The Little French Guesthouse (5 page)

‘It might not have happened to you, but it probably would’ve happened to me, sooner or later. If not with your delightful partner, then with somebody else’s. It should be me apologising to you for
her
behaviour.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous, Rupert. You can’t be held responsible for your wife’s behaviour.’

‘No. And neither can you for his.’ He jerked his thumb towards Nathan, who was coming downstairs with his suitcase and studiously avoiding eye contact with the man whose wife he was stealing. ‘Perhaps we’re both better off, love.’

I stood in the doorway for the grand departure, looking out across the courtyard at the rows of lavender and the pretty
gîtes,
where normal people must be having normal holidays. Gloria had yet to make her appearance. No doubt she was busy deciding between her designer shoes and handbags, and squirreling away all her jewellery so there was no chance of Rupert claiming it back.

Thank goodness the Hendersons were out soaking up the grandeur of whichever
château
they’d chosen to bless with their presence. Since they were already unimpressed by Rupert’s injury, I couldn’t imagine what they would make of this sorry spectacle.

Nathan loaded his suitcase into Gloria’s sports car, then came back in for her luggage. Despite my misery, I almost laughed at his furious attempts to cram it all into the woefully inadequate boot space. Gloria was high maintenance and probably took four suitcases for a simple weekend away, but even so, it looked as though she’d packed for the long-term. My heart sank. I turned to look at Rupert, but he wouldn’t catch my eye, instead staring out at the scene with a stony indifference on his face. It was impossible to tell whether his heart was breaking or if he was glad to see the back of her.

Gloria came clattering down the hall and stopped as if to say something to him, then seemed to think better of it. Instead, she teetered off to the car, whispering something to Nathan before climbing into the passenger seat. My God, they really were an item – she was letting him drive her precious convertible.

Nathan came back over, scuffing at the gravel with the toe of his shoe. ‘Right, we’ll be off, then.’

What did he want? A medal? A pat on the head to tell him I didn’t mind him deserting me, less than a week into our holiday, to run off with an ageing, over-sexed adulteress?

I clutched my arms across my chest in a vain attempt to hug myself warm. I felt so numb and cold I couldn’t speak.

‘Gloria said to tell Rupert she’ll be in touch about the rest of her stuff,’ Nathan muttered, unable to look me in the eye.

‘I’ll tell him.’

And still he stood there. ‘Emmy...’

I wanted him to go. I couldn’t stand the sight of him. Or her.

‘What do you want me to say, Nathan?
Bon voyage
? You need to leave now.’

For a brief second, I thought I could see regret in his eyes – maybe even a change of heart. But then Gloria beeped the horn, the impatient bitch, and that flicker of connection was gone. He went back to the car, squeezed in beside her, started the engine and set off across the courtyard and down the lane.

Closing the door, I glanced at Rupert, but I didn’t think he was in the mood to be comforted by the woman whose boyfriend had run off with his wife. Leaving him in peace, I went up to my room to lick my own wounds.

R
upert
and I got exceedingly drunk that night. It was the only decent thing to do. Whether we were celebrating or grieving, we weren’t sure – but after several large glasses of Beaujolais, it didn’t seem to matter. I did express my reservations about him combining too much alcohol with his newly-prescribed medication for his newly-diagnosed angina, but he told me to bugger off, so I left it at that.

‘So what needs to be done tomorrow?’ I asked him cautiously.

His shoulders slumped. ‘One
gîte
to freshen, two to clean out. Shopping. Meal to cook.’ It was as though the effort of just thinking about it left him no energy for anything more than monosyllables.

‘Well, then, I think you should phone Madame Dupont right now. See if she knows anyone who can help us out tomorrow.’

‘Help
us
out?’

‘Yes. Us. You can hardly mange by yourself, can you? Even with Madame Dupont here.’

‘No, but I can hardly ask you to...’

‘You’re not asking. I’m offering,’ I told him sternly. ‘And I have no intention of arguing about it. I’m too tired and very probably too drunk.’

There was a pause. ‘Then I’m grateful,’ he said quietly. ‘But we need to come to some sort of arrangement about payment...’

‘What did I say about arguing? Make the phone call. If you leave it any longer, there’ll be no chance.’

He nodded and did as he was told. The call lasted far longer than I felt was necessary for a simple enquiry, but I could only hear Rupert’s side and it was all in lightning-speed French, so I could make neither head nor tail of it.

As he yammered on, with long pauses where I could hear Madame Dupont’s less-than-dulcet tones yammering back, I cursed every bone in Gloria’s bony body. At breakfast, when she’d been all sweetness-and-light and had stated that she and Madame Dupont would manage perfectly well, she had
known
she wouldn’t be here tomorrow. She could have let Rupert make the call when he suggested it, while there was still a chance. Even if he’d got someone to cover his share of the work, we still would have been one down when Gloria left. But no, that wasn’t good enough for her. She’d deliberately put him off so he’d be doubly in the shit. I could have killed her.

When Rupert put the phone down, I demanded to know how a straightforward request for casual labour could take fifteen minutes.

‘Things work differently around here, Emmy,’ he explained patiently. ‘First, I had to enquire after Madame Dupont’s health and she had to enquire after mine, then I had to check that she was still coming tomorrow, then I had to ask if she knew anyone who could help. Then she had to run through every last person within a ten-mile radius who might have been willing to do it but can’t and give a reason for each of them. Her daughter’s away visiting a friend, her niece’s husband’s a lazy pig and wouldn’t look after the kids even though they could do with the money, and the girl who lives two farms away might have but she’s got a Saturday job at the
tabac
in the village. She can’t think of anyone else at such short notice. Then she said she understood that I was incapacitated and she would be happy to work longer hours than usual to help Gloria, so I had to admit that Gloria wouldn’t be available but you were willing to chip in, so she demanded to know why, and when I told her why, she had to ask for every last detail and I had to fob her off with as little as I could get away with. And finally, she had to give her lengthy and vitriolic opinion on the whole sorry subject. See?’

My mouth gaped open. I took advantage of my parted lips to pour more wine through the opening. ‘You told her that Gloria’s left?’

‘What else would I tell her once she asked?’

‘Couldn’t you have come up with some other excuse?’

‘Couldn’t be bothered. Too hard to keep up a pretence. Besides, we only need one person to have spotted Gloria and Nathan riding off together, and the cat would’ve been out of the bag anyway.’

I blanched. ‘You told her that Nathan left?’

‘No choice. It’d be obvious tomorrow, what with you helping and no sign of a chivalrous man at your side. She may be getting on a bit, but she’s still as sharp as a knife.’

For a moment, the shame was unbearable, but I pulled myself together. If I was embarrassed, how must he feel, knowing all his friends and neighbours would soon get word that his wife had left him for one of his guests?

I gave him a small smile and lifted my glass. ‘Well. Here’s to...’ But I really couldn’t think of anything to toast.

Rupert chipped in drunkenly. ‘How about to laughing in the face of adversity... And unexpected friendship?’

I clinked my glass against his.

W
hen my balance became impaired
, I made the executive decision that the wine sloshing around our empty stomachs must be mopped up by French bread – an excellent sponge for alcohol – and put together a makeshift supper.

‘How did you and Gloria get together, then?’ I asked, as I stuffed some rather smelly cheese into my mouth. It wasn’t something I would have touched with a bargepole if I’d been sober – but I wasn’t sober.

Rupert’s eyes glassed over, as though he were transported back to his and Gloria’s heady days of romance. Or maybe it was the alcohol.

‘I was out at a restaurant with friends in London. Gloria was the manageress there. Asked her out. She was younger than me, but in those days the heart used to overrule the head more.’

‘How long ago was that?’

‘Ten years.’ He swirled the ruby-red healing waters around in his glass, watching the whirlpool. ‘Proposed to her after three months. Couldn’t believe my luck when she said yes. That place where she worked was full of City types. She could have had her pick.’

Privately, I thought Rupert wore rose-tinted glasses. Gloria’s airs and graces were a thin veneer, one those City types probably saw right through. They would have viewed her as a possible good time, not a marriageable commodity. Besides, she must have been at least mid-thirties by then. If she was that good a catch, why hadn’t somebody snapped her up before?

‘Gloria had already been married,’ Rupert answered my unspoken question. ‘Too young, and it didn’t last long. I’d never been married. Plenty of opportunities, of course.’ He winked. ‘But I always got cold feet when things got serious. Didn’t feel that way with Gloria, though. Maybe it was my age – nearly fifty and never married, and here was someone daft enough to have a go at it with me.’

‘You did okay, being married ten years,’ I comforted. ‘That’s not bad going nowadays.’

‘No, I suppose not. How long were you and Nathan together?’

Fleetingly, I noticed we were both talking about our relationships in the past tense.

‘Five years. We met at work and went out for a year or so, then Nathan saw a flat for sale that he liked, so we bought it and moved in together. We’ve been there just over three years.’

Rupert glanced at my left hand. ‘No engagement? No wedding plans?’

I glared at my ring finger as though it lacked something. ‘No, not really. We were busy with the flat and work’s always so hectic and we both work long hours and...’ I realised I was making a string of excuses. Perhaps if we were meant for each other, Nathan
would
have proposed by now. After everything that had happened, I could only be grateful he hadn’t.

‘No talk of babies? Starting a family?’

I shook my head. ‘We never really discussed that either. If it cropped up, Nathan would shrug it off and say we were a bit young – not ready yet. That we were happy enough as we were.’ God, I must be drunk. I was telling Rupert things I hadn’t even discussed with my mother. ‘I did wonder about it sometimes. I mean, I’m thirty-one. Nathan’s thirty-three. We’ve been together five years. How long were we going to wait?’

‘You didn’t try to persuade him?’

‘No – and I think that might be your answer right there.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean that whenever he evaded the subject, I took it personally. I thought: doesn’t he love me enough to want to raise a family with me?
But
I never pushed back very hard. I thought that was because I loved my job and wasn’t ready to settle down to that extent yet. But maybe it just meant that I didn’t love
him
enough, either.’ I shrugged. ‘Or that I didn’t want children enough.’

Rupert inclined his head to one side as he drunkenly pondered the implications. ‘Or maybe it means that you would like children one day, but subconsciously you knew Nathan wasn’t the right man to be their father?’

‘Perhaps,’ I mumbled.

Valiantly, Rupert tried to change the subject. ‘You said you met at work. Do you still work at the same place?’

‘Yes, but in different departments, obviously...’ Nausea hit me like a brick, the cheese and wine roiling in my stomach, as the implication hit home. ‘Oh God. What am I going to do when I go back?’ I jumped up from my chair and started pacing – well, weaving – around the kitchen table. ‘How is
that
going to work, with both of us at the same place? It’s going to be
awful
!’ A couple of big fat tears escaped and rolled down my cheeks.

Rupert shifted awkwardly in his chair. ‘Don’t cry, Emmy. It’ll be uncomfortable for a while, but you’ll find a way. Nathan has a great deal more to feel uncomfortable about than you. You have the moral high ground, and don’t you forget it!’

He fell silent for a moment while I swiped at my tears with a napkin, streaking my face with breadcrumbs. My legs weren’t too happy about keeping me upright, so I sat back down.

And then Rupert asked the question I’d been dreading. ‘Did you know about Nathan and Gloria? Before today?’

I toyed with the idea of lying to him, but we were both past that. What would be the point?

‘Yes.’ I tried to look him in the eye, as best I could after three large glasses of wine. ‘But not all of it.’ His questioning expression encouraged me to go on. ‘I knew they’d done it once, but I thought that was it. I never dreamed they’d leave us. I’m sorry.’

‘What for?’

‘For knowing when you didn’t. The night I found out was the night you fell ill. I could hardly tell you then. Besides, Gloria didn’t want us to say anything.’

‘No, I bet.’ He patted my hand. ‘At least Nathan had the decency to fess up.’ He picked up on my discomfort. ‘That isn’t what happened, is it?’

‘Trust me, Rupert, you don’t want to know.’

‘Yes, I do. It’ll do you good to get it off your chest. Come on. Out with it.’

I spilled the beans. My race up to the roof terrace, the scene I found there (although I spared him the details), Nathan’s pathetic excuses, kicking him out into another room – the whole caboodle. My brain was too fuzzy to come up with an alternative version. When I’d finished, for a moment I thought I’d done the wrong thing. Then Rupert laughed, a sharp bark that made me jump.

‘Ha! It’s better than one of those dreadful soaps.’ He shot me a look of sympathy. ‘You poor girl. When I thanked you for doing your best when I collapsed, I had no idea how much more I had to thank you for. You did well, keeping your head like you did. A lesser woman would have gone to pieces over a discovery like that and forgotten all about me and my old ticker struggling away down in the kitchen.’

I grinned. ‘It was touch and go for a couple of minutes, believe me.’

T
he Hendersons made
an appearance around ten, by which time Rupert and I were well and truly plastered. I thought we made a passable show of not slurring our words too much, but I couldn’t stay upright in my chair, and Rupert’s glazed eyes were as red as his cheeks. Their disapproving looks indicated that our attempts at sobriety were less than successful. After the required pleasantries, they headed for their room, but as we heaved a sigh of relief, Mr Henderson poked his head back around the door.

‘Dinner at seven tomorrow, Hunter?’

Rupert valiantly fought the stricken expression creeping across his face. ‘Seven. Absolutely.’ When the door closed again, he flopped his head back. ‘Oh, Emmy, what am I going to do?’

‘You’re going to bed. We’ll worry about it tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow’s too late. There won’t be enough time for planning
and
doing. And we’ll be hung-over.’

‘Then we’ll make sure we get up early enough for a conference. If we feel crap, we feel crap. Can’t do anything about it tonight. We could solve world hunger right now and neither of us would remember it in the morning. C’mon.’

I helped him out of his chair. He was exhausted and his limp was severe as he headed to his room.

‘Night, Rupert. Don’t worry. It’ll work out somehow.’

‘Night, Emmy. Thanks, love. For your support. You’re a real trooper.’

I stumbled up the stairs, but as I swayed into our room – my room, now – I was grateful for the alcohol blurring the edges of stark reality that assaulted my senses everywhere I turned.

One suitcase on top of the wardrobe, one toiletry bag in the bathroom, one toothbrush by the sink.

Nathan had gone – and it felt like he’d taken all the good memories with him. The day he’d asked me out across the photocopier, when I’d punched my hand in the air in delight the minute he’d turned his back. Our first date in a candlelit restaurant, when he’d told me he’d fancied me from the minute he saw me. The summer he’d fallen in the river trying to climb into a rowing boat. Reading the Sunday papers in bed with a vatful of coffee. The evening he’d asked me to buy the flat with him. The day we’d moved in, when there were
two
toothbrushes by the sink, along with an implication of forever.

All those memories had been overwritten by images of Gloria’s legs wrapped around him; his sulky face as he told me he was leaving; him driving away in her sports car.

At that moment, in my drunken haze, I hated him for that.

W
hen the alarm
clock penetrated my fuzzy brain, I felt like death and pretty much looked like it. A whole bottle of wine? I should have known better. Still, it was the only thing to have done under the circumstances, and despite the nausea and pounding head, I didn’t regret it.

Crawling out of bed and into the shower, I hoped Rupert was in a fit mental – if not physical – state today. I needed his interpreting skills to help me communicate with Madame Dupont, and he would have to get his head around a menu for tonight – assuming I could find my way to the supermarket and back without ending up in Paris.

As I walked back into the bedroom and dropped my damp towel on the floor, I caught sight of my reflection in the ornate full-length gilt mirror and glared at it. I may have been on the untoned side (that gym membership was definitely a waste of money) and had a tendency to go pink and freckled before getting a tan, but I didn’t think I looked much worse than any other woman in her early thirties.

It’s easy to sympathise with fifty-something women whose husbands leave them for someone younger, traded in for a newer model. What sickened me was that my thirty-three-year-old man, somewhat on the young side for a midlife crisis, had left me for a woman at least a decade
older
than him – a woman who, although glamorous and well-preserved in an artificial sort of way, surely couldn’t compare to still-reasonably-fresh me.

I stared at the offending image in the mirror. Nathan hadn’t just slept with Gloria – he’d run off with her. What if it wasn’t only about looks or make-up or calorie-counting? What if it was just... me? I didn’t think I’d changed since we first met, but perhaps in his eyes I had. Was I more impatient? A tad grumpier? Less fun? Less caring? Less interesting?

Pulling on a long, baggy T-shirt, I let out a heavy sigh. There was a three-person, twelve-hour day ahead to share between an ancient cleaner, a novice and an invalid. I already had a headache and felt sick. Getting depressed wasn’t going to help.

Deciding coffee and breakfast might be of more practical use, I staggered downstairs, my hair still dripping from the shower. I’d guessed – correctly – that Rupert wouldn’t be up and about yet, but in my hung-over state, I’d completely forgotten about the Hendersons until I was in the kitchen. Belatedly remembering my state of dress, I glanced through the window in a panic, letting out a sigh of relief that their car wasn’t there. Presumably, they’d already left to forage for their own breakfast because their irresponsible host had failed to get up early enough to prepare one for them. Another black mark against Rupert.

I groped for the espresso machine, made a strong one and, clutching it in my hands as if my life depended on it, trundled to the patio doors to look out over the garden.

And there he was.

At least six feet tall, strong but not too beefy, over-long sun-streaked blonde hair, work jeans – and no shirt. As he chopped at the hedge with shears, his muscles rippled and a slight sheen of sweat covered his tanned torso. What a sight for sore eyes. After the last few dreary months, it was like stumbling onto an oasis in the desert of my suppressed senses.

Somehow aware of my arrival, the vision turned and smiled – and what a smile. White teeth, blue eyes, chiselled jaw... Okay, forget the “chiselled” because yes, I knew it, I was beginning to sound like a romance novel.

I smiled back, then remembered how little my T-shirt covered and how bedraggled my hair was.

He put down the shears and started towards the house. Uh-oh. Too late to run away and slip into something more suitable. Since he’d already seen what there was to see, I opened the patio door a fraction.

He held out a tanned, rather soily hand. ‘Morning. You must be Emmy. I’m Ryan.’

I shook his hand. My fingers went numb, and I wasn’t sure whether it was because he had a grip like a vice or because all the blood had rushed from my hands to other departments.

‘Er, yes. Hi. I – er – I’m sorry, I didn’t expect anyone to be here.’ I gestured apologetically at my sparsely-clad person and, to top off my embarrassment, blushed like a schoolgirl.

‘No, so I see.’ There was no way of knowing whether the amused tone in his voice stemmed from my looking cutely messy, as I hoped, or crappy messy, which I suspected was more likely.

‘Didn’t Rupert tell you about me?’ he asked.

My mind was a blank. ‘I don’t think so.’

Ryan gestured behind him. ‘I do the garden in the summer, except I missed last week because I was back in England. Rupert keeps it at bay himself in the winter.’

‘Oh, yes, he said something about the gardener being due back soon. Well, that’s good. One less thing for Rupert to worry about, what with his leg and everything.’ I floundered. ‘You do know about his leg and everything?’

‘Word gets around.’

I saw a trace of pity in his eyes and flinched. He knew all right, and not only about Rupert’s leg. Madame Dupont must have been clogging up the local telephone wires half the night after Rupert called her.