The French for Love

by Fiona Valpy

  ‘Finished, thank goodness,’ he says. ‘You’ll have to come and see it one of these days. It’s turned out well we think. I’d be pleased to show you what we’ve done.’

  And Raphael’s hand?

  ‘Better now, he’s back in action. He and Florian are finishing dismantling the scaffolding on the church tower. So Pierre and I can come on Monday morning to get started on the work on the ceiling for you, if that’s convenient? We’ve got a couple of things we need to do in the afternoon, but we should be able to get the job finished on Tuesday morning at the latest. It’s not going to take us long.’

  ‘Yes, that’d be fine’ I reply. ‘But there’s no rush. Come whenever suits you, if you have other work you need to get done first.’

  How cool am I?

  ‘No, Monday will be fine. You’ve been very patient. We’ll be there around nine. We need to go to Lacombe first to get the materials we’ll need.’

  ‘Okay, if you’re sure. That’s great then. Have a good weekend. See you Monday.’

  And I sit back down at my desk, feeling just a little wistful for something that feels like it’s now over. Before it had ever even begun.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I’m still glad to see the blue pickup, closely followed by the red motorbike, roll up the drive on Monday morning. I’ve shut myself away from the outside world since the harvest, politely declining the occasional invitation from Celia to come for lunch or dinner, my only other human contact—apart from sporadic trips to the supermarket—my phone calls to my mother once a week and cheery emails from Annie full of news and jokes and how busy she is at work. My replies, in comparison, seem stilted and dull. So it’s good to have Cédric and Pierre here, for a day or so at least, and to have some noise and activity in the house. Lafite winds himself round Cédric’s green overall-clad legs and he crouches to stroke him.

  Straightening up, he catches sight of me standing in the doorway and comes to kiss me on both cheeks. ‘Gina, it’s good to see you again,’ he says warmly.

  As he smiles, the lines around his eyes crinkle as usual in that way that makes my heart lurch, and my stomach does a double backflip at the touch of the rough skin of his cheek against mine.

  Honestly woman, get a grip. What is it about this man? I’m absolutely resolved not to waste any more time on impossible, unattainable relationships and I reply briskly, with a brightness that sounds brittle to my ears.

  ‘Lovely to see you both. Come on in. You know the way...’

  They bring in tools, sections of a small scaffolding platform and large sheets of grey plasterboard, and carry everything upstairs. I’ve managed to push the bed into a corner away from the open area of ceiling that they’ll be working on. They quickly cover everything in clean plastic sheeting and set to work.

  I feel more light-hearted than I have done in weeks as I hear the two men chatting and laughing easily as they work in the room above me. It’s just that it’s nice having company in the house, I tell myself cheerily.

  At midday they come down the stairs. ‘Well, we’ve got the boards up,’ says Cédric. ‘I’ll pop back tomorrow morning to tape the joints and skim them and then the ceiling will be ready for you to paint. It’s going to be as good as new when you’ve finished.’

  He busies himself putting tools into his pickup. Do I imagine it, or is he playing for time?

  Pierre puts on his helmet and gives a wave as he roars off down the drive, leaving a cloud of white dust hanging in the air behind him

  ‘We’ve left the bed in the corner for the time being,’ Cédric says. ‘Otherwise we’d just have to move it again tomorrow. I hope that’s okay?’

  ‘Fine,’ I say.

  ‘Gina,’ he says. And hesitates, suddenly awkward. ‘There’s something I wanted to ask you.’ He sounds nervous, something I’ve never heard in him before.

  ‘Yes?’ I ask. And suddenly I find I can’t swallow because my throat has constricted. With hope? Or is it despair?

  ‘If you aren’t busy, would you come and have dinner with me tomorrow evening?’

  A bombshell.

  It’s all I’ve ever wanted and all I don’t. Handed to me on a plate after all these months of wondering, dreaming, hoping. He must see written clearly on my face the conflicting emotions that crowd in as I take on board what he is asking. What he is offering.

  It’s everything. And nothing at all.

  I clear my throat. ‘Just to be clear,’ I say cautiously, ‘who else would be there?’

  He looks confused.

  ‘Nobody. Just you and me. We can go wherever you like...’

  As he tails off, a red rage floods my veins like liquid fire, flushing my face with its righteous heat.

  ‘How dare you,’ I say coldly, but my voice is shaking with emotion. ‘What the hell is it with you Frenchmen? No, never mind you French—just men in general. You all think you can play games with women. The fact that someone is in a serious relationship seems to mean nothing at all to you. Well, I can tell you, I’m not interested in cheating. I want no part of it. So thank you very much for your terribly kind invitation,’ I’m getting into my stride now and my voice is stronger, sarcastic, my French gratifyingly fluent, ‘but I don’t think I want what you are offering. Affairs are just not my style.’

  He drops his eyes, ashamed. And so he should be. Poor Marie-Louise. Poor Nathalie and Luc.

  ‘I’m... I’m sorry, Gina,’ he stammers. ‘I didn’t realise... I didn’t think...’

  ‘That I’d mind? Well, I do. You picked the wrong girl I’m afraid. Sorry. Let’s just not mention this again, okay?’

  And I turn on my heel and stalk into the kitchen, firmly closing the door behind me.

  Through the glass I see him climb into the cab of his truck, his shoulders sagging. He sits staring out through the windscreen for a few seconds before starting the engine and driving off. And I collapse into a chair and bury my fingers in my hair, clutching both sides of my head in anger. And not a little frustration. And, if I’m being perfectly honest, total disappointment and despair. If even Cédric, this quiet, strong, capable, warm, family-loving man wants to have his cake and eat it too, what hope is there for womankind?

  I groan, reliving the scene that has just taken place, cringing with embarrassment and humiliation. How awkward is it going to be when he comes back tomorrow? If he comes back tomorrow—maybe he won’t now and my bedroom ceiling will remain forever unfinished and I’ll have to lie in my lonely, spinster bed every night and look up at it as a reminder of what could have been. Am I being a prude? Do other women merrily leap into bed with married men all the time at the drop of a hat? (Or rather a pair of trousers.) How awkward is it going to be when I run into Mireille? Or, oh, God, Marie-Louise?

  What a disaster. And I’m never going to meet anyone living here. But I can’t go back to England yet. Unless I sell the house. That’s what I’ll have to do. Who in their right mind would want to live here anyway? Where my father most probably betrayed my mother with her own sister. Where I’ve been coming all these years ignorant of that fact, thinking I loved this place, believing I was loved by my aunt. Now the tears are rolling down my face, and I let them come, crying until I am emptied out. And afterwards, spent and exhausted, I go upstairs and lie down on the bed in the corner of the bedroom and gaze blankly up at the neatly patched ceiling until I fall asleep.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  I’m up early the next morning. I didn’t sleep much anyway, inevitably. I’m determined to be brisk and businesslike when Cédric arrives. It’s not going to take him long to finish up and I’m keen to get him out of both the house and my life as quickly as possible. I sit studiously at my computer, trying to convince myself—and anyone who should happen to come up the drive—that I’m terribly busy with some important research. The clock in the hall ticks ponderously and the minutes stretch to hours. No one appears. Well, what did I expect? He’s obviously gone off in a huff, his male ego wounded by my rejection, and now the damn cei
ling’s never going to be finished.

  It’s early afternoon when I hear the sound of an engine in the courtyard. I glance towards the window and the wind is taken out of my sails somewhat when I see it’s Pierre’s motorbike that’s arrived instead of Cédric’s pickup. I go to the door.

  ‘Hello,’ I say politely.

  Pierre is distant, preoccupied. ‘Hello, Gina,’ he says. ‘I’ve come to finish things off. Sorry I couldn’t get here this morning; Raphael needed me on another job. May I come in?’ He shrugs a small rucksack off his shoulders.

  ‘Of course.’

  We both sound stilted and self-conscious. Clearly he knows what’s happened and has come in his brother’s place, to save him any further embarrassment. Well, at least Cédric must have a guilty conscience—that’s something, I suppose.

  Pierre busies himself upstairs, his silence a stark contrast to yesterday’s cheerful banter. Apart from a somewhat stony request for water with which to mix the filler that he’s going to skim over the joints, there’s no conversation. I try to concentrate on my work, but the atmosphere is as oppressive as the build-up to a summer thunderstorm and my head feels hot and heavy. I push aside a pile of notebooks with a sigh. Honestly, why should I be made to feel like this? I’m the innocent one here. Who knows what Cédric has told his brother... Maybe he said I tried to make a pass at him. Ha! That really would be rich.

  I make a cup of tea, not bothering to offer Pierre one as I can’t face the cool rejection that I’m sure the offer will elicit. I take it outside to sit on the step in the late afternoon sunshine, to try and clear my head.

  Eventually Pierre comes down the stairs, packing tools and his rolled-up green overalls into his rucksack as he goes, evidently in a hurry to get out of my house and away as quickly as possible. I get up from the step, still clutching my mug.

  ‘It’s finished?’ I ask.

  ‘Oui,’ he replies with a curt nod. He pulls on his leather jacket and shrugs the rucksack onto his back, then flings one leg over the motorbike. Just as he’s about to fit the helmet over his unruly curls, he pauses and looks at me standing awkwardly by the step.

  There’s a pregnant silence. And then he speaks.

  ‘It was an honest mistake,’ he says. ‘Cédric’s really fallen for you. That’s why he risked asking, in spite of what everyone has been saying about your situation. He thought it was just gossip.’

  There’s another silence as I try to digest what he’s just said. Blimey, even his own brother is encouraging a little adultery on the side now.

  And then I think, you what? Am I missing something in translation?

  ‘Excuse me?’ I say coolly. ‘What’s my situation got to do with it? It’s his own situation that’s the problem. I know you French are very broad-minded about these things but, bourgeois as it may seem, I’m not prepared to get involved with a married man.’

  There’s another silence as Pierre appears to be struggling to understand what I’ve just said.

  ‘A married man,’ he repeats stupidly.

  Now he seems to be on the back foot, but I’m just starting to get into my stride. ‘Yes. Poor Marie-Louise. I don’t care how open a relationship they have; that’s up to them—in fact the whole situation is not something that interests me in the slightest.’

  ‘Marie-Louise,’ he repeats. Now he appears to be completely at a loss. Then he says, very calmly and reasonably, as you would to a lunatic who you were trying not to derange any more than was clearly already the case, ‘The same Marie-Louise who is married to Florian?’

  ‘Precisely,’ I say triumphantly.

  And then I realise what he’s just said. Now it’s my turn to repeat what’s just been said. ‘Marie-Louise is married to Florian.’ I can feel the blood draining from my face.

  Pierre looks at me curiously.

  ‘But...’ I stammer. ‘But if Marie-Louise is married to Florian, who is married to Cédric?’

  A grin begins to spread across Pierre’s face as the centime begins to drop. And then his expression changes to one of sadness. ‘Gina,’ he says, speaking very slowly and clearly, as if to a complete idiot, ‘Cédric’s wife, Isabelle, died three years ago. Breast cancer. He hasn’t looked at another woman since. Until you came along, that is. Marie-Louise was Isa’s best friend from school days. She and Florian have been happily married for twelve years; they have three sons.’ And then he says more gently, ‘How can you have lived here all these months and know nothing of this?’

  How indeed? I hardly know myself. I suppose it’s because I’ve been so immersed in trying to fathom my own family’s complicated relationships that I’ve effectively shut myself away from the world.

  ‘But she danced with him at Bastille Night,’ I say lamely, struggling to make sense of everything I’ve just been told.

  ‘That’s because Florian has two left feet, and Cédric loves to dance,’ says Pierre with a shrug.

  ‘But Nathalie... and Luc...’ I tail off, lamely.

  ‘Yeah, it’s been tough for them, but Marie-Louise collects them from school some days, and others the school bus drops them at my mother’s,’ he nods in the direction of Mireille’s house, ‘so it’s not a problem. That’s what families are for, after all.’

  There’s another silence while I contemplate this, and then think of my own family which seems far too sparse and somewhat lacking in comparison. And then, replaying the conversation we’ve just had, another thought occurs to me.

  ‘Hang on a second,’ I say indignantly. ‘Just what are people saying about my situation?’

  ‘Well, first of all, you were with that terrible guy with the red face. Everyone saw you dancing with him at Bastille Night.’

  ‘I was never with him,’ I cry.

  ‘Okay, maybe—but then Christine Cortini told Marie-Louise that she and Robert saw you and your English friend being very affectionate indeed on the bridge in Sainte Foy after an intimate meal à deux.’

  I look blank. ‘My English friend.’ I’m back in repetition mode.

  ‘Yes, you know, the one with the magnificent breasts. What was her name? Annie.’

  Oh, God. So first Cédric thought I was an item with Nigel Yates and then he thought I was gay. I have a sudden flashback to the scene on the terrace with a scantily clad Annie doing her orgasm impression. Come to think of it, that probably didn’t help matters much either.

  And then I realise that, despite all this, Cédric still liked me enough to cling on to the hope that he might still be in with a chance. And he finally plucked up the courage to ask me out. I hear my shrill tirade from yesterday echoing in my head, berating him for being a cheating bastard.

  Pierre continues, with a nod at the mug in my hand, ‘He even drank your horrible tea every day, just so he could have a chance to talk to you.’

  ‘Oh, no, Pierre. I’ve made the most terrible mistake,’ I wail.

  But he’s not really listening as he’s taken out his mobile phone and is busy composing a text message. He obviously has more important things to deal with, like his own social life, for instance, than this crazy English woman who hasn’t a clue what’s going on in the world beyond her front gate.

  With a final irritatingly dismissive shrug and a wave, he clamps the helmet firmly on his head and roars off down the drive and I’m left standing forlornly in the courtyard gazing after him.

  Stunned, I sit back down on the step, cradling my head in my hands as I try to absorb all I’ve just heard. How could I have been so wrong? I feel more of an outsider than ever, as I contemplate the intricate, tightly knit web of support that is the Thibault family. I’ve been living in a community that has observed and commented on my every move, while I’ve carried on blissfully unaware. I’ve been so wrapped up in my own affairs that I haven’t made any attempt to find out more about my own neighbours, to understand them, to know their battles and their triumphs, to take part. And worst of all, I’ve now hurt and insulted one of the best men I’ve ever met, who has already suf
fered more than his share of loss and grief. I’ve blown my chances with what might just have been the man of my dreams.

  A few minutes later, a car swishes by at the end of the drive and I glance up in time to catch a fleeting glimpse of a familiar dark blue pickup. For a second my heart lurches as I think it’s going to turn into the drive, but to my dismay it carries on along the lane. Cédric must be going to collect Nathalie and Luc from Mireille’s.

  I leap to my feet. I have to put this right. I’ll go over and ask him to step outside so I can apologise, try to explain.

  I hurry up the drive, anxious to get this over and done with, trying to think of the French for, ‘Sorry I’m such a complete bloody idiot,’ and, ‘Do you think you can ever find it in your heart to forgive me?’ And then I see that a figure in dusty green overalls is coming towards me along the lane, hurrying just as much as I am.

  As he draws near, I see the look on his face and I realise that, for once, Pierre’s main priority wasn’t sorting out his social life. He was texting his brother to let him know that the crazy English girl had got it all wrong. That she was so wrapped up in her own preoccupations that she couldn’t see what was going on right in front of her nose.

  We stop, awkward now we’re face to face again, and I begin to blurt out, ‘I’m so sorry...’ when Cédric reaches out and puts a finger on my lips to stop me. His touch sends a jolt of longing through my body, so powerful that I lean into him and lose myself in his kiss.

  The loneliness and frustration of the past months melt away as our bodies meld seamlessly together. The unspoken current of desire between us ignites into a blaze more powerful than any I’ve known before. And I know that all we can do is surrender ourselves to it. And then, over the sound of the pounding of my heart, I hear the hoarse, ratchet-like cry of a magpie, and another’s triumphant answering call in the branches of the trees above our heads.