Chapter 5
5
Connie
I’d forgotten how much I loved driving in France. It didn’t take me long to get used to being on the other side of the road, and I got a thrill from swishing down the slip road, sliding confidently between a lorry and a sleek white Mercedes as I joined the autoroute. I set my cruise control and switched my radio to a French station, to try and get my ear back in. I was pretty fluent, with Mum being French, and we spent most of our holidays here, but it had been a long time since I’d spoken the language, so I tried to re-attune myself as the presenters gabbled away.
It was a gorgeous sunny autumn day, the sun drenching everything in a Calvados gold, and I felt uplifted. So much so that when Daniel phoned, I felt ready. Until now, I had felt sick whenever I saw his name on my screen, still unable to come to terms with his betrayal, with the unfairness of the situation, struggling to believe that he could swan off leaving me in the lurch.
‘Daniel!’ I sang out his name as I answered his call.
‘Connie?’ He sounded confused and I smiled to myself. ‘Where are you? I got a foreign ring.’
‘I’m in France.’
‘What? Why?’ His outrage was comical.
‘I’m heading to the chateau for a while.’
‘But you’re supposed to be getting the house ready. The agent’s coming round to do the photos. It needs to look tip top if we’re going to get the asking price.’
The price was very ambitious. Daniel would be rubbing his hands together at the thought of all that money.
‘Ah. Yes. About that.’ I was ready to fight my corner. ‘I’m actually taking some advice about the split. I’m not sure fifty-fifty is fair.’
‘How can you be fairer than fifty-fifty?’
‘There’s a few things to take into account.’
‘Like what?’
I felt my courage surging back. I had taken everything lying down until now. I’d been so shocked by what Daniel had done, I’d had no fighting spirit, so when he proposed that we sell the house and split the profit down the middle, I’d agreed. We weren’t married, the kids were independent, so it was seemingly straightforward.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘the money we used for the deposit, for a start. That was money my parents gave me. So I think I should have that back before we divide the rest.’
It was my father who pointed it out. He and Mum had sold the house in Barles when Dad retired ten years ago, and split the proceeds between me and my brother. They figured we needed the money more than they needed a house in France and although it was sad to see it go, as it had been such a big part of our childhood, Archie and I were incredibly grateful.
‘That money was for you ,’ Dad told me. ‘And your mum would want you to have it. She’d be spinning in her grave if she thought Daniel was going to get his mitts on half.’
It was why he’d given me Simon Lewin’s number, to get his advice, but I still hadn’t phoned him. I’d let things drift, taking to my bed and letting Daniel take advantage of me. But no longer.
Daniel didn’t reply at first. I could imagine him turning everything over in his mind, working out how he could manipulate me. How was he going to play it? His voice oozed down the line. Soft and persuasive. The voice I’d always kowtowed to in the past.
‘Oh, Connie. Babe. I can see why you might feel like that. But we put equal amounts of time and money into the house over the years when you think about it. And you haven’t been bringing much in since you lost your job. You didn’t hear me complaining, did you? Let’s not nit-pick. Fifty-fifty is definitely the cleanest way out of this.’
He’d got me right in my Achilles heel. I’d been acutely aware that my income had dropped once the magazine shut. But I’d done my best to get freelance work and what I’d done on the garden had increased the value of the house massively. I wasn’t going to fall for his manipulation.
‘Two things,’ I said, my voice as crisp as a Granny Smith apple. ‘Don’t call me Babe . And actually, we didn’t put in equal amounts. I’ve got a spreadsheet. I’ll send it over.’
If working on a magazine taught me anything, it was to keep a record of everything you spent. My career had run on spreadsheets, and I’d taken the habit over into my personal life, unlike Daniel, who hated putting anything in writing. He hated being accountable. He lived by the seat of his pants, ducking and diving. It had been one of the things that attracted me to him, because it had seemed glamorous, his quicksilver way of gliding through life, ignoring the small print. But in fact, it was just irresponsible.
He sighed. ‘Please don’t be difficult.’
‘I’m not being difficult. It’s the situation that’s difficult. And that’s down to you, Daniel.’
‘These things happen.’
That had been his only excuse, when he’d told me he was leaving me for Andrea. These things happen. Of course they did, if you let them. He’d had a choice. He could have seen I was floundering, that I wasn’t myself. But he’d taken the glittery option.
I remembered that famous Mrs Merton line and adapted it: What was it that attracted you to millionairess Andrea Prince? Andrea had done very well out of her divorce and had a small chain of boutiques selling the kind of clothes women wore to Ladies’ Day at Ascot: blingy, expensive, revealing. She wore her money and success very obviously.
She must have been attracted to what I’d fallen for in Daniel. His good looks. His charm. His sense of fun. And he was ten years younger than her, the perfect piece of arm candy at all the charity balls and grand openings she went to. I wondered how long it would take her to figure out he was a bit of a narcissist.
If that makes him sound like a monster, he wasn’t, not really. He just very much liked his own way, and because I’m a massive people pleaser, I let him have it. By and large, the things he wanted his way on weren’t unreasonable – where we went on holiday, or what car we bought, or who we invited for dinner – so I let him get away with it for an easy life. And to be fair to him, he let me do whatever I wanted as long as it didn’t conflict with his plans. He liked having a successful partner who ran a magazine everyone had heard of. It impressed people, and that was one of Daniel’s obsessions.
We’d given each other a long rein in our relationship, and it had worked very well.
Until it hadn’t.
‘I’ve spoken to a lawyer,’ I said, remembering Dad’s email. ‘So we can go down that route if you want.’
I knew this would make him panic. He hated lawyers. He said they were the biggest crooks of all.
‘Shit, Connie. No. We don’t need lawyers. It’s all very straightforward. That’s the beauty of us not being married.’
‘The beauty ? Did you really say that?’ I sighed. I guess that’s why he’d never wanted to head up the aisle with me: so he could slither away quickly and easily. He said it was because his parents were so unhappy, and that he would feel under pressure, and I’d swallowed it, not feeling strongly enough about it to fight for the security of a wedding ring. I told myself getting married was just a piece of paper and a very expensive day.
‘Only one person wins when there’s lawyers involved. You know that.’
‘Well, it’s up to you. If you agree I can have my money out first, we don’t have to go down that road.’
‘That’s blackmail.’
‘No, Daniel. It’s only fair and you know it.’ I couldn’t believe how assertive I was being. It was pretty thrilling.
He sighed. ‘I don’t know what to say. I really don’t.’
I couldn’t resist one little dig. ‘What do you think Andrea would do in my situation?’
‘Don’t bring Andrea into it,’ he snapped. ‘It’s nothing to do with her.’
He was right. I shouldn’t have mentioned her because I didn’t want her to put her energy into finding a way for Daniel to get one over on me. I knew the kind of woman she was. I’d googled her and seen her taking centre stage at countless social gatherings, pristine, not a hair out of place. Her husband looked very jolly and smiley and I wondered what had gone wrong between them.
‘Anyway,’ Daniel was saying. ‘What about the house? However we divide it, we’ve got to get it on the market and it’s a tip. I thought the kids were supposed to clear up their rooms?’
‘They did. They put all the stuff they didn’t want on Vinted. Edie made a fortune.’
‘We can’t show anyone around, the state it’s in. When are you back?’
‘I dunno.’ I was enjoying being deliberately vague. ‘Piers and Lismay are away until Christmas.’
‘Christmas! You can’t just swan off till Christmas!’
‘Daniel, I can do exactly what I like. Feel free to sort it out yourself. It’s not difficult.’
He wouldn’t be able to get it to look like I would. I’d make it irresistible to anyone who walked over the threshold. After all, that had been my job. Achieving magazine perfection. I had all the tricks of the trade at my fingertips and I doubted he had paid any attention to any of it, all the years he was with me. He wouldn’t have a clue about the right light bulbs to get for the softest, warmest glow, or the best diffuser to give off a welcoming scent.
‘In the meantime,’ I said, ‘I’ll get Simon to drop you a line.’
‘Simon?’
‘My lawyer.’ I was bluffing. He wasn’t my lawyer. Not yet. But I was going to get off at the next Aire and put in a call to him. Daniel was not a man of his word, I realised. He had no honour or integrity, not really. So I had to protect myself.
It was funny, I thought as I pulled off at the service station, how calm I felt. It had taken me a while to get to this point, but if I needed looking after, I was the best person for the job. I was smart and capable and I could trust myself. I had my own back and for the first time in months, I felt as if I had a future as I dialled Simon Lewin’s number.
Early that evening, I arrived at the hotel I’d pre-booked. I felt as if I could keep driving for ever but I knew it was important to get a good night’s rest as there was still quite a bit to go before I reached Barles. It was only a cheap hotel on the outskirts of Dijon, ultra-modern with modular seating and huge fake palms and neon signs saying, ‘ Dijon or Miami? ’, but it was clean and the bed was comfy. As soon as I flopped onto it I wanted to close my eyes and sleep, but just as I was drifting off, my phone rang. I was delighted to see it was Fiona – I’d sent her a text earlier so she had my number.
‘Hey!’ I answered, with pleasure in my voice.
‘I just wanted to see how you are.’
‘I’m good. I’m in Dijon. I just got here. How about you?’
‘I’m in Lille. I got a bit of buying done this afternoon and I’m about to go out to dinner.’
‘I can’t face going out. I want to crash so I can get up early.’
‘You sound much better, though. Much brighter. I was worried about you.’
‘You know, I think it was meeting you. You flipped a switch in my brain. Made me realise I had to take control.’
‘Good.’ She laughed. ‘Sometimes you need a kick up the arse.’
‘Oh my God. Tell me about it. I was wallowing. Feeling sorry for myself. Is there anything less attractive?’
‘Don’t beat yourself up. You have to reach rock bottom before you climb back up.’
‘I know.’ I sighed. ‘I’m worried this is a temporary high, and I’m running away from my problems rather than tackling them.’
‘I don’t think so at all,’ Fiona said. ‘Listen, I hope this doesn’t sound weird. Or stalky. But I was thinking about checking in to your godmother’s chateau for a couple of nights.’
I was thrilled. ‘I’d love that. I’m going to be pretty flat out but I can take an afternoon off.’
‘I’m not expecting you to drop everything. I’ll be quite happy. I want to go to L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. It’s been on my bucket list for a while so you’ve given me the perfect opportunity to tick it off.’
L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue was a little town stuffed with antique shops not far away from the chateau. Me and Mum and Lismay always used to go there. ‘Oh my God, you’ll love it.’
‘I know I will.’
‘Let me know when you’re coming and I’ll get you the nicest room.’
‘I’ll see how I get on over the next couple of days. I’ll text you.’
‘Great.’
I hung up, touched by the fact that she was interested enough in me to pursue a friendship. At the time of meeting her, I hadn’t felt worthy of anyone’s interest. It gave me a warm glow. I felt valued for the first time in months. I’d been avoiding all my old London friends, because it meant telling them about Daniel, and I’d been keeping the new friends I’d made in Cheltenham when we moved there very much at arm’s length, because the last thing I wanted was to be the source of local gossip. It was actually great, to have someone to talk things over with who wasn’t involved, who didn’t know me and Daniel, who could be objective. I really hoped she’d make it down to Provence. OK, I barely knew her, but we’d definitely had an instant connection. That can happen with women as well as with men. You feel a little ‘ping’ and you know you’re going to be friends for life.
It was Mum who’d told me about the ‘ping’. She’d felt it when she met Lismay.
‘I knew we were going to be like this, the second I saw her,’ Mum told me, holding up crossed fingers.
They met on their first day at secretarial college in Oxford. Lismay was willowy and blond and graceful; Mum was petite, with a sharp Vidal Sassoon bob and a pale face. One was quintessentially English; the other had a certain je ne sais quoi , being French.
They’d shared a flat and endless pairs of laddered tights and lipstick. In between thumping out ‘ a s d f j k l ; ’ on clunky old typewriters, they had a dream life, mucking about on the banks of the river, dancing until dawn, and they were catnip to the clever boys at the university. Unlike the female students, they had time, for they didn’t have to study, and they didn’t have to spend their lives trying to prove their intellect or that they were as good as their peers despite their sex, so they were easy, fun company.
My mother’s party trick was making oeufs à la neige in their little kitchen. She served up clouds of quivering meringue floating in creamy yellow custard on mismatched saucers, and the boys thought they had died and gone to heaven, for they were used to stodgy suet and dry sponge and pastry like battlements.
And then Mum met my dad Dougie when she typed out his dissertation. She’d put up adverts in all the Junior Common Rooms and made a fortune, typing late into the night and learning everything she needed to know about John Milton and literature being the mirror of society. They were together from the day he handed over two crumpled pound notes in payment and asked her out for a drink. Together until the day she died, when he sat next to her bed in the hospice, holding her hand and reading to her from Jean de Florette , never quite sure if she felt taunted by the descriptions of her native Provence or comforted by them. She insisted the latter.
Oh God. I recognised the signs. The tightening of my throat. The onset of the tsunami of tears that still hit me from time to time. I knew she was gone, for good, but sometimes the realisation that I was never going to hear her voice again was too much. That we would never go and try clothes on together at Harvey Nichols in the Boxing Day sale, or sit in the kitchen eating Pringles, or sing along to Bryan Ferry in the car. I thought about downing a gin from the mini bar, but drowning my sorrows only made me feel worse the next day. Instead, I grabbed my laptop from my bag and joined the hotel Wi-Fi to distract myself. I typed One Night at the Chateau into the search engine. I wanted to check out what I was letting myself in for.
It wasn’t long before I started to have serious misgivings. Their website was terrible. Old-fashioned and not very enticing, just badly laid-out pages that would be impossible to navigate on a mobile phone, and a clunky booking system. They obviously hadn’t updated it for a long time.
And then I started to look at the reviews. My heart sank as I began to read a litany of complaints from disappointed guests.
‘This might have been great in its heyday but it’s very rundown. And bloody freezing.’
‘Terrible. We’d booked three nights but we left after two.’
‘Very disappointing. Awful food. Don’t bother.’
I scrolled back to see if I could detect the decline. Everyone had always raved about the Chateau Villette. It seemed to have started a couple of years ago, their ratings plummeting from a solid five stars to four, then three, and now their average was two. There were complaints about the cleanliness, the service, the food. I was mortified for Lismay and Piers. What on earth had happened to bring about this decline? They had always prided themselves on their hospitality.
‘Run by a doddery old couple who haven’t a clue. It makes Fawlty Towers look like the Ritz. They should sell up and let someone else take over. Stunning setting but what a travesty. One Night at the Shiteau more like.’
Oh Lismay, I thought, and felt overwhelmed with guilt. I’d neglected her since Mum died, because she reminded me too much of her. How disloyal of me, after what a brilliant godmother she’d been. From taking me to the ballet at Covent Garden when I was tiny, to the time she’d bought me perfume in Paris, she’d been exemplary, giving me guidance and inspiration and wonderful presents. I still had most of them, for they were presents to treasure and keep.
And she’d changed my life that summer, when I was twenty-three, after a disastrous two years in telesales after leaving university. I’d made a lot of money but I’d hated it: it was so competitive and shallow with draconian targets and punishing hours followed by heavy drinking in grim bars. It was soul-destroying, so I left in search of something more meaningful. Lismay suggested I spend the summer at the Chateau Villette while I thought about what I wanted to do. I had three golden months there, finessing my cooking, even though I was already pretty good. I’d learned from Mum – I could make pancakes from scratch by myself at the age of four – but Lismay also taught me how to be a gracious host and how to manage staff and guests. She was a wonderful teacher: patient and generous and instinctive. She knew what I was capable of and pushed me. I had come home knowing what I wanted from life and it was all down to Lismay. And Piers of course. He taught me how to open a bottle with a Bilame corkscrew and how to tell straight away if the wine was corked.
And how had I repaid her? By freezing her out, telling myself it was impossible to keep up with her when I was running a business and a family and restoring a house. She was too far away.
Was this going to be my chance to make amends?
I felt angry, reading the disgruntled comments left by visitors. Angry with them for not looking under the surface and seeing how wonderful Piers and Lismay were, how their casual, relaxed glamour was something to aspire to. But maybe they couldn’t pull it off anymore? I calculated that Lismay was seventy-five. Piers a little older. Maybe it was all too much? Had they lost their touch? It seemed so.
I could turn it around. I knew I could. It was my duty. I was glad for the opportunity to make up for my neglect of the person who had meant so much to me. What kind of a monster had I turned into? So self-absorbed and uncaring. That was not how Mum had brought me up. I felt thoroughly ashamed of myself and what I had become. I wasn’t going to hide behind excuses. I was going to hold myself accountable. Dig deep and find my integrity and my loyalty.
I hoped it wasn’t too late. I didn’t think so, for Lismay, despite my neglect, had known she could reach out. She had believed in me enough to know I would come to her rescue. She’d had faith in me.
I grabbed a notebook and began to make a plan. This was what I was good at. Troubleshooting. Spinning straw into gold. This project would play to all my strengths. Organisation. Innovation. Inspiration. Feeling a surge of energy I hadn’t felt since leaving The Heart of the Home , I made lists of people who owed me favours: photographers, web designers, influencers. I was determined that by the time I left, A Night at the Chateau would be restored to its former glory. I was going to put it back on the map.