The French for Love

by Fiona Valpy

  Cédric arrives, and my heart somersaults at the sight of him, freshly showered after his day’s work, wearing a clean shirt and faded jeans and carrying a bunch of fragrant white roses. We kiss, and I hold him tightly, pressing my body against his and melting into him. Every nerve ending in me tingles with the knowledge that this is right, that we’re meant to be together. But the niggling little voice of insecurity and uncertainty deep inside whispers, ‘I don’t belong here; he doesn’t really trust me; in the end you can’t trust anyone.’

  Cédric chats away over dinner, filling me in on the latest gossip from Sainte Foy. The mairie is the hub of the town, dominating the central square, and working on the roof there, he’s in a position to watch all the comings and goings of daily life. I listen in silence as he describes the absurd dramas of the community with fond humour, his face animated, his handsome features relaxed. He’s mopping up the last traces of gravy from his plate when he suddenly glances at me and says, ‘Why so quiet tonight, Gina? There’s something on your mind.’

  And so I tell him. I explain about Harry’s call and the interview and everything Charles Barrow’s told me about the job. He sits quietly, letting me speak, hearing me out. And when I finish, he looks down at his empty plate, very carefully sets his knife and fork onto it and, still not looking at me, says, ‘I see.’

  There’s a silence that’s loud with pain and disappointment and I rush to fill it.

  ‘Of course, I haven’t had all the details of the job offer yet, and nothing’s been decided.’

  ‘But there is a job offer,’ he says quietly. ‘You contacted this guy. And had an interview with him. Without mentioning it to me.’ He raises his eyes to meet my beseeching ones, the fault lines of pain fracturing across his face. ‘Do the children and I really mean so little to you, Gina? How can you do this to them? After all they’ve already been through.’

  I start to protest, but he holds up his hand.

  ‘You want this job. I can see that. I should have known. I thought it was wonderful you were studying for this new qualification, I was so proud of you. But now I see how ambitious you are. Putting your career before me, before family. You English are all the same. It’s all about business and money for you, isn’t it? I should never have trusted you.’

  The voice of insecurity flares up inside me, suddenly huge with rage. ‘You didn’t trust me though, did you Cédric? You didn’t trust me enough to let me pick up the children. You never really let me be properly part of your family. I could never match up to Isabelle, could I?’

  And that’s when it strikes me that we’re both talking in the past tense. As you do when you know something is over.

  ‘And you know what?’ I finish with a sense of despair that almost makes me choke. ‘In my experience, even family can betray you. So in the end maybe it’s better if I stand on my own two feet.’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Love in a Foreign Language

  To-Do list:

  •Book ferry crossing

  •Make up spare room for Mum

  •Pack

  •Give up impossible pursuits such as relationships and get on with life (again)—ongoing.

  The really sad thing is, I realise in the days that follow, if he’d swept me off my feet then and there, asked me to marry him and to be the mother of his children, I’d have dropped the idea of the London job in a heartbeat.

  But he didn’t. He certainly showed his true colours. Just as well we found out sooner rather than later how incompatible we really are, I tell myself, as I start to pack up the house. There’s a lot to do to get it ready for selling. There’s no point dragging things out here, where I’ll bump into Cédric or Mireille or any one of a hundred members of the Thibault clan if I so much as venture out of my front gate.

  The offer letter from Barrow Brothers has arrived. It’s everything I could have asked for. Slightly more, in fact, when it comes to the salary.

  So why do I feel so empty inside?

  Mum’s flying out to help me finish packing up and to share the driving home. I’ve hired a ‘man with a van’ to bring back the few things I want and I’m leaving the rest here to be sold with the house.

  Lafite will have to suffer the indignity of being micro-chipped and having his vaccinations topped up so that he can be issued with his pet passport. He glares at me balefully as I stash Liz’s files of negatives and photographs into cardboard boxes, as if he knows he’s not going to like the next stage of his life. My pride won’t let me ask Mireille to keep him.

  I hesitate when I get to the sitting room. The urn with Liz’s ashes is still there on the coffee table. I’ll scatter them amongst the vines just before I go, I decide. Perhaps Mum would like to be there for that. I close the door softly behind me. I move carefully these days, feeling as if any sudden movement might make me shatter into a thousand pieces. I drift from room to room like a ghost, numb with grief and a sense of loss even more overwhelming than that which has gone before...

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Having my mother here helps a little. She busies herself with lending a hand to pack up the house and we work companionably alongside one another. I know she must be worried about me because she so readily agreed to come when I asked her. I realise it’s the first time she’s ever stayed in this house.

  It’s a grey, blustery day, the autumn wind whipping angrily through the bare branches of the trees. We’re wrapping china in sheets of newspaper, our fingers grimy with smudged black ink.

  ‘Your father would have approved thoroughly of your job, you know, and been so proud of how well you’re doing with the Master of Wine qualification,’ she tells me, trying to raise my spirits. I know I’m terrible company at the moment.

  I nod. ‘Well, I’ve still got to get through the exams in the summer, and then write my dissertation next year. But it’s good to have that to focus on. I’m going to be really busy getting stuck into the job too. And I thought I might try writing a couple of pieces and submitting them to Carafe magazine. You never know; maybe I’ll end up following in Dad’s footsteps after all.’

  There’s another pause, as I wonder whether I can ask the next question I want to put to my mother. I swallow nervously and then say as nonchalantly as possible, ‘Did Dad ever used to come and stay here? When he was over on his wine-tasting trips, I mean.’

  Mum considers my question for a moment, apparently concentrating hard on folding paper around a teacup. Then she lifts her head and gives me a searching look, still saying nothing. The silence begins to grow heavy with unspoken meaning and I drop my eyes. I pick up a sugar bowl and fiddle nervously with the lid.

  Finally she speaks.

  ‘He loved her, you know,’ she says very quietly. ‘I did wonder whether you had realised.’ There’s another pause and I say nothing, my heart beating hard as I digest what she’s just said.

  ‘We’d only been married a few months,’ she continues, ‘and David had to come to Bordeaux for some wine-tasting event. He hadn’t met Liz before—she’d been working in New York for a year—but she’d come back to France, to this house, for a holiday between assignments. So I said, “You two must meet up since you’re going to be so nearby.”’ She gives a short, unhappy laugh.

  ‘I knew the minute he got back something had happened. He’d told me he hadn’t had a chance to come here, that work had kept him in Bordeaux. Only I’d already heard from Celia Everett that they’d had him and Liz to dinner while he was staying—she’d chattered on about how lovely it’d been to meet him and how well they’d all got on. So I knew something wasn’t right and I sensed things had changed between us.’

  She pauses, a flicker of hurt dimming her eyes. ‘Then he said he had something important to tell me. And I said, “That’s a coincidence because I’ve got something to tell you, too.” Because I was pregnant with you. And I decided then and there that I wasn’t going to let my baby be born into a family that had been ripped apart by this impossible situation. So anyway, he said,
“You go first then”—always the gentleman,’ she smiles. ‘I’ll never forget the look on his face, a terrible mixture of joy and pain. He decided to do the right thing, of course, and stay.’ Her voice grows stronger as she talks and I realise that perhaps it’s a relief for her to be able to share the burden that she’s carried alone for so many years.

  She reaches across to me. ‘It’s really important that you know this, Gina—that he never regretted that decision. Being a father to you. And a good husband to me.’

  ‘So that’s why you never wanted to come here,’ I say, holding tight to her hand.

  She shrugs. ‘It was hard, living with the knowledge that I was keeping apart the two people who’d been dearest to me. And neither of them ever mentioned it again, but it was always there, the elephant in the middle of the room. To answer your earlier question, I don’t know whether David ever came here when he was over for work. I didn’t want to know. Some stones are better left unturned. I knew that whatever happened he would always come home to the daughter he adored. And I knew, too, that Liz would never do anything to hurt you. Or me either, come to that. She was a wonderful sister really and whatever happened between them must have been born of a moment of madness, some irresistible force of nature that was stronger than them both. I felt guilty in a way, for being what got in the way of their being together. I also had to live with the knowledge that they stayed apart for my sake, as well as yours. It’s not easy living a life of indebtedness, having to be grateful all the time, you know.’ She smiles and then reaches over to hug me. I hug her back, hard. I see it all so differently now that I understand.

  There are a thousand more questions I want to ask, but I sense that now is not the time. Mum’s already given me an awful lot to digest. And anyway, maybe she’s right; some stones are better left unturned. Perhaps, as Mireille said, sometimes it’s better just to let the past be.

  Then she continues, in a brisker tone, ‘Now that we’ve got all that out in the open, there’s something else I wanted to ask you about. Liz’s ashes. Have you already scattered them somewhere?’

  I shake my head. ‘No. I wasn’t sure what to do with them. They’re in the sitting room.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know what you think about this idea, but I wonder whether it’s time now to let them be together. Why don’t we scatter them where we did Dad’s, beside his bench at the edge of the ridge?’

  I look carefully into her face, but her expression is calm, happier and more peaceful than I’ve seen it in years. ‘Would you really be okay with that?’ I ask.

  ‘The way I see it, they couldn’t be together in life, so it’s right that they should finally be together in death. I still loved both of them very much, you know. Families are complicated things, Gina. I quite like the thought of having the pair of them at the bottom of the garden.’ Mum strokes my hair. ‘Anyway, they’d both have been so proud of you now. But so sad too, that you’re sacrificing so much for your career. In the end, family is what counts the most you know.’

  I’m silent for a few moments, still trying to absorb everything she’s just told me. And then I sit bolt upright, realisation dawning. Because suddenly I understand how very much I have been loved by my father and my aunt. But most of all by my mother, who was prepared to risk losing her beloved sister for the sake of her unborn child. Who was prepared to sacrifice so much for the sake of having a family, and holding it together, whatever it took.

  In shock, I face my mother, aghast. ‘Oh, Mum, I think I’ve made the most terrible mistake.’

  She smiles at me serenely. ‘Gina, my darling, there are very many ways to have a successful career, but you’re only going to find the love of your life once, you know. My advice to you is to grab hold of Cédric with both hands and hang on tight!’

  I dial Cédric’s mobile with shaking hands, knowing that I have to speak to him straight away. I need to put right all that’s got lost in translation between us. To tell him that I know we can both learn to trust one another after all, that we can find a way to build our own family together.

  There’s no reply and Cédric’s phone cuts over to voicemail.

  I snatch up my car keys and head out of the kitchen door.

  ‘Drive safely!’ Mum calls after me.

  The Thibault brothers’ lorry is parked in front of the mairie and I pull up beside it with a jerk. Raphael, who’s unloading roof tiles from the back, looks startled to see me arrive so precipitously out of the blue, but pulls himself together and comes to open my car door.

  ‘Where’s Cédric? I need to talk to him. Straight away,’ I gasp. I can’t let another minute go by without knowing that it’s not too late.

  Raphael gestures upwards, where the front of the building is swathed in scaffolding. Florian comes over to see what’s going on. When he catches sight of me he calls up to Pierre who’s halfway up a ladder, a stack of tiles balanced on his shoulder. Pierre peers down and then calls up to Cédric, who appears from behind the balustrade that runs around the edge of the roof. ‘What is it?’ he shouts.

  ‘There’s someone here who wants to talk to you,’ bellows Florian, pointing towards me. His words are snatched away by a gust of wind.

  ‘I can’t hear you,’ Cédric shouts back.

  ‘Gina’s here!’ yells Pierre, pointing down at me.

  Cédric peers over the edge of the stonework and takes in the scene below him in the square. ‘What do you want? Are you all right, Gina?’

  The fact that he’s concerned about me, even a tiny bit, gives me a surge of hope and I shout up to him, ‘I’ve made a mistake.’ But my lips are dry and my voice comes out in a squeak.

  Cédric holds a hand to his ear, gesturing that he can’t hear.

  ‘She says she’s made a mistake,’ bellows Raphael.

  Pierre relays the message upwards, in case his brother still hasn’t got the gist of it. ‘She’s made a mistake. Again!’

  I bridle slightly at the ‘again’. But actually he has a point, so I let it go.

  By now, several passers-by have stopped to watch, craning their heads to look up at Cédric high above us all. He hesitates, unsure, reluctant to climb down.

  I shout again, louder now, so that he’ll hear me over the blustering wind. ‘I love you. I’m not leaving. I want to stay here with you and Luc and Nathalie.’

  A couple of shopkeepers have now come to stand in their doorways, the better to enjoy the scene that’s unfolding in the place, a welcome diversion on a quiet morning. A van pulls up, the driver rolling down his window and craning his head to see what everyone’s looking at. A car comes up behind him and toots impatiently, but the van driver is now deep in conversation with one of the shopkeepers, who’s filling him in on what he’s missed, gesturing towards me and then to Cédric up on the roof, and so the driver of the car rolls down her window too for a better look, oblivious to the traffic jam that’s starting to build up behind her.

  Two gendarmes appear out of the mairie and I think maybe they’re going to arrest me for public disorder. I need to get my message across—and fast. I throw back my head, take a deep breath, searching for the exact phrase I need.

  ‘J’ai envie de toi!’ I shout against the wind, with every ounce of strength in my body. I want you. I need you. I desire you. And the whole of the town now knows it.

  The brothers cheer, and the assembled crowd—including the gendarmes—applauds as Cédric scrambles down the ladder, jumping the last few feet.

  He pauses in front of me, still a little wary. ‘Are you sure you know what you’re saying?’ he asks, his voice trembling, his eyes so full of hope that my heart lurches with relief.

  And I whisper, ‘I know exactly what I’m saying. I love you. And now I understand that that’s all that matters.’

  ‘But your work...’

  ‘I’ll find something here. After all, we are in the middle of the world’s biggest and best-known wine region. There must be something I can do.’

  I put my arms out and he h
ugs me to him, holding me so tightly that I know this time he’ll never let me go.

  EPILOGUE

  It’s an early summer’s night and the moonlight is streaming in through the skylights in the bedroom ceiling. I rub my eyes, which are gritty with tiredness, and glance over at the clock. Two twenty. It must be a good two years now since my insomnia began and I’ve given up all hope of ever having a full night’s sleep again.

  I wonder briefly where my Filofax has got to. I haven’t seen it for ages but it’s probably buried under a pile of papers in the study. Or maybe Nathalie has been using it to play ‘Businesswomen’ with her friends again, clicking about in a pair of my high heels and one of my old work jackets with a smudge of lip gloss on her mouth. Not that I need it any more—finding the time to write a To-Do list these days is about as unlikely as finding an affordable bottle of Château Pétrus...

  I gaze at my husband, who is fast asleep beside me, worn out at the end of another hard day’s work. Downstairs, Luc and Nathalie are asleep in their rooms. Luc will have his beloved iPod plugged into his ears, having fallen asleep listening to his latest downloads. He’s taken it upon himself to try to educate me, introducing me to the likes of Blink-182 and Bloc Party, although we still dance around the kitchen to some of my playlists with Marc Bolan and The Beach Boys when no one’s looking.

  And I know Lafite will be curled up at the end of Nathalie’s bed, watching over her from his favourite spot.

  In my arms, our newborn baby son is just dropping off again after his two a.m. feed. Cédric says he’s going to grow up to be a famous wine writer, like his English grandfather and his mother. (In my case, I’m not sure that the one article to date published in Carafe magazine qualifies me for fame, although Mireille still carries a copy around in her handbag and has shown it to everyone from the postman to the mayor. But then I do have to fit in my writing between looking after my children and selling the wines of a number of local producers into the UK, so at least it’s a start.)