The Chateau of Happily-Ever-Afters

by Jaimie Admans

  I smack him round the head again.

  ‘Ow! Is it National “Beat Up the Scottish” Day or what?’

  ‘I just meant that what your ex said will never be true. The outside didn’t change. What changed my perception of you is who you are on the inside. Fat or not-fat doesn’t matter, just like wearing glasses and leaving your hair loose doesn’t. And you’re many things, but you’re definitely not boring.’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ He pulls back and looks at me, and I miss his cuddle like a duvet being ripped off in the middle of a winter night. ‘I am. I like reading and I like gardening. I like drinking tea. If I don’t have to work, sometimes I don’t get out of my pyjamas until midday. Sometimes I don’t get out of them at all. I like wearing my slippers and dressing gown and curling up with a good book. When I need to unwind, I relax in a bubble bath with lavender oil. Sometimes I light candles around the edge of the bath. One of my favourite things is an early night. I wouldn’t be out of place in a nursing home.’

  I giggle at him because even his self-deprecating sarcasm can make me laugh. ‘You just described the perfect man.’

  He rolls his eyes and reaches out to pick up my hands and swing them between us.

  ‘None of that makes you boring, Jules.’ I think of the guy splashing in puddles in the rain the other night. The one who sings ‘Grow For Me’ to his plants. The one who shovels uncooked cake batter into his mouth like a naughty kid. ‘It just means you were with the wrong person.’

  I don’t even know why I say it. It’s not like I’m the right person. Even if I liked Jules in that way, I could never be the right person. He and I will always be connected by this huge, expensive château, and I can’t have another relationship where money comes into it, and somewhere as old as this is always going to need money coming in. We’ve already argued about fifty euros over a few trees. What’s going to happen when bills come in and things need fixing?

  Even if he liked me in that way too, I wouldn’t be the right person for him. I just don’t like to see him discrediting himself.

  His mouth quirks up at one side and he smiles a sad smile. ‘Thanks, but—’

  I don’t give myself time to think about hugging him again because I won’t if I overthink it. ‘No buts,’ I say into his ear as I pull him close.

  He wraps his arms around the outside of my upper arms, holding me still and squeezing me into him, rocking us gently. It’s more of a friendly hug than it was just now, which is probably a good thing. He rubs his hands up and down my back and mine are trapped between us, and I’m getting way too used to Jules having his arms around me. In a matter of days, I’m not going to see him again. He’s going to stay here and I’m going to be at home. If we do run into each other again, he’ll undoubtedly have a girlfriend by then and hugging him like this will be out of the question. I suddenly feel like I want to cling on to him, to twist my hands in his shirt and hold on, and maybe if I hold tight enough, next week will never come.

  I push myself away from him and step back. ‘Sorry, I need to get on, can’t stand here all night doing nothing.’

  A flash of hurt crosses his face and he hides it instantly, but I understand it. Cuddling him doesn’t feel like doing nothing. It feels like doing something I shouldn’t be doing when I have to leave in a few days.

  I go back across the kitchen and concentrate on cutting baking paper to line my oven trays.

  He kicks each heel alternately against the cupboard. ‘So, I’ll make up cards for you at the market on Saturday. It won’t be the same but I’ll write down the basics and the pronunciation, and I’ll make them big and neat so you can hold them up and let customers read them if you need to, and there’s a French dictionary in the car, I’ll leave that with you too, and I’ll explain the situation to Kat and ask if she can get her round finished any quicker.’

  I feel my whole body deflate as I realise what he’s saying, what Kinzi said this morning, and why I’ve been steadfastly blocking it out all day. ‘You won’t be here.’

  ‘Masters have brought the shoot forward. I’ve got to be there on Saturday.’

  I nod, trying to ignore the burning in my nose and the sudden increase in blinking. ‘When will you be back?’

  ‘I’ll go Friday so I get there in time, fitting on Saturday, the shoot is scheduled to run Monday and Tuesday, so I’ll drive back Wednesday.’

  ‘I leave on Tuesday.’

  ‘Yeah.’ I hear him swallow in the silence of the kitchen. ‘I know.’

  ‘So you’ll be going before me.’

  ‘Yeah. Sorry. This is the biggest photoshoot of my career. I can’t miss it. I loved doing the market with you last week, but this shoot will be so much exposure for me. It’ll get me jobs for the next year at least, and those jobs will lead to more jobs. If I could reschedule, I would, but it’s not up to me.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. I just…’ There must be onions in this shortbread recipe. That’s why my eyes are watering. Not because I don’t get another market day with him glued to my side, and not because I lose my last four days with him. I let out a breath and try to compose myself. ‘It just wasn’t meant to be this way.’

  ‘I know.’ He sighs. ‘But you’ll come back, right? Christmas?’

  Christmas? Christmas is fucking months away. ‘I work in retail. I don’t get Christmas off.’

  ‘Oh.’ He sighs. ‘Well, I’ll be in London again before long. I’ll come and find you in work and I’ll eat all your cake samples.’

  ‘It’s one per customer.’

  ‘Then I’ll bring a lot of hats and keep coming back in disguise.’

  No matter how desolate I feel, and that the hole inside me that’s been there since Eulalie died suddenly feels raw and open again, which is ridiculous over four bloody days, I find myself smiling at him. Mainly because he’s volunteering to come and see me.

  I hear him jump down off the unit and pad across the kitchen barefoot. I know he’s near me and I force myself to concentrate on punching circles out of the rolled-out shortbread dough with a cookie cutter, but there’s a dart of movement, and suddenly there’s an empty space on my oven tray, and Jules whoops in victory.

  ‘You bloody git!’ I grab a tea towel and thwack it at him but he dances across the kitchen laughing, holding his uncooked circle of shortbread aloft. It makes me giggle and forget everything that’s gone wrong today. He jumps back up on the unit and shoves half of it into his mouth, holding the other half above his head, and I see my opportunity for revenge. Jules is sitting on the edge of the unit and a good shove is all it’ll take to push him off, just like I pushed him out of bed the first night. He wriggles backwards as I start towards him, although it might be more threatening if I could get the grin off my face. In one swift movement I get both my hands on his thigh and shove. He squeals and drops the rest of the dough as he grabs on to the unit to hold himself up. The corner of it crumbles under his grip, and although it’s not very high and he lands on his feet on the floor, he’s got a handful of wood splinters as the whole corner of the unit crumbles in his hand.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘You deserved that.’

  He’s still smiling at me. ‘Maybe, but the poor unit didn’t.’

  He drops the rest of the broken unit and claps his hands together, trying to get rid of the crumbled pieces of chipboard.

  I hold my hand out and he puts the back of his hand in mine, and I rub my fingers gently across his palm, brushing away splinters. I pull until he’s standing under the light for a better view, and I bend down and blow the wood dust off.

  ‘You seem to spend a lot of time patching me up in this kitchen.’

  ‘I seem to spend a lot of time hurting you in this kitchen too.’

  ‘Aye, but I don’t mind if this is the treatment I get afterwards,’ he says, looking back at the mess of wood chips and shavings behind us.

  ‘You should be—’

  ‘Hey, Wend, there’s something in there.’ He pulls h
is hand out of mine and goes to the hole where the corner of the unit used to be.

  ‘Treasure?’ I ask doubtfully. Surely after all this time, we wouldn’t find the non-existent treasure.

  He grabs his phone off the unit and shines the torch in. ‘Not unless the treasure is a load of pages.’

  I stand back as he uses the heel of his hand to break away more of the crumbled unit, enough to pull out a stack of pages, tied together with string at one side, like a handbound book. He shakes it gently and we both choke in a cloud of dust.

  When it clears, I lay the book out and carefully prise apart the aged pages. Eulalie’s handwriting stares back at me, page after page of recipes, amendments scrawled in the margins, little pencil-drawn illustrations in places.

  ‘Recipes?’ Jules says, leaning over my shoulder.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why were they hidden like that? Why are they not in the library with the other recipe books?’

  I don’t know, but he’s got a point.

  ‘She went to a lot of trouble to hide these. Look at that unit,’ he says, and I look over at the broken corner where he’s pointing. ‘There’s a whole secret compartment at the top of that cupboard. There’s nothing to mark it. The only chance you’d have of spotting it would’ve been if you were putting something away and noticed there was an unnatural amount of space between the unit and the top of the cupboard. I can’t even see a way into it. If that unit hadn’t have broken, we’d never have found it.’

  He’s right, of course. There’s a false top to the cupboard, disguised completely, with no way in. It bothers me because it makes me wonder what else is hidden right under our noses, and why. Eulalie was never secretive with her recipes. She shared them all with me. Why would she hide these?

  I run my fingers down the pages, trying not to get distracted by Jules standing so close, pressed against my back as he reads them over my shoulder.

  ‘Chestnuts,’ I say eventually. ‘All these recipes have one ingredient in common. Chestnuts.’

  ‘She used the harvest from the orchard then?’

  ‘I guess so.’ I shake my head. ‘She never mentioned chestnuts to me in all the years I knew her. Not even at Christmas. You’d have thought that someone who used so many would’ve added them to her shopping list occasionally.’

  ‘Maybe she didn’t want to remember,’ he says, his voice a whisper against my ear. ‘Everything about this house suggests that she locked her memories up and left them here. Maybe chestnuts were an old wound she didn’t want to reopen.’

  I smile to myself, constantly surprised by his understanding of a woman he never knew.

  ‘Do you think this is what the people at the market were on about the other day? That Arleth guy kept saying “as the chestnuts fell”. I didn’t understand at the time but all of these recipes use fresh chestnuts. You could only make these at one time of year, when the chestnut harvest is ready. They fall from the trees when they’re ripe.’ Jules reaches an arm around me and runs a finger down the pages spread out on the unit. ‘Mmm, chestnut and almond cake. Chestnut and butternut squash soup.’ He makes a noise of pleasure that sends a tingle down my spine. ‘God, I bet these are delicious. Are you going to try making some of these?’

  ‘Yeah, definitely. When the chestnuts are—’ I won’t be here when the chestnuts are ready. It makes something catch in my throat and Jules knocks his shoulder against mine.

  ‘I’ll gather up a bag and bring them to you in London.’

  ‘Well, you need to learn to cook,’ I say. ‘You can’t live out here alone and not cook, you’ll starve to death.’

  ‘I’ll make sure Kat still brings me breakfast every morning. And I’ll jog into the village every day and get stuff at the épicerie.’

  I love his accent when he uses French words. He’s got the perfect pronunciation but he never loses his Scottish twang. I could listen to him read the phone book in French.

  He squeezes my shoulders and drops his arm too quickly. ‘But it’s nice of you to be worried about me.’

  Maybe I’m more worried about me, because I don’t know how I’m going to go back to real life and forget about all this. And him.

  I flip over a couple more pages, Eulalie’s handwriting just as neat as it’s always been, but less shaky here than her older days when she used to write her shopping lists out for me. ‘I didn’t know there were so many uses for chestnuts. I don’t think I’ve ever even eaten a chestnut before.’

  ‘Seriously? You’ve never had them roasted on an open fire at Christmas?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Oh, we’re going to change that this year. When those chestnuts are ready, I’ll drive to London, pick you up and bring you back here even if it’s only for a weekend. Even if it’s only a day.’

  ‘That’s a long bloody drive.’

  ‘I’ll do it in exchange for uncooked dough and roasted chestnuts. You can’t be thirty-three and never have eaten a chestnut. It’s not right.’

  I smile at him but I feel like crying.

  ‘Right, I’m going to go and shower and change into something more comfortable. I’ve put on enough weight that this shirt is like a corset now.’

  ‘You look good, Jules,’ I say, grinning at the thought of his baggy pyjamas. ‘But not as good as you look in the Homer Simpson PJs.’

  He grins. ‘I’ll be back in a bit. You staying here for a while?’

  I nod, keeping my eyes focused on the recipes because I don’t want him to see how much I don’t want him to go. The house has felt empty without him today, and now I know he’s leaving, it’s only going to feel emptier, and I have a sudden desire to hold on to him and make time stop so neither of us has to go.

  ‘Hey, Wend?’ he says from the doorway.

  I look up at him.

  ‘Your earlobes aren’t too shabby either.’

  If the kitchen floor wanted to open up and swallow me whole, that would be just fine. I can’t believe he remembers that.

  And I can’t believe he’s leaving in a few days and I won’t be here when he gets back. It’s not enough time. Never enough time. I wish I’d have got to know him sooner and not been so horrible to him in the early days. We’d have had more time together then. It’ll never be the same after this. Even if he’s still here next time I get to visit, it won’t be the same because the bubble will have burst by then.

  That’s the thing about bubbles: they always burst.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  I don’t want Friday morning to come.

  Julian’s suitcase has been by the front door since last night and now it’s gone too, loaded into his car with everything else. He’s sitting on the steps outside, ready to leave, and I keep putting off going out there because when I go out to say goodbye, he’ll leave.

  I force myself to put on my big girl pants. Four more days makes no difference. I can’t lurk inside the door all day in the hope he won’t go without saying goodbye. Outside, Jules is sitting on the steps that lead up to the château, leaning back on his elbows and looking so relaxed he could slide right down them. I sit down next to his head and he opens his eyes and looks at me upside down, and just the sight of his face, his glasses on again, makes me unable to stop myself smiling at him.

  I shouldn’t touch him, but his head is right there and his hair is loose again now Kinzi’s long gone, tangled a bit on one side, and I reach out and start stroking my fingers through it. It’s untangled in one brush but I don’t stop.

  ‘Mmm, that’s good.’ He closes his eyes and settles back, even though he can’t be remotely comfortable on the concrete steps.

  I let my fingers run through his hair over and over. I love his hair when it’s not all stuck down. I’m sure bits of it have gone lighter lately too, nature’s highlights from the sun.

  He stretches out and sighs, so relaxed I’m sure he’s turned to liquid on the steps. ‘Please don’t make me go, Wend.’

 
I bite my lip until I taste blood. ‘If it was up to me, Jules…’

  ‘I know.’ He groans.

  To save taking my hands off him, I use my foot to rustle the bag I’ve put down. ‘I’ve made you sandwiches and popped a few cakes and muffins in.’

  His eyes open in surprise. ‘You’ve made me a picnic for the journey?’

  ‘It’s a long drive. I don’t want you to get hungry.’

  He makes a contented noise. ‘You don’t have to worry about me, you know.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ I fight the urge to bend down and press a kiss to his warm forehead. ‘But I do.’

  I don’t know how long we sit there with the sun shining down on us, but I end up with his head in my lap, pulling his hair back and stroking through it. I don’t want him to get up, and I get the feeling he’s delaying it as long as possible too. ‘I might go back up to Glasgow after the shoot,’ he says. ‘There’s no point rushing back if you’re not here, and I should probably make sure my house is still in one piece and check in on my father. Pick up some more supplies.’

  ‘Well, you have only got six boxes of PG Tips left.’

  ‘You know what I mean. I wasn’t planning on staying long when I came here, I didn’t bring any winter gear, and I’m running low on Marmite and baked beans.’ He sighs again. ‘God, it’s so beautiful here. Even better now autumn is on the way. I can breathe here. I can’t breathe at home.’

  ‘I know,’ I say, feeling my lungs tighten up at the thought, even though I think he means it metaphorically more than physically.

  ‘What are you going to do today?’

  ‘I’m starting baking for tomorrow. Kat’s coming over at the crack of dawn. We’ll use her cart to get everything to the market, then she’ll go off and do her usual round.’

  ‘I hope it goes even better than last week.’

  ‘Me too. Hopefully it wasn’t just beginner’s luck. Maybe it was you. Maybe Kat’s right and French people can’t resist buying cakes from a gorgeous Scottish guy.’

  ‘You don’t think I’m gorgeous.’

  I look down at his relaxed face in my lap, and if I had any desire to be sarcastic, it evaporates like dew in the sun. ‘Yeah, Jules, I do. Inside and out.’