The little cottage was in a row of holiday conversions. Ample
parking space, two floors, a nice veranda on which to enjoy the spectacular
views and shutters painted in different colours. What was France without
painted shutters?
I shut off the engine and stared out over the steering wheel.
“Answer me some questions,
s’il te pla
î
t
.”
Sighing, I rolled my head to look at her. “I’ll try.”
“Why did you leave?” Her eyes tracked over the painted front door.
“I got scared.”
We both knew that. Why was she bothering to ask?
“Who is Rebecca, a lover?”
“Oh goodness no.” Berne smiled at the force of my denial. “She’s
my best friend in all the world, like I told you.”
She held my gaze. “Do you love him?”
“I’m marrying him.”
“That is not what I asked.”
I picked at the steering wheel, which was faded from the years of
sunshine baking it. “I know.”
Her smile crinkled the corners of her eyes. That seemed to satisfy
some train of thought and she squeezed my knee. “Let me help you unpack and we
will start again . . . as new friends.”
Those words hurt even more than her confession about Vivienne but
that’s what I wanted, wasn’t it? The fact she was talking to me was enough
after all I’d done.
“Friends it is.”
THE AFTERNOON WAS a mix of joy and angst as Berne helped me to
unpack in silence. Doug, it seemed, had been preparing and had brought a
million essentials. I swore the man had packed half of England. Some of it
would have to go to his bachelor pad up the road. I had no intention of turning
on the whisking machine thingy, let alone deciphering what I needed to whisk in
it. The more stuff we unpacked the more Berne found it funny. She’d only been
with me a year and she knew I couldn’t cook a sandwich let alone anything else.
I was no baker and certainly no Mary Berry.
It scared me just how easy it was for Berne and I to fall into a
comfortable peace. It was almost as though I had never left and our lives were
not separate. It had always felt so effortless with her. We made the perfect
team. Working side by side, it felt . . . it felt . . . a
relief
to be
next to her.
Balls.
The thought dawned on me as we unloaded the last of the boxes and
panic raced around my body. There was no way I could do this. No way I could be
around her for any extended period of time and not feel, not want—
“It will take some adjusting,” Berne whispered, her strong hand on
my elbow. “We will find a way. Do not worry.”
Did I even want to adjust?
I shook my head free of the thought. Doug, I was marrying Doug. He
was going to be my husband. We were going to make a rugby team. The sudden
nausea of that made me drop the box I’d been carrying.
“You over think this,
oui
?” she said, picking up the box
and heading to a pantry-like cupboard. “One thing at a time. We are taking
boxes up the stairs, cleaning the kitchen, nothing more.”
Out she came with a mop and bucket and proceeded to fill it with
soapy water. It was something she had done as routine. Her mother had drilled
it into her that a clean kitchen floor was essential. I’d missed that little
quirk.
“Then why does it feel like . . . ?” I clamped my hands over my
mouth. How dare I even think such a thing?
“Because we once did it before.” Berne’s smile twinkled through
her eyes. “As I recall, it took a long time,
non
?”
The fact that one, she knew what I was thinking and two, she had
brought up our moving-in day made heat, embarrassment, and a very unwelcome
tingle burst through my system. My brain turned to mush with the memory. I was
in awe, still, of my own reckless behaviour. Whatever had come over me, I
didn’t know.
“I see that you do not forget so easily,” she said. “
Mais,
I
am sure you have many more memories with him.”
I snorted. “Are you joking?” Closing my eyes at my own emphatic
confession, I tried to ignore Berne’s soft chuckle. Something told me that she
was enjoying the torment she was inflicting. “I mean, of course. Why wouldn’t
we?”
Berne looked as convinced as I felt, a strange “uh oh” sounded in
my head as everything around us seemed to take a breath. Her eyes fixed on
mine. I was too close to her. Had I moved or did she? Either way we were
getting closer. Each breath harder to take, each beat heavier and louder. Her
full, moist lips—
“Pip?”
In my haste to put as much distance between us as possible, I clattered
over the mop bucket. The soap suds gushed all over the floor. I felt my feet
slip and flung my hands out to stop myself.
I couldn’t.
I smashed nose first into the pantry door.
“Pip?” Rebecca’s voice grew more urgent and I heard her barge in
through the doorway as if she were riding to the rescue. “Pip, what—?”
“This is why I don’t do housework.” I reached up to touch my nose
only for Rebecca to bat my hand away.
“Ice compress,” she muttered.
“I have it here.” Berne’s voice. Such a wonderful sound.
The cooling vapours of freeze-dried peas made my throbbing nose
calm, if only a little. I looked up at her trying not to show I was in pain.
“Id it brogen?”
“
Pardon?
”
“She said is it broken,” Rebecca translated. “Should hear her when
she gets a cold.”
I loved Berne’s gentle smile. She looked as though she wanted
nothing more than to ask Rebecca to fill her in on every gap she’d missed. I
wanted to tell her every detail but then I’d have to explain why . . . no, no,
bad idea.
“
Imb
fine,” I managed, reaching for the pantry door to pull
myself up but it was remarkably difficult bearing pea compress.
“Jub neeb
to
get up.”
They hoisted me to my feet and carried me to a leather and
delightfully squishy sofa.
“
Doub?”
“Monsieur Chamonix has taken him to the local old pub, I think,
something about football?”
Berne beamed. “Marseille play Lyon tonight. It will be fierce.”
“Doub won hab
a clue.”
Berne raised her eyebrows and Rebecca stepped in. “Doug isn’t a
sport kind of guy unless you count golf, which I don’t.”
“It is more a hobby than a professional sport you feel?”
Rebecca nodded. “Sport should make you exert and sweat, and you
shouldn’t have people carrying your equipment for you.”
I looked at Berne who perched on the edge of the kitchen table as
Rebecca sat next to me. “I prefer more active sports also.” Ever the diplomat,
the woman should have been running the country by now.
“You want to stay, eat?” Rebecca asked, getting to her feet as
though she had mischief on her mind.
“
Imb
sure Berne
wan
to go
homb
.”
Berne raised her eyebrows once more.
“She said make yourself at home.”
I scowled at Rebecca but she was too busy luring Berne into the
kitchen where the two of them cleaned up my mess. “So you’re a stonemason by
trade?”
“
Oui
. I was going to join the gendarmerie
mais
I
decided that I prefer it here.” Berne took the mop bucket that Rebecca had
refilled and started to sweep across the floor.
“You live here permanently?” Rebecca moved around the incoming mop
and washed the ingredients in the sink.
“Here and the city,” Berne said.
Rebecca looked at me.
“She
meanb Marbsay
.”
“Ah, so you still live there too? Do you do the same thing there?”
Berne picked up the used bucket and emptied it outside. Sounds of
sloshing water gushing into a drain mixed with Rebecca’s chop chopping on the
board.
“No, I go there to see Vivienne.”
My nose seemed to hurt more at the sound of
her
name. It
was a dumb name, like Virginia, I mean . . . come on, who called their kid
Virginia?
“I take it she’s not just an old chum?” Rebecca flashed me a
wicked grin. I wanted to curl up into a ball and cry.
“
Non
,” Berne whispered.
“You been with her long?” Rebecca seemed to read the look on my
face and frowned. I got up and wandered towards the bedrooms.
I didn’t want to know how long they had been together or how
wonderful life was for them. Just hearing her say that she had even looked at
someone else felt like my insides were being ripped out through my stomach. No,
better to pretend that she wasn’t invading my thoughts with her gorgeous smile
or her laugh, or . . .
Oh, get a grip. Focus, decor, rooms. Inspect the rooms like
mother.
The bedrooms were everything that could be expected from a holiday
rental, neat, airy, and without personality. My nose had calmed enough for me
to regain some sense of smell and I breathed in slowly, trying to clear the
foggy pain.
I sneezed, nearly knocking myself backwards.
Holiday places all had a summery, musty smell that seemed to
linger. I stood, wondering what it was. I discounted frozen pea. The linen was
fresh, the sheets no doubt were crisp, yet every place I’d been abroad smelled
like . . . well . . . adventure.
“Rebecca is asking if you would like to have bacon in your
omelette?”
Rebecca knew full well that I
always
had bacon in my
omelette and was checking on me. So much for decor. I couldn’t give a crap
where I was as anywhere Berne happened to be in was perfect. “You were set on
the gendarmerie. Why did you really come back?”
Berne smiled. “
Mon papa
, he had a stroke. My brother was
already doing so well in the force that it seemed only right that I come back
to help.”
I stared at her with the news. I couldn’t imagine how much she’d
been through. She adored her father, as had I.
“It is okay,” she said with her trademark effortless shrug. “He is
a little slower, a little bossier,
mais
. . . he has good health.”
What must he think of me? I was sure that he must have known Berne
and I were much more than friends. “Does he recognise me, I mean today?”
“
Oui
. You are hard to forget.”
I made the mistake of meeting her eyes. Love or lust or whatever
went on between us was meant to fade over time, was meant to be smothered by my
abandonment. Instead the space between us seemed to me as though it may shimmer
and pulse with the force of my own feeling. Oh, I was in trouble, real trouble.
Leaving was supposed to stop this, was supposed to drive these feelings away.
“Ladies.” Rebecca cleared her throat, frowning at me once more.
“You ready to eat or what?”
“Yes.” I snapped my eyes away from Berne. “Yes . . . starving.”
The soft chuckle from Berne as I walked by told me that she
understood exactly how I felt. Earlier, I wondered how we’d get through the
project together without me losing myself but right now, I would be happy just
to get through dinner.
Chapter Six
I WAS ARTFUL in avoiding any interrogation from Rebecca by
feigning tiredness that night. I awoke to the sound of a cockerel crowing and
fumbled around searching for my alarm and smacking it for snooze. Berne had
been ever present in my dreams throughout the night leaving me wanting nothing
more than to escape into my head a little longer.
We’d met when I had been sent by my father to study with her in
Marseille. She was working on a major renovation in the city and I could learn
from her, get great experience, and get first-hand knowledge of France and its
language.
Well, they did say that the best way to learn French was to fall
in love with a French person.
How lost I had felt in those first few days of talks and
greetings. My father’s friend had taken me around and showed me little places
he knew of. There had been no sign of this mysterious Berne Chamonix who I was
meant to work alongside. Then came a hand-written note in her swirling letters,
simply her address and she signed it “B” at the bottom—
Cock-er-doodle-doo!
I blinked open one eye, that wasn’t five minutes. No fair. I hit
the button again. Berne swam before my eyes. She played the piano in the heat
of the summer storms, the windows wide open, her slow, taunting melodies lured
me in. That’s how I’d discovered her, running from the rain, from the
lightning—
Cock-er-doodle-doo!
What? No, no, that wasn’t enough time. I slammed the button on the
clock once more. That sound, an aching call. So smooth and haunting, calling me
closer, closer . . . her skin glistened with the rain, her hair wild, she
turned—
Cock-er-doodle-doo!
I was going to hurl the stupid thing across the room. I groaned
and opened my eyes. The scent of fresh bread, warm summer smells filled my
nostrils.
And, ow, ow, ow, did my nose feel like a foreign object. The
cockerel alarm continued to taunt me with its cheery cries. Who was that happy
about morning anyhow?
I glared at my clock. The alarm wasn’t even on. It was eight
o’clock.
“I don’t work anymore,” I told it. “I’m a bum.”
The cry sounded again and I rubbed my eyes, wincing as the skin
pulled making my nose ache. Had I set my phone alarm? Would I do that? The only
time I bothered looking through the hundreds of odd apps littering the screen
was for two things: the alarm, which I took an age to find, and a cute little
lemming game that I was slightly addicted to. Had I bothered to go through all
that and if so, why? What was so important that I needed to be up in the early
hours?
Cock-er-doodle-doo!
“Will you give it a break?”
Where had I put my phone anyway? Was it in my trousers? Wait, had
I been wearing trousers or shorts? I scrambled out of the sheets, getting my
big toe stuck in the corner. I wrenched it free and stared at the clean floor.
I swear I’d left them where I always did. Had I been drinking?
Cock-er-doodle-doo!
“Where are you?”
“You need something?”
I waved at Rebecca, distracted by my hunt. Were they under the
bed? Maybe I’d kicked them under there. I looked at the wardrobe, then shook my
head. Fat chance.
“Pip, you okay there?”
I dropped to my hands and knees and flung an arm underneath the
iron-cast bed. Nope. I glanced up at Rebecca. “My alarm keeps going off. I
can’t find my phone.”
Rebecca pointed to the nightstand. My phone happily sat there as though
amused by my predicament.
“Right,” I muttered, heading to it and sweeping my hand across the
screen. “I must have set it.”
Cock-er-doodle-doo!
What? The thing didn’t even sound like it was making a noise. I
flicked the screen with irritation and took a picture of my toes.
Rebecca pulled the phone from my hand and led me over to the
window. “You should be in a funny farm, you know that?”
A preening cockerel strutted across the yard, looking very pleased
with himself. “Please don’t tell me he’s going to do that every morning?”
Rebecca nodded. “I’ll ask about ear plugs.” She smiled at me.
“Your nose looks less purple.”
“It feels mashed up like one of those old boxers.”
“Well, sting like a butterfly and float like a bee.” Rebecca
thumbed to the doorway. “You want breakfast before we head to work?”
Oh, yes. I wasn’t a bum was I? No, I was employed by my own
fiancé, working on a house he wanted for us with a woman who so far exceeded
any description adequate enough.
I wanted to go back to bed until it all went away. Would anyone
notice?
Rebecca grabbed hold of me as I was in mid-stride and pushed me
toward the breakfast table. As always with her cooking, my stomach betrayed my
attempt not to be moved. It sounded like a pack of dogs had decided to make a
rap record.
“I got freshly made French bread,” she said. “And . . . chocolate
spread.”
The rap turned to a chorus. “Why didn’t
we
get married
again?”
Rebecca guffawed. There was no other way to describe it. Her
unruly eyebrows shot up so high that she looked like a model with a facelift.
“Did you seriously just say that?”
“I can joke.” I sat down at the table, a little wobbled by my
words myself.
“Pip, you make it clear any way you can that you are little miss
straight.” Rebecca flashed a cocky smile, wiggling her eyebrows. I fought the
urge to throw my bread at her. She was crass. “Maybe you’re mellowing in the
light of the French sun, huh?”
“I’m glad you find my plight amusing.” I was really glad that she
was. That she didn’t hate me for, one, not telling her and two, being so
duplicitous about my past.
“You deserve to get teased,” she said. “But it’s only because I
know it’s all in the past and you adore your hunk-in-boots.”
“Hunk-in-boots?” I spread the chocolate over my bread, took a
bite, and licked the corners of my mouth, delicious fatty goodness. “Where do
you get these sayings?”
“Stop avoiding the question.”
I crunched through the bread and the smooth sugary bliss oozed
into my mouth, the chocolaty delight smothering my lips. Oh yes, I loved food.
“I’m not,” I mumbled around my groaning. “You didn’t ask anything.”
Thankfully Doug waltzed through the doorway at that point. He was
an annoyingly cheery morning person, one who spoke loudly and made a racket. If
he was up, everybody else had to be.
As he slumped down on the seat next to me and planted a kiss on my
lips, I found myself really looking at him. He was broad shouldered and toned,
more from time spent in the gym than any actual activity. His wide chin sported
reddish-brown stubble and his hair was neat, cropped, respectable. Every inch
of him was the product of his upbringing. Born with a silver spoon in his
mouth, he embodied everything an upper-class man should be.
He was always respectable, always polite, always well-mannered. He
did what was expected of him and demanded that those around him did the same.
His grey-blue eyes, so piercingly clear, made him difficult to resist. And
after eight years, he felt like an appendage. I was scatty, disorganised and,
as he called it, untamed. It made me wonder just what he saw in me.
I would say he needed committing but there you go.
“I was thinking that you could start working with Monsieur
Chamonix after the locals I hired have removed all that’s left in there.” He
smiled, a patient smile. “I did tell them I wanted it done
by the time
we arrived but you know foreigners—”
“Which is exactly what we are, Dougie,” Rebecca said, smattering
her bread in yummy chocolate. She loved it as much as I did. Sometimes we’d
appreciate its wonder in silence together. There was nothing like chocolate.
The one thing that united women across the world in all generations.
Doug crossed his legs and popped the end of my roll into his mouth
as I watched on forlorn. “I can’t help that they can’t even speak English now,
can I?”
Rebecca looked at me and passed me the end of her roll. “We are in
France.”
“Who doesn’t speak English these days?” He laughed as though that
settled the matter and squeezed my knee. “Your mother will be popping in on the
weekend. Maybe time for a little shopping?”
I shoved the roll in my mouth.
Rebecca blinked a couple of times. “Her mother?”
“Of course, who else would help her pick out a dress?” He seemed
delighted at this turn of conversation. “What better way to break in the house,
hmm?” His mobile beeped and he held up a finger as though checking for wind
direction. “Right, yes . . . no, no, no . . . no you need to change that.” He
put his hand over the mouthpiece. “I have to take this. Dinner?”
I nodded, chewing on my roll. He planted a kiss on my cheek,
tutted at the chocolate on my lips, and strolled out of the door.
“Your mother.”
Swallowing was far harder now. “My mother.”
“A dress.” Rebecca reached across the table and patted my hand.
“A dress.”
I stared down at my hands. “He doesn’t mean a nice summer gown for
a ball, does he?”
She shook her head.
I shook mine.
We stared down at the tub of chocolate.
“You want a spoon?” Rebecca asked.
I nodded.
She fetched two and handed me one. “You think he really wants us
to fix up the house?”
I plunged my spoon into the tub, hung it upside down, and clamped
the chocolate against my tongue. “Think he’d notice if we ran?”
“Me, not so much,” Rebecca said around her own mouthful. “You,
well . . . I’m not sure if he’d stick a collar on you.”
“You think he would?” There was something in my voice that did not
sound anything like joy or excitement. “He is going to make me join a country
club or something, isn’t he?”
“Not if you don’t say ‘I do.’”
How could I not say those words? I’d promised to. It wasn’t polite
to break promises. “What do I do?”
“In your situation, if I wasn’t running under cover of darkness, I
would do what any self-respecting gay woman would.”
The mark of how very straight I was. I didn’t even know there were
standards. “And what is that?”
Rebecca grinned. “Play with power tools.”
“Can I play with a hammer and saw instead?” Me and anything
pneumatic was a bad idea.
“If you’re picturing cutting up frilly wedding dresses then that’s
just fine.”
We both shuddered at the W word. It was good to know that she felt
as jarred by Doug’s sudden announcement that nuptials were looming. What I
couldn’t shake was if I really was terrified at the prospect of marrying him or
whether I was confused by Berne being near. That’s all it was, yes, the shock was
making me jittery.
Just shock.
Not Berne.
Nope.
Balls.
I needed more chocolate.