Page 66 of A French Affair
Five minutes later as they passed an official destination board on the side of the road, Belinda realised where they were heading. ‘We’re going to Lac de Guerlédan, aren’t we?’
Alain nodded. ‘You like?’
‘It will be interesting to see it again,’ Belinda said quietly. ‘It’s bound to have changed in the last thirty-five years. I remember trekking round it with the school on an environmental trip. Lots of trees and wild flowers.’
‘These days, it’s popular with tourists. This time of year, not so busy,’ Alain explained. ‘Lots of space everywhere.’
The lake was glistening in the midday sunshine as Alain parked in a gravelled area near a restaurant with picnic tables overlooking the lake.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Chloe said, taking her sunglasses out of her bag and slipping them on.
Alain quickly found a table for them, ordered three coffees and a couple of soft drinks for Charlie and Aimee. ‘We ’ave lunch here, oui?’ he said. ‘I promise the twins frites and ’ere they are très bons.’
‘Sounds like a plan,’ Belinda said, grateful that Alain had taken charge. She suddenly felt tired and incapable of making any rational decisions. Coffee and food were definitely needed.
Alain looked at Chloe. ‘I think today is not a day for lingering at lunch. I order frites and chicken goujons for us all? With salad for three and half a carafe of wine for you two, d’accord?’
Chloe smiled at him. ‘You’re right. The twins will want to be off playing as soon they’ve eaten. Thanks. Chicken goujons will be great.’
Sitting there in the sunshine watching the activity on the lake as she drank her coffee, Belinda tried to address the emotional feelings that had been threatening to swamp her since leaving the hospice. Feelings of guilt for not returning immediately to Brittany like her mother had urged were mixed in with anger at the way in which her relationship with her father had been torn apart.
The sane part of her brain wanted to believe nothing that had happened in the past was her fault, that she couldn’t be blamed for the actions of her parents. But another part screamed ‘you’re feeble and pathetic’ into her conscience for not facing up to things years ago when it would have been possible for her, if not her mum, to heal the rift with her dad. It added up to one indisputable thing. She could have had a relationship with her father if she’d been brave enough. There was no hope of rekindling her relationship with him now, as much as she would have liked to – a fact which made her feel bereft. Belinda smothered a sigh. Somehow she was going to have to learn to live with the knowledge that she’d simply given up on him all those years ago. And that realisation hurt. She’d failed someone who had once been the world to her.
Their food arrived at that moment, along with the half carafe of wine and while Alain tucked in and Chloe made sure the twins could manage before starting her own meal, Belinda quickly poured Chloe and herself a glass. ‘Santé,’ she said, raising her glass before taking a mouthful. When she did pick up her cutlery, she discovered the frites and goujons of chicken were delicious and that she was in fact hungry.
Charlie and Aimee ate all their chips and most of the chicken pieces before starting to fidget while the grown-ups finished their meals. While Alain went to the bar to pay, Chloe took the twins to the toilet and Belinda wandered down onto the path to wait for everyone. When Alain joined her, she smiled at him.
‘Thank you. I’ll settle up with you later for the meals.’
‘Non. My treat. Are you okay? The visit today, it upset you?’
Belinda nodded. ‘But I’m better now. Here come Chloe and the twins.’
Alain held out his hands to Charlie and Aimee and they both ran and grabbed a hand. ‘Ice cream time,’ he said. ‘But first we ’ave to walk a little way to the best ice cream shop.’
Watching him walk along the path, a twin on either side holding his hand, Belinda smiled. The campsite visits he planned for disadvantaged children would be a huge success because he seemed to know instinctively how to deal with them and what they needed. What the twins needed right now apparently was a large ice cream cone covered in sparkles and, reaching the beach shop, they joined the queue to buy them.
Belinda and Chloe settled for a modest coffee-flavoured ice cream with a flake, but Alain had the same as the twins. Clutching their ice creams tightly, they made their way along a small deserted jetty and sat dangling their legs and feet in the water as they enjoyed them.
‘Is this still the largest man-made lake in Brittany?’ Belinda asked. ‘I remember the teacher being inordinately proud of that fact when we came.’
Alain nodded. ‘Oui. A few years back, they drained it to work on the dam itself. It was fascinating to see the ruins but sad in a way, knowing how many hamlets and how much land had been sacrificed. And now, it is full again. No one remembers what lies under the water.’
‘It’s a beautiful spot,’ Chloe said. ‘I’d loved to go sailing here. Maybe when the twins are about eight, we’ll come back and spend a holiday on the campsite, teach them to sail. You up for that, Mum, coming back?’
‘Who knows where we’ll all be in five years,’ Belinda answered. ‘But yes, in theory, I’ll come with you.’
After their ice creams were finished, they walked slowly back to the car for the rest of the drive home. Within minutes, the twins were asleep and everybody was lost in their own thoughts. It was after Alain had turned off the main road and was driving along the country lanes towards the campsite that Belinda recognised where they were.
‘If you could pull over in the lay-by just past the next crossroads, I can point out the cottage where I used to live to Chloe,’ she said quietly to Alain. ‘The entrance drive is about twenty metres along the road, but you won’t be able to see the cottage from there as the drive has a curve in it.’ As Alain slowed the car before stopping in the lay-by, Belinda said, ‘There you go, Chloe, that’s the cottage where I grew up.’
Sitting there, looking across a field at her old home, Belinda felt a flood of emotions flow through her. The cottage itself was a typical Breton building, with gabled dormer windows, red shutters fixed to the wall downstairs and a red wooden front door. The field at the side where she used to ride Lucky was bright yellow with rapeseed flowers and the tall trees in the copse seemed to have been cut down.
Closing her eyes, in her mind she could still visualise the layout inside the cottage. A room on either side of the hallway, her bedroom next to the large kitchen at the back, and stairs leading to the main bedroom and bathroom on the first floor were hidden behind a door in the kitchen. Unbidden, a memory of her and her parents in the kitchen leaped into her mind. It was summer and they’d spent the day collecting and stacking enough bales of hay in the barn to feed their animals through winter and now the three of them were enjoying their supper sitting at the pine table. Belinda couldn’t remember the food they ate but she knew there had been wine and a can of lemonade for her. What she could still remember all these years later though, was that both she and her parents had been a happy family that evening. She wished with all her heart that things had never changed.
Belinda opened her eyes and came to with a small start as Chloe spoke.
‘It looks lovely, Mum,’ Chloe said. ‘Typically French. Which sounds silly, I know, but some of the cottages I’ve seen would look at home in England.’
