Page 10 of Love In Provence
‘You’ll be fine. You know what to do,’ he reassures me.
‘But you’ve always been here before.’
‘I will be … here.’ He holds my hand to his chest, over his heart. ‘You can do this.’
‘Can I?’
He nods, and gently smiles. ‘You can.’
‘I wish Henri was here,’ I murmur, as the sun begins to rise in the sky. A big ball of orange.
‘He will be proud of you.’
‘And you!’ I smile again.
He pulls open the truck door with a squeak, throws in his holdall and places his guitar on the passenger seat.
There seems to be so much I want to say. Thoughts are tumbling over each other in my head. I want to talk about Henri – I want to ask him more about Henri before I came here. His life before the bistro, his wife, children, the riverside project, and remember how wonderful it was when he and Rhi met. I want to talk about last night: how I felt numb. How I’m scared that we haven’t made time for each other lately, that we could drift apart where family life has piled into the space between us. I want to reassure him, be reassured, that we are still us. That we are still the couple who fell in love three years ago. That he’s still happy here with me. Maybe I shouldn’t have told him to go.
‘Maybe you’re right. Perhaps I could come with you. Cancel the harvest, forget about it for this year.’
But Fabien is shaking his head gently. ‘No, Del, youwere right, it was a silly idea. There are people coming who depend on you. You’re needed here. You said so yourself. Henri would hate to think you’d cancelled the harvest because of him.’ He repeats my words back to me. ‘But, honestly, I don’t have to do this.’
‘Yes, you do. And you need to go. Life must go on! Henri would be the first to say so. It will be good for both of us. Absence makes the heart grow fonder!’ I say, with forced jollity, but knowing it’s right. I sniff and rub my itching nose and look up at him.
‘This is ridiculous!’ he says quietly. ‘We have the harvest, businesses to run. Our close friend has just died …’
‘That’s exactly why you should do it! Because you can!’
‘Sounds like you want me to go. Is that what you want, for us to be apart?’ He looks me in the eye. ‘Del, are you asking for a break?’
‘No! That’s not what I want. I’m trying to do my best here for everyone,’ I say. ‘Just go! Go! Live every minute!’ I’m trying to smile, but the knowledge that Henri isn’t able to is building in me like a wave gathering in strength. ‘Henri can’t. But we can. You have to go because you can.’ I’m being torn in two, selfishly wanting him to stay and desperate for him to take this chance. I wish he wasn’t going. But I’m also glad he is. It’s an adventure. An opportunity. And it would only be a regret if he didn’t take it.
‘Message me when you get there. Hang on, where is “there”?’
He shrugs. ‘No idea. It’s all been so quick, I’m not sure of the venues. But I’ll let you know.’ He leans in and kisses me, tentatively, as if, once again, he’s checking in on us. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he says, and climbs into the truck next to his guitar. Ralph barks, enraged at not going along for the ride. Fabien calls to him to be quiet and behave, then turns on the engine and reverses. He blows me a kiss as I wave to him, Ralph barking, and leaves in a cloud of cream dust.
‘I’ll be back as soon as I can,’ he says. Something tells me that it won’t be soon. It’s the right thing, I think. So why do I feel like I’ve pushed him away? Something is troubling me and making me anxious as I watch the truck disappear, slowly lowering my hand.
He’s gone. And I want to call him back to be here beside me for the harvest. To make time for us to be together. But it looks like Fate has other plans right now. There is so much I want to say, so much left unspoken … I realize I’m reminded of Ollie driving away from Le Petit Mas. We’d come to the end of the road and it took me insisting that he left and I stayed for him to realize it. What if I’ve just done exactly the same to Fabien, told him to leave, and he doesn’t come back? But this is Fabien, not Ollie. Ollie was having anaffair. He went back to another woman. That won’t happen with Fabien. I just don’t want him to have any regrets about us. Life suddenly seems to have tilted on its axis.
Damn you, Mistral! Damn you!
6
The following morning, Sunday, there’s a loud farting, belching noise from the road outside the farm. I don’t pay it much attention – there are lots of old tractors about at this time of year. Ralph jumps up from his position in the sun on the floor in the converted barn accommodation where Rhi and I are making beds together. It’s a single-storey building with basic bedrooms, a shared bathroom, and a large open area to one side with simple cooking facilities and seating. Fabien and I did most of the work ourselves two winters ago and I’m so proud of it.
My heart twists thinking about Fabien, his text when he arrived at his first gig last night. He sent a selfie from a festival site, somewhere in the Dordogne. He was hoping he could remember all the chords to the songs, and wasn’t looking forward to a night in a tent.He also hoped he could remember how to put up a tent. A lot has changed in his life since he was camping at festivals, he said, and signed off with kisses.
A lothaschanged, I think. Life has a habit of doing that when you’re not expecting it. Just when it seems to be finding its groove, something makes you stop to look back and realize how much has changed. Five years ago I would never have thought this would be my life now, that I’d be divorced from Ollie and living on a lavender farm with a man ten years younger than me, practically a grandmother to two little boys and running a bistro. Things change so quickly, whether you want them to or not.
Working side by side, Rhi and I are lost in our thoughts, hers mostly about Henri, I suspect, and the hole he’s left in her life, and mine about how I knee-jerk insisted on Fabien going off with his old bandmates. How could I have been so stupid? It’s the last thing I want. I was in shock at Henri’s death. And now Fabien’s not here when I really, really need him to tell him I love him and love our life together. That’s what we should be celebrating, not trying to recapture the past but living in the now. Although he kissed me and told me he loved me, there was something poignant in that moment. Just like when Ollie left. It was as if things were changing for good. I’m wishing we could have tonight to talk about Henri, and about us. I want to know he’s happy with me here at the Le Petit Mas dela Lavande. I don’t want him to stay with me if he has any doubts about us or the future. I want him to be happy. If I had to, I’d let him go. I’ll call him later, tell him how I’m feeling, talk it through with him. I’ll feel better once I’ve done that.
Occasionally a tear falls from Rhi onto the clean white bedding and one or other of us sweeps it away.
It’s what Rhi and Henri found in each other that was so special. No long-term promises, just living in the now, no matter who disapproved, like their grown-up children for a start. Rhi’s children came round to the idea of her giving up the business and spending some of her hard-earned money but I don’t think Henri’s ever did. He spoke very little about his children. I don’t think he was in contact with them much. Clearly there was history – hurt and sadness on his part.
There’s another farting sound and this time Ralph is standing at the door to the room we’re in, barking. I go to the open window where the early-morning mist has dispersed, leaving a brilliant blue sky, the sun pushing gloriously upwards. There, coming in through the gateway at the end of the long drive, I see a little turquoise VW camper van, swaying and lurching, clanking, grinding and pushing out plumes of smoke. Just the sight of it makes me want to cough. Rhi joins me in the doorway of the little bedroom looking out onto the yard.
