The pounding on the guesthouse door sounded like a battering ram.
Throwing myself out of bed with much toe-stubbing and cursing, I glanced at the clock on the dresser. Five thirty a.m. What the …?
I scrabbled in my cluttered top drawer for the key of the door that linked my quarters to Rupert’s – only to be used in emergency – but when the next onslaught began, I gave up, grabbed a hoodie and staggered out through my private entrance and around the outside of the building. Believe me, gravel is not an ideal surface for bare feet. I would have gone back for flip-flops, but I was desperate to stop the violence on the door.
My heart stuttered in my chest as I rounded the corner to see that the racket was being perpetrated by a gendarme.
What was wrong? Who had been hurt? Had I only imagined hearing Rupert’s return from the UK late last night? Had something happened with that wretched ex-wife of his? Had he been in an accident?
I looked across the courtyard and whooshed out a sigh of relief when I saw his estate car, although I wasn’t sure why it had a tarp thrown over it.
The gendarme’s fists were raised, ready to knock again.
‘Arrêtez, s’il vous plait!’ I waved madly at him as I painfully ooched and ouched my way towards him, eventually stepping blissfully onto the smooth doorstep.
‘Can I help you?’ I asked in my best French. Despite living in France for almost a year now, I’d had little experience with gendarmes – but I presumed it was best not to mess with them.
He was middle-aged and portly, with a poker face that fell by degrees as he took in my shorty-pyjamas, bed hair and bare feet, then glanced at the corner I’d appeared from. No doubt he was wondering why I hadn’t opened the door like a normal person and saved my feet from laceration.
At that time in the morning and that stage of caffeine intake (nil), my French wouldn’t stretch to explaining.
In rapid French, he began to interrogate me. Who was I, why I was there, did I know Monsieur Rupert Hunter and, if so, where was he?
Alarmed, I tried to formulate a coherent response, but I was mercifully saved when the door opened and Rupert stuck his head out.
He looked dishevelled – unshaven, his wavy silver hair uncombed, a bathrobe half-thrown on over boxers.
‘Emmy. What’s going on?’
The gendarme didn’t wait for me to reply but repeated his interrogation, and when Rupert confirmed that he was indeed the hunted party, the diatribe lengthened.
Rupert looked shell-shocked, but I watched as enlightenment dawned. Thank God he knew what this was about. All I could gather was that something or someone had been abandonné.
Rupert invited our visitor in, took him into the kitchen and got to work at his state-of-the-art coffee machine to placate him with a strong espresso.
It did the trick. The law-upholder thawed with each sip as Rupert launched into a lengthy explanation, something to do with the car and tyres. I didn’t tax my brain by trying to follow, since I intended to get the English version shortly. Rupert propped his broad frame – leaner nowadays – against the counter as he spoke, occasionally scrubbing at his close-cropped grey beard as he sought an explanation that would soothe, rather than inflame.
Seemingly satisfied, our uniformed friend departed with stern words.
I rounded on Rupert. ‘What was that all about? Why did you get home so late last night? Why are we being visited by a gendarme?’
Ignoring me, Rupert set to again at the coffee machine, delivering the goods into my shaking hands and slurping his own as though his life depended on it. We sat at the large pine table and I gave him a questioning look.
‘We had an incident on the way home,’ he declared.
‘What kind of incident? Did you crash the car? Why is it covered up?’
He glared balefully at me. ‘Are you going to continue firing questions at me, or are you going to listen?’
‘Sorry.’
‘The trailer had a tyre blow-out. We had to limp it along to a layby.’
‘I told you that trailer’s too old.’
‘And I told you that Bob and I thoroughly checked it over. Just because something’s getting on a bit doesn’t mean it’s no use to anybody, Emmy. We overloaded it, that’s all.’
‘Didn’t you have a spare?’
‘We did. We changed it, but it must have had a leak we hadn’t noticed.’
‘What about breakdown cover?’
‘It turns out I’m not covered for towing. Only for the car.’
I closed my eyes. ‘You didn’t think to check before you set off?’
‘Checked the insurance. Didn’t think to check the breakdown cover.’
‘So where’s the trailer now?’
‘That was what our friend came about. We had to leave it where it was.’
‘You abandoned a trailer in a layby halfway between here and Calais?’
‘Didn’t have any choice. Couldn’t have got a tyre at that time of night for love nor money. The car was already stuffed full, so we loaded what we could onto the roof rack and tied it down. The least valuable items are still in the trailer, trusting to luck and the honesty of our fellow man. The idea was to get a tyre this morning, drive back and change it. But it’s already been reported and traced to me. Hence our visit from the gendarme.’ He sighed. ‘I need to get it sorted by midday, or I’m getting fined or arrested or something. Will you be okay on your own? I know it’s not convenient.’
You’re telling me!
Saturday was gîte changeover day, and since it was the height of summer, that meant all three to clean out and get ready for arrivals. And a departure and a set of new arrivals for the guesthouse. And a guest meal to cook.
‘I’ll be fine,’ I lied, taking in the bags under his eyes. ‘You look tired, Rupert. All that driving and hoicking furniture about. Argy-bargying with Gloria – which I shall enquire about later.’
‘Can’t be helped. I’d better phone Bob, poor bugger, and tell him we need to get off. By the time we’ve found the right size tyre and driven back to the trailer, we might be pushing the gendarme’s deadline. Leave the welcome baskets for the gîtes till last, Emmy. I might be back in time to do those, at least.’
‘Have you had your meds? Will you eat something before you go?’
‘No, but I will. Yes, if you throw something together while I have a quick shower.’
He staggered off, and I sorted out fruit and yogurt and toast for him.
I couldn’t help but feel sorry for Bob, our local hippie biker and soon to be my wedding photographer. The poor sod had already given up his time to drive and lift and carry and referee between Rupert and his very-nearly-ex-wife. That bloke deserved a good friend award.
The dog had begun to whine in Rupert’s lounge. Since neither of us had time to walk her, I let her out into the small orchard at the side of the house to do whatever a dog needs to do, grimacing as I watched her crouch, then sighing as I grabbed a plastic bag and trudged out to pick up after her. I wasn’t sure that was on my official job description. Not that I had an official job description.
The daft black Labrador was off, slaloming around the trees, the morning sun slanting through the leaves, the grass beneath her paws green and lush and dew-speckled, and I whistled for her to come back in. I refused to call her name as a matter of principle. I honestly believed that Rupert’s decision to call her Gloria in a moment of irony was the worst idea he’d ever had. Nowadays, the dog seemed able to distinguish between when Rupert used the name Gloria to refer to her and when he was referring to the human Gloria, perhaps due to the differing intonation – joyous enthusiasm for his pet and weary resignation for his ex-wife. But as far as I was concerned, she was ‘sweetie’ or ‘the dog’, and, fairly frequently, ‘that bloody dog of yours’… Although one look from those woeful eyes always made me melt, and I couldn’t resist burying my face in her soft fur when we were lounging together.
When I saw her emerge from a tall hedge and streak towards the house, safe in the knowledge that she would settle in her basket in the hall, I went into the kitchen to lay out breakfast. Heroically forcing my hand away from the pains aux raisins, I grabbed a banana and gulped it down as the first guests appeared.
They seated themselves at the scrubbed pine table under the sloping roof of the kitchen extension, away from the business end of the kitchen, to enjoy the late July sunshine pouring through the large window and patio doors, and to peruse the breakfast goodies.
When I asked if they would like eggs (laid by Rupert’s own chickens) and how they would like them cooked, I carefully omitted the fact that, with Rupert absent, they would get a much-inferior version. Despite his careful tutelage, eggs and I still did not get on from a culinary point of view.
Hopefully, any disappointment in the egg department would be offset by the array of fresh pains aux raisins, croissants, pains au chocolat, chopped fruit, yogurt and local-made preserves, to which our guests helped themselves as I brought coffee and tea to the table.
Breakfast was a busy time of day and meant a very early start, but I could hardly complain with the sun shining, the view of the garden through the patio doors so appealing, the table laden with goodies, the guests in a good mood and ready to start their day, happily chatting with each other and swapping sightseeing tips. With Rupert not available this morning, they turned to me for advice and I readily supplied answers to their questions, pleased that my knowledge of the area had improved so much over the past year.
For the zillionth time, I thanked my lucky stars that I’d found this place – and that I’d found the courage to take up Rupert’s offer to live and work here. I didn’t regret it for a single moment. I may not have thought it at the time, but my now-ex-boyfriend Nathan had done me a substantial favour by sleeping with Rupert’s wife while we were on holiday at La Cour des Roses last year. If he hadn’t, I never would have stayed behind to help Rupert through his illness, fallen in love with his home and business, made such a good job of looking after him and La Cour des Roses that he offered me a permanent position here, made a new life for myself away from the rat race, and made a bunch of fantastic new friends while I was at it. And, of course, met the man I was due to marry soon.
My morning idyll was shattered by an ear-splitting shriek.
When I’d recovered my wits, I streaked into the hall to find Abigail Harris clutching her chest in a dramatic manner, her husband Brian patting her arm.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, thinking my heart might need massaging, too.
Abigail pointed shakily at the dog, who was curled up peaceably in her basket, cuddling her blanket and … something else.
I peered closer. Her velvety head lay next to what at first glance looked like a well-chewed soft toy but upon closer inspection was a rabbit carcass. An ancient rabbit carcass – nothing more than a frame of bones, with mangled fur dangling off it here and there.
Ugh.
‘Gloria, you bad girl!’ I wagged a finger at her, forgetting my aversion to her given name.
She gazed back at me with those adorable big eyes of hers, but I wasn’t in the mood.
‘Out!’
She stared back defiantly.
I tugged at her collar. ‘Out, you naughty mutt!’
She settled further into her basket, lovingly nuzzling her prize. It turned my stomach, to the point where the banana threatened a comeback.
I turned to Abigail and Brian. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t see her bring it in. I’ll deal with it immediately. Please go through to breakfast. I’ll only be a minute.’
As they left the scene of the crime, I gave the dog a stern glare, but she wasn’t budging. With a frustrated sigh, I opened the door to Rupert’s quarters and resorted to lifting the basket with dog, rabbit carcass and all. She weighed a ton, but I carried her through to Rupert’s lounge where we could fight over possession in peace.
The dog won.
I figured all I could do was wait for her to go to sleep and then sneak the offending – and offensive – item away from her.
Just another day at La Cour des Roses.
Madame Dupont usually walked home after her cleaning stints at La Cour des Roses – she claimed she’d walked all her life and wasn’t going to stop now. The woman must be in her seventies, but I’d swear she was fitter than I was. The only time she allowed me to give her a lift was on a Saturday – after a longer, more tiring session.
‘I have something for you, Emie,’ she said as we got into the car. ‘Can you come inside for a moment?’
On the short drive, my mind worried over what that ‘something’ might be. I hoped it wasn’t another dead chicken. Madame Dupont kept a large flock of ugly black birds to dole out as eating chickens to her extensive family. She didn’t gift them to non-family lightly, but I’d been on the receiving end a couple of times – and although I appreciated the sentiment, I wasn’t too keen on the actuality.
I followed her up her path, peering over the fence into her yard where the noisy birds scurried about, scrapping with each other. In the kitchen, she invited me to sit at the scrubbed wooden table while she stowed her bag and cardigan and gave a brief tug at her support stockings, which had sagged during the course of the day. How she could bear to wear them in this heat, I would never know.
I’d been in here before, and it was like stepping back in time. No fitted units, but free-standing painted wooden cupboards, an old stove, a noisy fridge. Her appliances could have been used in a vintage TV programme, and the ancient wallpaper in a violent pattern of browns and yellows made me nauseous. But it was all, as you’d expect, spotlessly clean.
Madame Dupont bustled over to a huge pan on the stove. ‘I made chicken stew yesterday. My niece and her family were coming to dinner, but the baby was poorly. Now I am left with all this. I will give you some, so you and that handsome fiancé of yours can have it one evening when you are too tired to cook.’
Her French was rapid, her accent strong, but nowadays I understood most of what she said, and she corrected my own French less and less.
‘Couldn’t you freeze it for yourself?’ I asked her.
‘There is plenty to spare.’ She beckoned me over to peer into the pot. It was full to the brim and smelled delicious. ‘Besides, I am not sure how much longer that freezer will last.’ She pointed towards the ancient chest freezer in the corner of the room, its white enamel rusted around the bottom. ‘Yet another thing that is past its best around here. It would be just my luck if it gave up when it was full of chicken casserole. You may as well take some.’
‘Well, if you’re sure …’
Smiling, she bent to open the door of a cupboard, the door dangling dangerously on its hinges, and I made a mental note to ask Rupert or Ryan to drop in and fix it. Taking a small brown casserole pot from the paper-lined shelf, she ladled a generous amount into it.
‘Thank you.’ I kissed her on the cheek. ‘Alain and I will enjoy this. Do you need a lift into Pierre-la-Fontaine for the bus?’
Madame Dupont usually spent a night or two at her sick sister’s each week. With no transport of her own, it was quite a trek for her, walking along the lane to the main road, waiting for a bus into town, then another bus on to her sister’s.
‘That is kind, Emie, but I have things to do. My neighbour, Monsieur Girard, will give me a lift into town later.’
Waving goodbye, I placed the pot carefully on the passenger seat and drove slowly back. The last thing I needed was gravy all over the upholstery – Jonathan would never forgive me, since it used to be his car. He’d sold it to me when he decided to give up driving.
I smiled with sweet anticipation at the thought of an evening with Alain, enjoying Madame Dupont’s homely chicken stew – with the added advantage that I hadn’t had to pluck and de-gut the chicken myself.
But that would have to wait until tomorrow. Tonight, I had to help Rupert cook for the guest meal and entertain.
Rupert got back from his jaunt with Bob to find me tired but chipper.
Overall, my day had been a success. My breakfast eggs had been palatable – or at least, nobody had left them; I’d plied Abigail Harris with cappuccinos until she didn’t know whether she was jittery from the caffeine or her rabbit corpse encounter; I’d fitted in a quick morning phone call with my gorgeous half-French, half-English fiancé (best of both worlds, as Rupert once pointed out); I’d been on the receiving end of Madame Dupont’s casserole, and I’d finally wrested the disintegrating rabbit from the dog without having my hand chewed off.
All in all, I figured I was on a roll.
I made Rupert a mug of tea while he filled the welcome baskets for the gîtes with homemade chutneys and jam, local bread and cheese. New arrivals were due any time now.
‘Are you still a free man?’ I enquired.
‘Yes. Tired, but unarrested.’
I figured he was on a roll, too, then. ‘Tell me what happened with Gloria in London.’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘But I do. That’s why I asked. Of course, you’re under no obligation to tell me.’
His lips twitched. ‘No, but you’ll nag me mercilessly until I do.’
‘Well?’
He sighed. ‘When we got there, I sent Bob for a coffee while I packed up my personal stuff. Gloria watched me like a hawk. We negotiated over furniture when Bob came back. He insisted he should be there in case my blood pressure got so high that I required an ambulance.’
Good old Bob. Rupert’s angina attack last year had given his friends a scare, and we were all still mindful of it. I smiled at the extent of Bob’s friendship. He knew what he was letting himself in for when he agreed to accompany Rupert – Rupert and Gloria had been at loggerheads for months over Rupert’s assets – but it couldn’t have been pleasant.
‘Gloria’s given notice to the tenants in her house, and she’ll live in the Kensington flat until she can move back there. I’ve brought back a few smaller pieces of furniture, but there wasn’t much I wanted. Gloria chose most of it, and it wasn’t all to my taste.’
That, I could well imagine. Rupert had superb taste at the guesthouse – elegant but practical antiques, light walls, fabrics in naturals with splashes of colour in the rugs and cushions. Quality over quantity. Gloria, on the other hand, had not been able to deny the tackier side of her inner interior decorator, and when I’d first visited La Cour des Roses, it was an interesting clash. Slowly but surely, we’d consigned her influence to history.
‘We signed a list of everything and what was to happen to it,’ Rupert went on as he took milk and packets of butter from the fridge and added them to the baskets.
I raised an eyebrow. ‘Sounds quite civilised, for you two.’
‘Gloria’s not stupid. She knows which battles to fight.’
‘I’m amazed she hasn’t fought to stay put in that flat.’
‘The running costs are too high. Besides, it’s worth a fortune. She’d rather have a stack of money in the bank so she won’t have to work. It suits her fine.’
I shot him a sympathetic smile. ‘You’re holding up well, considering.’
‘We all knew what it would be like, once the divorce got under way.’
‘I know, but I’m sorry you have to go through it.’
‘I’m not. It means there’s a finite end to it. As long as I can keep La Cour des Roses, I’m happy to draw a line under the whole thing. Sending Gloria packing last year was the right thing to do.’
You’re telling me. I opened my mouth to say it but closed it again, making Rupert laugh. Gloria waltzing off with my boyfriend, dumping him a few weeks later, then trying to inveigle her way back into Rupert’s life had certainly been a trying phase in our lives.
‘You will get to keep La Cour des Roses, won’t you?’ I asked him.
‘Yes. Gloria’s house is being taken into consideration, and since we’re selling the London flat and the house in Mallorca, I can’t see a problem. Although that sodding Mallorcan property’s proving hard to shift. Ellie’s been liaising on my behalf for months now, to no avail.’
‘It’s good of her to take some of the weight off your shoulders.’
As the town’s estate agent, Ellie had homed in on the one thing she could do to help Rupert through his divorce, taking on the role of adviser and liaison with his estate agent in Mallorca.
‘I can’t believe Gloria’s going for so much,’ I said as I passed him bottles of local wine to finish off the baskets. ‘You were only together for ten years, and most of your assets were yours already.’
‘Gloria can argue – and does – that she gave up her job and friends to be with me. That she spent years in this place, hating every minute. That she added value to the business over those years.’
I snorted inelegantly, and Rupert put an end to the conversation by gathering up his baskets and dashing across the lavender-lined courtyard to the gîtes as the first car pulled up. Talk about cutting it fine.
‘I wouldn’t mind an early night tonight,’ I told him as we started to cook.
No longer intimidated by his chefs’ knives and fancy pans and super-duper gadgets in the huge wood and granite kitchen, I’d graduated from chopping vegetables and fruit, and was now allowed to do other things – although never pastry (mine ended up like grey putty, but less useful) and never sauces (gooey messes and burned pans).
‘What makes you think you’ll get that?’
‘I live in hope. At least we have a fighting chance, now we hive the guests off outside or to the lounge after dinner.’
Our three guest meals a week were taken in the kitchen, and it used to be that people chattered and lingered after the meal, preventing us from clearing away and washing up. But over the winter, Rupert and I had decorated and refurnished the lounge until it was how I – er, I mean we – envisaged it, and now we had no qualms about shoving our guests in there for after-dinner coffee, or out to the patio with solar lanterns if the weather allowed, enabling us to get sorted in the kitchen.
‘Anyway, they’re hardly a lively bunch at the moment, are they?’ I pointed out. ‘We ran out of conversation by dessert last time. What are the newbies like?’
‘Diane and John? They seem nice enough.’
But when we settled in the lounge after the meal, Diane spotted the pile of games on the bookshelf and squealed, ‘Ooh, let’s play something!’
Her husband was all for it, the other guests didn’t want to be impolite, and Rupert and I felt obliged to join in to jolly things along, meaning that clearing up in the kitchen had to be done later – much later.
So much for an early night.
When I pulled up at Alain’s neat suburban house the next morning, I walked straight into the comfort of his arms, my head against his chest – he was so tall, that was as far as I reached without standing on tiptoe. Sundays were my day to spend with him, and I looked forward to them immensely.
‘Are you staying over tonight?’ he murmured hopefully against my hair, leading me into the lounge, an airy space I loved with its cream walls and furnishings, wooden furniture and coffee-coloured cushions adding warmth.
‘I can’t see why not.’
We each had half our stuff at the other’s, and I spent half my life wondering where I’d left my favourite T-shirt. I couldn’t wait till I moved in with him properly, after our honeymoon, when La Cour des Roses was less busy and we could all settle into a new way of doing things.
‘Good.’ He fixed his cinnamon-brown eyes on mine. His gaze never ceased to make me feel warm and wanted. ‘Want to get the bikes out?’
‘Okay by me.’
The first time Alain put me on a bike, I was pretty dubious, but we cycled regularly at weekends now, and although I wasn’t keen on busy roads, they were only a means to an end. Once we got onto a quiet country lane or track, I was happy to be out there. My leg muscles had improved and no longer felt like jelly. Unless we went too far. Or up any hills.
Alain’s few attempts to get me into running hadn’t met with the same success. I couldn’t see the point of pounding the pavement – or grass or dirt track or any other surface, come to that. My knees ached and I would end up as red as a beetroot, not least because Alain was a good foot taller than me and I probably had to run twice as far to keep up. Eventually, he accepted that he was on a loser with that one. He continued to run early in the mornings before work, and I suspected he enjoyed the solitude. Each to his own.
As the main roads gave way to lanes, and the lanes to tracks, any tension in me gradually eased. How could it not? All I had to do was let my arms and legs worry about the bike while I greedily drank in the glory that was the French countryside. Farmers’ fields, green and gold, crops in full swing. Hedgerows. Occasional fields of roses that the area was famed for, their vibrant colours stretching out and taking my breath away. Swathes of vines in straight rows, deep green in the afternoon sun, the soil beneath dry and dusty.
And then there were the sunflowers, a green carpet topped with bright yellow heads, their faces turned to the afternoon sun, a vast stretch of summer colour and, for me, the epitome of the season.
‘I love those,’ I said as we stopped by a field of them to drink from our water bottles.
‘Les tournesols?’
‘Yes. They’re glorious. And so very French.’
Alain smiled. ‘They’re coming to an end now. It won’t be long before they’re dead and drooping and sad-looking.’
I pouted at the thought.
‘Don’t do that,’ he murmured. ‘It makes me want to kiss you.’
I stuck my bottom lip out further, and he obliged with a kiss that became heated in seconds, despite the months we’d been together. When he pulled back, those caramel eyes of his were intent on mine. ‘Better get home.’
His words held wicked promise.
And that was another thing I liked about cycling on a Sunday – what happened afterwards. We would get back hot, sweaty and tired, necessitating showers followed by a … lie-down. No time limits. The rest of the afternoon stretched out in front of us as we stretched out on the bed, lazily kissing and stroking and making love, my body humming with pleasure as Alain worked magic with his hands until my limbs felt boneless, and stress and tension seemed a million miles away.
Best part of the week.
Alain was complimentary about the chicken stew – who wouldn’t be? – and after dinner, we went for a stroll. This was another Sunday habit I enjoyed, at a time of day I loved, when the heat had subsided and the streets were quiet. We walked beyond the residential area where he lived, onto a short country lane and back – just far enough to work off a few calories.
Alain lapsed into French, something I was long used to. He knew I didn’t get enough practice at La Cour des Roses, other than with Madame Dupont, and although my French had improved substantially over the past year, it was by no means perfect. Alain wanted me to be comfortable with the language of the country I now called home, and I’d learned to get over my embarrassment and accept this as an inevitable part of our dates. Besides, I still found it surprisingly sexy, hearing him speak it.
As we walked, he held my hand, absentmindedly stroking his thumb across my engagement ring. With all the chores I did around La Cour des Roses, I’d wanted something practical, so we’d chosen a simple white gold band inset with alternating blue topaz and diamonds, one diamond in the centre slightly larger and slightly raised. I loved the fact that it went with the necklace Rupert bought me last year as a thank-you present, a white gold pendant in the shape of the head of a rose with a small diamond in the centre. Both were symbols of my new life here in France.
Enjoying the evening breeze, I allowed contentment to permeate my senses, my stresses fading with each step and each stroke of Alain’s long fingers … until my never-silent and ever-annoying brain reminded me that my parents were due next weekend.
I loved my parents, truly I did. My dad was ever patient and equable, with an envia. . .
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