Chapter 12
Sunday started with a leisurely breakfast on the terrace for everyone except Becky.
The six of them were still sitting there at eleven o’clock and the first informal morning session morphed into a general discussion about books and writing.
Becky hadn’t put in an appearance, and as it wasn’t obligatory to attend these informal meetings, Sandy didn’t have a conscience about going ahead without her.
Becky sauntered in at twelve thirty, just as everyone was starting to think about choosing their lunch. She said a general ‘Hi’ to no one in particular, got herself a coffee and wandered around talking on her phone.
As everyone tucked into a delicious bowl of pasta with a creamy mushroom sauce, followed by a slice of a decadent strawberry tart, Becky had another black coffee. ‘Saving myself for dinner tonight,’ she said.
‘Our Antibes aperitif walk this evening will help work this off,’ Isobel said, glancing around at everyone. ‘We are doing that as a regular evening thing, aren’t we?’
‘Definitely,’ they all replied as one.
‘Great. Sandy, will you join us tonight?’
‘Not tonight, thank you, but another night.’
‘I’ll take you to my favourite cocktail bar – they have happy hour from five until seven,’ Becky said. ‘You’ll love it there.’ Her phone pinged as she spoke. ‘I’ll catch you all later, I simply have to answer this,’ and she turned to go into the villa.
Slowly they all drifted off to do their own thing for the afternoon: Isobel to edit her book, Lorraine to write, Helena and Mandy said they were going to go and sit on the beach for half an hour before coming back to do some writing.
Liz almost said she’d like to join them on the beach before deciding she’d spend the time alone thinking and hoping for inspiration for the book.
Finding a quiet spot away from the several families who were enjoying Sunday afternoon in the sunshine, Helena and Mandy spread out the rug they’d remembered to bring and sat listening to the gentle rhythmic sound of the waves lapping the shore.
Helena took out her phone and took a couple of photos of the beach and the coastline to send to her mum.
‘I sent her a quick text yesterday to say we’d arrived safely, but I still feel guilty that I’m away this week.
’ She typed a message and sent the photos.
‘Are you going to send Teddy a “wish you were here” photo?’ Mandy asked.
Helena glanced at Mandy, who looked back at her innocently.
‘I could, I suppose,’ Helena said, not telling Mandy she’d already sent him a text message to that effect.
‘And you could sign off with a couple of kisses. He might get the message then that you’re in love with him.’
Helena sighed. She longed to tell somebody about her and Teddy, and Mandy was her best friend.
They were here for a fortnight, so it wasn’t as if Mandy could let the secret slip to anybody at home, but she’d have to swear her to secrecy when they got back until Helena had told her mum herself – and sorted out Leon.
‘He knows,’ she said quietly. ‘I told him on New Year’s Eve and we’ve been seeing each other ever since.’
‘You kept that secret,’ Mandy squealed. ‘You could have told me.’
‘To be fair, we haven’t told anyone yet,’ Helena said before quickly telling her about Leon asking Teddy to look out for his sister and Teddy’s subsequent promise.
‘I know Leon did it with the best of intentions, but I’m so cross with him.
Teddy and I could have been together ages ago.
’ Helena sighed. ‘I’m waiting for Leon to either come home or video call me, when I shall tell him exactly what I think of his interference. ’
* * *
Liz decided a wander around the garden would help her to think before going up to her room and her laptop.
She stopped to admire the fountain, wondering if she could fit one in her own garden; the sound of water was so relaxing.
The oleander bushes dotted throughout the garden surprised her with their white instead of the more ubiquitous pink or red flowers.
A large olive tree hung over the path in the far corner of the garden, its gnarled and twisted trunk telling Liz it was old, probably older than the villa itself.
She stood for a moment or two alongside the olive tree, looking at the view up the garden towards the villa.
Terracotta tiles, walls painted white with a tiny hint of pink the sunshine was currently highlighting, shutters a lovely faded olive green, it looked like a well-loved Provencal home.
A house that would have stories to tell.
Liz took her phone out of her pocket and took a couple of photos of the house, the olive tree and the fountain, before closing the camera app.
Deep in thought, she began to make her way back indoors, the phrase ‘what if’ beginning to ask questions as a fragile story idea started to take root in her mind.
In the hallway, Liz stopped to look at the photos and the books.
She smiled when she saw a couple of her own books there, including her latest. Honestly, it was a wonder that she had even managed to write that book at all.
Maybe it had been so hard writing through the death of her marriage before the divorce proceedings even started that she had exhausted her creativity.
Liz took the book off the shelf, closed her eyes and, holding it tightly, muttered ‘You did this, you can do it again. Your passion for writing will return. You can do it, you can do it, you can do it.’ Repetition she knew was crucial to get the brain hardwired to believe you were speaking the truth and get those pesky creative neurons to behave.
Guy, believing everyone had finished lunch and disappeared, came out of the kitchen to go to tidy the dining room but stopped as he saw Liz.
He looked at the book she was holding, heard the words ‘passion for writing’ followed by ‘you can do it’ being repeated and decided a fraction of a second too late to step back into the kitchen before she saw him.
Liz opened her eyes at that instance and stared straight at him and their eyes locked in a gaze for a brief second before they both blinked and broke the spell that seemed to have descended over the two of them.
‘Hello. Would you be Elisabeth James, the novelist, by any chance?’ he said, his good manners instinctively surfacing as he remembered Sandy saying that the author was one of the retreat guests.
‘Most people call me Liz,’ she said, smiling.
‘The book you are holding was a favourite one of my wife Jacqueline – she had all of them.’
‘That is lovely to hear, thank you,’ Liz said.
Guy looked at Liz quizzically. ‘I couldn’t help hearing you mutter about doing it again – are you suffering from what I believe is called writer’s block?’
Liz feeling decidedly awkward at being found muttering over one of her own books, as well as being somewhat disorientated by their unexpected eye contact, gave him a sheepish smile.
‘I’m definitely a novelist in search of a story.
I’m trying my best to psych myself up to get on with a new book.
You must be Guy Lyon?’ she said. ‘I’m hopeful your garden might just have given me a germ of an idea. ’
He nodded and held out his hand. ‘Lovely to meet you, Liz.’
‘You too, Guy,’ Liz said quietly as she registered a tingle in her hand as Guy shook it gently before releasing it.
‘Do you ever have a problem with not wanting to cook? Feel as though you’ve lost both your touch and your passion for doing what you love?
’ she asked. ‘That’s been my problem for months now with writing – a lack of ideas stopping me from getting actual words on the paper – or, rather, the computer screen. ’
Guy nodded in acknowledgement of her words, a rueful look on his face. ‘Last evening was the first dinner I’ve cooked for guests in nine months.’
‘It was a lovely meal, thank you,’ Liz said. ‘You definitely haven’t lost your touch. I love cooking, so I’m making notes for when I get home and can experiment in my kitchen.’ She hesitated. ‘I hope your passion returns soon and you cook many more meals in your beautiful villa.’
Wordlessly, Guy stared at her for several seconds before visibly taking a deep breath.
‘My passion died the night my wife died. I’m sorry. Excuse me,’ and Guy turned to go back to the kitchen.
Liz’s quiet, sincere words, ‘I’m so sorry,’ registered as he walked away and he waved his hand in the air in a gesture of acknowledgement without turning round.
Liz watched him go, inwardly cursing herself for unintentionally making such an insensitive, blundering remark.
It wasn’t like her at all. She hated upsetting people, would in fact go out of her way to avoid doing that.
She’d used the word passion in relation to his love of cooking like she had a passion for writing, but he’d chosen to attach it to the loss of his wife.
Guy Lyon must have loved his wife deeply to have lost his passion for cooking – the very thing that defined him.
Carefully, she replaced the book on the shelf and headed upstairs.
Back in her room, she opened her laptop and tried to push the encounter with Guy to one side.
There was nothing she could do about it right now.
She would apologise for upsetting him if the opportunity presented itself, otherwise she was going to have to forget about the look of pain that had crossed his face as she spoke.
Forget, too, the tingle as Guy had shaken her hand.
It must have been caused by tiny nerves in her fingers being squeezed.
She flexed both her hands. She’d had a problem with repetitive strain in her wrists several times.
Hopefully that tingle was not linked to another bout being on the way.
Liz opened a new document on her laptop.
She was here to write. Out in the garden, she’d promised herself this weekend was going to be the end of her ‘block’ – if that was what it was.
She typed the words ‘New Book Thoughts’ at the top of the page.
Until she’d teased out a basic premise for the story from the one or two fleeting thoughts she’d had in the garden, there was no way she was going to tempt fate and label the document Chapter One.
For the next hour or two, she lost herself thinking about the various characters that had started to clamour for a place in the storyline.
Closing her laptop at the end of her brainstorming session, Liz gave a gentle sigh of relief.
She’d planned a storyline she was happy with and already she was loving her main male character – he was going to be such fun to write.
* * *
Guy swore to himself as he poured a glass of water and went out into the kitchen yard.
What the hell had just happened back then?
He’d definitely felt a spark of something in those few seconds they’d held each other’s gaze.
Shaking her hand, too, had fleetingly caused not a spark but a spasm of the nerve endings in his hand to tingle and had triggered something in his head – almost a feeling of relief, of coming home.
He had no intention of becoming friends with or even letting another woman into his life, but if he did, then Liz would be the sort of woman he would like in his life.
He shouldn’t have answered Liz James like that, stonily and without regard to how it sounded to her.
He’d seen the dismay on her face as she heard his words, realised that she’d upset him.
The fact that he’d known as soon as he’d heard Liz’s words that she was referring to his passion for cooking and had nothing to do with his dead wife made his behaviour inexcusable.
For some illogical reason, though, hearing the word passion had tipped his mind into the dark place that was never very far away these days.
He hadn’t given any thought to the words he spoke before he said them, they’d just burst out of him.
He definitely owed Liz James an apology.
Upsetting people with his reaction to their sympathy was one of the reasons he’d stayed away from everyone for the past few months.
And now he’d upset a woman who had been offering her sympathy over a different loss – his passion for cooking.
But were his two lost passions now irrevocably linked together?
Both lost forever? Life would scarcely be worth living if that were the case.