Page 23 of The Magic of Provence

‘Ça va?’

It had only taken a couple of days of being amongst French people to learn the ubiquitous query of whether someone or something was okay and how to respond.

‘Oui, merci,’ she said. ‘Ça vabien.’ Then she needed to switch back to English. ‘It’s so beautiful in here.’

‘We love it. We walk here for an hour or two every day that we don’t go up into the mountains. It’s one of the reasons I love to live here. I could never count the number of beautiful places there are to walk, but it’s special to be able to spend a whole day in this part of the forest.’

‘It’s so peaceful.’

‘It will be more peaceful if I stop talking,’ Christophe said. The way he wrinkled his nose to suggest that he wasn’t happy with himself was…

…cute? Fi could have reassured him that he was not spoiling the ambience. That she liked the sound of his voice and that unique accent he had. She even opened her mouth to say something but the words evaporated before they could reach any air.

‘It will be like…’ Christophe waved a hand in the air. ‘What do they call it in Japan? A bath in the forest?’

‘Forest bathing.’ Fi nodded. ‘I’ve heard of that.’

But she had always been aware of the physical and emotional benefits of getting close to nature. As a typical middle child, she’d been content with her own company, especially after Laura had become so infatuated with Ellie she almost took over the role of a second mother. Trees, meadows and animals had been Fi’s refuge as she’d negotiated the turbulence of tween and teenage years, and her best days had been a combination of all those things.

As she walked in Christophe’s company with nothing more than the sound of their footfalls and the call of birds to break the silence it brought back a treasured memory. She’d finished the after-school chores at the riding school, which was how she earned her lessons and time with the ponies, and she’d ridden Whisky into the nearby woods on a sunny, spring afternoon when the bluebells were in flower. She couldn’t remember what sort of trees they were under, but maybe they had been oaks as well, because it had looked exactly like this when she’d tipped her head back. So many trees, growing so close to each other that the ends of their branches were entangled, as if they were holding hands. Dark trunks and then branches and then twigs were like visible arteries and veins of an enormous living entity, and the sparkles of sunlight shifting in and out of the leaves made it come to life as if it was wearing a ballgown covered with shiny gold sequins.

Fi could almost smell the woodsy, floral perfume of a carpet of bluebells. She could definitely feel the touch of the happiness she remembered of knowing that nothing else could be quite as perfect as her world was in that moment. It was enough to make her sink into simply enjoying this walk, and that, in turn, dissolved any tendrils of awkwardness that could have sprouted from walking with someone else in complete silence. By the time they reached their destination, being in Christophe’s company had, in fact, earned the familiarity of something that she wouldn’t hesitate to choose to do again.

The delight of finding more than a dozen donkeys standing between the trunks of the huge trees was the icing on an unexpectedly delicious cake. Like Marguerite and Coquelicot, these donkeys were small – no more than about ten hands high – and they were shaggy. They were all shades of grey and brown with the distinctive black cross of Jerusalem donkeys that ran down the length of the spine and tapered to a point as it draped over both shoulders. Their muzzles were white and those extraordinary ears were filled with soft, pale hair but outlined as darkly as the cross on their backs. As dark as all those eyes that were staring at them, some half-hidden by heavy fringes.

‘Fermo,’ Christophe said to Heidi, pointing at the base of one of the trees outside the electric fence enclosure for the donkeys. The huge dog immediately lay down, kicking one back leg out and putting her nose on her front paws.

‘We’ll put a halter on two donkeys to start with,’ he told Fi. ‘And tie them up beside each other. If you can help with the first examination, you can do the hooves while I check the next one. It’s what works for me and Didier. Is that okay with you?’

‘Perfect. That way they’ll get used to me being here instead of Didier.’ Fi scanned the group and noted one donkey standing at some distance from the rest. ‘Are they all okay with being handled?’

Christophe could see where she was looking. ‘I’ll check the photographs I have but I think that donkey is new to the herd, so I don’t know him. Or her. Some are a little…’ Christophe was searching for a word. ‘Ansioso?Anxieuxin French.’

‘Anxious?’

‘Ah…c’est ça. Merci.’ There was a twinkle in his eyes. ‘Sometimes there are too many languages in my head and they bump into each other.’

Fi ducked her head. He was seriously charming, this man.

‘That’s okay… I have treats that might help me make friends with them.’

‘Treats?’

‘Ginger biscuits. My mother loves them with a cup of tea, so she always brings a couple of packets with her. And I have Polos.’

‘I remember Polos from being in England. They are peppermints, yes?’

Fi nodded. She reached into her pocket and brought out a tube of the mints. ‘I’d heard that donkeys love peppermints and ginger biscuits and I tested the theory when I came over at Christmas and went to meet Marguerite and Coquelicot.’

She put them back into her pocket and watched Christophe as he set down and opened his backpack and then used a stick to push the electric wire of the enclosure down far enough to step over it easily, a couple of halters and lead ropes in his hands. He offered the back of a hand for the closest donkey to sniff and Fi could see the way the other donkeys edged closer, curious and friendly. She liked the way Christophe showed the first donkey, a little grey jenny, the halter before he slowly put it on her.

‘You know me, don’t youcara?’ he said softly. ‘We areamici,oui?’

What would it be like, Fi wondered, for it to be normal to have so many words to choose from?

‘How many languagesdoyou speak?’ she asked.

‘I grew up speaking both French and Italian. My mother speaks English very well and I learned more at school and singing pop music. I missed Julien when he went to boarding school in England, so I did my first year of university there with him before I started to become a vet. I also speak some Spanish and Portuguese.’

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