Chapter 25
25
Connie
November marched on and the colour leached from the sky, but not my life. If anything, it burned brighter. We didn’t speak of the change on the horizon. With Christmas on its way, goodbye was around the corner. It might be au revoir rather than adieu , but it loomed. The next weekend Fiona and Edie were coming out to stay, and Rémy was going to Biarritz to see Mimi. As I set off for the airport, he kissed me goodbye just as Lilou rode up on her moped. She walked straight past us without saying anything.
‘She doesn’t approve of me,’ said Rémy, and he seemed genuinely hurt. He wasn’t used to disapproval. I hugged him tight, hoping that would compensate.
‘See you Tuesday.’
‘Four days without you,’ he complained.
‘We need to get used to being apart,’ I reminded him.
He ran his hand through his hair, looking perturbed, but he nodded. He seemed unsettled, but perhaps it was the prospect of seeing Camille. I knew she could be tricky, and Rémy liked a quiet life.
At the airport, Edie and Fiona had found each other and tumbled out of the arrivals gate in a cloud of duty-free perfume and laughter. We had one day before the guests arrived but I wanted to spend some one-to-one time with my daughter, to really check in with how she was getting on and how she felt.
After supper in the kitchen, when Fiona had gone to bed, we curled up on the sofa in the salon .
‘Can I tell you something?’ Edie asked.
I looked at her warily. She was only pint-size, with a heart-shaped face and big blue eyes, but anyone who was fooled into regarding her as a pushover had another think coming. Edie could be very direct. Very uncompromising.
‘Of course.’
‘Me and Harry. We’re cool with you and Dad being apart, you know that, right?’
‘Oh.’ I managed a smile. ‘Thank you.’
‘It’s not like we’re little kids anymore.’
‘I know.’
Edie fiddled with the tassels on the edge of the cushion.
‘My happiest friends are the ones whose parents are separated but still get on. The worst is when parents try to stay together and it’s knives out.’ She mimed stabbing.
I’d seen that amongst some of my own friends. The desperate dance of the disenchanted, when all good intentions go out of the window.
I sighed. ‘Do any of your friends have parents who’ve been together forever and still love each other?’
Edie gave my question some thought. ‘Of course. But it is totally normal for parents to split up, you know. So I don’t want you to worry.’
I wanted to cry. I loved her for her candour, but it made me so sad, that she didn’t necessarily see marriage as something that was built to last. How was this going to affect her, going forwards?
‘Mum? Are you OK?’
My thoughts were obviously written across my face, as usual. ‘Yes. I just feel sad that you think splitting up is almost inevitable. I don’t want you to feel like that. I want you to fall in love with someone forever.’
‘You’re such a romantic!’
‘Of course!’
‘I’m sure I will fall head over heels, one day. But I also know people change. Or want different things. The important thing is to figure out what you want without hurting the other person, right?’ She gave a matter-of-fact shrug. ‘Like, don’t be selfish.’
I reflected on her words and decided that, actually, maybe she was right. Perhaps expecting people to live together in wedded bliss for better or for worse was optimistic in this day and age. A good relationship was about managing expectations and communicating, and if that meant separating, then both sides should work hard to limit the damage. I should have talked to Daniel more about what I was feeling at the time.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Edie. ‘I didn’t mean to get so heavy.’
‘It’s good to talk. I’ve missed you.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Me too. It’s been weird, with you in France. Not that I minded,’ she added. ‘I’m not guilt-tripping you.’
I felt guilty anyway. I’d thought she was far too caught up in uni life to worry about me being so far away, but maybe she did miss me. I knew only too well the grounding presence of a maternal figure, how comforting it was to know you could see them if you wanted. I missed my own mother more than ever.
‘You should stay here forever.’ She was staring up at the ceiling. ‘It’s so beautiful.’
‘I would if I could,’ I told her.
‘You look way happier. You’ve got your sparkle back.’
I wondered if now was the moment to tell her about Rémy.
‘I’ve been seeing someone. Nothing too serious, because I’ll be leaving after Christmas. But he’s very nice.’
Edie’s eyes lit up. ‘Do I get to meet him?’
‘He’s seeing his daughter this weekend.’
‘Oh. What’s he like?’
‘Handsome. French. Kind. Funny. His family have the vineyard next door.’
She didn’t say anything for a moment. ‘You know Dad’s met someone, right?’
‘Yes. Andrea.’
She made a face. ‘He made me and Harry come back to tidy the house. And he took us all out to the Ivy. She is waaaay old.’ She waved her fingers. ‘And like, serious rocks.’
‘Dad made you tidy the house? He told me he got cleaners in.’
Edie scoffed. ‘He got someone in to clean the carpets. But me and Harry did the rest.’
Why did he have to be such a liar? Though he wouldn’t see it as lying.
‘Well, thank you.’ I felt bad they’d been dragged back to clean the family home we were selling. Perhaps I should have been there? But I couldn’t be in two places at once. And why was guilt my default setting, when Daniel was the transgressor?
‘Harry thinks Dad’s a bit of a twat,’ Edie was saying.
I wanted to laugh, but I also felt sad. I didn’t want Harry to think his dad was a twat, but at the same time I was glad he recognised his behaviour was not OK.
‘Dad has a lot of very good qualities,’ I told her.
Edie just looked at me. ‘It’s your time now,’ she told me, and my heart swelled with pride at how perceptive and caring she was. On the surface, she had Daniel’s energy and charm, but she was brimming with empathy.
I’d expected Lilou’s trademark hostility when they first met, but she melted within seconds as Edie bounded into the kitchen and hugged her, admiring her blue hair.
‘Can I use you as a model?’ she asked. I had charged Edie with filming as much as she could for the chateau’s Instagram over the weekend, and she’d set up a TikTok account too. The two of them began talking in a polyglot mixture of French and English – Edie was pretty good at French because of Mum, but rusty, and Lilou’s English was getting better from listening to me. They got by aided and abetted by a lot of gesticulation, and judging by the laughter nothing much was lost in translation.
The weekend was a glorious whirlwind. We were completely sold out and Fiona had organised a packed itinerary for the guests. She began each morning with a demonstration, then headed out in the minibus I’d hired for a frenzy of retail therapy, everyone arriving back in time for apéro and dinner armed with shopping bags and tales of what they’d discovered. On Saturday night, as Rémy was away, his father came over to do a wine-tasting in the salon . He was less extrovert than his son, less polished, but he was passionate about his wine and he soon had everyone under his spell.
In the kitchen, Edie was filming Delphine teaching Lilou how to make pears poached in eau de vie and chocolate sauce. They were the perfect contrast: Delphine in her linen apron, her face lined, her hands gnarled, and vibrant Lilou with her hair piled high and big hooped earrings, eager to learn.
The pears were placed reverentially on a white cake stand.
‘OK, now I want the sauce drizzled all over them from up high. With that big copper ladle.’ Edie stood at the end of the table, her phone on a tripod, her expert eye surveying the scene as she pressed record.
Everyone held their breath as Lilou stood on a chair, scooped the ladle into a pan of sauce and then let it drop all over the pears.
‘Perfect!’ declared Edie. ‘Who needs a food stylist?’
She put it up on TikTok with Gnossienes by Erik Satie as the soundtrack, playing it back in slow motion, each piano note matching each cascading droplet of molten chocolate.
‘You’re so good at this,’ Fiona told Edie.
She shrugged. ‘Everyone’s good at it. It’s super easy when you know how.’
I felt elated. There was a new energy in the chateau that hadn’t been there before. Piers and Lismay had masterminded something wonderful with One Night at the Chateau, but comfy sofas, delicious suppers and wine on tap weren’t enough these days. People wanted more. They wanted experiences. Not just to relax, but to be stimulated and inspired. With her creativity and generous spirit, Fiona had suffused the weekend with warmth and colour and fun. The profit margin this weekend had been much higher, as we’d been able to charge more. To be really successful, the chateau had to take things to the next level. Cookery weekends. Wine appreciation, of course. Art workshops. Writing retreats. My mind was working overtime but I had to tell myself to stop. In just under a month, I’d be gone. It would no longer be my responsibility.
I could advise Piers and Lismay, though. I could do them a business plan, and be on hand to advise them, as a kind of consultant. As god-daughter, it was the least I could do to help them out. The chateau business was competitive. I didn’t want them to be left behind.
On Tuesday, when the guests had gone and the day before Edie and Fiona were due to leave, Edie found a deep-red satin dress that Lismay had made for a fancy-dress party – she’d gone as Pauline Bonaparte, of course. It fitted Lilou like a glove.
‘Right,’ said Edie. ‘We’re going to use this to make some content. Pauline lives on at the Chateau Villette!’
Lilou needed no second telling. She loved being in front of the camera, dressing up and posing. Edie styled her, winding strings of pearls through her hair and putting on dramatic make-up – a pale face and dark red lipstick to match the dress. She looked extraordinary, as if she’d stepped out of the pages of a history book, yet incredibly modern too, one arm revealing a writhing snake tattoo.
She stood at the top of the curved staircase, one hand on the banister. Edie filmed her as she walked down, her head held high, a mysterious smile on her lips, her feet bare, the satin and lace swirling around her.
When Edie showed her the film afterwards, Lilou was amazed.
‘ C’est moi? C’est incroyable! ’ She couldn’t believe it was her.
It was the first time I’d seen Lilou really happy, really laughing. But that was Edie for you. She brought out the best in everyone.
After lunch, I rang Rémy, who was back from Biarritz.
‘Would you come and fix the fountain for me?’ I asked. He’d looked at it before he went away, and said it was just a question of replacing a piece of cracked pipe, a simple task that Piers had never got round to. ‘The girls want to use it as part of their shoot.’
‘Of course,’ he said, and I hoped I wasn’t being manipulative, luring him over on a pretext, but part of me longed for Edie to meet him, and I thought this was better than an official introduction. It was a strange feeling, and it would be even more strange for my daughter, I supposed, meeting her mum’s new boyfriend. Boyfriend? The word seemed wrong. I preferred lover. It was more romantic. More special. But obviously not a term I could bandy around! Partner? That seemed too official. Too permanent. And I suspected this wasn’t.
Rémy turned up with Vincent, and they clambered into the fountain, spent several minutes debating the best way to fix it, then set to repairing it. While we waited, Edie filmed Lilou standing on the balustrade in front of the door in a proprietorial pose, arms outstretched. With the last of the sun throwing itself over the stone facade, the red satin gleaming, and Lilou giving a look of wanton come-hitherness, I could see this on the front of a brochure. One Night at the Chateau had never seemed more inviting.
Afterwards, everyone stood around, watching, waiting, Lilou shivering slightly in her satin. I was about to suggest waiting inside when the fountain decided to burst back into life unexpectedly while the two men were still in it. Within seconds they were soaked to the skin as a plume of water shot skywards. Rémy gave a roar of outrage and jumped out, swiftly followed by Vincent. They stood there, drenched, roaring with laughter, and my heart beat faster at the sight of him, my own Mr Darcy, his sweatshirt and jeans clinging to him, his hair dripping.
Edie took one look at my expression.
‘Is that him?’ she demanded, grinning in delight.
I blushed. ‘Yes.’
‘Bloody hell, Mum. You’ve traded up.’
I punched her on the arm. ‘That’s a bit mean to Dad.’
‘Yeah, but … wow!’
She watched as Rémy pulled off his top, shaking out his hair, pushing it back out of his eyes. His torso was still tanned from the summer, and he still had the powerful build of a professional rugby player.
‘Towels!’ he shouted. ‘I need a towel!’
When the furore was over, Edie filmed Lilou walking around the fountain’s edge, arms outstretched, with the chateau as a backdrop. The light was starting to fade and the lamps were glowing from inside. Lilou was a natural, playing up to the camera, pirouetting and pouting as if she was born to the catwalk.
‘This is pure magic!’ said Edie, ‘This is going to go viral.’
She was right.
That evening, Edie and Lilou cooked us dinner in the kitchen, and we sat around the table, me and the two of them and Fiona and Rémy. It was perfect, I thought with a pang. I remembered what Mum had once told me.
‘Nothing stays the same. Everything changes. So you have to hold on to the golden moments.’
As the girls made crêpes Suzette , setting fire to the Grand Marnier and arguing excitedly, and Rémy and Fiona opened another bottle of wine and talked about art, I realised this was one of those golden moments I would treasure forever.
Rémy slipped away after dinner, knowing it was my last night with Edie.
‘She’s wonderful, your girl.’
‘I know.’
‘I hope one day she can meet Mimi.’
I didn’t say anything. I was so uncertain about how things were going to play out between us. I clung on to the fact that he was talking so positively about the future. Every day I spent with him, I became more enchanted. He seemed to have no flaws. What was I missing?
That night, Daniel called me just as I was getting ready to go to sleep. I had a heavy heart, as both Edie and Fiona were leaving, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to talk to him, but curiosity got the better of me.
‘We’ve had an offer on the house,’ he said. ‘Full asking price.’
My stomach lurched. Once we’d sold the house there was no going back.
‘Great. I guess.’
‘They want to be in as soon as possible in the New Year. So they need an answer. Can I say yes?’
Shit. This was it. I would be without a home. Where was I going to put all my stuff? Storage? I felt everything slipping out of my grasp. I’d felt in control over the past couple of weeks, but of course I wasn’t at all.
‘We don’t really have any choice, do we?’ My voice sounded stiff. This was a bad time of year to sort out a new life, with Christmas around the corner, especially if I was in another country.
Daniel sighed. ‘I’m sorry.’
I was surprised. I hadn’t been expecting an apology. He’d been rampantly unapologetic since day one.
‘Are you?’
‘I messed up. I know I did. I was an idiot. What I did was unforgivable. I can’t think of a reason or excuse that doesn’t sound completely self-indulgent.’
I was gobsmacked. He was apologising. I wasn’t going to let him get away scot-free, though.
‘You really hurt me, Daniel. I was at my lowest when you left. I was really struggling.’
‘I didn’t know how to help. I thought it was me making you miserable. Nothing I said or did ever seemed to make a difference.’
‘I wasn’t in a good place. And I’m sorry. It was difficult for both of us.’
‘Don’t you dare apologise! This is not on you,’ he went on. ‘I should have found a way to make us work. But I didn’t have the … whatever it takes. The balls, the humanity, the empathy, the patience.’ He sounded choked. ‘I took the coward’s way out.’
I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d never heard Daniel contrite before. I thought he’d be cock-a-hoop, ready to move on in his new life with the proceeds of our sale.
‘These things happen.’ I could only manage a platitude at this point. I was too busy panicking.
‘And of course I’ll give you the money you put in for the deposit. You’re right. It’s only fair.’
I was too shocked to answer at first. I’d expected a battle on my hands.
‘What’s brought this on?’
‘It was Andrea, actually. She told me I was out of order.’
‘Oh!’ I’d never expected to be grateful to the woman who’d stolen him from me.
‘She gave me a right telling off. She told me I was dishonourable.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘I feel pretty shit about the whole thing, actually.’
I didn’t answer.
‘Are you OK?’ he went on. ‘I mean, if you need anything, I am here for you. You know that, right?’
I almost wanted to laugh. He was such a child. He knew he’d done wrong and now he was trying to wriggle out of it and get absolution by being nice. Part of me felt a little rush of fondness, because he’d always been like that. Hadn’t that been part of the attraction? I’d never had any illusions about the kind of person he was because he didn’t try to hide it, which was kind of disarming. I remembered the good times, the fun we’d had, how he always lit up a room, how proud he was of Harry and Edie – he’d been a pretty good dad. Not perfect, but I didn’t know anyone who was a perfect parent.
‘Thanks, but I’ll sort myself out. Tell the agent we’ll accept the offer. Thanks for letting me know.’
I hung up, because I felt far too emotional to carry on a conversation with him. There was too much uncertainty in my life. I tried to triage everything. I had a job offer – that was good. I was going to get my money back – that made me feel more secure, especially as we were getting such a good price for the house. But I had nowhere to live, nowhere to base myself or move my things to, and I had no idea how Rémy was going to fit into the picture.
I put my problem-solving head on. I used it too often for other people and not enough for myself. As I went over the options open to me, my mum’s voice sounded in my head.
‘Darling, why don’t you go back home for now? Just while you sort yourself out. Dad’s rattling about in that house. He’d love you there. There’s plenty of space. You can have your old room back.’
I couldn’t see a downside to her solution. Chiswick was my home and I knew it like the back of my hand. I’d be near Central London for meetings. It would be lovely to spend time with Dad. He was so independent, so determined to stand on his own two feet, but I was pretty certain he would welcome me with open arms in my hour of need.
And it was near Heathrow …
I picked up my phone again to call him. It was late, but Dad never went to bed before midnight. As soon as I heard his phone ring, I worried that he’d be worried, so as soon as he answered I reassured him.
‘It’s only me, Dad. Everything’s fine. But I’ve got a massive favour to ask you.’
‘Go on.’
‘How do you fancy a lodger?’