Here, at last.
After propping my suitcase against the harbour railings, I pulled the postcard out of my bag and held it up, comparing the image on the front to the tall, whitewashed café across the cobbled street. It looked so much more vibrant in real life, but the picture must have been taken in the eighties, so it was hardly surprising the colours looked rather vintage.
Chamillon – Île de Ré was printed at the bottom of the postcard; a fishing village on an island on the west coast of France that I’d discovered via the internet, weeks before booking my flight.
The café, which overlooked a boat-filled harbour, hadn’t changed much in the intervening decades. The red-and-white striped awning was the same, as were the tables set out at the front, draped with gingham cloths. Only the old-fashioned sign above the door had been changed, replaced by gold lettering on the window, spelling out Café Belle Vie.
Mouthing the name, my heart did a kangaroo leap. It had been behaving oddly since finding the postcard among my father’s things, to the point where I’d started to worry I was developing a condition.
Slipping the card back into my bag, I tipped my face to the sun and drew in a calming breath. The first thing I’d noticed, climbing out of the taxi that had brought me from the airport at La Rochelle, was how good the air smelled in Chamillon. Back home, a scorching summer’s day tended to concentrate the odours of the busy Camden Road, where my photography studio was based. A mix of petrol, tarmac and fried doughnuts that I’d never learned to appreciate, but represented ‘life’ to my friend Toni. She couldn’t understand why I preferred commuting back to my childhood home in Hertfordshire. It backed onto sheep-filled hills, and the nearest shop was a good three miles away.
By contrast, the air here was rich with the vibrant scents of sea and sunshine, and the piney shrubs separating the villages that made up the island. I’d seen a surprising number of cyclists as I arrived. Cars were discouraged due to a lack of road space, adding to the picture-perfect prettiness cultivated by the local council. Apparently, no overhead cables or new constructions were allowed, and window shutters had to be painted one of sixteen shades – eight of which were blue, and eight green. The island’s unspoilt beauty attracted celebrities, and it wasn’t unusual to spot film stars hanging out. Just a few months ago, the actor Jay Merino had filmed his final film in the capital, Saint-Martin, before retiring. Not that I cared about celebrities, but I hadn’t been prepared to fall in love with Chamillon at first sight. I was tempted to forget my mission and go exploring – though that might be difficult with a suitcase in tow. I should have gone straight to the guest house I’d booked online, but I was early, as well as hot and thirsty, and once I spotted the café, had asked the taxi driver to drop me off.
I adjusted the thick strap of my camera bag, resettled my cross-body bag (I possibly had too many bags) and grabbed my suitcase handle. Wheeling it across the cobbled quayside was a noisy and tricky process, the wheels bouncing and twisting as I tried to avoid bashing the ankles of passers-by. It was lunchtime, and although Chamillon (according to TripAdvisor) was less touristy than some of the adjoining villages, the area was still busy with visitors, and day trippers from the mainland, dipping in and out of shops, or taking in the view.
As I approached the café, feeling too hot in the long-sleeved T-shirt and ‘comfy for travelling’ jogging pants that had seemed like a good idea in the damp, London morning I’d left behind, I imagined explaining to the café owner why I was there.
Hi! I wonder if you can help? Thirty years ago, my father had a liaison with a young Frenchwoman while visiting London and nine months later, I was born! It turns out she didn’t want to be a parent so gave me to my father to raise and he never saw her again! I know! They didn’t even exchange names! Anyway, he died a while ago, and I found this postcard when I was sorting through his things, and a message suggesting my birth mother was born in Chamillon! So, I thought I’d come and find her! Only thing is, I know nothing except that her name begins with M and she has terrible handwriting! Anyway, do you think you might know what happened to her?
I would say it in exclamation marks, to show I was in on the joke – that I knew it sounded like the far-fetched plot of a tragic movie – but also to prove that it wasn’t tragic, because after Dad had married, I’d had a wonderful, nurturing Mum after all. Until she died when I was eighteen. Which was actually pretty tragic, by anyone’s standards.
No wonder Toni was worried. I hadn’t really thought this through properly.
‘Are you sure you want to go on your own?’ she’d asked me yesterday, her face flexing in agony as Freddie grabbed her swinging ponytail. ‘You know I’ll drop everything, Elle. You only have to ask.’
‘I’m positive,’ I reassured her, plopping a kiss on my godson’s russet curls. ‘You can’t drop a baby, a job, a husband and a business.’
‘I’m tempted to drop this one right now,’ she’d muttered, attempting to unfurl Freddie’s chubby fingers as he giggled, and kicked his dimpled legs. ‘And Mark would survive without me for a week.’
‘The business won’t.’ We’d been through it several times already. ‘Petra can easily do what I do, but you have to be around if I’m not.’ As well as being my oldest friend, Toni managed my photography studio, Perfect Moments – ‘Specialties: Family Portraits and Weddings’ (though I did an awful lot of corporate-style headshots for websites too).
‘Petra’s your assistant.’
‘You can’t deny she’s a brilliant photographer in her own right, and I’ll be back before you know it.’
Toni had tutted, knowing she was beaten. ‘I just don’t like the thought of you over there on your own, dealing with… this.’ Finally freed from her son’s clasp, she’d indicated the crumpled bag I’d found tucked in a rucksack in my father’s wardrobe while sorting out his clothes a couple of months ago. A move intended to kickstart me towards the next phase of my life – which had worked, but not in the way I’d anticipated.
‘It’s France, not North Korea,’ I’d said, my heart kicking up a gear. ‘And you keep telling me to take a break and do something different.’
‘I meant a holiday, not go off on a quest to find your birth mother.’ She’d plopped Freddie down on his playmat in her cluttered but cosy living room and retrieved the postcard, turning it over to read the scrawl on the back.
‘Donnez à la fille les bonnes chaussures et elle peut conquérir le monde,’ she read out, exaggerating the French vowels.
‘It means—’
‘“Give the girl the right shoes and she can conquer the world.” I know, it’s a quote by Marilyn Monroe, which is kind of spooky when you look a bit like her.’ I’d been told before that I bore a similarity to the actress, but couldn’t see it myself. I had too many freckles for a start, and no one would notice if I wasn’t wearing a bra.
‘I thought I was the spitting image of Dad.’
‘Just as well, considering he didn’t demand a DNA test when she dumped you with him.’
‘I wasn’t dumped, and he never had a moment’s doubt that I was his daughter.’
‘Only because you didn’t have dark hair and eyes, like her.’
‘I did have eyes. Two, in fact.’
Toni had laughed, but begrudgingly. Like a dog, she’d been reluctant to let go of this particular bone. ‘Dark eyes,’ she clarified. ‘Do you think he carried a torch for her, if he kept that postcard tucked away?’
‘Toni, you know Dad wasn’t like that.’ The good thing about us having been friends since primary school was sometimes the not-so-good thing – Toni knew way too much about me and my life. ‘By the time he found out about me, he was madly in love with Mum, and I’m sure they’d have loved me whatever I looked like.’
‘Of course they would, I’m sorry.’ Toni had returned her cat-green eyes to the postcard, reading out, ‘“I only ask that you call her Eloise and give her the life she deserves, which I am unable to do. Maybe, one day, she will come to see the village where I was born. M.” Not even a kiss,’ she’d huffed. ‘Or a name.’
‘Their night together was meant to be a one-off,’ I reminded her. ‘They were both a bit drunk, and Dad didn’t expect to ever see her again.’ It had been so hard to imagine my serious father, who curated exhibitions for a museum, being singled out in a bar in Covent Garden by a stranger. He’d confessed to ‘getting tipsy’ that night, after visiting the British Museum with a couple of friends, and ‘acting recklessly’ – though he’d been single at the time and entitled to act how he wanted.
‘And I’m very glad I did,’ he’d said, holding one hand while Mum gripped the other as he told me the full story, which I’d demanded in more detail when I was twelve, after watching a documentary about women exchanging babies for cash, and worrying I was one of them. As it turned out, the facts were more mundane. My birth mother had remembered Dad mentioning the museum where he worked and tracked him down there nine months after their close encounter, waiting in the car park until he left work, alone.
‘She said she had something that belonged to me, thrust you into my arms, said you were exactly one week old, and vanished. It was a bit of a shock,’ he’d said, with classic understatement. Everything about Dad had been understated, apart from the lavish moustache he’d sported in the eighties, which was perhaps what had drawn her attention in the bar. ‘But I loved you from that very moment.’
‘And the second I held you, so did I.’ Mum’s blue eyes had been brilliant with tears. ‘I was so grateful she gave you to your father, so I could love you too,’ she said, and I’d thanked my lucky stars that she’d applied for a job at the museum, and Dad had fallen for someone with such an enormous heart. A lesser woman might have been jealous, or ended their relationship rather than take on another woman’s child, but not Mum, who’d always believed that people were intrinsically good, and rarely spoken ill of anyone.
Once they’d registered my birth – 4 June, according to my birth mother – and introduced their startled parents to their brand-new grandchild, Mum had suggested bringing the wedding forward ‘so we could start our life together as a family’. They’d married when I was eight weeks old and my sister Jess was born a year later. No one outside the family had ever suspected that I wasn’t Mum’s natural daughter.
‘Good for him for stepping up, and I’m not saying he wasn’t a good father, but he knew all along where your birth mother was born and should have given you this stuff,’ Toni had said, looking as shocked as the first time I’d shown her the postcard, which had been wrapped in a gossamer-fine shawl and accompanied by a gold bracelet loaded with charms.
‘What good would it have done?’ I’d argued, in his defence. ‘It’s not like there was an address, and an invitation to visit whenever I liked.’ Even so, I’d imagined my parents discussing what to do, but guessed it was a topic they’d decided to leave for another day. A day that had never arrived, and now I could never ask them and know the truth.
‘I suppose it’s obvious she didn’t want to be found,’ Toni had reluctantly acknowledged. ‘And it could have done more harm than good for you to know back then, but I can’t believe they went ahead and called you Eloise, just because she wanted…’ Toni’s words had petered into a wince. ‘Sorry, Elle. I’m just worried, that’s all.’
‘I know, but don’t you think it’s fate?’ I’d persisted. ‘I was only meant to find the postcard once Mum and Dad were gone, and now I have to find her.’
‘My suggestion of hiring a private detective stands.’
‘Not enough information.’ I’d already been on a genealogy website and accessed birth records for everyone born in Chamillon whose name began with M, but there were over 14,000 entries dating back to 1602 and I’d soon given up – plus, I’d realised, after reading the postcard for about the fiftieth time, I’d felt a strong pull to go to Chamillon myself. ‘I want to try and find her, even if I don’t have much to go on.’
Toni’s face had softened. ‘But what if you don’t?’
‘Well, at least I’ll have tried,’ I said, with a pragmatism I hadn’t really felt. ‘I’ll be able to move forward, one way or the other.’
Now, I dithered, staring unseeingly at the café window, wondering whether I could find a free table inside, when a man bowled through the door and careered into me.
‘Whoa!’ His hand shot out as I was thrown off-balance, but my heel caught the edge of my suitcase and I tumbled to the ground, my camera bag bashing the cobbles.
‘Oh no!’ Scrabbling to a sitting position, I unzipped the bag and looked inside, but there was so much padding my camera hadn’t budged.
‘Is anything broken?’
‘I don’t think so.’ I gingerly twirled my wrists, but the man had dropped to his haunches and was peering in the bag. ‘That looks expensive.’
‘It is, but no harm done.’ I whizzed the zip back round, my heart thumping in my chest. ‘It was the last thing my father bought me before he died, so it has sentimental value.’ Way too much information. The fall must have wobbled my brain. ‘It’s a Nikon 7200 digital SLR. I’d wanted one for a while. The sensor on my old one wasn’t working properly, which isn’t good when you’re photographing a wedding. It was a birthday present…’ My voice quavered and I bit my lip. ‘Sorry,’ I said, fixing my eyes on the bag, which was rather tatty on the outside, giving no clue to its valuable cargo. ‘He died eighteen months ago,’ I blathered on. ‘It was an aneurysm. Sudden, so not painful, but a shock, him being there at the start of the day and gone by the end, but at least he didn’t suffer.’
I shut my eyes against a prickle of tears, recalling the phone call to the studio from his research assistant Carly, who’d found him in his office. He looked really peaceful, Elle, as if he was having a nice dream.
‘He died at the museum where he worked and was at his happiest, so that was good, and we’d said I love you before I left the house that morning as usual, so nothing was left unsaid, but I suppose I thought I’d have him for a lot longer.’ Oh God, I was sitting on a cobbled street in France, babbling to a stranger, like someone who didn’t have boundaries. Praying he’d do the decent thing and move away, I jumped when he spoke again.
‘I’m really sorry, that must have been awful for you.’ I nodded, not daring to speak, or open my eyes until I was sure they weren’t going to leak. I’d cried so many tears in the weeks after his death, I wasn’t sure I had any left. ‘And now, I’ve sent you flying,’ the man continued, and I registered that he was British, his accent similar to mine, and wished for a moment he’d been French. At least then, he wouldn’t have understood my outburst and I might have exited our encounter with some dignity intact. ‘Let me help you up,’ he said.
Sensing movement, I flipped my eyes open and saw two outstretched hands, strong and capable-looking. Aware I was blocking the doorway, I placed my palms in his and let him pull me up. Slamming against his chest, I gaped up into a pair of chestnut eyes that flickered over my face as though absorbing every feature and took a self-conscious step back. The rest of him came into focus: dark blond wavy hair, a tanned and friendly face, and soft stubble that wasn’t quite a beard, but suited him. He looked like someone people would turn to in a crisis, with an easy-going aura that made me think he might be a surfer. Weren’t surfers supposed to be chilled? Something to do with being at one with nature, though he probably wouldn’t be wearing dark trousers and a white, short-sleeved shirt if he was going surfing. He was nice-looking—
No. I wasn’t looking for a man, despite Toni urging me to ‘at least have a shag’ as she charmingly put it, while I was here. I wasn’t on holiday, despite being in what looked like the perfect spot to have a relaxing break.
‘I’m Charlie Croft.’ The man seemed to break free of whatever he’d been contemplating. ‘Are you sure you’re OK?’
‘I’m fine, thank you, Charlie.’ Actually, my wrist was throbbing a bit, but I could see he felt bad. ‘I’m Eloise Matheson, but everyone calls me Elle.’
‘Which begs the question, why introduce yourself as Eloise?’
Stumped, I gawped at him. ‘I… suppose, because I like it,’ I said, even though no one had ever used my birth name.
‘So, why not just say your name is Eloise?’
‘Because I’m used to being called Elle.’ Irritation rose. He’d knocked me over, and now he was questioning my name?
‘Sorry, I’m being an idiot.’ His grin was so engaging my annoyance melted away. ‘It’s good to meet you, Elle, and I really am sorry for not looking where I was going.’ He moved aside to let an elderly man with a little black dog tucked under his arm enter the café. ‘Listen, I’d buy you a drink, but—’
‘No, really, there’s no need.’ I reached once more for my suitcase, dusting a hand on my jogging pants, wishing I was wearing something that didn’t scream watching television on the sofa while recovering from a bout of flu. ‘Thanks, anyway.’
‘I suppose you’re here about the job?’ He angled his gaze behind me, and I turned to see a sheet of paper taped to the glass, the words STAFF VACANCY in big letters at the top. I caught the words ‘part-time’ and some words in French that I didn’t understand. ‘Just go through and ask for Dolly,’ he said, eyes crinkling into a smile. ‘Maybe I’ll see you later.’ He backed away with a wave while I tried to form a coherent reply, and was quickly swallowed by a crowd of tourists taking photos of the harbour.
‘So, you’re here about the job?’
I swivelled to see a full-fringed woman in an apron, carrying a tray of empty glasses, wearing an expectant smile. Her eyes swept over my luggage and back to my fiery cheeks. ‘Looks like you’ve come a long way,’ she said. ‘You’d better follow me.’
And, without knowing exactly why, I did.
It was pleasantly cool in the café, despite bright sunshine streaming through the windows, bouncing off an array of gleaming crockery behind the counter, where a youngish man was pouring foaming milk into a metal jug, while an older woman chatted to a customer at the front of a snaking queue.
‘As you can see, we’re extremely busy,’ the woman – Dolly, I guessed – called over her shoulder, tray aloft as she weaved between packed tables with the grace of a dancer; or someone who had worked there for a very long time.
‘Oops, sorry,’ I said to the man whose foot I’d just jerked my suitcase over, blinking idiotically when he looked up from his phone and gave me a dazzling smile.
‘Would you like a hand?’ he said in sexily accented English, a pair of strong eyebrows rising up his tanned forehead.
‘Er, no, thanks. I’m fine, but thanks.’ My banter needed work. ‘Thank you.’
‘No problem.’
‘Thank you.’ A lot of work.
His meltingly dark eyes lingered on mine, until the woman sat opposite gave a light laugh and tapped the back of his hand, saying something in French. I caught the word Henri as I moved past, dragging my suitcase like an unwilling toddler, trying to take in my surroundings, but the hubbub was overwhelming, with nearly everyone calling a greeting to the woman (she was definitely Dolly) and casting me curious looks.
My bags kept getting in the way, and apart from a delicious smell of baking mingled with coffee beans, I barely registered a thing until we entered the kitchen, where a tray of freshly made pastries was laid out, and then I was in a pretty courtyard enclosed by a vine-covered wall.
‘Can’t hear myself think in there,’ said Dolly and gestured for me to sit at a picnic-style table, shaded by a red-and-white striped umbrella. She’d dispensed with her tray without me noticing, and picked up two glasses of fresh orange juice, glistening with condensation. ‘You look like you could use a drink.’
I decided I liked – possibly loved – her. ‘Thank you,’ I said, relinquishing my suitcase as I gratefully took the glass and sat on the bench seat, aware of an ache in my shoulders from lugging my bags – and maybe from being knocked over. And the tension, which had accompanied me from home.
My temperature dropped as I drank the cold juice quickly, aware of Dolly’s slightly distracted scrutiny. She was perched on the edge of the bench opposite and kept glancing at the doorway, as if the café was a beloved but demanding child, requiring every second of her attention.
‘I’m Elle Matheson,’ I said when I’d finished, placing my empty glass on the table, resisting the urge to wipe my mouth on the back of my hand like a child.
‘Elle, I’m afraid there’s no accommodation here.’ Dolly eyed my array of baggage as though it might transform into a pack of braying dogs. ‘The apartment upstairs is family only,’ she said.
‘Oh, no, it’s fine, I’ve booked somewhere to stay.’ I was horrified that she thought I expected her to house me. Why was I even here? I mean, obviously I knew why I was in Chamillon, but why, when I’d got out of the taxi less than half an hour ago, was I sitting in front of a woman the right age to be my birth mother (Dolly, so definitely not a contender, unless it wasn’t her real name, and her real name began with M and she’d been born in Chamillon, which, by anyone’s reasoning, was a stretch of the imagination) pretending to apply for a job I couldn’t accept and wasn’t qualified for?
‘Well, that’s good,’ Dolly approved. She had an unremarkable face until she smiled, which she was doing now to great effect, her nut-brown eyes radiating warmth, and I . . .
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