Chapter 17
I’m at the bar at five twenty-five on Saturday night, just in time to see the geyser go off.
Cordoned behind a fence in a small stretch of parkland right by the river is the town’s most interesting tourist attraction: a rare natural phenomenon caused by hot rocks deep underground heating up the water and causing it to explode in a jet that shoots fifty feet in the air.
This occurs at exactly the same times each day, every six hours.
It’s more punctual than étienne. He turns up at twenty to six.
“Are you still angry at me?” I ask as he slides into the seat opposite, his chair rocking slightly on the uneven ground caused by the roots of the nearby plane tree.
He shakes his head, but his jaw is clenched. He literally has a five-o’clock shadow.
“I promise there’s nothing to worry about,” I say fervently. “They’re going to honor your mother’s painting, not destroy it.”
“As part of the launch?” he asks dryly, his eyes looking more steel than sky.
He’s reclining in his chair, his right arm draped on the table, his left dangling at his side. He may look relaxed, but I’m reminded of a coiled snake, ready to strike.
“I always planned to walk around town, looking for inspiration for the new bottle design of Eau de Sainte églantine. But I’ll be honest, I would love to use your mum’s art.
It means something to me personally and your mum does too.
The thought of one of her paintings being etched onto bottles that people all around the world will see makes me feel proud.
And on a professional level, the fact that she painted Sainte églantine, or at least her interpretation of her, is a marketeer’s dream.
It’s also a great part of the story that your mother worked at the factory. ”
His eyes are still fixed on mine, but there’s a calculating look about them. What is he thinking?
“Is there any chance at all that you would give us permission to use the painting?” I ask, feeling hope slipping away but pressing on regardless. “If not, I can commission another artist to create their own version, but we need to move forward with a design concept by the end of next week.”
His eyes drop to the table where he’s been absentmindedly fingering a red paper napkin. He lets it go and runs his hand through his hair. “Look, it’s complicated,” he says with a sigh, gesturing to the waitress.
I lean in and plant my forearms on the table. “How?”
“I think my mother would have liked for her design to be used. She never had any vendetta against Albert or his father and she enjoyed working at the factory. But my uncle would be furious. What are you drinking?” he asks as the waitress arrives at the table.
“Cider.”
“Another?”
“Sure.”
étienne orders two more and shifts forward in his seat, mirroring me.
“Do you know the story about the three-day-long poker game that Pierre Osier had with a local man?”
I have no idea where he’s going with an anecdote about Albert’s father, but I’m aware of the story; it’s legendary.
During World War Two, Jackson’s great-grandfather Pierre Osier, a Parisian, fell in love with a woman named Marie from the Ardèche, and after the war they settled here in Sainte-églantine-les-Bains.
Within a year, Pierre had won a piece of land in a game of cards that contained the source of a natural hot spring.
“The local man Pierre gambled against, Gérard Flouquet, was not well mentally,” étienne says. “Albert’s father took advantage of him.”
I frown and catch a loose lock of hair that’s fallen free from my butterfly clip; green to match my dress. “All I heard is that he was a bit of a drunk.”
“He was. Does that make it better?”
“Well, if people thought it was unfair, why didn’t they do anything?” I ask as I clip the lock back into place.
“Because Gérard died and Pierre promised to build a factory with his Parisian money that would employ hundreds of people.”
“And he did, didn’t he?” I nod at Eau de Sainte églantine, which is beyond the stretch of parkland, less than a hundred meters behind him. We’re at the far end of the high street.
“Yes, he did,” he replies tersely. “Taking the fountain that had been on the land providing free water to everyone and keeping it for himself.”
I think of the beautiful fountain in the grounds of Chateau Angèle. Is that the one he’s talking about? Did it use to be connected to the water source?
“But locals can still access the water source from the buvette,” I point out.
Buvette means refreshment bar and when I first came here, Mellie took me to fill up a bottle. It’s inside a cave right by the factory and I remember it being very cold and damp, but still kind of magical.
“Have you been in there lately?” étienne asks.
I shake my head. “Not since I was a kid.”
“Check it out,” he prompts.
“Okay, I will.”
“Anyway, Olivier, my uncle, was very angry when my mother, his sister, got a job at the factory,” he says. I’m intrigued as to how he’s going to join the dots. “He didn’t speak to her for years. They only made up when she was very ill.”
“What was his problem?” I ask, perturbed. “Why did he hate the factory so much?”
He sighs heavily. “Because Gérard was his uncle.”
The local man who lost the bet against Jackson’s great-grandfather was related to étienne?
“So Gérard was your great-uncle?” I ask as it clicks into place.
He nods. “By marriage. He and his wife never had children, so the land would have passed to my grandmother and, eventually, to Olivier.”
“And does Olivier have children?” I ask, reeling.
“No.” He shakes his head.
“So the land would have passed to you.”
“I don’t lose sleep over it. But my uncle thinks that he would have built a factory himself.
My mother was very”—he shrugs—“about it. She was glad of the jobs the Osiers created. But my uncle has a grudge and he’ll probably have it forever.
” He sighs. “He doesn’t live around here anymore, but if he found out that I had given you my blessing to use my mother’s design on the bottles, I’m not sure he’d ever forgive me. ”
“Is this also why you refused to discuss selling the garage?”
He says nothing for a moment, but when he speaks, his voice is laced with venom: “I will never sell to that woman. Ever.”
Shit. It is complicated.
The waitress returns with our drinks. A hot wind sweeps through the outdoor space, tugging a few more locks of hair loose and making the leaves rustle overhead.
I give up on the butterfly clip and tuck my blond hair behind my ears instead.
A fleck of bark from the mottled plane-tree trunk floats down and lands on the table.
étienne plucks it off and discards it. It’s the same shade of green gray as the T-shirt he’s wearing.
“You said Albert remembers my mother.” He sounds calm, but there’s tension in the set of his shoulders.
I nod. “He said that she was a lovely girl, that she had a lot of energy and was always laughing. He told me to tell you that he was sorry for your loss.”
No reaction. If étienne had been the one playing poker against Jackson’s great-grandfather, Pierre never would have won.
“What’s your role in all of this?” he asks, picking up his glass. “What do you actually do?”
“I’m the project manager. By the end of August, I need to have produced marketing assets that Jackson can use to convince retailers that their customers will be willing to pay the price of wine for a bottle of water.”
étienne almost chokes on his cider. “The price of wine?” he asks, coughing.
“People pay five pounds for a packet of crisps when they could get them for a fifth of the price. If you can tell a story and show how special and artisanal something is, customers are happy to splash out. But that’s why the bottle needs to look beautiful,” I say.
“In an ideal world, people will want to show it off even when it’s empty, as a vase or a candlestick holder or even filled with fairy lights.
” I can’t wait to see images splashed across social media.
“We want to make sure our bottle will be seen so people remember it and know what to ask for.”
He’s staring at me, his attention focused. And then he mutters, “Selling water for the price of wine. No wonder he let the buvette go to ruin.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Go and look.” He jerks his chin over his left shoulder.
All right, I will. I put my glass down on the table and push my chair out. I can feel étienne’s eyes on me as I make my way quickly through the parkland toward the factory.
The cave—or grotto, as I remember Mellie referring to it—is on the other side of the road by the factory, set back into the rocky hillside. As I approach the entrance, my enthusiasm to venture inside dims. It looks very dark. Didn’t there use to be lights in here? I turn on my phone torch.
The air quickly transforms from dry heat to cool damp and I get the sense that I’m walking on a rain-soaked pavement as I walk through a short tunnel and into a cavern.
The sound of running water echoes off the rough stone walls, and right at the back, several meters into the hillside, is a plastered panel with a spout protruding from it.
I shine my torch over it. The plaster has cracked and crumbled away, some of it clogging up the stone basin that the water is supposed to spill into.
Instead the water spurts out in random directions—the tap must be blocked or broken.
I reach my hand out to catch one of its streams and gasp—it’s warm.
I thought I’d remembered that from my childhood.
“Okay, so the buvette also needs a revamp,” I say to étienne on my return. “I’ll add it to my list.”
He huffs out a laugh. “Do you ever stand still?”
“I love what I’m doing now. I hated my last job.”
“Why?”
“I worked at a huge agency and had no choice over what I did; I just had to take on whatever they threw at me.”
“Like what?”
“Loo roll, cleaning stuff, food and drink…Mostly products that are sold into supermarkets. Helping a big multinational company to shift gallons and gallons of sugary fizzy liquid to teenagers does not fill up my soul.”
“But water does?” He raises an eyebrow.
“It’s not just any water, is it? It’s good for you. It’s sourced from a volcanic spring and it’s naturally sparkling. It comes from deep underground and is pure and geologically protected. I believe in it and other people do too, so yeah, it kind of does fill up my soul.”
“It sounds amazing. Shame it’s the price of wine,” he says drolly.
I can’t help but laugh.
His lips lift at the corners and then straighten again. His expression softens. “You can use my mother’s design.”
My heart leaps. “Really?”
“As you say, you would have done something similar anyway. I wouldn’t have been able to stop you, and that’s what I’ll tell my uncle.
If he even asks,” he adds sardonically. “He moved to Montpellier to be closer to the ocean and he’s too busy enjoying his retirement to pay attention to the packaging of Eau de Sainte églantine.
He never cared for my mother’s art anyway.
He was annoyed when their father said she could paint on the garage wall.
He thought it had no place being there. But at least he kept it,” he concedes.
“Thank you.” I’m beyond grateful. “I don’t suppose you have any artist or graphic designer friends who might be able to re-create the design?”
“Louis would be good,” he replies. “I told you about him. The artist who worked on Grotte Chauvet 2.”
My eyes widen. “Do you think he’d be interested?”
“I can ask.” He digs into his pocket and gets out his phone. I watch as his thumb darts around, drafting a text. He pockets his phone again and looks at me. “Let me know if I can connect you with anyone else.”
“We probably will need a graphic designer at some stage, and a website designer. I know people in London, but it’d be nice to hire locals. And we could do with a photographer too so we can shoot the pavilion before it’s done up.” I’m thinking on the spot, imagining the story we’ll be telling.
“No problem,” he says.
“You know a graphic designer, a website designer, and a photographer?” I ask it teasingly, but he nods. “Fuck me, you have a lot of friends.”
He looks amused. “Most of us never left this place. And those who did have come back.” His eyes travel over the sparkling river, the sun-bleached houses hugging the banks, and the distant hazy tree-covered mountains.
I follow his gaze and feel a wave of euphoria.
“You understand, right?” he asks, and it’s only then that I realize his attention has returned to my face.
I smile at him and nod. “Yeah. I do.”