Chapter 21
21
I t was a day or so after the fainting episode and Fleur was in the studio, but not in her usual spot at her desk by the window. Nope, instead, she was sitting on the floor, surrounded by her notebooks. She’d gone to the bottom bookshelf and pulled out an old notebook to look at a binding technique she’d used a few years prior and had ended up bobbing down on the floor flipping through the old book for ages. That had led her down a rabbit hole of looking through her books where she had spent way too long sighing, flicking through pages, smiling, and letting memories flood her mind as she looked at some of her old lists, doodles, words and notes. There had even been the odd tear here and there as basically she’d perused her own life laid out in the pages of her notebooks. A strange mix of memories, melancholy, happiness and reflection all rolling around her head at once.
It felt bizarre as she flipped through one of the books, feeling as if she was reading about someone else, someone who didn’t sound like the Fleur she was now at all. Landing on an entry from when she and Lucy had first moved into the cottage on the green, she smiled as she read through a note she’d made about a neighbour. The woman had popped around with a homemade cake to say hello, had chatted away and welcomed Fleur to the village. Fleur remembered how, in that moment, she’d felt that maybe everything would be okay. As her mind flicked back to that first week in the cottage, when her dad had been around every day to help, she was utterly flooded with emotion. She wasn’t sure whether to laugh, cry or what to feel or do as she sat on the floor of her study with memories and thoughts seeping out of her by the dozen. A prickle of emotion in the lining of her nose and a strange static fuzzy feeling in her ears. All in all, not that nice.
The most striking thing was that so much had changed since the notes had been written in the book. Now, here she was in a completely different place, her dad no longer on the planet, Wendy in Australia. Her mum was definitely on another planet, with someone else entirely. Lucy was grown up and Fleur was in the cottage in Lovely Bay, in a different relationship altogether. So much had changed in what was ultimately quite a short amount of time that Fleur felt as if she was making things up. She shook her head as she pondered the changes and felt as if the person in the books wasn’t her at all. As if that person had lived in another life, in another universe, in another place. The person all that time ago nothing like the person she was now.
Musing how much had changed, she knew that despite her dad no longer being around, the place she was in now was a good one, just not as good as it would have been if he was still in it. Shifting from her spot, one leg half asleep, she thought about her dad, how much she still missed him every day and how despite what numerous people had told her, it was not getting any easier in any shape or form. The heartache had never really gone away and didn’t look as if it would anytime soon. To be fair, it wasn’t quite the same as it had been at the beginning. It wasn’t as raw and didn’t feel as if she would never be happy again. No, now it was more of a resigned feeling and an acceptance as such. Half happy memories, half full of sadness, all mixed up with the daunting realisation that our Champo was never, ever going to see her dad again. He would never be there to say, “Way to go, Champo, you’ll be okay”.
He would never hold his two fingers together and tap them against his temple, repeating one of his classic phrases. He would just never be there to have her back. The reality yet again whipped her around the head and made her feel as it always did; awful, dreadful, horrible, all the words.
So many things still reminded her of him, and it was funny how they seemed to suddenly drop into her mind at random moments. Even in the cottage, somewhere she’d never been to with him, she felt as if there were reminders of him everywhere. Feeling a little prick at the side of her eyes, she wondered what Bill would think about her life now. About what had happened to Lucy and the fainting episodes. About Wendy being in Australia. About his wife, Valerie and what she was doing. That part, the Valerie thing, she still couldn’t quite fully wrap her head around, and there was no doubt that Bill would have found it challenging too. However, he’d always had something pragmatic to say about everything in life. Regarding the fact that his wife was now with Marvin and spent most, if not all, of her time telling everyone what a grand time she now had and how unhappy she’d been before, Fleur wasn’t sure what Bill Champion would think about that.
Deciding that she didn’t have time to reminisce, she put the notebooks back in their neat order, got up, dragged her half-asleep leg over to the desk, and sat down. For a minute she rested her chin in her hand just thinking about her dad as images and memories flooded her brain. She remembered him on her wedding day, how he’d been there at her side, squeezing her hand all the way down the aisle. How, when Ben had left, he’d phoned her every day and been around, just to make sure she was okay.
As she sat, thinking, pondering, and musing, she recalled what she now knew were the five or was it seven stages of grief and how they’d affected her. It had come and gone with her in waves. After the utter shock and then the pure sadness, she remembered feeling so angry that Bill Champion had left the Earth. Together with the anger and sadness, despair had been her constant companion in the early months, but now, the despair had worn off, and something else had taken its place. Not quite acceptance, more a quietness, really. A resignation that he’d never be back and she’d never be the same again.
Getting up again, she pulled out another one of her notebooks, the one she’d written in when grief had had her by the neck. Inside were all sorts of photos of Bill, tucked into little handmade flaps she’d created here and there. She stopped at one in particular; a picture of her walking with Bill on the way to get married. A snap taken by Wendy as they were leaving the house. Fleur stared at it for ages and traced her fingers over the glossy edges. In the photo, she was looking at the camera, her veil caught up behind her in a gust of wind. Bill had his head back, laughing, his face tanned, his suit not quite fitting as well as it should have, so happy, so full of life, so pleased with himself and his daughter, too.
Fleur looked at herself in the picture—her dress pure white, a simple fitted style with a high neck and slim silky skirt. Her bouquet a tumble of pale pink and white flowers, her hair twisted at the nape of her neck, and a little white bag hanging off her left arm. She stared at the image for ages and ages letting it settle in her head. The person in the picture didn’t really look like her at all. This person appeared to be younger, freer, and prettier but somehow it all felt strange, odd, fake, and wrong. It wasn’t hard to work out why; the picture wasn’t true, especially the happier bit. She was so much happier now and freer, too. Really, she was happier than she’d ever been.
As she sat and pondered a bit more, she shifted her gaze away from the way-too-young bride with her dad and looked out at the sea. Watching the goings-on down Lovely Pott Lane as a car made its way in the direction of the town, she realised what she had now, how she felt, and the things around her she wanted forever. She never wanted them to change. The scariness of the Lucy episode had also reiterated that.
She traced the edge of the old photograph with her fingertip, her thoughts turning over themselves in slow circles. The person in the picture, the girl in the white dress, the veil caught in the wind, felt like someone she used to know rather than someone she used to be . She had been happy then, at least she’d thought she’d been. In the way that you’re happy when you don’t know what’s coming next. When you’ve followed the rules because they’re the only rules you know and have been laid out in front of you by somebody else. The kind of happiness that isn’t really tested, that hasn’t had to prove itself against anything properly hard.
Sitting and reflecting, Fleur thought about Ben. She supposed it hadn’t been a lie then to think and say that she’d loved him. She had loved him, but now realised that she’d loved the life they were supposed to have. But looking at the picture now, with the distance of time and everything that had happened since, she realised that none of it had been true anyway. She had been more in love with the idea than with him. All of it was weird and disjointed and ugly and just felt wrong. It didn't even hurt as it had. Sitting there, she put the notebook down, shifted in her chair to ease the ache in her leg, and watched out the window as the sea stretched out in front of her, the afternoon light catching on the water.
Shaking her head, she sighed as she realised she had been so many different versions of herself in the previous years. There was the version of her who had been a wife, living in a house she’d thought would be hers forever, planning a future that had never actually arrived. The single mum version where she’d forced herself to try to do everything right. The version of her who had moved to Lovely Bay, exhausted, brittle, trying to hold everything together with her fingernails, hanging on for dear life. The version of her who had cried in the kitchen when Lucy had left ballet school and fainted in the deli. The version of her who had picked herself up and decided that if she was going to have a new start in a small town, she might as well make something of it.
And now here she was, another version. This version had built a life for herself that was entirely her own and just what she wanted. This version spent her mornings looking out at the sea, had a studio filled with things she had made with her own hands, and had good people who made life better around her. This version was in love. Oh-so very much in real, actual, heart-palpitating, cry-over-your-pancakes, top-to-toe love.
Exhaling slowly, Fleur rubbed her thumb over her palm. It was funny really; it was almost as if what had happened since moving to Lovely had been meant to be. Patrick had just been there, from the moment she’d arrived more or less. In the background, in the foreground, somewhere in the middle. And then, at some point, it had shifted to something so much more important.
Staring out at the sea, Fleur looked down at the picture of the bride again and nodded as a realisation dropped slap-bang into the middle of her head. She wanted to marry Patrick like for actual real and she wasn’t prepared to wait. No more of this dicking around, forever ring stuff. The thought came out of nowhere, landing solidly as if it had been waiting all along to lodge itself in her head. Ready for a gap to squeeze itself into. She had, yes, wistfully thought to herself that if the opportunity had arisen, she would say yes to Patrick and that she wanted a wedding band on her finger, but she’d not actually properly thought about it as something that could be real. Fleur frowned and sat with it for a second. It didn’t feel strange or like a big, dramatic realisation, more that it was so very obvious, as if she had always known, right from the day she’d first laid eyes on him, that she’d wanted it but just hadn’t let herself run with it.
Shaking her head, she tutted. Getting married, really? Sure, she’d thought she’d quite like a nice gold band next to the diamond forever ring, but really, really, really? Yes. Not that she would be announcing her thoughts to anyone and definitely not in some grand, over-the-top way. But the thought of actually making it happen was there now settled into her head, and she could tell that it wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
What our Champo had realised, sitting at her desk and reminiscing about a white dress, was that she wanted to make the Patrick and Fleur story a more permanent one. What did that even mean? She didn’t even know. Was it the actual marriage certificate and vows stuff that she wanted? She knew she wanted more than what they currently had, which always felt a bit of a half-and-half affair. They lived in each other’s houses, both did their own independent thing and came together at a meeting point somewhere in the middle. Like good friends, who loved each other with very good sex thrown in for good measure. All of a sudden, for our Champo, that wasn’t enough. Something about the bride in the picture had triggered that.
Did she want to get married? Did she want to just move in with Patrick—or him with her? Did she want to do what was now called a companion ceremony or something like that? She wasn’t really sure. All she could think was that the first time she’d made things permanent by way of marriage to Ben, the woman in the white dress had not been true to herself. She had not felt as she did now. That woman hadn’t even known what she was doing. She’d followed protocol and rules and what everyone else had done at the time. Hadn’t everyone just wanted to put a diamond ring on their finger, create a home, get married, have a baby, and do all the things?
Fleur realised as clear as day that she’d unwittingly slipped into that scenario of life, the one predetermined by a lifetime of tradition and ideals. And it had, in her case, fallen onto the floor like a toppling of cards around her, suffocating her as they fell. However, now here she was, thinking about how much she wanted to do it all again, but this time, on her terms to someone she actually loved. How it was meant to be and feel.
Now all she had to do was work out how she was going to make it happen and put it all into place. Our Champo was on a mission to really be okay. She was going to propose.