The French for Always

by Fiona Valpy

  Christa & Bill

  Christa & Bill

  invite you to join them

  for their wedding weekend.

  From Thursday 30 August

  Until Monday 3 September

  At Château Bellevue de Coulliac

  * * *

  ‘It’s ironic, isn’t it?’ Karen remarked as she helped Sara arrange pretty bunches of flowers from the garden in an assortment of jugs and vases, one for each bedroom. ‘Even though there are only twenty-four guests all told this time, it’s still almost the same amount of work as for a hundred-odd.’

  Sara nodded and stepped back to admire their handiwork. She’d collected this eclectic assortment of jars, bottles and jugs from markets and brocantes to use for filling the château with flowers and the effect was charming, in keeping with the simplicity of the country setting. At this stage in the season, the garden was in its final late-summer flush, the roses blooming one last time and clouds of pink and white cosmos helping to sustain the garden’s beauty through the transition of the seasons.

  ‘A couple more stems for the large vase should do it, I think.’ She picked up her secateurs and went back outside, fishing in her pocket for her mobile phone as it started to ring. Her hand trembled as she answered, noticing that the name of the bank was flashing up on the screen. Monsieur Dupuy, true to his word, was getting back to her before the week was out...

  Their brief conversation over, she rang off and thrust the phone back into her pocket. Like a sleepwalker, she wandered over to the viewpoint and sat down on the bench.

  Looking out at the view, it was as though everything was clearer than usual: the silver glint of the river brighter; the green of the vine-clad hillside more vibrant; the end-of-summer colours of the woodland leaves in the valley below softer.

  Because now she was looking at it all through the lens of loss, already mentally taking a step back from one more thing that she’d loved but was going to have to relinquish. Her worst fears were realised: the answer from the bank was a non. The doors within her, which hope had dared to push ajar, slammed shut, and the stale taste of regret filled her mouth. She swallowed, with an effort, trying to find the strength that she’d had to tap into many times before in her life. And then, her energy drained, the heaviness of loss weighing down her heart, she hauled herself to her feet and made her way back to the kitchen. She’d just have to swallow her pride and contact Monsieur Bonneval, the estate agent. And hope that those buyers he’d mentioned hadn’t bought anything else yet.

  Karen shot her a sharp look as she came through the door. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Yes, fine—why?’

  ‘You went out to get some more flowers...’

  Sara clutched her head and forced a rueful smile. ‘Sorry, I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on these days.’ Thankful for the distraction, she turned on her heel and strode back out into the garden, sternly telling herself yet again to get a grip. It was time to re-focus on the weekend ahead.

  * * *

  The château’s corridors echoed with the sound of laughter and children’s voices as the sprawling extended family settled in. The house party filled all the rooms, Bill and Christa’s children and grandchildren spilling out of their bedrooms into the reception rooms and out to the garden.

  ‘Sorry about the racket,’ Bill apologised as Sara and Karen carried trays of tea and home baking onto the terrace. ‘We’re all a bit overexcited.’

  ‘It’s no problem at all,’ Sara assured him. ‘This place comes alive when it’s filled with laughter. What a lovely lot of children!’

  ‘Yes, we’re guilty of doing our bit for world overpopulation, I’m afraid. We’ve three children each, and fourteen grandchildren to date... and counting,’ he grinned, nodding fondly at a heavily pregnant daughter-in-law who was heading across the lawn in the direction of the swimming pool, holding a toddler firmly by the hand.

  Christa sank down thankfully in an armchair. ‘Tea, how lovely. After two days’ drive I must say that’s a very welcome sight indeed. And cake too. Perfect.’ She cut a slice of Victoria sponge, generously filled with jam and cream. ‘Light as air,’ she nodded approvingly. ‘Did you bake this, Sara?’

  ‘No, Karen’s our cake expert.’

  ‘Well, as I always say, you can never have too much cake.’ Christa took a large bite and then licked the icing sugar off her fingers.

  ‘A very sound philosophy indeed,’ said Bill, accepting a piece.

  ‘Some for you, dear?’ Christa offered one of her willowy teenage granddaughters who was lounging on a sofa nearby.

  The girl shuddered. ‘No thank you, Granny. I don’t do gluten. Or lactose. My body is a temple.’

  Her grandmother peered at her over the top of her glasses. ‘What utter nonsense. My body is more of a bus shelter, but I’m perfectly happy the way I am. Suit yourself though—all the more for me.’

  ‘Oh, all right then, since it is a special occasion.’ The girl put down her glossy magazine. ‘Just a tiny bit though...’

  Sara glanced over her shoulder as she headed back to the kitchen, nudging Karen who turned too, just in time to glimpse the girl tucking into a large slice of the cake, with gusto.

  * * *

  ‘That was lovely, dear.’ Christa brought her croissant-flecked plate over to the sink where Sara and Hélène were starting to clear away the breakfast things. ‘Such a treat for us all, having breakfast outside in the sunshine. And in September too—who’d have thought it! Of course, some of the children should already be back in school, but I don’t suppose it’s going to damage their educational careers too much, having a few extra days of summer to celebrate their old grandparents getting married. Some people’—she lowered her voice conspiratorially and nodded towards the terrace—‘think it’s ridiculous at our age. I was all for carrying on living in sin, but Bill is such a romantic, he wanted to make an honest woman of me before we find ourselves knocking on the pearly gates and having to account to Saint Peter for our behaviour. I’m eighty-four years old, you know. I bet I’m the oldest bride you’ve ever had here?’

  ‘Do you know, I think you just might be,’ Sara smiled. ‘So far, at least. I think it’s wonderful!’

  ‘So you don’t think we’re just a pair of old fools? Wasting our children’s inheritance on a party like this?’

  ‘Of course not. What could be nicer than an event that brings you all together to celebrate something so joyful? It must be lovely to have found companionship so late in life.’

  ‘Why, yes, dear. And having sex again is pretty wonderful too, I can tell you. Fifteen years without is not so much a dry spell as a forced march across the Sahara Desert.’

  Overhearing, Hélène nearly dropped the coffee pot she was drying.

  ‘Granny! Granny! Will you come for a swim now? You promised you would after breakfast.’ A swarm of assorted grandchildren invaded the kitchen, saving Hélène and Sara from any further juicy revelations.

  ‘Of course, my darlings. Just let me go and get my costume on. No going near the pool until I get back now.’ She fished a tissue out of her pocket and bent down to wipe the nose of one of the smaller boys, then sailed off, at a stately pace, to prepare to lead the poolside fun and games.

  Hélène giggled. ‘Quelle femme formidable!’ she whispered to Sara.

  * * *

  ‘Right, you scurvy crew, here’s how the treasure hunt works.’ Bill had assembled all the grandchildren, and a couple of the younger ones’ parents were joining in too, with Christa leading the pack for a treasure hunt he'd organised to keep the children out of their parents' hair on the morning of the wedding. ‘Seven different caches of treasure have been hidden around the castle. You’re going to have to work together as a team to solve each clue and find out where to look. I’ll be sitting right here in the command centre, so each time you solve a clue you can come back to show me what you’ve found and I’ll give you the next clue. The no-go areas are cordoned off with tape, as you can se
e, so I can promise you there’s nothing hidden in the pool area or in the cottages beyond the walled garden. Some of the clues involve everyone in the team completing a sporting challenge before you can look for the treasure; others need a bit more brainpower. Everybody can help, from the youngest to the oldest’—and here he gave Christa a look. ‘No exceptions. And no cheating’—and he gave Christa another look, at which she beamed angelically in reply. ‘Any questions? Right then, here’s your first clue.’

  The treasure hunters streamed off across the lawn and could soon be seen running (or, in Christa’s case, gliding serenely) to the viewpoint and back, each with a shuttlecock balanced on top of their head.

  ‘Peace at last,’ grinned Bill as he settled back in his deckchair to watch the fun. Karen and Sara were rolling cutlery in paper napkins in preparation for the buffet lunch that would be set out before everyone retired to their rooms to get dressed for the wedding party that afternoon.

  ‘What a great idea,’ Karen commented. ‘I might just have to borrow it when we go to my sister’s in Adelaide this Christmas.’

  Ten minutes later there was an excited whoop. ‘Uh-oh, brace yourselves, here they come again.’ Bill fished the next clue out of his pocket as the hunt streamed back from the barn.

  ‘Tiaras! Look Grandpa, that treasure was tiaras!’

  ‘Well done, it was indeed. Now, anyone who’s a princess better put one on.’ Bill handed them out, including the teenage granddaughters, who had temporarily forgotten how cool they were and put on their glitzy plastic crowns, giggling with as much enthusiasm as their smaller siblings.

  ‘Aw! Grandpa, tiaras are for girls. The next treasure better be something for boys,’ a small grandson complained.

  ‘Well, you’d better solve the clue and see. Off you go!’ Bill settled himself back in his chair as the treasure hunters swarmed off again.

  Luckily, the second batch of treasure turned out to be a stash of pirate hats, hanging from the branches of the old pear tree in the walled garden and so everyone was happy with their hunting headgear. One small granddaughter complained that she didn’t want to wear a “sissy Barbie tiara”, but fortunately Bill had reckoned on such a mutiny and ordered in a couple of extra pirate hats. The spurned crown was swiftly redeployed so that, on the next foray, it could be seen sparkling gaily amongst Christa’s grey curls.

  ‘Found it!’

  ‘But what is it?’

  ‘It’s a record, stupid!’

  ‘What’s a record?’

  ‘It’s sort of like a CD, only old-fashioned.’

  ‘Does it play music?’

  ‘Yes, but you need the right kind of machine to play it on.’

  One of the younger children carried the single carefully back to Bill at the command centre (otherwise known as the kitchen table).

  ‘Grandpa, you should ask Father Christmas for an iPod. Then you can play lots of different music, not just one song.’

  ‘Is it what I think it is?’ asked Christa, reaching for her reading glasses. ‘Oh, Bill, you old softie!’

  He nodded. ‘This, children, is not just any record. It’s Imagine by the late, great John Lennon. And it just happens to be the record that I had my first slow dance to with Christa. So, in a sense, it’s Our Song. We’re going to dance to it at our wedding party later on. And it’s most appropriate, because never did I “imagine” that I’d find so much love and so much happiness again at this time of life. It’s a reminder to us all that we should always have hopes and dreams in life, otherwise how could we possibly even begin to start making them come true?’

  The piratical granddaughter tugged at his sleeve. ‘But Grandpa, we need the special machine.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Sara smiled, ‘we’ve got it. Thomas will play it for you.’

  Christa bent down and kissed Bill tenderly.

  ‘Eeew, sloppy stuff!’ squirmed a small grandson.

  ‘Yes, come on Grandpa Bill, that’s quite enough of that,’ one of the teenagers chipped in. ‘What about the next clue?’

  Red, white and blue streamers were unearthed next, and then a sizeable cache of confetti and a basketful of sugared almonds.

  ‘I’ll look after all of these. They’ll come in handy later,’ Bill firmly shooed the children away from the table. ‘Oh well, all right then, three sweets each, just to keep you going.’

  ‘Hey! Granny Christa took four.’

  ‘The prerogative of my age, my darling. And anyway, with all this dashing about the place, a bride has to keep her strength up,’ said Christa unapologetically.

  ‘Now,’ said Bill, ‘another clue. See if you can work it out. Then bring whatever you find back to me and I’ll give you the very last clue, to find the greatest treasure of all.’

  ‘It says there’s gold buried in a deep, dark dungeon. Cool! Does this castle have dungeons, Sara?’

  She nodded solemnly. ‘That door over there leads down to the cellars. Thomas here has got the key and he’s going to take you down there, on condition that you go very, very carefully. And that you don’t touch any of the wine! Make sure you stick together because we’ve lost the occasional guest down there, never to be seen again. And you never know, you may even find the secret passageway that’s rumoured to be down there. Here,’ she said, handing out torches to the little ones, ‘you’ll need these to see where you’re going.’

  Bill winked at her as the cellar stairs swallowed up the treasure hunters. ‘Thanks for getting into the swing of all this, Sara. You’re a good sport.’

  ‘It’s no problem, Bill. I’m enjoying it as much as they all are. And I’m looking forward to finding out what the greatest treasure of all might be.’

  A few minutes later they re-emerged from the cellar, a little dustier than when they’d gone down and some of the pirate hats were now festooned with a spiderweb or two.

  ‘We found it! Sara, we found the secret tunnel! And there was a cave! With the treasure in it.’

  ‘It really was buried treasure this time! Look Grandpa!’

  The children brandished a small jeweller’s box and sitting on the velvet within were two gold wedding bands.

  ‘Well, that’s lucky! We wouldn’t have been able to have got married without the rings,’ Bill exclaimed. ‘Right then, let’s see what we’ve got. Who’s got nice neat handwriting? Okay, take this paper and pencil and write down all the treasures you’ve found so far. So it was tiaras, hats, Imagine, streamers, confetti, almonds, rings. Now, here’s the final clue.’ He handed it over.

  ‘It says, “The greatest treasure of all can be found by rearranging the first letters of each of the items you’ve found”.’

  With the tip of her tongue protruding from the corner of her mouth, Christa’s youngest granddaughter carefully wrote out, ‘T...h...i...s...c...a...r...’

  ‘This car! The greatest treasure of all is a car!’ shouted a small grandson.

  ‘No you dummy, we’ve got to rearrange the letters to make another word. It’s a puzzle.’

  They pored over the piece of paper.

  ‘T-chairs!’

  ‘What on earth are t-chairs?’

  ‘No, wait! I’ve got it!’

  ‘Me too! Me too!’

  ‘Granny Christa, it’s you! The greatest treasure of all is you.’

  ‘Well done, all of you. You’ve cracked it. Remember, people matter more than any material things in this world. Even a car!’ He ruffled his grandson’s hair. ‘And love is the most important thing there is, at any age.’ He hugged his bride to him, gently brushing a cobweb from the plastic tiara that sat, slightly skew-whiff, on her grey curls. ‘Now, let’s clear out of here and go and have a swim. Your parents have had far too much peace and quiet, and we need to leave Sara and her team to set out the lunch.’ He clapped his hands to shoo the children through the door and out into the sunshine beyond. ‘We’re on a tight schedule after all: don’t you know we’ve got a wedding to go to this afternoon!’

  * * *

&nbs
p; Sara lay with her head pillowed in the dip between Thomas’s shoulder and his chest, where it seemed to fit so perfectly, like a piece of a jigsaw slotting into place. The post-wedding party had finished a little earlier than usual and they’d left the last few guests contentedly sipping nightcaps on the terrace under the stars.

  ‘What?’ Sara gazed at Thomas’s profile as he lay smiling up at the ceiling.

  He turned his head to look into her eyes. ‘A great day, that’s all. I liked that old couple a lot.’ Sorrow clouded the expression in his eyes. ‘Selling this place is going to be a terrible wrench. Not just for you, but for all of us.’

  Sara smiled sadly back at him. ‘I know. I’ll have to call Monsieur Bonneval, but I’m not going to do it until after our final wedding. I want to have one more week of simply being here. I can’t bear to think about it. Losing the château. And today made me realise that you’ve all become a family to me—Karen, Antoine, the Héls Belles... I guess it was seeing Bill and Christa and their whole sprawling collection of children and grandchildren, all so different but brought together for this moment, to celebrate love at every stage of life. It was a great reason for a party. It may even have restored my faith in weddings!’

  Thomas nodded, remembering. ‘Did you see their grandchildren all wore their pirate hats and tiaras for the ceremony? I think that littlest girl is probably sleeping in hers!’

  ‘I know. It was such fun today. They loved going into the secret cave. Do you think they disturbed the ghosts there?’

  ‘Sure to have,’ he smiled. ‘But that’s the best way to lay ghosts to rest: with happiness and laughter. Joy can erase the pain and sadness that’s gone before.’

  ‘So do you believe those ghosts really can be exorcised?’

  ‘Eventually.’ His eyes were serious as they gazed into hers. ‘Some take longer than others, but with enough love they all leave in the end.’ He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek so tenderly that she knew he wasn’t talking about the castle’s ghosts anymore, but her own personal demons. And as they moved together and his lips met hers, she even believed, in that moment, that what he said was true.