Page 2 of Summer on the French Riviera
‘D’you remember my daughter, Kelly? No, of course you won’t. She was a baby when you left. Kelly, this is my best friend, Harriet, from years ago, she’s been in Australia for years.’ Not waiting for an answer, Lizzie had babbled on. ‘We’re all so thrilled – you must remember Jack Ellicott? American, came here the year we started college, before he disappeared back to the US unexpectedly. Well, Kelly is marrying his son next month, would you believe? She went to the US for work experience – she’s a video game designer and it’s the place to be, apparently – and met Nathan. We couldn’t believe it when he turned out to be Jack’s son, such a small world these days. You must come to the wedding. I’ll send you an invite – your mother still lives at the same address?’
‘Same address,’ Harriet had said, telling herself it still was, until tomorrow at least, so not a downright lie. Besides, Gabby had arranged for the post to be forwarded to France, so the invite would reach her eventually. She’d turned to Kelly. ‘Congratulations.’
‘We need to catch the next ferry so we can’t stop and chat right now,’ Lizzie had continued. ‘But it’s been a lovely surprise bumping into you. We’ll have a proper catch-up at the wedding. Come on, Kelly.’
Harriet had watched the two of them walk along the quay towards the ferry before she rejoined Gabby and Elodie.
‘Was that Lizzie?’ Gabby had asked.
‘Yes. She hasn’t changed a bit.’ Harriet had laughed. ‘I didn’t do much talking. I’d forgotten how she used to gabble away. It’s not until she draws breath that you can get a word in. Right, shall we go home for that early night we promised ourselves? Busy day tomorrow.’
And the three of them had left Bayards Cove and started to walk homewards.
Harriet had kept the news that she’d been invited to a wedding to herself, thankful she had a cast-iron excuse for not attending. She’d be out of the country. Meeting Lizzie unexpectedly had been lovely, but it was enough. The thought of meeting other people from her past en masse at a wedding reception terrified her.
Even now, a day or so later, standing in her new bedroom in the villa and remembering that evening, Harriet felt a wave of anxiety seep through her body. People had long memories for juicy gossip and hearsay. The hope that they would show understanding and compassion if they heard the truth was not something that Harriet had ever thought likely. Thankfully, she was in France now, where nobody knew or cared about her past.
A past where she’d selfishly screwed up her own life, not caring about how much her actions affected others. It was time to try to redeem herself in Gabby and Elodie’s eyes and pray they would both give her the second chance that deep down she’d wanted for so long.
Crossing over to and opening the French windows of her bedroom, Harriet pushed back the shutters and stepped out onto the small balcony. Her bedroom at the back of the villa overlooked the garden and the pool, both of which looked in need of some loving care.
For the first few weeks here in France, she’d concentrate on trying to break down the barrier that she sensed Elodie had erected around herself, whilst helping Gabby sort the villa before starting to think about what she was going to do. She didn’t need to work, as money wasn’t an issue. The amount of Todd’s life insurance coupled with his investments had come as a welcome surprise. She could live anywhere and do pretty much what she wanted. What she couldn’t do was sit around for the rest of her life. Was she brave enough to try to pick up that long-ago dream to make a name for herself as an artist, but, more to the point, had she left it too late? Surely she at least owed it to herself to find out.
Harriet pulled the box marked bed linen towards her and took out sheets, pillowcases and a duvet cover. She’d make up both her bed and Gabby’s before going downstairs to help with whatever else needed doing this evening. Having her bed ready for her to collapse into at the end of the day would be good. After all, tomorrow was, as the old cliché put it, the first day of the rest of her life here in France. And it was a life that she intended to make the most of from here on in. If it wasn’t too late, she wanted to become part of a family again, to build a proper relationship with Elodie, to say sorry to Gabby for her behaviour. To ask their forgiveness for her past actions.
If it did prove too late to mend the past and move forward together, she’d leave and try to accept the fact that sometimes it was impossible to right a wrong and that all those years ago she’d irrevocably screwed up her life forever. She would have at least tried.
2
In the middle of all the chaos of helping her grandmother organise the move to France, Elodie had also been busy trying to put together a plan for her future freelance writing life. She was so looking forward to living in France, getting away from her dead-end life in the UK and writing about things she was passionate about.
Since returning from France in the New Year, she’d turned down new copywriting commissions from the advertising company which had been her main source of income, to concentrate on finding new outlets for her own writing. She hadn’t closed the door totally on the copywriting but had explained she needed a few weeks to help her grandmother move. Secretly, she was hoping not to have to do any more work for them, that her features about her new life and interesting places on the French Riviera would earn her enough money. She realised it wasn’t going to be easy setting herself up as an ex-pat journalist trying to sell features to the UK media about life in France. People who were already established were struggling to find outlets for their work as print newspapers and magazines disappeared, so she had to find new outlets and offer editors something different.
So, as well as helping Gabby sort everything out as they had prepared to leave Dartmouth, Elodie had been busy pitching her ideas to magazines and newspapers about writing travel and lifestyle features. Philosophically, she accepted that it was a hard market to break into, but she intended to do her utmost to find a niche in it somewhere, somehow. She’d already secured a year’s contract for a monthly column of five hundred words about ‘My New life on the Riviera’ for their local paper in Devon, theDartmouth Chronicle. The pay was minimal, but it would be syndicated in the publisher’s other papers along the south coast and get her name out there on a regular basis. The first column was due next week, so she needed to think about starting to write it.
And, of course, the added bonus to living down here was that she had a new man in her life, Gazz. Elodie smiled to herself as she thought about him. From the moment they’d been introduced at his parents’ Christmas aperitif party, there had been a connection between them – despite his friend, Fiona, laying a possessive hand on his arm at every opportunity. Gazz had assured Elodie they weren’t officially an item, despite Fiona trying to show otherwise, and she’d believed him.
Seeing Gazz standing next to Philippe, his grandfather, waiting to greet them in Arrivals at the airport early this morning, ready to drive them to Villa de l'Espoir, had made her heart skip a beat, as had the welcoming kiss he’d given her. She knew too that Gabby had been more than happy to see Philippe waiting to welcome them.
Now, as Elodie set up her computer on the desk in front of her bedroom window, she glanced out at the view over the front garden and the green in the middle of the cul-de-sac, remembering the first time she’d seen the villa back in December. Gabby had told her that it had been the Jacques family home since the end of the nineteenth century when it had been built by her great-great-grandfather. Unusual in design for its age, it was a sprawling villa built of the warm-hued local stone, the terracotta tiles of the roof bleached to a pale pink by the sun over the last century. Elodie had fallen in love with the place that first time she’d seen the villa, feeling as if she’d come home from the moment she’d walked in through the front door.
Elodie had been shocked to learn on that first visit that Gabby had owned the house since the death of her estranged father ten years ago. Since then, the villa had been rented out and Gabby had told Elodie that the rent money had been put into a savings account for her which she would gain access to on her twenty-fifth birthday.
But the happy surprise of learning about the villa and what she’d laughingly called her unexpected trust fund had been buried by the Christmas surprise to trump all surprises. Whilst the news about the villa had been a good one, full of possibilities for the future, the news that her long-lost mother wanted to be back in her life had not been so welcome.
Elodie sighed. Even now, months later, if she put her hand on her heart, she couldn’t honestly admit to being happy about the reunion. Sure, overtures had been made, regrets acknowledged, hopes for the future voiced, but there was still a tentative nature to the relationship between herself and her mother. Walking on eggshells, Gabby called it.
Harriet had even expressed the hope that time spent together in Dartmouth packing up the house would help her and Elodie get to know each other before the move. Hadn’t happened though, had it? Harriet had only turned up when most of the work had been done, leaving no time for any real mother and daughter closeness to establish itself. It was all very well saying she wanted to be reunited with the family, but being with them all the time already seemed like a step too far for her.
Harriet had also told Elodie privately that she’d give living ‘en famille’ in Villa de l'Espoir a three-month trial. If she felt it wasn’t working at the end of that time, then she intended to move out. Something which Elodie knew would upset Gabby, especially if Harriet not only left the villa but moved away from France as well. That was something which Elodie didn’t want to be responsible for.
Remembering the scene in Nice airport as the three of them had spent time in duty-free before flying back to the UK, Elodie gave a wry smile. She had been the one to liken Harriet’s unexpected arrival to a Christmas present they would never forget. But, she couldn’t help worrying, what if their fractured relationship remained broken? Would it turn into the proverbial poisoned chalice with every Christmas from now on being remembered for the failure of that particular year?
There was so much that needed to be asked, talked about and to come to terms with before they could all move on. Once all the facts, the misconceptions, everything, was out in the open, who knew whether that would turn out to be a good or a bad thing?
Elodie groaned. Now they were all together in Villa de l'Espoir she would have to try to graciously accept the fact that Harriet was back in her and Gabby’s lives, whilst deep down she was still aggrieved with her mother for leaving her twenty years ago.
There were still so many unanswered questions about the past buzzing around in her brain. Questions only Harriet could answer. Questions she sensed that Harriet was reluctant to divulge the answers to. Gabby would probably advise her to let sleeping dogs lie – no point in dragging up the past when it was the present and the future that truly mattered.
