Chapter 14
Angus was very familiar with the pull of history.
He’d grown up with people who were fiercely proud of the past, their culture and their ability to withstand whatever adversities life threw at them.
He had played in ruined castles as a child and appreciated the historic stone house he’d grown up in, despite how bitterly cold it could be in the depths of winter.
The history went back even further on this side of the channel but the contrast between the South of France and Scotland was enough to make Angus see everything in a new light.
Literally.
There was something softer about the light here.
The air felt different, as if you could actually breathe in a sense of calm.
A gentle peace, even. As one of the top tourist destinations in this part of the country and at the peak of the season, Saint-Paul-de-Vence was crowded, but that didn’t detract from his enjoyment of this tour that Tilly was providing.
They’d parked Alfie in an underground car park and walked past a large gravelled area overlooked by a café to go up to the archway in the high stone ramparts. The Porte de Vence, Tilly told him.
This medieval village was a maze of narrow cobbled streets, often with steps, which made the stone buildings on either side seem taller.
The stone was nothing like the grey granite or basalt used so often in Scotland and it was quite different to the sandstone he was used to seeing in Glasgow and Edinburgh.
The blocks weren’t evenly cut like sandstone and didn’t have the chiselled planes of granite, either.
These were more haphazard shapes and sizes, tumbled, pitted and rough to touch but sunbaked and soft-looking, in tones of pale gold and cream and long-faded terracotta, like the huge pots that anchored the vines scrambling up the walls and softening the effect even more with the vibrant pink of bougainvillea, the sky blue of plumbago and the deep, cool green of ivy.
Maybe the warmth of the stonework didn’t come entirely from the climate of this part of France, though.
There was a human warmth to be felt, as well.
These buildings had been nestled here for hundreds of years – a part of the landscape and the people who had lived in the village – silent witnesses to the stories of their lives and loves.
They passed shops and restaurants, art galleries and workshops with astonishing paintings and sculptures on display.
Tilly showed him the Grand Fountain and took him to see Marc Chagall’s grave in the cemetery.
The more they walked, the more intrigued Angus became with the cobbled stones of the pathways they were walking on.
Between the defined edges, small pebbles had been used to create mosaic artwork of all sorts of flowers.
‘I’ve never seen streets like this,’ Angus said.
‘They’re beautiful, aren’t they? Do you remember me telling you about the donkeys I met – Marguerite and Coquelicot?’
‘Aye…?’
Angus’s response was cautious. He had no idea why donkeys might be relevant to the pathways but he wasn’t about to say anything that might dim the way Tilly’s face was lighting up.
He’d never get sick of seeing this, he thought.
Her genuine enthusiasm, that joie de vivre, was contagious even though it could also be seen as na?ve – like a childish belief in magic.
Or an adult belief in the power of romance?
Tilly had taken his response as encouragement.
‘Well, it was Laura who was getting married on the beach but one of her sisters, Ellie, fell in love with these streets when she came to France for the first time and it was what made her decide to stay for a whole summer and renovate an old cottage. Long story, but she’s ended up living here forever and is married and has two children now.
She’s gorgeous. All the Gilchrist sisters are.
I met them – and the donkeys – for the first time at the wedding, but then I met Ellie again at the evening summer markets in Vence and we’ve been friends since then.
She’s set up a business making paving stones and she puts designs like these flowers into them. They’re gorgeous.’
‘I can imagine.’ Angus was looking down at flowers with carefully placed petals around flat, round centres.
‘She called the business A Touch of France. She’s got a studio here in Saint-Paul-de-Vence that she shares with her father, who’s a painter.
I’d take you to see her work but she won’t be there at the moment because it’s school holidays and she has three children to look after.
’ Tilly walked in a thoughtful silence for a moment.
‘If I ever live in a house with a garden,’ she said, then, ‘I’m going to make an outdoor area that includes her paving stones. ’
‘So Ellie left Scotland to live in France?’ Angus drew in a deep breath as he let his gaze sweep the view from the rampart they were walking on now. ‘I can see why.’
‘You could do that,’ Tilly said. ‘You could do your work from anywhere, couldn’t you?’
‘I suppose… It’s mostly online. I have site visits but I have to travel to those from Scotland anyway.’ Angus shrugged. ‘Living somewhere else is not something I’ve ever thought of doing. Scotland is home.’
But the thought of going home wasn’t quite the same now, was it? It might be summer but it wouldn’t be anything like the South of France. And he would be back in his office.
With Moira.
He shoved the thought out of his head with the same speed with which it had snuck in. Moira did not belong here. She was not going to be allowed to push her way in and spoil what had already begun to change his life for the better.
They followed the path on the top of the fortress walls around a curve and Angus had to stop when he caught sight of the sculpture fixed to what looked like the highest point of the ramparts so far.
A figure of a man, but his arms the wings of a huge bird, head down, about to jump, or maybe having just jumped into the void above the steep hill that fell away from the walls.
‘Wow!’ he exclaimed. ‘That’s… that’s…’ He couldn’t find the word he wanted. For some reason, the image of this larger-than-life creature caught in his leap resonated with him deeply enough to have him frozen in awe.
‘That’s L’Envol,’ Tilly told him. ‘The Flight.’ Her eyes were shining again.
‘The moment before the birdman leaves the ground and flies into the future. It’s my personal favourite of all the venues I use for proposals.
I just adore the idea of this winged figure taking off over two people who are so in love and they’re asking – and promising – each other to share their future. To be their future.’
Angus could feel himself being pulled into something he didn’t want to believe. Into a space that was dangerous because of all the risks you could take; the ones that could break you emotionally were arguably worse than anything financial or even physical.
It was survival instinct that made him push back.
‘What is it with you and romance?’ he asked, his tone sharper than he’d intended it to be. ‘Why do you think it actually matters?’
Tilly had walked a pace or two ahead of Angus but she stopped in her tracks and whirled back to face him.
‘Because it does,’ she said, passionately. ‘It matters so much.’
‘But why?’ Angus genuinely wanted to know.
To understand something that had always been incomprehensible.
Surely it was simply common sense to stay away from something that could potentially destroy you, and if he was missing something that everyone else knew, Tilly – an example of someone who considered it to be the holy grail of human existence – had to be the be best person to enlighten him.
He could see her struggling to say something and he had the impression that it was not because she couldn’t think of what she wanted to say, but that too many things wanted to spill out all at once and had created a verbal traffic jam.
Her mouth opened and then closed more than once as she held and then lost eye contact with him as she had to step sideways to allow room for people walking the ramparts to get past easily.
They ended up both pressed against the uneven stonework of the ancient wall, and Angus was aware of the sculpture of the winged man in his peripheral vision.
Ironically, they were standing in exactly the position that Tilly would have probably chosen for her lovers’ proposal scene.
* * *
Tilly had intended to give Angus the gift of learning what real romance was about bit by bit. Letting him soak it in without realising what it was he was learning about life, and love, from being in one of the most romantic places on earth.
But this was a make-or-break moment and she had to make him understand before he turned his back on this whole journey.
And on her.
It felt like she was about to fight for her life because this was everything she believed in and, if she lost that, she would be losing who she was.
‘You think romance is a performance,’ she told Angus. ‘And it can be when it’s something stupid like putting a rose between your teeth or… or a flash mob in a very public place that ends up with someone proposing, but that’s not real romance.’
‘So what is?’
Tilly was not going to break this eye contact. It felt like she wasn’t even blinking.
‘It’s the magic,’ she said softly. ‘And that can be in something perfectly ordinary. It’s…
à vous couper le souffle.’ Tilly’s English was almost perfect but, when she was trying to express something that was pure emotion inside her that needed to come out as quickly as possible, it became a lot harder.
‘It’s what takes your breath away,’ she translated.
‘It’s the sparkle that makes something shine enough for you to see how special it is. ’
She caught her own breath fast enough to keep talking without a pause.