Chapter 9
‘Wait!’
The touch of Angus’s hand on her arm did more than make her slow their progress back to pick up their clothing from the dry cleaners.
It felt like her heart had actually stopped for a blink of time and then it thumped hard enough to feel like two beats in one. She could still feel the print of his fingertips on her skin after he’d lifted his hand but what she could also feel was the echo of his lips on hers.
And an ache of something much deeper than merely wanting to experience that again. This felt more than a need, even. It felt like a craving – something you had to have even if you knew how bad it would be for you.
‘That’s the shop where I bought my shoes, yes?’
Tilly nodded.
‘I’ll be back in two ticks.’
Two ticks. A short period of time but hopefully enough to squash that sensation of how much she wanted Angus to kiss her again. And it might have worked but Angus suddenly turned back.
‘No, come with me, Tilly.’
She followed him into the shop. He went straight to the shelves of hats and picked up the flat leather ‘driving’ cap.
‘I want to put the roof down on the car,’ he explained. ‘So I think I need this.’ He put it on his head and tugged at the front and back to settle it. One corner of his mouth lifted. ‘How do I look?’
Gorgeous, Tilly wanted to say. Beau gosse.
I want you to kiss me…
‘It’s perfect,’ she said aloud. ‘You totally look like you should be driving that car with the roof down.’
‘But you need a hat, too. For your hair.’
Tilly shook her head. ‘I believe women are supposed to wear silk scarves in a situation like that, aren’t they? Like Brigette Bardot? Or Grace Kelly?’
‘True.’
The shop attendant was listening to their conversation as he took the credit card from Angus to pay for his casquette plate. He told Tilly to go the women’s boutique over the road, and that was how she found herself being given a silk scarf she would never have dreamed of owning.
Angus didn’t even look at the price tag when he picked it up.
‘This is perfect,’ he announced. ‘Poppies. Almost the same red as our car.’
Our car. Tilly liked that too. But she shook her head firmly. ‘That’s a Gucci scarf. It’s far too expensive.’
‘I want to buy it for you,’ Angus said. Just quietly. Almost a growl.
It sounded like he was saying I want to kiss you. But then his eyebrows scrunched and she was reminded of the way he was scowling when she’d first seen him in real life.
‘As long as you like it, of course.’
‘It’s very beautiful,’ Tilly said. ‘Poppies are one of my very favourite flowers.’
‘The colour is perfect for you. So are the flowers.’ He pressed the small parcel into her hand. ‘They make you think of summer,’ he murmured. ‘And being happy.’
She thought he might have added a couple more words in what sounded almost like a sigh.
Like you…
But they were out on the busy footpath again and she couldn’t be sure.
‘I met a donkey once, called Poppy,’ she told him. ‘Well, it was a French donkey so her name was Coquelicot. And she had a friend called Marguerite, which means daisy.’
‘I rode a donkey on the beach once, when I was very young,’ Angus responded. ‘My father took me for a holiday in Blackpool.’
How cute would that have been?
‘I met Marguerite and Coquelicot on a beach,’ Tilly said quickly, trying to distract herself from the odd notion of picturing Angus McLeod as a small boy.
‘A while ago, when I was still working with my friend Sophie for a special wedding. The bride, Laura, was Scottish, like you, and she had two sisters and they all had partners and there were lots of children and the donkeys and… oh… it was the best wedding ever. So much love. So much happiness.’ Her glance up at Angus was mischievous. ‘So… picturesque,’ she concluded.
He didn’t rise to the bait but Tilly was pretty sure she saw his lips twitch as if he was amused.
Back at the little red car, Tilly couldn’t wait to tie the scarf around her hair and knot it under her chin.
She might have to find a bigger pair of sunglasses when they were near a market again, she thought.
If she was going to live the dream, even for just a day or two, of being a movie star in the company of a man who drove a flash convertible, gave her ridiculously expensive gifts and kissed her as though she was the most desirable woman in the world, she might as well look the part.
Not that she was going to let Angus spend any more of his money on her.
Angus used his phone to find instructions online about how to open the roof of the car, unclipped the chrome latches above the windscreen and then collapsed the frame in sections to fit it into the space behind the seats. Tilly had to move her satchel and put it beside her feet.
‘Where are we going again?’ Angus settled himself into the driver’s seat and the car instantly felt half the size, even with the roof down.
‘Vence. Where I grew up. Where I still live.’
‘I’ve never heard of it.’
Tilly was watching him fit the little metal key into its slot. Clever hands, she thought, with the long fingers of an artist. She suddenly needed to clear her throat a little. ‘It is a very small city.’
‘That sounds like an oxymoron.’
‘An oxymore.’ Tilly was nodding as she watched Angus moving his feet onto the pedals, turning the key to start the engine. Smooth, confident movements. In control. ‘Like un silence assourdissant – a deafening silence?’
‘Exactly.’
‘But you can have a small city. Anything bigger than a village in France is a ville and that can be a town or a city. And Vence has a cathedral and some people think that makes it important enough to be a city.’
Was it really only yesterday that Tilly had found it awkward being enclosed in a vehicle with Angus McLeod, trying to find something to talk about?
How could such a small blip of time make her feel like she knew him so well?
As if he was a welcome addition to her life that she might not want to lose?
The wind on her face now was a caress and the warmth of the sun on her head was filling her heart. The corners of her scarf were moving and, with her body absorbing the vibration of the car as it picked up speed, it felt like the world was coming alive around her. A new adventure was starting.
‘Can we stay away from the motorways?’ Angus asked. ‘We don’t want to be driving with petrol fumes all around us while the roof is down.’
Tilly pulled her phone from her satchel and opened her ViaMichelin app. She chose a discovery route mode and laughed aloud a moment later.
‘What’s funny?’ Angus asked.
‘The Michelin map says that its discovery mode will take us on the favourite scenic routes for tourists. Green roads. Remarkable routes.’ She was still smiling. ‘The most picturesque roads.’
The snort of laughter from Angus confirmed it.
They had a private joke. A code word, in fact, that only the two of them would translate as ‘romantic’ and that, apparently, made it acceptable.
And it felt, almost, like the faintest brush of a kiss.
* * *
The soft leather cap might be keeping his hair in place but the sunshine-flavoured breeze that swirled behind the Alfa’s windscreen seemed to be blowing hard enough to be messing with parts of Angus that shouldn’t have even been vulnerable to any external factors.
He was feeling something he could barely remember ever having felt before, and it took most of the delightful drive through the countryside outside Aix-en-Provence, heading towards the Valensole Plateau, famous for its lavender fields, for Angus to figure out what it was.
Freedom?
Yes, but not simply the freedom of having a few days off work and away from a normal routine and the expectations of others.
This was a much deeper level of freedom.
The kind that came with a sensation of anticipation that was extraordinarily close to excitement.
Something that Angus had never experienced as an adult.
An emotion that he could only vaguely remember from childhood, in fact, when the world and the future was totally unknown and it was completely believable that you could be – or do – anything at all.
The possibilities were endless. A train driver or an astronaut, a pilot or the captain of a submarine.
He couldn’t do any of those things in life now, of course, but it was that feeling – and the power – of choice that was the freedom.
And, just for a few days, in a country where nobody knew him, Angus was letting himself be someone different.
Someone who wore sneakers instead of brogues.
Chinos instead of jeans. A flat leather cap.
A man who could kiss a girl in the sunshine in a glittering mountain stream and buy her a stupidly expensive scrap of fabric to tie around her hair.
And get a kick out of doing all those things.
He was enjoying himself, Angus realised. Really enjoying himself.
Loving the warmth and the occasional waft of a floral scent that was pure summer and driving this beautiful car that hugged the curves of the country roads.
Passing the purple swathes of lavender fields on one turn and blinking at the glowing yellow of thousands of sunflowers around the next.
Listening to Simon and Garfunkel and getting gently buffeted by wind.
The combination was making him feel… alive – that’s what it was.
Angus felt more alive than he had since those heady days as a kid when he was allowed to take some oat cakes and apples and a bottle of orange cordial in a satchel and head out with Robbie for a summer holiday adventure with no thoughts whatsoever of any risks or reasons why it might not turn out to be the best day of his life.