Chapter 7
The pungent aroma filling Roy’s double-cab Toyota Hilux, which had the balloon packaged and loaded inside the basket currently being secured to the trailer, was making the tension even more unbearable.
Tilly pressed the button to roll down her back seat window a little further as they waited for Roy to come back, having gone to speak to the driver of another ground crew vehicle.
When he got into the driver’s seat he was holding a demi-bouteille of Veuve Clicquot – the perfect size for two people who were celebrating a breakfast-time end to a balloon adventure.
Tilly could feel the wave of incredulity coming off Angus, who was sitting in the front passenger seat.
‘I am so sorry,’ Roy said. He offered the small bottle to Angus, who shook his head and turned away to stare pointedly out of the side window.
Roy looked at Tilly then, with such an expression of dismay that she could only reach for the bottle with a smile of thanks.
There was plenty of room for it in her satchel, after all, and who knew, she might need a nice bottle of bubbles to cheer her up later, given how the day had begun.
‘I will, of course, give you a total refund,’ Roy continued, ‘or a credit for a balloon ride of your choice anytime in the future.’
Angus muttered something about pigs flying.
‘Pardon?’ Tilly raised her eyebrows.
‘I said that pigs might fly. Which is quite an appropriate expression because there were pigs and it means never. Pigs will never fly and I will never fly in a balloon again.’
‘Oh…’
That his tone sounded like a small child who was refusing to eat his vegetables made Tilly want to smile. Instead she nodded.
‘It’s a good expression,’ she said. ‘I will remember it. In France we say “quand les poules auront les dents” which means “when hens have teeth”.’
The sound Angus made suggested he wasn’t in the mood to learn a French phrase. Maybe Tilly would be better to apologise.
‘We can go back into Aix,’ she said, ‘and go shopping. I will replace your shoes. We can just forget about the next destination that was on the itinerary for this afternoon.’
‘Which was?’ Now Angus sounded like he couldn’t be bothered remembering.
Tilly closed her eyes to take a breath and find some strength. ‘A walk in the lavender fields,’ she admitted.
Oh, merde… Why did that bring an instant image to mind of a couple walking hand in hand through swathes of fragrant purple flowers?
Pure romance. Did she dare suggest that she hadn’t already decided to avoid the experience because it was something everyone who came to Provence wanted to see?
Could she even make a joke that it would have been picturesque?
No. Never might be too soon for that. When those pigs were flying.
Nobody spoke for the rest of the mercifully short journey, and they were dropped off, with more profuse apologies, to be left alone, in a rather awkward silence, in the car park of the vineyard that was not yet open for tastings or tours.
If nothing else, Tilly had to offer another apology of her own before they ended up in an even more confined space together.
‘I’m really sorry about how this turned out,’ she said.
But Angus was already walking away, towards the little red car.
Tilly swallowed hard. Her next words were not planned at all.
‘It could have been worse,’ she called after him.
His steps were slowing as she tried to offer the only comfort that came to mind.
‘At least it wasn’t romantic!’
* * *
Angus opened the boot of the Alfa and took out their holdalls.
How on earth had she managed to do that?
She’d actually coaxed a snort of laughter from him when he’d all but decided to pull the plug on what appeared to be an epic failure to regain control of his future by coming to France alone.
He’d almost been rude enough to tell Roy where he could put his offer for a future balloon ride because it was now at the top of the list of things he would never ever consider doing again.
Tilly dusted dried mud off her hands and removed a blue dress from her bag. She scanned the car park.
‘I’ll go and change on the other side of the wall,’ she said.
‘Fine.’ Angus had taken an identical pair of chinos to the ones he was wearing from his own bag. ‘I’ll stay here.’
He took off his dirty merino sweater and kicked off his completely ruined favourite pair of shoes and then undid his belt, careful not to look in Tilly’s direction as she headed towards the gap in the stone wall that was the pathway to the estate buildings.
But, feeling a little exposed as he pushed his trousers down, moments later, it was instinctive to glance over his shoulder to make sure he wasn’t being observed.
There were no cars entering the parking space.
The stone wall was only waist height but Tilly wasn’t looking in his direction either.
She was pulling off the top she’d been wearing over her jeans, her arms in the air, the lacy straps of her bra the only fabric to be seen on the pale skin of her back.
Angus looked away hurriedly but it wasn’t quite fast enough to stop a reaction that felt remarkably like the static electricity that had appeared from nowhere at the restaurant last night, when his fingers had brushed Tilly’s, except that this jolt was internal, in that part of his gut he hadn’t been aware of until then.
It managed to trigger, and then merge with, the uncomfortable aftermath of the pig incident such a short time ago.
That feeling of wanting to hold Tilly in his arms.
To never let her go, even?
How nonsensical was that?
He pulled on his clean trousers as he tried to shut down what was happening in his head.
For God’s sake, it had only been a reflex action to want to protect a woman.
He’d been schooled to be a gentleman by his father.
To open doors for women, pull a chair out at the table and pay for everything as discreetly as possible.
He knew it was his duty as a man to drape his own jacket or jumper over a woman’s shoulders if they shivered and ignore how cold he might be feeling himself.
He’d even absorbed the totally old-fashioned notion that he had to walk between a woman and the road to shield her from any splashes of tyres going through puddles.
The sensations he was experiencing now were simply an unfamiliar form of registering sexual attraction, that was all. It wasn’t as though it was a warning flag that there was an emotional connection that put him in any danger of falling in love with Mathilde Pascoe.
Angus pulled his belt so tight he had to undo and loosen it. He needed a clean pair of socks so he delved into his bag again.
The bag that had been his father’s favourite weekender.
And, for the first time in his life, Angus found himself wondering what it might be like.
Falling in love.
What was so compelling about it that a man could be drawn back to it time and again, despite the repeated heartache that always seemed deep enough to be capable of destroying him?
Maybe it had, in the end, for his father.
Could an untimely fatal heart attack be somehow connected to an emotional wound beyond repair?
At least Angus was never going to face that particular risk.
He bent to pick up his shoes to throw into the boot and, as he straightened, he saw Tilly walking back to the car. She was holding her soft-looking flat shoes in one hand.
Her toenails were a shade of red that was remarkably similar to the Alfa.
‘I thought I could try and clean my shoes in the stream,’ she said. ‘Unless you’re in a hurry to get away from here?’
Angus shrugged. There was nothing enticing about the thought of going shopping. ‘Take your time,’ he told her.
‘Would you like me clean your shoes, too?’
‘No, thank you.’ His tone was decisive. Angus intended throwing the revolting mess of his shoes into the first rubbish bin he could find, but he found himself changing his mind as he watched Tilly walk into the shade of the old trees lining the end of the car park.
They might not be wearable again but it might be worth rinsing the shoes.
He liked his rental car too much to want to put anything that dirty inside it.
So he followed her.
A track led past a perfect example of the original design of army camouflage in the mottled bark of the old plane trees. Shafts of sunlight were already warm and he could hear the tumble of water over rocks competing with the constant clicking of hundreds of cicadas.
It felt like summer in a way that Angus only remembered from his childhood, where the days felt like they would never end, which was the best feeling in the world because he didn’t want them to end.
He could go fishing and skim stones on the pond or build a dam in the creek.
Never alone because Robbie was his faithful shadow.
A memory with this kind of clarity was one he actively avoided because the wash of poignancy it carried always left him with the feeling of a loss he suspected was more significant than he dared to acknowledge.
Because, if he did, he would have to face up to the fact that he could never again be that happy.
That he would be yearning for what it was that had been lost for the rest of his life.
He’d had enough practice to slam that mental door but he misjudged the timing just a little.
He found he was still in that summer space with Robbie when he stepped out of the shade and saw Tilly sitting on a huge smooth boulder with a flat enough top to resemble a garden bench, that old satchel she always carried on the rock beside her.
She had pulled the skirt of her dress up around her knees and had her bare feet in the swiftly running water of a stream and she was leaning down to put her hands in it as well.
The flow of crystal-clear water was dancing around and between more stones, catching so many glints of sunlight he had to shade his eyes against the pain of how bright it was.