The French for Always (5 page)

A
couple of hours later
, Sara and Hélène were finishing up the dinner preparations in the kitchen and Antoine was loading up trays of glasses for setting out on the terrace for the pre-dinner drinks, when Mr O’Callaghan popped his head round the kitchen door. ‘Could I take a glass of ice water up for Niamh?’

‘How’s she doing?’ asked Sara solicitously.

He shook his head. ‘Putting a brave face on it in public. But she’s just been having a wee weep on her mother’s shoulder in the privacy of her own room. It’s a shame for her big day and all, but worse things have happened at sea. She’s got a proper shiner developing though, right enough. She’s upset at facing everyone for the rehearsal dinner tonight, never mind her wedding day tomorrow.’

‘Poor girl. But it’d take more than a little thing like a black eye to mar her natural beauty,’ Sara shook her head. ‘Hang on a sec, though,’ she went on. ‘I’ve an idea that might just help. Can you get Liam and a couple of the boys rounded up?’ She checked her watch. ‘We’ve half an hour to go...’

And so when Niamh O’Callaghan, soon-to-be-Best, arrived at the terrace door to make her entrance to her rehearsal dinner, her black eye concealed as much as possible by makeup and her head held high, her handsome groom handed her a pair of sunglasses. ‘You’d better put these on,’ he said.

She shook her head. ‘It’s okay, Keiran, I’m grand.’

‘Well, fine then, if you want to be the only one left out, that’s all right by me.’ She shot him a quizzical—and slightly lopsided—look as he put on his own pair of sunglasses and offered her his arm. And then she stepped onto the terrace, where every single member of the assembled company, including the youngest baby, the oldest great-aunt and each member of the waiting staff, was sporting their own pair of dark glasses in solidarity with the beautiful bride.

Niamh’s lovely, bruised face broke into its habitually radiant smile as the penny dropped and then, laughing and crying simultaneously—which played complete havoc with her make-up—she put on her sunglasses and plunged into the loving uproar as the entire room broke into spontaneous applause.

Sara breathed a sigh of relief. Another crisis averted. All in a day’s work in the wedding business.

‘...
a
nd so
it only remains for me to ask you all to join me in raising your glasses in a toast to the beautiful bridesmaids!’ Liam’s speech had gone down well. Sara was relieved to note that the worst of the jokes had obviously been reserved for the stag night and rugby club, and so there was nothing too inappropriate in it for an audience which ranged in age from two to eighty-two. It always amazed her how sometimes people managed to get it so wrong, leaving elderly aunts frowning in disapproval and parents squirming in discomfort as their young children demanded an explanation of the unspeakable sexual acts that were being described with misplaced hilarity.

The bride’s black eye, which had turned a dramatic shade of purple overnight, had been thoroughly dabbed with concealer and powdered into near oblivion, and luckily the worst of the swelling had subsided. The professional photographer, Henri Dupont, had done his best to take photos that made the most of Niamh’s unspoilt profile. Sara kept a beady eye on him. He was good at his job but seemed to feel that one of the perks that came with it was the opportunity to do a little extracurricular close-up work with whichever bridesmaid or luscious wedding guest seemed either the most drunk or the most obviously available. Whenever he looked as if he was about to carve one of the girls off from the throng and inveigle her into the shrubbery with the promise of some free head-shots (a most unfortunate term, under the circumstances) Sara would attempt to intercept him with a request for more photographs of the top table. She now realised how ironic it was that she’d been so distracted trying to keep tabs on Henri’s behaviour that she hadn’t noticed that Gavin was engaged in similar pursuits, right under her nose.

It had been a lovely ceremony. Like most of the weddings that took place at Château Bellevue de Coulliac, it was a service of blessing that had taken place in the old deconsecrated chapel off the west wing. To keep things simple, most couples usually had a small civil ceremony at home beforehand, so that they’d be legally married in their own country of residence, and then in France a blessing of some sort and an excellent party afterwards. With the desserts now over, the best man was asking everyone to make their way to the barn for the cutting of the cake and the bride and groom’s first dance. Sara was always interested to see what each couple would choose for ‘their song’, which Thomas would have prepared as the opener on the playlist for this evening. He was taking his new role seriously and had spent hours on Thursday afternoon compiling the list, trying to include as many requests as possible, keen to get the music right for his first wedding.

As the lights were dimmed and the glitter ball started to revolve,
The Way You Look Tonight
began to play and Niamh smiled up into the loving gaze of her besotted husband, the two of them completely oblivious—for a few moments—to the loving throng of friends and family who beamed at them from the edges of the room.
Classy couple
, thought Sara with satisfaction,
I’d have expected nothing less
. Then Liam and Marie, Mr O’Callaghan and Mrs Best Senior, and Mrs O’Callaghan and Keiran’s father took to the floor to keep them company.

Thomas was doing a brilliant job. He’d taken to his DJ-ing duties like a duck to water. Sara leant against the barn door, watching him from the shadows. She’d always simply thought of him as a business colleague, one of the many suppliers they dealt with, but now she saw that Karen was right: he really
was
a good-looking guy, with his dark eyes and generous grin flashing in the disco lights. As if sensing her eyes on him, he glanced in her direction and, catching sight of her, his face lit up with that slow smile again and he raised a beer bottle in salute. He seemed to be in his element. Blushing in the darkness, and thankful that he couldn’t read her thoughts, Sara smiled back and gave him a thumbs up.

The music segued into a lively Thin Lizzy number and there was a surge onto the dance-floor. Antoine was already mobbed over at the bar, pouring whiskies with both hands. On her way to help the caterers fold the last few tablecloths, Sara stopped in at the kitchen to put a few more bottles of water in the drinks fridge: they’d probably be needing them tomorrow.

‘
G
oodbye
! Good luck! Have a wonderful time...’ The assembled company had gathered to give the bride and groom a send-off as they were about to climb into the convertible they’d hired and head for the airport and their honeymoon flight.

Niamh and Keiran came to find Sara, who was dispensing ice lollies to the children. ‘Thank you for everything. You made our wedding so perfect,’ said Niamh, as she and Sara embraced.

‘Well, speaking of perfection, Henri has said he can touch up the photos if you want him to. He’ll send you preview copies and you can let him know if you want any air-brushing done on your poor eye.’

The new Mrs Best smiled up at her husband. ‘You know, I think we’ll leave them just as they are. It’ll remind us of this wonderful party, and that you have to take the rough with the smooth in life. What really matters is family—no matter how annoying some of them may be sometimes—and friends. And us being together.’

‘Yeah, and I quite like the front-row-of-the-scrum look on you. You wear it a lot better than most props I know,’ Keiran hugged her to him.

Sara joined the other guests to wave the pair off from the front steps of the château, then turned to go back in and brew some more coffee to take round as the party wound down.

‘I’ve got a really good feeling about that pair, you know,’ said Karen with an approving nod, carrying a tray of crockery in from the terrace.

‘Yup. That’s going to be a happy-ever-after one, I think.’ Sara began to wash up a few extra coffee cups.

Niamh’s parting words echoed in her ears. ‘
You have to take the rough with the smooth in life.
’ And Sara realised Niamh was right; there was no point trying to airbrush reality. She’d been able to get through this wedding mostly by avoiding thinking about Gavin’s departure, which had resurrected so many painful memories of abandonment from her childhood. Now she felt able to face the fact that what they had was over; but at the same time, she wouldn’t be here were it not for him. It came as something of a revelation. She felt a wave of acceptance break over her, washing away the terror she had had of facing the rest of the summer alone.

‘Here,’ said Karen, nudging her away from the sink with her hip. ‘I’ll wash, you dry. Well, that’s the first one flying solo safely over.’

Sara nodded. ‘Thanks to all of you. One down, five more to go this season. You know what? I think we might just be able to do this.’

I
t was
her favourite moment in the week: those perfectly peaceful few seconds just after the last wedding guest had departed, when she had the château to herself. Even when Gavin had been around, Sara would purposefully take herself off into the garden every Monday at midday, to savour the calm beauty and the rare luxury of being alone for once. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, a long sigh of relief at having another event successfully crossed off the list, another sizeable cheque banked, the money to cover the next round of salaries and bills safely stashed away.

She’d expected to feel lonely with Gavin gone, but had discovered to her surprise that she really quite liked her own company. In fact, paradoxically, there had been times when she’d felt more lonely with him
around
. As her confidence had ebbed, she’d found herself deferring to him in most matters to do with the business—after all, he was the one with event management experience, and he was also the majority shareholder, having had the inheritance from his father to invest. But now, instead of seeing herself as one half of an engaged couple, she was suddenly a complete entity in her own right again. It was as though she’d been holding her breath since their engagement, and suddenly found she could breathe freely once more.

She stood gazing out at the view and drank deep the warm air, faintly perfumed with dust and the scent of lavender. A pair of pale-blue butterflies danced about her head, dizzy with the joyful abundance of summer, intoxicated by the garden she’d planted for them on this magical hilltop.

As she watched, a white van making its way along the road in the valley below the château turned in at the gate, bumping up the drive. It couldn’t be the laundry van, which called on Tuesdays to pick up the weekend’s sheets and towels and to drop off fresh ones for the changeover. Nor was it Claude, the gardener. Perhaps it was someone from the catering company who’d left something behind. Taking her time, reluctant to break the spell of those few perfect moments, Sara came across the courtyard to find Thomas Cortini waiting for her.

‘Thomas! What a fantastic job you did on Saturday night. The guests loved the party; lots of them said how great the music was. You’re a natural!’

‘
Ah bon,
I’m pleased that you’re pleased, Boss. You’ve got a great set-up here. I hadn’t realised before how much work you and Gavin have done on the old château. It’s good to see it restored to its former glory.’

‘Thank you. That means a lot, coming from someone who’s lived here all his life.’

‘Anyway, Karen tells me that Monday is a day off here. And as I was passing your door on the way back from dropping my father at the airport, I thought I’d call in and see if you’d like to come for lunch. I’ve brought a picnic.’

‘Oh, that’s kind of you, Thomas, but I really should be getting on with a few phone calls about arrangements for the next wedding.’ Sara’s default response was a protective one. (And then it occurred to her to wonder why he and Karen had been discussing when her day off was... Sara suspected a certain Australian matchmaker just might be at work here.).

Thomas, not about to take ‘no’ for an answer, tapped his watch. ‘But, Sara,
c’est midi
. Everywhere will be closed—if they were even open in the first place on a Monday in August! And if I might remind you,’ he continued, mock officious, ‘under the regulations governing the thirty-five-hour working week here in France, employees are obliged to down tools for two hours and go and sit by the river and eat bread and pâté. It’s also compulsory to drink a glass of chilled wine, in order to support your local
vigneron
. Your phoning can wait until later, when people will have returned to their desks in a very good humour thanks to their long and reviving lunch break.’

She laughed and shook her head. ‘Well, if you put it like that...’

‘And if you do not comply, I may have to report you to the union for being in contravention of the rules.’ Thomas clinched the deal.

‘What did you say your day job was again? Something about sales and marketing? You’re very good! Give me two seconds to go and grab my sunglasses.’

In the cottage, Sara ran a comb through her fine, dark hair and swept a little colourless lip gloss over her lips. Purely to stop them getting too dry in the heat, of course, certainly not with any other possible ulterior motive.

‘Where are we going?’ she asked as she climbed into the van.

‘Not far at all,’ replied Thomas.

True to his word, he pulled in at the gates of an old mill, which sat on the riverbank less than a kilometre from the château. ‘This is my sister-in-law’s parents’ house,’ he explained. ‘I’m keeping an eye on it while they’re away at the
Bassin d’Arcachon
for a few weeks with the rest of the family.’

He hauled a picnic basket out of the back of the van. ‘You can carry this,’ he handed her a freshly baked baguette, still warm from the baker’s oven and wrapped in a twist of brown paper, ‘and I’ll bring this.’ He picked up a wine cooler. ‘
Allez, viens!’

He led the way past the front of the ancient stone mill house and along a narrow path which led to the river, one of the smaller tributaries of the Dordogne. A weir had been built across the river and, on the nearside, a narrow channel of water had been diverted so that it plunged and foamed under the old mill wheel, at rest now after its centuries of work, the sluice gates beside it standing open to allow the water to flow through freely. They settled themselves in the shade of a generous-limbed willow tree that trailed its leaves languidly in the slow-flowing water below the weir.

Sara gave a small sigh of contentment. ‘Amazing. These are practically my neighbours and I didn’t even know this place was here. What a lovely spot.’

Thomas busied himself setting out plates and unwrapping little greaseproof parcels of pâté and cheeses. He drew the cork from a dew-misted bottle of white Bordeaux from Château de la Chapelle and poured a little into two glasses.

Sara held hers up appreciatively. ‘Proper glasses too, I’m impressed!’

‘But of course. Only a philistine would drink such a wine as this from plastic.
Santé
!’

He tore a generous chunk from the baguette and put it on one of the plates, handing it to Sara. ‘
Sers-toi
,’ he urged.

Suddenly ravenous, Sara spread a thick slice of pâté onto the bread and bit into it. She hadn’t felt much like eating since Gavin left, and in any case it hardly seemed worth the effort to cook anything for one. Funny how congenial company is by far the best seasoning for any meal, she reflected.

‘So you were taking your father to the airport?’ she prompted.

‘Yes, he’s off to England for a few days. At the age of nearly eighty he’s found himself a lady friend there.
C’est génial
! I haven’t seen him on such good form since my mother left him fifteen years ago. He’s learning to play Bridge and drink tea. It’s given him a whole new lease of life.’

‘And your mother? Do you see her often?’

‘
Oui, de temps en temps
,’ he shrugged. ‘But she’s often busy with her stepfamily. She remarried you see. Her husband’s a dentist in Bordeaux, retired now of course.’ Sara nodded sympathetically: she knew all about stepfamilies, having two of her own. ‘She doesn’t like coming back to the farm. A guilty conscience, I suppose. The
vigneronne’s
life was never really for her; she’s a city girl at heart. She was always restless living here in the countryside.’

Something in the way he said this made Sara glance at his face, trying to read his expression. ‘So are you more like your father or your mother, do you think?’ she asked, sipping her wine.

He sighed. ‘Honestly? In my heart of hearts I suspect there’s a lot of her in me. My brother, Robert, is just like our father. He’s a wine farmer through and through. Papa always says wine runs in our veins in the Cortini family. His own father came here from Italy to work in the vineyard and then fell in love with the daughter of the owner of Château de la Chapelle. So our family’s link with winemaking goes back generations. But I don’t think I have the same commitment to it that Robert does.’

‘But you don’t enjoy your job? You’re very good at it.’

‘It’s not that I don’t enjoy it. Just that...’ he paused, and threw a few crumbs of bread-crust into the water, enticing a flurry of tiny silver fishes to the surface.

Sara sat still, gazing at the river, giving him time.

‘Well, it’s just that I feel there’s a whole wide world out there that I’d like to explore.’ His eyes shone as he turned to look at her, his face lighting up. ‘I have—how do you say it in English?—the feet that itch. Up until now, though, I’ve always been tied to the farm, having to be there to support my brother, who loves his vines and making the wine, but detests having to sell it.’

He offered Sara a creamy triangle of Brie and topped up her glass.

‘But now things are changing,’ he continued, his eyes still shining with a new expression of hope. ‘Gina Thibault, the wife of a friend of mine, is helping to sell our wines and she has good links to the UK market. Sales are booming, so my job is much easier. With more money coming in, I may be able to start making some trips abroad. Try to develop new markets. And, if it continues to go well, I could take time off to go travelling. I’m planning on starting early next year. By next spring I should be out of here. Who knows, I might even find somewhere I love and live overseas for a while. It will broaden my horizons, for sure.’

‘Sounds great!’ Sara grinned at him. ‘It’s funny... Your dream is to leave here to travel the world. And my dream was to move here to see a bit more of the world. I suppose adventures must always depend on your starting point in life.’

‘And what about you?’ Thomas handed Sara a perfectly ripe peach and she sliced into it, the sweet juice pooling on her plate. ‘Will you continue with your business here in France on your own?’

Sara shrugged. ‘I’m not sure. All I can think about at the moment is getting through the next few weeks to the end of the season. Once the weddings are finished for the year, I should have more time to take stock. It’ll depend, too, on what Gavin does next. If he wants his money out of the business then I’ll have no choice but to sell the château.’ She was careful to keep her tone light, but surprised herself with the dawning realisation that she didn’t want to have to sell after all.

‘And how would you feel about that?’ What was it with this man? He seemed to be able to read her thoughts; the real, deep-down, essence-of-Sara thoughts, not just the ones she chose to present on the surface.

She hesitated, watching a leaf swirl slowly by on the surface of the water, considering another throwaway reply to try to deflect him. But something about Thomas’s own honesty made her decide to let down her guard.

‘Actually, I’d be gutted. At first I thought I just wanted rid of it—too many associations with Gavin and the way he’s treated me. But it’s funny, having got through that last wedding without him, I now realise how much I love this place: too much to give it up without a fight. All that hard work... and I still have plans for the garden that I’d like to see through. I feel Château Bellevue somehow deserves to be given an elegant setting that’s worthy of its history—not that I know much about it, but, living there, I get the sense that very many lives lived before us and, hopefully, many more to come down the years. I suppose it makes me aware of how transient we are, while the rocks and the stones remain. I’d like to make my mark here. Leave something behind when I’m gone.’ She turned and smiled at him. ‘Sorry, I’m wittering. That’s what comes of plying me with wine at lunchtime!’

He shook his head. ‘No. It makes sense. And you’re right; rumour has it that all sorts of things have taken place there over the centuries. The previous owners claimed just about every king and queen from Henri the second and Eleanor of Aquitaine onwards slept there at one time or another. There’s even rumoured to be a secret tunnel, full of ghosts, that runs from this very mill up to the cellars of the château!’ He opened his eyes wide, in mock fear.

‘How exciting. I’ll have to look out for that,’ Sara laughed.

‘Actually there could be some truth in it. The limestone around here is honeycombed with caves. In Saint Emilion they’ve got a whole church underground. And you’ve probably heard of Lascaux, over past Bergerac, where there are caverns full of fabulous prehistoric cave paintings. Look,’ he pointed to where a small stable-door was set into the rock face behind them. ‘They’ve even got their own small cave here. There are no prehistoric paintings in it though, just their lawnmower!’

Sara told him about finding the Nazi jacket in the wall at the cottage (although she carefully edited out the bit about throwing the wrench at Gavin’s head) and he nodded slowly, thinking. ‘I did hear something about the château being occupied by Germans in the war. There are many such stories around here, although they are seldom told. It is really a time that people would rather forget. So many terrible things happened. It was complicated, being an occupied country, and it tore communities apart. You English have the luxury of not having been subjected to that. It’s probably difficult for you to understand.’ Thomas shrugged and smiled, signifying a change of subject, closing down that particular conversation in the way people usually did around these parts.

He clambered to his feet, brushing off a few crumbs, and held out a hand to her. ‘Come! It’s time to have a go at walking on water.’

‘What do you mean?’ Sara looked towards the top of the weir, a line along which the deep-flowing brown river water suddenly transformed itself into a rushing sheet of shallow white rapids which swept down the slope into the more peaceful pool in front of them. ‘You surely don’t think I’m going to walk across that?’

He grinned, hauling her to her feet. ‘Come on, it’s perfectly safe.’

He led her across a little bridge of turf-capped stones and on to a small island between the sluice channel and the river. They kicked off their shoes, leaving them at the foot of a broad-trunked oak tree, and Thomas stepped down onto the top of the weir. Long strands of golden-green weed trailed just under the surface of the water like mermaids’ hair. Sara hesitated, then took the hand Thomas was holding out to her and stepped, gingerly, into the water. She’d expected the stones to be slippery, but the weed formed a rough mat which her feet gripped easily. The rushing water was shallow, scarcely up to her ankles, and refreshingly cool. She relished the feeling of the hot sun on her arms and the cold, clear water flowing over her feet.