Collecting Thoughts

by Irene Davidson

  Chapter twenty-eight

  Halley shifted her pyjama-clad backside into a more comfortable position among the sofa cushions, propped her feet in their pink bunny slippers up on the low coffee table and turned to Darcy, reaching across to clink her large glass of Burgundy Pinot Noir against that of her friend’s, “Here’s looking at you, kid,” she smiled, perfect white teeth gleaming against her ivory skin tones in the room’s low lamplight. “Man, I’ve missed you –London’s just not the same without you and the kids.”

  “Missed you too,” Darcy spoke softly, smiling across the cherubic sleeping form of Alicia who was wearing new Pumpkin Patch squirrel-appliqued pjs and a fluffy pink hooded dressing gown. Not wanting to miss anything, the little girl had insisted on staying up, but had succumbed to sleep fifteen minutes earlier. Since she and Halley would be sleeping on the sofa pull-out bed, Halley had left her curled on the cushions where she’d fallen asleep, tucking the sofa throw over her daughter before gently removing her thumb from her mouth. The thumb-sucking was something she was working on discouraging but every now and then Alicia would revert to comforting herself by sucking when in new or altered circumstances. Halley tucked the tiny hand back under the silky mohair cover, hoping it would remain there this time.

  “Okay, she’s properly asleep now,” Halley pronounced. “It’s time for us to put our thinking caps on and spend some quality drinking-and-thinking time working out what I can do to stay here.”

  Darcy took a sip of her wine and furrowed her brow in thought. That Halley was interested in relocating to live nearby –well, not so much nearby, she revised, as on the property had been a revelation that had struck like a lightning bolt out of the clear blue sky earlier in the evening.

  It seemed that they’d barely driven through the gate before Halley had become quite entranced with Chateau de Belagnac and well within the first hour had stated that she had fallen deeply in love with the place –all of which caught Darcy completely by surprise.

  Fairly sure that her best friend would find the chateau and its environs a trifle quaint at best and most likely way too countrified for her upmarket city tastes, she had been prepared to put up with a bit of ribbing as to why she should want to stay here, living in a cottage that was less than half the size of her London home and with very little on her doorstep that she had once had.

  As they had driven through the village, Darcy had pointed out the Mairie, garage, church and school, but other than these amenities she acknowledged that Belagnac had little more than the few homes that housed the villages’ less than six hundred inhabitants. The closest Carrefour supermarket was several miles up the road and for any other shopping it was necessary to take a trip to Bourg-Montfort, Rouen or Tourville.

  Whilst she had enjoyed the walkability of her old London neighbourhood, with schools, shops, cafés and other conveniences all within spitting distance, these were things that Darcy no longer found inconvenient. She felt that living at the chateau more than made up for anything she might have given up and had learned to plan her weekly shopping trips around school drop-offs or pick-ups.

  Thinking about that, she briefly acknowledged that prior to his departure Gabriel had frequently been picking up both Connor from his school and miscellaneous grocery items for her, something she’d missed these past two weeks with his absence.

  She determinedly pushed the thought from her mind, as something she had decided not to think about over the weekend.

  Darcy had driven in the gateway nearest the cottage. With Gabriel away and so many building materials stacked up ready for work to begin again on Monday she had instructed Len to padlock the main gates against possible pilfering, so they had opted to drive in what Darcy had jokingly dubbed ‘the servant’s entrance’.

  From the moment of their arrival –as she opened the car door and set her feet on the ground, Halley had expressed pleasure in everything she laid eyes upon. They had barely taken the luggage inside when she insisted upon strapping Alicia into her pushchair and setting off to explore the grounds. Ten minutes after driving in the gate, laying eyes on the chateau for the first time, she proclaimed that she was ‘in love’ …and the first second she spied the gardener’s cottage, despite the rubble and organised chaos that surrounded it, she declared that she just had to live there.

  Darcy, who was carrying Alicia on her hip because they’d left the pushchair at the edge of the driveway to walk across the rough ground, told her friend the name she had chosen for the little house.

  “Peppermint Cottage,” Halley rolled the title around in her mouth like a sweet before smacking her lips. “Hmmm, mmm. What a great name and what a pretty colour. I love it, I adore it!” she crooned. “It’s so cute –just a perfect fit for me and Alicia and, the double doors, the windows with those shutters and all that gorgeous lacy woodwork stuff round the eaves - it’s every bit as lovely as you described and more." She echoed Darcy’s earlier thoughts about the colour, “It’s like a little gift-wrapped tea-caddy from Fortnum’s, isn’t it? So best friend in all this big wide world -when can I move in?”

  “Who are you?” Darcy gawped askance at Halley, “and what have you done with my wild-horses-couldn’t-drag-me-to-leave-the city friend?” she tilted her head to one side as she tried to fathom if Halley was just jerking her chain or for real.

  Halley’s full lips trembled and her chin wobbled at this, leading Darcy to conclude from the full-on acting that she was serious. “You really do want this, don’t you?”

  “Yup. Abso-blimmin’-lutley, babydoll,” Halley turned soulful dark eyes on Darcy as she spoke. “Please tell me it’s available and hasn’t been given it to someone else. ’Cos if you have, darlin’, I’m gonna have to kill them,” she spoke decisively and in a quite matter-of-fact tone.

  “Kill them, kill them, kill them,” sang Alicia, bouncing on Darcy’s hip as she echoed her mother’s sentiments in her cute toddler’s voice.

  “Ooops,” Halley looked abashed. “My bad. That would be K. I. L L. them,” she belatedly spelled out the word but the damage was done. Alicia sang on, repeating the phrase louder and louder. “Oh, B. U. G. G. E. R.” Halley dug into her pocket, pulling out a bag of jelly babies, “Here, have a sweetie, sweetie and let’s hope you stop saying that.”

  Darcy set Alicia down on her feet, straightening her clothes –she was wearing a new tot-sized orange puffer vest with multi-toned orange and white tartan trousers and leather boots. Darcy continued to hold firmly onto one hand –mindful they were standing in a building site and not a toddler’s playground.

  Alicia used her free hand to stuff several of the garishly coloured sweets in her mouth at once, which, with her mouth full to overflowing had the desired effect of stopping the inappropriate lyrics. Darcy hoped she wouldn’t choke and was keeping an eye on the little girl to make sure she swallowed. Sweets gone, Alicia sat down on the earth, captivated by the mound of cement sand the builders had left for the weekend she started to dig enthusiastically with her hands.

  “Does it matter if she gets her clothes grubby?” Darcy started to ask.

  Halley tapped a distracted Darcy on her shoulder, her face set in a questioning look as she awaited the reply to her previous query.

  “If it would get you to move here, and you want it, it’s all yours babe,” Darcy didn’t care that she didn’t actually own the aforementioned cottage but that, she decided on the spot, was merely a detail and not to be considered. Her BFF, here in France with her and the children –did it get any better than that? “I’m sure my boss would come to some arrangement with you so you could stay.” Especially if I put in a good word for you, she thought, not taking into account that she had barely been putting in any words with him prior to his departure for Russia.

  “So the rich old dude likes you, does he?” Halley asked.

  Somewhere along the way, Halley had gotten the impression that Gabriel was old. It was an error that Darcy had yet to correct. She waggled her hand as if to say ‘so-so’, not wa
nting to give anything away. The last thing she wanted to do right now was to pursue that subject.

  Then, like the cold douse of an ice-bucket challenge, reality hit. “But what would you do? You’ve got a great job back in London that pays you truckloads of money. You can’t move here and be a pauper.”

  “Yes I can,” Halley disagreed. “Well, not the pauper bit but I’m over my job. It’s time for a change. I’ve already handed in my notice.”

  Darcy was shocked speechless. Halley was such a meticulous planner that ditching a well-paid job was the last thing she’d thought her friend would do.

  “You’re not the only one that wants a new start. We’ll just have to think of something I can do here instead of London that will pay the bills. I don’t have to make truckloads, just enough to get by without eating up all my savings.” She sighed deeply, “It’s been two years now since it’s just been Alicia and me alone and I want some time-out to re-evaluate what I’m doing with the rest of my life. You know that kind of time you take when you can stand by a pond and just skip stones –if I knew how to skip stones that is. Which I don’t. But maybe if I live here for a while I might learn.” She sighed heavily, “Whatever. I’m just tired of being superwoman, working ten to twelve hours days and trying to be a good mother at the same time. I don’t mean to complain but there’s never any time for me.” She looked at her friend, willing her to understand.

  “I know what you mean,” Darcy replied, hiding her amazement that Halley had quit a job that came with a number of additional staff perks and privileges, a child-minding service for one. “I came here with the express purpose of collecting my thoughts and working out what it was I wanted to be before I move on to something else.” She sighed heavily. She wasn’t ready to admit, even to her best friend, that she no longer had the desire to move on to anything else and just wanted to stay right where she was. “You’ll be pleased to know, there is a duck pond,” she continued, thinking of the wide, shallow pond near the south entrance. “And it would be perfect for skipping stones, if that’s what you really want to do.”

  Halley nodded. Her intuition told her there was something in Darcy’s eyes that spoke of a secret being kept hidden from her but she figured she could be a little patient for whatever is was to be revealed. Well, at least she could wait until the end of the weekend, she decided.

  Taller than Darcy, Halley placed one long thin arm across her friend’s shoulders as she turned to survey the mayhem of the construction site. “Don’t take this the wrong way honeypie –I think you’re a brilliant landscape architect and all- but I just can’t help but question what you’ve done with the place darlin’. I’m sure you’ve got a plan but its lookin’ kind of scorched earth meets ground-zero’ish at the moment.”

  “Oh, give over,” Darcy pushed back playfully, “it’s just in that ‘you have to break a couple of eggs to make an omelette’ stage …except in this case, we’ve had to break a lot of eggs.”

  “Yup –cartons and cartons of the things, I’d say,” Halley agreed. “What do they say?–something like, ‘Never let fools or children see unfinished work’?” Halley quoted.

  Darcy nodded.

  “I’ve never really understood that proverb …So, should we cover Alicia’s eyes or what?”

  “Nah,” Darcy answered, adding, “Connor and Rosie have been over to see what’s going on here plenty and they think it’s totally awesome. They both love the cottage so you might have to fight them for it,” she amended her previous offer. “Though personally, I’m quite happy to stay where we are by the stables. It’s quiet –I don’t even hear the church bells ringing anymore- and I love the long views out over the fields and to the woods.” It had taken surprisingly little time for Darcy and the children to become so habituated to the hourly bells that they no longer noticed the tolling.

  “Good,” her friend smiled, “so, no competition there. I can take on your kids easily.” She pranced around, jabbing at an imaginary boxing opponent, intoning in a sing-song voice, “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee.”

  “Give over, Muhammad Ali. The only bees that’ll be doing any ‘stinging’ round here will be the ones that arrive next week in their new hives.”

  Halley lowered her fists. “Cool, do we get some of those dinky white spaceman suits with the silly hats? I’d love to learn how to make honey.”

  “Well, the bees do all the work making honey. We just have to collect it and eat the stuff.”

  “So maybe I could be a bee-farmer?” Halley suggested.

  “You? An apiarist? I don’t want to be a negative nelly but I don’t think so sweetie,” Darcy patted her arm. “Remember, the last time a bee flew into your apartment and you made me catch it and put it outside. You just stood there and did that ‘girl’ thing.” Darcy waved her hands tremulously either side of her head to give a visual on what the ‘girl’ thing had looked like.

  “I did not!” Halley protested, before she considered for a moment, “Yeah – I did kinda, didn’t I? Hmmm, you’re probably right. So bee-keeper is out. But there must be something else. Tell you what -We’ll sit down this evening over a glass or two of liquid inspiration and see what we can come up with. Meanwhile, how about we take a tour of the village and check out the hot local talent?”

  Darcy shook her head despairingly. From what she’d seen, the ‘hot local talent’ was either: middle-aged and married like Bertrand, or still in short pants and at school. There was a distinct lack of males in the village that were either old enough or unmarried enough to be potential date material for Halley, but she didn’t say so and they went for a walk anyway. She figured the fresh air and exercise would do her friend’s libido more good than spying up the local ‘talent’.

  Of course, she thought as they walked, there was Gabriel. She hadn’t described her boss and the owner of the chateau’s physical appearance to her friend. Not sure where Halley had got the impression that he was an old man she wasn’t about to say anything that might change her view. Knowing Halley, she’d jump to conclusions and want to know every little detail of their working and personal relationship –details that Darcy did not want to discuss.

  Setting her wine glass on the low table Darcy looked over at Halley, “I’ve just had an idea!”

  “Oh goody,” Halley beamed a bright smile. “Well. Share with the class, why don’t you?”

  “After I collected Connor from school this afternoon, we went for a hot chocolate. There’s a Chocolatier in Bourg-Montfort that does a whole bunch of chocolate stuff –you know, hand-made chocolates and truffles –of course; but as well as those she makes her own chocolate sauces and chocolate ice-cream and hot chocolates and all sorts of sinfully delicious chocolaty-related num nums.”

  “That’s very nice. As you know, I like chocolate. I did that course last summer on chocy making. It was yummy – I think I gained five pounds in less than two months. But your point would be?”

  “There was a poster on the window advertising for staff.”

  “Get outta town! Reckon it’s been filled yet?” Halley looked down at her p-j’s and then her sleeping daughter, “suppose it’s too late to go and see if it’s still available at this time of night?”

  “They’ll be shut by now. You’ll have to wait ‘til morning but if you’re keen, we can go first thing and see if there’s still a vacancy. I know the sign only went up today or yesterday because I was there on Wednesday afternoon.” The shop had quickly become a favourite after-school-treat spot for Darcy, Connor and Rosie and they visited several times a week for ice-creams and hot chocolates. Its diminutive owner, aptly named Mademoiselle Petit, had taken a shine to Rosie and was always giving her extra treats for the children.

  “Even if it is unfilled –reckon they’d want me?” Halley looked as if she was having a minor crisis of confidence, not something Darcy had ever seen her do before.

  Darcy held up her fist, unfurling her fingers one at a time as she spoke, “Come on girl. You have a management deg
ree, you’ve worked for years in the hospitality industry, you’re great with people, speak fluent French and Mandarin and you’re really good at making chocolates.” She waved her open hand, waggling fingers, “What’s not to love?” She grinned at her friend, “The only problem I can see is that you might have to dumb it down a little or they’ll think you’re overqualified.”

  “You’re right!” Halley straightened up momentarily before visibly sagging once more, “You don’t think I’m being stupid giving up my salary and all the perks of being a hotel manager?”

  Darcy spoke slowly, considering her words before she uttered them, “If you’ve been thinking about this for a while and it’s not just some spontaneous spittin’ the dummy kinda thing…,”

  Halley shook her head hard in denial, causing her frizzy hair to bounce in a way that put Darcy in mind of Frodo running.

  “…which I can see it’s not,” Darcy finished the sentence. “Well, then I think you should give it a go. It’s not going to hurt your career to take a short break and if you feel like you need some time to get your head together, I’ll do everything I can to help you.” Darcy reached across Alicia’s slumbering form to give her friend a one-armed hug.

  Halley wiped away a tear from her cheek with the back of one hand.

  “Look at me, I’m all sniffly now.”

  “I have just the thing to fix that,” Darcy rose and went into the kitchen, returning with a box of fresh chocolates from the Chocolatier. “Time to break out the emergency supplies,” she announced, presenting the opened box to Halley.

  “Oh, now you’re speaking my language girlfriend!” Halley reached for the package, selecting one at random and popping it in her mouth, “Oh yum,” she spoke reverently, savouring the morsel, “salted caramel. Delish. If this is an example of the product I definitely want to get on board.” She swallowed and reached for a second, “better test another, don’t you think, just to make sure that wasn’t a fluke.” she raised her slightly red eyes to Darcy. “I’m gonna get this job tomorrow.”

  Now that sounded more like the Halley she knew and loved, Darcy thought happily.

  “Can’t think of any reason why not,” she agreed.

  “And you know what’s going to clinch it for me?”

  Darcy raised an eyebrow questionably.

  “No-one else will be able to speak Mandarin,” Halley spluttered with barely-contained laughter, “’Cos I’m sure we’ll get a boatload of Chinese tourists wanting to buy all things chocy in the teeming metropolis of Bourg-Montfort!”