Page 4 of Love In Provence
She looks up at me.
‘Is Henri with you?’ My mouth feels like it’s full of sawdust.
Just then I see Fabien rushing in past thepompiersandgendarmes, bizarrely shaking hands with those he knows, which is most of them, and the gathered shopkeepers standing by the fallen tree. ‘Hey, I just got your message,’ he says from the doorway, behind Rhi, not noticing her. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes, fine. No one hurt. Just shocked.’
He lets out a sigh. ‘Thank goodness.’ He goes to step inside the restaurant.
‘Pardon,’ he says politely.
Then he does a double-take, seeing Rhi on the threshold, blocking the entrance. Not moving one way or the other, in or out. ‘Rhi?’ he says, then smiles widely and wraps her in a huge Fabien hug. That’s one of the things I love most about him: his hugs make you feel everything will be just fine. But still she doesn’t moveor hug him back. He pulls away, looking at her face, then at me, as if I have the answer. And I think, by the chill in my bones, I do.
‘Rhi?’ I ask again.
‘Henri,’ she says, and swallows, the words catching in her mouth. Then she takes another run at it. ‘Henri’s … dead,’ she manages, as the wind screams down the narrow cobbled street, around the town square and out the other side.
4
Her voice is thin and trembling. ‘I didn’t know where else to go.’ Rhi’s face is haunted. ‘Oh, Del …’
I step forward and in two big strides I’m enclosing her in a hug. It’s the only thing I think of doing, just like Fabien did. I hold her tight.
‘You came here. Henri’s home. It was the right thing to do,’ I say, into her thick, soft hair.
She’s tense in my arms, clearly still trying to hold it all together.
‘Come in,’ I say, above the noise of the tree being sawn up by a local tree surgeon, assisted by thepompiers. Thegendarmesare looking on and accepting coffee from the shopkeepers.
I raise a hand to them, acknowledging them, as does Fabien, thanking them for coming so swiftly. He follows us inside and shuts the door.
I lead Rhi through the kitchen to the narrow wooden stairs up to Henri’s apartment. It’s quieter than downstairs, I think, away from the bustle of the tree removal outside. We climb up, past all the framed photographs on the walls of Henri as a younger man, holidays in Brittany with his family, life here at the bistro in the early days, friends and special guests who have visited, then of him and Rhi in the setting sun. We step onto the landing and into the big open-plan room over the kitchen and restaurant, zoned into the salon, with a sofa, the dining area and the kitchen, with a separate bedroom and bathroom. It’s a lovely light space. But perhaps it wasn’t the best idea to come here.
Everything is how it was when Rhi and Henri left, only occasionally returning to check in with us and plan their next adventure.
She looks at the big wooden desk, then at the captain’s chair, with Henri’s indentation on the worn tapestry cushions where he would sit to do his paperwork. Not that he enjoyed paperwork, but he did like sitting at his desk, with the long shuttered window in front of it, looking down on the street below.
Rhi walks in slowly, then goes to rest her hand on the back of the chair, as if imagining him there. Then, as if the reality hits her, she dissolves into tears. I lead her to the sofa that’s positioned to look out of another window, to the cream stone apartment opposite over the bistro. Cheerful voices frombelow rise to us, in contrast to the feeling in the room right now.
I sit beside her and look up at Fabien. His face shows his shock and I can’t work out who to comfort first.
‘Perhaps a cognac?’ I say quietly to Fabien. He nods, goes down to the restaurant and returns with three glasses and a bottle of Henri’s favourite on a wooden tray.
‘It was very quick and peaceful at the end,’ says Rhi, clutching a fistful of tissues, her nose red and eyes swollen. We are all sitting in the salon, around the circular golden-edged coffee table, with the bottle of cognac on it. We have a glass each, and some coffee, from the brew I put on to give to thepompiers. No one has touched their coffee or the biscuits I insisted Fabien bring up with it. It was more of a knee-jerk reaction, an attempt to take the edge off the pain that’s almost palpable.
‘You should have rung,’ I say gently.
‘I wanted to,’ Rhi says, shredding the tissue and taking a large gulp of her cognac, ‘but I couldn’t say the words.’ She coughs and blows her nose on the shredded tissue. Fabien silently passes her another. ‘The hospital contacted his children obviously. They are his next of kin. I spoke to them briefly, told them he hadn’t been alone, but I felt like I was talking about someone else. Not Henri. My Henri. I didn’t know how to say the words … Until now.’ She takes a deepbreath, says, ‘Henri’s dead,’ and dissolves again. I watch helplessly as my friend’s heart breaks in two.
‘Where is he now?’ I ask, hoping that practicalities will help us negotiate this huge sorrow.
She puts her hand on her large handbag. ‘In here,’ she says.
‘In your bag?’
She nods.
‘Like I say, I didn’t know what to do. I told his son I would bring his ashes home. We were in Bora Bora at the time. Had to get to New Zealand …’ she stumbles, swallows ‘… to bring him home.’
