‘When I started talking about our future, Greg said he didn’t want the same things. So I left.’
‘And came here?’
‘Yes.’
‘So we’re both refugees.’ He raised his wine to her in a mock toast. She touched his cup with her own, looking into his eyes, noting the fine white lines around them disappear when he smiled. He met her gaze. ‘You’ve told me what you do here for Madame Duval, but that can’t be what you did in England?’ His tone was matter-of-fact, intimacy apparently not yet on his agenda.
Disappointed, Leonie answered, ‘No. It wasn’t. I used to work on various specialist journals for a big publisher, buying in articles from foreign publications and arranging translation. Very absorbing, but rubbish money. When Greg and I split up, I realised I couldn’t afford to buy a place on my own in London. And I was—’ she took a deep breath and decided to go ahead and say it ‘—pretty heart-broken.’ She looked covertly at him to see if this struck a chord. Unable to read his expression, she pressed on. ‘Life just didn’t seem fair, so I ran away. Hoped a bit of summer heat would do the trick.’
Patrice winced. He tried to disguise it, but it was unmissable: she had touched a nerve. He, too, had been wounded. Fearing she’d gone too far too fast, she gave a false laugh, trying to cover her tracks. ‘But I’m over all that now. No idea why I stuck it out as long as I did. I love it here. Don’t you?’
‘I’ve made a life here, yes.’
She heard the pain beneath his words and, aware of some kind of tension underlying his reticence, longed to discover what untold story lay buried there. But he was clearly a private man, and if he were unwilling to offer the information then it was far too soon to go digging into his romantic past. She studied him as he sat watching the flow of the river, and berated herself for her clumsiness. She found his modesty deeply appealing; it was more than shyness: once again the image came to mind of some wild creature that dreads becoming lethally trapped by coming too close. Leonie felt an excited, confused curiosity, and, observing his expression react minutely to the swirls and eddies of the water, her heart went out to him. In that moment she decided that, while she was now certain of her desire to know him better, she must be careful not to barge in on his sense of discretion, and to let him dictate his own terms.
Answering Gaby’s questions in the office next morning, Leonie found it hard to account for the intensity of her emotions. Though Patrice had chivalrously insisted on wheeling her on his bike back to where she had left her car in the now dusky square, he had bid her goodnight without any form of kiss and, without even waiting until she’d driven away, cycled off without a word about seeing her again. It was ridiculous to feel so let down, and so she refused to admit to Gaby that it had been anything but a pleasant evening spent in the company of a compatriot.
Meanwhile, though Gaby had been indefatigable in her researches, she had so far failed to come up with any further information about Patrice Hinde. Highly prizing her own intelligence-gathering skills, Gaby had little option but to regard this unusual lack of background gossip as significant.
‘No one remembers him as a child,’ she informed Leonie. ‘He didn’t go to school here, only spent the holidays with his grandmother. But my sister-in-law Sylviane, you met her at Thierry’s birthday celebrations—’ She broke off to answer the phone, and while she dealt with a change to a client’s booking Leonie thought back to the party Gaby had thrown for her husband, where she had indeed chatted to his older sister. Sylviane was a pleasant woman in her early sixties who, despite never having left the small town in which she was born, bore that air of remarkable sophistication for which Leonie most envied French women.
Her call ended, Gaby returned to her story. ‘Sylviane remembers Patrice’s mother, Agnès, when she was a girl. They were at school together.’
‘What was his mother like?’
‘Sweet-natured but timid. Even when Sylviane reminded Thierry, he didn’t remember her at all, and he was always one for the girls. Apparently Madame Broyard was heavily pregnant when her husband, Patrice’s grandfather, was killed, right at the end of the Occupation. He’d been active in the Resistance, I gather, and got a bullet in the neck for his efforts. Anyway, Sylviane says Agnès was always in her mother’s shadow.’
‘Gosh! Madame Broyard never remarried?’
‘There were few enough men to go round after the Liberation as it was.’
‘I guess so. And presumably when Agnès married, it was to an Englishman?’
Gaby nodded. ‘Sylviane and Agnès didn’t stay friends much after school, but Sylviane remembers the upset her marriage caused. Madame Broyard had barely let the girl out of her sight as she grew up, and now she was leaving France altogether. Deserting her. People said Agnès sent Patrice to Madame Broyard every holiday to propitiate her mother for staying away herself.’
‘Well, I know how I felt when my mother chose to go off to Canada with my stepfather,’ Leonie affirmed. ‘And his two daughters,’ she added, recalling her old sense of being second best. ‘But tough on Patrice. Especially as a kid, with only a strict old lady for company.’
‘He’s still a loner, by all accounts.’
‘More shy, I suspect.’
Gaby looked at her shrewdly. ‘I hope you’re not going to fall for the idea that being a loner is romantic.’ Leonie blushed, and Gaby shook her head reprovingly. ‘Loners are people who have no friends. And if you look hard enough there’s usually some good reason why,’ she said firmly, before adding in a softer tone, ‘You know I’m all for you finding a good man, sweetie, but we need to find out more about this one.’
Leonie nodded submissively. But she pictured Gaby’s well-ordered life, every corner taken up with husband, business, married children, infant grandchildren. What had she experienced of heart-break and recovery, of second chances and the pain of regeneration? Leonie understood all too well what it was to be wounded, could empathise with the impulse to withdraw into oneself, to appear to others to be a loner. Although she considered Patrice to be carrying the deeper hurt, she too was a refugee. Yet he had awakened sensations in her which had renewed her belief that wounds could heal – and be healed.
Her musings stopped when she caught Gaby observing her. ‘Be sure your heart is properly mended first,’ counselled the older woman.
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Leonie reassured her, while a rebellious inner voice crowed that the heart knows best, that sometimes it’s necessary to undergo a little pain in order to win something precious.
And so, when an entire week had gone by without hearing from Patrice, she found herself inventing an excuse to call the number she had entered on the database, ostensibly about another villa client who might require a homeopath. He sounded pleased to hear her voice, so she ventured, as she had planned, to mention an outdoor concert to be held in the grounds of an abbey about fifteen miles away. Might he be interested?
‘That’s a lovely idea, thank you, but I don’t drive.’
‘Oh, no problem. We can go in my car, I don’t mind.’ She cursed herself for gushing.
‘No. I don’t use cars. At all.’
‘Oh.’ This time she managed to keep the disappointment from her voice. ‘That’s very ecological of you. You must have firm principles.’
‘Well, it’s a decision I took when I moved to France,’ he explained.
‘No, really. I admire you for it.’
‘I even walked here. Followed parts of the Way of St James.’
‘Wow, that’s amazing! If only we were all so strong-minded.’
There was a lengthening pause. Leonie felt she could hardly suggest a second reason to meet, but he broke it. ‘It’d be nice to see you again, though.’
She hid her triumph. ‘I’d like that.’
‘I’ll call and we’ll arrange something,’ he told her, his tone purposeful. ‘Bye for now.’
The phone went dead. Not until this moment, when her hopes plummeted, did she acknowledge how muc
h emotional responsibility she had unreasonably placed on Patrice’s shoulders. She was behaving as if she were in the grip of a schoolgirl crush, and vowed to stop this nonsense!
As always by the start of September, work was busy. Most of the properties had been continuously occupied since May, and the wear and tear was taking its toll. It never ceased to amaze Leonie how disrespectfully some clients treated the houses in which they stayed, failing to report breakages, leaks or stains, dragging furniture outside, leaving bathroom towels in sodden heaps by the pool. And worse.
After her frustrating call to Patrice, she headed up into the hills to sort out an infuriated summons from a family from Reading who had arrived that weekend. It was not yet eleven o’clock when she parked beside a top spec Range Rover. She found the husband, who was about her age, down beside the pool, a can of lager in his hand, his hairy and reddening belly straining against outsize swimming shorts. His three young sons, their shoulders and noses also already painfully sunburned, stood in a row wearing full snorkelling regalia.
They stared at her through their masks as their father ranted about how much he had paid to rent the villa and the disgusting condition of the pool. In fact, as she knew, he’d opted to keep his kids out of school for the first week of term in order to get a slightly cheaper rate, but, as Leonie looked at the pool, she had to agree. Potato crisps floated atop scuzzy water that was already turning cloudy. Through the murk she could make out a Coke can resting on the bottom. It had not been there on Saturday when she’d done the pre-arrival checks, but she didn’t think it was a good idea to point this out. Instead, she commiserated and, in the client’s hearing, made the call on her mobile to the pool guy to come that afternoon. As she returned to her car, she didn’t blame the unfortunate wife for keeping out of sight: men like that gave her a lot of sympathy for Victorian women who embraced invalidism. It was definitely better to be alone than to be with the wrong man.
Resolving to make the most of pleasures that did not require a romantic partner, Leonie decided to take her lunch break early so she could stroll through the Friday market in the square before returning to the stuffy office. She was sure Gaby, who insisted on the finest and freshest ingredients, would not object; indeed, they’d probably bump into one another at the busiest of the charcuterie stalls. Leonie made a first circuit to see what fruit and vegetables were in season, making mental notes of which seller had the best greengages and corn on the cob.
She was on her way back around, beginning to enjoy the clamour and the easeful warmth of the sun on her back, when she spotted Patrice buying chanterelles at the stall that she’d ear-marked to buy some for herself. What to do? If she continued as she had intended, he might imagine she had engineered a meeting. After the abortive phone call this morning, it would look like she was stalking him! On the other hand, why should his presence force her to alter her natural behaviour? As though reading her mind, he turned his head, spotted her and beckoned her over.
‘Hello! These look really good. Let me get you some.’
The artlessness of his offer made her regard her thought processes as conniving and artificial, and she stood there like an idiot while he bought a second bag of mushrooms. Their hands brushed as he handed it to her, his blue eyes sparkling into hers.
‘Here. A taste of autumn. Enjoy.’
Before she could even mumble her thanks, he turned and wove away through the crowd. She stayed put, and asked for a couple of corn-cobs while she willed the hot blush to fade from her cheeks.
When she dared to look again in his direction, he was gone. Dazed, she carried on with her shopping, but the allure of the ripe fruits had faded, and she bought mechanically, smiling only from politeness. Carrying her bags, she made for Gaby’s office, where she could hide her shame and the ringing phones would banish her confusion.
But Gaby already had fresh intelligence from her sister-in-law to impart. A friend of Sylviane’s, Catherine, had been close to Agnès at school. When Agnès used to send Patrice to stay with his grandmother, Catherine would ask the boy over to play with her children, who were the same age and all seemed to get on well. But Madame Broyard nearly always made difficulties about it, and never invited Catherine’s children in return. Though their kids had been given little chance to become friends, Catherine and Agnès had managed to remain in touch for over thirty years, and would always catch up whenever Agnès visited her mother, which she had done diligently once or twice a year.
‘Patrice must’ve come too, at least once in a while, to see his grandmother?’ suggested Leonie.
Gaby shook her head. ‘Apparently not. And,’ she added with emphasis, ‘when Agnès and her husband came for the funeral, Agnès barely spoke to anyone, then left without even seeing Catherine. Catherine’s not had a single word from Agnès since; she’s actually extremely put out. Thierry wonders whether there might have been some disagreement over the will,’ Gaby continued with relish. ‘Madame Broyard apparently left almost nothing to her daughter. Although Catherine thinks that may be because Agnès was perfectly well provided for by her husband, and this way she would’ve been saved the bother of disposing of everything.’
‘So Patrice didn’t come for the funeral?’ queried Leonie.
‘Not that Catherine knew of. Which also makes it all the more odd that Madame Broyard chose to leave her house to him.’
It was clear to Leonie that the subject had been thoroughly discussed amongst Gaby’s family and friends. While she didn’t want to miss out on any possible scrap of gossip that might shed some light on her elusive new friend, she resolved to be extra careful in what she chose to tell Gaby from now on. Especially when Gaby declared, ‘We’ll all have to rely on you to find out for us, sweetie!’
When Leonie reached home that evening, she had no appetite and left the chanterelles to wither in their bag. Instead she rang her best friend Stella in London.
‘Am I falling in love?’ she demanded.
Stella laughed: ‘You’ve only set eyes on him, what—?’
‘Four times. Okay. But isn’t that what being in love’s all about?’
‘I guess so.’
‘Being certain straight away that somehow it’s right?’
‘Look, if you’re that stuck on him, go ahead and see what happens. It’s a chance to get laid, if nothing else!’
‘It’s more than that,’ protested Leonie.
‘Go easy, Lennie,’ said Stella. ‘What’s all the rush? You hardly know this guy yet, let alone what he might be after.‘
‘Well, he’s not exactly trying to jump my bones, is he?’
‘Maybe not. But is this really what you want? To feel so … nervy about someone. At least get a better sense of who he is before you start investing yourself like this.’
‘I’m not handing him my life savings!’
‘You’ve only just got back on your feet after Greg.’
‘I’ve got to take a risk again some time.’
‘Listen, I’m sure your instincts are good. Take care, that’s all. I don’t want ever again to see you as upset as you were last year.’
Trying to ignore the obscure resentment evoked by Stella’s sensible warning, Leonie switched the discussion to her friend’s new job. After several stressful years working for an adoption agency, Stella had recently moved to a charity which reunited adopted adults with their original birth families. Hearing how her friend was already benefiting from a more optimistic working environment, her intrusive thoughts about Patrice took a back seat.
And yet, in quiet moments over the next few days – driving to work, waiting for a kettle to boil, removing her make-up, falling asleep – Leonie found herself stubbornly turning over like a pebble in her mind the conviction that her heart had begun to nurture some renegade life of its own. Stella was right to urge caution; she hardly knew this man, and reassured herself that she could still as easily turn away from the startling feelings she had for him as welcome them in. But nevertheless she was intrigued, excited
, fearful – not of Patrice, but of the prospect of some fresh dimension of experience. It was time for her to change, to grow. And she was now absolutely certain that some entirely new way to feel would open before her if only she could draw near enough to Patrice to let it happen.
*
Leonie assumed, when Patrice rang to invite her laughingly to the ‘grand opening’ of the salon he had restored in his grandmother’s house, that there would be quite a few other people there. She was more than curious to meet his friends and, flattered by the likelihood that she was about to be accepted among them, was almost disappointed to discover she was the sole guest. He had waited for her arrival to open a bottle of champagne, but she suspected from his slight clumsiness in pouring the wine that this was not his first drink of the evening. She took his evident jumpiness as a further sign of how favoured she was to have gained entrance to his home.
The marble fire surround, window shutters, plasterwork and parquet flooring of the salon had all been painstakingly renovated. The amount of work involved was clear from the dilapidated state of the entrance hall and other ground-floor rooms, all of which Patrice showed her. It appeared that he inhabited only a narrow study, the quaint black-and-white-tiled kitchen, designed as the domain of servants rather than of the original owners of the house, and, presumably, some sleeping quarters upstairs. Leonie was aware from the address on the card he had given her that he saw his homeopathic patients at a modern rented office in the centre of town.
After the tour, which included the beautifully kept garden at the back of the house, they perched decorously together on a Louis seize-style sofa, tightly upholstered in a faded satin of red and white stripes, and placed their glasses on an incongruous Sixties glass coffee table, which was the salon’s one other piece of furniture.
‘It must seem strange to you that I live like this,’ Patrice observed lightly.
‘No, I like it.’
‘I’ll be forty next birthday. I ought to be more settled at my age.’
‘Why? People should live how they like.’
Out of Sight Page 4