Chapter 13
13
‘What? Oh! I didn’t think about that.’ Lucie couldn’t deny her shock at this news. They’d been driving forever and now the prospect of a sleepless night in what she’d thought would be a calm and tranquil village was not exactly filling her with glee.
‘I’m so tired, maybe I’ll be able to sleep through the once-a-year party,’ she added.
‘Once a year, non .’ The hotel owner shook his head. ‘Every three months there is a party here.’
Then he explained where their rooms were and told them to come down in an hour or so for dinner in the dining room.
Upstairs, Lucie and Zoe found they had pretty, adjoining rooms, all pastel colours and flowery curtains, with a shared bathroom, while Deva had a separate, narrow room to himself with his own en-suite.
As soon as Lucie was in her room, she sank onto the bed and stretched herself out full length, so grateful to not be driving and to have a little time to herself. Must call Dad, she thought to herself. He would want to hear all about the trip so far and how the Jag was managing. But that could wait; for a moment, she was going to stretch, rest her eyes and try to unclench her shoulders from the driving position.
Dinner in the hotel was the three of them round a table, while a handful of locals congregated in the bar area. It was a properly leisurely French meal with homemade quiche and salad to start, then a leg of duck each, served with vegetables and, for dessert, small pots of chocolate mousse. There was a half bottle of white wine, which Lucie polished off a little too rapidly, while Zoe and Deva drank water and Cokes.
When the wine had made a mellowing effect, Lucie couldn’t help asking if there had been any update on the Jacasta wedding Instagram feed.
‘Oooh…’ Zoe brought out her phone and scrolled to the relevant account. ‘Let’s see what today has brought… Flower decorations, check. Photo captions says: “It just has to be pink peonies, white roses and lavender for me… The heart and soul of a wedding is its flowers.” Favours… also check,’ Zoe went on, ‘She tells us, “I’ve created these pink heart-shaped macarons, filled with white and iced in purple with J that’s a Bastille Day thing.’
‘Well… maybe later…’ was Deva’s non-committal response. ‘I think I need to chill on my bed for a bit.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ Zoe said.
‘Agreed. But first, a trip to the bar,’ was Lucie’s verdict. Those Insta pics… The fact she was going to be dropping Zoe and Deva off at the wedding venue tomorrow. Miles was definitely getting re-married. No doubt about it. He was moving on with breakneck speed, and she… well, she obviously wasn’t.
‘Bloody macarons of bloody love,’ she hissed.
As soon as Zoe got to her room, she closed the door and sank down gratefully onto her bed, which was a touch saggy and creaky, but she didn’t care. She stretched to her full height and let out a long, relieved sigh. The small of her back ached, her shoulders ached, her neck ached, her legs ached, the muscles supporting the weight of her round, pregnant belly ached and her ankles felt fat and puffy, so it was a huge relief to finally stretch out and sink down into a soft mattress.
She could feel her eyelids begin to weigh down and, if she let it, sleep would be quick to follow. Instead, she put a pillow behind her back and reached for her phone to call Rafi.
‘Hello, Zoe, how are you doing?’ he asked, and it was lovely to hear his soft, calm voice. ‘How is the journey so far?’
‘Hello, babe… How can sitting in a car for hour after hour be so tiring?’ she complained.
‘I’m so sorry you couldn’t get the train,’ he sympathised.
‘I’m so sorry you’re not making this trip with me.’
‘Work has been chaos this week,’ he told her. ‘I think I’ll be up most of tonight trying to make the 7a.m. deadline. Who sets a project deadline for 7a.m. on a Saturday?’
‘Crazy, mad bosses who want you to work all night,’ she suggested.
‘Yeah, well, you know all about those people.’
‘So true. I am so looking forward to our baby leave,’ she added.
‘Yeah, me too…’
Now, missing him, knowing that he was going to be working through the night, she had to admit, ‘I worry a lot that you’re not really going to take the time off. They won’t manage without you, they’ll guilt trip you into “just a few hours a day” and before you know it, you’ll be at your screen, headphones on, doing a full ten hours.’
‘No, honestly. I’ve made it totally clear. They’re hiring a very expensive temp in for a month. The handover won’t be pretty and the temp will probably call me a lot to start with, but it is going to happen, Zo.’
‘Promise me?’
‘Promise,’ he told her.
And although that was reassuring, now she knew she was going to have to raise her other big worry too, because much as she was trying to be calm and let Rafi go at his own pace, she couldn’t stop thinking about it. And she knew perfectly well that her mother had a point – they needed to move.
‘So, where are we going to have the maternity leave, Rafs? You, me and the baby in my flat share? Or you, me and the baby in your teeny, tiny flat? She’s due in six weeks’ time. There is no way we will have found a place to buy and have moved into it by then. Absolutely no way,’ she repeated for emphasis.
Rafi let out a sigh.
‘Has your mother been…?’ he began.
‘Yes, she has, and I’ve got to admit that she has a point. I’m worried, I can’t stop thinking about it. Where is home for our baby? And are you going to be there for us? You keep saying you will be… but I need proof, Rafi. I need to believe it.’
There was a long pause and Zoe could feel her fingers gripping the phone tightly. She was putting pressure on him, which she knew he didn’t like. But this was serious. They had to decide what to do next. They had to make a move. She needed a big, tangible sign that he was committing to her, to their daughter, to their future. And if he couldn’t do it, then… then… in her heart, she felt that this would be the beginning of the end for them as a couple.
‘I have been thinking about it,’ he began hesitantly. ‘What about if we both move out of our flats and rent a place that’s big enough together?’
She was about to protest, list all her reasons why she didn’t think that was the right thing to do next, but he went on with, ‘Hear me out, Zo. If we rent somewhere together, we can move before the baby is here.’
‘Well… if we start looking, like, tomorrow,’ she told him.
‘And we don’t have to find the perfect thing, and we don’t have to decorate… or buy furniture… Plus, we can keep saving and in a year’s time or so, we’ll have more money to get the bigger place that we need.’
‘But…’ Zoe could feel that painful ache at the back of her throat, but she was determined not to cry. ‘It’s still so temporary,’ she began. ‘A rental… We can be asked to move, or you can just get fed up and move out, I can’t do any special decorating for our daughter’s place. It’s not what I want,’ she said forcefully now. ‘It’s not what I want! I need something more from you. I need you to commit to being with us.’
‘Zoe… I don’t know why you’re being so?—’
‘Don’t you dare say emotional!’ she warned him.
‘I was going to say insecure.’
Pause.
‘I am here for you. I am here for our baby. Why can’t you believe that?’
‘Because you aren’t here!’ she protested. ‘You were supposed to be in France with me, meeting my family and going to my dad’s wedding. Is that so much to ask? I’ve been carrying our baby for almost eight months now and you can’t even make one weekend’s worth of effort for me. Instead, you’re where you always are, where you always want to be – in your little flat, at your screen, with your headphones on at bloody work!’
When there was no reply to this, Zoe hung up.
She stared at the rose-coloured wall ahead of her and could only think that if Rafi had done what she’d suggested back in May, they would already be in their flat together. She would be assembling the cot, painting the bedroom walls, building a home for her fledgling family. Instead, he’d stalled and hesitated and now they were no further on and she still felt that, in his heart of hearts, he didn’t want to move in with them. He didn’t want to commit. Yes, her parents had recently divorced, but she didn’t think what she was asking for was too much, or anything out of the ordinary. Maybe this wasn’t going to work out. Maybe he just wasn’t going to be able to give her what she needed to feel as loved and as secure as she needed to feel.
For just a moment or two, Zoe allowed several tears to escape, but she hated to cry. What did crying ever solve? So she went into the bathroom, ran the tap and carefully washed and dried her face.
When she got back to London after this wedding, she would have to decide what was best for her and the baby, even if it meant making some hard decisions.
Deva sat on the narrow bed in the narrow room and willed himself to feel calm, but he was jumpy, fizzy with nervous energy and the thought of settling down now for the night seemed like madness. It was far too early. There was so much to see! To do!
He still couldn’t get over the fact that he had been standing in the Place Vend?me today. He had stood outside The Ritz! He had really, truly, been inside the Chanel boutique on the Rue Cambon and run his hands over intricate lace panels, creamy silk blouses, jackets made of whisper-soft cashmere tweed. The images were still playing inside his mind. It had been so exciting, so unforgettable. He wasn’t ready yet for this day to end.
And now he was in the heart of France, in the Massif Central, not even very far from the Auvergne region where Coco herself had been born and spent the earliest years of her life. There was no question of staying in this little room and settling down to sleep. He had to get outside and experience the air, the people, the streets, the hustle, and try to imagine what her life here was like over a hundred years ago.
He turned his attention to the duffle bag on the floor that wasn’t his. He had spotted it upstairs in that spare bedroom at Aunt Lucie’s dad’s house. And, overcome with emotion, he’d made the spur of the moment decision to ‘borrow’ it. Just as he had ‘borrowed’ all the items that were inside it.
At some point, of course, he was going to have to tell Aunt Lucie what he had done. And he could hardly expect her to be pleased. But… He felt compelled to rub his hands comfortingly together at the thought, his fingers now itching to touch those things again, his eyes longing to run over them, to try to absorb every single little detail. Soak it all in. Learn from it.
He wasn’t sure if he could ever express to Aunt Lucie, or to anyone, in fact, how important this was, just how much it meant to him. This wasn’t ‘an interest’. This was something he felt compelled to do. He couldn’t think about anything else. It was an itch, an urge that had to be satisfied. More powerful than any other one he had experienced before.
So Deva sat on the floor beside the small duffle bag. Slowly, he pulled the zip open, then, holding his breath, he opened the bag. Oh, oh! There they were. And even more beautiful than he’d remembered.
Very carefully, he lifted out the beige-coloured Chanel 2.55 handbag, and then the softest Chanel tweed jacket in that pale, supple wool. Underneath, he knew there was a tweed matching skirt and that very special slinky, black lace dress. But for now, those could wait; for now, the bag and the jacket were enough. He ran his hands very carefully over the soft, quilted leather of the bag. Then he pulled the supple woollen sleeves of the jacket through his fingers. So soft… so beautiful.
Into his mind came this daring, crazy, even quite wild thought.
Really? Really? Could he do that? Would he? Should he? He had always stopped himself before. But what if he went out tonight, alone? Who was here to stop him? Who would even know?
A big, shiny ‘Yes!’ formed in his mind. This was possible. This was a plan! This was something he was going to do, just for himself. Well, just for himself and for Coco. She would understand, he thought. She would cheer him on.
Quickly, before he could overthink it, or worry too much about it, or stop himself in his own tracks, Deva peeled off the warm, sweaty clothes he’d worn for most of the day and headed to his bathroom for a quick shower.
When he was dried and back in the bedroom, he pulled on a pair of lightweight linen trousers and a clean, white t-shirt. Then with care and reverence, he slipped his arms into the creamy tweed jacket that bore the legendary label and smoothed it down over the front of his chest. Then he looped the chains of the 2.55 bag over the crook of his elbow. Breathless with nerves, he stood for a long time in front of the bathroom mirror because this was even better than he could ever have imagined. He was here in France, wearing the jacket and carrying the bag. Staring in the mirror, he felt quite overcome with emotion. Carefully, he combed and adjusted his sleek damp hair, pulling it behind his ear on one side, so it looked exactly like Coco’s jet-black, asymmetrical bob. Now with the bob, the jacket, the bag, the t-shirt, the trousers, he looked exactly as he had imagined he could – and that feeling was incredibly powerful. He felt as if he’d finally taken charge of himself, as if he could at last begin to create the life he wanted. No way was he staying in his room. He had to get out of the hotel and explore the town.