and that Ellie would return to Scotland and he would probably never see her again.
They’d both known that this affaire was temporary. Maybe it had ended with a jarring finality rather than a fond farewell, and Ellie certainly deserved so much better than that, but the truth was that it had always been going to end.
He hadn’t needed that unforgettable moment of fear when he’d lost control of his car and thought his son was about to die to remind him that Theo was everything to him. That this precious child was the sun that his world revolved around. That it was his responsibility to protect him from harm, both physical and emotional, and that he’d let his guard down by letting Theo spend time with Ellie. Who wouldn’t fall in love with Eleanor Gilchrist when they did that?
He could, at least, take comfort from the knowledge that Theo hadn’t become so close to her that, when she left, he might feel as if he were losing his mother for a second time. But it had been a close call.
When they’d arrived in the village, Theo had looked around as soon as he’d climbed out of his car seat – without any noticeable discomfort for the first time since his surgery.
‘ Où est Ellie ? Est-elle déjà là ?’
No, Julien had told him. Ellie wasn’t already here. She wasn’t going to be here, either, because she was very busy getting ready to sell her house, and soon she would go back to live in Scotland, which was another country a long way away.
Theo simply accepted the information. Julien watched him crouch to dip his finger in the running water. He didn’t seem upset that he wasn’t going to see Ellie again.
But Julien was going to miss her.
Too much.
The sun would have gone out if he’d lost Theo in that accident, but it was also going to shine a lot less brightly when Ellie was no longer a part of his life.
After the disaster of his marriage, Julien been determined to never fall in love again. Or care about a woman so much it would hurt to lose them.
But losing Ellie was going to hurt. And the only comfort he could take from that was that he’d never told her that he loved her. He’d never offered up his heart, and perhaps that had helped to shield Ellie from what might have been a more intense pain.
It made it so much worse that it was ending badly, however. As Theo stood up and waggled his wet fingers at his papa with a smile that went straight into his heart, Julien remembered the look on Ellie’s face when she’d asked to go to the hospital with them.
How could he have ignored the anguish he’d seen in her eyes? She’d been as afraid as he was that Theo wasn’t going to survive, and she was hurting for him as well as Theo. She knew, better than anyone, what that pain could be like and yet she’d let them both into her life. She’d let Theo hold her hand that day, and how hard must that have been?
As hard as when she’d heard him call her Maman ?
He hadn’t had the emotional bandwidth, or possibly courage, in that moment to let her close enough to offer her comfort. It would be nice to find a way to make up for that. To think of something that might make this ending a little easier for both of them.
It was when they were nearing the bend in the main street that would take them towards the church that Julien spotted the sign for the gallery where that painting had been on display – the painting that Ellie loved so much – and he suddenly knew exactly how he could try and make up for letting Ellie suffer alone since the accident. For keeping himself so distant, thinking that he was protecting his family by focusing on them so completely.
To thank her for what she’d taught him. Because love was what really mattered, and the biological bond of family was not necessarily what made a particular relationship or love more significant. Or life-changing.
But when they reached the gallery the painting was no longer in the window.
Had it already been sold? Julien’s heart sank like a stone. It might be only minutes since he’d thought of the perfect way he could show Ellie how much he cared without making their parting even harder, but this felt like a failure that would haunt him for ever.
Theo was tired now and was looking too pale. Julien picked his son up to carry him back up the hill and take him home.
There was nothing more he could do.
He’d left it too late.
Time had almost run out.
There was only one more day to take care of important tasks, like the appointment Ellie had with Christophe – the vet who’d looked after Pascal after she’d run him over with her bicycle – to have her little dog microchipped and vaccinated and to obtain his health certificate and pet passport.
She could go to the last summer market tomorrow evening and then have time for any final touches to leave the house looking picture-perfect. The sign had gone up on the roadside just today and the digital marketing campaign would go live tomorrow. Noah had a set of the keys and would take care of showing prospective buyers through – something that Ellie was more than happy not to have to be there for.
Mike and his mechanic friend Gary were coming to give Margot the once-over and a new MOT to make sure she was ready for the grand adventure of a three-day trip to her new home in Scotland. Ellie had meticulously planned her route and would drive down to the coast near Nice and then bypass Marseille to head inland to Lyon and Dijon and Reims. They would take the ferry from Calais to Dover, bypass London and keep heading north.
Heading home.
By the time they got to Oban the distance between Ellie and the south of France would feel like a whole world away.
So would the distance between herself and Julien, and perhaps that was when this separation would start to feel easier.
Ellie’s phone rang as she was sitting out on her terrace watching one of the last sunsets she was going to see here. Laura’s face filled the screen as she answered, but the expression on her sister’s face was one that she had never seen before.
‘You’re not going to believe this, Ellie.’
‘What?’ she asked. She was still trying to interpret Laura’s odd expression. ‘What’s wrong? Oh, my God… is it Mam?’
‘No… No… there’s nothing wrong at all.’ Laura was smiling now. Grinning, even, which was so unusual it was almost scary. ‘It’s the most amazing news ever?—’
‘Tell me,’ Ellie demanded.
‘It’s sold. The house is sold.’
‘But…’ Ellie could feel a shock wave rippling through her entire body. ‘It can’t have. It’s not even on the market till tomorrow.’
‘Well, it has. I’ve just had Noah on the phone. Somebody saw the sign and just went into the agency and offered the asking price even though we set it so much higher than we expected to get. The paperwork’s all underway.’
Laura’s excited words were tumbling out so fast they sounded like verbal static to Ellie. Her brain was refusing to make sense of any of this.
‘I’ve signed the initial paperwork digitally on behalf of all sellers, like we agreed I could,’ Laura continued, ‘and now there’s a legal check and drawing up a Compromis de Vente , which is the contract, but Noah says he doesn’t think there’ll be any hold-ups at all. It might take a couple of months to sort the final notarised deed and pay the notary costs and agency commission fees and hand over the keys to the new owner, but I can’t believe how easy it was. They’ve even said we can keep whatever we want from the house. It’s done, Ellie… It’s over…’
Her final words slowed down and it felt like every one of them was a physical blow.
Ellie tried to sound as pleased as Laura was about the outcome but, as soon as her sister ended the call so that she could share the exciting news with the rest of the family, she burst into tears.
It really was over.