Chapter 47
NOW
It was a strange feeling navigating the roads close to where she’d lived for so many years.
Gradually, the style of the buildings then the buildings themselves became familiar, and she found herself driving through the series of small villages and hamlets that surrounded Aubusson.
On the other side of the historic town, the stone house she fell in love with nine years ago was sitting waiting for her.
It was almost lunchtime and they’d been travelling for five and a half hours – two stops on the way and a hold-up close to Bourges had added an hour or more to their total trip time.
After the awkward conversation was out of the way, the air had felt cleared and she and Brad had been able to chat about ordinary things – she’d told him about growing up in Hertfordshire, about meeting Pete, their wedding and the French B the house. It hasn’t been that long, not really, but it feels like so much has happened since I left.’
‘Yeah, I get that. Do you ever miss it?’
She thought about Versailles, her new job.
How exciting but terrifying everything seemed now.
Her new look and energy for life, but the unsustainability of everything – the feeling that it was all going to crumble away from her at any moment.
‘I miss the peacefulness of it,’ she said.
‘People. Obviously, I stay in touch with friends. But I miss the community – those I used to bump into locally and have a chat with.’
He nodded. ‘Makes sense.’
‘And the quiet, sometimes,’ she admitted.
‘You know, there were nights when I’d go outside after dark – just out on the front steps – and I used to feel astonished at how close the stars seemed.
The street lights in the village would go out about 10 p.m. and there were only about five of them to start with.
But the sky was brilliant – like nothing I’d ever seen. ’
‘Sounds cool. Maybe I’ll get to see them.’
‘I hope not,’ she said drily.
‘How come?’
‘Because it only gets dark about eleven, twelve maybe, at this time of year. And I hope we’ll be back in Versailles by then.’
‘Good point. Still, it sounds beautiful.’
‘It really is.’
The silence settled on them again. Then: ‘What’s the house like?’ Brad asked.
‘You’ll see it soon,’ she said, feeling something well up inside her as they drew ever closer to the place she’d used to call home.
‘Humour me.’
‘OK, well, it was made of stone – surprisingly. An old farmhouse and a couple of small, converted barns. Old world on the outside, bit more modern inside. Garden large, but workable. Great views.’
‘Cool. How many people did you do B & B for?’
‘We had about six rooms in the house, then the two outhouses where families could stay. I think the most we had at one time was twenty-two people.’
‘Hang on, twenty-two people?’
‘Yeah. Some of them were self-catering, so…’
‘Man! The way you spoke about it before, I was thinking you had maybe four rooms tops,’ he said. ‘That’s a proper hotel, almost. I mean, that’s a serious business.’
She smiled. It felt nice to hear him say that. ‘I suppose it was.’
She’d got used to the car on the drive down, although the rather meagre padding in the driver’s seat had left her feeling a bit bruised.
As the roads narrowed, she passed the first sign for Peyrat and felt a strange shiver of recognition.
‘Almost there,’ she said, trying to sound upbeat, but wondered whether Brad could detect the tremor in her voice.
Then suddenly, they passed the sign, and she found herself driving past the fields and gardens, the scattered stone houses.
In one garden, an enormous parasol under which there was a table covered in plates and glasses.
Another had a pool, its still surface glistening blue and white in the sunshine. All was peaceful and drenched in light.
‘This is really cool,’ said Brad, his tone almost reverent.
‘Yeah?’ She felt a kind of uplift, as if he’d told her she was cool. ‘I guess it is, kind of. Gets a bit quiet in the winter, mind.’
‘I can see it,’ he said. ‘Snow, and dark skies and roaring fires inside.’
‘And ice on the roads and gritters and having to stock up on horrible UHT milk just in case you can’t get out for a few days.
’ She glanced at him and grinned. ‘But you’re right, beautiful too.
I did love it here.’ She was surprised at her own words for a second.
Things had deteriorated with Pete and had been so stressful with the B & B she’d almost forgotten why she’d chosen to move to Peyrat in the first place.
It had been the beauty of it, its unspoilt nature.
The air so fresh it almost made her feel drunk.
Those first evenings, sitting in the garden with Pete, laughing at how ridiculous it was that they could afford a house like this in rural France when their friends were trying to save up deposits for bedsits priced twice what they’d paid. They’d felt so very clever and on top of the world.
When the stars had come out and she’d seen them for the first time – enormous, fat and glowing in the navy sky – she’d vowed to herself that she’d never take it for granted. The view over the countryside, the freshness, the simpler way of life and the space.
But life had taken over. Stress over bills.
Pete’s lack of practical support, his boredom.
Their arguments. Preparing things for customers, having to tiptoe around the place when visitors were in situ.
She’d started looking only at the tedious minutia of daily life when she should have been gazing upwards.
And there it was, the house they’d fallen for when they were deeply in love.
The grey stone walls, with climbing roses.
The iron and glass canopy set over the front door, the one she’d painted a deep blue.
The windows where some of her curtains still hung.
The drive that sloped slightly, welcoming you in somehow.
The garden stretching forth and crying out for an allotment and chickens and maybe even a goat or two – the whole French dream that she’d never gotten around to fulfilling.
‘This is your place?’
‘Well, was, I guess.’
‘Man, it’s really something.’ Brad was shaking his head.
‘Yeah,’ she said, parking up. ‘Yeah, it is.’
It wouldn’t help to start crying. And if she let her tears fall, she wouldn’t be sure whether they were for the younger version of herself with the dreams she was so convinced would come true, the marriage to Pete that she’d thought would be forever, or nostalgia for the place she’d called home for almost a decade.
Brad was still looking at the house in awe. ‘I can see why you loved it,’ he said.
‘Bit different from Versailles?’
‘Just a bit.’
She loved the house in Versailles, her work at the hotel.
Loved the feeling of momentum, something she’d lost in Peyrat with its sleepy way of life.
People were content here, and she’d been happy for a time, but she’d never quite lost the sense that somewhere, life was going on without her, and she ought to be part of it.
‘It was lovely for so many years,’ she told him.
‘But I think after a while I started to get restless.’
‘I get that.’
‘But then, sometimes Versailles seems so busy, I sometimes long for a little peace and quiet! It’s hard to know which I’d love more, long term.’
‘I get that too.’ He smiled. ‘I think when you uproot your whole life to a new place, it opens up the world. But that’s not always a good thing.’
‘Really?’
‘I mean,’ he shrugged. ‘It’s 90 per cent a good thing.
But it changes you. Because you realise that if you’re not sticking to the neighbourhood you grew up in, or even the country where you started out, that you could actually live anywhere.
And that’s quite—it messes with your head sometimes.
Harder to settle, or believe you’re in the right place. ’
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘I never thought of it like that. I suppose we’re spoiled.’
‘We certainly are.’
‘Although I don’t feel particularly spoiled,’ she said, as she rummaged in her bag for the keys.
‘Nope.’ He laughed.
And there it was again. That feeling of nostalgia, sadness for what she’d lost, for how things had turned out.
When she and Pete had fallen out of love with each other she’d lost her anchor, the thing that kept her in one place.
And now she was being tossed around on an ocean that looked beautiful but also felt unpredictable, dangerous.
She inserted the key in the lock, wiggled it expertly into place then turned to Brad. ‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘do you wish you and your wife had found a way to make it work? That you still had that old life?’
‘I guess,’ he said. ‘Or at least, I wonder what life might have turned out like.’
Clicking the lock, she turned the handle and pushed the door open. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s see if we can make any of this furniture work.’
Then she stopped, frozen. Brad narrowly avoided bumping into her as he made to follow her into the large entrance just inside the front door.
Because standing there was a man with short brown hair, a smattering of stubble.
He was wearing a white T-shirt, a pair of army green chinos teamed with trainers.
In his hand he was holding a rather wilted flower clearly plucked from the garden outside.
He cleared his throat. ‘I was leaving. But I got your email,’ he said. ‘And the thing you’re coming for… I suppose I was hoping that might be me.’
Bella’s eyes widened and she leant a hand against the door-frame for support. ‘Pete!’