Page 10 of A French Adventure
Fourteen months after her death, Vivienne still ached with the hurt of losing the woman who had adopted her at two weeks old and had been such a loving and supportive presence in her life. Always there at school open evening, sports days, school outings. Her childhood, filled with love and happiness, had been wonderful.
She remembered too the pride and the joy they’d shared when her first book had been bought by a publisher ten years ago. Together they’d danced around the sitting room before Jacqueline had insisted on opening the bottle of champagne that she’d bought in readiness for that day. Their mother-daughter bond had been strong and Vivienne knew how lucky she’d been to have Jacqueline as a mother. She was the reason Vivienne had never been tempted to ask questions about her birth mother. It would have felt grossly disloyal.
Even after Jacqueline’s death, Vivienne didn’t feel the need to discover the truth about her birth mother. As far as she was concerned, Jacqueline was her mother and there was no way she would taint her memory by searching for the woman who had given her up, even if there had been extenuating circumstances beyond her control. All Jacqueline had been able to tell her was that her mother, Deidre Hewitt, had shamed her family by becoming pregnant after a holiday romance in France and they’d disowned her, insisting the baby be put up for adoption. After the birth, there was no question of Deidre keeping the baby and, two weeks later, Jacqueline and her husband Oscar had adopted her.
But things had altered when Vivienne, clearing out the bureau in the sitting room after Jacqueline’s death, had discovered what she’d dubbed ‘The French Connection’. In an envelope with her original birth certificate with its‘father unknown’ statement, she’d found real evidence of her beginnings. A black and white photograph of a young couple whom she took to be her birth parents, with their arms around each other standing in front of the statue of Eros in London. And a sealed envelope with the ink-faded name Pascal Rocher, followed by the postcode and name of a French village in the Alps-Maritimes in the south of France, handwritten across it. Why had Jacqueline never told her about the existence of these things? Why had she never even shown them to her?
Once she’d discovered them, Vivienne had kept picking up the photograph and studying it every spare moment she had, trying to discern if there was any likeness between herself and either of the people in the photograph. Impossible to tell, she decided the image wasn’t sharp enough to give information like that. But Vivienne’s thoughts had gone round and round in circles. She knew the name of her birth mother – did the name on the envelope belong to her birth father?
The sealed envelope intrigued her. The name Pascal Rocher written in unfamiliar capital letters. Why was it in with Jacqueline’s papers? Should she open it? Should she post it? Even deliver it personally? Strangely, searching for her birth father wouldn’t feel like a betrayal of her adoptive father, Oscar Lewis, like it did with her mum.
Thirteen years older than Jacqueline, he’d never been unkind, never raised his hand to her and Vivienne knew he had loved her in his own undemonstrative way, but he had been a more remote father figure than a hands-on one, unable to express his emotions to anyone other than his wife, and even then it was never with over-the-top expressions of love. A bunch of flowers on her birthday, an unexpected box of chocolates. For Vivienne, it was a pat on the head, a ‘Well done’ for a school report. An arm around her shoulder for a quick hug. TactileJacqueline made up for it, though, never needing an excuse to pull Vivienne in for a quick hug.
Vivienne sighed. Both Oscar and Jacqueline were gone. It would make no difference to either of them if she searched for this Pascal Rocher, living in a village in the countryside behind Nice. In all probability, he too would be dead by now.
Breaking off a piece of croissant Vivienne chewed thoughtfully. For the next few days, she needed to concentrate on reading through the thirty-five thousand words she’d already written, thinking of possible scenes and plot lines and making notes of the various places she needed to visit to get a proper feel of the Riviera atmosphere. This was the first time she’d set a book on the Côte d’Azur and she was determined to get it right. And then she needed to get into a writing routine.
Once she was settled into her minimum two thousand words a day, she’d ask Maxine if she knew the best way to get to the village behind Nice. It seemed silly not to at least find the place whilst she was so close here in France.
Vivienne drained the last of her coffee, inwardly telling herself off for not telling both Maxine and Olivia who she was last night. She’d felt so comfortable in their company, and there had been the perfect opportunity when Maxine had given Olivia the Jill Mansell book to tell them about the books she wrote, the awards she’d won and the popular TV series adapted from one of her books, but the moment had passed quickly. She’d grown so used to hiding behind the anonymity of the pen name both Jeremy and her agent, Sadie, had suggested her using when she began writing that it was hard to admit to anyone outside of her immediate family that she was actually quite a famous writer.
But now her life was about to change, now that she would have to be an independent woman, perhaps it was time she started admitting to strangers and the world at large exactly who she was.
8
Olivia too was up early the next morning, needing to put the finishing touches to the arrangements she’d created yesterday afternoon, before loading them into the pink taxi.
Marina delivery day was her favourite day of the week. She loved driving around Port Vauban marina – one of the largest in Europe – parking up and then greeting the yacht crew who came to pick up the individual orders. First, today she had six large arrangements to deliver to different yachts moored on Billionaires’ Quay before returning to the main marina. Billionaires’ Quay had been specifically built to accommodate the super yachts that frequented the Mediterranean and were too big to moor in any of the other nearby ports.
Afterwards, she drove back to the main marina and enjoyed slowly pootling along the numerous quays with their moored boats delivering her flowers. She always carried extra flowers too for impulse purchases by people who were surprised to see her but loved the quirkiness of buying flowers from a pink London taxi for their boat. Her last stop was always at the Capitaine’s large building at the edge of the marina with its spectacular 360-degree view of the surrounding area and the Mediterranean.Every week, she always dropped off an arrangement there as a thank you. The harbour master had assured her it wasn’t necessary, but she was grateful for the business that the marina generated.
Finally, all the commissioned arrangements had been delivered and Olivia had sold several rapidly made-up bouquets to impulsive customers and she was ready to leave the marina. Driving past the last quay, she was surprised to see James’s yacht moored there when he’d told her he was off to Corsica. Slowing down, she searched for any sign of life on board but saw none. Should she stop and see if he was around, find out if he’d lied to her? Perhaps it was just an unexpected change of plan by his boss and he hadn’t lied intentionally. Or maybe he had? Maybe he’d come to the same conclusion as her, that it was time to end things between them. Fingers crossed she wouldn’t have to tell him face to face it was over, they would just drift apart.
Thoughtfully, Olivia drove past.
Back in the centre of Antibes, she found a parking space at the market and prepared to hopefully sell most, if not all, of the remaining flowers before the market closed. There were still people milling around the various stalls and the unusual sight of the pink taxi with its flowers brought lots of smiles in her direction.
Olivia was starting to think about packing up and calling it a day when Vivienne stopped by.
‘I love your taxi,’ she said. ‘Such a great idea. Like a pop-up shop on wheels. May I buy a bunch of twelve mixed tulips for the apartment please?’
‘Of course,’ and Olivia began to gather the various coloured tulips together. ‘Are you on your way back to the apartment? I’m almost finished here for today. Fancy a drink before we both go home?’
‘Make that a cold drink, and yes please,’ Vivienne said, handing over some euros in payment. ‘I’m not used to this heat.’
‘If you go and grab a seat over there,’ Olivia said, pointing to one of the market cafes, ‘I’ll join you in about five minutes. Leave the tulips here for now.’
Sitting there waiting for Olivia to join her at the pavement cafe, Vivienne looked around, breathing in the atmosphere of the market. The stallholders were starting to pack up, but there were still people milling around, carefully placing green peppers, tomatoes, strings of garlic, rounds of cheese, bottles of rosé into their capacious straw shopping baskets. The smell from the lavender stall with its oils, dried lavender, candles, perfume, sachets and soaps mingled with the lunchtime aromas starting to drift out from the various cafes.
Vivienne watched as a woman made her way confidently past several stalls before stopping in front of the olive oil stand. The woman, slim and dressed simply in white jeans and the ubiquitous Breton top, her sunglasses pushed to the top of her head, was casually chic in a way that Vivienne could only admire, albeit with a twinge of envy. How did French women retain that almost indescribable air of just being? The old French cliché saying that they all seemed to embody‘je ne sais quoi’sprang into her mind. There were similar white jeans and a striped top in her own wardrobe, but she was sure as hell she’d never managed to pull off that chic look when wearing them.
‘I definitely want one of these baskets,’ an English voice interrupted her thoughts and Vivienne turned to look at the shop next door to the cafe. With its door opening straight out onto the pavement, there was no real need for a stall in the marketitself. Baskets that had been piled up and arranged neatly at the beginning of the morning were now all higgledy-piggledy and almost tumbling onto the market floor. A teenage girl was busy trying to gather them up and replace them in an orderly manner. Other baskets with their colourful weaving hung suspended from various poles fixed to the stone wall of the shop, out of reach of customers.
Olivia joined Vivienne just then as a waiter approached the table. ‘Deux verres de rosé s’il vous plaît,’ she said, smiling at the man, who immediately turned around to fetch the order, before pulling out a chair and sitting down.
Vivienne, about to protest about drinking wine at midday, gave a mental shrug. Why not? The words hadn’t been flowing this morning, which was why she was down here, soaking up the atmosphere of the market, hoping for inspiration to strike rather than back in the apartment struggling to find the right words. A drink might help her this afternoon when she was writing the next chapter. After all, traditionally, everyone expected writers to like a drink, using the excuse it aided the imagination.
The cold rosé which arrived almost immediately was deliciously refreshing and Olivia gave a contented sigh after taking a sip or two. ‘That’s better.’
