by Polly James
“Those are the studios where the classes are held,” says Eva, pointing towards some restored stone barns and outbuildings in the distance, “and some of the self-catering accommodation, too – but I’ve booked us into the house itself, even though I could only get a shared room at such short notice. Hope you don’t mind? It seemed worth sharing to have a restaurant and bar on tap.”
I don’t mind at all, as long as Eva doesn’t snore as badly as Dan did. What an incredible place to spend a birthday, especially one you’d otherwise prefer not to have, and what an incredible gift she’s given me! This must have cost a fortune and I’m suddenly so overwhelmed by Eva’s generosity, that I have no idea what to say to express my gratitude, so I give her a big hug instead. That ends up going on for so long while I try to prevent myself from crying, that eventually she shakes me off.
“It’s your fiftieth,” she says. “So it needed to be memorable. Now will you please put that bloody mobile away or, even better, give it to me?”
I was only checking if my signal had returned – which it hasn’t – but Eva insists, even though I argue that I need to keep the phone on me in case of emergencies. Eventually, I give in and hand it to her on one condition: that she warns the staff at reception to put any calls from Joel Pinkman through to our room, tout de suite.
“Here, you are going to behave like someone who is young, free and single, Hannah,” she says, as we collect our room key and then head up a wide, sunlit staircase towards the first floor. “Because youngish, free and single is what you are, so you might as well start enjoying it.”
As Eva opens the door to our room, and reveals a floor-to-ceiling window with a balcony and a view of the sea, I start to think that I just might.
* * *
When Eva and I eventually walk back into reception, after we’ve unpacked and taken showers, the doors to the dining room are open and the room is packed with really stylish, arty people and, all of a sudden, I lose my nerve.
As Eva walks across the threshold into the room, I hang back behind the open door and pretend to be searching for something in my bag. It’s not our room key, because Eva insisted on taking charge of that. She must have anticipated that I might do a runner, and now she’s obviously realised that that’s exactly what I’m about to do. As soon as she turns around and spots that I’m no longer beside her, she heads back towards the door while I hide behind a potted palm.
“Come out, Hannah,” says Eva, lifting a palm leaf away from my face. “I am hungry and I know you are, too. Now get a bloody grip.”
She frogmarches me across the room to our table, orders me to sit, then calls the waiter over.
“Une bouteille de vin,” she says, then adds “Et dépéchez-vous, s’il vous plaît. C’est une urgence!”
He raises his eyebrows, and then says, “Comment?”
Clearly he has about as much idea of what Eva’s going on about as I do, which is none. I sit and fidget with my napkin, while Eva continues to speak to the waiter while gesturing towards me.
“Elle est une épave nerveuse,” she says, which seems to do the trick.
The waiter smiles, then nods and rushes across the room.
“What the hell did you say to him,” I ask, “to make him hurtle off like that?”
“Nothing,” says Eva, passing me the menu. “I just told him we needed wine immediately, because you’re a nervous wreck.”
“Merci beaucoup,” I say, mainly because that’s pretty much all the French I know. It sounds nicely sarcastic to my ear.
Chapter 39
I’m so horribly hungover this morning when our classes start, that I don’t have the energy to panic any more. We were almost the last to leave the bar last night, along with some guy called Sean that Eva picked up. That woman can pull at the speed of light.
“See you later, alligator,” she said, as she headed off to his ground-floor room with him “for one last drink”.
“I’ll believe it when I see it,” I said, rolling my eyes, and preparing to climb the stairs, which were shifting about a bit. They must have fixed them during the night, because they seem fine now. Probably after Eva finally came in and climbed into bed, just as it was getting light.
She’s learning silversmithing today, while I’ve got a life- drawing session first thing. I thought I’d enjoy that, seeing as I always used to love drawing from life when I was at college, but that was before I saw the model. She’s young, beautiful, and very shapely: all the things that I am not. I draw her anyway, but – right at the end of the class – I give her an enormous wart on her chin, and then another on her arse.
“Interesting addition,” says someone, from behind me.
Someone male and extremely attractive, once I turn round to have a look, so then I pretend the warts are accidental smudges and rub them out again. That makes a horrible mess, due to the charcoal, and now I’m covered in it. There’s no point in worrying about it, though, because now I’ve sneaked a second, closer look, this guy is way too young for me, which is a tragedy. He’s got amazing eyes.
“Jude,” he says, extending his hand, which isn’t half as dirty as the one that I put into his.
“Hannah,” I say, as the woman supervising the class announces that it’s now over, and everyone begins to pack their things away. I stand up and cross the room to wash my hands, and by the time I come back from the sinks, Jude has gone.
* * *
“Silversmithing’s not for me,” says Eva, when we meet for lunch. “Just look at this!”
I have no idea what the tangled mass of silver wire that she shows me is supposed to be, so I agree she might be better off switching to textiles this afternoon. I’ll be doing landscape painting, which I’m looking forward to, not least because the light is so fantastic here.
“Eva, please can I have my phone back?” I say, as the waiter brings our drinks. “I just want to check if Joel’s okay.”
Eva rolls her eyes, and then refuses.
“No news is good news, Hannah,” she says. “So just relax. He hasn’t called you, because I’ve already checked, and you’d hear soon enough if something was wrong.”
I know Eva’s right, but that doesn’t stop me worrying, which she says is probably why Joel’s still at home, and also why Dan isn’t.
“Joel’s wonderful, but you mollycoddle him so much you might as well tell him you think that he’s incompetent,” she adds. “No wonder he hasn’t got the confidence to move out, and things might not have got so bad with Dan if you and he had put each other first occasionally.”
That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it? Especially on my birthday. My fiftieth bloody birthday.
I make a moue with my mouth to denote that I’m upset – I’m in France, after all, and moue sounds better than pursing your lips. It works better, too, because Eva notices and apologises straight away.
“Take no notice of me,” she says, “I’m probably just jealous because I can’t have kids. Happy Birthday, to my best friend!”
She clinks her glass against mine, then takes a large swig of wine, while I’m still taking in what she just said. Eva can’t have kids?
“I didn’t know,” I say, after an awkward pause. “I’m sorry, Eva. That’s really sad.”
Eva shakes her head, as if she doesn’t want to talk about it any more, and then the waiter brings our food. By the time he’s finished serving it, Eva’s swigged back the rest of her wine, has poured herself a second glass, and the moment for confidences seems to have passed. She drinks steadily through the rest of the meal, nagging me occasionally to keep up with her. I do my best, which turns out to have been inadvisable when I join the landscape class. Who knew that alcohol turns you into an impressionist painter, even when you didn’t intend to be?
* * *
When I get back to our room after classes have finished for the day, it’s already early evening, but there’s no sign of Eva. I’m about to phone her when I recall that she’s still got my mobile, so then I take a shower inst
ead, after turning the dial to “cold”. One of the tutors told me earlier that it’s been the hottest day of the year so far, and the temperature’s showing no sign of dropping, even now. There’s no breeze at all, and when I step out of the shower, my skin feels warms again almost instantly, probably because of the heat the room has been storing all day, even though we left the blinds closed when we went out this morning.
I open them now and look out across the terrace and the lawns, and over to where the sea is just visible through its screen of pines, shimmering and almost impossibly blue, and then I realise why I feel so odd. I’m happy.
I stay that way while I change into a cool silk dress, and then I head back downstairs to look for Eva. I find her in the bar, and I’m pretty sure she’s already drunk.
“How was your textile class?” I say, but she isn’t paying attention to me.
Instead, she’s listening to the sound of Euro disco coming from a marquee that’s been set up outside.
“They’re getting ready for the Saturday night ‘Get to know you’ party,” she says. “So we’d better hurry up and eat. I hope you’re wearing your dancing shoes?”
I haven’t got any “dancing shoes”, as far as I’m aware, but my new sandals will do just fine. I’m more concerned about the state of Eva’s legs, which look as if they’ll be getting wobbly pretty soon if she doesn’t slow down with the alcohol consumption. She’s already slurring her words a bit.
She assures me that she’ll “sip more slowly” during our meal, though I’m not sure she keeps her promise while I go to the loo. She certainly doesn’t seem any more sober by the time we finish eating, but she brushes me off when I ask if anything’s the matter.
“Nothing making the most of being young, free and childless won’t sort out,” she says, pushing back her chair and standing up. “Let’s go.”
We make our way outside to the marquee as dusk is falling and tiny white fairy lights are lighting up all around us. The effect is magical, and so is the now-familiar smell of lavender and pine that’s drifting through the still-hot air. If you could bottle that, you’d make a fortune. I pause and sniff a few times while Eva weaves her way through the marquee and then stands at the bar, next to a familiar face. It’s Sean, the man she went off with last night, and he’s definitely wearing his dancing shoes. I’m still on my way to join them when he drags Eva over to the dance floor, and that’s the last I see of her.
I take Sean’s vacated seat at the bar, order a drink and stare at my reflection in the mirror above the optics. Fairy lights are much more flattering than I realised, and I don’t look half bad, for once. I take one last look, give myself a wink, and then swivel round in my seat to observe the room.
“Do you always wink at yourself in mirrors?” says a voice, presumably from the seat that’s next to mine – the one I’ve just turned my back on while swivelling myself around. “Not that I blame you: you’re a sight for sore eyes.”
Oh, my God. It’s a cringe-making line, but nothing like as cringe-making as being caught winking at yourself, like a narcissistic idiot. Well done, Hannah, you’ve made yourself a laughing stock.
I groan, then swivel in my seat again to confront Mr Sarcastic face to face. I recognise him from somewhere, though I don’t know where.
“More of a sight for sore eyes than a woman with a gigantic wart on her nose and another one on her arse,” he says, then raises his glass to me, by way of a toast.
Chapter 40
After about half an hour, it doesn’t seem as though Eva’s got any intention of returning to the bar, which is probably a good thing in one way – the minimising her drinking way – but not so good in another. It means I’m stuck here like a spare part at the bar. Jude’s gone off to try to locate the colleague he’s supposed to be spending the evening with and I’m just staring into space, wishing I could disappear. I seem to be the only person here on my own – and it’s my birthday, too! That’s probably what the next fifty years are going to be like, now that I’m such a mature single person.
I glance outside and notice that the sun is finally starting to go down, though the temperature still hasn’t dropped by much. Maybe I’ll go and watch the sunset from the beach, and then come back. I can sit on the sand, wallowing in my loneliness while pretending to be Princess Di sitting outside the Taj Mahal. Minus the photographers.
I’m pushing my way through the crowds of people thronging around the entrance to the marquee, when someone calls my name. It’s Jude.
“Where are you off to?” he says. “I was just on my way back to find you.”
I shrug, then give him a sceptical look. I hate insincerity.
“Honestly, I was,” says Jude, following me out onto the terrace. “I was just trying to tear my drunken mate away from the woman he’s dancing with first, before he makes a twat of himself, but he didn’t want to be torn, as you can see. He’s as pissed as a fart.”
“So’s my friend, I think,” I say, “though I haven’t seen her for ages. That’s why I thought I’d take a quick walk to the beach.”
Jude looks absolutely horrified.
“It can’t be that bad, can it, Hannah?” he says, grabbing my arm. “Nothing can.”
Honestly, talk about being melodramatic. He thinks I’m going to drown myself. Not in this silk dress I’m not. It cost a bloody fortune.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” I say, as I shake his hand off, then set about reassuring him before he decides to call for the men in white coats. I wonder if white coats are what shrinks wear in France.
Jude has no idea when I ask him, but now he thinks I’m barking mad on top of being suicidal.
“Well, whether they do or they don’t,” he says, taking hold of my arm again, “I think I’ll tag along, if you have no objection. Just in case.”
* * *
“I wish I’d brought my camera with me,” says Jude, almost an hour later when we’re lounging on the sand together, talking about ourselves and watching the darkening red circle of the sun as it sinks slowly towards the sea. The regular shu-u-ush, shu-u-ush of the waves as they come sliding into the shore is making me feel weirdly relaxed, almost hypnotised, unless that’s just the drink – or the company.
Did I say, “hypnotised”? That makes me think of Stefan, and how people aren’t always what they seem, which then makes me wonder if Jude could be a serial killer. One with whom I’ve just walked along a deserted path to sit on an equally deserted beach. Good work, Hannah. Right up there with winking at yourself in terms of sheer stupidity.
I panic and sit up, dislodging Jude’s arm from its position along the base of my spine, where he seems to have sneaked it when I was still in a hypnotic trance.
“I wish I’d brought my sketchbook,” I say, sitting bolt upright, and then shifting along the sand a little to put some distance between me and the potential serial killer. (If I keep making polite conversation, I doubt he’ll realise that I suspect him.)
“Would you give the sun warts on its surface, if you drew that?” says Jude.
I ignore him and concentrate on pretending to frame the scene, which would definitely make a better impressionist painting than the landscape I did earlier. I could even sneak Jude into the picture when he wasn’t looking. If he is a serial killer, he’s a very attractive one, so he’d add a certain je ne sais quoi. I wonder how old he is. He still looks awfully young to me: under forty, at a guess, though I’d better check. The police will want to know his age if I end up reporting him for anything, like being too good looking while on a beach near a woman who hasn’t had sex in …
I don’t want to think how long it is, and nor am I going to think about having sex with a teenaged serial killer, even if it is my birthday.
Now I’m just being silly. Jude is not a teenager, nowhere near. In fact, he could be in his mid-forties, couldn’t he? In a bad light, and if fate was smiling on me. Less than five years wouldn’t be too big an age gap for whatever it is I’m refusing to think about.
“Mmm,” he says, and I turn and look at him out of the corner of my eye, expecting to find him still looking towards the sun.
Oh, shit. He’s looking at me instead.
“You’re very lovely, Hannah,” he says. “I’d like to take your picture sometime – but, now, I think I’d rather do this instead.”
He leans over and kisses me as the sun finally collapses into the horizon, and both sea and sky glow purple, orange and red.
* * *
I should have realised that very few serial killers try to prevent their intended victims committing suicide by accompanying them to beaches. Now that that’s become blindingly obvious, even to me, I kiss Jude back, once he’s finished kissing me. It’s just as nice the second time around, but then his mobile starts to ring.
“Shit,” he says, reaching into his pocket for his phone.
He stabs at the screen several times in an attempt to cancel the call, but only succeeds in answering it.
“Shit,” he says again, then “What?”
He sounds so horrified that – for one dreadful moment – I think he must be taking a message for me: one saying that Joel’s been in a hideous accident, or has burned the house down while throwing a party. I’m just reaching out to take the phone, when I realise I’m acting like a lunatic, so I pretend to scratch my nose instead.
Jude doesn’t seem to notice, because he’s still listening to the caller, while mouthing, “Sorry, sorry” at me.
