French Kiss (2 page)

            “Oh yes,” she said and noted the location of the bakery and café in particular. She'd heard a lot about the French pain au chocolat and was determined to try one – or two - at her earliest convenience.

            The driver also pointed out the river, as they crossed it, and the mairie or town hall.

            “You will meet the mayor,” he said.

            “Really?”

            “Everybody does,” he said. “But don't expect great things. He helps nobody unless he is helping himself.”

            “I know people like that,” she said. She tried not to keep thinking badly of Mark, but she couldn't help it. She was so glad to be away from her situation at last. It seemed that only now could she get some perspective and see where she had been, what she had become. She suspected that she would not like what she discovered.

            The driver gestured angrily to some buildings that looked like they were about to be torn down and some empty fields raising nothing but long grass.

            “Je loue,” he was saying, over and over. Je loue this and je loue that. She thought 'louer' was something to do with renting, but when she asked him to explain, he just repeated the words more loudly.

            “Je loue!” he said. “Je loue de bat.”

            Tired, no, exhausted, Charlotte finally allowed her eyes to close and drifted off as the car wound up and up the hill, under a bridge that no longer supported a train track, and on towards her new home, the driver continuing his vehement rant.

            “Je loue de bat … je loue de bat ...”

            By the time she reached the little cottage it was fully dark. It was raining too and so she paid the driver and hurried to get inside with her bags. According to her email from the landlord, the key should have been waiting for her underneath the plant pot beside the door.

            “I've come all this way,” she realised, “because someone said that the key would be under a plant pot. What if it's not there?”

            She lifted the plant, squinting because she was afraid to look, and there it was.

            She turned the key in the lock, waved to the taxi driver who began reversing back up the drive and she went inside.

            The main room was visually stunning, if a little small. Mark would have said that it was pokey, but she thought it was nice. She liked it, because it was unlike his sprawling apartment, in which he had had two walls knocked through to provide more space.

            “More space for what?” she had said at the time. “Not me.”

            It was cold in the cottage, however, and she would have to find the heating quickly or have a very uncomfortable first night. As she thought that, she saw the fireplace. A fire had already been prepared and she only had to light it, but that was somewhat daunting and she decided that she might get to that later. Perhaps much later. First, to explore.

            The cottage had two bedrooms, the first of which could also have served as a study, and the second would have been considered the master bedroom. There was a double-bed, neatly-made, with a very firm mattress. Austere, she thought, but she was so tired that she could reasonably have envisioned herself sleeping on the floor.

            After a few minutes of walking from room to room, she realised that she was holding her breath. There was something show-homey about the place that made her feel anxious. She wondered how long it had been empty. The only touch of personality was the arrangement of flowers on the large, kitchen table. Roses, carnations and lilies were reflected in the polished surface of the table, but their position within the vase was somewhat haphazard, as if it had been done in a hurry. Nothing else about the preparation, she considered, had been done in such a hurry. The windows gleamed, as did the table in the main room, probably an antique. All the furniture smelled of polish. It was lovely, if a little creepy.

            The first bedroom had a single bed in the corner and she thought she might sleep in there, but then she scolded herself, because that was the old Charlotte thinking, not wanting to make waves, not wanting to make a fuss.

            “I did this,” she said suddenly. “I made it. I deserve to enjoy it.”

            She returned to the main bedroom and attempted to admire an enormous oil painting of one burly woman washing a slender woman's feet while she stared pensively out of the painting and into the room. She shivered.

            “Enjoy that,” she dared herself.

            Despite her inner monologue, sitting on the bed made her feel guilty, because everything really had been prepared so carefully. The stay was worth much more than she had agreed to pay for a month and she wondered why it was so cheap. She supposed that it was not yet summer and the tourist season was not yet in full swing. Perhaps he had been in a hurry and she had simply been lucky to see the offer first. Maybe her desperation had coincided with that of her landlord.

            Kneeling in front of the fireplace, she removed the fire guard and saw that the fire was stacked with small twigs, branches and three, thick logs. Several logs of equal size were leaning up either side of the fire too. There was certainly a chill in the air. Ironically, a draft seemed to be coming from the fireplace itself, and she thought that it would have been lovely to have a log fire, but she wasn't sure how to go about doing so. Did one really just light it with a match and let it go? 'Letting it go' didn't sound like language that should be associated with lighting a fire. What would happen when the flames leapt the fireguard and set fire to the rug – it looked expensive – and where was the fire extinguisher?

            There were so many things that she had never done before and she was always so scared.

            She sat on a bench next to the table and heaved a sigh. She'd put on her shawl instead. In fact, she'd have a shower – the shower was new and gleaming and not at all in keeping with the rest of the cottage, for which she was secretly thankful – and she'd get an early night. In a minute.

            It was so quiet that she hardly dared to breath.

            It wasn't long before she was crying as quietly as she could in the middle of the room.

~~~

            Early the following morning, Charlotte awoke to find that the sun was casting a glow over the entire room.

            “Wonderful,” she said and sprang out of bed.

            She had decided to sleep in the master bedroom after all and the bed had been more comfortable than she had suspected. The sinister oil painting hadn't bothered her either. As soon as she closed her eyes, she had been asleep.

            The view from the large window was even more astounding than the photos she had seen online and she found herself unlocking the window and climbing straight out into the garden in her nightdress. She stood barefoot on the warming garden wall and surveyed the hills and fields ahead of her while the chilly wind whipped around her ankles, but the rising sun warmed her face and neck.

            Birds were singing in the trees and flies and bees buzzed about her. Somewhere in the forest to her right, something sounded like it was hammering at a tree.

            “A woodpecker!” she thought and immediately envisioned Woody Woodpecker tapping his beak against the bark. She even did an impression of his laugh – a bad one – and reduced herself to a fit of the giggles.

            The beauty of the morning made up for the gloom she had felt the night before.

            Feeling buoyed, she checked her phone and found first that she had no messages and second that she had no signal at all; not a single bar.

            “Perhaps that's for the best,” she thought. “It's another crutch that I don't need any more. What I do need is a glass of wine.”

            The kindly landlord had lightly-stocked the refrigerator and had included a tasteful-looking bottle of white wine. No matter that it was still morning; she poured herself a glass and went out to sit on the swinging chair that she had spied at the bottom of the garden.

            “Disgraceful behaviour,” she laughed.

            Her nearest neighbour was a couple of minutes away in the modest house at the end of 'her' drive. She'd glimpsed it in the dark last night as she'd arrived in the taxi, but she could not see it from the cottage. In fact, turning in a circle, she was unable to see any other house within fifty metres. In London, she'd been surrounded by people, upstairs, downstairs and either side. Even in Mark's luxury apartment, she could hear their neighbours talking, laughing, arguing, making love: all things that she and Mark never did anymore.

            “No more of that,” she said.

            Here, she was surrounded by fields and trees. It was heaven.

            She found that the grassy floor was uneven and so she downed her wine in one go to avoid the risk of spilling it.

            “Oops,” she said.

            The sun played hide and seek with the clouds. Each time Charlotte thought she might retreat indoors, the sun appeared again and blazed glorious light and heat down on her, warming her arms and legs. Her skin was already dark enough that she didn't normally use suntan lotion, but she thought that in the coming days it might be wise to invest in a bottle. Or two. Maybe, with a little effort, she'd find some handsome, young village boy to rub it into her back as well.

            The thought was fleeting, but warming. She didn't want a relationship - she'd only just come out of one, was still coming out of one - but a distraction might have been nice. Someone to touch and to touch her. It had been a long time since she'd felt that. It would have been nice to have someone with whom to share the light, and the dark.

            The only downside to her morning, the only true interruption to her peace, was her inability to stop herself checking her mobile phone.

            Why hadn't Mark contacted her? Didn't he even care? It's no good escaping if the person you escape doesn't realise you left.

            Dejected, she decided that the only way to break the loop was to force herself inside and to make one of two dreaded phone calls – soon as she gets a mobile signal, that is.

~~~

            “Hi mum,” she said.

            “You arrived safely then?” her mother said. Charlotte could tell that her eyebrows were arched. She hated it when she did that. “I was worried about you.”

            “Yeah, I'm fine,” Charlotte said, wanting to cut to the chase, but her mother began asking about the cottage and the flight and whether or not she had money for food. “I'm fine, mum,” she said. “Really. I am. Have you heard from Mark?”

            “Of course,” her mother said. “You?”

            “No,” said Charlotte.

            “He's obviously too upset to talk to you,” his mother told her. “He said that he sent you an email.”

            “An email!?” Charlotte yelled.

            “Well, you did leave him a note,” her mother said, siding with him as usual. “Mark tells me that you wrote it on the back of a shopping list!”

            It had seemed appropriate at the time.

            “Romance is dead,” Charlotte admitted. “Mark emptied the recycle bin, clicked 'yes' and now Romance is gone forever, lost to the void.”

            “I don't know what you're talking about,” her mother said. “Honestly, I just want to knock your heads together.”

            “That would require us being in the same room,” Charlotte said, “and that's not going to happen for a long time.”

            “But to run away from a relationship just because you're bored ...” her mother began.

            “I didn't run away,” Charlotte said. “And it wasn't just because I was bored. I deserve to be happy. I deserve to be in love. So does Mark.”

            Her mother sighed.

            “It's a bad line,” Charlotte said, covered the receiver with her hand and made a hissing noise. “I've ... to … go!” she yelled. “Speak soon. Bye!”