Page 4 of Summer at the Château
Although a smaller property than the word château usually conjured up, it was bigger than they’d envisaged buying, with its six large bedrooms, four bathrooms, two salons, a kitchen twice the size of their current one, a floored attic area, four hectares of land, complete with a small cottage, a couple of barn-like buildings, a lake and woods. There was even a dilapidated orangery on the back of the property.
Situated in Finistère but close to the borders of both Morbihan and Côte d’Armor, Château Quiltu was ideally situated about an hour from both the west coast and the north coast, which included the ferry port of Roscoff. With its easy access to the towns of Carhaix Plouger and Châteauneuf-du-Faou, as well as Huelgoat with its ancient forest and mystic atmosphere, the château was located in the middle of a perfect French triangle.
Château Quiltu, Pixie had fleetingly thought, would make a wonderful writers’ retreat. The fact that it was for sale under the viager system – a system they had never heard of before – complicated things. It was an investment gamble, albeit a legal one drawn up by notaires.
They met the current owners, Monsieur and Madame Quiltu, both in their eighties and neither in the best of health. The château had been in Monsieur Quiltu’s family since the Revolution and they were both sad they were the last generation to live in it as they didn’t have any children to inherit.
Frank had pored for days, weeks really, over the pages and pages of bureaucratic paperwork, working out which particular viager deal to go with before deciding to go with the lump sum, known as the bouquet, and a smaller monthly payment to the current owners, who would live in the château until they either moved out or died, when Frank and Pixie could take possession of it.
For over eight years, regular monthly payments were made and they’d waited patiently, planning their French retirement and dreaming of the day it would become a reality. Except when the day had finally arrived and they could take possession Frank hadn’t even mentioned going to France. Sixteen months ago, he’d been alive. Busy working with business trips all over Europe. If only Frank had told her the château was theirs, they could have made the long-awaited move to France then – and Frank would still be alive.
Pixie bit her bottom lip as she took the papers out of the envelope. It didn’t make sense. She was going to have to go to France, talk to the notaire there and instruct him to put the château on the market.
She picked up the phone and rang Gwen.
‘Mum, how do you fancy going to France with me for Easter?’
4
Pixie had decided when booking their tickets on the Pont Aven for the overnight ferry crossing from Plymouth to Roscoff that she’d treat them both to a Commodore Cabin as it was supposed to be a holiday break after all. And besides, they were both too old for bunk beds. But unlike Gwen, who was asleep the moment her head hit the pillow, Pixie tossed and turned, unable to settle. In the past, she and Frank had always taken a daytime ferry and enjoyed the six or seven hours it took to cross the hundred miles of Channel separating England from France.
A meal in the restaurant, a drink at the bar, time up on deck at both ends of the journey watching the coastline disappearing or getting closer. Usually there was even time for her to open her laptop and do some plotting, if not actual writing, for her next book. This time though, confined to the cabin, with several enforced hours of night-time solitude and thinking time, Pixie’s thoughts were as choppy as the waves the boat was powering through.
She’d spent the ten days since the bank manager had dropped the bombshell news that Château Quiltu was now hers wrestling with two unanswerable questions. Firstly, why had Frank kept it secret from her for so many months and, secondly, when had he planned to tell her, if fate in the form of a joy-rider hadn’t intervened? Try as she might, Pixie had failed to arrive at an answer for either question. The envelope she’d found in the file in the desk drawer contained the original papers they’d both signed, plus a letter from the notaire informing them of the death of Monsieur Quiltu, and a large bunch of keys that were now like a lead weight in the bottom of her tote. But there were no clues to explain Frank’s uncharacteristically secretive behaviour.
When Gwen had jumped enthusiastically at the idea of Easter in France, Pixie hadn’t told her that the viager scheme had finished and the château now belonged to her. She’d simply said, Gwen was right and the break would be good for both of them; she’d tell her the truth once they were in France. Her mother, she knew, would be unable to stop trying to dissect the reason Frank had kept the news to himself. Pixie had simply told her that she needed to go and sort things out with the notaire face to face and to instruct an estate agent. ‘You know how the French love their bureaucracy, there are sure to be papers for me to sign before I can put the place on the market.’
Pixie reached an arm out and picked up her phone from the small shelf where she’d placed it and sighed – 4 a.m. Another two hours before she needed to get up. She couldn’t even concentrate on thinking about the storyline for her new book. The deadline for which her publishers had compassionately pushed back a few months because of Frank dying, but she still had to think of a name for her main character, not to mention some sort of plot, and to actually write the thing. Maybe if she wrote mysteries or crime stories, she’d be better at solving the puzzle in her own life, but she didn’t, she wrote women’s fiction dealing with relationships between the whole spectrum of human beings: brothers and sisters, friends, aunts, cousins and uncles, as well as married couples.
But even with her expertise at solving the problems of fictional characters, she hadn’t been able to figure out what had been happening in her own marriage. She knew, though, that both of them had become increasingly busy with their own careers in recent years. Frank, headhunted a few years ago because of his expertise in the fight against the piracy of DVDs and other consumer goods, had found himself in the role of roving European ambassador for several major companies. Weekly business trips to Europe had become the norm in his life and Pixie had become used to spending more and more time at home by herself. Which, coincidentally, had helped her to achieve her own dream.
A freelance journalist for most of their married life, she’d always wanted to write fiction and the year she turned fifty, with Frank’s encouragement, she’d taken the plunge, given up journalism and written a novel. Unable to land either an agent or a publisher, she’d gone the independent route, which was a steep learning curve to say the least. When her third book hit the bestseller list, it had been her turn to be headhunted and she now had both an agent and a publisher. Her latest novel was winning accolades and was on the shortlist for an international prize and she’d agreed to start the edits for the next one after Easter. And then, writer’s block permitting, she needed to start a new one.
Lying there listening to the water slapping against the sides as the ferry cut its way through the water, Pixie vowed she’d get her act together, once Easter was over and she was back home, with the château on the market.
Inevitably, her thoughts turned to the way things between herself and Frank had seemed to change in the last year. How she’d planned to tackle him about it on that never taken city break. How things would have panned out between them if Frank hadn’t been killed was another of those unanswerable questions. The last time they’d spent any real ‘quality’ time together had been their summer holiday last year. They’d gone to the eastern side of France, a first for them both, staying in Isla 2000 in the Mercantour Park, close to the Italian border. A ski resort in winter, during the summer months it was full of beautiful countryside to explore with quaint mountain-side villages. Both Nice, an hour away down on the coast, and several small Italian villages were easily accessible. It had been a good holiday. Almost like a second honeymoon, Pixie had felt, but once home again nothing had really changed as they both slipped back seamlessly into their individual routines. She could only wish now that she’d asked Frank about whatever was bothering him on that holiday. If wishes were fishes…
Pixie knew from the date the bank manager had told her and the date on the final completion paper in the envelope, the château had been theirs then: they could have gone there together for the first time as owners. So why hadn’t they? The only explanation Pixie could think of was the holiday had already been booked and paid for and Frank hadn’t wanted to change their plans and lose either the deposit or the airfare. Although that still didn’t answer the question why he hadn’t told her about Monsieur Quiltu dying and the château finally becoming theirs. They could certainly have visited in the months since. Had he lost interest in the place? Wanted to put it on the market and didn’t like to broach the subject, knowing that living in France was a dream of hers that he no longer shared? The unanswerable questions went round and round in her head.
Pixie turned despondently onto her side, pulling the cover over her, trying to get comfortable in the hope she would drift off. She had a rendezvous with the notaire tomorrow, she could only hope he would be able to throw some light on things. And today she would once again be seeing the château that she’d fallen in love with the first time she’d set eyes on it. And with that happier thought, she finally drifted to sleep.
5
In the morning as they sat in the car waiting for the man to wave the queue they were in off the ferry, Gwen’s tummy rumbled and Pixie glanced at her, smiling. ‘Sorry I couldn’t face breakfast on the boat, but I thought we’d drive into Roscoff and treat ourselves to crêpes and coffee at a little cafe Frank and I went to occasionally.’ She didn’t mention the need to psych herself up to driving on the ‘wrong’ side of the road for the seventy kilometres she faced to reach Château Quiltu.
Quarter of an hour later, Pixie had parked the car and they were sitting at a pavement cafe with steaming bowls of coffee in front of them, waiting for their ham and egg crêpes.
‘Good coffee,’ Gwen said, swallowing another mouthful.
‘I need to tell you something,’ Pixie said, deciding now was as good a time as any to tell her mother the truth about their visit. ‘Monsieur Quiltu died sixteen months ago, so Frank and I have owned the château since then. Frank instructed the bank to stop the viager payments but neglected to tell me the château belonged to us.’ She held up her hands in a placatory gesture. ‘I have no idea why he didn’t tell me, or why we haven’t visited since, so please, no questions. I’m hoping the notaire tomorrow will be able to tell me more.’
Gwen placed her coffee bowl on the table. ‘I did wonder about the sudden decision to come to France.’
Pixie shrugged. ‘I fancied seeing the place for one last time before I instruct the notaire to sell. Besides, the break will do us both good. I hope you like the auberge I’ve booked us into for a couple of nights. It’s in a village close to the château. Frank and I stayed there when we first found the château and it was lovely. Fern is a wonderful cook.’
‘Not staying at the château then?’
‘Not sure what state it will be in – I did contact the electricity people to check it was still connected,’ Pixie said. ‘We’ll suss it out first and decide.’ She didn’t mention the bed sheets and the towels she’d packed in the car boot just in case.
