When I look back into the main room my eyes are still mesmerised by the pale blue – everything looks peachy.
We race up the stairs from the mezzanine to find four bedrooms and four bathrooms, each more beautiful than the last. Floor tiles in pale grey and sage patterns, white wooden cupboards, blue linen sheets, freestanding baths, skylights … everything is simple and elegant and understated. Even the little girl’s room is stylish, Tintin posters on the walls and Barbie dolls arranged in a white wicker basket covered in tiny lavender hearts.
We finish in the master bedroom that looks down onto the pool and has an en suite rain shower with four extra taps on the wall that spray sideways and tickle you ever so gently.
It is the nicest place I have ever seen, and for this brief, glorious moment it is our home.
We have 48 hours till we need to drive to El Bulli and James insists on spending around 44 of them butt naked.
‘If you must,’ I say, ‘but I haven’t even met the Bonders, I don’t feel right sitting at their dining table nude.’ I wear a bikini and shorts that cover my cellulite. I should have bought a new bikini. Swimsuit shopping used to be such an arduous experience. I’ve brought old ones, and with my reduced bust, I feel mildly unsupported.
Day one is spent eating bread and cheese and cheese and bread, and drinking four bottles of wine. At 2am we play table tennis and James thrashes me 21-0.
‘Play nice,’ I say. ‘Can’t we rally?’
In the next game, he sits on his competitiveness for all of three points, but by point four he is adding slice so that the ball bounces and swerves irritatingly out of reach. I think I have it and then it’s gone the other way completely.
‘Oi, no spin!’ I say.
‘Drunkard, the ball was straight.’
I serve hard and the ball thwacks him in the stomach and he looks impressed and mildly aroused.
‘Hustler!’ he says.
‘Wanna bet?’
‘If you lose, you have to run round the courtyard naked,’ he says.
‘No. I’ll do the washing up and if you lose, you can run to the recycling bins with those bottles.’
‘Boring. You lose, once round the courtyard or I won’t play with you anymore.’
‘Are you five years old?’
He pretends to have a tantrum and then we argue for seventeen minutes about the terms of the bet; because it’s so dark outside that I don’t mind running naked round the courtyard, and because James’s favourite thing in the world is winning, I agree to his terms, and he promptly thrashes me 21-2, then nods and smiles while I dance in as dignified a manner as possible round the fountain.
‘Good woman,’ he says, as I put my bikini back on and grab the wine.
It is so hot in the night we sleep on the sheets, and when James climbs on top of me in the morning I think about how rough I must look, how red my face, how frizzy my hair.
I feel ropey and dehydrated and by the time I’ve showered and made tea, James is splashing about in the pool. Where does he get his energy from?
I wave and go down to the window onto the pool. He swims towards me and presses his arse against the glass. I shake my head and laugh as he performs a pirouette, then jumps up and down, pointing at his willy.
‘You are five,’ I mouth, and he sticks his thumbs up and nods.
I study his long, strong legs, as the hairs all drift up, drift down. He pushes himself off the glass and I watch as he moves quickly to the other side of the pool. He is a strong swimmer and within seconds he is just a shape and then he has disappeared entirely. Come back, I think. I want to look at you. And then he’s there, ploughing towards me, face forward, eyes open, like a shark.
He vanishes again and I hear him clattering around upstairs. ‘James?’
A few minutes later, I’m staring back through the glass into the now calm pool and a green bean comes into view, top right, and bounces along the top of the screen like it’s going for a stroll. From the top left, a courgette comes into view and rushes towards the bean, and the two do a dance.
The bean disappears and a bottle of Sauza tequila replaces it. Seeing the liquor, the courgette takes fright and disappears upwards, to be replaced by a pair of long, slim, unnaturally perfect legs.
Plastic ones.
Barbie has arrived. James makes Barbie drink the tequila, then whips away the bottle and Ken drops into the game, taking Barbie roughly from behind, then rubbing his smooth crotch in her face. Ken is then ejected from the pool and James brings Barbie down to his own crotch.
I race up the stairs. ‘Stop it,’ I say, laughing. ‘You’d better buy that poor little girl a new Barbie.’
He chuckles. ‘Get in and I’ll dump Barbie for you. She’s hot but boring as hell …’ he says.
‘Go to the window and watch me, it’s so cool,’ I say.
He climbs out of the pool and hugs me and I think how much I love his size. He is so broad and big, he feels so strong.
‘Come on then,’ he says and pads through the kitchen and down the stairs.
I jump in the pool, swim to the window and do a somersault. By the time I resurface, he is shouting something at me.
‘What?’ I say.
‘Top off!’ he says.
Fine. I take my bikini top off and go back under the surface.
He bounds back up the stairs. ‘My God, I love the way your tits move in the water.’
‘Wow, finally, the “L” word,’ I say. ‘What a romantic …’
He runs away into the kitchen.
I climb out of the pool, grab a towel and join him.
‘Coffee?’ he says, eyeing up a shiny black and silver machine on the counter.
‘I tried earlier, I couldn’t find the manual. It’s very hi-tech, I wouldn’t …’
He ignores me.
‘You’re still drunk,’ I say.
He is happy fiddling away with the machine, and as I open the fridge to get some water I hear a loud snap and then the sound of glass breaking.
‘Oops,’ he says, giggling.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, you idiot. Put some shoes on!’ I kiss him, and step into my flip flops and hunt for a dustpan and brush.
He patters off to lie on the sofa, still sopping wet.
‘Right, off that sofa; come to the farm shop with me. We’re going to eat some fruit. We need a day off the cheese. You might consider putting on some clothes …’
The day is hot and humid and hung-over. We have no map and walk aimlessly in the direction we think the farm shop is in. Eventually we pass a barn with a chalk sign that reads ‘Abricots’. A woman is standing in front of dozens of wooden crates piled with fruit that look like amber eggs, speckled with pink and red, like kissing rashes.
She holds an apricot in her hand and twists, cleanly separating it, and offers James and me half each. It tastes of honey, and like any good dealer she offers us each one more half: hooked.
We buy 30 apricots and a jar of apricot jam and stumble back home to lie together on one sun lounger in the shade.
‘Feel how perfect this apricot is,’ I say, weighing the fruit in my hand, its skin cool and smooth.
‘Nice,’ he says, his eyes shut against the light. I brush the apricot on my cheek and then brush it gently against his.
‘Look,’ I say, ‘when you stroke it with your thumb it’s almost like marble, but when you do it against your cheek you can feel the fur.’
‘Feel the fur and do it anyway …’ mumbles James, his face lighting up with a smile as it does every time he makes a bad pun.
‘And smell it,’ I say. ‘It smells like an apricot should smell.’
He buries his nose in my neck. ‘You smell like an apricot should smell,’ he says. God, I love his nose.
I look behind me at the white china dish, 14 apricots piled up, and I breathe deeply and feel tears start to well up. James senses something and opens one eye.
How can I explain that lying here next to him in the shade, with these apricots,
has made me happier than I’ve ever been. I’m scared this won’t last, and I’m overwhelmed with joy, and I suspect he’ll take the piss and call me a weirdo if I try to explain myself.
‘It’s just so perfect,’ I say, laughing, and he beams and nods and says, ‘You’re mad, Soph. You know that?’
We have dinner reservations at 9pm in the neighbouring village and have been drinking and dozing consistently all day and yet at 7pm James pokes me in the thigh and says, ‘Time for a run – too much cheese.’
I prop myself up on one elbow. ‘Don’t be ridiculous … I’m resting.’
‘No, big dinner tonight, need to work off those calories. You’ve been eating Fi-tou.’
‘Ha bloody ha. I’m not running anywhere. You go.’
‘Lazy. Slothie.’
‘Fuck off,’ I say, sitting up. ‘I’m relaxing. You’re pissed. It’s still baking out there.’
He puts on his shorts and a t-shirt and I grudgingly do the same. ‘I’ll ride the bike next to you,’ I say.
‘That’s not exercise, that’s just sitting down,’ he says.
‘Whatever. I’m fitter than you,’ I say. And I am.
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
We head across the main road and round the back of the village to a wide path that leads through the fields. James is charging along, making me sing the soundtrack to Rocky, and then he sprints ahead and tells me to move my giant arse.
I whizz past him, flipping him the finger, and as I pedal past the vines I’m thinking that actually this was a bloody great idea. While the sun is still fierce, the breeze on the bike is cool, and the wind rushes loudly in my ears. The saddle is digging in so I stand on the pedals and think about ET and how much I love that film. Then I think how lucky we are to be in this amazing countryside, the yellow grass, the deep green vines, these amazing black and white butterflies … And tiny purple flowers, I wish I knew the names of more flowers. The crickets are chirruping, and I’m thinking I’ll create an amazing pudding for next summer, using French apricots, maybe with dark chocolate and toasted almonds and … where’s James?
I turn the bike around and see him in the distance, bent double, and I race back.
He is deep red, sweat pouring off him, gulping for breath.
‘Are you okay?’ I rest my hand on his back as panic grips me. We have been boozing for two days solid and eating too much. Because he behaves like a teenager I forget that he’s actually middle-aged and averagely fit, and maybe his body can’t take this abuse.
‘I’m fine, I’m fine, I’ll catch you up,’ he says, waving me away.
I touch his neck and feel his pulse racing.
‘Come on. Home,’ I say. ‘Cold shower, drink some water. It’s boiling out here.’
‘I’m fine, Soph.’
‘Well, I’m not. I’m too hot. And I can’t do the front door on my own.’ We both know this is a lie. ‘Besides, this saddle has given me bruises all over the inside of my thighs.’
‘I’ll kiss them better …’ he says, grinning. ‘See, Dr Klein, I’m in rude health.’
‘I think you need emergency surgery,’ I say, ‘remove the “bad pun” generator in your brain.’ I put one arm around his waist and wheel my bike along with the other.
Back home I force him to drink a litre of water and sit calmly, and he says, ‘Thank you, thank you, you’re so sweet,’ and I think: I’m not particularly sweet but this is what anyone would do for a friend, let alone a lover.
He looks a much better colour now, and as we dress for dinner I can feel him watching me. My mind briefly flits to ‘the outburst’ and I force myself to stop – things are great, and I am not alone in this bubble of happiness. He is here with me. We are in this together.
We drive to the restaurant in the next village and he is once again ebullient. It is the annual summer fête in the town square and before we sit down to eat, James insists on a little dance, under strings of red, green, yellow and blue light bulbs. There are a handful of old ladies in housedresses and comfy sandals, and James takes them each for a twirl on the dance floor, to Aretha Franklin and a random French song about Carcassonne, and then to Neil Diamond. I sit on a low stone wall and think how charming he is, how sincere and comfortable around people, how comfortable in his own skin. I wish again that he didn’t have so much money, because it feels like a vast inequality that separates us, and I would sign a pre-nup tomorrow and stay with him if he lost every penny, because I see who he truly is and I love that person. Then I think about his age and that in an ideal world I’d have kids with someone under forty, but what does it matter when he’s such a vital, enthusiastic, exuberant man.
We eat in a tiny little place by the river, and James orders a bottle of cheap but fantastic local red the minute we sit down.
‘Yum yum, fois gras, and then lamb,’ he says, taking a chunk of crusty white bread.
‘Is that a good idea, before tomorrow?’ And after today …
‘Stop worrying!’
‘I’m going to have the fig salad, then the duck millefeuille sounds amazing.’ I think back to the millefeuille and glitter date at the Tate and blush.
‘I’ll have that too, the millefeuille thing,’ he says.
‘You can’t have the same as me, that’s out of order,’ I say, my bad self rising to the surface.
‘Don’t worry, there’s different sauces … pepper, Roquefort, honey …’
‘Honey!’
‘I’ll do Roquefort. See? Done. And let’s get another bottle of Minervois.’
He is about to eat foie gras, followed by duck, layered with crispy goose-fat-fried potatoes, smothered in blue cheese sauce, and he is going to be ill off the back of it. But what can I say, he’s forty-five, he’s a grown-up …
Two hours later we are back in bathroom four in our luxury stable and James is hugging the toilet bowl and shivering.
I am forcing him to drink water and mopping his brow with a wet flannel. ‘Now you know how those poor foie gras geese feel …’ I say, smoothing back the damp hair from his forehead.
He rests his head on my knee. ‘Will you always be this patient with me, Soph?’
‘Of course. We don’t have to go tomorrow, if you don’t feel better,’ I say, and I absolutely mean it.
He looks at me with profound gratitude and amazement.
‘I’ll be better, I promise.’
I think anyone on the planet would enjoy themselves at El Bulli.
You can sense it in the air, along with the smell of pine and eucalyptus; a swell of excitement, the feeling that you are on hallowed ground, the lucky few.
James and I sit on the stone terrace overlooking the beach, and as the sun sets and the ocean turns from indigo to black we are served 36 courses, each more miraculous than the last.
A plate of almonds arrives around course 20, and they’re like the Saddam-Hussein-lookalikes of almonds. Some are dead-ringers for almonds but are made from sesame. Some are white and taste intensely of cherry. Some are actually almonds, and taste like the best almonds you’ve ever eaten. And some of them are transparent, and seem to be made of magic.
Then, at course 33, a giant white egg appears, as if freshly laid by a small dinosaur, alongside a tiny shaker full of curry powder, and the waitress cracks the egg open and it’s made of frozen iced coconut, and you can’t help but laugh with delight.
The box of chocolates at the end is worth the price of the meal alone. It’s like the jewellery box your 8-year-old self imagines a princess would have, rammed with the most extraordinary confections. The waitress tries to wrestle the box away from us after five minutes – I suspect we’re the only customers tonight who are going to insist on trying one of everything.
While the whole experience is truly spectacular and an astounding feat of imagination and technical expertise, throughout the meal I am slightly anxious that James is going to have a heart attack, and I wish we were still sitting, just the two of us in the shade, eating apricots.
The next day at Perpignan airport, I am pulled over to have my bag searched.
The x-ray woman digs around and finds my jar of apricot jam, then wags her finger at me.
‘It’s not liquid! It’s food …’ I say. ‘On mange …’
‘Non, 300 ml, not allowed,’ she says.
‘… I thought it was only liquid …’
‘Non,’ she says. ‘Bin. There.’
I haven’t even tasted it, and it’s such a bloody waste. ‘Vous voulez?’ I say, offering it to her.
She shakes her head as if I’ve offered her a tube of out-of-date Primula.
Now she’s just being arsey for the sake of it. ‘Next time I fly Ryanair, I’m going to make a peanut butter, jam and semtex sandwich, that’ll learn them …’ I say to James under my breath.
I’m wondering whether to try and escalate – my French isn’t anywhere near good enough, and it’s only a four euro pot of jam, but it’s a principle, isn’t it? You can’t drink this through a straw: it isn’t liquid. Besides, it’s local bloody jam; I’m supporting their economy, the ingrates.
James observes me trying to figure out an angle and he intercepts and touches the lady gently on the elbow. He looks over his shoulder at me, then turns to her and in a low voice has a conversation during which she nods, raises her eyebrows, nods again and looks embarrassed. Eventually she holds her hands up, laughs at whatever he’s said and apologises to me.
My boyfriend is really great at reading a situation. He always judges perfectly whether to attack or whether to schmooze, and he’s excellent at both. Lord only knows what he’s said to her but she points to the jam, then points us through the door to the departure gate.
‘Well?’ I say, once we’re out of her eyeline.
‘What?’
‘What did you say to her?’
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