How to Break Your Own Heart

by Maggie Alderson

  Until that afternoon, I hadn’t fully appreciated the sensuality of wine, but I could see the pleasure Ed got from exploring each one, assessing and comparing the appearance, the legs – which was something to do with how it stuck to the sides of the glass, as far as I could tell – the nose and, finally, the taste, and it was a joyous thing to see someone doing something he so clearly adored.

  Mr Fabre was clearly as impressed with Ed as I was, and after a full tasting of the wines it was already early evening and he invited us to stay for dinner.

  With lively conversation, delicious food and a lot more wine, dinner was a jolly affair. Then, as I helped clear the table, I heard Monsieur Fabre ask Ed if ‘you and your charming young wife’ would like to stay the night, as it was a long way back to Montpellier in the dark.

  ‘Especially with Madame Bradlow’s navigational skills…’ he added, chuckling heartily.

  So without feeling any explanations were necessary, we did. We stayed the night together in a beautifully simple French bedroom, in an old iron bed made up with starched linen sheets.

  With what felt like buckets of wine inside me – and not at all used to drinking so much – I fell asleep the moment my head hit the pillow, so there was no question of any hanky-panky that first night. And there was no risk of it in the morning either, because when I woke up, Ed wasn’t there.

  After a moment of feeling slightly rejected, I decided it was a relief. I’d only known him a few hours and I wasn’t even entirely sure what I thought about him. I definitely liked him, but I didn’t quite know where to put him in my head yet. He wasn’t like anyone else I knew.

  I lay there for a while listening to the sounds of the French country morning and thinking about him, this virtual stranger I had just shared a bed with.

  He was a very self-contained person, I decided. It didn’t seem to bother him what anyone else might think of him, so when he did engage with you, it seemed particularly sincere and meaningful somehow. Most of the time he seemed to be somewhere else, then he’d smile suddenly, looking you right in the eye, and it felt like a blessing, like a baby’s guileless grin.

  And he did have rather a beautiful face, I decided. Not in a flashy, obvious way, but his were very refined features which grew on you. It was an old-fashioned kind of face, with those high cheekbones that look almost bruised, a narrow nose and a sculpted mouth. His mother must be a real beauty, I thought.

  I stretched sleepily and then jumped out of bed, throwing open the shutters on to the most beautiful view, the sun just starting to burn the mist off the vines.

  As I stood at the open window, clutching a sheet around me, there was a knock on the door, then Ed came in carrying a large jug of steaming water. He put it on the floorboards in the corner of the room, next to a wrought-iron washstand, and fished a large bar of soap out of his pocket.

  ‘Your bath, mademoiselle,’ he said, smiling in that sweet way of his.

  He was already dressed and shaved, his wavy brown hair neatly combed into its side parting.

  ‘When you’ve finished, just chuck the water out of the window,’ he said. ‘Good for the grapes. I’ll see you downstairs. I think we’re going to have rather a marvellous breakfast.’

  As it turned out, I didn’t share Ed’s appetite for boudin noir at that time of the morning, but I enjoyed watching him tuck into it as much as our hostess clearly did. I was already finding Ed’s enthusiasm for food, wine, France and life in general very infectious.

  As we drove away from the vineyard later, waving back at our new friends Monsieur and Madame Fabre, he looked over and smiled at me, his once-neat hair blowing all over his face. ‘Come with me, Amelia,’ he said, turning his head back to the road. ‘I’ve got another two glorious weeks of this before I have to get back to Cambridge, and I’d love you to share them with me. It’s pretty good on my own, but it would be so much more fun with you.’

  He paused and then glanced at me again. He looked quite serious. ‘Anything would be more fun with you, actually,’ he said, quietly.

  I didn’t have to think before I replied. This was what I had come to France to find. Adventure. Romance. Possibly even love. Possibly even sex. My essay would just have to wait.

  ‘I’d love to,’ I said, nodding enthusiastically.

  Ed peeped his horn happily in response.

  We stopped briefly in Montpellier so I could pick up some clothes and tell my horrid landlady not to worry about me. She sniffed dismissively and looked out of the window at Ed sitting in his red open-top car, sunglasses on, his elegant face turned up towards the sun.

  ‘Bonnes vacances,’ she said, with pungent irony.

  I pulled a face at the door as I closed it behind me and ran back to the car.

  3

  From the moment we roared off from that dull little street, I was thrilled I had gone with Ed. It was early April, the countryside was springing into life and, driving out into the country, weaving north and east towards the Rhone, the landscape was glorious. I was even captivated by the flat plains with leafy vines stretching for miles.

  ‘Look at that!’ shouted Ed joyously, as we bowled through it. ‘Gallons and gallons of wine, as far as the eye can see. So much wine, so little time…’

  Although it seemed to me that we were doing our best. We were certainly getting through it at the many vineyards we stopped at and, while I was feeling a little dizzy with all the driving and tasting, Ed seemed completely clear-headed.

  It did cross my mind as we sped off from yet another cellar that the combination of wine and a powerful car was not an ideal one, but Ed seemed to spit out most of the wine he tasted; something I hadn’t quite got the hang of yet.

  And that was just one of many ways he impressed me. He was amazingly organized, with bundles of annotated maps and guides bound up with elastic bands in that old suitcase on the back seat, along with the colour-coded notebooks and folders of press cuttings, and he always knew exactly where he wanted to go each day.

  When we arrived at each new vineyard, we would sit in the car for a moment and take in the general scene. Ed would have his ongoing notebook in his lap and would scribble down first impressions in his flowing script – it was all part of remembering the wine, he explained to me, to put it in a context. Other times he would snap the book shut without writing a word and we’d drive off again.

  ‘Wasn’t feeling the love there,’ he’d say, by way of explanation. ‘Neither was Mr Bun.’

  He turned round and looked at the grey velvet elephant, to whom I had now been formally introduced. ‘No, he definitely didn’t like it either. Let’s try the next one.’

  We spent the second night in a hotel in the main square of a small town and, after dinner in the restaurant downstairs, we had once more fallen immediately asleep, road weary and wine sated. And the following morning, I’d woken up again in an empty bed. Well, empty except for the velvet elephant, who was propped against the footboard at the end of the bed looking at me.

  ‘Bonjour, Monsieur Brioche,’ I said. ‘Çava?’

  I felt too peaky to wonder what it meant that Ed wasn’t there in its place and stumbled downstairs to find him immaculately turned out and eating yet more boudin noir for breakfast. I sipped a café crème and nibbled unenthusiastically on a croissant, marvelling at his constitution.

  We didn’t do so much tasting that third day – and I made sure I spat everything out, as Ed did – so by the evening I had recovered enough to look forward to dinner, and as we walked into the restaurant, I was distinctly aware that something was different between us, a shift had taken place.

  Mind you, the venue was enough to put anyone in a romantic mood. The restaurant was in a lovely old mill set in beautiful gardens, with the mill stream running through them. Ed had a press cutting about it in one of his folders and I noticed it had two Michelin stars, which was probably why he’d booked the table before he left England.

  The maître d raised a discreet eyebrow when the two of us turned
up.

  ‘Ah, Monsieur Bradlow,’ he’d said. ‘I see you are now requiring a table for two. Let me quickly make arrangements.’

  And so we had ended up in the most beautiful spot, next to a window looking out over the darkening garden. The dining room was lit only with candles, and I sat there with a stupid grin on my face, as the sommelier quietly opened a bottle of Krug’s Clos de Mesnil – no flashy pops in a place like this – Ed’s favourite champagne.

  He held the glass up to his nose, sniffing purposively. ‘Such a surprising oriental spicy nose,’ he said, a satisfied grin spreading across his face. I was still getting my head around his particular use of language in regard to wine, but I was eager to learn. I sniffed my glass too. ‘ Then toffee, honey, coffee, linden, cream, butterscotch, sunripened oranges… It’s got everything.’ He took a deep sip and held it in his mouth, swilling it around for a few seconds. I was glad he didn’t make the sucking noises he made during tastings.

  He swallowed then sighed deeply, his eyes closed. ‘Such power and breadth and so silky in the mouth.’

  I had to smile. I wasn’t sure I could detect everything Ed was describing, but it certainly tasted delicious.

  ‘Mmmm,’ I said, slightly surprised, after I had swallowed my first mouthful. ‘You can taste it for ages after you’ve gulped it down, and it sort of changes on your tongue…’

  Ed beamed at me and reached across the table to squeeze my hand. ‘You’re a natural,’ he said. ‘We’ll make a proper wine buff out of you before the end of this trip.’

  I felt something akin to a small electric shock when he touched me. Although we had spent two nights in the same bed, it was the most intimate gesture he had yet made to me and, to cover my self-consciousness, I started talking again.

  ‘How did you become such a connoisseur?’ I asked.

  A shadow crossed Ed’s face. ‘As a child, I spent every August in Provence with my parents. Not a million miles from here actually. There were vineyards all around the villa and I used to entertain myself by visiting them on my bicycle and pestering the men who made the wine. It amused them to have an eight-year-old boy who wanted to taste with them and, just by hanging around, I learned a great deal.’

  ‘Didn’t your parents mind you drinking alcohol when you were eight?’ I asked, trying to hide how shocked I was.

  Ed shrugged. ‘ They didn’t know. They were so caught up in themselves and their social lives, they didn’t even ask where I’d been all day.’

  ‘Where did you live when you weren’t in France?’ I asked, eager to find out more about what had made Ed the singular person he was.

  ‘Boarding school. My parents lived in Hong Kong – I was born there – but they sent me to school in England when I was six. I went back to Hong Kong for Christmas every year, they came over to London for the Season each summer and then we spent August down here in Provence. Now, what are we going to eat?’

  He clearly wanted to move on from that subject, so I didn’t push him. As the daughter of the deputy headmaster of a boys’ boarding school, I had a good idea what that kind of education involved in emotional terms – not a lot – and although I was now fired with curiosity about his exotic-sounding family, I knew it wasn’t the time to press him further.

  The food and wine were amazing that night, but even Ed seemed to eat and drink a little less than usual, and as we walked back to the car along by the millrace, he put his arm around me for the first time. And then, just as we reached the old cast-iron gate that led out to the car park, he pulled me over into the darkness under a flowering chestnut tree and kissed me.

  It was a beautiful kiss. Very tender and tasting deliciously of the exquisite things we had eaten and drunk together. That was what Ed smelled like, I thought, as I buried my head into his neck.

  He never wore aftershave, because he said it interfered with wine-tasting, and he smelled instead like the distilled essence of fine wine and brandy, of duck confit and goose-liver pâté, good bread, white peaches, raspberries still warm from the bush, Normandy butter and the best cheeses. I pressed my cheek against his, breathing in his delicious scent and feeling an intense sense of homecoming.

  Back at the hotel everything continued in this new mood. Instead of the two of us falling into bed already unconscious, Ed undressed me as though he were unwrapping a box of exquisite chocolates, stopping to admire what he found at each layer and arranging my long hair so that it fell down over my naked body.

  Then he made love to me very slowly, with what seemed like hours of kissing and stroking, until I felt I was going to die from wanting him. He paused to put on a condom – I was impressed with how responsible he was – and then he entered me quite suddenly, taking me almost by surprise.

  Then it seemed as if, just as I was getting used to the delicious sensation, his back arched, he cried out, and I realized he had come. He kissed me tenderly on the lips and then fell immediately asleep beside me.

  I lay there for a moment feeling a little stunned, it had all ended so suddenly. I squeezed my legs together a few times, trying to regain the sensation, but it was gone. I curled up against him and fell asleep too.

  I woke in the morning to find Ed sitting on the bed, fully dressed, shaved and immaculate as usual, and smiling down at me. He lay by my side, took me in his arms and kissed me. There was a delicious smell in the room and I raised my head off the pillow to see a large tray on the end of the bed.

  ‘Breakfast,’ he said, standing up and taking his clothes off again.

  He was about to get into the bed when he noticed the velvet elephant sitting at the end of it, looking back at us.

  ‘Hmmmm,’ said Ed, reaching down and moving it on to a chest of drawers, facing the wall. ‘Not for elephantine eyes, I don’t think, Mr Bun. And close those big ears, please.’

  Then he climbed back into bed beside me, pulled up the tray and started to feed me pieces of croissant dipped in hot chocolate, until his fingers found their way into my mouth and then I was gently biting and sucking on them and we forgot about the breakfast.

  This time his love-making was more urgent, and as he finally collapsed on top of me, kissing my neck as his body continued to shudder, I knew I was a goner. I had fallen in love.

  The rest of the trip continued in the same blissful way and, two weeks later, when I really did have to go back to Montpellier, we agreed that when I’d finished my last term there, he – and Mr Bun – would drive back down to get me. It already seemed only natural for us to be together. All three of us.

  We spent that entire wonderful first summer winding our way slowly back up through France, stopping at what seemed like every vineyard on the way. And as we drove and laughed and ate and laughed and drank and laughed and made love and laughed, we got to know each other better every day, until I found it hard to remember what life had been like before I knew him.

  And as Ed told me more about his life and family, I began to understand why he seemed so much more self-sufficient than most people our age. On top of being an only child, cast adrift from his mother – and, more crucially, his ayah – to go to prep school across the world at six, when he was twelve, his father had died suddenly.

  His mother, Dervla, who was much younger than her late husband, had then moved to South Africa. From what Ed told me she sounded a bit of a handful, but coming as I did from a classic nuclear family – two parents, two children, one dog – who lived in a new-build executive home in Maidstone, Ed’s background, while sad, seemed very glamorous to me and an essential part of the attraction of the man I had fallen in love with.

  It also made me a bit nervous at the prospect of him meeting my parents, but the point came when I knew it would have to happen. They had been pretty unhappy about me not coming straight home when I’d finished at Montpellier in June – especially as I was going to be trailing around France for weeks with someone they had never met. So I had mollified them with the promise that I would bring him back to visit at the end of the trip, and
I’d also asked my brother Dick to put in a good word for Ed, which had seemed to do the trick with my father in the short term. It was the kind of man-to-man talk he understood. But by the time we were on the cross-Channel ferry heading back to Dover and I knew it was only a matter of hours until we would all be under the same roof, I was starting to feel really jumpy.

  I was a bit worried that Ed would think my family were terribly dull and suburban – he was so sophisticated compared to anyone else I knew – but my greatest concern was what state of mind my dad would be in.

  My father could be charming and amusing company, but if he was having one of his black days and things weren’t going exactly as he thought they should, the atmosphere could quickly turn very ugly in our house. It was the unpredictability of his moods that made it so stressful.

  As we drove through Dover, I looked feverishly out of the car window for a phone box. I wanted to call my mum to see how things were before we arrived, so I could be prepared. I finally spotted one and asked Ed to pull over.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ I said enthusiastically, very relieved she had answered and not Stormin’ Norman, as my brother called our father, although his real name was Paul. ‘Just to let you know we have landed on British soil and we should be with you in under an hour.’

  ‘Oh, hello, Amelia love,’ she said. ‘It’s good to know you’re back safely. We’re so looking forward to seeing you.’

  I tried to read the signs in her voice, the messages hidden underneath the pleasant chitchat. I could tell by the bright tone she was using that my dad was within earshot. There was always a slight tension in her speech when he was around, but she didn’t sound overly stressed. Hopefully, that meant he was calm.

  ‘I’m bringing Ed with me, as we discussed,’ I continued, fishing for more information. ‘Is that still a good idea?’