That First French Summer

by Mandy Baggot

  She raised her head, looked at him.

  ‘I don’t know who you are. I don’t think I’ve ever known,’ she spat.

  ‘Emma, I was trapped. I knew what they were doing was wrong. I knew what I was doing was wrong but I was so, so desperate.’ He’d lost her. He knew it and he deserved it. All these years living in the life of luxury, on the surface having everything a man could wish for, but underneath what he’d done had scarred him for life. And now he was getting the ultimate payback. The second chance with the woman he adored was going to be taken from him because of it.

  ‘You had a choice. Doing what was right and saying no and turning these people into the police or doing what was wrong and taking money, dirty money from them for your own benefit. You’re as bad as them! You disgust me! How could you stand there serving beer and Merlot knowing what they were doing? How could you be alone in a bedroom with that man?! It’s perverted! You’re perverted!’

  He nodded. He knew that’s what she would think. It’s what any normal person would think. He had thought of himself, but he’d also thought of his baby brother and saving him from the same fate.

  ‘I hate myself over it… every day. I still see their faces. I still see Keith. Those few moments I’ve spent my whole life reliving. When I saw him again it was like a nightmare. All the things I’d done wrong coming back. And it was no more than I deserved. I know that,’ he whispered.

  Emma was crying now, sobbing quietly into her hands as he talked. He didn’t know what to do. If he touched her she would pull away and that would mark his heart.

  ‘What I saw in that room at the hotel, it will never leave me. The boys were corrupted and used. But I was being used too. David used me because he knew how badly I needed the money. When I met you, Emma, when we fell in love I saw myself having a real chance in life.’

  She got to her feet, scrambled to pick up her bag. ‘I can’t listen to this anymore.’ She started to walk back up the boat.

  ‘Emma, please. Take the keys to the house. I will stay away, let you think,’ he called.

  ‘Let me think?! I’ve nothing to think about! I don’t want you anywhere near me. This, whatever this was, is over,’ she screamed.

  Her words made a direct hit on his heart and he stepped back, took hold of the rail to balance.

  She raced down the gangplank and out onto the quay. There they were again. The lovers, the children, the people strolling along with their lives while hers fell apart in France again. The sickness was getting worse. She needed a bathroom, a chance to puke up everything inside her and a shower to scrub herself clean. She had started out tonight feeling so happy! She had everything she wanted. The man she loved, Dominic, her dream job, her dad happy again. She should have known it was just too much. Love wasn’t like that. Her life wasn’t like that.

  ‘Taxi!’ she called, waving her hand at a car. The vehicle pulled over and she opened the door.

  ‘Camping La Baume s'il vous plaît,’ she directed as she got in. She didn’t know what she was going to do when she got to the campsite but she couldn’t go back to the house.

  She turned herself, looking out of the back window of the car. The driver said something in French she didn’t understand. She could see Guy, hurrying down the quay towards the car.

  ‘Please, Monsieur, vite!’ she called. Guy was just yards away, such a wounded expression on his face. She couldn’t look. She turned away as the taxi pulled off and closed her eyes.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  5 September 2005

  She’d run. Left the campsite, turned out of the gate, passed the barn and raced on and on towards the river. Her eyes were blinded by the tears. It wasn’t fair. Why was she being punished like this? Because she’d got drunk and stupid and cautioned by the police after her mother had died? Because she’d been deliberately cruel to her dad because she blamed him for not being there when her mother passed? Hadn’t she coped with enough heartache? Hadn’t she tried to bury herself in her books and do the right thing? Why had life decided to hurt her again? Take away the one thing, the one person who was hers? They’d been in love. She’d been in love, so deeply in love it had filled her up to the brim. Guy had given her her life back. Just when she thought there was nothing but death and loss and Shakespeare, he had come along and shown her how beautiful life could be. He’d asked her to marry him and she’d believed him. She’d convinced herself it was more than a holiday romance. Fallen for the fairytale. He’d taken their love and thrown it on the bedroom floor of that caravan when he’d slept with Tasha.

  She was out of breath, her lungs bursting. She jogged to a stop, bent double and put her hands on her hips as she straightened up. She should have been getting ready to leave. Leave with Guy to a new life. Instead she was here, hurt, humiliated, wanting to rage at the world for letting her down again. If there was a God, where was he? Why had he taken her mother? And why had he made this happen? He’d given her Guy and snatched him back. She wanted to scream at the heavens. She wanted to beat her fists on the ground. She wanted to get drunk again. So drunk she couldn’t feel anything. It would only numb the pain for a while but even a few hours out of real life was better than nothing at all.

  She hugged herself, bracing her stomach, trying to quell the torment when she heard a noise. It was a baby crying. Such a loud, distressed sound and a sound she recognised. It was Luc, she was almost sure of it. She shielded her eyes from the sun and looked around. There were fields of crops to her left but to her right was the grassland that led down to the river. She squinted against the sun, putting her hand up to her forehead to shield her eyes. There, across the grass, was Luc’s pram and beside it was a figure led on a blanket on the ground.

  She picked up her pace and headed towards them. It was so hot today and the pram wasn’t in any shade. As she got closer she saw it was Guy’s mother on the rug. She was asleep or unconscious, an empty bottle of brandy next to her. Anger gnawed at her. What sort of woman was she? She beat her eldest son, she neglected her baby and when he didn’t stop crying she shook him until he did. On closer inspection Emma could see she was breathing. She was passed out and drunk. She wasn’t fit to be anyone’s mother. It was so unfair! Her own mother who always had time for her, always been there for school, for hugs, for chats, for everything, had been taken away, while this horrible, nasty, woman was here, wasting her life away and ruining the lives of everyone around her. She was vicious and brutal. A dangerous bully.

  Emma bent over the pram and lifted Luc out.

  ‘There now. Sshh, it’s alright. Emma’s here now,’ she hushed, cradling his tiny body against her.

  His cries lessened immediately and as she began to sing the song Guy had taught her he stilled, his breathing soft and contented. None of this was his fault. This poor little infant had been born without anyone in his life to look after him. His mother was a violent alcoholic and his brother was a liar and a cheat.

  ‘What are we going to do, hey?’ she asked the child. She put her hand to his small dark head of hair and closed her eyes.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Present Day

  Ally had told her she was on the front page of two of the tabloid newspapers. She’d also told her Mike had phoned earlier to ask if she had a spare Wii controller. She hadn’t cared about either. She had let Ally talk and said ‘yes’ in all the right places and finally got rid of her to a Bollywood banquet night with Jonty. She’d wanted to say something, confide a little of what she was feeling to her best friend but… well, she just couldn’t. It was all too ugly, too raw, too painful to recount yet, if ever.

  She parted the curtains in the luxury caravan home to look out over the lake. It was the only accommodation La Baume had left. It might even be the same caravan she had found Guy in all those years ago. She’d been grateful to get anything, given how she looked. Eyes red-rimmed and swollen, hair rough and out of place. Her heart was barely functioning, her stomach felt tender and achy, her head was stuffed full of thou
ghts she couldn’t process. How did you process something like this? Could you?

  She sat down on the sofa and wrapped her legs under herself. Should she have picked up on this situation when they were together? He’d told her he worked at a hotel but she’d never asked too many questions. She’d been too caught up in the romance. She shook her head. She had been so naïve. She should have asked him for more details. She should have taken more of an interest in what he did when he wasn’t with her. If she had then… then what? All this time she’d believed he’d cheated on her with Tasha and in reality… the reality was far worse.

  *

  The car had brought him home an hour ago and he hadn’t moved from the kitchen floor. The cold slabs had numbed his skin and the feeling was working its way up and down his entire body. He didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything anymore. He had come back into her life only to break her heart again. He should have left her alone. At the opening of the fitness centre he should have just made his peace. He could have politely wished her well, been glad she was happy with another man, a good man, a man so much better than him. Instead he had opened up old wounds, pounded at her heart and relentlessly pursued her. Why? Because he was weak and selfish, like he had always been.

  There was no going back now. He knew what he had to do. He reached into the pocket of his trousers for his phone. His fingers touched the small black box. He pulled out the ring and the tears began again. So many hopes for the future, broken and burned. There was nothing left to wreck. He’d singlehandedly destroyed everything.

  *

  The complimentary coffee was bitter and there weren’t enough sachets of milk to make a real difference to the colour. She put the cup to her mouth and blanched her tongue. She set it back down and put her finger to the sore spot. What was she going to do? Go home the first chance she got was the obvious answer. She longed to see Dominic right now. She needed clarification of the choices she had made. Had she been right? What would have happened if Guy had confessed to her eight years ago? How would she have reacted then? What he’d done was wrong on so many levels but he had been struggling. His mother had forced him to work there, no doubt wrapped him up in guilt about him being the man of the house, the provider. She probably knew exactly what was going on, perhaps hoped he would participate for her own gain. What choice had Guy really had?

  No, she mustn’t make excuses for him. It was morally wrong. He knew what had been happening. He could have made an anonymous call to the police to have it stopped. Instead he went on working there, taking money from them and lying to her, hiding what he was doing behind whispered words of love and romantic rendezvous.

  But what about her? What she’d done was wrong too, by most people’s standards. The only difference was, nobody knew. She tried the coffee again. What if Guy hadn’t been honest with her now? They would have gone on, building their second chance on a foundation of lies. She had never, ever planned to be honest with him about Dominic’s parentage. Didn’t that make her just as bad? Or worse?

  She glanced across at her phone on the worktop. Nothing. No messages. No missed calls. What had she expected? Him begging her forgiveness? Did he really need to? He knew what he’d done was wrong and he’d spent his whole life paying for it. And what had she done? When he’d been honest she’d let him take all the blame. She’d let him think he was the only one with a terrible secret. She should have told him. She saw how much it pained him, telling the truth and knowing how she would react. She’d acted like Little Miss Perfect. Emma Barron, the book-loving teacher, the stand-up member of the community who could never do any wrong. She shivered, hugging herself as the panic rode over her. She should have finally told him about the day she left in 2005. She should have told him about her role in Luc’s death.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  They’d questioned him for four hours. They wanted details he barely remembered, names, dates, times, addresses. He should have expected nothing less, but when he’d made the call to the police he hadn’t considered anything apart from confessing. After all this time, even now, after he was sure he’d lost Emma, he had to put things right. He had to do what he should have done years before. He couldn’t go on with Keith’s threats hanging over him. He couldn’t have his whole career, his whole life under that man’s control.

  The police were going to investigate. They would want to talk to him again. In his mind he saw raids on the homes of David, Keith and the other names he’d given them. He couldn’t care less about the ramifications for him now or in the future. He just wanted to go on with a clean slate, even if they decided to press charges against him. He would deal with it. He wouldn’t shirk it. He’d done that too much and look what had happened.

  He unbuttoned his shirt and shrugged it from his shoulders. It was wet with perspiration and smelt of the interview room they’d kept him in. He needed to shower. He needed to finally unburden himself of everything he’d been holding in for so long.

  The phone in his trouser pocket vibrated. He knew it would be France, the football club. He’d called them from the car on the way back. He’d told the player liaison everything. He couldn’t play that night and he fully expected to be dropped from the international team for good. As far as his career with Finnerham went, well, they’d react exactly the same and who could blame them? When this hit the newspapers, which it would, he would be labelled scum.

  He took the phone out and looked at the message on the screen.

  *

  She’d written the text three times, deleting parts, adding punctuation. Adding punctuation! Who cared about full stops when you dealing with something so vital? Her thumb hovered over the ‘send’ button. Could she do this? Could she really tell him the truth? She really didn’t know. But what she did know was, she couldn’t be a hypocrite. She couldn’t berate him for keeping secrets when she was holding one so big. She pressed the button and clicked out of messages into her contacts. She pressed the key and put the phone to her ear.

  ‘Dad, hi, it’s me. Yes, I’m fine. I just… could I speak to Dominic?’

  *

  ‘Good morning!’ Colette breezed into the house all rosy-cheeked French charm and honeysuckle perfume. He almost retched. He’d eaten nothing, drunk nothing since the mouthful of wine at the restaurant the night before. There had been water offered in the interview room but he hadn’t touched it. He was sleep-deprived, dehydrated and he barely had the strength to offer her a smile. The shower had made him feel better but he was still on edge, nervous. He was meeting Emma at the campsite in half an hour. She’d contacted him. A short text asking him to meet her. His heart had soared at the message. He knew it meant nothing. He knew it probably spelt the end, but there was that little chink of hope, the tiniest chance. And if that was there he was going to grab at it with both hands.

  ‘Guy, look at you. What has happened?’ Colette appeared to be shocked by his appearance. His hair was still damp and he felt the heaviness of the bags under his eyes. He hadn’t shaved and there was a hint of stubble on his face. As Colette continued to stare, he put a hand to his face, feeling the roughness.

  ‘I… stayed out late. Too late. I didn’t sleep,’ he said. He couldn’t tell her what had happened. She had been the rock for him when he eventually joined OGC Nice. She would know soon enough and think badly of him. He couldn’t cope with her disappointment now.

  ‘Where is Emma?’ Colette asked. Her eyes moved through the kitchen, over to the lounge. ‘Is she still sleeping? Tired I expect from the journey here.’

  ‘No. She went out early. We are meeting for lunch,’ he lied. He was still lying. He shook his head.

  ‘Is everything OK? I thought you must leave this morning, for Paris, for the football game,’ she queried. He knew she knew there was something wrong. He looked so terrible, Emma wasn’t at the house, he hadn’t shaved, he wasn’t leaving. It was obvious. But he couldn’t confide in her. He was still too ashamed.

  ‘Everything is fine, Colette. You worry too
much. I have to go,’ he said checking his watch.

  ‘Shall I make something for Emma for tonight? While you are away with the football team?’ she asked him.

  ‘Perhaps a casserole?’ he offered, heading for the door.

  Chapter Sixty

  5 September 2005

  She shifted through the campsite, her head ducked low. It wasn’t as if she knew lots of the holidaymakers but she didn’t want to see anyone. Not the lady from three tents down, not the lifeguard with the tattoos, not Melody and definitely not Tasha or Guy. Just thinking his name brought tears of regret and shame to her eyes.

  She sniffed, wiped her nose with her bare arm and shifted the two bags she was carrying up her shoulder. She had to be quick. It was almost half past one. Her dad had probably already been in touch with security.

  ‘Oh, there you are, love. Is everything alright?’ Mike appeared out of nowhere to her left and startled her.

  ‘Hi, Dad! Yes, I’m fine, everything’s fine,’ she answered. She couldn’t have sounded more over-the-top if she’d tried.

  ‘Ready for the off? Said your goodbyes?’ he asked.

  ‘I didn’t really have any to say. Well, apart from Sally obviously but we’re going to write,’ she responded, swallowing.

  ‘That boy from the clubhouse came looking for you. You know, the one you danced with once. Did you catch up with him?’ Mike queried.

  That first dance. The first dance that had meant everything to her was such a long and distant memory now. So much had happened. She’d gone full circle. From grieving over her mother and having nothing but her books for solace, to finding love, getting engaged and back again. Here she was now, changed completely but still so angry with the world.