Page 21 of Sisters Making Mischief
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t.’
‘Bon.Good. So perhaps you could…?’ he made some vague, encouraging motions with his hands and I did some flouncing and slammed the passenger door closed, unfortunately catching the side of my coat and crunching on my favourite reading glasses (which had been in the pocket) at the same time.
I looked up at him and could see him biting back a smile that made me even more furious.
I opened the car door and freed myself with as much dignity as possible, and then I retrieved the mangled remains of my glasses and shoved them into my handbag, scattering some of the breath mints out onto the road.
‘It’s not funny,’ I said.
‘No, indeed,’ he agreed.
‘Right, I’m moving,’ I said.
‘Thank you,’ he said, with a little bow.
I got back into the driving seat and turned the ignition, which mercifully fired up the first time. The last thing I would have needed was for my car to play up in revenge. Then, still very rattled, I forgot to put the car into reverse and jerked forward, nearly catapulting myself into the drainage ditch. I slammed on the brakes just in time and reversed onto the road, my tyres spinning on the mud. And then I pulled to one side, lowered my window and waved him past me. I don’t think I trusted myself to move while he was there looking, and I certainly didn’t want him following me down the lane.
He drove past me with another toot of his horn and a rather jaunty wave. He was definitely grinning. I resisted the urge to make a rude gesture at the back of his truck and bent and rested my head on the steering wheel for a moment. I’d been in such a great mood too before all this. That sort of outburst wasn’t like me at all, and it wasn’t his fault that I’d had an accident, I knew perfectly well it was mine. I’d been driving along, dreaming about what a lovely time I was going to have with my sister. Why hadn’t I allowed myself to get this cross with my family? I evidently had a lot of pent-up rage and unfortunately that man had been the lucky recipient.
8
I drove on at a sedate pace. I was beginning to recognise things from my previous visits. A deserted barn at the side of the road, the doors hanging open, shreds of blue paint clinging to the hinges. Then a small town with a cute little church and a few shops. A woman in a floral apron was sweeping the pavement outside one of them. A man was walking past her, a newspaper under one arm and two French sticks wrapped in paper under the other. It was so classically French that it made me smile again.
There had been a café somewhere around here, I remembered, which had sold wonderful patisserie from what looked like the owner’s front room. My mouth watered at the thought ofmille-feuillesand strawberry tartlets. Feather light éclairs filled with custard cream, littletartes tatins,crispy and rich with buttery apples. Actually, at that moment the thought of them made me feel a bit nauseous, perhaps that was the adrenalin too. I’d never had that sort of reaction to cake before. I must have been rattled.
I turned off into an even smaller lane, which led to Isabel’s house. There was an old sign and a large wooden arrow, propped against the hedge:
Ferme de Pommes de Terre
Potato Farm. She and Felix had built up a comfortable, slightly rackety life between them, Isabel running theirgîtesand managing a barn filled with odds and ends of furniture and random knick-knacks which the French callbrocante,Felix with his bookshop.
I reached the rutted driveway where the ironwork gates stood permanently rusted open, and I was there at last, with no further mishap. I let out a long sigh of relief.
Before the car had even stopped, Isabel’s two dogs came cannoning out of the house, yodelling their welcome and circling the car as though they were herding me. Hoping they were sensible enough to avoid getting run over, I stopped the car and turned the engine off. Then I waited a few moments for Isabel to come out of the kitchen door and shoo them away.
‘Marcel! Antoine!Arrêter maintenant!Stop it!’ she shouted. The dogs slunk away, and she shouted after them ‘Dans ton lit. In your bed!’
‘Does that apply to me too?’ I called across as I opened the car door, ‘I wouldn’t mind.’
Isabel laughed and came over to hug me. She looked just the same as she ever had. Her curly brown hair a bit flecked with grey now, still trim and energetic, her fashion sense obviously as eclectic as it ever had been too. A pair of reading glasses were hanging around her neck on a bright red chain, and I remembered how she had always been losing them when she was younger but refused to use such a thing because she thoughtit was an ‘old lady’ thing to do. At sixty-one she had evidently got over that.
‘You’re here at last!’ she said. She leaned back and looked at me. ‘What on earth have you been doing? You look terrible!’
‘Well, thanks for that, dear sister, you always were very free with the compliments,’ I said. ‘You don’t look so hot yourself.’
She laughed and pushed her curls out of her eyes. Actually, she looked very happy, completely at ease with herself.
‘You look very stressed. Is this a result of the cosy family Christmas you’ve enjoyed?’
‘That and nearly having an accident on the way here.’
Her eyes widened. ‘Really? Are you all right? What happened?’
‘I forgot about drivingà droit. I nearly collided with a tractor, and then I had a very embarrassing encounter with a farmer. And then I nearly drove into the ditch, and I slammed my coat in the car door and broke my glasses. Apart from that…’
‘You twit,’ Isabel said, putting an arm around my shoulders. ‘Come on, leave your bags for now, you need some coffee.’
The dogs had not retreated obediently to their beds but had slunk out of the kitchen again and were circling us, tongues lolling.
