Page 119 of Never Too Late
It’s OK, it told her.I’m OK.
‘The sleep deprivation is the worst,non?’
‘Oh, God… I was so tired, I once left part of a new pushchair I’d just bought in a car park and sparked a bomb scare.’
Madame Bertholle’s hand went to her mouth, her eyes round with surprise before crinkling with amusement.
‘Oh,merde!’
I let out a snort of laughter. Somehow, those words coming from this woman seemed so incongruous. This fierce, arrogant, unforgiveable snob… but she wasn’t. Not any more.
‘Yes, it was a bit. My husband was furious.’
From the corner of my eye, I saw Tomas shift position.
Madame Bertholle rolled her eyes. ‘Men.’ It said it all. ‘I love my children very much,’ she continued. ‘I thought, at the time, I was doing the right thing. And although men have no idea about some things, see above,’ she pointed her finger in the air as if to highlight our previous conversation, ‘sometimes, they do. My husband was very wise in many ways. He told me to let my children be who they wanted to be, do what they wanted to do and love who they wanted to love. But, of course,’ she waved a hand, the large diamond ring I remembered admiring glinting in the lamplight, ‘I knew better. Or at least, I thought I did. I took my husband for granted.’
She gave a tiny shake of her head and I noticed the tremor in her hand. Without thinking, I leant forward and rested my hand over hers. She raised her eyes, now swimming with tears, and met mine before allowing her gaze to drift to her son.
When she spoke, her voice was barely audible. ‘Oh, Tomas. What did I do?’
‘Madame, please.’ Tears now swam in my own eyes.
‘Please call me Isobel.’
‘Isobel.’ The word felt unfamiliar and not quite right on my tongue but a lot had changed this evening, including the spectre lodged in my mind of the woman in front of me.
‘We can’t regret the past,’ I said. ‘There is nothing we can do to change it now. All we can hope to do is learn from it.’
‘So wise. You would have got on so well with my husband. He would have loved you. He did, in fact. We had one of the worst rows of our marriage that day after dinner. He saw something in you that I hadn’t. That I didn’t want to. That you made Tomas happy. I had grand ideas about marrying my son off to the daughter of another vineyard owner. A merging of the two empires!’ She gave a grand sweep of her arm then rolled her eyes. ‘I can see the ridiculousness of it now. The world doesn’t work like that these days and it shouldn’t. As it turned out, that daughter is now happily married to another woman so that shows how much I knew. Once again, my husband was wiser than I.
‘I lost two years of my children’s lives due to my arrogance. I am lucky that they forgave me and if it hadn’t been for my husband’s secret machinations in mending that breach, it would likely have been a lot longer. I was, of course, far too proud to apologise or even consider that I had done anything wrong. You see,’ she swallowed hard and the tears returned to her eyes, ‘it was only when I lost my husband that I realised what I’d had. How lucky I had been. I’d been far too arrogant to appreciate him when he was alive and once he was gone…’ She shrugged one slim shoulder. ‘Well, then it’s far too late for all of us, isn’t it? God knows what he ever saw in me.’ Her gaze dropped to her lap, her thoughts, I guessed, in the past.
‘I am sure you are being too hard on yourself. He was, as you said, quite wise. I think perhaps he saw the best qualities in both of us.’
‘So kind,’ she said. ‘Too kind.’ She looked up. ‘Do you still have to leave?’
Sash was looking at me. As, I now noticed, was everyone else.
Gabby stood. ‘We should have told you that Mama would be here.’
I now stood too. ‘Yes,’ I replied, catching Tomas in my glance as I too stood. ‘You should have.’ I looked down at their mother and touched her shoulder, feeling the thin, fragile bone beneath the silk blouse. Tomas’s concern for his mother, especially with his caring, attentive nature, was entirely understandable. ‘But I appreciate why you didn’t.’
‘I’m so sorry!’ Gabby’s words bubbled out as she flung her arms around me. ‘So very sorry! I thought I was about to lose you for a second time! And this time, I’d lose my goddaughter too.’ The last word was almost entirely swallowed by a sob.
‘You do realise you’re not actually her godmother, don’t you?’ I replied, half-laughing, half-crying myself now.
‘Semantics,’ she sniffed into my shoulder.
I gently pulled her back so that I could hold her face. ‘Although, if Sash agrees, perhaps we could make that official?’
Gabby’s tears burst through again as Sasha, also now in floods, nodded vigorously and flung herself at us.
A few minutes later, when we had all recovered a little, although our make-up was beyond help and we were beyond caring, Benoit returned from a brief disappearance with several bottles of the vineyard’s best sparkling wine – champagne in everything but name.
‘I think a toast?’ he suggested, holding a bottle aloft.
‘At least one!’ Gabby agreed, her hand still clasped around her ‘new’ goddaughter’s. ‘Wait. Where’s Tomas?’
