Page 69 of Falling for Provence

‘Now you can finally start taking care of them yourself,’ he’d said. ‘J’en ai marre.’

Ellie knew what that meant now. He had been fed up. Pissed off. Unimpressed with absent neighbours who’d made no arrangements to care for their animals. And, to add insult to injury, she’d been speaking in a language he had every reason to detest.

Besides, she had something more important that she wanted to say.

I want to thank you for helping me take Pascal to the vet and for so much else as well. For suggesting I tasted socca and for teaching me to drive on the wrong side of the road.

I’ve left a bottle of the limoncello I made in the freezer for you and there’s a key to the house in the smallest candle holder on the terrace. I hope you enjoy it.

Most of all, thank you for taking me to my first summer market. I will be thinking of you as I go to the last one this evening.

She would be thinking of Julien for the rest of her life, but she couldn’t tell him that, could she?

I wish you and Theo nothing but the best that life can bring.

It took almost as long to decide how to finish the letter as it had to start it. Ellie wanted, so much, to tell him that she loved him, but again she decided that she couldn’t. Not when there was still a faint echo of the devastating aftermath of the accident that had almost taken Theo’s life.

‘…go home, Ellie… we don’t need you…’

In the end, Ellie finished the letter in the same way as she’d started it. In French.

Gros bisous

The literal translation was ‘fat kisses’ but it meant ‘lots of love’ in this context and, as far as Ellie could confirm online, it was a casual form of farewell that people who were no more than friends could say to each other. It would be as close as she could ever get to telling Julien how she really felt about him.

She folded the letter and sealed it into an envelope. She would put the key out in the candle holder before she forgot, take the letter next door and then it would be past time to head into Nice.

Pascal knew an outing was on offer as Ellie picked up his harness.

‘We might have time for a walk on the beach,’ she told him. ‘And then we’ll come back through Vence to go to the market. One last time.’

It was exactly the same.

Except it wasn’t.

The crowds were the same. People walking arm in arm with their partners, or parents trying to see where their childrenhad gone. Music and laughter and conversations happening in different languages. The smell of cigarettes and the more tempting aroma of hot food drifted in the air.

The stalls were the same. Lavender soap and leather belts and handbags for sale. The owner of the leatherwork stall recognised the brown bag Ellie was carrying and he nodded and smiled at her. She smiled back. This experience wasn’t new and different now. She belonged here, at least in this moment.

There was the same face painting available for the children, and sweet treats of candy floss and ice cream and marshmallows. Clothing shops had put racks of offerings outside their doors as they stayed open late to take advantage of the last market of the season. And that was another difference. It was already getting dark – so much earlier than the first time – a reminder that summer was all but over.

Ellie had been nervous but excited at the prospect of seeing the painter whose work she loved so much. She’d even practised how she could tell him she’d seen his painting in the shop in Saint-Martin-Vésubie. But, although she knew she was looking at the same side street he’d tucked his stall into, he wasn’t there, and it felt almost as disappointing as finding that she wouldn’t be able to say goodbye to Julien in person.

Disappointing enough to tip the balance of this final goodbye from nostalgia to sadness. Enough to make Ellie realise that nothing was ever going to be quite the same from now on because Julien was no longer a part of her life.

And that was enough to persuade her that it was time to go home.

It all looked exactly the same when Ellie parked Margot in front of La Maisonette.

Except, of course, it wasn’t.

There were no tenacious tendrils of ivy making it hard to push open the solid iron gate and no rust to leave marks on clothes. It was easy to walk up the path between the tidy lavender hedges. The poppies had long since finished flowering but, as Ellie bent down to release Pascal from his harness, she noticed a rogue daisy growing amongst the lavender, and she smiled as she shook her head before picking the bloom. The movement was enough to unravel a braid that had already been too loose, but she didn’t do anything more than push the hair over her shoulder and tuck the stalk of the daisy behind her ear before opening her bag to find the big, old key to the house.

She had closed the shutters on the French doors before leaving the house earlier in the day, but Ellie knew this room well enough to move easily towards the kitchen. When Pascal suddenly stopped, however, to sniff the air, she felt a shiver run down her spine.

Something wasn’t right.

‘What is it, Pascal?’ she whispered. ‘Can you smell something? Someone?’

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