Page 16 of Summer at the Château
Pixie wished the woman had returned whilst she and Gwen were still here. She would have insisted on having answers to all her questions, and then told the woman she had to leave before they returned at the end of the month. And that would have been the end of that. Now she had ten days to brood and overthink everything while they were in the UK. But whatever story the woman gave her when she finally turned up, she would soon be on her way.
* * *
Both Pixie and Gwen were subdued the next morning. After breakfast, Pixie went round the château carefully taking her time, checking that everything that should be shut and locked up was. She carried Gwen’s suitcase down and went back for her own.
Loading the car, she glanced across at the cottage. Would it be easier to push a note under the door, telling the woman to leave with no explanation given? But then she wouldn’t get any answers to her questions. Pixie needed to do it face to face. She needed the woman to know she knew about… about whatever had been going on. Besides, she wanted to see for herself this woman Frank had somehow become involved with. Pixie slammed the boot closed on the car and made her way back to the château.
She pulled the heavy oak front door closed and turned the key whilst Gwen got in the passenger seat of the car and strapped herself in. They both turned for one last lingering look at the château as Pixie started the engine. Together they chorused ‘We’ll be back’ before they both burst into laughter. It was good knowing that she was coming back for the summer. That this visit wasn’t the one and only time she’d spend here.
Pixie turned onto the lane for the village. Once in the village, she stopped outside the boulangerie and quickly ran in and bought a couple of ham and cheese baguettes and two coffee eclairs. ‘Much nicer than the ones on the ferry,’ she said to Gwen, placing them carefully on the dashboard as she got back into the car.
Leaving the village behind and reaching the junction for the main road, Pixie slowed down and came to a halt at the same time as a French registered car approaching the village pulled to a stop on the other side of the road. When the woman driver smiled and gestured she should go first, Pixie raised her hand and smiled in acknowledgement as she looked both ways before pulling out onto the main road and heading for the ferry port.
11
As Justine Martin approached the crossroads and slowed down to come to the required stop, a car travelling away from the village also came to a halt directly opposite. Seeing the English car number plates, Justine smiled and gestured to the woman driver to go first. English drivers not used to driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road sometimes made mistakes, so she was always super polite and gave way to them. The woman raised her hand in acknowledgement as she drove across to take the road signposted Roscoff. The elderly lady in the passenger seat smiled and waved as well.
While she waited for the road to clear, Justine glanced in the rear-view mirror at her three-and-a-half-year-old son, Ferdie, safely strapped in his car seat and fast asleep for most of the journey. It had been a good Easter holiday at St Malo, even if Ferdie had been spoilt rotten by his grandparents. It had also been the first time for years that she hadn’t been lectured or subjected to deep sighs and sorrowful looks from her mother. Thankfully, she seemed to have at last accepted the decision Justine had made as well as the consequences and stopped nagging her about it.
Four years ago, Justine had been inwardly terrified when she’d selfishly made the decision to do something she knew was the right thing for her but not necessarily for anyone else. The action had upset her mother and for months afterwards their relationship had been fraught. Unable to change her mind, her mother had come to accept that it was something Justine needed to do, after repeated warnings about how the consequences could not only be disastrous for her but also painful for the other people involved. ‘These things have a habit of taking on a life of their own,’ she’d repeated time and time again before making Justine promise not to involve her and her father in the whole sorry business. Justine had promised and gone ahead with her plan.
After the initial heart-pounding meeting to instigate matters, there had been months of toing and froing before things had started to level out, but now almost everyone had come to terms with the consequences of her action. Justine’s promise to her mother was still unbroken and her own life had never been better.
She had a beautiful son, a lovely home and she was in the process of turning a basket-making hobby into a thriving business. The only part of her life she’d never envisaged was being a single mother. She’d always wanted children, to have a family within a secure relationship, but that option had been taken out of her hands when she became pregnant. Now she wouldn’t part with Ferdie for the world and apart from the lack of a wedding ring on her finger she was in a good place.
Justine hummed softly to herself as she drove through the village. Not long now and she’d be home and could slip back into the routine that had established itself over the past year. Ferdie would be back at the école maternalle every morning next week, which meant she could spend the mornings making sure she had enough baskets in stock for the summer season. She loved having Ferdie at home, though, the place felt empty somehow when he was at school, even though she could lose herself in her work. Goodness only knows how she’d feel when he started at proper school.
She was up to date with her work, but she needed to build up a good supply of stock for the street markets which would start with a vengeance in May as the tourists arrived. As well as her regular weekly stalls at Huelgoat and Châteauneuf-du-Faou, a couple of shops had also asked to stock her baskets and other willow work. There were enough baskets under lock and key in the barn near the cottage to keep her going for several weeks, but she definitely needed to make a lot more baskets before the main summer season. If only basket making wasn’t so time-consuming.
Justine glanced in the rear-view mirror as Ferdie woke with a small groan and wriggled in his seat. ‘Hi, sleepyhead.’
‘Mummy, I’m thirsty.’
‘A few more minutes and we’ll be home. You can have a drink then.’
Justine drove the remaining short distance down the road towards home. It was so good to be back. Turning onto the château drive, she breathed a sigh of happiness as she saw the château and then her cottage standing to one side. She loved living in this cottage and was still in awe of the fact that she and Ferdie got to call it home.
Stopping outside the cottage, Justine turned off the car engine and pulled up the handbrake. Life was good, summer was on its way and she’d never been happier.
Part II
‘It is not in the stars to hold our destiny but in ourselves.’
Shakespeare’s Sonnets.
12
Four days after returning home, Pixie sat at Frank’s desk in the study. Well ahead with organising things for spending the summer in France she’d also made a start on sorting through Frank’s belongings. She was determined that when she returned here in the autumn, that whatever transpired at the château in the coming months, there wouldn’t be the need to face any additional heartbreak of throwing things away. Frank’s side of the wardrobe in their bedroom was now empty. She’d divided his good suits, trousers, jeans, shirts and several pairs of leather shoes between the homeless shelter in Totnes and the local charity shop, the rest she’d binned. Sweaters and scarves were in black bags, ready for the next run to the Save the Children shop. That was his clothes sorted. This afternoon, she planned on going through his desk, in particular the papers in the filing cabinet.
Jean-Yves’ remark about Frank forging her signature had been niggling away in her subconscious ever since he’d said it. The Frank she knew and loved would never do such a thing, but he hadn’t been his normal self for well over a year, who knew what he’d been capable of doing in those months?
Pixie’s fingers trembled as she took the official papers out of the folder and found the one she was looking for. The final completion certificate. A sigh of relief escaped her mouth, as her eyes scanned the signatures at the bottom, hers underneath Franks. It certainly looked genuine, if a little untidier than her usual one. The date alongside the signatures corresponded with the date the bank manager had said the château became theirs.
She drummed her fingers on the desk in front of her.Think, think, Pixie. She hadn’t known it but this would have been the last time she’d had to sign anything château related and she needed to remember when and where she’d signed it to be absolutely certain.
She looked at the date again, searching her memory of that year, of that particular month, and slowly she remembered. Her agent had arranged for a local bookshop to take a large quantity of signed copies of Pixie’s latest book for the weeks leading up to Christmas, which had meant a long book-signing session in her office. Her wrist and hand were aching from signing over forty books and there was still at least twenty to do when Frank had interrupted her.
‘Pixie darling, I know you’re busy, but the notaire wants these signed by us both asap. Could you just pop your signature at the bottom here under mine? Then I can send them back to him today.’
