What Happens at the Beach... (23 page)

Just then Natalie felt her phone begin to vibrate and pulled it out of her shorts pocket. ‘I'm sorry, Mark, I'd better take this. It might be about a job… Hello, Kathryn.'

‘Natalie, hi. I hope I haven't caught you at a bad time.'

‘Not at all. We're at the top of the pog at Montségur, taking a break in the sunshine.'

‘Ooh, how wonderful. I'm very envious. Anyway, I thought I'd give you a call to say I've just heard there's a position vacant at St Margaret's College. The previous incumbent was on maternity leave and she's decided not to return. So they need somebody urgently, to start next month.'

‘Kathryn, that sounds awesome.'

‘I thought of you straight away. I'll send you an email with all the details and you'd better apply as soon as possible, preferably today. I understand they want to do interviews next week.'

‘Thank you very, very much. That's amazing. And, yes, I'll get on to it as soon as I get home.'

‘Well, you enjoy your visit to Montségur. I hope Dr Markeson managed to climb up all right and that she isn't too old and arthritic.'

Natalie glanced across at Mark and stifled a giggle. ‘No, we both managed fine. Thanks so much, Kathryn.'

‘Good luck with it. Bye.'

Natalie put the phone away and looked across at Mark. ‘That was Kathryn Garner, my professor at Cambridge. You remember; you wrote to her. It seems there might be a job in one of the other colleges; St Margaret's.'

‘Terrific. Two possibles in one day. Good for you. What were you giggling about?'

Natalie grinned. ‘I'd forgotten to break the news to her that you're a man. She asked if you were too old and arthritic to make this climb.'

Mark groaned theatrically. ‘Do you realise that in three years' time I'll be a veteran as far as triathlons are concerned. I'm not too arthritic yet, but at thirty-seven I'm heading in that direction.'

Natalie registered the fact that he was seven years older than her. He certainly didn't look it. ‘You poor old man. You'd better get that book written quickly before your joints seize up and you can't type any more.'

‘Can I ask you something? On the phone you said we were on the… pog, was that it? What in hell's a pog?'

She grinned. ‘It's what we're sitting on. I'm pretty sure it's the local dialect word for a mountain, or at least a hill of this fairly dramatic shape.' She screwed her water bottle shut. ‘Well, if you can haul yourself to your feet, let's take a look inside.'

It was almost seven o'clock when they got back to Port Renard. Natalie found herself nodding off in the car as they drove home and it was only the loud snoring from the dog in the boot that kept waking her up. Mark drew up outside the back door of the chateau and stretched. ‘You look worn out. Do you want me to carry you down the hill to the beach for your swim?'

‘That's a thought – the swim thing rather than your carrying me, I mean.' Although, the way she felt at the moment, she couldn't imagine anything better than to collapse into his arms. ‘I'd better go home first and deal with the job application for St Margaret's. I'll see how Gran is and I might just have time for a swim before dinner, but it's going to be tight.'

‘What about a swim after dinner?'

‘What, you mean a midnight swim like you did last night?'

‘Well, maybe not midnight, but let's say I'll be going down for a swim at ten. If you feel like it, I'll meet you on the beach. If I don't see you, no worries.'

‘Sounds like a plan. I'll see how everything works out. Now, what about tomorrow? Do you want me, or do we put off our next trip for a day or two?' She frowned. ‘What day is it tomorrow? One day just seems to blend in with another when I'm down here.'

‘Today's Thursday so, by my calculations, tomorrow's Friday.' He was smiling at her. ‘I think I'll try and make a start on some writing tomorrow while the images of the places we've seen today are still fresh in my mind. Maybe let's make the next trip on Saturday, if one day's really all the same to you. If not, how about Monday?'

‘Saturday's fine. We've still got Carcassonne to do and then there's the village of Minerve and I'd like you to visit the abbey at Lagrasse as well. That's pretty much on the way to Carcassonne and Minerve. So, I'll come up here at nine on Saturday unless you call me with a change of plans. Okay?'

‘Okay. And I might see you tonight and I might not. If you've nothing better to do tomorrow you're very welcome to drop in for a coffee. Barney and I enjoy your company.'

‘I tell you what, why don't you call down with Barney for a coffee mid-morning? That'll get you out of the house and it'll be fun for my gran to have a guest.'

Natalie headed back down to her grandma's house and found her sitting on the terrace, enjoying the relative cool of the evening as the sun disappeared behind the house. She looked up as she heard Natalie's arrival. ‘Hello, dear. Did you have a good day?'

‘I certainly did. I've got lots of news, but first I'm busting for a pee and then I'd like a drink. Maybe a cold beer. What can I get you?'

‘A glass of Muscat would be lovely, dear.'

When Natalie came out with the drinks, she also brought her laptop. Now that the sun had disappeared, she was well able to see the screen and she was dying to get the full details of the Cambridge job. She gave her grandmother her wine, opened a bottle of beer for herself and chatted about her day, including the news about Mark no longer being married. When Colette heard about the possibility of a job back in Cambridge, she looked delighted for Natalie.

‘That's wonderful, dear. You've now got two prospective jobs, you've got rid of that horrid Hortense, and you're getting to know your Mark a bit better every time you see him.' She smiled at Natalie. ‘Do you like what you're finding out?'

Natalie smiled back. ‘I found out he's seven years older than me.'

Her grandmother gave a dismissive wave of the hand. ‘Compared to me, you're both youngsters.'

Natalie decided to wait before telling her grandmother about Amy's call about David until she had had a chance to hear the full story. She opened her laptop and checked her emails. To her surprise, there was a whole string of them. She started with the one from Carcassonne. It was from a person called Doctor Claudine Pellettier, saying how interested they were in her application and asking if she could come for interview next Tuesday morning at eleven o'clock. Natalie looked up and beamed at her grandmother.

‘That place in Carcassonne wants me for interview. And it's all because of your eagle eyes, Gran.' She reached across and gave her grandmother a big hug.

‘Wonderful. I'm sure they'll offer you the job the minute they see you.'

Natalie shot off a reply confirming that she would attend the interview and then turned her attention to the email from Kathryn in Cambridge. There was a link in the text of the email to a web page where she found details of the position. She read it carefully and then told her grandmother all about it, finishing by telling her that the pay was a little bit higher than the Carcassonne job. ‘Of course, it's in the UK and life's a bit more expensive over there than it is here. House prices and rent, once you get away from the coast, are so cheap here in comparison to Cambridge.'

‘But, of course, you've already got a place in Cambridge, haven't you?' Colette didn't miss much. Natalie had just been thinking the same thing herself. If she got the job at St Margaret's, she would find herself back in Cambridge and that, of course, was where David was, in the rather nice flat they had been renting on the outskirts of the city. If she was going to work in Cambridge, would she feel tempted to rekindle their relationship? Would he? Was this something she wanted to try, especially if, according to Amy, he was now heartbroken? She had, after all, fallen in love with David some years back and he still held a place in her affections, in spite of the way they had drifted apart and, of course, his awful bloody mother. He was handsome, they'd loved each other and, she thought with a secret smile, they had had some very good times together, both in and out of bed.

The other question, if she went back to Cambridge, was where would this leave her and Mark? Would she lose him? Was there anything between her and Mark to lose? He was a very nice man and good company, although the size of his personal fortune was a bit scary, even if she had always found him grounded and normal. The fact was that she still knew very little about him and nothing, absolutely nothing, had happened between them. She had no idea if he might be harbouring any kind of feelings towards her, as he had never given any sign. In fact, on the rare occasions when intimacy had raised its head, like when their fingers had touched down on the beach in the starlight, he had hastily withdrawn from contact. They had never been on a date together, and their only other physical contact had been a few handshakes and his helping hand as they climbed Montségur this afternoon. And that evening on the beach when she had stood in front of him, just wearing her little bikini, he hadn't been interested, averting his eyes. Looked at in those terms, there was probably nothing there to lose.

She knew that she, too, bore her share of responsibility for the collapse of her engagement to David. There was, and her mother had never ceased to remind her of the fact, a stubborn streak in her. Once she had made up her mind about something or someone, she was hard to shift. There was no doubt she had convinced herself quite some time ago that she disliked what she saw as the artificial world of socialising that came with his job and she had decided it wasn't for her. Had she really given him a fair chance? Somehow her choice to study French history had been partly so as to stay in touch with her family roots, after they were torn from her. And maybe she had chosen to interpret his apparent indifference to her studies as indifference to her. Was that, too, unfair of her? Had she become so wrapped up, obsessed even, with her studies that she had neglected and even ignored him? Did she owe it to him to try again? If he really was sincerely sorry for what had happened, should she try?

Still very confused, she read the remaining two emails in her inbox. One was just a medieval academic review, but the last one was from somebody whose name she didn't recognise: Andy Lagarde. When she opened it, she got a shock.

Dear Natalie

First of all, my apologies for taking so long to get back to you. I've had your application on my desk for some time now, but it's only today that I have finalised my plans for my forthcoming very quick visit to Europe. I'm flying from Montreal to Paris this weekend and will be spending a couple of nights there. On Tuesday morning, I'm taking the TGV down south and I'll be in Toulouse until Friday, when I fly to Warsaw for a conference.

I would be very interested to meet you and I see from your email that you're currently living in France. Would there be any chance of your coming to meet me either in Paris or Toulouse? I can tell you that we are most interested in your application and I'm anxious to finalise our staffing requirements by the end of August at the latest.

In the hope that you will be interested enough in the possibility of working with us, I'm attaching full details of the position.

I hope to hear from you and, if possible, to meet you.

Kind regards

Andy Lagarde

Head of Medieval Studies

University of Canada, Montreal

Natalie raised her head towards her grandmother and gasped. ‘It's the Canadians. They want to interview me.'

‘What, in Canada?' Colette sounded equally surprised.

‘No, here in France. In Toulouse.' Natalie opened the attachment and read the details of the position with growing interest. When she got to the section regarding pay, she had to do a bit of jumping between currency exchange websites to translate the salary from Canadian dollars into euros. She tried three different sites, not believing her eyes at first. But there was no doubt about it. The job, apart from being right up her street, was offering almost twice as much as either the Cambridge or Carcassonne positions.

‘And they're offering to pay me shed loads of money.'

‘Does the job sound good?'

‘The job sounds really excellent; they're looking for a twelfth- and thirteenth-century specialist and that's me. The university's got a very good reputation, it's bilingual and it's one of the top hundred in the world. And Montreal's supposed to be a great city.'

‘So…' Colette sipped her wine and studied her granddaughter over the rim of her glass. ‘If they offer you this job, will you take it?'

Natalie had been thinking the very same thing. ‘I really don't know, Gran. I really don't know.'

Natalie pressed
Send
, and her application for the job in Cambridge sped off across the ether. Earlier, she had replied to Andy Lagarde in Montreal, saying she would be delighted to see him in Toulouse and suggesting next Tuesday afternoon. That way, she could go to the Carcassonne meeting in the morning, and then jump on a train for the hour-long journey to Toulouse. She sat back and glanced at the clock. It was half past nine and Mark would be on his way down to the beach before long. She glanced out into the darkness, wondering whether to join him. It was a Thursday night and she knew Amy played badminton every Thursday, but she should be home by now and Natalie knew she needed to speak to her. She picked up her phone.

‘Hi, Natalie. I've just got in. How was your day?'

‘Hi, Amy. My day was very interesting.' She went on to tell her about their tour of the Cathar country, the new job opportunities and, in particular, about Mark being divorced. Amy asked lots of questions, but what Natalie really wanted to hear about was her ex-fiancé. ‘So, Amy, tell me all about David.'