‘Come in, come in,’ she says. ‘I’ve got someone here at the moment for lunch. It’s someone you know.’
In the kitchen, Victor the estate agent is seated at the kitchen table looking rather pleased with himself. He looks sheepish when he sees me, but when Elinor sits down next to him, he puts his arm around her.
Suddenly, nothing seems to make sense anymore.
‘I’m so sorry to hear about Desmond,’ I say.
‘Are you?’ she says. ‘I’m not. I couldn’t wait for him to go. Our marriage has been over for a long time.’
‘I had no idea.’
‘You must have noticed that he is infatuated with Miranda – and vice versa,’ says Elinor. ‘Well, they’re bloody well welcome to each other.’
‘Well… I’m glad you’re OK about it,’ I say.
I do not stay long as it is obvious from their body language that Elinor and Victor have plans for after lunch. ‘So what’s going on with Victor?’ I ask, as Elinor walks me to the gate.
‘Oh we had a little fling ages ago.’
‘How long ago?’ I ask, struggling to make sense of it all. Suddenly, I see Elinor’s outrage the night that Victor wanted to meet me in front of the church in Beauchamp in a new light. She was angry and outraged on her own behalf, not mine. No wonder she was so keen to tell Victor that I had an SAS boyfriend.
‘Let’s just say our affair pre-dated your arrival here and now we’ve just sort of rekindled it.’
‘But why didn’t you and Desmond split up sooner if you were both in love with other people?’ I ask. ‘Why did you put up with him having an affair with Miranda for so long?’
Elinor pauses as if wondering whether to reveal all and what she tells me next stops me in my tracks. ‘Well, it was a little more complicated than that. The thing is, we were also having an affair.’
‘Who?’
‘Miranda and I. It was me who introduced Miranda to Desmond, after she started coming to one of my yoga classes. The three of us had a lot of fun together, as you know, and I didn’t mind Miranda and Desmond spending a lot of time together as it made it easier for us to conduct our affair. But I didn’t count on them falling in love.’
This is a lot to take in: Miranda and Elinor having a passionate lesbian love affair under Desmond’s nose. This is not the sort of thing that is supposed to go on in rural France – at least not among ex-pat Brits. They’re supposed to be too busy worrying about their fosses septiques, chasing elusive artisans and drinking lots of cheap red wine.
‘I had my suspicions and they were confirmed on Miranda’s birthday last year, when I found a note that Miranda had sent him,’ continues Elinor. You might remember I was quite upset, since you were there.’
I do indeed remember how Elinor disappeared for a long time that evening and came back with very red eyes, before telling Miranda that she ought to be ashamed of herself.
‘This is… quite surprising,’ I say.
‘Yes, well. A lot of people had picked up on the fact that Desmond and Miranda were having an affair. But what no one realised was that I was deeply in love with Miranda.’ She pauses. ‘I hoped she would change her mind, drop Desmond and come back to me. I even thought we could live together as three – and we did for a short time.’
Suddenly, I am struck by a strong desire to laugh. The idea of Desmond, Miranda and Elinor living in a ménage a trois right under my nose is just too much.
‘But gradually, as she and Desmond spent more and more time together, it became obvious that she wanted to be with him,’ Elinor continues. ‘And then she started putting pressure on Desmond to leave me. He would have been quite happy to maintain the status quo – she’s a lousy cook, as you know – and had been procrastinating for quite a while but eventually, and after that little showdown on New Year’s Eve, she got her way. Et voilà. Desmond has packed his bags and they’ve both gone to live near St Tropez.’
I think back to all the times that I spent with Miranda, Desmond and Elinor, unaware of the simmering passions. I think back to the dinner party at Miranda’s, where Victor was also present and try to see everything again in the light of this new knowledge.
‘And so eventually, I accepted that Miranda wasn’t going to come back to me – and that’s when Victor and I hooked up again,’ Elinor continues. As she opens the gate to let me out, she adds in a conspiratorial whisper, ‘He’s a very good lover. Corsicans always are.’
I drive back home in the January sunshine thinking how nothing is as it seems. Suddenly, everyone has gone mad. Or, in Jon’s case, just gone. I just don’t know what to make of it all.
A few days later, Dave arrives in the village. It’s uncanny how his visits always seem to coincide with the low points in my life. I spot him using the Internet in the Liberty Bookshop but mostly manage to avoid him. Then one morning I am having coffee and chatting with Dylan when, out of the blue, he says, ‘I think you should try and build bridges with Dave.’
‘What?’
‘You two got on so well. Everyone could see it.’
‘Yes, but…’
‘Forget what he did or what he said. Life’s too long. I think we all need to spread the love a bit more. It’s all about karma at the end of the day.’
‘I’m all for spreading the love,’ I say. ‘But he hates me. You’ve seen how he reacts whenever he sees me.’
‘So prove that you’re bigger than him,’ says Dylan. ‘Just do it. What have you got to lose?’
At first I think Dylan has been hitting the cannabis again (although I know he gave up years ago). But something must have struck a chord, because one day towards the end of January, on a whim, I decide that I would like to resolve matters between us and be friends again. I wonder if Dave knows about Elinor and Desmond. I think how nice it would be to sit by the fire and discuss it with him, to try and make sense of it all. I would even be prepared to drink his disgusting sweet white wine. Despite everything, I miss Dave’s company and his friendship. In the light of what happened most people, I know, would not bother, but I have a short memory and, try as I might, I have never been very good at bearing grudges.
And so I buy a bottle of Sauternes from Gérard in La Cave Poitevine and head around to Dave’s house early one evening. It is cold, the sky is the colour of steel and the smell of wood smoke and damp permeates the air, reminding me of the winter that Dave and I spent so much time here, just sitting and chatting in front of the fire. And it strikes me how much I’ve missed those deep, insightful conversations. How much I’ve missed him. I press the doorbell and wait, feeling very nervous. I have no idea how he will react. Even though it is late afternoon and the light is fading, the shutters are still open but he takes a long time to come to the door. When he finally appears, he looks neither pleased nor surprised to see me. But he’s lost weight and looks more attractive than I remember.
‘Hi Dave,’ I say, brandishing the bottle of wine with a smile. ‘How are you?’
‘Fine thanks.’
‘I just came to say that I miss being friends with you and… and… I wish we could at least be on speaking terms again…’
He looks startled and then I realise immediately from his bristling body language and withering expression that I am wasting my time.
‘Look, I was hoping you would at least have a drink with me,’ I say. ‘For old times…’
‘Who is it, babe?’ A woman wearing a tight-fitting top and jeans that lace up at the crotch appears behind him and puts a proprietorial hand on his shoulder.
‘Oh you’re busy,’ I say.
He turns pink again but he doesn’t deny it. ‘Well, good luck,’ I say, thrusting the bottle of wine at him. ‘Maybe another time.’
I walk away quickly, happy that Dave has finally found someone to love. All around me, it seems, people are embarking on new love affairs. I hear on the grapevine that even Flo
rence Coppinger, seventy if she’s day, has started a passionate affair with Jean-Claude, the elderly widower from the Entente Cordiale conversation group, and is telling people that she is having the best sex she’s ever had.
So much has changed it seems, for so many people, in just in the space of a few weeks. Alone in front of my log fire in the evenings, I think back to how much I have achieved in the past year or so: my French house, which was unloved and falling apart when I found it, is now completely restored. And as I have rebuilt the house, I have also rebuilt my life. I have learned that I can move to a place where I know no one and create a new life for myself. It is very empowering to know that.
Chapter 22
The Bridge to the Île de Ré
It is raining as I throw my bag in the car and prepare to leave the spa. After four days of seaweed wraps and alternating hot and cold seawater hose-downs, I am several kilos lighter, and my skin is glowing as if powered from within by a nuclear reactor. I really lucked out on this work assignment – a spring detox break in a thalassotherapy spa. (It being France, the ‘detox’ still included half a bottle of wine with dinner.) I wasn’t exactly thrilled when the commissioning editor told me that the spa I was to write about was on the Île de Ré, but the moment had come to make peace with my past. Ever since I moved to France, I’ve known that I would have to cross that bridge at some point. And four days ago, I finally did it.
This morning, after a final seawater hose-down, I even went for a walk around Ars, a little village on the farther most tip of the island that I had not visited before – and, according to the tourist sign, one of the prettiest villages in France (in spite of its unfortunate name). As I wandered around, and in and out of shops selling wicker plant holders, oyster-shaped soaps and stripy T-shirts, there was a real sense of anticipation, of new beginnings in the air. Although the famous rose trémières are not yet in bloom, the island is gearing up and beautifying itself in time for the official start of the tourist season. I passed artisans in white overalls painting the shutters of a small hotel in pale green, and a window cleaner hard at work on an icing-white cottage covered in wisteria. In one of the narrow streets, an enormous stone tub filled with flowers was being lowered onto the pavement by a fork-lift truck. As I strolled around, breathing in the clean sea air and the scent of seaweed (though that could just have been my skin) I felt a strong sense of living absolutely in the present.
And now it’s time to leave the island behind. Even though it is April and raining, the cyclists are out in force as I head towards the bridge in the late afternoon. They pedal along in little shoals, visions of relaxed well-being, their complexions glowing with the fresh sea air. Most of them are French – I can tell by the way they look and their style of dress, for it is a particularly chic type of tourist that the island attracts. A recent article in Madame Figaro even provided a dress code for anyone thinking of visiting the island: Chanel bags and high heels, it declared, were ‘out’; straw baskets and espadrilles ‘in’. The tourists that I pass look like they have rigorously adhered to the prescribed uniform: pedal pushers (preferably navy gingham), a tiny cotton top and ballet flats for women; khaki shorts, sandals and a red or navy fleece for men. Today, in the rain, a waterproof jacket – navy, preferably – has been added to the mix.
Maybe it’s the effect of all that seaweed and ozone, but as I approach that slender metal structure suspended over the Atlantic, the Rolling Stones blaring on the car stereo, I feel liberated, truly at peace for the first time in years. Eric is behind me now, somewhere in La Flotte, probably up to his ears in pizza dough. As I cross the shimmering Atlantic and leave the Île de Ré behind, I know I won’t be going back. This, I guess, is what they call closure. I feel a surge of happiness as I reach the other side of the bridge, the lights of La Flotte strung out like a necklace behind me.
Singing aloud, I speed away from the island that is part of my past, away from La Rochelle and towards Villiers and home. The sun appears in the sky somewhere past La Rochelle and, in the pale sunlight of late afternoon, I feel again the sense of spring in the air, of better things lurking just around the corner. Unfortunately, what is lurking around the corner for me is a flat tyre. I am just 15 kilometres away from Villiers when my car begins to make a loud rattling noise. It feels as if it is bumping rather than rolling along, before slowing down to almost a halt. Brilliant! I have broken down on a deserted country road, with only a dilapidated stone barn in the distance.
I get out of the car and see that the tyre on the front wheel is torn to shreds, and the wheel is down to the metal rim. I lean against the bonnet and take in the early evening scene before me, as I wonder which of my friends to call. I am surrounded by a vast expanse of countryside – a collage of different colours and textures. Winters’s brown furrowed fields are green or gold with vegetation again, while the smell of woodsmoke and decaying leaves has been replaced by a crisp, green scent that is unmistakably le parfum of spring. The pale yellow grass in the verge at the side of the road is dotted with wild poppies and bluebells. And above it all, there is a huge pale pink sun in the sky.
As I pause to appreciate the stunning scenery – and realise again how lucky I am to live here – I hear a noise in the distance and eventually a car with an English registration plate pulls up in front of me. A man in his late thirties gets out, casually dressed in khaki T-shirt and jeans. He has longish blond hair and a face that has seen a lot of sun, with crinkled but kind eyes. He looks friendly, strong, laid-back, and he smiles as he walks towards me. ‘It looks like you need some help,’ he says. ‘Tell me where your spare wheel is and I’ll change it for you.’
I watch as toned, evenly tanned arms pull the wheel from underneath the boot of my car, golden hairs visible in the last burst of late afternoon sun. Above us there is a pink and blue tie-dye effect sky. If you are going to break down, I think to myself, you couldn’t wish for a more beautiful setting or better time of day. As my rescuer crouches down to switch the tyre, he talks to me, interested to know more about what I am doing in France.
‘So do you live here?’ he asks.
‘Yes, in a village about twenty kilometres away. Villiers.’
‘Then we are almost neighbours,’ he says. ‘I have just bought a house in St Hilaire.’
‘Yes, I know it,’ I say, suddenly thanking the lord for the perfect timing of my flat tyre. ‘It’s about ten kilometres away from me. A very pretty village.’
‘I only just moved here,’ he says as he releases the old wheel. ‘Two weeks ago.’
In the time that it takes him to sort out my car, I discover that his name is Andy Lawton, that he has just left the army, where he served for several years in Afghanistan, and that he has recently split up from his girlfriend. He has decided to make a new start, renovating a barn in France. He has told his friends that he is going for a year, just to see if he likes it. I do not have to probe for any of this information. He readily volunteers it. At the same time, he extracts key information from me, including the fact that I live out here alone.
Twenty minutes later, I thank him for his help and we say goodbye, before continuing on our way, both of us heading in the same direction. I am still driving along a country road alone, but it’s no longer dark. The sky is an incandescent pink and pulsating with promise. And as I turn into the square in Villiers, my heart beats just a little faster at the thought of my new neighbour, who is heading home with my telephone number – so casually asked for – in his pocket.
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Tout Sweet Page 31