One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [82]
‘No, it’s all right, I already have.’ I nearly dropped the phone. ‘She, um, says it’s fine to come. I emailed her.’
I could almost feel her blush radiate down the phone.
‘I didn’t know you had her email?’
‘I looked it up on yours.’
‘Right…’ I said faintly. ‘Well, it looks like you’ve got it all sorted, Maggie.’ I couldn’t resist a little edge to my voice. She’d gone to Laura before consulting me, so desperate was she that her plan should not fall through?
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, glimpsing for a moment the scale of her nerve. ‘I just… can’t help it.’
No more she could, I thought as the lorry rumbled down the ramp off the ferry in Calais the following morning, yours truly perched alone and aloft at the wheel. No more than I ever could. But if we can’t help ourselves, I thought, as I drove through the familiar, bustling town keeping firmly to the right, and more particularly, if my caustic, sharp, wise old friend couldn’t help herself, what hope was there for us? Not for the first time I thought how neat and simple life would be if it weren’t for love.
However, much as I’d have liked Maggie’s company, happily I’ve never minded my own. Have been entertaining myself for years, in fact, and was content with the silence and my thoughts. Indeed, as the urban landscape gave way to a more rural one, as fields of golden brown stubble bristled to attention either side of the straight road ahead, I narrowed my eyes into the shimmering distance and felt myself relax, as I only truly did, I realized, away from home, particularly in France. I loved the anonymity of being abroad. Loved stepping out of myself, being someone else for a change. Dad would disagree. You can change your skies, but you can’t change your soul, he’d say, and I’d hear it with an ache of dread. The truth, it seemed to me, doesn’t so much have a ring about it, but a dull thud. And Dad had travelled a lot. I shifted in my seat. Well, if I couldn’t change my soul, I could at least soothe it, and Burgundy’s flat, anonymous, roomy landscape seemed to me the perfect balm.
There was also something faintly romantic, I always thought, about taking the lorry to France: something bold and heroic. To that end I always made sure I looked the part – hair freshly washed, a bit of make-up… I glanced at my reflection in the mirror. Yes, it was essential to look like the English chick abroad, cruising the markets and earning an approving nod from the louche Frenchmen – who, unlike their English counterparts, had no qualms about showing their appreciation – and, please God, never descending into the realms of a Woman of a Certain Age who still persisted in pitching up year after year. To that end, the mascara was on, the denim skirt long but wraparound – ensuring fake-tanned legs flashed alluringly when I sat in a bar and sipped my cassis – the espadrille heels slightly raised.
And neither would I be totally alone when I got there, I thought with a sudden smile. I’d been frowning, I realized, hunched at the wheel. I straightened up. Ivan, who still doggedly trawled the smaller, cheaper fairs of France, which Maggie and I now eschewed, was on the coast in Montpellier, and although Aix wasn’t a natural hunting ground for him he’d declared a drive of a hundred and thirty kilometers and an overpriced brocante not sufficient deterrent to keep him from my hotel room.
‘Remember Castellane?’ he’d demanded down the phone.
I giggled. ‘I might not have a balcony this time.’
‘Trust me, we’ll improvize. We’ll find a roof terrace. I definitely feel something a little al fresco coming on.’
I smiled to myself as I rumbled along the dusty roads behind an old Citroën van that looked in danger of collapsing at any minute, in the heat of a late Indian summer, the sun on my bare arm through the window. Yes, I too would have my share of love and laughter these next few days, so who was I to deny Maggie hers? And would I give Ivan up if he were married? Well, luckily he wasn’t, I thought quickly, banishing the face of the girl I’d seen him with in the bar. Luckily,