The Woman Who Met Her Match

by Fiona Gibson

  ‘Yeah, whatever,’ he says, leaving me staring, bewildered, as he strides out of the kitchen.

  While he showers or potters about upstairs – I’m really not concerned with what he’s doing when he’s clearly in a godawful mood – I sip my coffee at the table and flick through the weekend papers. Amy emerges just after ten in search of breakfast, followed by her brother shortly afterwards. They bustle around the kitchen, making toast and filling bowls with Rice Krispies; there always seems to be a huge amount of activity and receptacles used whenever teenagers fix themselves something to eat. Kitchen trashed, they drift off to watch TV in the living room. There’s been no quizzing about last night’s date, probably because they realise there’ll be no undead wife/stinky jacket hilarity. Or maybe they’ve forgotten I was out at all.

  I check my phone for texts – nothing – then Facebook, my heart performing a sort of flip on seeing Antoine’s message.

  Great to see you last night! Would you like a picnic in Hyde Park today?

  Sounds perfect, I reply. We could meet at Hyde Park Corner tube station. Shall we say 2 o’clock? Would that work for you?

  Yes, looking forward to it! I’ll bring us something to eat. So happy we can meet up again :)

  I spend the rest of the morning in a scruffy tracksuit, rattling through household chores with uncharacteristic speed and enthusiasm. Stu reappears and grabs his crash helmet, leaving with an overly cheery goodbye; still a little stung by his attitude this morning, I focus on showering and dress in preparation for meeting Antoine.

  ‘I’m going out for a few hours,’ I tell the kids as I’m about to leave; jeans and a T-shirt today, park-appropriate with minimal make-up. It would seem strange to turn up all dolled up for a picnic when I wore jeans to an elegant restaurant in a boutique hotel.

  ‘Are you back on that website?’ Cam swivels from the sofa with interest.

  ‘No, love …’

  ‘You’re not seeing Jacket Man again, are you?’ Amy asks.

  ‘No, it’s not Jacket Man. It’s Antoine, the French guy …’

  ‘Him again?’ Cam exclaims, raising a brow to suggest that it’s something significant.

  I laugh lightly. ‘We’re just going for a walk in Hyde Park before he catches his flight. That’s all.’

  And this time, I set out without even the faintest fluttering of nerves. The day is breezy and bright, the sky a wash of pale blue, and my heart feels as light as a cloud. Oh, that kiss last night! I keep grinning stupidly, and have a ridiculous urge to do a little jump on my way to the tube station. Antoine Rousseau, after all these years! I step onto the train, banning myself from even considering the fact that he is flying home to Nice tonight.

  He’s waiting when I arrive, this time more casually dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, at the top of the steps at Hyde Park Corner station. ‘Hello, you,’ he says warmly, pulling me in for a hug.

  ‘Hi, Antoine.’ His arms are around my waist as he holds me. We pull apart, and he bends to pick up a brown canvas bag with greeny-blue handles, emblazoned with the initials F&M.

  ‘What’s in there?’ I ask.

  ‘Our picnic, of course!’

  I peer at it. ‘Where did you buy it?’

  ‘Fortnum and Mason.’

  ‘Really?’ I exclaim. ‘You bought our picnic there?’

  ‘Yes?’ he says in an enquiring tone, and I laugh. ‘What’s funny?’ he asks, smiling.

  ‘The way you said it. Sort of, “Don’t you buy all your picnics from Fortnum and Mason?”’

  He chuckles, but I can tell he’s still a little confused as we make our way into the park with the sun beating down on us. There are joggers and elderly couples, and a group of Japanese tourists are trying to work out which path to take. Rugs and blankets are strewn on the grass. Picnics in all guises are being picked over all around us: a toddler’s birthday complete with balloons, a group of women all wearing white shirts and black skirts, perhaps just released from their shift somewhere. There are numerous dogs, ranging from small, scruffy mutts to regal King Charles Spaniels, the whole scene laid out before us as if to show how lovely and diverse London can be on a bright summer’s day.

  ‘How did your meeting go?’ I ask as we settle on a shady spot beneath the sprawling branches of an oak.

  ‘Oh, really well,’ he says with the kind of confidence that suggests it’s nothing really, nipping over from Nice to London for half a day’s work. ‘So, are you hungry?’

  ‘I am, yes.’ I watch, transfixed, as Antoine pulls out a white paper cloth. He tears off its clear cellophane wrapping and spreads it out on the grass, then begins to set out our food.

  When he suggested we had a picnic, I’d pictured a couple of sandwiches, but here is a plate of gravlax and a tiny pot of dill sauce, and salads of roast peppers, charred aubergines, asparagus and exotic cured hams. There are strawberries and cheeses, seed-covered crackers and, most pleasingly, a bottle of rosé.

  ‘This is amazing!’ I exclaim. ‘It’s really all for us?’

  ‘Well, I can’t take it home,’ he says with a grin, then apologises for the plastic glasses, plates and cutlery as if I’d be likely to say, Well, that’s just not good enough.

  If last night was our reintroduction, today seems so natural, as if the thirty-year gap never happened. We eat, and we drink, and it feels as if my heart has stopped as Antoine gently kisses my lips. ‘You’re a beautiful woman, Lorrie,’ he says.

  I smile, not knowing how to respond. No one says things like that to me. Well, Stu does occasionally, but not like that. ‘You look great,’ he might tell me in a morale-boosting way, to reassure me when I’m scampering out on a date. But this is different. Antoine holds my hand, and I kiss his neck gently, sensing him shiver slightly at the touch of my lips. We kiss again, then he leans back, surveying me, his dark eyes meeting mine.

  ‘So, what happened?’ His voice is gently enquiring, his fingers still wrapped around mine.

  ‘About what?’ I’m genuinely confused.

  ‘About your children’s father. I sensed last night, that there was something … I hope it’s okay to ask?’ My stomach seems to clench. ‘Of course, if you’d rather not talk about it …’

  I pick at tufts of grass, rubbing them between my fingers. ‘No, it’s fine, really. I do want to tell you.’ And out they tumble: all those terrible details about head injuries, life-support machines and death, for the first time in years because, naturally, everyone I’m close to knows precisely what happened. I didn’t tell Ralph or Beppie or three-teeth-Marco. Pete Parkin from electricals had heard that my partner had died in an accident, but other people’s tragedies are unnerving and the unspoken rule was that we wouldn’t discuss it. Our most common topic of conversation was his parrot, if I recall.

  ‘… and everything calmed down,’ I explain now, ‘but of course, it didn’t really, at least, not inside me. It was still there. The accident, I mean.’

  He nods. ‘It’s the sort of thing you never recover from. You can’t expect to.’

  I sip my wine – it’s lukewarm now – and consider this for a moment. ‘Well, you do start living again, and of course, there was Cameron and Amy to think about, so I couldn’t just fall apart—’

  ‘You were allowed to, though. It was to be expected.’ He wraps an arm around me, and I lean into him as my eyes mist.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m going on about this too much.’ What am I thinking, blurting all of this out?

  ‘Of course you’re not …’ He kisses the top of my head. It feels both loving and protective.

  ‘It’s not very cheering,’ I murmur.

  ‘No, but we don’t need to be cheering, do we? Can’t we just be ourselves?’

  I turn and look at him. ‘You’re right, and I can’t tell you how refreshing that is.’ I reach for a strawberry and bite into it. ‘I’ve been on a few dates recently. Nothing that led to anything. In fact, they were disastrous really.’ I run through a brief résumé of men I’ve met during
the past few weeks, and soon the mood lifts and we are laughing, both giddy on wine all over again.

  ‘These men must be crazy,’ Antoine exclaims.

  ‘Well, it was an experience, I suppose. Something to amuse the kids …’

  ‘Can I say something?’

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘I really think – well, I don’t quite know how to say this, but I think you’re an amazing person.’

  ‘Why d’you say that?’

  ‘Well, everything you’ve done. Since David died, I mean. Keeping everything together, building your career …’

  ‘Career,’ I repeat with a disparaging chuckle.

  ‘… and raising your children alone. I know how tough that is. Well, I don’t, obviously, because Nicolas and Elodie live with their mother hundreds of miles away in Paris, but it’s a hard job. It’s always changing. They seem to love you madly and then they can’t bear to be with you. It’s as if they suddenly become allergic to their own parents!’

  ‘It’s exactly like that,’ I agree.

  ‘And you never quite know what to do for the best.’

  I smile and snuggle closer to his chest. We must look like a couple, I decide. Just an ordinary couple having a picnic on a gorgeous summer’s day. ‘Tell me about it. But, you know,’ I add, ‘in some ways I’ve been terribly lucky …’

  ‘Really? Why?’

  ‘In the way that my friends stepped in – Pearl especially. She was our childminder and she sort of filled the gap, you know. She was there for us. Still is. And then there’s Stu—’

  ‘Ah yes, your lodger.’

  I nod. ‘He was brilliant. Did all the guy things. Flat-pack building, fixing appliances, stuff I could have done but—’

  ‘You appreciated the support.’

  I nod. ‘So we were sort of … mothered.’

  ‘What about your own mother?’ Antoine pauses. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t know if she’s—’

  ‘Oh, she’s alive, yes. Very much so. In fact she’s getting married the week after next – her second time. It’s on a par with the royal wedding actually …’ And I tell him about ‘Haimie’, the aristo in-laws, the slate quarry and abandoned Jacobean theme. I explain that, although she tried to help after David died, our collective grief seemed to unnerve her and she gave the impression – not that I blamed her – that she was always counting the minutes until she could go home. In turn, I learn about Antoine’s own wedding, to Nicole, when she was just twenty and he was twenty-two, which came about ‘only because her family couldn’t handle the idea of us living together and not being married. They are deeply religious and I’m not. I was never good enough for them,’ he adds with a shrug. Now I recall Nicole’s home being a gated affair behind imposing, blond stone walls, while Antoine had grown up in a cramped flat with a cracked shower cubicle – no bath – above a baker’s. ‘We broke up after a few years, but got back together and had the children,’ he adds, then: ‘Remember last night,’ he says, ‘when I mentioned you coming to visit me?’

  I nod. ‘That was just the wine talking, Antoine.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t – honestly. I’d love you to come for a weekend. It’s a fascinating city, I’m sure you’d enjoy it so much …’

  I don’t quite get this. Is he inviting me over for a sightseeing trip, or something else? I sense a sudden snag of uncertainty. The head-spinny kisses, the Fortnum and Mason picnic, the invitation to France; this all seems too good to be true. ‘Let’s just see,’ I say.

  Antoine frowns. ‘You think it’s too much?’

  ‘No,’ I say quickly, ‘but I have the kids to think about—’

  ‘Yes, but they’re almost all grown up!’

  ‘And I get so few weekends off. Only one in four …’

  He pushes back his hair and squints into the sun. ‘But surely, if you want to take a holiday—’

  ‘Let’s just enjoy the rest of today,’ I say quickly, touching his hand.

  He nods and smiles as we start to pack up the remains of the picnic. We walk along the edge of the lake, where he takes my hand; we buy coffees and find a vacant bench, where we sit so close together I can feel the warmth from him.

  ‘Lorrie …’ Antoine hesitates. ‘I wish I hadn’t stopped writing to you.’

  ‘Oh, it really doesn’t matter. That was all so long ago.’

  ‘Yes, but I used to love your letters. All the funny things about your mother!’

  I smile and lean into him. ‘My mother who’s currently freaking out that I don’t have a date for her wedding.’

  He frowns, clearly not comprehending. ‘Didn’t you say it’s in two weeks’ time?’

  ‘No, I mean a man to take with me. That sort of date. You know – I’m upsetting the numbers, the symmetry …’

  ‘I’m sure men will be queuing up to accompany you!’

  ‘No, they’re not – and that’s fine. I’m forty-six years old, I can handle going to a wedding on my own.’

  He squeezes my hand. ‘Of course you can.’ Then he catches himself and checks his watch. ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, I really must go. I have a taxi picking me up at the hotel at six—’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ We both jump up from the bench and stride towards the tube station. We hit rush hour and stand, our bodies pressed together, laughing as the train jolts us as if we are an ordinary couple travelling home from work together. Except when we get out at Covent Garden, it feels anything but ordinary because, outside his hotel, he takes me in his arms and holds me tightly.

  And right there, in a bustling side street with people passing us as they make their way into and out of the hotel, we are kissing as if we will never see each other again.

  As we kiss, the years fall away until I am no longer a middle-aged woman – a pusher of blushers, supposedly ‘resistant to change’ – but a girl again, dispatched on a terrifying French exchange which turned out to be neither an exchange, nor terrifying, but the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to me.

  ‘Goodbye then,’ he murmurs.

  ‘Goodbye, Antoine.’ I turn quickly and hurry back to the tube station and my real, Fortnum-and-Mason-picnic-free life, feeling deep in my heart that this can’t be the end, and I simply must see this man again.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  I find Stu in the kitchen, phone clasped to his ear in mid-conversation as he scribbles in his notebook. ‘Parma ham, fregola, pine kernels – ready-toasted if poss, yeah, got that … Truffle oil, that organic raw cider vinegar in the tall thin bottle, yeah, I remember …’ His dark brows shoot up as he smiles in greeting. ‘… Two bottles of burgundy – okay, yep, the one with the big house on the label, yeah, you can’t go wrong with the big house, can you? Haha …’ He scribbles some more. ‘Within the hour, okay? Yeah, buzzer’s broken, I remember. You’ll hear the bike, or I’ll text you when I get there …’ He finishes his call and turns to me. ‘Fun afternoon?’

  ‘Yes, lovely, thanks.’ Considering his recent iffiness about my dates, I am reluctant to elaborate further.

  He picks up his helmet from a kitchen chair, clearing his throat as he clips the strap under his chin. ‘Look, I’m sorry if I’ve been a bit weird about this grand reunion thing of yours.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘It’s not a grand reunion.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you know what I mean. This thing, whatever it is.’

  He slips his notebook into the pocket of his leather jacket and pulls it on over his grey T-shirt.

  ‘You have, actually. I mean, you’ve been pretty touchy. I know you don’t want to see me being messed around, but—’

  ‘Yeah, like you were last time? I do remember, you know, you crying at school, getting teased by that awful girl with the plaits – what was her name again?’

  ‘Gail Cuthbertson – but I was sixteen years old, Stu. I’m all grown up and sensible now.’ I grin, trying to make light of it.

  ‘Yeah, ’course you are, and so is he. I know it’s all different now.’ He shrugs. ‘It’s just … you
seemed to be jumping in, that’s all. Being a bit obsessed.’

  ‘I’m not obsessed! How can you say that?’

  ‘And I don’t want to see it all going tits up for you.’

  ‘Well, there’s no need to worry your pretty little head,’ I tease, tapping his bike helmet with my nails. ‘I’m just having a bit of fun, that’s all.’

  ‘So, are you going to see him again?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I mean, we live in different countries, we have very different lives … he has invited me to stay with him, though.’

  ‘What, in France?’ he exclaims.

  ‘Well, yes. That’s where he lives. I won’t, of course. I mean, I can’t just scoot off to Nice at the drop of a hat …’

  He is already making for the door. ‘Why not?’

  ‘Stu, I’m just not going, okay? It would be ridiculous. I’ve seen him twice in thirty years and I hardly know him.’ Congratulations, Lorrie, for almost managing to convince yourself you made the right decision not jumping at the chance. Turning down the offer of a weekend in Nice with the most fanciable man you’ve laid eyes on in, well, since David, twenty years ago … well done for being a boring old stick-in-the-mud!

  ‘Wouldn’t it be weird,’ Stu adds, ‘if you ended up with him after all this time?’

  I laugh involuntarily. ‘I think that’s highly unlikely.’

  ‘Stranger things have happened,’ he says with an exaggerated shrug, and then he’s gone, clattering along the hall and shutting the front door firmly behind him.

  I stare after him, trying to figure out whether he’s trying to warn me off Antoine or thrust us together, because his attitude is extremely confusing. Sure, he doesn’t want me to be hurt. Yet he never showed any concern when I was trotting off to meet those strangers from datemylovelymum.com. Even when I was seeing Pete with the parrot – when Stu was still living with scary Roz – he didn’t seem too concerned about how things would turn out.

  The warm summer’s day has tipped into a humid evening, and the air feels heavy with impending rain. With Cam and Amy occupied with several friends upstairs, I heat up a vast quantity of pizza – feeling slightly shamed, considering the Fortnum and Mason delights I devoured by the Serpentine – and retreat to the living room while they all surge into the kitchen and dive upon it.