Chapter 15 #2
She could give him that, couldn’t she? The knowledge that he had at least one close friend in his life?
Would he remember her? He wasn’t taking many photographs on this trip but neither was she, and she was quite sure she was never going to forget a single detail about Angus.
She could feel just how deeply he was already embedded in her memory cells.
‘Speaking of friends,’ she said, more brightly, in a determined effort to fend off where her thoughts were trying to go, ‘Ellie lives just up the road from here. Would you mind if I text her and see if she’s home?
I’d love to say hello and I’m sure she’d love to meet someone new who talks just like her. ’
‘Och aye?’ Angus said, his accent suddenly much stronger. ‘That’d be grand, so it would.’
It made Tilly smile, and whatever emotional clouds had begun to gather with the idea of Angus only existing in her memories evaporated as she pulled out her phone.
It was automatic to tuck the sound of his voice and that accent into the attraction account to be drawn on later.
And the humour. Even the willingness to go along with something totally impromptu was impressive.
Angry Airport Angus wouldn’t have been anything like so cooperative.
Maybe his life had changed as much as hers in the last few days?
* * *
Tilly and Ellie greeted each other with kisses on each other’s cheek and a quick hug.
‘?a va?’
‘Oui. ?a va très bien. Et toi?’
‘I’m good.’ Tilly switched to English. ‘This is Angus McLeod. Angus, this is my friend Ellie.’
‘Enchanté,’ he said.
Her face lit up with a smile. ‘Enchantée,’ she agreed.
Ellie Rousseau was gorgeous. She had the familiar Scottish colouring of fiery red hair and fair, freckled skin but there was an aura of French chic about her as well.
Like Tilly, she moved with a grace that had made him think of ballerinas when he’d first met her and she used her hands as she talked.
‘Come with me for a minute,’ she said, picking up a baby monitor and slipping it into the pocket of the apron she was wearing over her dress. ‘I need to go over to La Maisonette to close windows before Louis wakes up from his nap. I’ve been airing it out and letting some sunshine in.’
‘Where’s Bonnie?’ Tilly asked. ‘And Theo?’
‘Bonnie’s at a playdate with her cousin Bella. And Theo’s with his best friend from school for the afternoon. Have you had lunch?’
‘We’ll do that next,’ Tilly said. ‘I want to take Angus to the Café du Midi.’
‘Our favourite,’ Ellie said. She threw another smile at Angus, leading them down the steps from a flagged terrace at the back of the house, a small, scruffy white dog with ginger patches trotting by her heel. ‘You’ll love it. They have the best frites in the world.’
Angus glanced at Tilly. How could just a heartbeat of eye contact say so much?
The instant connection to steak frites. That they both preferred eating steak to fish.
That first dinner in Aix-en-Provence when she’d made him laugh by saying that his DNA would appreciate the money-saving tactic of drinking crémant instead of champagne and he’d rediscovered a long-lost love of mushroom sauce.
‘Come with us,’ Tilly said to Ellie. ‘Bring Louis.’
‘I can’t today,’ Ellie said sadly. ‘I have an appointment in Vence to make arrangements for a stall at the evening markets and then Louis and I are going to go and surprise Papa.’
She opened a gate that led from the garden into a patch of land with enough olive trees to be a grove, and that made Angus think of that first night with Tilly in that little stone cottage and the most amazing sex of his life.
It gave him a pang of that same yearning he’d had yesterday, listening to her astonishingly passionate defence of all things romantic.
And yes, it had made him want to believe, but how could he?
It would require a suspension of disbelief that went against every tenet he lived by, thanks to all the lessons his life had provided.
And it required a deliberate decision to proceed with something that he truly believed was fundamentally unreliable.
Beliefs that had truly become embedded in his DNA – unlike that joke he’d remembered seconds ago.
There was now, however, what felt like real envy that other people could believe and weave it into their lives to live those moments that would shine forever.
He wanted to know what it felt like to drown in someone’s eyes.
To let himself fall. To find out whether, if you really fell in love and you didn’t crash, was that the way humans, internally at least, learned to fly?
They were moving through lemon trees now in a terraced garden and, as if his thoughts had manifested it, he could see another charming stone cottage.
Tilly caught the expression on his face.
‘It’s si mignon, oui? So cute. I love this house.’
‘Come and live in it,’ Ellie said. ‘We’ve been talking about renting it out for ages. It’s a house that needs to be lived in.’
Tilly shook her head. ‘I’m happy where I am in Vence, for now, anyway. You won’t have any trouble finding people who will want to stay here. It’s adorable.’
It was. Angus looked at the small terrace with a little table and chairs beneath the shade of a tree, and the French doors that were wide open, inviting them to step inside.
‘Come in.’ Ellie added her own invitation and Angus followed her into the kitchen. ‘I’ll just go and shut the bedroom windows upstairs.’
Angus walked past a big cupboard and dining table to stand in a living room.
It had a very comfortable-looking leather sofa and a fireplace.
The floor was covered in rustic-looking terracotta tiles and the front door was also open, showing a burst of flowers from a rose outside and a lavender-lined path leading to the road.
It felt welcoming.
Homely.
Unbidden, an echo of something Tilly had said to him yesterday surfaced.
‘You could do your work from anywhere, couldn’t you?’
‘Ellie did most of the renovations here,’ Tilly told him. ‘It’s why she stayed in France and then she met Julien, who lived next door, and the rest – c’était le destin. It was meant to be.’
Ellie and the little dog came down the stairs in time to hear what Tilly was saying.
‘I think it’s this house,’ she said, with another smile at Angus.
‘My two sisters and I have all lived in La Maisonette at various times and we’ve all found the people we love enough to be with forever.
’ She closed the front door but paused to let her gaze drift fondly around the room.
‘I think there’s a wee bit of magic inside these walls and it comes out when it’s most needed. ’
‘Ohh.’ Tilly had her hand on her chest, as if she wanted to capture and keep the notion. ‘Maybe I should come and live here, then.’
Ellie put her arm around her friend’s shoulders. ‘I think you should.’
‘I’ll think about it,’ Tilly said.
The monitor in Ellie’s apron pocket came to life with a crackle and then an imperious small voice.
‘Mama? Up… Now.’
‘Oops.’ Ellie hurriedly let go of Tilly. ‘Sorry – I need to run.’
‘We’ll go, too, and get out of the way.’
The women exchanged a quick hug. ‘Lovely to see you. Enjoy your lunch and we’ll catch up properly soon.’
* * *
The little café that overlooked the main square and the church of Tourrettes-sur-Loup was delightful.
Angus and Tilly drank rosé diluted by ice cubes. The long, V-shaped frites were, indeed, the best and the steak haché that they both ordered to go with them was like a hamburger patty with no bun, well-seasoned and perfectly cooked.
It was Angus who finally broke the contented silence between them as they enjoyed their meal.
‘Do you think,’ he asked Tilly, ‘that you might want to live in La Maisonette for a while?’
‘No.’ Tilly shook her head. ‘I really am happy in my apartment and that little house is worth a lot more in rent than I’m paying now.’ Her gaze, over the rim of her glass, was steady on his as she took a sip of her wine. ‘Maybe you should think about it?’
It was his turn to shake his head but that was when Angus realised he had been thinking about it – from the moment he’d realised that the opportunity might be there for the taking. The idea was hovering in the back of his head like an overfriendly butterfly.
He had to admit that he was getting used to this feeling of being someone different. He was liking the feeling of a freedom he’d never had before and, as a bonus, he was gaining a growing confidence that he wasn’t a predictable, totally risk-averse boring person.
The idea of being Holiday Angus for a wee bit longer was definitely tempting.
He was his own boss, after all, and he hadn’t had a real holiday in far too long, so there wasn’t any real reason not to.
Apart from one that Angus couldn’t ignore. This time the shake of his head was intended to dislodge the thought. What had been happening in Provence that was supposed to stay in Provence had only been allowed to happen because it was temporary.
Changing something fundamental like when it was supposed to stop could be as risky as that first step on a slippery slide that could send him into the chaos of losing control.
He used his own wine to wash away the last of that impulsive idea.
It wasn’t going to happen.