Chapter 11 #2
Or maybe Tilly was just remembering how soft his lips actually were.
How they felt against her skin and her lips and…
Oh, my… No… She would have to fan her face in a moment and didn’t dare look at Angus.
Instead, she arranged her satchel to be on one side of her feet and the paper bag, holding the food she had gathered at the boulangerie for their lunch, on the other so she didn’t have to cradle it in her lap.
She needed both hands to tie her poppy scarf over her hair.
And to distract herself.
‘I like this car,’ she told Angus.
‘Aye? Me too.’ He settled himself behind the wheel and pulled his leather cap onto his head.
‘I think it needs a name.’
The look Tilly received was wary. ‘You name your cars?’
‘The ones with personality, yes. Like my van.’
‘Let me guess. Vanessa?’
Tilly laughed. ‘No. But I wish we’d thought of that. Sophie named her Maeve. Because she’s mauve.’
‘And your, what was it, a scooter?’
‘A Vespa. He’s green.’
‘Kermit? Like the frog in Sesame Street?’
It was Tilly’s turn to throw a meaningful glance at Angus – a mild rebuke for the insult. ‘He’s Pesto.’
This made Angus laugh. ‘Because he’s green? And Italian?’
‘Tout à fait.’
Angus was slowing the car smoothly as he approached a sharper bend in the road. He moved down a gear, to take the corner, the engine responding with a low growl that settled into a confident roar as he accelerated out of it.
‘Listen to that,’ Tilly said. ‘This car has a big personality. He’s cute. And a little… naughty? No, that’s not the right word because he’s not a bad person. He’s a lot of fun and he’s bold.’
‘Cheeky? Like impudent?’
It was a new word for Tilly and she liked it.
‘Oui. He’s cheeky.’
‘I’m guessing you’ve already decided on his name?’
‘Too easy,’ Tilly said. ‘He has to be Alfie.’
‘I should have guessed that. Alfie it is.’ He patted the steering wheel. ‘Where are we taking him first?’
‘To the bridge,’ she said. ‘The Pont du Galetas.’
A few minutes later, Tilly pointed out the signpost for a parking area and, while he put the roof back up again, she had a quick scroll on her phone.
While she knew the area well and exactly where she was going to take Angus for their picnic, she was supposed to be doing the job of a professional guide as well as being his companion, wasn’t she?
And Tilly wanted to excel in fulfilling both her roles, so she was ready when she led Angus onto the bridge.
They were by no means the only people standing on the side, leaning on the railings to take in an extraordinary view of the gorge and the river at its base, making an astonishing, turquoise-blue path that narrowed until it disappeared behind a curve between the towering cliffs.
‘So, this is the Gorge du Verdon,’ Tilly told Angus in her best professional guide’s voice. ‘It is about twenty-five kilometres long and it’s seven hundred metres at its deepest.’
Angus raised an eyebrow. Could he tell she was just parroting what she’d found on Google?
They both leaned over the railings to watch the happy summery activities below, with the chaos of paddle boats going in all directions, kayaks trying to avoid them and people swimming at the edges or sunbathing on rocks.
Tilly gave up trying to sound like a guide and carried on with what she knew herself. ‘The gorge starts up at a town called Castellane and it ends here, where it opens to the lake.’
Angus followed her example, straightening and then turning to the very different landscape that could be seen on the other side, in between the tourist buses and cars going across the bridge – a peaceful lake edged by beaches and rolling forested hills rather than the rocks and barren cliffs of the gorge.
‘That’s the Lac de Sainte-Croix,’ she told Angus. ‘It was formed by a dam built for making electricity. There was a village that got drowned to make the lake.’
‘Really?’ Angus sounded horrified. ‘Did people get drowned too?’
‘No.’ Tilly grimaced. ‘I didn’t explain that well. It was planned. A new village was built for the people and the houses of the old village were demolished before they closed the dam and the flood began.’ She bit her lip. ‘I’m not a very good guide, am I?’
Angus looked at her for a long moment. Then he leaned close and, unexpectedly, dropped a soft kiss on her lips. ‘I think,’ he said, as if he was imparting a secret, ‘that you are exactly the guide I want.’
Ohh… Was the double sens deliberate? Did he want her as a guide or did he did just want her?
Tilly caught her breath as she broke eye contact a heartbeat later when the kiss ended.
Maybe she didn’t want to even think about the implications.
Last night had been an experience that had made her feel more beautiful, more desirable, more wanted than she could have believed possible.
It might have been a sexual fairy tale but it had felt completely real and, in that moment, she made a conscious choice to believe it because this wasn’t going to last very long and she wanted to cherish the memory of it for the rest of her life.
‘Are you hungry?’ she asked. ‘I have a favourite beach at this lake. We could go and have our pique-nique.’
It was only a short drive from the bridge to a parking area that let them walk down to the shore of the lake at the Plage de Chabassole.
The water was crystal clear, the soft ripples from a breeze and boats creating a shimmer.
Heat from the sunshine was reflected by the stones on the beach and, by the time they’d walked away from other people, the shade of an umbrella pine was a welcome place to sit.
Tilly was hungry too and she’d justified choosing her own favourites in the boulangerie because it was such classically French food. Simple, but with the best ingredients it became memorably delicious, especially when eaten in a setting such as this.
The baguettes must have only just cooled from the oven before they were thickly buttered and filled with generous slices of ham.
The crust crunched when you bit into it, the inside was as soft as a cloud, and the flavour of the ham and the creaminess and tiny burst of saltiness from the butter were all that was needed.
Anything extra like mayonnaise or lettuce or even mustard would have only detracted from the perfection of this sandwich.
Angus was closing his eyes as he ate and Tilly could recognise that this was in appreciation.
‘Mmm.’ The sound confirmed her opinion.
That exact sound had tickled the skin of more than one part of her body last night and Tilly felt the need to close her own eyes for a heartbeat.
Until that tingle died down enough for her to be able to breathe again.
She reached for the small bottle of sparkling Perrier that she had chosen.
Angus turned his head, his eyebrows lifted, as he heard the fizz when she unscrewed the lid.
He was smiling as she handed him that bottle and reached for the other one for herself.
‘No champagne today,’ he noted.
‘You’re driving,’ she reminded him. ‘And I prefer to stay alive.’
Angus gave a grunt of laughter and turned his attention back to his sandwich. They both ate in a companionable silence until the last of their baguettes had been enjoyed.
And then, smiling with genuine delight, Tilly produced a new paper bag and ripped it open to reveal its contents. ‘This is one of my favourite things in the world,’ she told Angus.
He eyed the two triangles on the paper with the slightly burned-looking tops a little dubiously. ‘What is it?’
‘A flan patissier.’
‘I don’t really do desserts. They’re too sweet for me.’
‘This isn’t too sweet, I promise. And… it’s a taste of France. A taste of heaven.’
His head tilt was acquiescence. And when he took his first bite of the shortcrust base and the firm, silky custard it contained, she watched him close his eyes and take his time savouring what he was tasting, and it made her smile.
He loved it. He might have gone his entire life without tasting un flan if she hadn’t pushed him just a little. She loved that she had given him another moment he was going to remember.
* * *
Angus ate his whole slice of the custard pie. He wiped his mouth with his fingers, swallowed the last of his sparkling water and then took a deep breath and let it out in a very contented sigh.
‘This is living, isn’t it?’ he said quietly. ‘This is the life. How do you say that in French? C’est la vie?’
Tilly’s smile told him that she liked him trying to use her language but the tilt of her head made it clear he hadn’t done it particularly well.
‘C’est la vie is more “oh, well, such is life.”’ She turned her palms upward in a very French gesture of resignation. ‘If you mean something good, we’d say maybe C’est le bonheur which is “this is happiness”.’
Angus nodded slowly.
‘My father had a heart attack when he was too young,’ he found himself saying without thinking. ‘Only in his fifties. I was barely out of my teens. They got him to hospital and did everything they could but it wasn’t enough. He died a few hours later.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ Tilly said. ‘That’s awful.’
Angus nodded again. It had been. He didn’t let himself look at Tilly because he didn’t want to see the sympathy in her eyes that had been in her voice. He didn’t want her to feel sorry for him, so he stared out at the lake.
‘You would have liked him,’ he said. ‘He was a huge fan of all things romantic. My mother died when I was born and for a long time he was devastated, as well as being busy raising a child, but as I got older he went hunting for love again and when he fell in love, he slathered romance onto life like it was an over-iced cake. His women got treated to lunch in Paris, dozens upon dozens of red roses. Diamond bracelets occasionally, until the money had run out. And then he discovered that the cake wasn’t real and he would be devastated.
But then he’d try again. I think he was in love with being in love. ’
Tilly shook her head. ‘He was choosing the wrong women.’