Page 44 of Summer on the French Riviera
‘I was thinking ten thirty the day after tomorrow by the bandstand in Place Nationale or is that too short notice, do you think?’
‘If you rang him up now and told him to meet you there in five minutes, he’d be there. He’s really desperate to meet you, get to know you.’ Harriet picked her phone up from the dressing table. ‘I’ll text him right away and tell him where we’ll be waiting the day after tomorrow.’
‘Um no…’
Harriet looked up from her phone as her fingers hovered over the keypad.
‘Please text him the time and place, but I don’t want you to come with me.’
Harriet gave Elodie a puzzled look. ‘Why not? Surely it would make things easier than going on your own? Smooth the way.’
‘I’m not going alone. Gazz is coming with me.’
‘Okay,’ Harriet said slowly. ‘I’m sure he’ll be supportive, but I know Jack, I can help.’
‘That’s the point,’ Elodie interrupted. ‘You do know Jack. Gazz and I will meet him as a stranger we happened to bump into, if you like. No prior knowledge of what he’s really like and Jack has no real knowledge of what I’m like either. We can learn about each other, see how we get on, without the pressure of your, or his, emotional baggage with each other, getting in the way.’ Elodie looked at her, a slight smile on her lips. ‘You’d be there as an anxious mother, hovering. Trying to influence him, me, to say nice things. Do you understand what I mean?’
Harriet gave a short thoughtful nod. Elodie was her own woman and this important life changing meeting would be done on her terms ‘Yes, I think I do.’
‘I’m trying to meet him without any preconceived ideas of what he’s like. No expectations. Just because he’s my father doesn’t necessarily mean we’re going to like each other or even get on.’ Elodie gave a sigh of relief. ‘Glad that’s sorted. Right, I’m off to bed. Oh, and when you text him, please don’t mention Gazz. I want to surprise him. Night,’ and Elodie was gone.
Harriet sat on the bed and quickly sent a text message to Jack with the details, finishing it with:
Don’t be late
An instant reply pinged in:
I won’t. See you there and thank you
She smiled. He was in for a surprise. He’d assumed she would be accompanying Elodie. The day after tomorrow, Sunday, he would meet his daughter with her boyfriend and life for all of them would never be the same again.
34
‘Mom, you remember when Dad was first taken ill and I had to dash back from Europe twenty years ago?’
‘What a ridiculous question, Jack. As if I could ever forget those terrible days.’
Jack cursed inwardly. As an opening gambit that had clearly not been the right thing to say. After his meeting with Harriet last evening, he’d arrived back at the hotel determined to talk to his mother at breakfast the next morning. He’d never told her what was really behind this trip to France and he needed to do that before things came to a head. He thought he knew how she would react but you never could tell.
Jack watched as she spread a generous spoonful of apricot jam on her croissant and smiled.
‘What about it anyway?’ Martha Ellicott said.
‘Something happened to me during my time in Europe then that I’ve never told you about,’ Jack said, taking a deep breath. ‘I was in love with an English girl called Harriet whom I was planning to marry when I had to leave to come home.’
‘I’m guessing that would be the girl who wrote to you for several weeks after you came home before the letters suddenly stopped,’ Martha said, giving him a look that in his younger days would have quelled him into silence. Today, though, he pushed on.
‘Yes. Harriet never told me, but she was pregnant when I left. She had a baby girl. My daughter. Elodie.’
Martha put her croissant down and stared at her son. ‘Are you telling me I have an English grown-up granddaughter called Elodie?’
Jack nodded.
‘Nice name. When did you meet her? And when can I meet her?’
‘I haven’t met her yet.’
‘If you haven’t met her, are you sure she is—’
