Chapter 19
MAGGIE PULLED BACK THE shutters the next morning and was instantly dazzled: the sun was above the hills, the birds were twittering and swooping through the air as if they’d woken to good news and, standing beneath her, one of the world’s most famous men was hand-weeding the vegetable patch.
She stood and watched for a few moments. Gray was wearing a white vest and jeans and looked like a Diet Coke model. He seemed completely absorbed; at one side of the plot was a small pile of bamboo sticks and, every now and then, he’d stand and toss another one on top, before wiping his face with his forearm.
At the sound of her window opening, he looked up and grinned. Maggie was about to ask if he wanted a coffee before remembering that she’d just woken and her eyes would be puffy. She backed away from the window and grabbed one of her aunt’s dresses from the pile on the armchair. Having flown to Nice in a hurry, she’d only packed her London clothes, trousers and shirts that seemed too uptight for Le Figuier, so the previous day, she’d raided Phil’s wardrobe and pulled out a few wraparound dresses – floatier, cooler, more relaxed. She fastened the strings of a yellow dress around her waist, quickly rubbed some moisturizer into her cheeks and went downstairs.
‘I’m impressed,’ she said, stepping through the back door.
Gray stood and lifted a hand to shield his face from the glare. ‘I hope this isn’t too presumptuous. I was up early and couldn’t sleep, and I figured this area needs work so …’
‘Not presumptuous. It’s very … industrious.’
He gestured towards the hills. ‘I like it out here.’
‘Coffee?’
‘Sure. But also, d’you have any tools?’
‘Tools?’ Up close, Maggie could see the contours of muscle running across Gray’s chest, lines of sweat darkening the vest-top between them.
He waved at the tangle of weeds around his ankles. ‘Yeah, tools. A shovel or a hoe.’
‘Oh, tools . Yeah, ’course, there’s a barn. Hang on, I’ll show you.’
She ducked back inside, put the kettle on, then led him to the old barn and pulled back the double doors.
Gray took in the jumble of equipment: old tractor mower, old pots of paint stacked on a shelving unit, workbench covered with old sunbed cushions, broken terracotta pots, a stack of metal bins and, across the floor, several coils of entwined hosepipe.
‘OK …’ he said, squinting through the dust particles, ‘I’ll just sift through it, I guess.’
Maggie rolled her lower lip through her teeth. ‘Listen, are you sure about this? I didn’t really think last night that …’
Gray looked at her, bemused. ‘You didn’t think I was serious?’
‘No!’
‘Why?’
‘Because you’re a guest, and you’ve got a lot going on and …’ Maggie gestured at the piles of old equipment, ‘this place is a tip and, well, you’re Gray Hudson. Gray Hudson doesn’t weed gardens.’
‘Excuse you,’ Gray said, stepping past her and reaching for an old spade hanging from a hook on the shed wall. ‘Gray Hudson does weed gardens, or at least he used to. And yeah, I’m sure. I never say yes to things I don’t want to do, trust me.’ He moved to the shelves and inspected a pair of rusting secateurs before glancing at her over his shoulder. ‘Like I said, I could use the distraction.’
‘OK, so long as you don’t mind.’ Maggie still wasn’t convinced that he’d last the day, but if it meant one area of the garden looked better, that was something.
She made her way back to the kitchen to find Audrey unpacking a bag from the boulangerie : croissants, pains-aux-raisins, baguettes and fresh madeleines that smelt of vanilla.
‘Morning, Audrey. Want a coffee?’
Audrey narrowed her eyes. ‘That is one of your aunt’s dresses?’ Maggie self-consciously smoothed the pale-yellow fabric with her hands. ‘Yeah. Do you think she’d mind? I didn’t think she would. Only I’ve run out of clean clothes.’
‘ Non , it suits you.’
‘Oh,’ she replied, surprised. It might be the first compliment Audrey had ever paid her. ‘Thanks. Do you want a coff—’
But like a dog spotting a squirrel, Audrey had frozen at the sight of Gray carrying an armful of tools towards the vegetable patch. ‘What is ’e doing?’
‘He said he’d help with the garden so I said, sure, if he really wants to. Coffee?’
‘But ’e is so famous! Why is a famous man doing this job? I cannot believe my eye.’
‘He insisted that he needed something to do. Coffee?’ Maggie tried a fourth time, flicking the kettle on.
‘ Oui ,’ Audrey murmured in wonder, abandoning the paper bags on the table and going outside for her first cigarette of the day. There was a good view of the vegetable garden from the smoking bench.
Maggie fetched the milk from the fridge, then saw her phone screen flash on the table.
‘Morning, darling,’ Mungo began, ‘I’ve spoken to the business development chap from Boho House.’
‘Already?’ Maggie turned to look at the clock. ‘It’s only just gone eight.’
‘I know but he emailed me early saying they can do Friday. Friday afternoon.’
‘Friday? This Friday? Mungo, that’s four days away. And we’ve got guests arriving on Fri—’
‘I know, but they move fast, these guys. So that’s why I’m ringing, because having looked more closely at the photos, speed is very much of the essence. I think we need someone to paint the shutters, tart up the gardens and get some of that ivy off the roof without pulling away the tiles.’
Maggie clamped her phone between her ear and her shoulder and poured milk into her mug. ‘I guess God created Earth in seven days.’
‘Technically six. He took a day off on the seventh. But that’s the spirit. Can you rope in Jamie to help?’
She glanced through the window where Gray was attempting to dig into the soil, his boot pressing down on the blade of an old shovel. ‘I doubt it. I don’t think Jamie knows what a spade is. But I might have found someone else.’
‘Oh. Terrific! And there’s more good news.’
‘Hmmm?’ Maggie lifted her mug and continued staring through the window. Gray had an impressive back too, and broad, tanned shoulders. And such smooth skin. If you lived in California and wore t-shirts all the time, is that what your skin looked li—
‘… and I’ll get the evening flight back to London from Nice.’
‘Sorry?’ Maggie checked, her concentration returning to the phone call.
‘This weekend, if I come out for the viewing on Friday, we’ll have almost two whole days together, and I’ll get the evening flight back from Nice to London on Sunday.’
‘Oh, I see,’ she teased, ‘I do all the hard work getting this place ready, and you just come out to schmooze the buyer. I get it.’
He tutted. ‘Darling, I would come out sooner but one of us has to pay the mortgage.’
‘Oi,’ she retorted, stung. She’d never wanted to stop working. It had been the doctors, her mother and Mungo who’d encouraged her. ‘That’s unfair.’
‘Sorry, darling. Terrible joke, ignore me. I desperately want to see you, but there’s no way I could make it sooner this week.’
It was one of those moments that she’d become used to in seven years of marriage; a juncture where Maggie could either explain why that had been a wounding thing to say and risk an argument, or simply let it slide. ‘It’s OK,’ she murmured.
‘Can’t wait to see you. But darling, sorry, that’s James on the other line. Better go, but remember what I said about the shutters and the ivy. And see you on Friday.’
‘See you Friday,’ she said, hanging up and turning to see Jamie standing behind her.
‘Couple of things: who’s coming on Friday and why are we dressed like somebody from Little Women ?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Why are you wearing a dress that suggests you’re about to give your breakfast away to the poor family who live in the wood cabin?’
‘All my clothes are dirty. And that was Mungo, he’s coming on Friday.’
‘ Here? ’
‘Yep.’
‘Oh.’
Maggie laughed because she’d never minded that her best friend and her husband didn’t really get on. She simply hung out with Jamie separately, and the pair of them went to the kind of restaurants and bars that Mungo wouldn’t be interested in. ‘Don’t sound too excited.’
‘No, that’ll be … nice. D’you guys want some alone time because I think I nearly got there with Louis last night.’
‘Alone time? We’re a married couple, don’t be ridiculous. And we’ve got guests checking in on Friday, plus this guy from Boho House coming to view the place. You’re not going anywhere.’
‘OK, but we don’t have guests tonight, right? I should do some work. Haven’t looked at my emails for days.’
‘Fine. I need to start going through the boxes in the attic.’ Maggie retrieved another mug from the shelf but could feel Jamie still looking at her.
‘So this outfit is nothing to do with the fact that we have a very handsome and very famous man staying in the hotel?’
She poured him a mug. ‘Mmm?’
‘Nothing to do with the fact that Gray Huds— Oh my god he’s here.’ Jamie jumped theatrically as Gray’s head appeared through the back door.
‘Maggie, do you know if there’s … Oh, hey, man.’
Jamie let out a high-pitched, nervous laugh. ‘Hello. I didn’t know you wer—’
‘Sorry, Gray,’ Maggie interrupted before Jamie could continue, ‘what do you need? Here’s your coffee.’
‘Thank you, ma’am.’ He took a sip. ‘Coffee’s as good as your cooking. And is there a hardware store near here?’
Jamie’s mouth fell open as he looked between them. Why was Maggie suddenly on first name terms with Gray? And why was Gray asking Maggie about hardware stores?
‘Not sure, how come?’ she replied.
‘Some of those tools are pretty rusty, and I think the belt’s gone on the strimmer.’
‘Audr—’ Maggie asked loudly.
‘There is a place in Classons,’ she shouted from the bench.
She can hear when she wants to, Maggie thought, before turning back to face Gray. ‘Classons. Twenty minutes from here. I can go if you tell me exactly what we need. I’ve got to go out anyway.’
He looked uncertain.
‘What?’
‘It’s kinda technical.’
Maggie narrowed her eyes. ‘You’re saying I won’t understand it because I’m a woman?’
‘No way,’ Gray said quickly. ‘I’m absolutely not saying that. But it might be easier if I came along and you translated for me?’
A silence fell in the kitchen as everyone privately weighed this situation up: Maggie going to a hardware store, shopping for gardening tools with Gray Hudson.
‘Sure,’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll just … have my coffee and we can go.’
‘Can I come?’ asked Jamie.
‘No. You’ve got to do your emails,’ Maggie told him quickly.