by T A Williams
Miss Beech nodded. ‘You know what they say: a change is as good as a rest. Now, there’s one thing, though, Faye. I’m no good with all this internet stuff, so, realistically, you’ll have to come and live down here for the duration. Is that something you could do? I imagine a pretty girl like you has probably got a special someone tucked away somewhere – someone who won’t be able to live without you.’
Faye shook her head. Since the split with Didier, she had hardly been out socially, and certainly not with a man. ‘No, there’s no special someone now, Miss Beech. I’m a free agent.’ Miss Beech must have heard some regret in her voice, as did the Labrador, who pressed his nose against her bare leg in solidarity. Faye reached down and scratched his ears.
‘But there was?’
Faye took a deep breath before replying. ‘There was, but there isn’t now.’
‘Was it a bad break-up?’
Faye hesitated, desperate to avoid letting her emotions get the better of her. ‘The worst, I’m afraid.’
‘I’m so sorry, Faye, I’m sure it must have been awful. Although, to be totally honest, hearing you talking about boyfriends reminds me of my younger days.’ Faye looked up and saw a misty expression in the old lady’s eyes. ‘I do envy you the ups and downs of forming relationships, falling in and out of love. Yes, the break-ups hurt, but when you’re young and bright and beautiful, you know there’s always another man waiting just round the corner. Yes, I envy you that. So, what was his name, this one who broke your heart?’
‘Didier.’ Faye took a mouthful of tea and swallowed hard after saying his name.
‘That name doesn’t sound very English.’
‘No, he’s French, but he works in London.’ Faye did her best to keep her voice level. ‘We were together for almost five years and I thought everything was just fine, but it all went pear-shaped a few months ago.’
‘Another girl?’
Faye nodded. ‘Girls, plural, I’m afraid. It’s all been emerging over the past couple of months since I walked out on him.’ She paused for a moment. ‘Looking back on it, I feel such a fool. Everybody seemed to know what he was like except me.’
Miss Beech reached out and caught hold of Faye’s arm. ‘Love really is blind, you know, Faye. Take it from me.’
‘Personal experience?’
‘Bitter personal experience. I’ll tell you all about it one of these days.’ In spite of her tone, Faye spotted a sparkle in Miss Beech’s eyes and she felt sure that this biography was likely to be fascinating and maybe cathartic for both of them.
Miss Beech patted her arm before releasing it. When she spoke, her tone was much more positive. ‘Anyway, better to find out now than later on. That was the trouble in my day, you know, particularly for people like me in the public eye. Unless you were very, very circumspect, it was either a quick peck on the cheek at a cocktail party or it was marriage, with little in between. Being able to test drive a relationship for a few months or years like you can nowadays would have saved me a lot of heartache and a lot of time.’ She gave Faye a wink. ‘And a whole heap of money. So, do you miss him?’
Faye shook her head decisively and answered straightaway. ‘Absolutely not in the slightest.’ Conscious that that had come out a bit too forcefully, she did her best to moderate her tone a bit, but didn’t really succeed. ‘I certainly don’t miss being with him, now that I know what a two-timing rat he really was. In fact, if I saw him again now, I’d either hit him with that chair over there or run a mile. I suppose I do miss speaking French with him, but, to be honest, the only thing I really miss is that when we were living together we could afford our own little flat. Now that it’s just me, I’m back to sharing a house with other people.’ She glanced round Miss Beech’s bedroom and she couldn’t help comparing it to her current accommodation. The two were poles apart.
Miss Beech smiled at her. ‘Well, you’ll be able to speak all the French you like if you come here to help me, and I’d love it if you would. So, please, if you’re quite sure this is what you want, shall we shake on it?’ Miss Beech extended her elegant hand once more and this time Faye noticed the impeccably manicured and painted nails.
Faye nodded enthusiastically. The more she thought about it, the more she felt convinced that a few months over here were just what she needed. For the first time for ages, she felt a warm glow of happiness suffuse her body and a cheerful smile on her face. She caught Miss Beech’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. ‘If you’re certain, then I’m honoured to accept. Mr Danvers told me he thought the contract would be roughly a six-month affair.’ That was about all the solicitor, Silas Danvers, had been able to tell her about the project when she had met him the previous week. ‘If that’s the case, we’d better get started as soon as possible.’
‘Absolutely, no time to waste. At the age of eighty-two, who knows what’s round the corner? Don’t get me wrong, Faye: I have no intention of dropping dead any time soon, but I think it’s fair to say that time is of the essence.’ Miss Beech was still an excellent actress. The smile never left her face as she speculated upon her looming demise. ‘Now, about accommodation. I was talking to Eddie about the possibility of your coming to stay and he suggested the old stable block. There’s a rather nice guest apartment above the stables and, in the hope that you’d say yes, I’m having it redecorated. It’ll be all ready by the time you come back and we’ll see that it’s all set up for you. Get Claudette or Eddie to show you round before you leave today. I think you’ll like it.’
Faye gave her a big smile. ‘That’s fantastic.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘Will they be able to tell me about rent and other charges?’
Miss Beech shook her head and smiled back. ‘Don’t worry about that, Faye. I’m glad to see the place being used. It’s been empty for a couple of years now. Besides, I’ve got more than enough to see me out, and when the time comes, where I’m going – wherever that turns out to be – money’s one thing I’m not going to need. You just try your hardest to make this book as good as you possibly can. You never know, it might even get published one day.’
***
Miss Beech came down to the dining room and joined Faye for lunch. Over the meal they chatted and Faye did her best to ask Miss Beech about her early life. Although more than happy to talk about her experiences in Hollywood, she appeared a bit reluctant to speak about her family and her early years, and Faye didn’t push her at this stage. Hopefully, as the old lady took her into her confidence a bit more, she would open up. As it was, Miss Beech appeared very interested in Faye’s life and asked her all sorts of questions. Some were easier to answer than others.
‘So, did you always want to be a teacher?’
Faye had been asked this many times before. ‘Not necessarily teaching, but I always knew I wanted to do something involving language.’
‘And you teach English and French?’
Faye nodded.
‘And do you enjoy teaching?’
Faye answered as honestly as she could. ‘I love teaching. The problem I’ve had of late hasn’t been with the kids, it’s been with the administration. It’s been getting tougher and tougher over the past couple of years. I don’t mean lesson preparation, which is normal, or marking homework, but the endless bureaucracy. I seem to have no time to myself at all. Do you know, I haven’t read a book just for fun for months, years maybe. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been looking round for something different for a while now. And as for finding the time to go to the cinema …’
‘Well, you can remedy both of those while you’re here. Bring all the books you want. There’s not a whole lot to do around here and you’ll have bags of free time, and if you like films, there’s a cinema in the basement, and I’ve got hundreds and hundreds of films.’ She smiled. ‘Including all of mine, of course.’
‘All the films you’ve ever been in?’ Faye saw Miss Beech nod. ‘Then I’ll start with yours before I move on to any others. I need to be familiar with all your work.’
‘About Eddie … Mr Marshal, has he been with you long?’
‘Eddie? He’s been with me for well over fifty years.’
‘Wow, as long as that?’
‘Yes. He started as my pool boy, skimming the leaves and cutting the grass, but he soon became my personal assistant. He knows more about me that anybody alive.’
Faye made a mental note to add Eddie Marshal to her list of source material. ‘How come he speaks such good French? He’s American, right?’ A little voice in her head was wondering whether there had been more to their relationship than that. Fifty years ago both Eddie Marshal and Miss Beech would have been in their prime. This was not, however, the time to spring that question on the grand old lady.
Miss Beech giggled, a lovely friendly little girl giggle that took years off her. ‘Don’t let him hear you saying that. He’s Canadian, although he’s lived so long in California he can hardly remember Canada. But where he grew up, right on the edge of Quebec, he says they were all bilingual round there.’
‘So coming to live here in France must have suited him down to the ground.’ Faye looked across at Miss Beech. ‘But what about you, Miss Beech? What made you leave Hollywood and immerse yourself in rural France?’ She hesitated. ‘If you don’t mind me asking.’
‘Of course I don’t mind. That’s what you’re here for, Faye. You can ask me anything. As for coming here, you maybe know that my last husband, dear Marcel, was French.’
Faye remembered reading about him. ‘Wasn’t he a marquis or a count?’
Miss Beech nodded. ‘Although he spent most of his life in Hollywood, this was his family home. The chateau was built by his God knows how many times removed great, great-grandfather, back in the Middle Ages.’
‘So how long have you lived here?’
‘Nearly ten years now. Poor Marcel died five years ago, but I’d grown to love the place by then and I decided to stay on, even though I still can’t do much more than ask for a cup of coffee in French.’ Miss Beech’s blue eyes caught Faye’s. ‘My old brain’s too old to learn another language. Anyway, the other reason for staying here was that I thought it was the right time to drop out of the public eye. I could have stayed on and gone down the whole cosmetic surgery route like a few I could mention, but I couldn’t stomach the thought.’
She gave Faye a little grin. ‘There’s one very well-known actress I won’t name who’s had so many nips and tucks, they say if she winks, her left knee lifts.’ Faye spluttered into her glass of mineral water. ‘Anyway, seriously, you can talk to Eddie about anything. We have no secrets between us. He’s been my PA for so long, he can remember stuff I’ve long forgotten. He’s a good few years younger than me, but, even so, he’s getting on a bit, and he’s waiting for a hip replacement, but his brain’s still working, thank God.’
Faye nodded, wondering how much work there was for a personal assistant these days. As Miss Beech had said herself, there wasn’t much going on down here in the wilds of southern France and her social calendar was doubtless pretty empty. As she thought about it, Faye reflected she had now committed herself to six months far away from the big city, so the same was going to apply to her.
Mind you, she thought with a rush, she would emerge at the end of the contract with enough money to let her put down a deposit on a flat, or even take time out to write that second novel that had been going round and round in her head for a while now. And there was something really rather nice about Miss Beech and this wonderful place, not least the fact that it was a thousand miles away from so much unhappiness from which she had been dying to escape, whether in the form of her two-timing former boyfriend or her vindictive head teacher.
Miss Beech resumed her own questions, clearly keen to find out all about her newest employee. ‘And what about your family, Faye? Are they pleased you chose to go into teaching?’
Faye nodded. ‘My dad says he’s happy for me, but he’d probably say that anyway, even if I told him I’d taken up bullfighting.’
‘And your mother?’
Faye shook her head, the ever-present regret not far below the surface. ‘I haven’t got a mother. She died when I was just three.’ She read deep compassion on Miss Beech’s face and immediately felt sure she, too, had experience of tragic loss.
‘You poor thing. It must have been terribly tough growing up without a mother.’ The old lady’s eyes glistened and, whatever memories this had awoken in her, Faye could see she wasn’t far from tears.
Faye nodded and did her best to sound as positive as she could, for Miss Beech’s sake. There was so much she could have told her about her childhood: hating being different from the other girls, seeing the expressions on the faces as her dad came to pick her up from parties, going to the doctor with him, shopping for clothes with him. And she would never ever forget the day he had tried to explain the workings of the female body to her. She shook her head to clear it. ‘Yes, it was tough, but I survived.’
‘And your father, do you get on well with him?’
Faye nodded. ‘I love him to bits. He’s been mother and father to me growing up and it can’t have been easy for him. I was a right pain when I was a teenager.’
‘And since you and your boyfriend … Didier … broke up, is there somebody else in the wings, some nice young man you’ve got your eye on?’
Faye shook her head. ‘No, absolutely no men on the horizon at the moment. To be honest, I haven’t had the time or the energy lately.’ Then, deciding this sounded a bit too pathetic, she tried to sound more decisive. ‘Besides, after what’s happened, I’m off men for the foreseeable future. You know that old saying about once bitten, twice shy.’
‘Give it time, my dear. My heart’s been broken a good few times, too, you know. But you wait and see. Just when you’re least expecting it, it’ll happen.’ Miss Beech sighed. ‘Ah yes, the glance across the crowded room and then that amazing feeling when the spark comes, and you set off on the rollercoaster once again. Oh yes, Faye, it’ll happen, all right.’
Apart from the fact that there were unlikely to be too many crowded rooms when she came over here to work in the wilds of rural France, the one thing Faye definitely knew, with complete certainty, was that she had absolutely no intention of getting involved with another man, particularly another Frenchman, for a good long time. She gave Miss Beech a smile.
‘No, I really mean it. I’m just fine on my own.’
‘Being on your own can also mean being lonely.’ Miss Beech’s tone was gentle, sympathetic.
‘Well, I’m sure I won’t be lonely here. Everybody I’ve met here at the chateau so far has been so sweet and, of course, that includes Marlon.’ Faye nodded decisively. ‘Really, I’m just fine as I am.’
She avoided looking at Miss Beech’s face, preferring to return her attention to her meal.
As they were finishing their lunch and Faye had finally successfully managed to convince Claudette that she really couldn’t eat a second helping of îles flottantes, Miss Beech brought the interview to an end.
‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, my dear, I think I’d better go back upstairs for a nap. Claudette and Eddie will look after you for as long as you want to stay, and they’ll show you the stable apartment before you go.’ She reversed away from the table in her chair and hummed across to Faye’s shoulder. ‘I’m really so very pleased you’ve agreed to do this for me. I look forward so much to seeing more of you.’ She looked and sounded as if she meant it, and Faye felt another wave of happiness at the thought of forging a link with this kind, generous old lady. Not to mention her adorable dog.
She was about to stand up, but as Miss Beech was in her wheelchair it made more sense to stay seated. She held out her hand. ‘Thank you so much for offering me this amazing opportunity, Miss Beech. I promise I’ll do my very best to help you co
me up with something really great.’
The old lady took Faye’s hand in both of hers and gave it an affectionate squeeze. ‘I know you will, and I know it’ll work out well. By the way, I asked Silas to prepare a contract for you. Eddie’s got it somewhere. I’ll ask him to let you have it.’ She gave Faye a tired smile. ‘One thing you learn in Hollywood is that the old adage that a verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on is so, so right.’ Her smile broadened. ‘They say it was Sam Goldwyn who said that, but he never did, you know. Mind you, though, he told me once he wished he had done.’
Faye saw the old lady smile to herself at the memory, before refocusing as a sudden thought came to her.
‘Now I come to think about it, one thing Sam really did say was that nobody should write their autobiography until after their death. We’ll have to see if we can confound him.’
Faye smiled at the quote, but felt an immediate sense of regret that this dear old lady was approaching the end of her life. Somehow, she already felt a bond with her and knew she was going to enjoy this assignment more than she had hoped. ‘That’s very kind of you, Miss Beech. I’ll give in my notice as soon as I’m back at school so, all being well, I should be down here as soon as term ends.’
‘I look forward to it, my dear. Well, goodbye for now. It’s been lovely seeing you.’
‘Goodbye, Miss Beech, and thanks again. I really look forward to working with you.’ And she did.
Chapter Two
When Faye got back to England, she phoned her father to relay the wonderful news to him. He sounded delighted for her, if a bit concerned that she would be moving so far away.
‘Terrific, Faye, but what about accommodation? Where are you going to stay?’
‘The most amazing place, Dad.’ By the time she had finished describing it to him, she got the impression he was definitely coming round to thinking that she had made the right decision.