CHAPTER 29
The next morning, I’m awake early. I listen for sounds of Fabien moving around, but there’s nothing.
‘Oh, Fabien! How did we get here?’ I say aloud, checking my phone again to see if he’s messaged. He hasn’t. I have to speak to him, see if we can put things right. But what if we can’t forgive each other? What if we can’t get over this?
I get up and head down to the kitchen, my head turning to dishes we could make for our last supper club at the brocante. We need to make it our best ever.
I let Ralph out into the field, now harvested, ready for a rest until next year. And right now, I feel I could sleep for ever. I put on the coffee and when it’s ready I pour myself a cup.
We may not have been able to convince Zacharie to take on Henri’s recipes and ethos, but the supper club showed the town that there was room for both sorts of cooking, the trained French chefs and the home cooks, sharing their generosity on the plate. If only we could have worked together. I look down at my pad, my pen hovering over it, wondering what to make for tomorrow, a huge final feast.
As I’m sitting on the terrace, the smell of my coffee turns my stomach and I push it away, craving something fresher. I head back into the kitchen, take a few sprigs of lavender and pour boiling water on them, lavender tea. I hold it to my nose, inhale its soothing scent and take it back out on to the terrace.
‘Hey,’ says a voice behind me.
It’s Fabien, his hair messy from the pillow he’s just left. He looks tired.
‘Couldn’t sleep?’ he asks, and I shake my head.
‘You?’
He shakes his head too.
At least we’re being civil to each other, but I’m overwhelmed with sadness. How did we get here?
‘Café?’ he asks.
‘I have lavender tea,’ I tell him.
He goes into the kitchen, returns with his own coffee and sits down. And here we are, back where we started, on the terrace.
‘He would have hated seeing us come to this,’ says Fabien, looking out over the field.
‘He would,’ I agree.
And we fall into silence.
‘I didn’t mean to kiss him or let him kiss me,’ I say. ‘I was angry. He was in my face and it just sort of happened. It wasn’t a kiss, it was more like a challenge. He was challenging me, seeing if I was stupid enough to fall for him and go to bed with him. He was laughing at me.’
I can see Fabien’s fists curl, his jaw set.
‘And what about Monique?’ I’m not the only one in the wrong here.
‘It was just a kiss,’ he says quietly, his face set.
I feel the distance opening between us once more. Like the tide that comes in, then recedes. ‘So you said.’ I wait for more.
‘I stopped it before it went any further.’
‘The night of the party?’
He nods.
This time it’s my turn to feel angry and hurt.
‘I stopped it because hers were not the lips I wanted to be kissing. I knew it as soon as they landed on mine. It just told me everything I needed to know, to be sure. I just wanted to be with you.’
Tears spring to my eyes.
‘And me you,’ I say, my hand reaching across the table to meet his.
‘It’s always been you, just you,’ he says, and stands.
‘And it’s always been you,’ I say, as he pulls me towards him, like a magnet.
‘I shouldn’t have gone on the tour,’ he says.
My body is feeling more alive than it has in weeks. The aches and pains of the last few days are forgotten.
‘I should never have told you to go, but I wanted to make sure you didn’t feel being with me was some kind of a mistake, that you missed being with your friends.’
‘I have never regretted for one moment being with you. Well, maybe when you sent me off on that tour bus so that I had to sleep in a van and a tent for the past four weeks.’
‘If I’ve learned one thing, it is to appreciate what we have here.’
‘And that we need to make time for each other,’ he says.
‘I agree. Now the harvest is over, the pickers are leaving. We can spend time together, just us.’
We laugh, and then slowly lean in to each other and kiss, and I know these are the only lips I want to taste again. Our bodies mould together and we turn towards the house and climb up the stairs, still kissing.
There’s a cough.
‘Bonjour,’ says Carine, with a smile and a knowing look. ‘I’m glad to see you two have made up.’
I blush. ‘Carine!’ My body is on high alert right now, but I pull my silk dressing-gown around myself. ‘You’re early.’
‘I wanted to see you before I went to the office. I came last night, but you were otherwise engaged.’ I think back to our argument and the despair it stirred up. I want that to be behind us now. I want us to move on together. I hold Fabien’s hand and he holds mine tightly. It feels so good.
‘Café?’ says Fabien, leaning towards her and kissing her on both cheeks.
‘Non,’ she says. ‘How was your trip?’
‘Tiring.’ He smiles. ‘I’m not as young as I was.’
‘How was Monique?’
I smart at Carine’s boldness.
‘Still wishing she could get you down the aisle?’
He laughs. ‘Yes, but there’s only one person I want to be with,’ he says, making me feel that everything I ever wanted is here with me. My world is back on its axis.
Carine raises an eyebrow as if that’s not a concept she’s familiar with.
‘So …’ says Fabien, as Carine lights a cigarette and blows the smoke out towards the fields. ‘Is there something you wanted?’ He wants to hurry this along. Our bed is calling to us.
Carine blows out smoke and takes her time.
I’m like a cat on a hot tin roof.
‘I thought you’d want to know …’
Know what?I’m yelling in my head. Despite my frustration, I let her take her time.
‘Zacharie …’
His name throws cold water over us and my excitement melts away.
‘What about him?’ I frown.
Fabien drops my hand, reaches for his coffee and takes a restorative sip.
‘He’s selling,’ she says flatly.
‘What?’
‘He’s going to sell l’expérience. The building too.’
I reach for a chair and sit on it.
‘Wh-what? Why? I thought he wanted to make a name for himself around here.’
‘And he has,’ she says, stubbing out the cigarette. ‘And now he feels he has made a name for himself, for the brand, he can expand and move to bigger premises.’
‘So …’ I slowly process what she has said, ‘… he’s selling.’
She nods.
‘Which means,’ I look up at Fabien, ‘we could buy it.’
He throws his hands into the air. ‘We just said we need to make more time for each other.’
‘I know, I know, but this is the bistro! This is my chance to get it back! For it to be Henri’s again! Everything back to how it was!’
‘And how are we going to afford it?’
‘I – I’ll run the pop-up for longer. Try to get a deposit together. Don’t you see? We can get Henri’s back! We can do a fundraiser night, a memorial night, for Henri. We’ll get a licence for the band. We’ll do an auction. Just give me a chance to raise the money. Or try to do it.’
‘He’s asking top price for the place,’ Carine warns.
‘Then we sell here,’ I announce, without thinking it through. ‘We can live above the bistro. We’ll sell Le Petit Mas.’
‘And live above the bistro. You will live in your work. Where is the balance?’ Fabien says crossly.
‘But, Fabien, it’s everything!’
‘And your life will be nothing but the bistro. It seems to me you care more about Henri and the bistro than you do about what is happening to us.’
And with that he storms out again. And any of the bridges that had just been rebuilt are blown apart.
‘I know one thing for sure. There is no way Henri would have wanted this. You two still have each other. Don’t let it slip through your fingers,’ says Rhi. I hadn’t realized she’d joined us on the terrace. Or that Stephanie had arrived in the kitchen. ‘That’s why he wanted to leave. He had been tied to that one place for too long. He wanted to live while he still had the time. Yes, he loved the bistro but he’d realized there was more to life than that.’
I look at Carine. She shakes her head. ‘If you two can’t make it work, I was right not to believe there was one man out there for me.’
‘Go after him, Del. You have to!’ says Stephanie.