Chapter 20
When Florian comes to collect us, half an hour later than planned, the waitress from Fromages et Vins is sitting in the passenger seat. I stall a little, wondering if I’ve missed something, whether their arrangement was something more than I had assumed.
‘Hi.’ I try to hide the tone of surprise from my voice when I reach the car with Florian and the pretty blonde girl deep in conversation.
‘Bonjour!’ She beams at us.
‘Ava, you’ve met Inés before, haven’t you?’ Florian gestures to her with a little flourish.
‘Briefly.’ I manage a strained smile. ‘Hi.’ I kiss her cheeks as she gets out of the car to let Archie and me in the back.
‘We’re only there for the afternoon,’ Florian says curtly as Archie heaves half the contents of our fridge into the boot.
‘Well, be prepared and all that,’ Archie beams, clambering into the back of the Citroen.
When I slot myself in the seat next to him, his hand reaches for mine in a lovely, automatic sort of way.
I thread my fingers through his and notice him looking at my wedding band.
It’s caught his eye before even though I know he would be mortified if I called him out on it.
I understand his curiosity about whether it’s going to be a permanent feature on my hand.
It’s a question even I don’t know the answer to yet.
The drive is as uncomfortable as I had anticipated.
The only one daring to ask questions is Inés, who points out features on the drive that Archie might find interesting.
She is sweet, chatty, a kind of human personification of sunshine, and therefore the complete opposite of who I imagined Florian to be into.
He doesn’t make polite conversation. I can see the profile of his face occasionally in the rear-view mirror.
He is rigid, his jaw clenched, hands clasping onto the steering wheel until he looks up, catches me staring.
I don’t look away. If he wants me to feel bad about bringing Archie here, then I won’t.
His forehead ruches, his hands slacken and then the car wavers slightly.
Inés makes a protest in French and the car straightens.
Florian’s eyes drift back to the road without uttering an apology and I take my win.
When we reach the town of Castelmoron-sur-Lot, with its artificial beach on the river, it feels like a relief for all involved.
Florian parks the car under a cement bridge in the shade.
He and Inés have packed lightly in comparison to us: a small canvas tote between them with a towel each and a packet of cigarettes, and it makes me feel like a complete tourist. We find a spot, semi-shaded and slightly away from the melee of screaming children and overconfident teens launching themselves off the diving board.
Florian takes his towel from his bag and slumps himself down on top of it, immediately reaching for a cigarette whilst Archie busies himself with wrestling a picnic blanket into submission.
Inés and I stand there for a moment then she strips into her bikini, her body slim and toned with actual abs.
I decide against taking off my shirt and instead shed the rucksack and grab four beers.
Florian gestures for me to pass them over and swiftly beheads the caps with his lighter.
‘There you go.’ Archie presents the blanket as if it’s something much more than it is, but I sit on it appreciatively, passing him his beer.
‘Cheers.’ I try to break the awkwardness by clinking the bottles together but Florian abstains. Instead, he strips off his shirt and lies horizontally on his towel, sunglasses hiding whether his eyes are closed.
‘This is nice.’ Archie takes a sip of his beer. He kisses my cheek, and I suddenly feel very aware of every part of my body, everything feeling frustratingly forced.
‘Yeah, it’s lovely,’ I lie. This is possibly the worst thing we could have ever done.
I start to put on my sun cream and offer it around as a sort of peace offering to show that whilst I don’t particularly want to be here right now with these people, I don’t want them to get skin cancer either.
Archie looks at his already dark skin and wafts it away and Inés screws her face up at the bottle as if she’s never heard of it. Florian ignores my offer entirely.
‘Fuck, it is hot isn’t it?’ Archie says. I notice the sweat on his forehead.
‘Get in the water then,’ Florian says sharply, interrupting his own apparent vow of silence and Inés and I turn to him abruptly.
Archie surveys the wide stretch of slightly brown water about ten feet away. ‘Is it… clean?’
‘It’s a river,’ Florian says curtly and I can see Archie weighing up whether that was an answer to his question or not. ‘The water flows, you’ll be good.’
‘I’ll come.’ Inés jumps up enthusiastically.
Archie shoots me a pleading look. ‘Ava, you coming?’
‘I might sit this one out for now, sun cream.’ I gesture to the milky sheen on my skin. Archie raises an eyebrow in my direction. I’m not completely sure when I became the exact embodiment of my mother, but clearly that little transition had happened without me realising.
‘Florian?’ Inés asks hopefully.
‘I don’t swim,’ he says into the sand.
‘Looks like it’s just us then.’ Inés gestures to Archie to follow her and he does, slightly begrudgingly, down to the shoreline.
With Florian still face down on the sand, I take the diary out of my bag and turn to a fresh page. When Archie was here, I couldn’t easily write in it without him asking questions, and they were questions I really didn’t have the answer to.
I try to push out the sounds of the kids screeching and the cars travelling over the nearby bridge.
I write about the sad little look on Archie’s face when he asked whether I wanted him the same way he wanted me, the thought of not being alone, the opportunities, how normal I’d be, how lucky I’d be.
I write about him ordering for me at the restaurant, about how Ettie did the same, about how the old me feels like a totally different person to this current version.
That I like this one a little bit more. I write about Florian finding me in my underwear, how I felt more comfortable in that short and incredibly uncomfortable interaction than I have done all weekend with Archie.
And then, with that final damning realisation, I slam the diary shut.
‘Do I get to ask you what’s going on now?’ Florian asks. I look around guiltily to see him propped up on his elbows watching me. I feel caught out, wait for the onslaught of questions about the writing, the diary, the entire reason I am here.
I slip the diary back into my bag and turn over, sit up and shield my eyes from the sun. ‘You can ask…’ I try to play it off.
‘Good, what’s going on?’ he says again. ‘Who is he?’ He gestures to the water where Inés and Archie are swimming out to the diving platform. I feel a gentle relief fall over me. I can handle questions about Archie; he is much easier to explain.
‘A friend.’
Florian scowls. ‘A friend you’re sleeping with.’
‘How very astute you are.’ I smile sarcastically at him and watch Florian writhe a little at my admission.
He starts to play with the little leather bracelet on his wrist, plucking at it absentmindedly whilst he looks again at Archie swimming a few metres out, totally unaware of the conversation currently happening on shore.
‘When did you invite him out?’
‘Bloody hell, Florian!’ I whip my sunglasses off and stare at him, hoping that he might get the message. ‘What about her? You don’t hear me interrogating you about your fucking sex life.’
‘Just tell me.’
‘The day after we…’ I stop, correct myself. ‘The day after I kissed you.’ My response satisfies him. He lowers himself back down to his towel, lighting up another cigarette, and points at the rucksack for a beer. I swear under my breath but still root around for the bottle.
‘He’s a nice guy, Florian. I’m sure you’d like him if you were just a bit nicer to him.’ I hand over the beer; our hands brush involuntarily, and I snatch mine away quickly. Florian smirks.
‘I am being nice to him; I drove us here, didn’t I?’
‘Yes, and pretty much spent the entire forty-minute drive in silence.’
‘Maybe it’s the language barrier, perhaps my niceness doesn’t translate well.’
‘We’ve never had that issue before today.’
He looks over the top of his glasses at me. ‘Maybe you just understand me a little better.’
I roll my eyes and then fix them on a cloud that I hope might shield the sun for a moment and give us a break from the heat that feels far too intense for early May. ‘I don’t think I understand you at all.’
Florian lets out a sharp exhale of air. I ignore it, choosing instead to search again for Archie who is now sunbathing on the platform.
‘Is he your boyfriend? It must be serious if you’ve brought him all this way.’
‘No,’ I say quickly, all my coolness and mystique evaporating. ‘I mean we’re dating, that’s all.’
‘Does he know that?’ Florian gestures to the picnic blanket with a sarcastic flourish.
‘Of course he does.’ My eyes return to the river where Inés pulls off an impressive dive.
‘She’s peppy.’ I don’t like how bitter I sound.
‘Well, I just figured it might save a little on the awkwardness if it wasn’t just us three like some strange little ménage à trois.’
‘Ah, that’s why you bought a gorgeous young girl to the beach with you, how wonderfully considerate of you, what a hardship.
’ I catch his eye then, the same wry smile he has mastered reappearing in the corner of his lips.
I know that my own lips are pulling up into the same little grin even though I try to wrestle them back under control.
‘Fuck I’m warm,’ I groan, downing the last of my beer.
‘You should take your shirt off,’ Florian shrugs.
‘Sorry?’
‘You’re wearing a swimsuit, so wear your swimsuit. No point coming down here if you’re going to just sit here in all of your clothes.’
‘You’re fun today.’
‘What, hasn’t “monsieur picnic blanket” seen you in your bra before?’
I sense an opportunity. It’s childish, slightly pathetic, but it’s there and I know it might make Florian at least blush. ‘Not really no, they don’t tend to stay on very long around him.’
I enjoy that his lip twitches before he regains control of his apathetic frown. ‘Well, don’t worry about me.’ Florian holds out his hands, his voice a little louder than before. ‘I couldn’t give a shit what your tits look like.’
It feels like a challenge. I get to my feet, work at the buttons on my linen shirt and then strip the fabric clumsily from my shoulders until I’m there, in front of him in my bikini top, praying that everything is still fastened into place.
I finish my beer, drinking it down to its dregs and then I toss the bottle in his direction.
He catches it with his fingertips and he looks up at me, bemused, until I can feel his eyes roll over me.
He takes me in, inch by inch, and then his face falls a little.
For a single guilty moment, I’m upset. But I look at him again, closer this time, and realise that the look writ large on his face isn’t disappointment, it’s something else entirely.
I falter, feel the heat in my cheeks, feel something else snake down my body until I realise quite how wrong this is.
Florian seems to notice it too; in a quick movement he rolls over.
I clear my throat, the confidence vanishing.
I look over to the water, where Archie is bobbing around entirely unaware of what’s just happened, or not happened.
I hurry to the shoreline, let the cold water dull the heat and wade over to Archie, who wolf whistles his appreciation.
When I get close, I throw my arms around his neck, weaving my legs around his waist.
‘Hey,’ he croons as I kiss him, his skin cool and wet and his touch is not laced with any other intentions than to be exceptionally nice to me.
‘Hey.’
‘What about your sun cream?’ he jibes.
‘Fuck it.’ I shrug and kiss him again. When I cast a glance back to the beach, Florian is still lying face down in the sand.
We switch between swimming and sunbathing until the light fails and everything begins to chill down. We start gathering our things, Florian and Inés standing by the car smoking yet another cigarette whilst Archie and I squish down the picnic blanket on top of all of the food we never ate.
When we finally clamber into the car and Florian begins to point the Citroen in the direction of home, Archie clears his throat. ‘You guys should come for dinner.’
‘Tonight?’ I hear the abject horror in my voice and try to tame it back. ‘Sorry, it just feels late.’
‘Yeah! Why not?’ Archie shrugs. ‘It’s my last evening when I can have a few drinks. I’ll cook, my treat,’ Archie persists.
‘I don’t have any plans,’ Inés smiles.
I try to catch Florian’s eyes in the rear-view mirror like before, but he doesn’t reciprocate. Instead, he nods. ‘Yeah, fuck it. Why not.’ Florian throws away the comment as if it’s nothing, as if he says yes to random dinner party invitations all the time.
I look at Archie, how bloody blind he is to what he’s just walked into. I remember then, how sometimes it’s so much easier to be single, how you never had to factor the wild card of someone else into your daily decisions. You can only blame yourself when you manage to fuck things up.