The French for Love (14 page)

No way am I going to admit to my sadly delusional passion for Cédric, which Annie will pounce on like a cat on a field mouse if I give her the faintest hint of a clue.

I say airily, ‘Well, unless your taste runs to oily estate agents who’ve seen the back of fifty then not really. Although I have been hotly pursued by an English guy recently.’

‘Well, that sounds promising,’ Annie replies, delighted at the prospect of some juicy gossip. ‘Tell me more!’

‘Yup, his name’s Nigel and he has a comb-over. Oh, and he’s desperate to share the inner workings of his septic tank with me. That really is about as good as it gets around here.’ I mentally cross my fingers, lying through my teeth and trying to banish from my mind’s eye a sudden image of Cédric’s face crinkling in that smile of his which never fails to make my breath catch. I continue firmly, ‘I’m afraid you’ve come to the wrong place if you’re in search of a week of rampant holiday sex. There’s been a definite drought of late, and I’m not just talking about the weather.’

‘Well, it’s high time you came back to Britain and your Auntie Annie will have to see if she can’t come up with someone. I’m sure I can find a suitable candidate in my little black book.’

‘No, thank you,’ I say firmly. ‘I don’t fancy the idea of anyone you’ve already chewed up and spat out. And anyway, I’m still off men after the whole Ed saga. How does that old joke go? What’s the difference between a man and a catfish?’

‘I don’t know, what is the difference between a man and a catfish?’ Annie dutifully replies.

‘One’s a scum-sucking bottom-feeder. And the other one’s a kind of fish.’

She cackles appreciatively, then frowns. ‘Rubbish! Never mind fish. It’s just like riding a horse. You have to get straight back in the saddle. Or so I understand. Not that I’ve ever ridden a horse...’ and our conversation descends into the sort of raucously hilarious girl chat I’ve so been missing.

At the end of the evening, light-headed and light-hearted from a potent combination of friendship, wine and laughter, we finally say goodnight and Annie, weaving slightly, disappears off to the guest room clutching a large bottle of Evian. As I shut the back door for the night, I realise the cicadas have finally gone quiet, perhaps giving up in the face of such shrill competition from the terrace.

In the velvety darkness, the faint hoot of an owl drifts across the newly fallen silence.

♦ ♦ ♦

Next morning, putting the kettle on to boil for a much-needed cup of coffee to get the day started, I discover we’re out of milk.
Merde
. Never mind, some croissants would be nice too, so I jump in the car and nip down to Super U before there’s any sign of life from Annie.

I get back to find her clattering mugs in the kitchen. She’s wearing shorts and flip-flops, the straps of a bikini showing under her camisole top.

‘I’ve fed Lafite,’ she says, gesturing to where he’s crunching the last few morsels in his bowl. ‘Such a honey, he spent the night curled up on my bed.’

‘Huh, what a tart that cat is,’ I retort.

‘Oh, and someone phoned,’ she continues. ‘A French bloke. Trouble is, he was talking so fast I couldn’t make out half of what he said. Something about
une heure
. So I think he’s going to call back in an hour’s time. Or maybe at one o’clock, Anyway, he’ll definitely call back.’

‘Okay. Probably the stonemasons,’ I reply, hoping I sound nonchalant. ‘They’re due back from holiday about now so they’re probably phoning to arrange when they’re coming to finish fixing the upstairs ceiling.’ I don’t want to admit to myself how much I’m looking forward to seeing Cédric again. And there’s absolutely no way I’d admit it to Annie, whose finely honed sense of smell isn’t limited to wine tasting. She’d be onto any whiff of a possible scandalous affair like a rat up a drainpipe.

I busy myself pouring the milk into a jug and putting breakfast things on a tray. ‘Shall we have this outside?’

‘Lovely. I’m planning on spending every possible second in the sun today. Have to get some serious tanning in.’

‘Well, I hope you’ve brought the Factor 30. You’ll be needing it by midday, or you’ll end up with a truly British dose of sunburn,’ I laugh.

After breakfast we spread ourselves out on the sunloungers. Annie’s brought copies of all the latest English magazines with her so we settle down in our bikinis, with Aretha on the iPod and
Vogue, Harper’s
and
Hello
scattered around us.

After a while, she puts down her magazine to re-baste her skin with suntan lotion and turn onto her front. ‘You know what you were saying last night about French wines?’ she says. ‘Are you seriously telling me local producers in Bordeaux, the sacred heartland of the industry in France, are making New World-style wines these days?’

‘Yup,’ I reply. ‘In fact I’ve got some that I bought from a château near here the other day. They’ve given it an English name, simplified the labels, even put the grape type on the front. The wines are interesting—up-front fruit, ready for drinking young, but I reckon they’ve still kept in a twist of French subtlety too. You can taste them if you’re interested.’

‘Love to. You know me; I never rest in the diligent pursuit of something new for the discerning clients of WineLand. You know my theory about good wine being like good sex. So, in the absence of any chance of a holiday romance, bring on the wines!’

I shove my feet into my flip-flops—the terrace paving is now scalding hot—and go indoors to retrieve a selection of wines from my embryonic collection. To make things a little more challenging, I add a couple of bottles of Californian wine from the selection I brought over with me, and I nip upstairs to find a scarf to use as a blindfold. As an afterthought, I grab the phone from the study and put it on the kitchen table so we can hear it from the terrace.

Just in case the caller from earlier rings back. And especially in case it’s Cédric, although I’m trying to ignore this thought.

‘Right,’ I say, reappearing outside and putting the cardboard box of bottles on the table, in the shade of the large sun umbrella that covers it. ‘You’re tasting blind, and I’m going to make sure there’s no cheating.’ I tie the silk scarf over Annie’s eyes. ‘Are you going to be spitting or swallowing this morning?’

‘Don’t even get me started!’ screeches Annie at this well-worn joke. ‘Though given the early hour and the heat, I think it would be wise to spit on this occasion. Not like me, I know, darling.’

I nip back into the kitchen to collect a jug to use for a spittoon and then I open the first bottle. She sniffs the wine carefully, considering, and then tastes it, slurping it noisily around her mouth to aerate the wine and draw out its flavour.

‘Interesting. An oaked white. A bit on the heavy side. I’m getting pear and a strong taste of vanilla. Not quite dry; there’s a sweetish aftertaste. But hang on. Is it a Chardonnay? In which case it’s not one of your local wines, unless it really is something very ground-breaking and they’ve decided to go the
vin de pays
route. Are you trying to trick me, Peplow?’ she says, suspicion dawning. ‘I reckon this really is a New World wine. I’m guessing it’s either Australian or American? In fact I’m going to say American given the sweetness and the strong vanilla in the oak. Not bad, but not really lighting my candle.’

‘Most impressive, Ms McKenzie. Just checking your taste buds haven’t atrophied in my absence. It’s that Napa Valley Chardonnay that we used to sell at Wainright’s. Originally selected by you I believe. Okay, next wine.’

I ease the cork out of a bottle of the local white.

‘Hmm, interesting,’ muses Annie, sniffing her glass repeatedly. ‘Now this is something entirely different. Crisp, dry, but with good fruit and an almost floral scent too. A hint of oak maybe?’

She sips, slurps, spits.

‘Wow. So complex. Difficult to tell the varietals. Definitely some Sauvignon. And, because I think this is one of your local numbers I’m going to say Sémillon too. But that floral twist is amazing—I can’t quite pin it down—and the oak is really subtle. God, this is good. In fact, so good I may even have to have a swallow...’

She sips again, swirling the wine around her mouth to draw out every nuance of the flavour. ‘Okay Peplow; the theory applies. This is definitely the equivalent of good sex.’ And then, in irrepressible Annie McKenzie style, she throws back her blindfolded head and commences an impression of noisy gratification that makes Meg Ryan’s famous scene in the film
When Harry Met Sally
look like Mary Poppins. Her cries of, ‘Yes, yes, oh, God, yes’ mingle with Aretha’s raucous vocals from the iPod where, backed up by The Eurythmics, she’s declaring that ‘sisters are doing it for themselves,’ and I double up with laughter at the appropriateness of the musical accompaniment to Annie’s act.

And then, to my absolute horror, I glimpse a movement from the corner of my eye and realise that we’re not alone. Wheeling round, I find Cédric and Pierre who have just rounded the corner of the house carrying a long ladder between them and are now standing dumbstruck, surveying the scene in front of them. And, oh, dear, I have to admit it doesn’t look good.

I grab my cotton shirt from the back of the sunlounger and hastily pull it on. Annie, blissfully unaware in her blindfolded state, carries on hamming up her appreciation of the wine, her ample curves generously filling her somewhat skimpy bikini.

Pierre is now grinning from ear to ear, while Cédric, who’s carrying a large cement cube as well as his end of the ladder, looks somewhat bemused at this apparition.

Annie comes to the end of her grand command performance as the song fades out and, suddenly aware of the awkward silence that has fallen, she pulls the scarf off her eyes.

‘Oops!’ she says cheerfully, not at all abashed at the sight of the two brothers. ‘Didn’t realise we had company.’ And she bounces across the terrace—bounce being the operative word—to shake hands.

‘
Bonjour,
Gina
,’ says Cédric, turning to me and taking my awkwardly proffered hand too. He holds it in both of his for a moment or two and our eyes lock, his gaze seeming to ask a question and mine, I’m sure, giving away the hunger and longing I feel at the sight of him. I drop my eyes to hide my agitation. ‘I’m so sorry; we didn’t mean to disturb you. We did knock at the kitchen door but I don’t think you could hear us.’

No, well, I suppose we were making a bit of a racket. One of us in particular anyway.

‘I phoned earlier,’ he continues, ‘to let you know we’d be coming round in an hour’s time. The cowl for the chimney has arrived.’ He nods at the cement block which he’s put down on the ground beside the ladder.

‘Ah,’ I nod, meeting his gaze again in what I hope is a dignified, calm, cool and collected manner in spite of my state of undress and the fact that I’m in the company of a similarly scantily clad female, surrounded by discarded clothes, magazines and enough bottles of wine for quite a respectable party at ten o’clock on a weekday morning. ‘So that was the message. It got lost a little in translation I’m afraid.’

Oh, God, I think, he’s looking incredibly handsome after his holiday—tanned and more relaxed than usual. And then, to my added confusion, I realise he hasn’t relinquished my hand and I’m in no hurry to relinquish his either. A realisation that immediately makes me drop it, as if it’s burning as hotly as the flagstones of the terrace or my own flaming cheeks.

‘How was your holiday?’ I ask.

‘Great thanks. We had a good time. Nathalie and Luc loved being at the beach with all their cousins so it was very easy. And Marie-Louise’s father has a boat at the
bassin
so we had some good outings in it. Do you sail?’

‘Yes, I love it,’ I reply. ‘Though I haven’t been for years. I used to go with my father when I was young.’

‘Well, you’ll have to come along sometime,’ he smiles.

Great, I think, pulling at the hem of my shirt and wishing it covered more of the flesh of my legs. That’ll be a fun outing, sitting in your wife’s father’s boat and lusting after her husband. But I smile and nod with what I hope looks like enthusiasm.

‘You seem to be a little—er—occupied... Would you like us to come back another time?’ asks Cédric. ‘It’ll only take a few minutes to fix this on top of the chimney.’

Annie’s grasp of French is pretty slender, but she clearly gets the gist of this last bit. ‘Oh, don’t mind us,’ she says cheerfully. ‘Please carry on.’

‘Yes, do go ahead,’ I say. ‘I’ll just clear a bit of space for the ladder.’ I scoop up an armful of clothes and magazines and scurry inside where, thankfully, I pull on my denim skirt and smooth down my hair, trying to regain a little composure.

I come back out into the bright sunshine. Pierre is holding the ladder while Cédric climbs up, carefully balancing the heavy cowl as he goes. Annie, not the least abashed, is perching on the terrace wall, rather coquettishly it has to be said, looking on appreciatively.

When Cédric descends a few minutes later, Annie gestures to the bottles of wine on the table. ‘Would you like a drink?’ she asks. ‘We were just tasting some very good local wines.’

The two brothers clearly find the invitation hilarious. ‘It’s good that you enjoy them so much,’ says Cédric, trying to keep a straight face, ‘but
non merci
, we have to get to another job. There’s a lot to do as we’re just back.’

‘Please excuse us,’ adds Pierre, still grinning broadly at Annie, ‘but Raphael is a slave driver and he’ll already be wondering where we are. Another time perhaps...’

As they pick up the ladder ready to leave, Cédric turns to me. ‘We’ll be back in about two weeks’ time to finish the work on the ceiling upstairs. I’m afraid we’re a bit busy catching up with work after the holidays at the moment, so it can’t be any sooner. I’ll phone you to give you better warning next time though,’ he says with a roguish glint in his eye. ‘Oh, and one other thing. I saw the Cortinis at the
bassin
. They’d be delighted to show you round at Château de la Chapelle and let you taste their wines. They suggested we visit on Friday evening, but perhaps you’d rather wait until your friend has departed? Although she’d be very welcome to join us if it would be of interest.’