Best Laid Plans (13 page)

T
he journey had been interesting, driving the length of England and getting down to Dover proving to be the worst bit by far, involving a cheap but cheerless stopover. Monique enjoyed the trip across the channel avoiding the temptation to go into the duty-free shop and as the coast of France appeared and people all around started to point it out she felt, ridiculously, that after all these years she was coming home.

Once off the ferry, the claustrophobic feel of the lower car deck not having been the best experience, the driving in France proved remarkably easy as the roads were so much emptier and as she relaxed, quickly becoming used to driving on the opposite side, something stirred in her memory. One of her earliest recollections was being taken on holiday when she was about four years old to visit Aunt Sylvie in the days when the sisters were on more friendly terms. Maybe she had been driven along these very same roads or was it that the roads in France all looked much the same?

As soon as she realized that she was losing concentration, she booked into a small hotel so that she could rest and make an early start next day. Between them, the receptionist’s poor English and her dreadful French they managed to work things out and she was given a lovely single room and later enjoyed a delight of a meal in the little hotel restaurant. The following morning she was up
with the lark, opting out of breakfast before setting off a little more confidently and making steady progress.

The Normandy countryside was so lush and at this time of year there were so many apple trees in full bloom. Even the cows were different; brown and white French cows had long-lashed dreamy eyes and an altogether more chic look than their English counterparts. There was no great rush so she consulted her map and guide book and made a detour to visit Claude Monet’s house and garden. The flower garden – Clos Normand – at the front of the house took her breath away; full of spring blooms, the perspectives, symmetries and soft warm colours were exactly what she might have expected from such an artistic eye. She loved the freedom Monet gave the flowers and the way he married rare varieties with common plants such as daisies and poppies.

Standing on the walkway of the water garden she watched an American couple busily taking pictures, their voices strident and suddenly offensive to her ears. Monique was not looking so much at the Japanese bridge with its glorious hanging plants but at the reflections underneath it. The morning mist was rising and the gently moving water made the scene come alive and ripple before her eyes. Monet might be long dead but his romantic vision lingered both in his paintings and this garden that he had loved.

It moved her beyond words.

She was French and all this was part of her heritage. She needed to be here, at home; it was where she belonged – in this beautiful country where there was space to spread your wings instead of being pulled in tightly as you were in England. Already the spring warmth was settling on her and seeping into her, so different from the cold Lancashire winds she was used to, for even in high summer that wind from the Fell could still surprise you. There was a bleak beauty in that Fell, however, and she acknowledged that but this altogether softer beauty was what she now craved.

Leaving Giverney behind she got back onto the road and continued her journey. She was in no hurry but she also recognized that there was a certain reluctance to complete the journey, which she could not understand. Perhaps it was something to do with stretching out the anticipation of what she might find when she finally arrived.

Mike had been concerned about her coming here alone but she had no fears. She had studied the route with him and it was fairly straightforward and if all else failed and she became hopelessly lost she could contact her aunt. She had spoken to her on the phone after Christmas, giving her the news of Frank’s death and saying that it might be some time before they could come over to take advantage of her wonderful gift.

‘Of course, my angel, do not worry. The cottage is there for you whenever you are ready. Madame Perret is looking after it and she is very reliable.’ The hesitation was minimal. ‘The job at the hotel will still be available for your husband whenever he wishes to take it up. Henri has promised as much and we can rely on him.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Absolutely.’

‘Won’t it matter that Mike can’t speak French?’

She knew even if she could not see her that her aunt was giving a shrug.

‘He will learn quickly and they have a lot of English visitors so he will help there. Six of one and two of the other, is that it?’

‘Not quite.’ Monique laughed, reassured that, once he picked up on the language, Mike would be acting as interpreter as well as doing whatever else Henri had in mind for him. Mike was adaptable and now that he was free of his father’s controlling ways he was a different man. She liked this new man very much.

‘Henri might be hell to live with, a womanizer with a bad temper, but he is an honourable man,’ Sylvie continued,
though not altogether convincingly, and just for a moment Monique felt a twinge of doubt. They were taking a lot on trust here and she was not entirely sure she could fully count on her aunt.

‘Would you thank Henri for us? It would be mad for us to move without the guarantee of a job,’ Monique told her, peeved nonetheless that by dying at the wrong moment her father-in-law was, in death, putting obstacles in the way of what ought to have been a smooth process. They should have been installed in the cottage by now as they could have left their house in Christine’s capable hands. The house in River Terrace was up for sale but it would prove awkward if it sold any time soon. If that happened they would have to use delaying tactics. She did not care to be camping out at the cottage whilst they did it up although she did not think Mike would mind. No, she would only move in when it was ready, beautifully decorated and filled with a mix of the very best French and English furniture she could find. Judging from the photograph, there was nothing she wanted to change about the outside, which was charming. Sylvie had said it was sound so it would mainly be cosmetic work on the interior and the prospect of a blank canvas on which she could really go to town and beyond was a joy.

Christine had said they could move in with her if necessary but that was the last thing she wanted because she needed to start backing away from her mother-in-law and if Sol got wind of that plan he was capable of causing real problems.

Of course she was sorry Frank had died. The family had been predictably devastated and she saw her role very much as supporting Mike, who in turn took on the role of senior member of the household with some verve. He was younger than Amy but oddly Amy did not seem to mind that it was Mike who took charge, arranging the funeral, doing the lot, in fact, whilst she just sat around looking numb.

The funeral had been held at a church on the outskirts of
Preston, never mind that Frank had been a stranger to it, followed by burial in the churchyard there. It was a family plot and they stood around on a bitingly chill day early in the New Year, with a good turnout of some far-flung members of the Fletcher clan, some of whom she recalled from her wedding.

Amy, with that disastrous short hair, wore a black suit with a long, dark grey coat covering it. She looked awful, her eyes red-rimmed from crying, more of a hindrance than a help to her mother, who was remarkably composed throughout. Although it was a difficult time of year, that dead period between Christmas and New Year when everybody forgot what day it was, Monique found a fantastic coat for the funeral at her favourite vintage shop; an understated black coat lifted by an enormous fluffy fur collar. Teaming it with black leather boots and a tiny black pillbox hat, she felt very Jackie Kennedy. Under the coat she wore a simple black shift dress and under that, black underwear. Well, honestly, if you were going to do a thing, do it with some style. Amy’s dark grey and Christine’s navy simply did not cut the mustard. She alone looked the part of chief mourner.

‘I love your coat, Monica,’ one of Christine’s friends exclaimed, only to be instantly shushed because the casual remark was inappropriate to the sombreness of the scene. ‘The collar is so pretty, so soft. You could swear it was real fur.’

It
was
real fur but admitting such a politically incorrect thing was out of the question, not at Frank’s funeral, not as his coffin was about to be lowered reverently into the grave and she was not going to correct the woman’s mistake about her name either. She thought she had conducted herself well, dutifully allowing a few tears to spill over during the service. She sat in the front pew beside Amy, who sobbed noisily throughout, great uncontrolled hiccups, and really rather let herself down. Monique had not liked Frank so
it was insulting to suddenly change her tune and become heartbroken even if it meant that the move to the cottage in France had to be deferred until things were a little calmer. Mike was refusing to leave his mother just now and she rather liked the way he had put his foot down for once.

The months following the disastrous Christmas passed in a whirl, providing her with a further problem that she could not bear to think about. She briefly met up with Sol in January. His concern for her had been both surprising and touching – maybe he did have feelings for her after all – although he had got the wrong end of the stick in imagining that she was heartbroken by Frank’s death. The consoling he had offered had been rather nice, though, and had of course delayed her decision to break it off completely before it became a hopeless entanglement that she could not escape from. The truth was she was dithering about breaking it off because deep down, she did not really want to.

She had not seen him since then but he was refusing to take no for an answer and was becoming careless in his attempts to contact her; it was just a matter of time before it was out in the open. You could only keep a secret for so long so she needed to get out of his hair completely and she could only do that by moving as far away as possible.

She drove slowly and carefully, pulling off the road from time to time just to stretch her legs and sniff the wonderful French air, for even that felt different. She imagined she would have much more room to play with at the cottage than her present home and although she wanted to take some of her belongings with her, she was keen to create a new look for it. Frank Fletcher’s teasing remark on first seeing her living room at River Terrace had hit her hard and she was not going to make that mistake again. Amy was threatening to visit in summer – if they were settled in by then – and she wanted to have things organized, everything
perfect because for some reason she wanted Amy to like it. She was aware that Amy was making an effort with Mike and she knew that her sister-in-law appreciated the way Mike had helped her through that initial grief that had engulfed her far more than it had them. Amy, much to her surprise, had been the one to let it all out whereas Christine had remained stoic and a little aloof and never once let her guard down.

It was a shame for Amy that the thing with Brian had not lasted but looking back she was not surprised and she recalled that the last she saw of him he was accompanying Amy down to the hospital café. She was sitting with Christine in the corridor outside the ward because the screen round Frank’s bed had been pulled across and the nurses were attending him. When Amy returned, alone, they were still sitting in the corridor, a little concerned at the amount of time it was taking to do whatever it was they were doing behind that screen.

‘Where’s Brian?’ Christine asked and Monique knew at once from Amy’s casual shrug what had happened. He had chickened out of this awful situation and abandoned her. Brian was a little like Sol – too handsome for his own good – and she supposed she was guilty of flirting a little with him on that Christmas Eve but then that was what she did and it never really meant anything.

Standing by the window on that Christmas Day afternoon, watching the others depart, she did not regret her decision to stay indoors, giving a shudder before going to sit on the opposite sofa to Brian. She tucked her legs up under her, the folds of her dress demurely hiding any glimpse of leg. She had always played cover-up, knowing that excited a man far more than large displays of flesh.

‘Is it serious between you two?’ she asked, giving him a cheeky smile.

‘No. It’s just a casual thing.’ He smiled too, legs wide
apart in that way of the alpha-male, relaxed and suddenly a little dangerous. He was just like Sol, the sort who thought he was a magnet for women and although she could be tempted she had no intention of allowing him even a small victory. She had shut down and regretted the previous evening’s flirtatious behaviour. She must stop doing that.

‘Amy’s very keen on her career.’ She reached for a mint chocolate, nibbled at it. ‘Don’t let it go on too long,’ she urged him, suddenly and inexplicably feeling that she had to protect her sister-in-law from this man. She had seen the looks they had exchanged and it seemed as if Amy liked him a lot. ‘I don’t want to see her hurt,’ she added, irritated that he should laugh at that.

‘Since when do you care what happens to her? You make it pretty clear that you don’t get on with any of them, except your husband, obviously.’

‘It’s difficult to fit into a family when you first come into it,’ she said. ‘You’re an outsider and they always resent you a little and as a matter of fact you’re wrong. I might not get on with Frank or Amy but I do get on very well with Christine. I haven’t any family of my own,’ she went on. ‘So they are all I have.’ It was a surprising admission as much to herself as to him and it made her feel rather emotional. It was true, for she could not count on her father any more and she rarely saw her aunt. ‘You wouldn’t know what I’m talking about as you don’t have family. Or do you?’ She glanced at him and was just in time to catch his guilty look before he tried to disguise it with another smile. ‘God, you do have family, don’t you? Don’t tell me you’re married? Divorced?’