The Vintage Cinema Club

by Jane Linfoot

  Having a fabulous honeymoon here in Thailand. The dress was SO perfect. Thanks for making our wedding day wonderful. Will be in touch with the pictures when we get home, love Steffie and Brin, aka Mr and Mrs Johnson

  nee Beeston x

  P.S. Still can’t believe I’m actually married!!!

  Luce turned the card over. Something about the bride and groom on the front of the postcard, hand in hand, on a sodding Thai sea shore, complete with inky silhouettes of palm trees, and the dark orange sunset reflected in the water, made her want to bring her breakfast straight back up.

  She ran upstairs, and was about to throw the postcard straight in the bin, when she remembered her customer service initiative. Damn. She’d better file it with her happy customer letters instead.

  48

  Friday Morning, 11th July

  XANDER & IZZY

  At the flea market in Vaunac, France

  Fast work

  ‘So, is this enough French junk for you then?’ Xander smiled at his own understatement, as they rounded the bend in the narrow street, and the high stone buildings opened into a huge square, rammed with antique stalls.

  ‘Wow…’ Izzy came to an abrupt halt, and gazed at the multi coloured chaos spread out in front of them. ‘It’s beyond amazing. A whole village covered in everything from tractors to dining suites.’

  It was true. There was barely space to fit your feet between the crates and piles and stalls of what Xander could only describe as rubbish, but which he assumed would be a treasure trove to Izzy.

  ‘However I’d imagined it, it’s a hundred times bigger.’ Her voice was breathless with excitement, as she fiddled, trying to recapture her escaping hair into its pony tail. ‘It’s so exciting, I barley know where to begin.’

  Xander gave a laugh, for Izzy’s burst of childlike enthusiasm, and because this was the first sign of the real Izzy he’d seen since he’d picked her up at the airport earlier this morning. She’d been like a frightened, rather grumpy rabbit the whole journey, trying to put as much space between them as the hire car would let her, which frankly wasn’t a lot.

  Despite the fact that her grunts and eye rolls had strangled all his attempts at conversation, her heady scent, and the curves of her body, pushing against the riotous flowery print of her dress, had made his head swim. It was like overdosing on some glorious raspberry sundae, and getting the brain freeze to go with it. Two weeks of keeping his hands off her was going to be hell, but somewhere along the line he’d got hooked, not to say obsessed. How following one woman round a crowded, noisy French market could make his insides feel like warm syrup, he had no idea, but it did.

  Although there was no reason why he should have expected anything else from her but distant. He’d pretty much press ganged her into coming, and even if the trip would give her finances a boost, committing to this long with a virtual stranger, even if you had slept with them, was a bit of a leap of faith. She was damned brave to have done it at all. As for him, his life had bumped along the same dysfunctional and solitary road for eight years. He’d hauled one woman out of a skip on a building site and the rut he’d been trudging in for so long had morphed into some exotic kind of tropical rain forest.

  ‘So this is a Vide Grenier.’ Xander was taking it upon himself to talk like a guide book here. ‘It means An Emptying of the Attic, and I can see that no-one’s held back. I can also see this might be a long job.’

  And it hadn’t been anything like as awkward as he imagined it might be, going back to hands off, given what had happened between them. Izzy was treating him like just another guy from the office, in fact she was being so professional, that what they had together might almost never have happened. It was almost as if she’d taken lessons.

  ‘This could only be France.’ She glanced round at him, as they went into the square. ‘The shimmery heat and the sun that makes you feel like passing out the minute you step out of the shade, and the lovely accents.’ Izzy was definitely loosening up here.

  ‘You aren’t feeling faint are you?’ He jumped in, then felt stupid when she snuffed out his sudden anxiety with a half shake of her head. ‘Can you understand the locals at all then?’

  ‘I can get by, but my French is nothing like as good as yours. It must be totally awesome to be bilingual.’

  He took it she was impressed with his earlier banter with the guys manning the car park in the large field, who were already a good way through a crate of Kronenbourg, despite it only being ten in the morning.

  He wouldn’t go as far as to call his French fluent though. ‘Speaking French happened by accident – I’ve been coming here every summer since I was small. That explains why random people keep saying hello to me too.’

  It might be best not to expand on all those childhood memories. Thanks to his dad’s local empire building, the family owned several prestigious vineyards in the south west, and he had an idea Izzy might just have kittens if she ever got a glimpse of the size of the chateau they owned nearby. Given she was so touchy about wealth, he’d done his best to play down his links with his loaded family. In the past he’d fudged the details about his background in order to avoid hangers on, but this was the first time he’d ever had to pretend because someone had been running scared of rich guys.

  As for the memories of his mum, coming here every summer had illuminated her failing health. The year on year comparisons were inevitable, and it had been not only profoundly depressing, but it had scared the bejesus out of his teenage self, to see how she deteriorated more each year. And yet that had only been the start of the nightmare to come. Since he’d been in the attic at The Pink House with Izzy, he’d been thinking about his mum a lot more. The strange thing was, although Izzy wasn’t physically like her, Izzy’s energy, and openness reminded him a lot of his mum. They both had a warmth that spilled out and somehow extended to wrap up whoever was around them.

  When he caught up with Izzy again, she was already picking her way along boxes overflowing with linen and books and crockery. He gave her a tap on the shoulder and she turned.

  ‘It’s heaven here, but it’s really hard to know where to start. Remind me exactly what Christina wants?’

  Xander gave Izzy an encouraging smile. ‘Christina, in her words, wants you to “make her house into a home”, by “buying for yourself”. What could be easier? You doing this is my present to her. She’d have done it for herself if it hadn’t been for her ankle.’ If, as he suspected, Christina was also counting on Izzy to tame, domesticate and house train him, she could forget it.

  ‘Jeez, I just hope Christina won’t be disappointed. The barn is already beautiful as it is.’ Izzy dug deep into her skirt pocket, and pulled out a bubblegum, unwrapped it, popped it into her mouth, and began to chew, vigorously.

  Izzy with cold feet? Izzy quaking? Izzy, her bolshie confidence whooshed away, with that vulnerable grimace that put a tourniquet on his insides every time.

  ‘That makes two of us.’ He cleared his throat, and told himself to get a grip. ‘Only joking, Christina’s very easy to please, especially where your stuff is concerned.’ And Xander wasn’t kidding there either. Christina had been gushingly enthusiastic about everything Izzy had done at The Pink House.

  ‘It’s just a huge responsibility, from all sides.’ Izzy shoved her hands deep into her pockets again. ‘I’m not clever like the rest of them at the cinema, I’m only good at sloshing paint on stuff. I feel like a fraud and I’m not sure I can do this.’

  The way her voice was all low and croaky made him want to wrap his arms around her, and not let go. Damn the “hands off Izzy” policy. There were times when verbal reassurance wasn’t enough, but it was all he had to offer here.

  ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself.’ Xander stretched out to squeeze her hand, then, deciding he shouldn’t, he turned the movement into a head scratch. ‘You go into a room, tweak a few things, and the whole space springs to life. I’ve never seen anyone else do that before.’

  It was t
rue, although these days she barely needed to bring in the accessories. As soon as she’d stomped into Christina’s echoing hallway this morning, swishing her skirts and doing that whole stroppy wiggly shoulder thing of hers, she’d lit up the whole damned place.

  He coughed, and carried on. ‘So hell, I know you can do it, and I’m here to do anything I can to help too.’ He watched her scowl ease. ‘So no pressure, but seeing as you have a furniture lorry to fill, and a large barn conversion to pretty up, I suggest we need to get shopping. Fast.’

  ‘Okay. As soon as I’ve bought something I’ll be better.’ Izzy pulled the elastic out of her pony tail, shook her head, and recaptured it again. Had to be her default “nervous in France” setting. ‘That is a pretty quilt over there.’

  Xander gave a sigh of relief that she’d finally begun. ‘One more thing. You’ll get better deals with private individuals than with the traders, and bargain hard. Begin with a ridiculously low price, and if you need me to translate, just shout.’

  Izzy spun around, puzzled. ‘Great, and you know all this how?’

  ‘Years of practice shopping for French antiques with my mum.’ She had spent her summers trawling flea markets to find bits for the chateau, always dragging Xander with her.

  ‘Of course.’ Izzy’s face softened to a smile. ‘A lot of the things in the attic were French weren’t they?’

  Xander gave a low laugh. ‘I reckon she bought every damned available wire basket in south west France.’

  Izzy’s eyes were shining, as her hand landed on his wrist. ‘I can never resist a wire basket either.’

  Xander ignored the way his pulse had gone up a notch when she touched him. ‘And I can also spot a garden trug at a hundred metres.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘She had a thing for those too.’

  Izzy gave his arm a last squeeze, then released him. ‘So what would you suggest I offer on that chandelier then?’

  ‘Go in at ten euros, and we’ll see if they’ll do a deal for two. And as soon as we’ve spent two hundred and fifty euros, we’ll have a drink.’ Thinking of the last time they had drunk beer together, his pulse started to race. And more fool him for walking – or running – away from that.

  49

  Friday Morning, 11th July

  IZZY & XANDER

  At the flea market in Vaunac, France

  They both knew who she was talking about

  ‘Good thing we came in the hire van.’ Xander leaned back on his chair in the shade of a parasol, on the terrace of the local bar, tilted back his head, and took a slug of cool beer.

  Izzy, pushing her sunglasses up on top of her head, prodded the lemon slices in her Perrier water. Xander and Christina had thought of everything, including hiring a large left hand drive transit, which Xander had taken charge of. Xander liking to take control? No change there then. And his excuse – “it’s a boy thing” – was one she’d heard a thousand times before too. Eye rolls to that one.

  It had been strange arriving at the airport, walking towards the most drop dead gorgeous guy in the place, knowing he was waiting for her. It was a good thing her case was on wheels, because when she caught a first glimpse of him, leaning against a pillar, all cheekbones and tangled hair, she thought her legs were going to give way. It was all she could do to stop herself, ripping off that Superdry T-shirt of his, and all the rest, and leaping on him there and then. Somehow knowing the glorious extent of what was underneath it made it all the worse. The way her blood had been fizzing ever since she got here, she had a feeling she may either spontaneously ignite, or expire with high blood pressure, well before it was time to fly home. She was handling it…just. A lot of the time she was having to pretend he wasn’t actually there beside her.

  Following Luce’s instructions to blank the sex, she was finding her only way through this was to blank the guy as well. Far from the stuck up guy she’d half expected, Xander had been nothing less than considerate and helpful since she’d arrived. What’s more, as far as their new hands off rule was going, he was behaving like a perfect gentleman. He wasn’t even perving on her boobs, not even when she inadvertently pushed them in his direction, which, sad to say, she found herself doing more often than she’d have liked to admit. Mother Nature, and her need to ensure the survival of the human race had a lot to answer for. Because however logically Izzy knew Xander was entirely off limits, her body just hadn’t got the message. The lust part of her brain was sending out a million messages a minute, telling her to grab him, and jump him ASAP.

  From opposite, Izzy had a view of Xander’s throat, which moved with every swallow as he drank his beer – no surprise there, that’s what throats did wasn’t it? Except she found it ridiculously distracting.

  ‘So when was the last time you went on holiday?’ Even though Xander’s shades were firmly down, she knew he was watching her every move as he spoke, pretty much as he had been all morning.

  Given that so many people at the flea market here were holiday makers of one kind or another, it was an obvious choice for Xander to make for neutral conversation, although her and Xander sitting here was too surreal to be anything like a holiday.

  She squinted into her drink. ‘Holidays aren’t my best times.’ Thinking about them almost brought her out in hives. There had been that family holiday in Biarritz, just before her dad left, and a wet week camping in Wales, with Awful Alastair, just before he dumped her. Izzy chewed the skin at the side of her thumb nail. ‘My last one was six years ago, and it sucked, how about you?’ Keep the detail to a minimum, and if in doubt, throw the question back. It always worked a treat.

  Maybe she was projecting her own feelings onto him, but Xander’s smile had dematerialised once the focus was on his holidays, and his hollow laugh suggested he’d walked into that one without thinking.

  ‘Would you even believe me if I said my honeymoon with my ex?’ The sound he made in his throat was a lot more bitter than a laugh. ‘Ten years ago.’

  ‘Bloody hell, I’m sorry.’ That would teach her to be a smart arse. And shit to opening that whole ex-wife can of worms.

  Xander sped on, and hauled the conversation back onto a lighter note. ‘Actually everyone knows a film producer’s life is one long holiday, but sometimes it’s just plain tiring.’ And today the weariness came right to the top.

  ‘Seems to have given you a great tan, whatever you’ve been doing.’ Damn. That had slipped out without thinking, and her turning the colour of a beetroot thinking how his tan faded to nothing around the small of his back wasn’t the best idea either.

  She decided to try again. ‘Let’s make a list to see how we’re doing. Tell me what we’ve already bought.’ Immediate blunder saying all those “we”s, but what the hell.

  He watched her as she dug in her bag, and pulled out a pen and paper, a smile flickering over his lips. Surely he couldn’t be thinking about the times she’d fished other things out of her bag…could he? The only upside was her cheeks were already puce from a minute ago, so another rush of blood wasn’t going to show.

  Xander sighed, and then began. ‘Candlesticks, sheets, straw hats, trunks, wheel barrow…are you keeping up?’

  ‘Hang on…’ She scribbled away. The focus and efficiency he brought to every task, however incidental, was astonishing, not to say scary, but at least he was following instructions here without complaint.

  She finally got to writing down bike. ‘Okay, you can carry on now.’

  Chewing the end of her pen as she waited, after a few seconds of silence she glanced up to find him staring into the distance, looking as moody as a model in a Vogue photo. She followed his eyes in an effort to see what had grabbed every ounce of his attention.

  Izzy’s stomach clenched. He was staring at a woman. Tall, slender, and startlingly attractive. And his eyes followed her, as she meandered in the crowd.

  Izzy swallowed down a mouthful of sour saliva. Bloody hell. If this was jealousy, she had no right to it, simply because Xander looked at someone else. She shouldn’t
give a damn who he looked at, given she had no claim over him, and nor did she want to have. But that was no ordinary look. And seeing how it didn’t matter a jot to her anyway, she forced herself to ask.

  ‘Do you…do you know her?’ Her dry throat hardly let the words form. No need to say more. She and Xander both knew who she was talking about.

  ‘You could say that.’ Xander wrenched his eyes away, gave his head a slight shake, and sniffed. ‘That’s Astrid. My ex-wife.’

  Izzy’s breath hitched as he threw his head back and emptied his glass. Something about the tilt of his chin, the stretch of his throat, sent a bolt of desire ripping through her. Or would that be down to the jealousy too?

  ‘We had a house here, Astrid kept it after the divorce. She’s usually down here later in the summer, but she’s obviously come early this year.’ His grin was vaguely uncomfortable, as he put his glass down on the metal table.

  Crap. Why the hell did Astrid have to be so damned perfect?

  Izzy bit her lip. ‘She’s amazing. Like a dark brunette Kate Middleton, only way prettier.’

  It had never crossed Izzy’s mind that Xander might have been hitched to a super model. If someone had popped Izzy like a balloon, she couldn’t have deflated faster. She sat forward, looped her feet in their ripped converse, which had seemed like sensible option footwear this morning, around the legs of the chair. Tugging at her dress, with the torn buttonhole and one slightly detached pocket, she grimaced because her fuchsia pink nail varnish, applied less than four hours ago, had already chipped in several places. Hopeless. Then her heart, already at rock bottom, sank even further, because, despite slapping on most of a bottle of factor 50 sun tan cream before they left this morning, her arms were already a mass of freckles, and no doubt her face was too, which made everything ten times worse. Not that she was even thinking about going out with Xander, but at a stroke, he’d just jumped a thousand light years out of her league.