Chapter Twenty
In spite of her daughter’s dire predictions, Juliette left for Provence a few days later.
She’d made a conscious decision not to succumb to jealousy: if she and Nico didn’t trust each other, their relationship was doomed already.
After dinner one evening she’d asked him that if he was developing feelings for Delphine and wanted to get back together with her, could he please let Juliette know right away.
Of course she would be sad (devastated, in fact, though she didn’t tell him that), but anything would be better than hearing him lie.
He’d laughed and said with what sounded like a mixture of exasperation and affection that he would sooner eat his own hair than rekindle anything with Delphine, and could Juliette please never mention the subject again because just thinking about it gave him a panic attack.
And so she put it out of her mind. If her thoughts happened to turn in the direction of Nico and Delphine as a couple, she trained herself simply to observe them, as all the self-help books suggested, and wait until they drifted away.
Emily was not going south with her – not yet.
She had decided to stay in Paris for the next few weeks because she was loving the time on her own in Juliette’s apartment, getting to know the city and rediscovering herself.
She’d also offered to dig Nico out of a hole: his decorators had gone home to Poland for the summer, so he was having to handle the current renovation on his own and it had to be finished by September.
Emily was practical, unlike her brother, and said she was looking forward to having something constructive to do that would stop her from falling into despair about the future.
And earn her a little money, incidentally.
‘You’re not doing this for my sake, are you?’ Juliette asked. ‘Seriously, there’s no need to keep an eye on Nico while I’m away.’
Emily laughed. ‘It hadn’t crossed my mind. It’ll be nice to get to know him better, that’s all, if he’s going to be around for a while. Ben worked with him on your bookshop, didn’t he? Now it’s my turn.’
Juliette had forgotten that Ben and Nico had restored La Page Cachée’s original shelving together, revealing the catch to the secret storeroom in which Jacques had hidden refugees fleeing from the Nazis. ‘Well, thanks, honey,’ she said. ‘You’ll certainly be doing him a favour.’
‘This way he can spend more time in Provence,’ Emily said, ‘and you and I won’t be getting on each other’s nerves. Win, win.’
Juliette smiled. She knew that Emily loved her mother but could only take her in small doses.
And in fact, she’d also appreciate some time on her own to settle into the house they’d be looking after for the next month.
So she took the TGV down to Arles by herself and picked up a rental car at the station, revelling in her independence and the joy of being back in Provence.
Driving with the windows down, she breathed in the heady scent of lavender until she was drunk with it.
Harvest was in full swing and huge tractors were trundling up and down the fields, turning the purple rows green as they clipped each bush and funnelled the flower heads into containers pulled alongside.
It seemed unbelievable to think of the process ever being done by hand, as must have been the case in her grandmother’s day – it would have taken a week to achieve what these machines could do in a few hours.
Juliette yearned briefly for a time when less was produced and more was treasured, when people weren’t drowning in a sea of possessions but made the most of what they had.
Nostalgia was pointless, though; the world had changed, for better or worse, and opportunities lay before her that Mémé could never have imagined.
Véronique had sent her pictures of the house so she knew what to look for: a single-storey stone cottage with pink shutters and a front garden full of roses, on the outskirts of a village a few kilometres away from Jean and Véronique’s farmhouse.
It was a smaller, more modern place than theirs, but easier to look after and with plenty of room for Juliette, Nico and Emily, plus Ben on the night before the wedding.
Andrew hated staying in anyone’s home so he and his girlfriend Rachel were booked into a hotel in Arles, along with her ex-husband Kevin and his new partner, the mysterious Coral whom Ben couldn’t describe.
Such a random assortment of people, Juliette thought with some trepidation; all they needed was Delphine to really make the party go with a swing.
What if Kevin behaved like Marc? She’d hate Ben to be embarrassed by his family. But no, although Kevin could be an idiot sometimes, he was a good father who cared about his kids; she could trust him not to let them down.
Having located the cottage, she parked in the drive and lugged her suitcase inside.
A small living room and a study with an en-suite bathroom led off the hall, which opened into an airy kitchen diner with French windows overlooking the garden.
The two Siamese cats Juliette was to feed, Bisou and Minette, jumped off the couch to weave around her legs, wailing as they stared at her with piercingly blue eyes.
‘OK, OK,’ she said, bending to stroke their sleek, bony heads. ‘Dinner in a little while.’
Monsieur and Madame Jourdain had sent her a comprehensive list of instructions about when the cats were to be fed (10 am and 6 pm), how often they should be brushed and have their ears inspected (every morning), and which games were their favourites (Bisou enjoyed a game of fetch with a ping-pong ball, while Minette could be entertained by twirling a feather on a stick).
They ate frozen raw food, which had to be defrosted the previous day and sprinkled with salmon oil, and tinned tuna for a treat on the weekend.
Apart from looking after the cats, Juliette only had to water the garden and collect the post. Make yourselves at home!
the Jourdains had signed off in a jaunty, carefree fashion, though Juliette suspected they were not carefree types.
She was perfectly happy exploring the kitchen, making a shopping list and planning how she would spend her time before Nico arrived at the weekend.
Alison had texted to say she’d brought down the box of papers from the attic, and while they didn’t look very promising, Juliette was welcome to come and have a look.
So, apart from trips to Chateau Albertine and the supermarket, and dropping in on Jean and Véronique to say hello, Juliette was free to explore. She couldn’t wait.
Alison had invited Juliette to go through the old papers she’d found over an apéro the following day.
She stopped at the gate lodge on her way up to the chateau to give Madame Leclerc the photographs featuring herself and her mother, which she’d had enlarged and framed.
This time the old lady showed her through to the kitchen, a friendly sort of room in which Juliette felt instantly at home.
A shallow marble sink with an ornate brass tap above stood in one corner, and bright Provencal tea towels hung from a hook beside it.
An open door led to a larder, in which she glimpsed jars of home-made preserves ranged along the counter and a small fridge beneath.
Open shelves held a jumble of mismatched crockery and jars of utensils: wooden spoons and spatulas worn out of shape by years of use, whisks and beaters, a stone pestle and mortar and an ancient hand mincer, like the one Juliette had once found in a Parisian flea market.
Pots of thyme and basil lined the sunny windowsill, and in the garden she could see a wigwam covered in green beans, tomato vines tied to canes and a terracotta planter tumbling with strawberries.
‘I still enjoy gardening,’ Madame Leclerc said, following her gaze as they sat at the scrubbed pine table, ‘though bending down is more of a problem these days.’
‘How do you manage for shopping?’ Juliette asked. The nearest village had to be at least five kilometres away.
‘I have kind neighbours,’ Madame Leclerc replied. ‘They bring me eggs and take me to the market every week. You can get by on very little when you’re old. I make my own bread and sometimes that’s all I eat. Good bread, good butter and a glass of wine is enough for me.’
‘Oh, I nearly forgot. I brought these for you.’ Juliette rummaged in her bag and handed over the plaited brioche she’d made that morning, together with the photographs.
The old lady gazed at the pictures for what seemed a long time. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Do you know, I have no photographs left of the old days – my mother burned them all.’
‘Really? I wonder what she had to hide.’ Juliette clearly meant this as a joke but Madame Leclerc gave her such a sharp look that she felt uncomfortable.
‘Nothing, of course,’ she added, quickly changing the subject.
‘And was it just the two of you living here?’ Although that might have seemed an equally tactless remark.
Madame Leclerc nodded. ‘I had a sister but she died when I was a baby and I don’t remember her. My father died in the war, and my mother didn’t marry again. Neither of us seemed to need a husband, though I should have liked children. Still, I’m content with my own company.’
‘Did your mother talk to you about the war years?’ Juliette asked. ‘I’m sure my grandmother was living at the chateau then and I’d love to know what she might have experienced.’
‘No, she never did. Some things are best forgotten.’ Madame Leclerc fetched a couple of plates from the shelf. ‘Now, let’s try some of this delicious-looking brioche.’
They talked about food and cooking for the rest of Juliette’s brief visit, with Madame Leclerc sharing the handwritten recipe book she’d inherited from her mother. Juliette was clearly being warned away from the past and it would be tactless to force the issue.