by Jules Wake
‘Could be worse.’
‘How so?’ Jade slouched even further down, her chin now level with the table.
‘It might rain every day.’ Carrie smiled, getting up and walking behind Jade to flip on the kettle behind her.
‘That’s mean. Thanks a bunch for that cheery thought.’ Jade, now loose-limbed and droopy, looked in danger of melting across the table.
‘Always good to share.’ Carrie pulled a couple of mugs out of the cupboard, holding one up to Jade in offer of a hot drink. ‘But, if you could get to Marguerite’s, how many bedrooms does it have?’
‘Oh God, you’re not going to bring Al are you? He’ll spend the whole time encouraging me to read.’ With a sudden start, Jade straightened, realising that perhaps there was renewed hope. ‘Not that he isn’t a great bloke and all that but not … to go on holiday with. Bit too much of a teacher.’
‘And what does that make me?’ asked Carrie with a lift of one eyebrow.
‘Ah,’ she said, with an air of being terribly knowledgeable about such things, ‘being an aunt is much, much worse.’
Carrie stuck her tongue out at her niece, and looped an arm around her neck in a wrestler’s headlock. ‘Is that so?’
Jade promptly dissolved into giggles.
‘Mum’s still not sure of the details but she thinks it’s six.’
‘That’d be two bedrooms and a sofa bed in the lounge,’ guessed Carrie out loud. This could be her best chance at tracking Richard down. Sleeping in the lounge was a smallish price to pay.
Jade shrugged. ‘I guess.’
‘What if I drove? Hired a car at the airport. Nice, did you say? Cinders and her mother could go on holiday somewhere hot and sunny.’
‘Seriously!’ Jade jumped up and threw her arms around Carrie. ‘Auntie Caz you rock. That would be awesome. Even with Al. Not that Al is not nice. He’s lovely. But … well you know.’ Occasionally Jade knew when to stop. This moment was clearly one of them. Al was a teacher. Fifteen years older than her. One day she would understand.
‘Good job Al is cycling in the Alps, then.’ Carrie’s stern look communicated that she’d gone far enough.
‘Is that in Russia?’ asked Jade, looking away.
‘Did they teach you anything at that school of yours?’ Carrie shook her head, but Jade gave her a cheeky irrepressible grin.
‘Yup, Poker, Spin-the-bottle and how to top up your lunch card with someone else’s account.’
Turning her back on her niece, Carrie poured boiling water over her teabag and waited for it to brew, tuning out Jade’s excited chatter. How hard could it be to find out where a film crew was working? Surely she could discover where Richard was staying and hand-deliver a letter. She wouldn’t even have to see him. This was the best possible solution. This way she’d be sure he’d receive the letter. She could spend weeks waiting for letters to go back and forth to the States, even if she had his proper address.
‘Come on then, Princess Jade. Show me where we need to get to and what the flight times and prices are.’
CHAPTER SIX
Coming down the metal steps as dusk fell, the balmy heat enveloped her in that familiar holiday-warm embrace, immediately making her smile. In the distance lights twinkled, winking through the heat haze pouring off the tarmac of the runway. Overhead a plane roared as it took off. Despite the petrol fumes in the air, she could also smell that indefinable mix of Cypress and the Mediterranean.
Jade, who’d moaned for much of the flight, now started hopping up and down and asking lots of questions. Angela answered them patiently. Carrie tuned out. She had other things on her mind. She clutched the travel wallet closer to her. The car-hire papers were all in there. Booked online. Her diving licence as instructed. They weren’t delayed. The car-hire office expected them. They were used to people arriving at all hours.
She had her phone. It had maps on it. They’d work in France, wouldn’t they? She’d already programmed the address of the villa into the app. Carrie didn’t feel as sure about driving as she made out to her sister.
Her hand tightened on her carry-on luggage.
Angela turned anxious eyes on her. ‘Do you think we’ll be able to find the car-hire place okay? They won’t have closed yet, will they? It’s peak holiday season. They must be used to people flying in at this time. It will be alright won’t it?’
‘Of course it will. Once we’re through, it will be dead easy.’ Carrie smiled, hoping that her sister couldn’t see the mild panic in her eyes. She’d never ever driven on the wrong side of the road. Why the hell had she thought she could?
‘Do you think you’ll be alright in a left-hand car? And with the French drivers. I’ve heard they’re mad.’
Nerves danced in Carrie’s stomach, taking up a full-blown jig instead of the slightly agitated rumba of a minute before. ‘It’ll be fine. I’ll take it nice and steady.’ And pray that there wasn’t much traffic on the road at this time and that the sat-nav on her phone would be patient with her and that she’d be able to manage the gears with the wrong hand.
They crawled at snail’s pace through passport control and then it took forever for the noisy juddering carousel, like an angry caterpillar, to disgorge their luggage with ill grace.
‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you offered to do this.’ Angela squeezed her arm as they walked out through the ‘nothing to declare’ channel, pushing a heavily laden trolley. It had been impossible to persuade Jade that, in the heat, she wouldn’t need that many clothes, even if they were going to be away for nearly a whole month.
Carrie had halted at the ‘nothing to declare’ sign, fancifully imagining that she might get stopped and turned back to go through the other channel. You should have declared your marriage. The jury was still out on whether she should have told Al. Not telling him was cowardly, but how did you go about telling your fiancé that you were already married? She couldn’t face the questions. Why hadn’t she mentioned it before? How long were you married? When did you last see him? Why didn’t you tell me?
‘I’m not sure that if I was driving out here, I would have been brave enough.’ Angela’s voice penetrated her thoughts. ‘You’ve always been so adventurous compared to me.’
‘No I haven’t,’ Carrie responded, slinging her bag over her shoulder. ‘It was easier for me to leave home.’ She hadn’t had a chronic illness to contend with. ‘And I had a reason to go. A place at drama school.’
‘Yes but you could have turned the place down. Not gone to live in London. It was a big step. You were marginally older than Jade and yet you went and embraced it.’
‘I was hungry then. To perform. To act. It wasn’t necessarily being brave, more like young and stupid. Foolhardy, even. I had no conception of what I was getting into. I assumed if I wanted it enough, it would happen and that, against the massive odds, I might be good enough and get work.’
‘Yawnsville. We’re on holiday here, guys. There’s proper French on the signs and everything and you two are having a history lesson.’
They emerged into the airport departure lounge. What was it that made you aware that you were in a different country? Was it the people? Their indefinable Frenchness, which made them look different.
The familiar logos of Hertz and Eurocar loomed and there was the company name and logo that matched her paperwork. Hurdle one successfully surmounted.
‘Why don’t you wait out here?’ suggested Carrie, looking at the tiny goldfish bowl of an office, dwarfed by its big-brother branded counterparts on either side.
‘Bonjour,’ said Carrie, retrieving the pages printed from the internet.
‘Bonsoir,’ said the middle-aged man on his feet behind a tall counter.
‘Yes. Do you speak English?’
‘Oui Madam.’ His dark eyebrows drew together in a ferocious, rather off-putting, slash suggesting that Carrie had committed a faux pas already. What he didn’t realise was that if she’d attempted to speak French they’d have been here all
night.
Rather than upset him any further, she laid the paperwork on the counter with an encouraging smile, hoping that managing the transaction with minimal dialogue might make him feel better.
He took the folded sheets and held them close to his face, his nose almost touched the paper.
With a nod, he looked up at her and then back at the paper before busying himself typing at his computer. ‘Permis du conduire,’ he said without shifting his gaze from the screen. Her mind went blank for a second trying to deconstruct the sentence. He’d spoken so quickly the words ran into one another and could have been a sneeze for all she knew.
‘Driving licence.’ He repeated in perfect English.
Like a chastened school girl or the stupid tourist she obviously was, she dug into her bag and pushed it across the top of the counter, smiling like an idiot in the vague hope it would soften him up. She could do with a friendly face right now.
The fears, which hadn’t been fears at all when she’d first suggested they hire a car and she drive, had been given life by relentless questioning from both Angela and Jade.
Dammit. It was an adventure. A summer on the Riviera. An escape from everyday life for a whole thirty days. She should be grasping it with both hands and wringing every last bit of fun and happiness out of it.
‘What sort of car have we got?’ she asked. She’d always been good with people. Why should one measly, grumpy Frenchman be any different? ‘The four-wheeled variety I’m assuming but what make?’
He narrowed his eyes and glanced up. ‘A Renault Clio.’
‘Fabulous. Something with a bit of va va voom. I don’t suppose Thierry Henri comes as standard?’
Who knew that Thierry Henri was the French equivalent of Open Sesame?
‘Unfortunately not, Madame.’ The words were said with a wry smile.
She lifted her shoulders. ‘Oh well.’
He studied the screen. ‘You’re staying in Gassin. It’s not too far from St Tropez. You perhaps will see a famous face or two during your time. They’re filming a Hollywood movie near where you are staying.’
Carrie’s pulse quickened. ‘Really? That would be interesting to see.’
Lifting his fingers to his lips, he shifted his gaze from left to right, which was rather hilarious as there were only the two of them in the office, before saying, ‘The production company has hired rather a lot of vehicles.’ He nodded. ‘Next door, on either side. They did not have sufficient. We have supplied several cars.’
‘Wow,’ said Carrie. ‘Do you know where they’re based?’
‘No, there was a lot of secrecy about that.’
‘Yes, I guess there would be. They wouldn’t tell many people.’
‘However,’ he continued, straightening and leaning forward, lowering his voice, ‘the director took one of our cars. He asked about parking for some of the locations. The harbour in St Tropez, the market in Ramatuelle and at a restaurant in Grimaud.’
Carrie wondered how many people he’d imparted that self-important information to in recent weeks.
‘God, were you building the car or what? You’ve been ages.’ Jade scrambled up from her position on the floor, where she’d half-sprawled across the cases on the luggage trolley.
‘These things always take forever. But we have wheels. A red Clio. Out in the car park, bay 57.’
‘A Clio. I hope it’s going to be big enough.’ Angela prodded the pile of luggage.
‘It will be fine,’ said Carrie and then with a wink at Jade. ‘We can always leave Jade behind and come back for her tomorrow. Or we could ditch one of her cases.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Jade nudged Carrie. ‘Mum, chill. It’ll be fine. And,’ she poked her tongue out at her aunt, ‘I’ll sit on one of my cases if I have to. I’m not leaving a single thing behind. I need everything.’
‘No one needs ten pairs of shorts,’ said Carrie.
‘Wanna bet?’
‘They do have washing machines in France, Jade,’ said her mother.’
‘Yeah, yeah. Are we going to get out of here or what?’ asked Jade, seizing the trolley.
‘Or what,’ answered Carrie, her spirits suddenly lifting. ‘Let the vacances commence.’
‘Please don’t try to speak French when we’re out.’ Jade groaned. ‘It sounds sooo embarrassing.’
‘I’ll do my best.’ Carrie exchanged a look with her sister, who burst out laughing.
‘I think the chances of anyone understanding her are extremely slim.’ Angela smiled, linking an arm through Carrie’s. ‘Lead us to our chariot. I’m ready for a nice cup of tea.’
‘Tea? We’re in France. On holiday. I’m ready for a large glass of wine.’
‘Yeah, Mum. And I’m allowed to drink here. There’s none of that being eighteen and identity card crap here. Hallelujah.’
‘Like it’s ever stopped you before.’ Carrie often received a texted plea for a bottle of wine for a party. She and Angela were of the view that banning something made it more enticing and as a result had a fairly laid-back approach to alcohol, which thankfully Jade had respected.
‘Isn’t this fab? It’s eight o’clock at night and it’s still lovely.’ Jade peeled off her cotton top. ‘I wish I’d got my shorts on now.’
‘We’ll be in the car in a minute. It’s got air con.’ Carrie spotted the numbered signs. ‘Here we are.’
Jade let out a sigh. ‘Seriously. Why are you going so slowly?’
Carrie examined the speedometer, they were doing a respectable speed but it did feel painfully slow.
‘I’m doing seventy.’
‘The French obviously don’t give a toss about speed limits, then, because every other bugger keeps overtaking us.’
‘Let Carrie do her own speed, Jade. She’s driving on the wrong side of the road. She’s concentrating.’
‘I also don’t know what the local speed limit is, to be perfectly honest.’
‘Easy, peasy.’ Jade tapped away at her phone. ‘110km unless it’s raining. Isn’t that funny? Our speed limits don’t mention rain and I bet we get far more than here.’
Carrie started to laugh as she put her foot down on the accelerator, watching the speedometer creep up. ‘I forgot the speedo was in kilometres. I’ve been sticking to 70 thinking it was miles.’
‘You muppet.’ Jade shook her head.
In the back Angela laughed. ‘Although you probably needed to go slowly at first to get used to the car and driving—’ Jade and Carrie exchanged a look before joining in unison ‘on the wrong side of the road.’
With the help of the phone and Carrie’s new-found understanding of the speedometer the journey passed more quickly, the roads getting progressively smaller as they left the motorway. In the dark it was difficult to see much of their surroundings. They could have been in Milton Keynes, but as the miles on the signposts counted down to St Tropez, Jade suddenly shouted, ‘The sea! The sea!’
Down below them a concentration of lights crowded around the water, outlining the coast.
‘We’re nearly there.’ Jade began to bounce in her seat. Carrie gripped the steering wheel.
‘I can’t believe it! St Tropez. It sounds incredibly exotic.’ Angela’s tremulous voice held buttoned-down excitement.
Too damn right. It was exciting. And the minute she peeled herself out of this car, Carrie would be celebrating with something cold.
They circuited the outskirts of St Tropez and began to climb the hill up to Gassin, following the directions of the disembodied voice on the phone.
‘I hope it’s going to be nice,’ said Angela. She’d edged to the front of her seat, holding onto both head rests on the passenger and driver seats. ‘Marguerite said not to expect too much but she wouldn’t send us anywhere horrible.’
‘Angela, as long as it’s dry and has beds, it will be fine,’ said Carrie, resigning herself to the prospect of an uncomfortable bed and very basic surroundings for the next four weeks. It wouldn’t matter. When it was hot, you di
dn’t spend much time inside. They could go out every day. Take picnics. All they needed was somewhere to sleep.
‘Yes. You’re right.’ Angela sighed. ‘And if it’s awful, we can go home early.’
‘It won’t be awful. It will be fine.’ And hopefully the heat would be good for Angela’s arthritis. They’d have to make sure she had the most comfortable bed.
‘It had better have a shower,’ said Jade. ‘I can’t be doing with it being this hot and no shower.’
‘I’m sure it will,’ said Angela. ‘Marguerite has owned this place for a while. I remember her saying something about new tiling in the bathroom being done last year.’
The directions on the phone were becoming more frequent and they all shut up so they could hear them. The road climbed and twisted and turned more frequently.
‘Destination on your left in two hundred feet,’ announced the map lady.
Carrie slowed right down, thankful there was nothing behind them. The road was completely black with absolutely no sign of habitation nearby. To the left, falling away down the hill, were lights in the distance but nothing nearby.
A horrible sense of foreboding clamped around her. Surely Marguerite’s place had basic facilities like electricity. Or maybe it was all switched off and they would need to turn on the fuse box.
She drove slowly, still unable to see any sign of a house. ‘Destination on your left.’ The voice on the app held a note of desperation. ‘Turn left. Turn left.’
Carrie couldn’t see anything and it was only after the car crept past, she spotted a square of light embedded into a brick wall.
‘At the nearest point perform a u-turn.’
Jade tutted. ‘We’ve gone past it. You’ve missed it.’
‘Well, it wasn’t exactly obvious.’ Carrie kept driving, looking out for some handy place to stop, but the road was narrow with too many bends. After about a mile she spotted a driveway, pulled in and did a quick three-point turn, to return back up the road.
This time she pulled in and realised that the blur of light was a keypad on the edge of two large gates.
