Page 57 of Summer at the Château
Pixie looked at her mother, her brow creased. ‘Mum, I don’t know what you’re planning, but—’
‘Not planning anything, just giving you more time to kiss and make up with a friend. Now go.’ Once Pixie was out of range, Gwen turned to Justine. ‘Do you tap your feet like Ferdie does when he’s happy?’
‘No, that’s a pure Brigitte trait – only she does it when she’s impatient as well.’
‘Oh, that’s interesting,’ and Gwen wandered away, leaving a puzzled Justine.
‘How’s one of my favourite people then?’ Charlie said, appearing at her side.
‘I’m good and very grateful to one of my new favourite friends for making a certain little boy very happy this afternoon.’
‘Happy to be of service, but why are you staring after my grandma like that?’
Justine shook herself. ‘Just something she said. Anyway, I hear you’re doing a barbecue lunch tomorrow and my parents are invited. Do you need a sous chef to help in the morning?’
‘If you’re not busy, that would be great.’
37
Gwen was on edge the next morning when she got up. If Pixie knew what she had planned, she would be cross, there was no doubt about it. But if her suspicions turned out to be correct, then at least she would have ‘closure’, as modern speak would have it.
Pausing in front of the mirror in her bedroom, Gwen stared at herself critically. She hadn’t let herself go as so many women did as the big birthdays mounted up. Admittedly, she weighed more than she had at twenty, and her hair was grey these days, but all in all, she didn’t look too bad. Of course, there were some mornings when she struggled to get out of bed, although since living in France that particular struggle seemed to have disappeared. She and Anouk both agreed a positive attitude helped to get rid of a lot of negativity that modern life threw at the elderly.
Anouk, now there was a woman after her own heart. She was looking forward to the two of them doing things together once living at the château was a permanent thing.
Carefully, she pinned her lighthouse brooch to her cardigan and gave it a gentle genie like rub for good luck, before going downstairs.
Pixie was already in the kitchen, playing with the kittens, a cup of coffee on the table and toast in the toaster. ‘These are adorable, aren’t they? I love black cats. What are we going to call them?’
‘If we had three, we could go for Milly, Molly, Mandy, you adored those books when you were a child,’ Gwen said, laughing.
‘Trust you to remember those books. We could have Milly and Molly? Hopefully they’ll both come to either name.’
Gwen put a pod in the coffee machine and pressed the button. ‘You were talking to Brigitte a lot yesterday.’
Pixie heard the unasked question in her mother’s voice and decided to ignore it. ‘I’m getting used to the fact that she is Justine’s mother, so as Justine and Ferdie are going to be living here forever, we’re probably going to see a lot of them in the future. We need to get over our differences,’ she added quietly. ‘Anyway, what brought on this barbecue lunch today?’
Gwen hesitated. Should she tell Pixie why she’d impulsively organised a lunch? She took a deep breath. ‘We’ve never really talked about my very first time in Brittany, have we? Other than to acknowledge that I was an au pair for one summer season when I was twenty.’ She paused. ‘I know it was a long time ago, but Brigitte reminds me of someone I met then.’
‘Are you planning to interrogate her over the beef burgers?’
‘I’m hoping I can get her to tell us a bit about her childhood. You were friends before – do you know anything?’
Pixie shook her head. ‘I might have done, but I certainly can’t remember anything right now other than she grew up in Paris. She had a sister, I think, whom she didn’t get on with terribly well, and a couple of brothers. But you can’t possibly remember Brigitte. She’s only five or six years older than me, she would have been a mere child.’
Gwen shook her head. ‘I didn’t say I remembered her, she simply reminds me of someone I knew then. There’s something familiar about her, that’s all. It could just be that she reminds me of an actor off the telly. I don’t know, but I would like to find out.’
Before Pixie could say any more, Charlie arrived with a large bag containing meat, baguettes, salad ingredients and a couple of bottles of wine.
‘Morning. You’re both looking a bit serious. What’s up?’
‘Nothing is up,’ Gwen said. ‘Coffee?’
‘Thanks. I thought I’d do some jacket potatoes in the pizza oven and I’ve bought steaks, pork chops and burgers. Just normal barbecue stuff. Justine said she’d come and give a hand prepping salad. There’s plenty of cake left over for dessert and there’s some ice cream in the freezer. So we’re super organised.’
‘Mum and I will make sure the table is set and the terrace is tidy,’ Pixie said.
* * *
