Page 60 of A French Affair
Alain smiled at her. ‘Nigel he ’as always known about, and approved, my plans for the site. Seemed to think through me he would be doing his bit for some underprivileged kids.’
‘But now he’s sold the site to the new owners who probably won’t care a fig about doing anything like that,’ Belinda said sadly. ‘I’m so sorry, Alain.’
Alain helped himself to some more salad.
‘You asked me once why I didn’t want you ’ere. Two reasons: One, I didn’t want Nigel’s troubleshooter ’ere sorting the place out. Me, I could do it on my own. Because I want to give kids from the inner cities a week or two living ’ere, learning about nature, I was determined to keep technology at bay. So, when you arrived and started talking about pods and glamping and going upmarket I couldn’t believe it. That wasn’t what I’d arranged with Nigel.’
Belinda held her hand up. ‘Stop. You had an arrangement with Nigel? I thought it was your parents who’d sold the site to him.’
Alain looked at her. ‘Originally, oui. Before I arrived back ’ere, Nigel he ’ad agreed to buy the campsite. Purely I think to ’elp my parents and stop the worry of it all for them. Fortunately, Nigel, he agree to change things for me. He wouldn’t buy the campsite, but put up the money to get the place up and running again, I’d keep the costs down, and repay ’im within a maximum of two years.’
Alain picked up his wine glass and raised it in Belinda’s direction. ‘Bien, the campsite stay in the family and I can start to put my plan for holidays for children into practice. But he insist on sending you over – to troubleshoot and to make sure I keep to my side of the agreement. I think it a perfect arrangement – until you arrived, determined to pull the site into the twenty-first century with lots of technology everywhere and trying to attract the glamping luxury market.’
‘So that’s why you put up obstacles to the pods, and why he refused to sack you.’ Belinda stared at him open-mouthed. ‘But what happens now he’s sold up? You won’t be able to continue.’
‘Yes I will. Nigel left our private arrangement with the campsite out of the sale to the new hotel people. We’ve rearranged things yet again. Now he’s going to be a sleeping partner and I’ve got three years to pay ’im back instead of two.’
Belinda stared at him for a couple of seconds while the truth dawned on her. ‘You mean you’re the new owner? Or rather you’ve been the unknown owner all the time.’
‘Oui,’ Alain said, smiling and nodding at her. ‘Mais, now you know. It can be our secret until the first of June when we officially open, oui?’ He looked at her anxiously. ‘We ’ave a party to tell everyone.’
‘Sure,’ Belinda said in a daze. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’ She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, trying to clear her thoughts. Could this day get any more bizarre? First the emotional reunion with her father and now it turned out that she’d been working for Alain, not Nigel, all along. Belinda opened her eyes and looked at Alain thoughtfully. ‘So what was the other reason you didn’t want me here. You said there were two.’
Alain looked at her. ‘As troubleshooters go, you weren’t what I expected.’
40
The next morning, Belinda, feeling the need to get away from the campsite for an hour or two, slipped BB’s lead on and prepared to walk down to the auberge. Maybe a chat with Fern would help sort her thoughts out.
‘I’m just walking BB and returning the dish to Fern. Marie’s in the office,’ she called out to Alain as she saw him in the machinery shed fiddling with a petrol can. She didn’t wait for an acknowledgement, just carried on walking down the drive.
To think it was over two months, nearly three in fact, that she’d driven up the road for the first time and the trees lining the route had been waving their bare branches in the wind. Today there was a canopy of green leaves overhead filtering the sunlight down through to the grass-covered verges with their daisies and bee-attracting dandelions.
Belinda remembered how resentful and unhappy she’d felt that first day, wanting to be anywhere but Camping dans Le Fôret. Now she was in a different turmoil with decisions to be made about things she’d never expected to have to give a second’s thought to. She couldn’t help wondering too, what exactly Alain had meant by his comment she wasn’t what he’d expected. Her mobile had rung in the sudden silence that had followed his words with a message from Chloe and the moment had gone before she could ask him.
Yann was busy moving beer barrels as she walked past the village bar and called out a cheerful, ‘Bonjour, Belinda,’ when he saw her. She waved and called back as she made for the church and the road to the auberge.
As she walked up the drive, she heard voices in the back garden, so rather than knock on the door, she made her way to the back of the house. Fern and Anouk were sitting with coffee on the terrace, looking at something on the laptop between them, and they both turned as she called out, ‘Coo-ee.’
Lady came bounding over to BB and once Belinda had released him from the lead, the two dogs set off on a mad session of joyful play in the garden.
‘I think they’ve missed each other,’ Belinda said, laughing. ‘Hi, how are you two?’
‘I’m fine thank you,’ Anouk said. ‘I think the same can be said of Fern too,’ she said with a smile, looking at Fern.
‘Coffee?’ Fern asked, reaching for the cafetière and going to stand up to fetch a cup from the kitchen.
‘No thanks. I had one before I left the campsite. Thanks for supper last night, it was delicious.’ Belinda put the dish down on the table.
‘Grab a chair and sit down,’ Fern said. ‘I would have collected the dish later today. You didn’t have to bring it back.’
Belinda shrugged. ‘I fancied a walk and wanted to see you.’
‘We thought about you yesterday,’ Anouk said. ‘How did it go?’
‘Better than I thought it would, if I’m honest, but emotional and difficult at times,’ Belinda answered. ‘I was a bundle of nerves when we got there. Alain took charge and calmed me down.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Dad told me he’d never expected to see me again.’ Belinda sighed. ‘I sat with him, held his hand and we talked. We both cried a bit, a lot actually, him while I was there and me when I left. Seeing him so ill and remembering how strong he was years ago…’ Belinda shook her head.
‘Has anybody given you an idea how long he has?’ Fern asked gently.
