Chapter 16
I’d woken at five a.m. the next morning, ready for my lesson with Antoine. Just so I wasn’t ‘late’. And today, we’d gone into the water. I’d been so excited about the fact I’d stood up on my first go (and every time after) that I told Antoine I’d see him at my sister’s lesson.
It wasn’t until I got back to the caravan, exhausted and happy, that I realized. I had my date with Felix in Saint-Jean-de-Luz.
‘Margot, Margot! Did you go into the water today?’ Rue asked as soon as she spotted me. She was sitting at the table outside, eating breakfast in her pyjamas.
I nodded. ‘I did. And I stood up. First time.’ I held up a finger.
‘Awesome. Do you think I could stand up?’ Rue asked.
‘You’ll have to do what Antoine tells you. And it might be that you stay lying down for a few more days, but he’ll show you what’s safe,’ I said.
‘But you could just ask him?’ She didn’t miss a beat.
I took a deep breath and looked at Mum and Dad. ‘Mum, Dad, would you mind being there for their surf lesson today? I made plans with Felix and I completely forgot. Sorry.’
‘You’re not coming?’ Rue shouted before Mum and Dad could answer.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t. Not today.’
‘That’s fine, love,’ Mum said. ‘It’s your holiday too, you should enjoy yourself. Where are you going?’ Mum and Dad seemed to have chilled out here. And I don’t know if Mum had spoken to Dad, but even he had been giving me a break. A serious contrast to the way we got on at home.
‘Saint-Jean-de-Luz,’ I said.
‘With your boyfriend,’ said Rue, who was in a major mood now.
‘Yes, Felix happens to be a boy. So, their lesson is at ten but you need to be there for half nine,’ I said.
Rue went inside and tried to slam the door shut but hadn’t pushed it hard enough, so it swung open on its hinges, ruining the effect of her sulk.
I walked in after her and knocked gently on her open bedroom door, and found her lying on her bed.
‘You OK?’ I asked.
‘I’m not talking to you,’ she said.
‘Why not?’
‘You promised to spend time with us this holiday,’ she said sulkily.
‘I am. And I have been. Didn’t I set you up with the lessons in the first place?’ I asked. ‘And haven’t I been to them so far?’ I risked sitting on the edge of her bed, aware that her foot was in kicking distance of me.
‘Yes, but I was going to show you how good I was today,’ Rue said, and my heart sank at how sad she sounded.
‘But listen, think how much more special it will be when you’ve been practising without me and then I see all the improvement?’ I offered, and she sat up like she was considering it.
‘You’ll come tomorrow?’
‘I promise,’ I replied.
‘You better,’ she said, narrowing her eyes, then she launched herself at me for a hug, and I let myself breathe in the smell of her curls. Strawberry. That kid shampoo that transported me back to childhood.
‘Ugh, you smell like the sea,’ she said and wrenched herself away.
‘You will too soon.’ I stuck out my tongue and went to have a shower and get ready to see Felix again.
I took my time, planning my outfit. Denim shorts, strappy white top, grey cardigan.
I liked how the grey looked with my blonde hair and blue eyes.
I played some cards with Wren and Rue, who had almost forgiven me until I beat her at Jack Change It, then was angry at me all over again.
And soon it was time for the girls to go for their lesson.
I waved them off, ate a leftover breakfast croissant, and looked in the mirror again before I walked towards the Brasserie.
When I got there, he was already waiting for me, sitting at the edge of the restaurant, scanning the pathway that led to my mobile home.
‘Margot.’ He stood up to take me in. ‘You look très jolie,’ he said before kissing both of my cheeks.
‘Thank you. You too,’ I replied, thinking that jolie was the perfect word for him.
He was pretty. His cheekbones sat high on his face and his jawline was defined without being too prominent.
And his hair! The fair waves had the kind of shine that I’d been coveting for years.
He was wearing loose denim jeans that were ripped at the knees and a khaki T-shirt that made his skin look even more tanned than it was.
‘Come on!’
We walked to the Vespa where he handed me a helmet, put on his, then took my hand and pulled me on behind him.
I knotted my fingers round him and felt the warm, hard muscle of his chest again as we drove through the French countryside, vineyards blurring as we passed and the sun blazing on our skin.
He drove us through a town then stopped beside a harbour. I took off my helmet and smelled fish in the air as multicoloured boats bobbed up and down in the port.
‘We are here!’ Felix said.
I walked across cobblestones to look at the town. The white buildings with coloured shutters against the impossibly blue sky looked like something from a movie.
‘It’s beautiful here,’ I said.
‘You are beautiful here,’ Felix said smoothly. ‘But you are beautiful everywhere.’
I laughed and took the hand he offered to me and threaded my fingers through his.
‘Do you mind if we go to the market before we go for lunch? I need to speak to my mother for a moment.’ Felix looked at me as if he really was asking for my permission, that if I said I was too hungry, he’d just abandon the market altogether.
‘Of course,’ I said, trying to hide the fact that nervous butterflies were attacking each other in my stomach.
The market was in a building that looked kind of like a barn. A barn that was packed with tables and colours and so many people. And the noise! French voices everywhere. I let Felix lead me through the crowd.
‘Felix, kaixo!’ someone shouted, and Felix pulled me towards a stall that was selling cheese. There were huge wheels of cheese everywhere and a man who looked around eighty smiled at Felix.
Felix talked away to him and, still holding on to his hand, I gazed around the market, completely mesmerized by this other world. When Felix tugged me gently, we walked away.
‘Kaisho, what’s that?’ I asked loudly, to be heard over the hum.
‘Kaixo. It means hello in the Basque language. Sometimes you will see it on signposts, and some of the older generation still speak it. But I only know a few words,’ Felix explained.
‘Wow,’ I said. This world, it was so different from mine. I was so utterly intoxicated by this place, by this boy.
‘Here we are,’ Felix said, and led me to a stall with towers of home-made soap, decorated with dried flowers, and little baskets. It smelled like heaven and I breathed it in, trying to calm the feeling of impending doom of meeting Felix’s mum.
‘Felix!’ A woman came round from behind the table and kissed Felix on both cheeks. She was small, thin and elegant. She had dark hair and was wearing an apron over a cream blouse.
‘Maman, c’est Margot,’ Felix said, grinning, and his mum looked at me with deep blue eyes that sparkled in the rays of sun that cut through the gaps in the wooden roof. And just like it was with Felix, I felt immediately accepted, safe.
‘Margot. Enchantée.’ Felix’s mother came towards me and kissed both my cheeks. She even smelled like soap.
‘Enchantée,’ I replied awkwardly. She looked at me the way her son did sometimes, like she didn’t want to miss something. She smiled. ‘Si, si belle. You are very, very beautiful,’ she translated.
‘Thank you,’ I said, pushing hair behind my ear.
Felix started talking to her in French and I looked at the stall, running my fingers along the towers of soap, picking some up to smell.
‘Lavande.’ A girl’s voice.
I looked up to see a teenage girl in an apron behind the stall. ‘It is the favourite of Marie. I think she will give you some. She has a good instinct for the girls who are with her boys,’ the girl said.
I put the soap back and looked at Felix, a bit confused, but he was still deep in conversation with his mum, so I turned back to the girl.
And I just couldn’t help myself. ‘Are there a lot of girls with Felix?’ I asked her.
‘With Felix? Non,’ she said, making a Jenga tower of soap. ‘But –’
‘Margot, you are ready?’ Felix called over to me.
I walked away, bemused, but figured it was just something that got lost in translation.
‘For you,’ Felix’s mum said. She handed me a brown bag filled with soap. I lifted it to my nose and breathed it in. ‘Lavande,’ she said.
‘Merci beaucoup,’ I said. Yet it felt tainted after what the girl had just said. Delphine’s remarks about tourists flooded my mind too. But I smiled gratefully.
We walked away and I followed Felix out into the blazing sun.
‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘Maman, she likes to give soap to people.’ He shrugged and looked embarrassed.
‘I love it,’ I said simply, and he smiled with such relief that I leaned forward and kissed him right there, outside the market, and the moment was so nice that I decided to shove the ‘other girls’ out of my head.
‘Can we eat now?’ I asked.
‘Bien s?r!’