Chapter Nine #2
‘There must be more than five hundred chateaux in Provence,’ he replied, ‘and that could be any one of them.’
Juliette turned the page to find pictures of herself and Andrew dressed as pumpkins to go trick-or-treating.
The French vacation had been no more than a brief interlude in their lives and, with the exception of the two of them, the people in those snapshots were either certainly or probably dead.
Her grandmother’s life would have to remain a mystery.
How could she hope to uncover the secrets of a sunny afternoon in the south, almost fifty years ago?
That Friday afternoon, she and Sophie boarded the TGV at the Gare de Lyon, which would take them down to Provence.
Sophie’s parents, Véronique and Jean, lived in an old farmhouse in a village between Avignon and Arles, and her mother would be picking them up from Arles train station, where it was easier to park.
Juliette squashed her bag on to the luggage rack. ‘Hope I’ve brought the right clothes. You said nothing too formal, right?’
Sophie laughed. ‘When you meet my mother, you’ll realise that’s the last thing you need to worry about. Just so long as you remembered your swimsuit.’
Juliette eased back into her seat as the train set off, making a conscious effort to let go of her worries.
Her assistant, Chico, was in charge of the bookshop and she had every confidence in him.
The business was ticking over: she’d introduced a yearly grab-bag gift subscription service, whereby people paid a set amount for a book a month to be mailed to whomever they chose, and it was becoming increasingly popular.
She took care to ask each recipient’s taste and spent some time choosing titles they would love, and the scheme was spreading by word of mouth.
She’d also started a book club in the store, which more than one lonely ex-pat had told her was a lifeline.
She’d never make a fortune but she was earning enough to live on, if she was careful, and things were easier now Kevin had sold the house and the money from her divorce settlement had come through.
And month by month, week by week, she was feeling more at home in France.
Her French friends no longer slowed their speech when talking to her, and the server in the boulangerie knew just how she liked her baguette (bien cuite, or nice and crusty); she had even started dreaming in French.
Yet she still couldn’t quite relax. Maybe a long weekend in Provence would do the trick.
She had brought a book with her – naturally – but she spent much of the journey gazing out of the window as the train hurtled through miles of rolling countryside.
They had left Paris on a misty, grey morning but now the sun was shining and colours became more intense the further south they travelled.
The fields were ablaze with poppies, and bright-yellow broom blossomed everywhere in the hedgerows.
‘You should come again in a couple of months’ time when the lavender and sunflowers are out,’ Sophie said. ‘The fields aren’t so green but the flowers are spectacular.’
‘Maybe I will,’ Juliette replied. The journey would take less than four hours and it was so easy; she could get up and stretch her legs, and there were delicious sandwiches to buy in the buffet car.
She already felt as though she were on holiday.
It was lovely of the Lafleurs, Sophie’s parents, to have included her in the wedding planning and she was looking forward to meeting them – although she was hoping Véronique Lafleur wouldn’t be one of those super-elegant Frenchwomen who managed to be intimidating without even trying.
‘The house might be a little messy,’ Sophie warned as they stood waiting to step down from the train at Arles. ‘My mother only cares about her garden and it’s a busy time of year right now. She’s obsessed with her roses and they’re starting to bloom, so we’ll have to look after ourselves.’
And Juliette immediately felt reassured; even more so when she spotted the woman in a faded print dress waving at them from the other side of the ticket barrier.
She wore a silk scarf tied pirate fashion, from which strands of white hair escaped to frame a face as smooth and brown as a hazelnut, with piercingly blue eyes.
‘Juliette! Mother of the wonderful Ben,’ she said, gathering her into a hug after she’d kissed Sophie. ‘How good of you to come to Provence.’
‘How good of you to invite me,’ Juliette replied, returning her smile and feeling instantly at ease.
‘Well, I’m not a very attentive hostess so you must make yourself at home,’ Véronique told her. ‘Treat the place as your own and help yourself to whatever you like. We’re very relaxed here.’
They walked to the car, mother and daughter talking animatedly and Juliette content to let the stream of conversation wash over her.
‘We’ll come back to Arles,’ Véronique broke off to say, turning back. ‘There are some fascinating Roman remains but I imagine you’re tired after the journey – we can go sightseeing on Sunday.’
It was a forty-minute drive to the Lafleurs’ home, Le Mas de l’Olivier: a sprawling farmhouse with blue-painted shutters.
It looked so picture-perfect that Juliette actually gasped.
An ancient olive tree stood in a circular bed opposite the front door, its silvery leaves harmonising with the grey stone walls of the house, framed by a line of slim, dark cypresses flanking each side of the drive.
‘You’ve come at a good time,’ Véronique said, bringing the car to a halt. ‘I dread to think what state the garden will be in by September.’
Sophie unbuckled her seatbelt. ‘It will look wonderful, Maman, as always. I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather celebrate.’
Inside, the house was cool and shady after the relentless glare of the sun.
After they’d poured glasses of home-made lemonade from the fridge, Sophie showed Juliette to her guest room at the top of a stone staircase.
The furniture was a little shabby, it was true, but the view from the bedroom window more than made up for that.
‘Oh my goodness.’ Juliette rested her hands on the wide sill and leaned forward.
An iron archway from the terrace led to a rose garden, where Véronique was already bending over some bushes, having swapped her scarf for a straw hat.
A more formal topiary garden lay to the left, clipped box hedges enclosing an exuberant mass of pink and white geraniums with a pond and fountain at the centre; to the right she could make out a potager, where vegetables grew in serried rows down raised beds or swarmed over cane wigwams, and fruit trees were fan-trained against the stone walls.
A large greenhouse stood to one side, its doors invitingly open.
Beyond the kitchen garden lay a large pond fringed by bullrushes, the surface green with waterlilies, and further still, she glimpsed a grove of gnarled, silver-leaved olive trees.
‘My mother’s passion,’ Sophie said, coming to stand beside her. ‘She spends all her time out there.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ Juliette murmured. ‘This is a special place.’ The garden was a corner of paradise carved out of a wild, rocky landscape stretching towards a ring of low mountains on the horizon.
‘Is that what they call the maquis?’ she asked, gesturing at the scrubby undergrowth. ‘Same as the Resistance fighters?’
‘That’s right,’ Sophie replied. ‘Confusing, isn’t it?
I suppose that’s how the Maquis got their name, because they hid out in this kind of terrain.
And those mountains you can see are the Alpilles, the little Alps, though some people say they’re actually the end of the Pyrénées.
We could go exploring there on Sunday, if you’d like to. ’
‘I should love that,’ Juliette said. ‘Really, it seems crazy to come here just for three days.’ She was already dreaming of a longer trip with her daughter in September to coincide with the wedding, if she could persuade Emily to stay.
‘I’m sorry it’s all such a rush.’ Sophie sat on the bed, which gave an alarming creak.
‘But we can relax here this evening, maybe go for a swim in the pond and rustle up something for supper. Then tomorrow morning, we’ll see the church and go to the vineyard for wine tasting, have lunch and perhaps a siesta in the afternoon.
Dinner in my favourite restaurant, and Sunday is free for exploring.
My mother will probably go to church in the morning but it’s not compulsory. ’
‘Sounds perfect.’ Juliette hugged her. ‘Thank you for marrying Ben. It’s the most wonderful excuse for a celebration.’
She hoped that didn’t sound too flippant, but Sophie only laughed. Zizi was right: Ben had chosen a girl who was secure in herself and knew her own mind. ‘Things might not be easy in America,’ Juliette told her, ‘not at first, anyway. But I’m sure you’ll cope.’
‘As long as we’re together, we’ll manage,’ Sophie replied. ‘This past year has been horrible.’ She jumped up. ‘I’m ready for a dip in the pond. Coming?’
‘Do you know what I’d really like?’ Juliette asked. ‘To see what’s ready for harvesting in the potager and cook dinner for us all. Do you think your mother would let me?’
‘She’d bite your arm off,’ Sophie said. ‘My father does most of the cooking and he’s working late this evening. Only let her show you what to pick, OK? Otherwise this could be the end of a beautiful friendship.’
It was a magical evening. Véronique took Juliette round the kitchen garden, where they snapped off bright green spears of asparagus, searched under bushy leaves for early zucchini with bright orange flowers and dug up pebble-sized potatoes, whose skins slipped off their ivory flesh with the swipe of a finger.
They gathered eggplants, tomatoes and handfuls of fragrant basil from the greenhouse, picked apricots and cherries from the sun-warmed wall and lemons from stone pots along the terrace.
Then while Véronique went to shower, Juliette spent a blissful hour slicing, chopping and whisking at the scrubbed pine table.
She loved shopping at the city markets, but cooking with vegetables that had been growing in the soil less than an hour before was a whole new experience.
Jean arrived home in the middle of this process and didn’t seem at all put out to find an intruder in his kitchen.
He was a short, jovial man with a smooth bald head and an infectious laugh; within minutes, Juliette felt as though she’d known him for years.
He poured them each a glass of wine and took one upstairs for his wife, singing as he went.
Juliette smiled to herself as she searched the fridge for butter and eggs.
When the dishes were all prepped and in the oven, or ready for the saucepan, the four of them sat outside on the terrace, breathing in the scents of jasmine, rosemary and thyme on the warm evening air while they chatted about weddings, food and families.
Sophie was an only child and Juliette wondered if her parents would be sad at the thought of her moving so far away, but if they were, they hid it well.
‘It will be an adventure,’ Jean said, cupping his daughter’s cheek for a moment. ‘And we shall be regular visitors.’
As darkness fell, Véronique lit candles on the table under a vine-covered veranda and Sophie brought out plates and cutlery.
They ate sweet, crunchy asparagus with a?oli, the garlicky mayonnaise some call the butter of Provence, then a bowl of potatoes speckled with herbs and a tian of garlicky roasted vegetables: eggplant, tomatoes and zucchini, thinly sliced on a mandolin and arranged in an upright spiral around a circular baking dish.
Cheese next, followed by a cherry and apricot clafoutis, the batter rich with cream and cooked until it was just set, with the hint of a wobble.
Juliette wished Nico could have been there but, apart from missing him, she was perfectly happy.
Had Mémé felt this way, arriving in Provence all those years ago?
Yet Juliette seemed to remember Zizi telling her that Mathilde had left Paris in winter, when the atmosphere would have been completely different.
And this had been wartime, of course, when food was scarce and everyone must have been constantly fearful.
Reproaching herself for being so short-sighted, Juliette took out her phone to show Véronique and Jean the pictures of her mother and Mémé at the chateau.
‘I don’t suppose you recognise the place?’ she asked tentatively, remembering Nico’s reaction. ‘I know it’s somewhere in Provence.’
Jean shook his head but Véronique examined the photographs closely – particularly those of the ornamental gardens.
‘I’m pretty sure that’s Chateau Albertine,’ she said, handing the phone back to Juliette.
‘I went there once, years ago, to look around the gardens when the place was abandoned. It’s not far from here, actually.
About thirty kilometres? We could go there on Sunday, if you like. ’
‘Really?’ Juliette could hardly believe her luck. ‘Just turn up, you mean?’
‘Well, it’s worth a try. I think it’s been recently sold, so we can’t snoop around, but the new owners might know something of its history.
And if they’re not keen, there’s a wonderful village nearby in the hills that’s worth a visit: Les Roches-de-Provence.
’ She leaned back in her chair with a sigh of contentment.
‘What a meal, Juliette. Let’s cancel the wedding caterers and you can cook instead. ’
Juliette laughed along with the others, but her mind was elsewhere. Chateau Albertine! At least now she had a name to go on. She was on her grandmother’s trail, following a chink of light shining through the door she had thought firmly closed.