Page 20 of Summer on the French Riviera
Jack had shaken his head. ‘When I return home, I shall look at my copies of those books with a different eye. May I buy you a coffee now? I saw a cafe somewhere outside in the grounds.’
‘That would be great, thank you.’
The two of them had left the gallery together, found the cafe and talked non-stop for the next hour over coffee and cake. Harriet learnt that Jack was six weeks in to a European tour, courtesy of his father for obtaining a 2.1 degree in Business Management.
‘Downside is that once I go home I have to join the family business.’
‘Which is?’
‘Leather – travel gear, luggage and handbags. We have outlets all over the States.’
Harriet had sensed, from the way Jack talked about his life and family in America, that he came from a well-connected, wealthy family. A world away from her own working-class roots.
She had told Jack about being in her first year of art college, lodging with Lizzie in Torquay, and talked about how much she missed her dad after his unexpected death less than a year ago which had thrown her world upside down. Something she’d never talked about with anyone else. It was because Jack was such a good listener, she decided, and when he asked if they could keep in touch when they parted, she happily agreed.
Over the next couple of weeks, they saw each other as often as they could, growing closer all the time, but neither of them dared to mention the major obstacle that lay between them – the Atlantic Ocean. Harriet longed to introduce Jack to Gabby but dreaded admitting to her how she felt about Jack. If she and Jack were to become a proper couple, she would likely be leaving to live in the USA. Leaving her mother alone was something that Harriet couldn’t bring herself to contemplate yet.
One evening as they had walked to the cinema in Torquay, Jack had said he had something he needed to tell her. ‘My parents, ever since I was knee-high, have been keen for me to marry the daughter of one of their best friends.’ Harriet’s heart had plummeted at his words. With a month to go before he returned to the USA was he telling her this to prepare her for the inevitable separation? To think she had finally plucked up the courage to introduce Jack to Gabby.
‘Do you still want to come to Dartmouth this weekend and meet my mother?’
‘Of course I do,’ Jack had said instantly. And his next reassuring words had her heart singing again. He was serious about her.
‘I’ve never had any intention of obeying them and now I’ve met you, they are going to have to finally accept it’s not going to happen.’
But Jack and Gabby had never met. The next day, the urgent phone message calling him home because his father was ill had happened and instead he was gone before Harriet really had time to take it in.
They emailed each other, but the distance and family commitments kept him busy on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean with no chance of them meeting up in the near future.
Jack had been gone about a month when Harriet had realised she was pregnant and her life had once again started to unravel. She obviously knew exactly who the father of her baby was, but telling him was pointless. The chances of Jack returning seemed remote, he was so busy running the family business after his father’s heart attack. As much as she wanted to tell him, it would only add to his problems and seemed an unfair burden to place on him. His parents had never been likely to welcome her with open arms when they’d planned for Jack to marry a woman they had chosen. The fact that she was pregnant would probably add to their dislike of her.
It took a week or two, but she finally convinced herself a clean break would be better all round. She’d be a single mum rather than force fatherhood on a man who now lived thousands of miles away with enough insurmountable problems of his own.
With tears running down her face, Harriet had written a ‘Dear John’ letter, saying she’d met someone else since he’d left and it was over between them. As the letter dropped into the letterbox, she’d turned away and went home to tell her mother that, unexpectedly, she was destined to be a single mother. And that Gabby would be a grandmother soon. And however much Lizzie asked her who the father was, she would not be telling anybody his name, neither did she intend to ever tell the father himself. Not then, not ever.
* * *
Harriet walked unseeingly past the entrance to the impasse deep in thought, still too shaken to go home and face Gabby or Elodie. Twenty-four years later, the secret she’d been determined never to divulge to anyone had been dragged to the forefront of her problems, with Elodie demanding to be told her father’s name.
Would learning the name change anything for Elodie though? The name would mean nothing to her, Harriet could simply pluck one out of thin air and Elodie would never know. Answers to the other questions that would follow could be vague. Perhaps that was what Harriet should do? Give a made-up name and be vague with all other details? But deep down Harriet knew she couldn’t do that. She’d told Elodie that she would tell her the truth one day. Which she would, despite doing her utmost to put that day off for as long as possible. Nobody knew just how much she regretted her past behaviour. Elodie was right when she’d accused her of being ashamed of herself and the way she’d behaved in those awful months after her dad had died, talking about that time made her feel so grubby, and dragging it all up was so painful. The fact that she’d pulled herself out of the trough she’d sunk into before she met Jack didn’t mean that she’d forgotten those times. Telling Elodie the name of her father was one thing, remembering the hard times that had preceded that meeting was something else.
The last few busy weeks, moving to France, settling into the villa, decorating the kitchen, giving the dresser a shabby-chic makeover, helping Lulu to settle in, working for Hugo, everything had conspired to keep both her body and her mind occupied, with little time for thinking about the past. But now that things were settling down, her thoughts were free to delve back to a time when her heart had been broken, a place she had no desire to return to. She needed to find something to do to shut them out.
Art, in the days before she met Todd, had always been her ‘go-to’ escape from real life. Losing herself in creating an abstract painting, or mixing the exact shade of green for oak leaves in the landscape she was trying to recreate on the canvas, had always calmed and refreshed her in those long-ago days. She missed that. Making excuses to Gabby, Jessica and even to Hugo that she wasn’t ready to pick up a paintbrush was no longer strictly true. Because with sudden clarity she realised that what she was ready for, in fact needed desperately, was that elusive feeling of being totally lost in the creation of whatever she was painting. The vague sensation of being not quite there as she came back reluctantly to the everyday world and her problems. Painting wasn’t going to solve anything, or make the questions from Elodie go away, but starting to paint again would be a major step forward to finding her old self.
Reaching Avenue Amiral Courbet, Harriet stopped and looked up to watch as a train passed slowly along the line and across the bridge that spanned the road. Art Deco geometric decoration and floral designs on the support columns, Juan-les-Pins written in large letters across the top, gave the bridge a certain individual vibrant, edgy energy all of its own. As the train disappeared along the line, Harriet took a deep breath.
Art Deco had always fascinated her, but she’d never really painted in that style. It could be the challenge she needed, trying to master a different technique. Taking a last look at the bridge decorations, Harriet shivered with excitement before she turned for home.
It might be too late, her talent might have shrivelled and died. But the decision had been made. She was going to start painting again.
18
To Elodie’s relief, Gabby was still out with Philippe when she reached home, which meant she didn’t have to face her while still reeling from the confrontation with her mother. Releasing Lulu from the lead and hoping a few lengths in the pool would help calm her down, Elodie quickly changed. Fifteen minutes later, after swimming twenty lengths in a vigorous, thrashing, front crawl she climbed out feeling infinitely better.
Showered and dressed back in her room, Elodie tried to push all thoughts of Harriet and her secrets out of her mind and switched on the computer to start writing up her feature about the ex-pat couple. While the computer booted up, Elodie stared out of the window, deep in thought. Demanding answers from her mother had failed to work, that was for sure. Harriet had said she would tell her the truth one day, so Elodie had no choice but to wait for that day to arrive.
Several email pings drew Elodie out of her thoughts and she glanced at the computer screen. One was a rejection, another expressed tentative interest in a feature she’d pitched to one of the nationals and the other, the other made Elodie’s heart skip with delight.
