The Little French Guesthouse

by Helen Pollard

  My favourites were the comical antics of the monkeys and gibbons as they performed their aerial acrobatics along the trees and ropes like circus performers on a sugar high. I could have watched for hours, but thankfully Alain could recognise a woman who needed to eat.

  ‘Let’s go get you some lunch,’ he said, dragging me reluctantly away. ‘If we don’t beat the crowds, we won’t get a prime table.’

  I couldn’t imagine what could be prime about a table in a zoo restaurant, but sure enough, we got one overlooking the giraffes and zebras. I’d never been head-height with a giraffe before and I watched, spellbound, as it took a branch in its mouth and began to manoeuvre and manipulate it, using its long black tongue and rubbery lips to systematically strip the leaves, then unceremoniously dropped the bare branch to the ground. It was only when it loped away for further greenery that I could concentrate on my steak and frites.

  ‘Have I converted you?’ Alain asked me.

  I grinned. ‘Absolutely. I gather you come here quite a lot?’

  He nodded. ‘I think of the animals as old friends. When I’m at a loose end, it’s fun. If I’m feeling low, it cheers me up. If I’m bored, there’s always something new to see. It seems to suit any occasion. And I’m sure that sounds silly.’

  ‘Not at all. It must be good to know where to go when you’re feeling out of sorts.’

  ‘You don’t have anywhere?’

  I thought about what I did back home when I felt down or needed to get away from Nathan for a while. Ignoring the obvious retail therapy – invariably an expensive mistake – nothing sprang to mind... Which was a shame, because I had a suspicion I would be feeling out of sorts quite a lot in the near future.

  ‘Nowhere special.’ My throat felt tight. How could I tell him I’d been so content at La Cour des Roses, I hadn’t felt the need for a haven? That La Cour des Roses was my haven?

  Talking of which...

  ‘Alain, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Of course.’ He started to look worried. ‘I think.’

  ‘The other night at dinner, when Rupert was busy telling everyone about his idea of me moving to France and working for him, setting up a business...’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I couldn’t help but notice that everyone gave their opinion except you. And yet you’re an accountant. I would have thought you’d have something to say about it from a professional standpoint.’

  He put down his knife and fork, staring at his plate for a moment before looking up. ‘From a professional standpoint, maybe. My problem is from a personal standpoint.’

  I frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Emmy.’ He gave me a direct look. Those cinnamon eyes took some beating. ‘I like you. You know I do. So any opinion I might express would be biased, wouldn’t it? I could tell you Rupert’s idea was viable, but I might be telling you that just so you’d come back here. That wouldn’t be right.’

  I gave him a direct look right back. ‘Pretend I’m your sixty-year-old aunt. What would you tell me then?’

  He cocked his head to one side as if he was trying, then abjectly shook his head. ‘I can’t.’

  I reached across to slap him on the arm. ‘Try harder.’

  ‘I would tell you what you already know – that it’s a gamble to leave a well-paid, steady job, especially since Rupert’s business is so seasonal.’

  ‘He said he would allow for the off-season.’

  ‘Okay, so let’s say he pays you a base wage evened out across the year. Living rent-free would make that go a lot further, but you wouldn’t have any real security. I also think you could get bored after a while. That could be resolved by the challenge of setting up your own business, and I’m sure you’d be able to find a niche that uses your skills.’ He hesitated. ‘It all depends on how much you love your job back home. Whether you’re ready for a change. And if so, whether you see a more precarious existence in a new country as a challenge and an adventure – or a potential nightmare. If you go ahead, I suspect you’d be more than capable.’ He smiled. ‘Be warned, though. The French do love their red tape – but I’d be more than willing to help you with that.’

  I smirked. ‘Hmm. Rupert said you would.’

  Alain blushed just a little. ‘Rupert needs to learn to stop interfering.’

  ‘I won’t argue with you there.’ It was time to change the subject. ‘Come on, hurry up. I don’t want to miss the vultures being fed.’

  I’d never seen anything like it – gigantic birds with evil beaks ripping pieces of meat to shreds in minutes and scrapping over the leftovers. Alain mocked me mercilessly for my girlish squealing as their gigantic wings flapped against my knees. As we left the horrid things to fight over the last strips of gristle, dark clouds began to form oppressively overhead and the air felt humid and close. I fanned at my face as Alain studied the sky.

  ‘Looks like rain,’ he pronounced solemnly, at which I burst out laughing.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Even I can tell it might rain, Alain. You wouldn’t need to be a meteorologist!’

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry.’ I touched his arm. ‘I shouldn’t make fun of you. I don’t know you well enough yet.’

  ‘I wish you did. And I don’t mind being made fun of. By you, anyway. My mother used to tell me that people only tease people they like, so I’ll take it as a good sign.’

  His words echoed Ryan’s the first time we’d kissed. I felt I should be bothered by that somehow, but I wasn’t. Ryan and I had enjoyed what we’d shared for what it was and moved on to an easy friendship. There was never any question of it being anything more.

  Things were different with Alain. It all seemed so much more tentative... More important. I was glad he hadn’t taken offence.

  I was jolted out of my thoughts by a loud, deep rumble that started low and built to a deep crescendo, reverberating through the air and into my bones to make me jump.

  ‘Thunder!’ I exclaimed.

  Now it was Alain’s turn to laugh. He shook his head and pointed to a nearby enclosure. ‘Not thunder. Lions.’

  Turning, I saw a group of lions lounging on a rock formation. The male, his mane scraggy and almost black, was the source of the racket. The sound must have been heard across the whole zoo.

  It was then that the heavens opened, building from a smattering of heavy, warning splashes to torrential rain in less than ten seconds. With a shriek, we headed for the nearest shelter, a covered viewing platform a few yards away. Storming up the wooden stairs, we shook our sodden clothes like dogs coming out of the ocean. The rain on the tin roof was deafening and as it pounded down, more and more people scuttled up the steps to join us until we were all jammed together like sardines. I tried hard not to think anything of the fact that Alain and I were now chest to chest, practically nose to nose, but I could feel the inevitable flush spread across my cheeks.

  ‘Don’t worry. It’ll be short and sharp, I think,’ Alain said.

  ‘That’s okay.’ I peered over his shoulder at the lions sitting calmly on their rock, unfazed by the heavy drops of water literally bouncing off the ground. ‘It’s quite atmospheric.’

  Alain chuckled. ‘That’s one word for it.’

  We looked into each other’s eyes. There was little choice – we were packed so tight that any turn I made, even if I could turn, would be an obvious avoidance tactic. Besides, I didn’t want to avoid Alain’s face. It was a nice face. Kind and oh-so-subtly sexy. No glasses, giving me an unobscured chance to look into the velvet brown depths of his eyes.

  ‘Do you only wear glasses for reading?’ I blurted my thoughts out yet again. I would have kicked myself, but there wasn’t enough room.

  ‘Yes. For reading and seeing things up close.’

  ‘Hope I’m blurry enough, then. I’m not sure I bear up to close scrutiny nowadays.’

  Alain frowned. ‘Oddly enough, you’re not at all blurry. And I think you’re bearing up very well. O
n all fronts.’ He paused. ‘Emmy, I need to ask you something.’

  ‘What?’ My palms were damp again. I surreptitiously rubbed them against my legs.

  He hesitated. ‘If things were different, if you hadn’t just had the worst time of your life – would you have considered the possibility of us... seeing each other?’

  I stared at him, wide-eyed. ‘Maybe. Probably.’ Hypnotised by the rain and the golden flecks in his eyes, I murmured, ‘Yes.’

  As yet more people squashed into the shelter, we were forced deeper in until my back was hard against the glass and Alain was hard against me. Literally.

  He blushed. ‘God, Emmy, I’m sorry.’

  I blushed to keep him company. ‘It’s okay. It’s not your fault.’

  ‘I think, under the circumstances, I ought to explain.’ His mortification couldn’t have been clearer, and I tried hard to concentrate on his face instead of the way his body felt against mine.

  ‘No, honestly, Alain, you don’t.’

  ‘Emmy, I wish you weren’t going home tomorrow. I know you’ve overstayed and you have to go, and I’m not worried I’ll never see you again, because you’ll be back to see Rupert. But I wish we’d had more time to get to know each other.’ He frowned. ‘Your life is upside-down at the moment, and any decent bloke wouldn’t dream of putting you under pressure at a time like this. I only want you to know that under different circumstances, I think we could have been more than friends – and I would have liked that very much.’

  I felt a sharp pang of regret, almost a physical pain, deep in my gut. He was talking about us in the past tense already, even though our friendship was so new. The possibility of it being anything more was too unlikely. I lived and worked in England. Alain lived and worked in France. We barely knew each other. I had no intention of uprooting myself for some ridiculous rebound romance, and I was sure Alain wouldn’t want me to, only to end up taking the blame when it all went wrong.

  And yet the thought that this gentle yet powerful something we’d only just found would die at the end of the day filled me with sadness. A tear threatened at the corner of my eye and I blinked furiously to stop it from falling, but it escaped anyway to roll blatantly down my cheek. Alain freed an arm and reached up to brush it away with his thumb.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I murmured. ‘I’m being stupid.’

  ‘No, you’re not. You’ve had a hard time.’

  I sighed. It was now or never. I had to know if this burgeoning attraction was more than a cry for attention on my part, a need for comfort, a desire to know that I was attractive to someone after being so cruelly dumped. My unexpected fling with Ryan had reinstated my confidence a little, given me back some faith in myself – but that had been an experiment, a tentative step in forging a way forward. This thing with Alain... There was something else here, running way under the surface, but I’d been through so much over the past couple of weeks, I couldn’t trust my own instincts any more.

  Suddenly, I needed to be sure. In real terms, it would make no difference to what was already an impossible situation. But if I left France not knowing, I would always wonder.

  ‘Now it’s my turn to ask you something,’ I ventured.

  ‘Okay.’ Alain was hesitant, a worried frown-line creasing his forehead. I would have found it comical if I hadn’t felt so nervous.

  ‘I don’t want to appear too forward or anything.’

  ‘I think we’re already past that,’ he muttered, embarrassed. He’d managed to retreat the inch or two that the huddle of damp humanity at his back would allow, but our bodies were still touching, the intimacy still potent enough to make us both ill at ease so early in our budding friendship.

  ‘Here goes.’ I cleared my throat. ‘Would you mind kissing me?’

  If his eyebrows could have shot up any higher, they would have hovered over his head in thin air, the way they do in cartoons.

  I took a deep breath. ‘I need to know.’

  He gazed deep into my eyes, then nodded his understanding. In slow motion, the anticipation warm and sweet, he lowered his head until his lips met mine, feather light and velvet soft. We stayed like that for a long moment, oblivious to the multitude around us, until a jolt at his back forced that smidgeon of extra pressure and the kiss grew firmer, laden with possibility and impossibility, desire and regret mingling in soft desperation.

  Alain pulled back, his eyes never leaving my face. ‘Did that answer your question?’

  I struggled to speak. ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  The crowds were beginning to disperse as the rain slowed to a drizzle, then stopped as suddenly as it had started. A pair of middle-aged ladies gave us disapproving looks as Alain took my hand and we followed them out of the shelter. The sun shone again, burning brightly to dry the gravel pathways. I shivered a little.

  Alain squeezed my hand. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You’re quiet.’

  ‘That’s because I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Je comprends.’

  The sound of him speaking French made my heart miss a beat. That and the knowledge that he did understand. I had to go home tomorrow. The likelihood that this could ever lead to anything was slim at best and would rely on me taking massive action and a huge leap of faith. I knew I was in no position to do that right now, either emotionally or in practical terms. Alain knew it, too.

  We didn’t leave until the zoo was ready to kick us out. While I excused myself to visit the loo, Alain disappeared into the gift shop where I tracked him down at the tills, pocketing his wallet and clutching a paper bag.

  He held it out to me. ‘To remind you of your grown-up visit to the zoo.’

  And to remind you of me. As the unspoken words floated between us, I took the bag from him and peered inside at something grey and fluffy. Intrigued, I reached in and pulled out a soft toy – a gibbon with long dangling legs and arms and a cute baby on its back.

  ‘It goes around your neck. Look.’ Alain pointed to a little girl leaving the zoo proudly sporting hers. While I was distracted, he stretched the gibbon’s arms around my neck and fastened the hands together. ‘There.’

  Embarrassed and inordinately pleased at the same time, I stroked the velvety fur. ‘Thank you. I can’t remember the last time someone bought me a soft toy.’

  ‘That’s what will make it a unique and treasured gift.’

  I smiled. A ridiculous gift it might be, but I already knew he was right. I sported it all the way to the car, where it was removed so it – and I – wouldn’t be throttled by the seat belt.

  Alain glanced at the clock on the dashboard. ‘Damn. We need to get back.’

  ‘Oh? Do you need to be somewhere?’

  His cheeks reddened a little. ‘No. Ah. Well, yes. And you must have things to do.’ He went quiet and fiddled with the radio. I was happy not to chat. All I could think about was our kiss and whether anything could ever come of it – but moving to a foreign country for all the wrong reasons simply wasn’t on the cards.

  When we arrived back at La Cour des Roses, the courtyard was crowded with cars.

  I frowned. ‘Who the hell are all these people?’

  Alain cleared his throat. ‘Come on, let’s go in.’

  ‘Alain, thank you, but you don’t need to escort me in. I’m a big girl now.’

  ‘Need a quick word with Rupert,’ he muttered.

  Shaking my head, I got out of the car and headed up the steps into the kitchen.

  ‘Emmy. Have a nice day?’ Rupert came through from the guest lounge.

  ‘Yes, thanks. What are all those cars doing out there? We could barely park!’

  He shrugged. ‘I decided to have a party. Come on through and join in.’

  ‘But Rupert, I’m tired,’ I whined. ‘Can’t I just go for a bath?’

  Rupert snorted, pushing me down the hall. ‘Hardly, love. Not when you’re the guest of honour.’

  ‘I�
�m... What?’

  But it was too late. I’d been propelled into a room of revellers.

  20

  There were greetings and cheers at my appearance. I spotted the crew from the dinner party – Ellie, Philippe (although no Martine this time), Bob and Jonathan. The Bedfords were there, along with some of this week’s gîte guests. Ryan with Brenda and Richard. Sophie grinned at me from across the room and raised her glass in my direction.

  I turned to Alain. ‘You knew about this, didn’t you?’ I hissed.

  He gave me a sheepish look. ‘Knew about it. Didn’t have much say in it. I’ve learned to do what I’m told where Rupert’s concerned.’

  His hangdog look made me laugh, and as a glass of wine was pushed into my hand, I figured I might as well give in and enjoy the evening. As Alain said, it was best to do as you were told where Rupert was concerned.

  The sideboard groaned with nibbles that my host must have spent all day preparing while I was out of the way. I worried he might have overdone it, especially with gîte changeover day tomorrow, but he seemed in high spirits and I told myself that as of tomorrow morning, he was no longer my responsibility. My heart sank a little at the thought.

  Jonathan ambled over and gave me a tight bear hug. ‘Rupert’s going to miss you, Emmy. God knows what he’s going to do without you.’

  ‘Stop making the poor girl feel guilty, you old fool,’ Ellie said, coming swiftly to my rescue. ‘Ignore him, Emmy. Jonathan and Rupert are the absolute champions at emotional blackmail – as I’m sure you know by now.’ She winked. ‘Come and have a girly chat with me and Sophie while Jonathan gives Alain a list of all the little favours he needs doing in the next week or so.’

  Alain gave me a smile as he turned fondly back to Jonathan, and I allowed myself to be dragged across the room.

  Sophie kissed me on both cheeks. ‘Did you have a lovely day?’