Page 30 of The Magic of Provence

Christophe whistled silently. ‘Brain tumours can be devastating.’

Fi nodded. ‘It wasn’t drinking too much that made him unable to walk properly sometimes, or even speak properly. Or turned him into a man with a violent temper. Mam knew something was wrong but… maybe it was the tumour stopping him from listening to her. Stopping him from going to see a doctor.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Anyway… the surgery was successful but removing the tumour created damage as well. He’d totally lost his memory. He couldn’t even talk for years after that. He was sent to an institution and, when he did start to talk again, it was in French. And he had no idea who he was or what had happened to him.’

‘It makes sense that he spoke French.’ Christophe parked the car near the cemetery again but made no move to get out. ‘It was the language he was hearing around him and it was already in his head from his first years in France.’

‘Maybe those earliest memories were why he eventually found his way back to this part of the country, to where he was born.’

‘Peut-être. Does he remember English as well?’

‘He dreams in English sometimes. But only bad dreams.’

‘Cauchemars,’ Christophe murmured. ‘Nightmares.’

‘He recognised Mam from them. They must be his memories. Do you know what flashbacks are?’

‘Le flash-back.’ Christophe nodded. ‘We use the same word. Orretour en arrièrebut that’s only to go back. Flashback is… more violent, yes? Something that you don’t want because it’s bad. They come from something traumatic and they can damage your life and steal what makes you the person you want to be.’

Fi couldn’t meet his gaze. She had to fight back tears, in fact. In any attempt to heal herself, she’d never found anything online or in books that captured that feeling so well.

Aye… The person she had wanted to be had been stolen. She almost wanted to tell Christophe why his definition resonated so deeply with her. She wouldn’t, of course. She didn’t want him to think about her in that way. It would be excruciating to think he might be imagining what had happened to her to create her own flashbacks.

‘They think that he must remember the violence. Perhaps that’s all he remembers about his marriage as well as the attack that made him go on the run from the police and probably stow away on a boat to France. The flashbacks terrify him. Seeing Mam terrified him because he thought she was a ghost. She’s been going into the hospital and just sitting in the room with him. Talking to him. He’s only starting to wake up properly now. It’s been…’ Fi blew out a breath as she gave her head a small shake. ‘Well… intense. I’ve discovered that being near donkeys is the best thing when you feel so…’ She wrapped her arms around herself and could feel her muscles tightening so that she shrank a little. ‘It’s like being in a plane,’ she added. ‘When you hit turbulence that nobody was expecting and you have no idea what’s going to happen next but there’s the possibility that you could actually fall out of the sky.’

Christophe’s smile was all the response she needed. ‘C’est parti, mon kiki,’ he said. ‘Let’s go. Let’s find Joseph and Mary and look after the rest of their friends.’

* * *

Maybe the donkeys remembered the peppermints and ginger biscuits that Fiona had in the pockets of her dungarees. Or perhaps they remembered her voice reassuring them that they had nothing to fear and the kindness and skill she had shown in making their feet comfortable? Whatever the reason, they crowded around her as she entered the enclosure. They wanted to be near her. To be touched by her. It made Christophe smile.

He knew how they felt.

He, too, was happy to simply be this close.

For the most part, they had worked together in silence that first day. This time, it felt easy to start and stop snatches of conversation.

‘Did you bring some stromboli for us to have for lunch today?’ Fi asked as she straightened to stretch her back after finishing a set of hooves.

‘No. Today I have made a pizza with mushrooms and onions that have been cooked with balsamic vinegar and are on top of goat’s cheese and spinach. With a lot of garlic, a little sage and some…romarin. I don’t know what that herb is in English.’

‘Neither do I but it sounds delicious. I wish I’d had a nonna to teach me to cook Italian food.’

‘There is no one else in the world like my nonna,’ Christophe said with conviction. ‘She is the person I love the most. Apart from my mamma,bien sûr.’ He caught the lift of Fi’s eyebrows and smiled as he shrugged. ‘What can I say? I’m half-Italian. For us, family is everything.’

‘Do you have brothers and sisters? Cousins? Nieces and nephews?’

Christophe sighed deeply. ‘Sadly,non. My mamma and my nonna were counting on me to grow our family and I wanted that too. I had been an only child and I envied my friends who had big families. I almost got married when I was eighteen but fortunately I realised what a bad idea that was before I made such a big mistake.’

He wasn’t about to tell her that he’d been discarded by Marcella in favour of another man – an older, wealthy man. That, in the end, who he was had not been enough for the girl he had loved so passionately. Why would he want Fiona to know that? Or that he’d been so broken, he’d vowed to never risk that kind of pain a second time? She might think less of him.

He didn’t want her to think less of him.

‘It still seems like a bad idea.’ This time his shrug signalled an end to this subject. ‘Qué sera sera.’

When he started another conversation as they put halters on the last two donkeys who needed attention, he made sure it was not going to get too personal.

‘Donkeys’ feet are very different to horses’ feet, yes? I know they are prone to laminitis, like ponies.’

‘Yes. The hooves are quite a different shape. They’re longer than they are wide and it’s very important that they walk on the wall of the hoof and not the sole.’

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