‘Ça va?’ She smiled and tapped my arm with a heavily jewelled hand as I approached.
I kissed her three times, as was her wont.
‘Ça va,’ I agreed, ‘mais fatiguée.’ I let my shoulders droop.
‘Ah, oui, c’est normal pour moi!’ Her own shoulders went up and her eyes popped as she let me know by her horrified expression that no one, however long they lived, or however far they travelled, would ever be as tired as she, Madame Alain.
I sat and chatted a while, wondering guiltily if she were the woman I dreaded becoming, then got up and moved on.
I booked into my usual hotel – no balcony, I noted with a smile – and once showered and changed, went back down to the square with my book. I deliberately made for a café down a backstreet, which I knew wasn’t frequented by tourists, but did a very good plate of saucisson, which with a glass of wine, was all I fancied tonight.
Having settled myself at a table outside and ordered, I opened my book to read by the twinkling fairy lights in the trees above. As I did, a shadow fell over the printed page, blocking the light. I glanced up to see Hal Forbes standing over me.
I stared.
‘Hello, Hattie.’ He smiled, and then as if no water whatsoever had flowed under any bridges in the intervening years, indicated the seat opposite. ‘May I?’
Still speechless I gazed as he sat down. Finally I found my voice. Took my glasses off. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Hm?’ He looked around for a waiter, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be sitting opposite me in a cobbled street in Montauroux, seven hundred miles from home.
‘I live here. Or at least I have a house near here, in Seillans. Didn’t I say the other week?’
I opened my mouth. ‘Oh. Yes. Well – no. At least… well, I knew you were getting married here. I didn’t know you actually lived here.’
‘I’ve had a house here for five years. This is my local bar. They do the best saucisson for miles. Shall we make that a bottle?’ he asked as the waiter approached with my glass of wine. ‘You wouldn’t want to stay here, though,’ he warned as the waiter, recognizing Hal, broke into a wide smile. ‘The rooms are dire. Pierre!’
He got to his feet to wring the patron’s hand. I was staggered. This was his local? Of all the bars in all the world and I’d strolled into… He and Pierre were chewing the fat now, in quick-fire French: it gave me a moment.
‘How far away is your house then?’ I managed to keep my voice light and neutral as he sat down again, keen to get to the bottom of this.
‘About five miles in that direction.’ He jerked his head. ‘It’s an old farmhouse in the foothills of the Camiole valley, quite tucked away.’
‘But I thought you lived in London?’
‘I do, as a rule. My, you know a lot about me, Hattie. You’re not stalking me, are you?’ he grinned. ‘Haven’t seen you for years and first you turn up at my patch in Buckinghamshire and now here.’
I opened my mouth to protest, astounded. ‘Your patch! Little Crandon is very much my sister’s patch, actually! And this, I’ll have you know, is my patch. My antique fair, which I come to every year, have done for the last six!’
‘Except last year.’
‘Yes, except last year,’ I said, surprised. ‘We missed it. But how did you—’
‘I saw you here the previous year. Didn’t quite have the nerve to speak to you. Last year I looked for you, but you didn’t pitch up. Thought I’d try my luck this time.’
I stared. His narrow dark eyes were steady, but I couldn’t read them.
‘So, in fact, you’re stalking me.’
He gave a soft laugh. ‘If you call stalking looking out for you once a year at a popular local fête, which I’d frequent anyway, then yes, I suppose. I wouldn’t call it terribly committed tailing.’
‘And yet, when I saw you the other week, you didn’t seem particularly…’
‘Friendly? No, but then I was startled to see you out of context. Didn’t have my speech ready, as I would have done here. Also, there were people around.’
The waiter came with our drinks and two plates of saucisson. I watched as Hal exchanged a few more fluent words with him, smiling the while. Yes, Laura was right. Very attractive. He’d filled out a bit. And his eyes seemed less intent and probing: there was more light to them, more confidence. Which came with age, of course.
‘Your speech?’ I said as the waiter departed.
‘I… want to apologize. For what I wrote all those years ago. And also for my silence afterwards. The ball was firmly in my court to make amends. We were friends, good friends, for years, and I… had no right to judge you like that. I’m sorry.’
It was a simple, upfront, heartfelt little speech and, as such, affecting. Disarming, even.
‘You had every right,’ I said slowly. ‘I behaved very badly. To you, to Letty…’ I felt myself blush under his gaze. ‘You had every right, Hal.’
There was a silence. It seemed to me we travelled back in time together within it.
‘You were young,’ he said at length. ‘You made a mistake.’
Funny. Even after all these years, I never regarded Dom as a mistake. Wouldn’t have had it differently.
‘I was young,’ I agreed, ‘but you were justifiably angry.’
‘At the time maybe, but not six months, a year later. Not sixteen years later, certainly. Friends forgive, make up. I’ve always regretted not doing that.’
‘But as time goes by it becomes more difficult. I can see that. It’s nice to see you, Hal.’
It was. And as we smiled at one another, relieved to have got that out of the way, I realized I’d missed him. He had been my best friend, but I’d blocked his memory for years. It had hurt, at the time, losing his friendship, but not as much as everything else was hurting. I’d been so in love with his brother, it had seemed small beer in comparison. Losing Dominic, or rather not being able to have him, had been all-consuming. But as we chatted now, about old times, recent times, so much in between, the value of what we’d once shared, of what is, after all, a rare and precious thing, a friendship between the sexes without the sex, I felt something within me, some warmth I’d missed return. It was as if a battered old coin was being gently polished and burnished, recovering its gleam.
After a bit we were tumbling over our words, couldn’t get them out quickly enough: about what we’d been doing all this time, me with the shop, him as a lawyer, but not human rights – too dull, too worthy – now a hotshot at a City law firm.
‘You’ve sold your soul!’ I told him gleefully.
‘Didn’t take much persuading,’ he said with a wry grin. ‘Although I still do legal aid.’
‘For the sake of your conscience,’ I retorted, ‘which was always huge.’
He laughed. ‘Which was always huge.’
As his laughter faded, his gaze across the table grew steady; fond.
‘And what about you, Hattie? Fill me in from where we left off. What happened next?’
I told him about Croatia, about my own conscience, how I’d felt I had to go there. I told him about Kit, and about coming home with Seffy. He listened intently, his eyes never leaving my face.
‘So now he’s what – fourteen?’
‘Fifteen. And gorgeous. You should see him.’
‘Oh, I’ve heard. My niece is very communicative on the subject.’
‘Your niece?’
‘Cassie.’
‘Oh, yes of course.’ I blanched, startled. I knew Seffy and Cassie had met at a dance, but…
‘I think they’re quite good friends in a Facebook kind of way, which is nice, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I agreed after a moment, still taken aback. ‘It is.’ But I was hurt he knew more than me. Unsettled generally.
‘How is Letty?’ I asked, changing the subject.
He sighed, leaned back in his seat. ‘Not good. Since Dominic died, she and the bottle have become inseparable.’
‘Since before Dominic died,’ I corrected quietly.
He frowned. ‘I don’t think so.’
I let it go. I knew so. Knew the marriage wasn’t happy, hadn’t been for some time; had witnessed her drinking when I went down to the country when she was pregnant. I knew Dom worried about it, had talked to me often about it, blamed himself for being away too much. But I wasn’t going to go into that now. Wasn’t going to rain on the Forbes marriage any more than I had already.
‘And Cassie gets scared being alone with her.’
‘I’m not surprised. That’s not funny for a teenager.’
‘So I’m trying to persuade Letty to sell up. Buy something smaller in London, where I can keep an eye on her, and where Cassie can be amongst friends and near me, not isolated in that house.’
‘Oh. Well, you should know you’ve been cast as the baddie, locally. Trying to prise a poor widow from her house, her capital.’
‘Bollocks. I want Cassie to have some money, before Letty drinks it all. And I want Letty to get proper help, go to AA, make friends, get a job perhaps. Not fester in that remote farmhouse drinking herself to death because she’s lonely.’
I regarded him across the table. A good man. An honourable man. Always had been. A steady hand on the tiller. Yes, I’d missed his steer in my life. I felt an ache of regret.
‘And now you’re getting married,’ I said lightly, apropos of nothing.
He held my gaze, which admittedly might have had something challenging in it. Inclined his head in acceptance of this fact, but said nothing.
‘You’ve left it late?’
He threw back his head and laughed. A sudden, throaty, lusty roar I remembered of old.
‘I like that! You haven’t managed it at all!’
‘Ah, but I’ve had baggage,’ I grinned. ‘I’m an unmarried mother, remember? Tarred and feathered.’ I made a cross with my fingers as if to ward off vampires, and anything else.
‘Ah, yes, Seffy. Your Good Excuse.’
He did know me well. But I wasn’t deflected so easily.
‘What’s your excuse, Hal?’
He shifted in his chair and his eyes darted into his wine for a moment. Then came up to meet mine.
‘Let’s just say I never got round to it.’
‘But you’re getting round to it now.’
‘Yes, I am now.’
‘After how long?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘How long have you been going out together?’
‘Oh. A few years.’
‘Right. And engaged?’
‘For three.’
‘Three years! Why so long?
He looked uncomfortable. ‘We were going to get married last year, but her father died. So we put it off.’
‘Oh, OK.’
‘And then I had a big litigation case in Paris, which took me away for four months, so the wedding was put on the back burner again.’ He shrugged. ‘Just one of those things.’
I nodded, but it occurred to me to wonder why one couldn’t pop back from Paris to get married? Hardly Dar es Salaam.
‘Céline… wanted to have a long honeymoon in Mauritius,’ he explained, reading my thoughts. ‘I couldn’t afford the time.’
‘I see. And now?’
‘Now?’
‘Well – when’s the wedding?’
‘November.’
‘And you’ll get your honeymoon?’
‘I guess.’
A pause.
‘And it’s going to be round the corner? I mean, the wedding? In Fayence?’
‘That’s it.’
‘So where is she now? Céline?’ Blood from stones. Teeth from heads.
‘She’s in London. We work for the same law firm – that’s how we met. She’s in the middle of a deal at the moment, so she’s at our house in Holland Park.’
‘Ah.’
What a nice life they led. Two glamorous, corporate lawyers, pots of money, two houses, one here, one in London, holidays in Mauritius… Not for the first time I wondered what I’d been doing with my life.
A waiter came to recharge the bread basket.
‘Une autre?’ He indicated the empty wine bottle.
I could have easily downed another, but Hal shook his head. ‘I think we’re done here, aren’t we?’ He looked at me.
‘Absolutely,’ I agreed.
‘L’addition, s’il vous plaît.’
*
Later, as we strolled up the old cobbled street together, threading our way through the crowds towards the square, he nodded at my hotel.
‘You’re over there?’
‘Yes,’ I said, surprised. ‘How did you—’
‘I saw you come out,’ he said quickly.
So he’d watched me all the way to the café. Had let me sit down before revealing himself. I had the feeling he could have kicked himself for saying that. He’d changed the subject now, this clever, corporate lawyer who’d tripped himself up. No. That was pitching it too high. I listened as he told me about the finer nuances of owning a house in France, the baffling bureaucracy, and as he talked I wondered about Céline: chic, intelligent, bilingual, no doubt – beautiful certainly, for this man was a catch. This man. And of course, I’d only known the boy: gauche, cadaverous, slightly awkward, but always wise, always clever. As he raked his fingers through his dark hair now, in the midst of some tale of corrupt planners, it was a gesture that took me right back to the student union bar, where, as he held forth in some intellectual way, raking his hair, running rings around everyone, I’d sit back, pleased with my friend. See? Look how clever he is? I seemed to say. Even then he’d had huge potential, but I’d had my eyes on the more obvious prize, the finished article: brother Dom. No vision, you might say, which was odd, considering I had plenty in other areas. Show me a wreck of a house and I’ll mentally be knocking walls down, throwing up RSJs, yet Hal had passed me by. It was astonishing how like Dom he was now, aside from the hair colour, of course. But there was something else missing too. It came to me with a jolt. The smoothness. Hal had charm, but no sugar coating. He wasn’t fly. Shocked to find myself thinking of Dominic in anything like a critical manner, I attended to what Hal was saying, about his plans to get round the planners, build a pool.
‘You could always get them over for a drink?’ I suggested. ‘Isn’t that how everything’s done in France, over a bottle? Pass around some foie gras nibbles?’
‘Or maybe just a bowl of euros?’
I laughed. We’d reached my hotel now. A silence ensued as we came to a halt in front of it.
‘Have dinner with me tomorrow night,’ he said casually. We were standing under a balcony dripping with bougainvillaea and jasmine: the scent was heady. His slanting brown eyes gave nothing away. I hesitated. Then smiled.
‘Why not? I’d like that.’
‘Good. I’ll come by at about eight.’
‘Eight, it is.’
‘Good night, Hattie.’
He took a step towards me, I thought to kiss my cheek, but instead, he reached out and gravely adjusted the collar of the thin linen shirt I was wearing, turning it the right way out.
Why should that small gesture rock me?
A moment later he was gone – into the crowds, the swirl of tourists, the still dark night.
I climbed the stairs to the second floor and let myself into my room. The first thing I did was to go to the window and throw it open, wanting more of that night air and bustle in the musty silent room. The second was to turn, cross to the bathroom, and look in the mirror. In the stark, overhead light, my cheeks were flushed, my eyes alight. Could have been the wine.
17
The weather held for the fair, and the following morning found me having breakfast on the hotel’s terrace. It was slightly raised and fronted the bustling square, an excellent vantage point and one I knew of old. I was perfectly placed. Dipping my croissant into a bowl of café au lait, I watched as under a milky blue sky, trestle tables for
med in a giant horseshoe on the cobbles, then steadily filled up as, bit by bit, treasures appeared from the back of old Citroën vans and trucks.
At the stall nearest me, an old man dressed in bleu de travail staggered under the weight of a huge and elaborately carved mirror, almost tipping him backwards. The glass was badly pitted, but it was clearly original, and worth a look, I decided, as he set it down shakily. Some terrible old carpets appeared next from his motorized Aladdin’s cave, principally, it seemed, for his mongrel dog to curl up and sleep on; but then, not a bad wall clock with a decorative, chinoiserie face. I made a mental note to go there first. Already, though, I felt my mind wandering.
At five to nine we were under starter’s orders. I drained my cup and got to my feet. The next few hours were spent in a mechanical and practised fashion, darting from stall to stall, arguing, haggling, expressing surprise and disgust at the prices, walking away as arms were raised behind me in disbelief, returning to haggle some more, and eventually, securing some beauties. A seventeenth-century lit bateau, a wrought-iron campaign chair, a marvellous pristine set of monogrammed linen sheets – these were amongst my finds. But for all my delight in securing them at decent prices, I knew my mind was chiefly on the evening ahead. Supper with an old friend: a much overdue catch-up. What could be nicer? Why, then, was I already wondering what to wear? How smart the restaurant would be – I had only jeans or my denim skirt – if I had time to nip to Aix for a skirt. Wondering what he’d wear, and generally feeling like a girl on a first date.
Get a grip, I told myself as I got out of the bath sometime later, rubbing my hair with a towel. Being short, that was all it needed, but nevertheless, I wished I’d brought a hair dryer. I’d already searched the room to no avail – it wasn’t exactly a hotel, more a bar with rooms – and I wondered if I could nip downstairs and ask Madame? Don’t be silly, no need, I told myself sternly. I none the less paid special attention to my fringe, which happily flopped dutifully into my eyes, poker straight.
How changed would he find me, I wondered as I gazed critically at my reflection in the mirror. Of course, men matured nicely, and he had, but surely my eyes, which I’d outlined with a touch of mascara, were still bright? My skin clear and mercifully unlined? Surely I’d pass muster? I pressed my lips together as I applied some gloss: left it at that. There. At least I didn’t need the Ivan faceful. At least I knew Hal well enough to know he didn’t like make-up, favoured serious, well-scrubbed girls, or at least, he had. I found myself wondering about Céline, though, as I dressed – no time to go into town, so jeans and a white smocky top. A lawyer. A Frenchwoman. She wouldn’t be scrubbed, would she? I seized a jacket nervously before I went down, even though it was warm, and caught a glimpse of myself in the long landing mirror as I went. Well, what he was getting tonight was an old friend: jeaned, espadrilled, no frills.
One Day in May Page 20