Chapter 14
14
Despite the awkwardness of not being dressed for entertaining, not knowing Luc was coming and accidentally revealing that he had been the subject of much erroneous local gossip, the evening had passed pleasantly enough.
He wasn’t one to give away a great deal about himself, no matter how hard Isabel asked leading questions and dropped hints about his family. But he did discuss his love of English history and evidently was very interested in us.
When we analysed the evening afterwards, Isabel and I agreed that he had been very good at diverting attention away from himself. He had wanted to know all about the bookshop, the repair of the g?tes, the imminent arrival of the new shepherd’s hut, and how bookings were going for the new season. By the time he wound his scarf around his neck and shrugged himself back into his coat, I don’t think we knew an awful lot more about him than we had when the evening began. Which was very odd and unsatisfactory because Isabel is usually very good at getting information out of people, and I wasn’t too bad at it either.
‘Perhaps he’s reluctant to share personal information because he’s a retired CIA agent,’ she said after we had waved him off, ‘or a sleeper in an FBI cell.’
We went back to sitting around the table, this time with large glasses of Calvados which Felix has insisted on gently warming in a metal ladle over a candle. This had taken several attempts because he kept leaving it too long and the whole thing would burst into flames that nearly took his eyebrows off.
I took up the thread. ‘Or perhaps he is an amnesiac, like Jason Bourne, and he has all these skills that he didn’t know he had. So he can retile a bathroom and put window blinds in without them falling down, but he’s forgotten he has a wife somewhere. She would be a spy, too, living undercover in Marseille. And I bet she is wondering where he is.’
Isabel looked excited. ‘Exactly. She will be searching for him, using a computer she keeps hidden in what looks like an airing cupboard. And scouring Interpol and face recognition software in the hopes of seeing him getting on a train. I bet he has built a false panel under the floor where he hides all his fake passports and bundles of cash.’
We roared with laughter, Isabel rocking back rather dangerously on her chair until I grabbed her arm. Which brought her back down with a bump and a crash waking both the sleeping dogs under the table. Marcel and Antoine raced around the table barking until Felix let them out of the back door. I think both of us were probably slightly tipsy from the Calvados. I’d forgotten how it felt to have moments like that, where I could be silly and say daft things.
‘You watch too much television,’ Felix said, letting the dogs back in again, ‘it’s much more likely he is a retired professor of English history who is perfectly happy to be left alone.’
Isabel tutted at him. ‘You’re such a killjoy. I think that was a successful evening, don’t you? All the food went anyway, so that’s a good sign. Although I would have made a bit more of an effort if I had known he was coming. What must he have thought of us?’
Felix sniffed appreciatively at the last of his warm Calvados. ‘I did tell you. I’m sure I did.’
‘And I am equally sure you didn’t.’
I stood up, slightly lightheaded from the apple brandy, and started clearing things away, before Isabel stopped me.
‘Leave it, I’ll do it in the morning.’
‘If you had a dishwasher, you could load it and just turn it on,’ I said.
‘I keep telling you this, chèrie, ’ Felix said.
‘Yes, yes okay. Put in a dishwasher, take away my one reason for living,’ Isabel said dramatically, and then burst out laughing. ‘Golly, I think I’m a bit squiffy. Perhaps I should go to bed.’
We spent the next few days pottering about, exploring the contents of the storage unit and sweeping all the winter dust, cobwebs and debris out of the old barn. Once we had done that, I could see what the space really looked like.
‘I usually just pull that thing out and put things on it,’ Isabel said, pointing to something under a couple of old wine crates and a broken umbrella stand.
We had lugged the old table outside. It was a cold morning and there was a breeze coming off the river. Having lost interest in the whole event and as we could only find one scrubbing brush, Isabel was checking her phone and watching me use a bucket of hot soapy water to clean off the winter coating of dirt and bird poo. And then I went to fetch some clean water to wash the suds away.
On my return I swung the bucket back as far as I could, intending to throw it over the table. Just at the last minute I realised that Eugénie, warmly wrapped up in a thick tweed coat and matching hat, had scuttled into view and was standing in the direct line of fire (or water in this case), gazing at the table, looking rather wistful.
With commendable reflexes, I thought, I span around on one leg rather dramatically, nearly fell over and managed to throw it over myself.
‘My Bastien’s father made that table,’ Eugénie said, ignoring me as I stood dripping and trying not to swear, ‘just after he and grandmère were married. They were so poor; he said every day was a struggle. They had terrible health that nothing could cure. Both dead now of course, their lives cut tragically short by war and poverty.’
Isabel threw me a look. ‘But they both lived to be over ninety, Mamie .’
Eugénie took no notice. ‘What are you doing out here?’
‘I told you; we are getting the barn ready for the new visitors.’
‘So, there is no chance for an old woman, who has walked all this way in the freezing cold and with weak ankles, to be given coffee?’
‘Of course.’
Eugénie turned and gave me a puzzled look, sweeping from my red, sweating face to my soaking wet trousers.
‘And what on earth are you doing? Did you know you are very wet? It’s very bad to have wet shoes, you will catch pneumonie – a bad chest – and then you will need to go to hospital. There used to be nuns at the hospital, I remember them well. They were very fierce. I knew someone who went there with suspected appendicitis. The nuns said he was a fool, he had indigestion and was to go home and stop wasting their time, and he did.’
‘Goodness me, what happened?’
Eugénie shook her head sadly and crossed herself.
‘A terrible tragedy. Only twelve years later he was dead. He was run over by a milk lorry.’
I choked back a laugh and squelched after her and back into the house to change.
Back downstairs again I found Eugénie busy interrogating my sister about Luc.
‘Why a doctor needs to build his own house I do not know. Surely he makes enough money from his patients to pay someone?’
‘He’s not a medical doctor,’ Isabel said, ‘he told us was a professor of English history.’
‘ Ne sois pas ridicule! How will he know how to treat me when I’m ill? Read me Baudelaire or Shakespeare? The world has gone mad. I said as much to Charles last night.’
‘Is he still singing under your window?’ I asked.
‘If you can call it singing. He has tried something new. Half past one and he has brought his portable record player and starts up with Edith Piaf, “Sous les Ponts de Paris”. Do I look like the sort of woman who would like to sleep with the vagabonds under the bridges of Paris? I should have thrown a bucket of water over him ,’ she added with a look at me.
‘He means well, Mamie ,’ Isabel said, ‘he can’t help himself.’
Eugénie nodded. ‘He is amoureux de moi , in love with me. I can’t blame him for that. He says he has felt this way for years, ever since he saw me dressed as Marianne on the float on Bastille Day in 1965.’
‘Well, of course,’ Isabel said, ‘I saw the photograph.’
Behind her back I mimed a question at my sister. The famous painting of Marianne generally showed a bare breasted maiden, gallantly leading the revolutionary forces towards freedom. Which personally I would have thought would have been far too much of a distraction for the sans-culottes . Had Eugénie done that too? Isabel bit her lip to stop herself laughing and shook her head.
‘I have something for you,’ Isabel said, ‘I know it’s late, but I saved some especially.’
She brought out a plate with the slice of Galette du Roi on it and placed it in front of Eugénie with a little pastry fork.
Eugénie looked at it and then leaned forward to peer at it.
‘It is very bad luck to be late with such a thing. I expect we will have a terrible year. And then I will be ill. This is bought pastry, isn’t it?’
Isabel and I exchanged a knowing look, and she rolled her eyes.
‘Well yes, I didn’t have time to make it myself,’ Isabel admitted, ‘but it turned out very well.’
Eugénie took a tiny taste of it and then prodded the rest with her fork.
‘Hmm. No fève for me then this year. And I would have wished for better health, an end to my circulation problems perhaps. Or my palpitations, which are very bad at the moment. Who had it?’
‘Joy,’ Isabel said.
I gave an apologetic smile.
Eugénie pushed the plate away and finished her espresso. ‘It seems God does not wish to bless me. I may not be here next year. I’m not blaming anyone. I cannot stay here entertaining you and doing nothing all day. I have a hairdresser’s appointment at eleven. I was hoping you would drive me there, but if you are too busy with your brocante , then I will ask Charles. I don’t want to do because it just encourages him. He will get funny ideas.’
‘Why don’t you just marry him, Mamie ?’ Isabel said, sighing.
Eugénie gave a disgusted pouf. ‘Why would I do that? La chasse – the hunt is part of the fun. Once I am caught, I will be like a trembling doe trapped in a net.’
‘More like a Tasmanian Devil wedged in a tree stump,’ Isabel murmured.
I turned away to hide a laugh and pretended to be washing up some mugs. She was hilarious, but the relationship between her and my sister was even funnier.
‘The secret is to keep running, men cannot resist that. And I don’t want to be caught, I just like to be pursued,’ Eugénie said.
‘You are méchant – unkind,’ Isabel said, ‘keeping Charles’ hopes alive for all these years.’
‘Men like to chase,’ Eugénie said, ‘it is intoxicating.’
I thought about this; yes, she was probably right. Perhaps I should take a leaf out of her book. I was actually enjoying getting to know Luc, and I knew he was feeling the same way. There’s just something that I think most women can pick up on. I knew he was aware of me, there were subtle things that couldn’t really be described. The tilt of his head towards me, an inflection in his voice the occasional look that didn’t involve anyone else. It was indeed, intoxicating. I hadn’t felt anything like it for years.
‘Now then are we going or not?’
‘Of course,’ Isabel said, ‘I’ll just get my keys. Joy, do you want to come too?’
After days of sorting through watering cans and fabric scraps, I was eager to get out and about, and now that my feet were dry, I was keen to go along too.
The little town looked lovely in the sunshine and there was a small, early morning market in the square, which by the time we arrived, was starting to pack up.
We deposited Eugénie outside Madame Julie – Coiffeuse just after midday, and she went in with much ceremony, and was welcomed by a doughty looking woman with a floral overall and an aggressive perm. There followed much cheek-kissing and fuss as Eugénie was ushered through the doors. I think it must have been like when the Queen Mother in her heyday arrived at the London Palladium.
Isabel parked the car in front of Felix’s bookshop where there was a sign saying:
Parking Interdit.
‘Don’t take any notice of that sign, Felix made it out of an old tin plate and a broomstick. Right, we have time to go and buy some bread and perhaps grab a coffee. There is an absolutely lovely café just around the corner, you might remember it.’
‘I do,’ I said, rather excited, ‘I remember the cakes anyway.’
We went first to the boulangerie where the afternoon loaves had just been put out on the shelves. Despite the small size of the shop there were so many different types of bread that it was hard to decide what to buy. And the aroma was bewitching. Eventually Isabel selected a boule and un gros pain , which was like a fat baguette. When the bread was this good, it didn’t seem too much of a hardship to get it every day. Then we made our way through the little streets to Le Café de Mimi , where Mimi herself was sweeping the pavement outside and keeping an eye on everything.
‘ Ah, c’est ton soeur ! Joy!’ she said as we arrived. ‘And ‘ow are your family?’
‘Very well, thank you,’ I replied.
‘It’s good to get away from them sometimes, n’est ce pas ?’ she said with a grin.
Hmm, not only did she remember who I was, she evidently knew something of the reasons that had brought me back in the first place.
I made a sort of head wagging gesture that was vaguely French, and as the sun was shining, the wind had dropped, and all the spaces inside were taken, we sat down at an empty table outside. Isabel gave our order and moments later, two coffees and two vast Religieuses pastries arrived. They looked like heaven.
‘No wonder you like living here,’ I said, through a mouthful of choux pastry and crème patissière. ‘But don’t you get tired of everyone knowing everything about you?’
‘No. It was odd at first, but then I realised that actually no one is that interested. If everyone knows everyone else’s business, there is nothing to find out. Which is why Luc was a bit of a hot topic when he arrived. He was difficult to get to know, I suppose he still is. He seems nice enough though, don’t you think?’
‘Yes, from the little I know,’ I said.
‘I expect you to find out everything,’ Isabel said with a wicked gleam, ‘I think he likes you.’
Did he? I felt a bit odd – and dare I say it? – nervous at the thought. For most of my adult life, I’d assumed that this sort of thing wouldn’t happen. I’d been a wife and mother by the time I was in my early twenties, and since Stephen and I had divorced, the prospect of any man looking at me with interest again hadn’t crossed my mind. Until now.
I feigned indifference. The moment Isabel got a whiff of my interest in him, she would want to sink her teeth into it and would never let it drop, like Marcel with his rubber banana.
‘You can’t possibly know that.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see.’
‘So, when will the boys finish the base for the shepherd’s hut. I thought they were supposed to be starting the concrete this week.’
‘Who knows? There’s no point trying to chivvy them along. It just puts their backs up, and then I get irritable and then Felix gets irritable. It’s much better to accept that they will get it done in time. I can’t wait to see it. It used up all my savings. It’s pale green, with the sweetest little kitchen and bathroom. Perfect for one person, or two people, if they get along.’
‘You should advertise it as a romantic getaway and put a little table and chairs outside. I saw some in the storage unit, which would be perfect once they are cleaned up. And some solar lights. And perhaps a chiminea.’
Isabel nodded. ‘Good idea. I knew you would be good at this sort of thing. Now then, I suppose we should go and see if Eugénie is ready to go home. It’s been nearly an hour since we dropped her off. Well, good heavens, speak of the devil, which actually we weren’t, and who should I see…’
I turned in my chair to follow her gaze and saw Luc coming towards us, carrying a brown paper parcel under one arm.
Remembering our very recent discussion on the subject of him liking me, and my own thoughts about him, I felt very awkward.
Isabel hailed him and pulled out a chair, encouraging him to sit down. After a moment’s hesitation, he did.
Mimi came out like a shot.
‘ Du café, m’sieur ?’
He agreed that would be good and she scuttled back inside, her eyes bright with excitement to fetch it.
‘So what are you up to?’ Isabel asked, ‘anything interesting?’
He dumped the package on the floor by his feet.
‘Just a few things. Nothing interesting at all. A new spirit level because I ran over mine in the car. Some ruban de masquage – masking tape. I will be painting soon, as Gaston has finished the plasterwork.’
‘Then you are nearly finished,’ Isabel said, ‘well done, you. Do excuse me I need to just pop inside to – you know.’
Luc and I looked at each other for a moment. And then I started babbling with nerves.
‘You’ll enjoy that part I expect. Moving in and making the place look nice. That’s always my favourite part. Do you have a lot of things in storage? It will be like Christmas when your things arrive, won’t it?’
‘I wouldn’t go that far,’ he said.
‘No, perhaps not. Well, if nothing else it will be good to have your home looking nice again, won’t it?’
Mimi returned at that point with a large cup of coffee with a couple of little macarons in the saucer.
‘ Ceux-ci sont gratuits. On the house,’ she said, with a winning smile. ‘Always nice to have customers returning, you have stayed away too long, m’sieur . And ’ow is your building? I hear Gaston was finishing off the plastering. That’s a relief. Tell him I am still waiting for him to do my back passage. It has been months and still he does not return.’
‘I will be sure to mention it,’ Luc said.
He sipped his coffee in silence for a moment.
‘They are very good,’ Mimi said, pointing at the macarons, ‘I made them.’
‘Thank you,’ he said.
‘Almond,’ she added.
She pulled a cloth out from the pocket of her apron and wiped a crumb off the table.
‘You should come on a Friday, I make madeleines .’
‘Perhaps I will,’ he said.
He gave her a charming smile and then flicked me a glance. There. It was moments like those that I recognised.
Mimi fidgeted for a moment and then luckily Isabel returned, and Mimi went back inside, obviously disappointed that she hadn’t managed to prolong the conversation with him.
‘Thank you for a delightful dinner last week,’ he said. ‘I enjoyed it.’
‘Anytime,’ Isabel said cheerfully, ‘you must come again. It can’t be easy for you to cook at the moment. I should have invited you earlier.’
‘I manage,’ he said, taking one of the macarons. ‘Yes, these are good.’
‘Tell me about your building work,’ I said at last, wondering if that would draw him out a little.
‘It’s been harder than I thought, but I feel I have achieved something.’
‘Felix’s great-uncle, Jacques, used to live there. He had nine children,’ Isabel said.
Luc raised his eyebrows. ‘Really? Nine? But there were only two bedrooms. I wonder where they all slept?’
‘Perhaps he should have had a hobby or bought a radio to take up his spare time,’ Isabel said, and gave a nervous giggle. ‘Oooh, I’ve just remembered something.’
She stood up again and went back into the café, leaving me and Luc to our non-conversation.
At last, he finished his coffee and put the cup down with a decisive chink into the saucer.
‘I think your sister imagines we are going to talk,’ he said, ‘so you can find out all about me and she can ask for the details later.’
‘I’m not sure,’ I said, ‘are you that interesting?’
He laughed then, a proper laugh, which was rather lovely, and I felt myself relax a little.
‘No, I think when you get to know me better, you will find out I am not.’
He really was tremendously good-looking but unlike many handsome men, gave the impression that he was unaware of it. Which was unexpected and very attractive. I wondered if he did have a wife somewhere, or even children. And if so, where were they? Perhaps he was divorced, or he had spent his entire life ploughing through academic tomes in university libraries. And ‘when I got to know him better’ ? Was that even a possibility? Considering the conversation had been so stilted up to now, it didn’t seem likely.
I realised I was having very inappropriate thoughts and tried to think of something to say.
‘Sorry. Isabel just said that when everyone knows everything about everybody, no one takes any interest in them any more. You ought to think about that. I was surprised how everyone knew about me. People I’d never met seemed to know all sorts of things.’
He leaned forwards slightly and fixed me with his beautiful brown eyes. I think I heard myself give a little whimper, and I cleared my throat to hide the fact.
‘So what brings you here, have you just come to visit your sister? Or is there more to it than that? You don’t have to tell me, but perhaps I can just ask the postman when I see him next?’
I laughed too and the atmosphere between us warmed up a little. Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw Isabel coming outside, but then she made a sharp 180 degree turn on her heel and disappeared again.
‘Of course I wanted to see Isabel, and Felix and my nephews, but I also needed a change of scenery. Christmas was – shall we say – hard work this year. For a lot of reasons.’
I had a sudden flashback to the day after Boxing Day when I had made yet another huge meal, pasta with home-made bolognaise sauce for most of us, and pasta with cheese for Jasmine and Mia. Halfway through Jasmine had told Bunny she was eating minced up cow and Bunny had started crying. And then there had been a spirited discussion about personal choice and bullying, which had degenerated into Jasmine being sent out of the room for a time out, and not allowed back until she apologised to Bunny. Not to me, I’d noticed.
My resentment had resurfaced at that point, and I had stamped about for a bit, fetching yet another bottle of wine and the pepper mill, and slamming them down on the table and no one had clocked my ill humour at all. It really had been as though I was invisible. I don’t think I would put up with that now, I think a certain resolve had started up inside me.
Luc nodded and ate the second macaron after first offering it to me. I politely declined, referencing the remains of the crème patissière on my plate. I didn’t want him to think I was a complete pig.
‘Christmas can be difficult,’ he said, ‘I went to see an old friend in Marseille.’
Ah yes, that was exactly what Isabel had suggested. What a coincidence. Perhaps he was a spy after all. For a split second I imagined a beautiful blonde girlfriend draped over a pale chaise longue, the boats bobbing suggestively behind her on the dark sea. It was possible she had a Sobranie cigarette in an amber holder too. Or perhaps he had gone to visit his missing wife, who would be chic and intelligent with wide, beautiful eyes and a sexy laugh.
‘He was a colleague of mine, now he is a professor, he’s writing a book about the Wars of the Roses, very interesting indeed.’
The imaginary blonde and the wife disappeared in a puff of smoke.
‘Ah yes, York against Lancaster. That didn’t end well for a lot of people,’ I said.
His eyes lit up. ‘And the relationship between Margaret Beaufort and her son was always interesting?—’
You should hear what Isabel thinks about that, I thought.
‘—and the fact that she was descended from an illegitimate line in the first place. English history is so fascinating.’
‘It didn’t seem that way when we were being taught it in school, I can assure you,’ I said.
‘No, I suppose not.’
We talked for a while about various things. School and travel (he wanted to revisit London and York) and were just getting on to family when Isabel came outside again, looking at her watch.
‘Sorry, but we do need to collect Eugénie from the hairdresser,’ she said, ‘there’s only so much gossip that can keep her occupied for this long.’
I stood up, feeling unexpectedly disappointed that our meeting was coming to an end, and I knocked against the table, making the cups rattle.
‘Of course. Well, perhaps we will see you again soon,’ I said.
Luc smiled. ‘ A bient?t. ’
‘ So? What did you find out. I left it as long as I could,’ Isabel said as we walked back to the car.
‘He spent Christmas in Marseille with an old friend.’
‘Girlfriend?’
‘Old history professor.’
Isabel pulled a face. ‘That doesn’t sound very interesting.’
As we walked back to the car I constructed a rather pleasing mental picture of Luc and another historian, who possibly smoked a pipe and wore a tweed jacket. They were sitting on a sun-drenched balcony (so perhaps the jacket wasn’t needed) overlooking the Mediterranean, discussing the Battle of Bosworth or something like that.
There were tumbling cascades of bougainvillea on either side, perhaps a little table with some glasses of cognac, a dish of perfect green olives. And there was some point in the conversation when Luc laughed, and he looked relaxed and happy.
I wondered what it would be like to go somewhere new like that, to live like a local person, to find out more about the world and no longer be constrained by memories of a husband who had thought every stranger posed a threat.
Perhaps marriages didn’t have to be one person in charge and the other person scrabbling round trying to please them all the time? Although life after Stephen left had been difficult and sometimes frightening, I think I was beginning to realise that I was, after all, capable of running my own life, paying my bills, sorting out my days without him telling me what I was doing wrong.
And then I allowed myself a dangerous thought – what would it be like to go to Marseille with Luc, to be on that balcony, the bright light reflected off the sea, flowers everywhere, colour and fragrance? Fishing boats in the distance, a heavenly blue sky.
Would it be like that at Christmas in the South of France? I didn’t know, but suddenly I wanted to find out.