Page 26 of Summer on the French Riviera
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The next two weeks passed quickly. Gabby had a frustrating phone call from the kitchen shop. They apologised profusely, but there was going to be a ten-day delay with delivering the stove. There was no technician available until then to come and install it. Gabby was cross but realised there was nothing she could do about it.
Elodie and Gazz were both busy working during the day, Gazz with the holidaymakers and Elodie writing features and pitching ideas to as many magazines and newspapers as she could. The two of them slipped into a routine of evening dates and the occasional lunchtime pizza together. Not ideal but Elodie knew that once the busy summer season was over both of them would have more free time.
Harriet spent most of her time either walking Lulu or out on the veranda painting. Although she was definitely out of practice and rusty, with no-one standing over her criticising her work she began to enjoy herself. Techniques she’d learnt years ago in college began to bubble back into her mind and out onto the canvas and once again she frequently found herself so absorbed in her work that she forgot the time. She’d also volunteered to do the big weekly Friday shop on the basis that Elodie was working and Gabby would find the bags too heavy. And Saturdays, of course, she worked for Hugo – something she was enjoying more and more. When Hugo asked her if she felt like having a go at changing the window dressing, she gave an enthusiastic yes and thoroughly enjoyed herself.
Joining forces to organise the house-warming party for the seventeenth of June – a date that seemed to come round much quicker than anticipated – created a fragile truce between Elodie and Harriet. On the surface, their relationship appeared to be mending, but they both realised that it wouldn’t take a lot for it to be torn apart again.
The three of them decided on a menu of finger food from the supermarché and the boulangerie rather than try to organise things themselves in the still unfinished kitchen. The day before the party the three of them went to the supermarché and bought everything they could think of. Lots of cheeses, crackers, crisps, olives, pâtés and some stuffies – tomatoes and round courgettes filled with rice, herbs, fried mushrooms and onions. There was just space left for the small jar of crème fraîche to accompany bite-sized meringues to slide into the fridge.
The shelves of the small under-the-counter fridge that Elodie had found in the brocante and insisted they needed for cold drinks were also full with bottles of rosé, white wine and champagne. And now the day had finally arrived.
‘What time did we say we’d collect the rest of the food from the boulangerie?’ Gabby asked at breakfast. As a backup, there were baguettes and three dozen each of small savoury pastries, miniature strawberry tartlets and individual tarte tatins.
‘Twelve o’clock,’ Elodie said. ‘What is left on the list to do ready for this evening?’
‘Nothing really. The garden and the pool are both looking good. Joel and Philippe have strung the lights and hung the candles ready. We can put plates and glasses out on the table late afternoon,’ Gabby said. ‘But the food will have to be done at the last minute.’
‘I’m sorry I’m at the gallery today,’ Harriet said. ‘But I can do the table and last-minute stuff with the food when I get back. Hugo has promised I can leave early.’
‘I just hope we have enough food and haven’t forgotten anything,’ Gabby said.
Harriet gave her mother an amused smile. ‘I think we have more than enough even if all the neighbours turn up, which I doubt they will.’
Gabby had decided that in a gesture of friendship they should invite the neighbours and earlier in the week had dropped written invitations into all the postboxes in the impasse. She suspected that most of the villas had changed hands several times in the last forty years, but there might be new generations of the families she’d known living in the houses. She had paused as she’d dropped an invite into the letterbox at number three. That was definitely a familiar name – Rochefort. She’d been friends with Amelia Rochefort, who’d lived there with her brother and parents. The two of them had walked to school together, giggled over silly things. Never as close as she and Colette had been, but a good friend. She’d definitely enjoy catching up with Amelia if she did come this evening.
At ten to eight, the three of them met down by the pool and Elodie popped open a bottle of champagne and poured three glasses.
‘Santé. We’re ready to party!’
‘Where’s Lulu?’ Gabby asked anxiously.
‘Where she spends most of her time – on my bed,’ Elodie said. ‘I’ve closed the door and she’ll be fine for a couple of hours.’
‘People are starting to arrive,’ Harriet said, hearing the gate buzzer. ‘I’ll go and be gatekeeper and let them in.’
Jessica, Mickaël and Philippe were the first to arrive, clutching three bottles of champagne – one for each of them, Jessica laughingly explained. ‘The three of you are hosts, so you each get a thank you.’
The neighbours from number three were the next to arrive and Gabby was delighted to remake the acquaintance of Amelia’s brother, Richard, and his wife, as well as Amelia herself who apologised for tagging along when she no longer lived in the impasse. ‘I just wanted to make contact with you again after all these years,’ she said.
‘Please don’t apologise. I’m so glad you came.’ Gabby smiled at Amelia. ‘We have lots to catch up with.’
Colette and Lianna arrived next and gave the three of them a beautifully decorated wooden name plaque for Villa de l’Espoir that Lianna had made. When Hugo arrived, Harriet took him through to introduce him to Colette before going back to let more guests in – this time the neighbours from next door. Harriet welcomed them and sent them through to the garden before turning to greet Joel and his partner, Carla.
Gazz was the last to arrive and half an hour later, the party was in full swing as Harriet closed the gates and walked down the side of the villa to the garden, intent on joining the party and finding Hugo. She paused at the corner of the villa and looked at the scene in front of her. As well as the fairy lights Joel and Philippe had strung around the garden, looping them up and down the trees and shrubs, a dozen or so solar candle lights had been pushed into the flower beds around the garden over a week ago to charge up and were now little beacons of light as the sun sank. The pool too, with its floating candles that Elodie had insisted they purchased in the absence of underwater lights, was adding a certain something to the ambience. It wasn’t midsummer’s day, but the garden definitely had a fairy-tale air about it this evening.
Harriet found Hugo talking to Gabby and Philippe and they’d been joined by the man who’d arrived as part of the group from next door. As Harriet reached Hugo’s side, the man held out his hand to Gabby.
‘I just want you to know that my offer still stands should you change your mind. If you do, my granddaughter will always give me a message.Bonne nuit.’
Gabby ignored his outstretched hand. ‘Bonne nuit. Harriet will see you out,’ and she turned pointedly to speak to Philippe.
Harriet, surprised by the order, caught hold of Hugo’s hand as she went to follow whoever the man was, wanting him to accompany her. She opened the gate and politely said. ‘Bonne nuit, monsieur?’
‘Moulin, Jean-Frances.’
Harriet took a step back and quickly closed the gate once he’d left.
