‘I...’ His shoulders slumped a fraction. ‘Sounds good. I’ll look forward to it.’
As he negotiated his way through the crowded tables to the door, Rupert elbowed me in the ribs.
‘What the hell have you done to him?’ he hissed. ‘Can’t I leave you for two minutes? He was all over you like an adoring puppy dog, lapping up your creative genius and that lovely smile... And by the time I got back from the loo, there were thunderclouds hovering over your heads!’
‘We... disagreed over something.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing you need worry about.’ I hurriedly changed the subject. ‘If the thunderclouds were so bloody obvious, why did you invite him to dinner?’
‘Because I fancied some company.’ He gave me a look. ‘And because Alain fancies you.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, Rupert.’ Although, I had to admit Alain had given me that impression at the beginning – but I suspected the attraction had worn off after the way I’d lashed out at him.
But Rupert carried on, oblivious. ‘He’s half-French, half-English, you know. Best of both worlds, if you ask me.’
I rolled my eyes heavenwards. ‘Rupert Hunter, may I remind you that it’s not even a fortnight since my boyfriend ran off with your wife. I need time to lick my wounds, not to be on the lookout for a new bloke.’
‘That hasn’t stopped you romping in the bushes with my gardener,’ Rupert shot at me, his eyes twinkling as my skin went from delicate pink to an unbecoming puce.
‘What are you talking about? I haven’t... I didn’t...’
‘No point denying it. Heard the mating noises through my open bedroom window last week. Woke me from my nap.’ Delighted by my discomfort, Rupert patted my hand. ‘Don’t fret, Emmy. I don’t blame you. Ryan’s a good-looking young chap and you could do with a bit of fun after being with that stick-in-the-mud.’
‘It was only a rebound thing, a bit of comfort,’ I said sullenly. ‘Anyway, we’ve both agreed to call a halt to it. I just... I wanted to feel attractive again.’ Thinking I might have shared a step too far, I bit my lip.
But Rupert smiled. ‘I can understand that. Don’t take this the wrong way, Emmy – I should stress that I see you more as a sort of goddaughter than anything else – but someone needs to tell you because that blind boyfriend of yours obviously didn’t: you are attractive. You’re natural and curvy in a lovely, uncomplicated sort of way. A lot of men like that. Alain certainly seems to. We’ll find out when he comes to dinner.’
‘Yes, and about that. Who are these people who are supposedly coming to dinner tomorrow? Other than Alain?’
‘No one yet. I made it up. Don’t worry, I’ll think of someone. You could invite Sophie, if you like. I don’t want to end up playing gooseberry all by myself. Wear that floaty sundress with the low-cut neckline. Plump up your cleavage a bit.’
I rolled my eyes. Rupert the matchmaker. Heaven help me.
Rupert behaved strangely all the way to the car, throwing little compliments my way – how well I’d squeezed into a small parking space, how I knew the streets like the back of my hand, how I’d ordered everything in French at the market stalls. It was the same on the drive back – how confident I was behind the wheel, how well I knew the road home. This was a side of him I wasn’t used to, and I found it rather unnerving.
True to his word, he spent half the afternoon on the phone, ringing round his cronies to see who might be free for his dinner party tomorrow, and he insisted I phone Sophie to do the same.
She was available and delighted to accept. ‘Now I will be able to picture where your exciting holiday has taken place and meet your Rupert!’
‘He’s not my Rupert, thank heavens. I’m only his temporary guardian.’
‘Cheer up, Emmy. It’s about time you had a change of company,’ was Rupert’s response to my long face as we ate dinner. I refrained from pointing out we’d only just got rid of my parents, and our night out with Ryan and his parents had held more than enough excitement for me. I knew I would be wasting my breath. When Rupert set his mind to something, it had a habit of staying set.
‘How much are your mortgage repayments?’ His question came out of the blue after supper.
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just wondered.’ He tried for nonchalant disinterest, but I knew him too well.
‘Well, you can keep wondering, my friend.’
He ignored me. ‘Fixed rate? Variable? Tracker? Maybe I can help. You know I’m a financial whizz.’ He flashed that infectious smile of his.
I frowned. ‘Rupert, at no point since your over-tanned bony wife ran off with my no-good dull boyfriend have I mentioned any of my financial worries. What hidden agenda have you got whirring around in that under-occupied brain of yours?’
Rupert arranged his face into an indifferent mask. ‘No agenda. But it occurred to me that while I’m sitting here – under-occupied, as you say – with you scurrying around after me, I might be able to pay you back with financial know-how. Fetch me another beer, will you?’
I got him his drink. It was easier than arguing.
‘Thanks,’ he grunted. ‘So, how much is your mortgage?’
‘You’re not going to leave this alone, are you?’
‘Nope. What do you think I’m going to do with the information – sell it to the highest bidder? Imagine I’m your independent financial adviser, except I’m doing it for free. A lot of people would pay highly for my services, you know.’ He wiggled his eyebrows.
I laughed. ‘To be honest, I’ve been trying not to think about it. Besides, I haven’t heard from Nathan yet. How can I plan ahead without knowing what he intends to do?’
Rupert’s expression softened. ‘How you deal with Nathan isn’t any of my business. But if I give you some good advice, you’ll have things straight in your head when you discuss where you stand with him. You need to face up to the future. After all, you go home soon.’
‘I know.’ My heart plummeted southwards. Any impartial outsider would think I should be glad to be heading for home and some kind of normality, but the thought filled me more with trepidation than anticipation. I liked it here. I’d had a chance to just be. I’d grown used to Rupert’s low boredom threshold and demanding nature, and although he often irritated the hell out of me, we’d built up a good way of doing things, considering. And there was no denying the beauty of the house, the gardens, the weather.
But Rupert was right. Life at La Cour des Roses had been a surreal experience in many ways, but it was time I got to grips with reality.
I took a deep breath, a large gulp of wine, and looked Rupert in the eye. ‘Alright, maestro. What do you need to know?’
Rupert actually made notes. Our mortgage rate, the bank we were with, what we paid for the flat, its postcode and number of rooms. Our bills, our salaries.
Numbed by alcohol, I let him get on with it. Bless the old soul, he was probably bored and needed a project to get his teeth into. Besides, Rupert was pretty savvy about this stuff. His advice wouldn’t go amiss.
‘What’s the diagnosis, doc?’ I poured myself another glass in case there was bad news to come.
Rupert sat back and rubbed his eyes. ‘Well, it all looks pretty sound to me. The question is what to do if you and Nathan go your separate ways.’ He gave me a searching look. ‘I presume that’s what’s going to happen?’
I thought about the first time Nathan took me to view the flat: my pleasure and anticipation at the prospect of owning a home of our own, sharing our lives together. Nathan presenting me with a moving-in present – a picture I’d seen in a catalogue but thought we couldn’t afford.
And then I remembered his betrayal on the roof terrace. His non-existent effort to make amends. Driving off with Gloria.
I looked Rupert in the eye. ‘Without a doubt.’
We sat brooding for a moment, then Rupert startled me by slapping the table with his large hands, making our drinks slosh.
‘In that case
, we need to carve you out a new future.’
I mopped up the spills with a napkin. ‘I wouldn’t go that far, Rupert. I just need to know what you think I should do about the flat and stuff.’
‘My dear Emmy, you need to broaden your vision. What savings have you got, and which are in your name?’
I was surprised to realise Nathan and I had saved quite a bit – although the pleasant feeling this evoked was dampened by the realisation that it was only because we’d worked so hard and had been too tired to spend our disposable income on going out or holidays or anything fun. Our main indulgences seemed to be expensive ready meals, Nathan’s attraction to the latest electronic gadgets and my habit of thinking that PMS justified extensive retail therapy. With a jolt, I remembered a small inheritance from my grandmother. I wasn’t sure Nathan even knew about that, since the old dear had died before we met. I told Rupert.
He jotted it down and sat back with a flourish. ‘Right then, here’s what I think you should do.’
Sitting forward in my seat, I eagerly awaited his sage advice.
‘In an ideal world, you could do with being rid of Nathan, cutting off all ties, but with your salary, I don’t think you could afford to buy him out. Not without substantial hardship.’
I’d already come to that conclusion during one of my many sleepless nights. ‘So?’
‘Either he could buy you out, or you could force a sale – but both of those options would throw you off the property ladder. Better still, you could persuade him to rent the flat out for now. It’s in a good area on a commuter route into the city centre. The rent would cover your mortgage and then some.’
‘And where would I live?’
‘Here at La Cour des Roses.’ He said it as though it was the most obvious answer in the world.
‘What?’ I stared at him, wide-eyed.
‘I’ve been thinking.’
‘Oh, God, no.’ I put my head in my hands. So much for sage advice. Rupert had cooked up one of his schemes, and I was the guinea pig he was roping into it.
‘There’s no need to be like that, Emmy. I haven’t got the hard facts and figures yet, but here it is in a nutshell. You rent out the flat which pays the mortgage, keeping you on the property ladder – albeit jointly with an unfaithful prick, but beggars can’t be choosers. Any leftover can be used towards maintenance, repairs, bills. Then you come and live here, and I pay you to help me run the place.’
My mouth gaped open and I had to make a conscious effort to close it. ‘You want me to give up a career in marketing to work part-time cleaning the gîtes for you?’ I couldn’t see where he was going with this, other than insane.
‘Not just cleaning. There’s more to it than that, and you know it. You’d be a sort of manager – of a much smaller enterprise than you’re used to back home, admittedly. But there’s advertising, bookings, hosting, tourist advice for the guests, bookkeeping. All those ideas you had today – you’d be able to implement those. And yes – shopping, cooking, errands and cleaning, I suppose.’
He cleared his throat. ‘I don’t want to give all this up, not yet, but I can’t do it on my own – nor do I want to. You’ve already proven yourself more than capable. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like without you, and I can’t think of anything I’d like more than to have you here.’ He held up a hand to stave off the protests I was about to make. ‘You’d be living rent-free with no bills, so the money would be better than you think.’
I frowned. ‘Rupert, I know you do well here, but I don’t see how you could afford to pay me much. And if you give me a room, you’ll be lowering your income.’
He shook his head. ‘Actually, no, because you could have Gloria’s mother’s room.’
‘What?’
‘When we had that wing built, Gloria insisted we allow for her mother coming to stay. She said it wouldn’t be fair to bung her in with the other guests, so we had a room built specially.’
‘Crikey, that’s devotion to the in-laws. Did she like it?’
‘No idea. The old bat refused to come unless Gloria flew back to accompany her out here. When we’d made all the arrangements, she got pneumonia to spite us, turned up her toes and that was that.’
I knew I shouldn’t laugh, but the thought of an awkward, elderly version of Gloria giving them the run-around and then popping off out of spite made it hard not to.
Despite my better judgement telling me not to give Rupert’s ridiculous plot the time of day, my brain whirred dangerously. I hadn’t realised his private extension was so big, but I wasn’t sure I could countenance living in such close proximity to my wannabe mentor. Not that I was considering this with any seriousness whatsoever, of course.
He took advantage of my lack of protest to hurry on with his sales pitch. ‘It’s a bit chintzy and old-ladyish, but I’d have it redecorated. It’s quite big. And en suite. And right at the far end. Looks out over the orchard at the side of the house. I could put a private entrance in. I know you wouldn’t want anyone to think we were... Well, you know.’
‘All right. I understand I wouldn’t be taking a guest room. But I still don’t see how you could afford to pay me much.’
Rupert gave me a patronising look as he topped up my glass. ‘Emmy, darling, how much do you imagine Gloria cost me to run?’
I thought about what Alain had said this morning. Thought about the clothes, the jewellery, the suspected Parisian lingerie, the designer luggage that Nathan had loaded into the expensive sports car.
‘Hmmm,’ I murmured circumspectly.
‘And if you were to tot up how much actual work she did around here?’
I got the picture. ‘But if you get divorced, she’ll cost you even more!’
Rupert shot me a wry smile. ‘I don’t doubt it. But only in the short-term. I’m well-placed financially, Emmy, and I can stand a few losses. But you heard what Alain said this morning – I need this place as a going concern. If you weren’t here, I’d have to cough up for local help anyway. Surely even you can see that if you take that into consideration, and if you compare all Gloria’s little expenses against paying a decent wage to someone I trust, I couldn’t be worse off?’
I was still trying to compute this when he added, ‘Besides, I could get a dog.’
This threw me for six. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘I’ve always wanted a dog.’ He had a wistful look in his eye.
‘And that’s relevant to this conversation because...?’ Perhaps his beer had combined in some horrible way with his medication to make him go prematurely senile.
‘Gloria wouldn’t let me,’ he explained. ‘High heels don’t go with dog-walking, and she didn’t like the idea of picking up poo.’
This, I could well believe. In fact, it was the most plausible thing he’d come up with in the last ten minutes.
‘But if you were here, Emmy...’
‘Oh, so now you want me to live here so you can pay me to pick up dog poo?’
‘Hardly. I’ll pay you to help run the place, which will free up my time, allowing me to commune with nature and share the trustful companionship of man’s best friend as befits someone of my advancing years. Would you deny me that pleasure?’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Okay, Rupert, enough with the dog. To get back to business. You’d have to allow for the off-season, so it’s not like I’d be earning what I earn now, would I?’
‘You wouldn’t need to, with no rent to pay and only a few living expenses. Besides, you’d also be starting to build up your own business.’
‘Business? What kind of business?’
‘Well, I haven’t pinned that down yet...’
I snorted with derision.
‘What I can tell you, Emmy, is that there are plenty of ex-pats out here. They might need help with advertising their holiday homes, websites, brochures, liaising with agencies. Keeping an eye on their properties. Organising cleaning and maintenance. The possibilities are endless for a practical girl like you. All you have to do
is identify a need that can be met with the skills you have, get your head around how to offer it and charge a sensible rate.’
I shook my head, then stopped when it spun a little. ‘Rupert, I couldn’t make a living doing piecemeal work like that.’
‘At the end of the day, Emmy, I wouldn’t know for sure. But you’d have plenty to be getting on with here at the house and I’d be paying you a living wage, so you could explore the possibilities in your own time.’
‘I don’t speak enough French,’ I declared, not wanting to get carried away, and also acutely aware we’d both drunk too much – as usual. As far as I could see, the main drawback to moving out here would be the inevitable ravages of alcohol abuse.
‘I could help you. You’ve already come on in leaps and bounds.’
‘I have no idea how to set up a business in a foreign country. I wouldn’t know where to start.’ Sulky now, I was keen to find obstacles before my brain started computing it as feasible.
‘I could help you with a lot of it. Alain would help you with the rest – it’s his speciality.’
I clutched at straws. ‘How could I afford his services before I’d even earned anything?’
‘He’d be more than eager to help you, young lady. I think our Alain is rather smitten with you.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’
Rupert looked me in the eye. ‘Don’t you like it out here?’
I sighed wistfully. ‘You know I do, but I’m on holiday. It’s not the same as giving up a good job to come out on some pie-in-the-sky whim.’
‘Wouldn’t it be good to have a change, a new challenge, one where you can use your skills in a way that’s satisfying to you? Be your own boss? And, best-case scenario? You move out here, love it, never look back and make a decent enough living doing something you’re good at.’
‘And worst-case scenario?’
‘Think positive, Emmy, that’s the ticket!’
16
Tuesday dawned bright and sunny. The days were rarely anything but. Rain tended to come at night, leaving the garden dewy and green and the days clear. Sitting up in bed for a few minutes to allow any unprocessed alcohol to drain away from my head, I could almost feel the weight of the bags under my eyes.
The Little French Guesthouse Page 20