The French for Love (19 page)

‘It’s finished?’ I ask.

‘
Oui
,’ he replies with a curt nod. He pulls on his leather jacket and shrugs the rucksack onto his back, then flings one leg over the motorbike. Just as he’s about to fit the helmet over his unruly curls, he pauses and looks at me standing awkwardly by the step.

There’s a pregnant silence. And then he speaks.

‘It was an honest mistake,’ he says. ‘Cédric’s really fallen for you. That’s why he risked asking, in spite of what everyone has been saying about your situation. He thought it was just gossip.’

There’s another silence as I try to digest what he’s just said. Blimey, even his own brother is encouraging a little adultery on the side now.

And then I think,
you what?
Am I missing something in translation?

‘Excuse me?’ I say coolly. ‘What’s
my
situation got to do with it? It’s his own situation that’s the problem. I know you French are very broad-minded about these things but, bourgeois as it may seem, I’m not prepared to get involved with a married man.’

There’s another silence as Pierre appears to be struggling to understand what I’ve just said.

‘A married man,’ he repeats stupidly.

Now he seems to be on the back foot, but I’m just starting to get into my stride. ‘Yes. Poor Marie-Louise. I don’t care how open a relationship they have; that’s up to them—in fact the whole situation is not something that interests me in the slightest.’

‘Marie-Louise,’ he repeats. Now he appears to be completely at a loss. Then he says, very calmly and reasonably, as you would to a lunatic who you were trying not to derange any more than was clearly already the case, ‘The same Marie-Louise who is married to Florian?’

‘Precisely,’ I say triumphantly.

And then I realise what he’s just said. Now it’s my turn to repeat what’s just been said. ‘Marie-Louise is married to Florian.’ I can feel the blood draining from my face.

Pierre looks at me curiously.

‘But...’ I stammer. ‘But if Marie-Louise is married to Florian, who is married to Cédric?’

A grin begins to spread across Pierre’s face as the
centime
begins to drop. And then his expression changes to one of sadness. ‘Gina,’ he says, speaking very slowly and clearly, as if to a complete idiot, ‘Cédric’s wife, Isabelle, died three years ago. Breast cancer. He hasn’t looked at another woman since. Until you came along, that is. Marie-Louise was Isa’s best friend from school days. She and Florian have been happily married for twelve years; they have three sons.’ And then he says more gently, ‘How can you have lived here all these months and know nothing of this?’

How indeed? I hardly know myself. I suppose it’s because I’ve been so immersed in trying to fathom my own family’s complicated relationships that I’ve effectively shut myself away from the world.

‘But she danced with him at Bastille Night,’ I say lamely, struggling to make sense of everything I’ve just been told.

‘That’s because Florian has two left feet, and Cédric loves to dance,’ says Pierre with a shrug.

‘But Nathalie... and Luc...’ I tail off, lamely.

‘Yeah, it’s been tough for them, but Marie-Louise collects them from school some days, and others the school bus drops them at my mother’s,’ he nods in the direction of Mireille’s house, ‘so it’s not a problem. That’s what families are for, after all.’

There’s another silence while I contemplate this, and then think of my own family which seems far too sparse and somewhat lacking in comparison. And then, replaying the conversation we’ve just had, another thought occurs to me.

‘Hang on a second,’ I say indignantly. ‘Just what are people saying about
my
situation?’

‘Well, first of all, you were with that terrible guy with the red face. Everyone saw you dancing with him at Bastille Night.’

‘I was
never
with him,’ I cry.

‘Okay, maybe—but then Christine Cortini told Marie-Louise that she and Robert saw you and your English friend being very affectionate indeed on the bridge in Sainte Foy after an intimate meal
à deux
.’

I look blank. ‘My English friend.’ I’m back in repetition mode.

‘Yes, you know, the one with the magnificent breasts. What was her name? Annie.’

Oh, God. So first Cédric thought I was an item with Nigel Yates and then he thought I was gay. I have a sudden flashback to the scene on the terrace with a scantily clad Annie doing her orgasm impression. Come to think of it, that probably didn’t help matters much either.

And then I realise that, despite all this, Cédric still liked me enough to cling on to the hope that he might still be in with a chance. And he finally plucked up the courage to ask me out. I hear my shrill tirade from yesterday echoing in my head, berating him for being a cheating bastard.

Pierre continues, with a nod at the mug in my hand, ‘He even drank your horrible tea every day, just so he could have a chance to talk to you.’

‘Oh, no, Pierre. I’ve made the most terrible mistake,’ I wail.

But he’s not really listening as he’s taken out his mobile phone and is busy composing a text message. He obviously has more important things to deal with, like his own social life, for instance, than this crazy English woman who hasn’t a clue what’s going on in the world beyond her front gate.

With a final irritatingly dismissive shrug and a wave, he clamps the helmet firmly on his head and roars off down the drive and I’m left standing forlornly in the courtyard gazing after him.

Stunned, I sit back down on the step, cradling my head in my hands as I try to absorb all I’ve just heard. How could I have been so wrong? I feel more of an outsider than ever, as I contemplate the intricate, tightly knit web of support that is the Thibault family. I’ve been living in a community that has observed and commented on my every move, while I’ve carried on blissfully unaware. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own affairs that I haven’t made any attempt to find out more about my own neighbours, to understand them, to know their battles and their triumphs, to take part. And worst of all, I’ve now hurt and insulted one of the best men I’ve ever met, who has already suffered more than his share of loss and grief. I’ve blown my chances with what might just have been the man of my dreams.

A few minutes later, a car swishes by at the end of the drive and I glance up in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of a familiar dark blue pickup. For a second my heart lurches as I think it’s going to turn into the drive, but to my dismay it carries on along the lane. Cédric must be going to collect Nathalie and Luc from Mireille’s.

I leap to my feet. I have to put this right. I’ll go over and ask him to step outside so I can apologise, try to explain.

I hurry up the drive, anxious to get this over and done with, trying to think of the French for, ‘Sorry I’m such a complete bloody idiot,’ and, ‘Do you think you can ever find it in your heart to forgive me?’ And then I see that a figure in dusty green overalls is coming towards me along the lane, hurrying just as much as I am.

As he draws near, I see the look on his face and I realise that, for once, Pierre’s main priority wasn’t sorting out his social life. He was texting his brother to let him know that the crazy English girl had got it all wrong. That she was so wrapped up in her own preoccupations that she couldn’t see what was going on right in front of her nose.

We stop, awkward now we’re face to face again, and I begin to blurt out, ‘I’m so sorry...’ when Cédric reaches out and puts a finger on my lips to stop me. His touch sends a jolt of longing through my body, so powerful that I lean into him and lose myself in his kiss.

The loneliness and frustration of the past months melt away as our bodies meld seamlessly together. The unspoken current of desire between us ignites into a blaze more powerful than any I’ve known before. And I know that all we can do is surrender ourselves to it. And then, over the sound of the pounding of my heart, I hear the hoarse, ratchet-like cry of a magpie, and another’s triumphant answering call in the branches of the trees above our heads.

♦ ♦ ♦

Time passes—it could be five minutes, it could be fifty—and suddenly Cédric looks up, distracted by the sight of a small figure dancing along the lane toward us. I turn, still held in the circle of his strong arms, to see Nathalie. As she draws nearer she calls, ‘
Papa, Grand-Mère
wants to know if you’re going to ask Gina to come and have supper with us?’

Cédric looks down at me, his eyes tender, smiling, the threads of ancient pain and grief still just visible there, but overlain by so many other strands that make up his life, the fabric of which I’m only just starting to understand. ‘It’s not quite the romantic evening
à deux
that I had planned for our first date,’ he laughs.

I stoop down to hug Nathalie and brush back a strand of her dark hair from her eyes. Looking up at Cédric, I smile back. ‘I can’t think of anything more perfect,’ I reply.

Nathalie takes hold of the hand that Cédric isn’t holding and leads the two of us back up the lane to the little house in the plum orchard.

Where Mireille, grinning broadly, already has an extra place set at the table.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Together at Last

To-Do list:

• •
  Buy more anti-cellulite cream
  
• •
  Make appointment at hairdresser
  
• •
  Make appointment at beauty salon
  
• •
  Phone Annie
  
• •
  Try to concentrate on MW coursework and stop thinking about kissing Cédric again—ongoing.
  

O
ur first proper date takes place the next evening. There’s a concert at a local chateau and Cédric surprises me by suggesting we go. ‘Ha!’ he laughs. ‘You didn’t think a simple stonemason could be so cultured, did you, Gina? Well, to be honest, I really just want to get you away from the possessive grasp of my family so I can have my wicked way with you at last. My mother dotes on you and already regards you as a daughter, Nathalie adores you and even Luc says you’re ‘cool’, which is his highest accolade. I can see I’m going to have to resort to devious means to be in with a chance of having you to myself for once.’

Actually that’s rubbish. I’m the cheapest date going after my months of enforced celibacy and I’d quite happily forego the preliminaries and simply dive between the sheets with him. But it does feel good to be courted for once, and Cédric’s romantic approach is certainly having the effect of heightening my desire for him.

I endure a lengthy session at the beauty salon, where the beautician purses her lips in disapproval at my lax English standards of personal care. She proceeds to wax, pluck and exfoliate me to within an inch of my life and I leave the salon feeling about half a stone lighter. Back home, I slip on my simple black dress, clasp a triple strand of pearls around my neck, and pin my hair back, with a tingling sense of anticipation.

It’s a beautiful evening. The vines that surround the pretty chateau are turning golden in the light of early autumn. The concert is in a converted barn to one side of the main house and the music soars and floats in the peaceful space that rises into the rafters above us.

During the interval, Cédric introduces me to the chateau owners and one or two others who come up to say hello but then, with a glint of determination in his eye, he steers me away. He picks up two glasses of chilled white wine from a table, saying, ‘Come on, I’ll show you some of my work.’

We wander into the gardens, down a path which is framed by tall cypress trees. There’s a fountain at the far end, carved out of the local honey-coloured stone, and we make our way to it and perch on its rim. Its simple, clean lines are set off perfectly by a soft planting of silvery lavender and I brush my fingers over the dry purple spikes to release their fragrance.

‘This is so beautiful,’ I sigh, sipping my wine.

‘Why, thank you, mademoiselle.’

‘Carved by you? Well, you
are
a man of hidden talents! I thought you just fixed chimneys,’ I tease.

‘Ah, I assure you I do have one or two other talents that you have yet to discover.’

‘Hmm, yes, like roofing. And of course ceilings...’ and I peter out as he begins to kiss me, playfully at first, as if only to shut me up, but as I respond his kisses become deeper and more urgent.

‘Let’s go home,’ I say huskily.

He takes my hand and leads me back up the path, our forgotten wineglasses glowing golden at the edge of the fountain in the last rays of the setting sun.

♦ ♦ ♦

We wake slowly the next morning, moving together sleepily and languidly after the passionate haste of the night before.

I run my fingers over the lines of his face, gently tracing the faint fault lines of pain around his eyes that I’d noticed the very first time we met. I understand them a little better now. As he holds me in his arms, I ask him about his wife, Isabelle, and her illness. It’s still painful for him to talk about it and he seems touchingly vulnerable as he describes what he and the children went through as they watched her lose the struggle against her cancer, helpless in the face of its terrible destructive force. ‘I’ve tried to protect Luc and Nathalie as much as possible; that’s been my main priority ever since we lost Isa.’ His voice cracks as he relives the loss. ‘And of course my family have been wonderful, supporting the children and me.’

‘What a good thing you’re such a tight-knit lot. I know it can never replace the children’s mother, but a loving extended family like yours is a wonderful thing, I can see.’ I can’t help contrasting it with my own family, which seems so lacking in comparison.

Cédric smiles at me. ‘Why such a sad expression, my lovely Gina?’ He kisses my forehead gently, and the slight frown that had been gathering there melts away.

I pull away a little, turning so that I can face him. I’m hesitant, unsure whether to confide in him. After the series of betrayals by everyone I thought I was closest to that I’ve experienced in the past year, learning to trust anyone ever again has felt like an impossible struggle. But looking into his face now, I begin to let my guard down, reassured by the look that I see written in his eyes. There’s a solidity about him, not just in the strong lines of his muscular body but in the way he seems so rooted into this land, so comfortable in his life here, so sure of his priorities when it comes to his family.

I tell him about finding the photo, my worst fears and suspicions, my feelings of devastation, complicated by the sense of frustration at having nobody I can ask to find out the truth of the matter. Despite my tentative questioning of Hugh and Celia Everett, no one seems to have any certain knowledge of whether or not my father visited Liz here after that first encounter when the picture must have been taken. The only person who might be able to tell me is the one whom I can never ask: my own mother.

Cédric whistles through his teeth in disbelief at the revelations, then lies silent for a while, digesting what I’ve told him. Finally he shakes his head. ‘You could ask my mother, I suppose. Mireille didn’t know Liz for very long, but they did become very close friends. Maybe your aunt confided in her before she died?’ He hesitates. ‘Or maybe you just have to try and accept that this is something you’ll probably never know.’ He holds up a hand as I start to protest. ‘I know it’s hard. But you have to try to respect their wish to keep it a secret in order to protect your mother. Imagine the devastation—her husband and her own sister. The important thing for you now is to move on and learn to trust again.’ Then, flashing that sexy grin, he adds, ‘And I think I know just the man for that job.’

‘Oh yes? Well perhaps you could give me his number then,’ I reply airily, and he pulls me to him and proceeds to leave me in no doubt at all as to exactly who that man is.

♦ ♦ ♦

Life falls into a new routine. While Cédric is at work with his brothers, I push on with my Master of Wine studies, making good progress now that I have a structure to my weeks and a local support network of experts to call on when I need help. In the evenings I go to Cédric’s, or he and the children come to me, and we have supper together. By unspoken agreement, I never sleep over at his house and we stay apart on nights when the children will be at school the next day. It’s new to me, having to accommodate family life, and I begin to want more, especially as I grow to love Luc and Nathalie with a strong maternal passion that surprises me. But I sense Cédric is holding back a little, still feeling the need to protect his children, and a tiny niggle of insecurity stirs in me now and then, a voice of doubt that whispers, ‘He loved Isabelle more than he loves me.’

The weekends are easier, a whirlwind of noise and fun and busyness, spent watching Luc’s football matches and Nathalie’s ballet classes, and getting together with the ever-changing kaleidoscope that is Cédric’s family—his brothers and their wives, uncles, aunts, Mireille of course, and the children’s myriad cousins. And that’s before we even get started on the friends. When I express my bewilderment at this sprawling community that seems to have swallowed me up, Cédric laughs. ‘Yes, around here everybody knows everyone else. We all went to school together. Our parents all went to school together. Our children all go to school together. And so it goes on.’

And when the little pang of insecurity inside me raises its head and whispers, ‘And I’ll always be an outsider here,’ I push it firmly to one side.

We get together for the usual family gathering at Mireille’s house for Sunday lunch and, once everyone has gone, Nathalie and Luc settle down to watch a DVD and Cédric goes outside to fix a loose section of guttering. Mireille looks after him fondly as we dry the last few pots and pans. ‘My helpful son. That’s how he shows his love, you know—fixing things. Which made it all the harder for him when Isa fell ill. Something that couldn’t be fixed.’ She pauses, reflecting. ‘That’s how I knew he’d fallen for you, after not looking at another woman for so long, when he was so keen to fix your roof. That and the fact that he was even prepared to drink tea and eat those—
comment ça se dit?—
HobNobs to find an excuse to spend time with you.’

We work in companionable silence for a few moments, each deep in our own thoughts. And then I think, it’s now or never.

I take a breath.

‘Mireille, did Liz ever confide in you about my father? You see, I know something happened between them, long ago, before I was even born...’ and I explain about discovering the photo and the missing negatives.

She’s silent for a while, giving nothing away. Finally she hugs me, then holds me at arm’s length so she can look into my eyes.

‘Ah, Gina, I can see this has been so hard for you, discovering that the past is perhaps not what you thought it was. But whatever may or may not have happened between them is ancient history now. And so you have to wonder whether it’s really all that important to know exactly what went on when, and for how long. What good would that do you? It might just make you suffer more. It could even drive more of a wedge between you and your mother. Being the one left behind isn’t easy either, you know—just ask Cédric. And your mother needs you, no matter how strong and independent she may seem.’

She smoothes my hair back from my face, a gesture of tenderness and love. ‘As I see it, and I know it’s not easy, the most important thing is for you to forgive and to move on. Don’t let what you don’t know eat away at you. Life’s too short for that. Being able to let go is as important as it is difficult to do. So my advice to you is to let this whole affair rest now. Try to get on with your life, and try to remember them both with love. After all, the one thing you do know is that they both loved you very, very much indeed. And I’ve seen enough of life and death to know that, in the end, love is all that we have.’

She pats my hand reassuringly and I nod slowly.

‘I know you’re right, Mireille. You’re so wise. I’ll try my best.’

‘And you have people here who love you too, you know. You’re becoming more and more important to Cédric and the children. I haven’t seen my son so happy since before Isa became ill. And for that I thank you with all my heart.’

She hugs me again. ‘Now, let’s go and see if we can prise Luc and Nathalie away from the TV for a game of cards.’

As we’re leaving that evening, Cédric says to Mireille, ‘Are you okay to have the children after school every afternoon this week? We’re starting the new job on the
mairie
in Sainte Foy. All the upper stonework and part of the roof. We want to get on with it before the weather changes, so I may need to work late.’

Mireille reaches for her diary. ‘I can do everything except Wednesday. I’ve got a hair appointment that afternoon.’

‘I could have them on Wednesday,’ I offer eagerly. ‘I can come and wait at Mireille’s gate for the school bus if you like, then take them back to my house.’

Mireille nods approvingly. But Cédric says casually, ‘Oh no, don’t worry, Gina. Marie-Louise will pick them up; she’ll be at the school to collect Hugo anyway. And I’m sure you’ll be busy getting on with your work.’

‘Okay, fine, if that’s easiest then,’ I reply lightly. But I feel cut to the core that he seems not to trust me with his children. I try not to mind, but in truth I do and it’s driving a wedge between us. I think Mireille’s noticed because she pats my arm in a conciliatory manner as she says goodbye.

I hug Luc and Nathalie and kiss Cédric, then make my lonely way back along the lane as they head home for their Sunday evening,
en famille.

♦ ♦ ♦

I put down the phone with a sigh.

Annie’s call was a welcome distraction from the particularly heavy assignment that I’m working on for the Master of Wine course. She was as bubbly and irrepressible as ever.

‘I knew it! You’re as readable as a copy of
Hello
magazine, Gina Peplow. I told you there was something major going on between you and Cédric the very first time I saw you together. Well, well, well, you
are
getting in deep. I suppose now I won’t be able to persuade you to come over for a girls’ weekend and some serious retail therapy, which was why I’m calling.’

I look out of the window at the cold, grey mist that’s swathing the bare trees. Autumn’s well and truly arrived and there’s a damp chill in the air. Lafite and I are snug in the kitchen with the fire burning cheerily. I throw on another log, sending a flurry of sparks up the chimney.

To tell you the truth, the thought of a trip to the bright lights and sumptuous shop fronts of London sounds pretty appealing right now. And Cédric’s working all hours on the job at the
mairie
so I’ve hardly seen him apart from at weekends, and then we’re surrounded by family and friends as usual so we hardly have any time alone together.

‘He probably wouldn’t miss me if I did go,’ I grumble to Lafite, who twitches his ears as if trying to flick away my tetchy words.

The phone rings again and as I answer it I notice it’s a UK number. ‘Yes?’ I say, expecting it to be Annie calling back with some last snippet of important gossip that she’d forgotten to impart.

‘Gina, it’s Harry. Harry Wainright.’

‘Harry! What a lovely surprise. Sorry, I thought you were going to be Annie McKenzie. I’ve just finished talking to her. How are you? Enjoying retirement, I hope.’