Love in a Warm Climate (23 page)

It is lovely to see him; he looks good – more Heathcliff than Rochester, but anywhere between the two is fine with me. A date with a French aristo one night and a film star the next; how did my life suddenly get so exciting? I just hope the former doesn’t show up tonight. This could all get very complicated. But I have in no way committed to either one or promised
anyone anything. As things stand, I am soon to be single and keeping my options open.

“I thought I would come and claim those three kisses in person,” he says putting the box down and hugging me. “Let’s put the champagne on ice.”

“Yes, we have something to celebrate.”

We go inside and I tell him all about the vat of wine. “Kamal is such a great find, Thanks so much. You’ve no idea what a difference he’s made, even in just a couple of days. And he even teaches me yoga.”

Johnny looks confused. “Who’s Kamal?”

“The
vigneron
you sent me,” I say. Has he gone senile since we met last? “You know, the Indian South African boy who is in Europe to learn about wine-making. He said you’re paying his salary and he was here to help me.”

“He said that?” Johnny looks even more confused.

“Well, no he didn’t mention you by name, but he said someone was paying his wages who wanted to remain anonymous and I just automatically thought it was you, you’ve been so great about helping and…”

Johnny shakes his head and smiles. “It’s not me, Cunningham, must be one of your other admirers.”

“How very bizarre. I wonder who it is then,” I say, taking the champagne and putting it in the fridge. “I just can’t think who else would do that for me; I can’t work out who else has the money and the imagination to do that sort of thing. It just seemed like such a ‘you’ gesture.”

“Well, I promise it’s not me,” says Johnny, and I believe him; he’s scarily honest.

We go for a walk in the afternoon sun. Johnny tells me all about the new film he is making in Prague and the other stars. It is so funny hearing about them all first-hand like this, hearing what their little habits and foibles are. You always assume they are somehow special and different, but of course they’re just people. Once, when I was around nine years old and madly and utterly in love with some member of a boy band, my mother said to me one day, “You know, every morning, he gets up and goes to the loo, just like everybody else.” I didn’t believe her.

“You’ve really landed on your feet here, Cunningham,” says Johnny, “it’s a lovely place. So peaceful, so far removed from everything. You’re happy aren’t you? In spite of Nick and everything that’s happened?”

“I am, yes, I mean, it’s been tough at times and the children really miss him, but I love it here. Not a day goes by without me appreciating it. Even if it’s bloody hard work.”

“I envy you,” says Johnny.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I say. “You’ve got everything: fame, fortune,
women in every country.”

“Don’t believe everything you read in the papers,” he laughs. “No, but seriously, acting is quite a tough life too. I travel pretty much every week, I’m never in one place long enough to have a proper relationship, and the fame is pretty crap really when it comes down to it. It can be fun, of course, but basically the public puts you up there and they’re just waiting for you to fall down with a bump, either with a bad film, or some sex scandal, or hopefully both.”

“What, like trying to seduce a married drunken mother of three in St Tropez?”

He chuckles. “You really were rat-arsed Cunningham, I could have had my wicked way with you.”

“It would have been necrophilia,” I smile.

“Well, I only brought the one bottle of champagne for this evening, as opposed to your habitual seven or eight,” he says, smiling back at me. “Shall we try to stay just a tad more sober than last time?”

I nod and agree that would be a very good idea.

I take him on a tour of the vineyard, showing him my olive tree, the vines and the vat filled with the valuable Cabernet Sauvignon. I even brave the ladder again and stay relatively calm.

I’m amazed at how much I have learned in a few months; I sound quite knowledgeable. It is now early July; I have been a
vigneron
for almost seven months. I know things I would never have imagined I would ever need to know, like how to start a tractor or that a kilo of grapes makes a bottle of wine or that the
Guide Hachette des Vins de France
is the book to make it into if you’re going to become the new Château Lafite.

The
Guide Hachette
, the wine-bible, is compiled by a huge team of wine experts who blind taste more than 30,000 wines from all over France. Only around 9,000 make it into the guide. The wines are rated with one (good), two (excellent) or three (exceptional) stars, or a wine can be awarded one of 450
coups de Coeur
, which automatically means you’re going to sell well, as wine merchants and consumers often buy wines purely on the basis of the guide.

We bump into Kamal in one of the vineyards, where he is working on the trellising. Not a flicker of recognition passes between the two men.

When we’re out of earshot, Johnny leans close to me and says: “Just for the record, if I was going to send some young stud to work for you, he certainly wouldn’t be as fit as that. Are you sure it’s not your mother’s way of helping you get over Nick?”

“No, I think she thinks that’s your job judging by the phone calls to you,”
I smile. “I just can’t imagine who it can be, but I can’t do without him now, although knowing it’s not you makes me uncomfortable. But harvest is less than two months away and there is still masses to do. He will just have to stay with his anonymous donor, unless I can get him drunk one night and make him spill the beans.”

“You’d probably pass out before he did,” laughs Johnny. “Talking of which,” he looks at his watch, “it’s ten minutes past drinks deadline. Let’s go and crack open the champagne. Shall we have a glass on that lovely outside terrace by the kitchen?”

I get the glasses and Johnny gets the champagne. “What are we drinking to?” I ask as he pours us both a glass.

“To a grand vintage, Cunningham. Here’s to your successful wine business. And I have two grand in my back pocket for your wine bond. If that doesn’t make you want to get into my trousers, nothing will,” he grins.

I laugh and raise my glass. “Now you’re talking. And here’s to you, Johnny, even if you didn’t send me Kamal, you have been a truly great friend.”

“As I always say, life throws at you many things.”

“But few true friends,” I interrupt him. “One day you’ll write a book with all your homespun wisdom.”

“Oh, you mock me Cunningham, but I have been asked to.”

“So why don’t you?”

“I’m fucking dyslexic,” he laughs. “How am I supposed to write a book?”

I nip inside to get some peanuts and olives to nibble on. When I get back Johnny tells me Nick called when I was gone.

“I told him you’d call him back,” he says. “He sounded quite surprised to hear my voice.”

“I bet he was,” I say. “He probably thinks I waited to get rid of the kids and then sneaked you in here, like it’s any of his business. But I need to call him. He said they would call to say goodnight.”

“Go on, Cunningham, send them my love.”

I call Nick’s mobile and Charlotte answers. She says they are having a lovely time and asks to speak to Johnny. Then of course the others have to speak to Johnny too. He is lovely with them, asking them questions and chatting.

He hands me the phone; Edward is on the line.

“Hey baby,” I say.

“Hey Mummy,” he replies.

“How is everything?”

“Lovely. We’re having so much fun. We played swords in the garden of the hotel and went for a walk and saw a big pig and now we’re getting room
service.”

He chats on about their day then I say goodnight to him and the girls.

“Charlotte asked me to be her godfather,” Johnny says laughing after I hang up. “She’s got her head screwed on, that girl. She asked if I was rich and famous and I said ‘quite’ and then she said would I be her godfather and that it was very important to have rich godparents in case you ever need some money. Then the others asked if they could be my godchildren too. I agreed of course, I can’t say no to them, they’re adorable.”

“Oh you don’t know what you’ve taken on,” I laugh. “Be very careful what you agree to.”

“I’d like to take on more,” says Johnny, suddenly looking very serious. He tops up our champagne. “You know, Cunningham, none of this success really means anything if you have no one to share it with. I’d like to settle down. I’m thirty-five now. It’s time to find the person I’m going to spend the rest of my life with and start a family. Or even take on a family. Although I would like to experience having a baby – I mean, not personally, but being really intimate with a woman who is carrying my child; watching her progress, grow, become a mother, seeing the changes in her body. I bet you were really sexy when you were pregnant, Cunningham.”

“I was quite, well, fat really,” I say, embarrassed by the attention and also slightly scared as to where this might be leading. “I’m not sure it suited me, like it suits some women who just seem to get a neat little bump and not put on an ounce of weight anywhere else at all. Then they pop the baby out and slip right back into their skinny jeans. Hateful.”

I am rambling on, partly because I’m nervous but I think in part to avoid what I guess is coming next. Although part of me longs to hear it.

He takes my hands in his and looks at me.

“Cunningham,” he begins. “I just want you to know something. All this, you know, showing up here, St Tropez – it’s not so I can get you into bed.”

“It’s not?” I’m not sure whether to be disappointed or relieved.

“No.” He looks down at his feet and then back at me. “You see I’ve loved you since I was a boy. I’ve never stopped loving you. So I don’t just want you for one night; I want you forever.”

I look at him open-mouthed. “But you could have anyone,” I say. “Why on earth would you want a married mother of three who is rapidly approaching her sell-by date?”

“Don’t be daft,” he says in his strong Yorkshire tones. “You’re gorgeous. And your children are gorgeous; I’d look after them as if they were my own. And the thing is, for me now, it’s so hard to trust people I meet. They might just want me for all the fame nonsense and the money. I knew you before all
that; you wanted me before all that. I can trust you.”

I can’t think of anything to say. Johnny Fray wants to take on my children and me. He wants to look after us all. He wants to be with me forever. I feel dizzy.

“Cunningham, I really love you,” he goes on. “I love your children and I would love to settle down here with you and bring them up as my own, maybe even have another baby.”

“I don’t know what to say,” I gulp.

“Just think about it, will you?”

I nod.

“Good,” he gets up. “I’ll expect an answer after dinner. Only joking. But I am going to get it started; I have some delicacies from the best chefs in Prague to offer you. You just need to show me how to turn the oven on.”

I leave him in the kitchen and think about what he just told me. I can’t believe it. Does he really mean it? And is it what I want? How could anyone not want Johnny Fray? Maybe it is all just a bit too soon.

We eat outside. I light candles and lay the table on the terrace. The food is unfamiliar but it is nice to have something non-French for once. The French are very bad at that, I notice; for example, there are no Italian restaurants around. If you insist on eating pasta, they seem to be saying, cook it yourself.

We go easy on the red wine. After dinner Johnny says he has to go back to Prague; they’re shooting first thing tomorrow morning. We talk about Lady Butterdish and the children and the wine-making process, but underneath it all is the unanswered question of whether or not we will end up together. It feels like a big step to me, but one I am quite prepared to think about.

We walk hand in hand to the helicopter. All through dinner I have been thinking, ‘Do I want to spend the rest of my life with this man?’ which kind of takes one’s mind off one’s Czech dumplings. But now he has basically proposed in all but the actual words, my mind is whirring round like the helicopter’s blades.

When we get to the helicopter we stop, face to face. Johnny puts his hands on my hips.

“Bye, Cunningham,” he says. Then he kisses me.

It is like small explosions are going off in all directions in my body. All the years melt away and I am catapulted back to Drake’s almost fifteen years ago, when he is a young actor at RADA and there are no children and no divorce and no nothing: Just us, locked in a kiss that I never want to end. And this time there is no Lady Butterdish to interrupt us.

Eventually, though, it does end. When it does, Johnnny looks at me with such love in his eyes, I want to say ‘yes’ right then and there. But it’s too big a decision and I respect him too much to go back on it. I have to be sure it’s the right thing to do.

“Don’t forget to think about it, eh Cunningham?” he says.

“Of course,” I reply, nodding slowly and leaning closer towards him. We hug and then he kisses me on the forehead before walking to the helicopter.

When he gets there he turns around.

“You’re still one hell of a kisser, Cunningham,” he grins before going up the steps and closing the door behind him.

I collect the children from the airport the following day. Nick and Cécile look relaxed and happy and the children have all been bought new outfits. Emily has even taken off her cat’s ears. In fact they look something from like a toothpaste advertisement. How annoying.

“Seems you had a perfect time,” I say to Nick through gritted teeth (which, I tell myself, I need to have whitened).

“As it seems did you,” he smiles back sarcastically.

“Yes, well, at least neither of us are still married,” I retort under my breath.

“Actually we’ve only had the decree nisi,” he retorts. “We’re not actually divorced until the decree absolute comes through.”

“Well, it can’t come soon enough,” I snipe. “Come on kids, we need to get home,” I add and say goodbye to the happy couple.

They are full of news of the weekend in Uzès, a beautiful Renaissance town an hour from Montpellier in the direction of Provence.

“We stayed in a FIVE-STAR hotel,” says Emily. “We even had our own room. And Edward didn’t even wet the bed and anyway Cécile said it didn’t matter if he did because the hotel staff would wash the sheets.”

“And we had room service,” adds Charlotte. “In the room.”

“And Cécile’s got an all-in-one,” adds Edward helpfully. “I saw it.”

“She’s got long legs, like a giraffe,” says Emily.

At this point I decide to put the radio on. Not even French pop can be worse than hearing how thin/rich/prone to wearing sexy underwear my soon to be ex-husband’s mistress is.

Once we have eaten and I have put the kids to bed, I walk over to the
cave
. I find the place has a calming influence on me, especially now that there is a few thousand pounds worth of wine sitting in there. Kamal has been working on blending it and the last time I tasted it I was really impressed. It tasted berry-like and deep, with what they call in the trade a firm finish.
Basically, it tasted like an expensive red wine.

Tomorrow the bottling lorry arrives and they will bottle it. We have to label it, but I have planned that as a job for us all next weekend. I just hope the kids don’t compare their luxurious five-star stay in Uzès with their working weekend at home. Hopefully by then they will have forgotten all about Cécile and her all-in-one.

The cicadas are out in full force. They make an incessant buzzing noise caused by rubbing their legs together to attract a mate. And there are different levels of buzzing, rather like an orchestra warming up. From the hills I hear high-pitched buzzing, closer to me it is baritone, and over on the terrace there’s a more chirruping noise. I adore the sound of them. It means heat and summer and home.

I love this place. I breathe in the sweet night air and look up at the bright stars. I love being this warm when it’s dark; it makes me feel secure for some reason. Nick may think he has it all, but he is back in smelly old London, while I am here, in paradise.

I remember something Jean-Claude told me when we were walking through the vines one night. I commented on how luminous the stars are.

“I find them totally intoxicating,” he told me. “There is a quote from the poet Racine who told his friends in the north of France that “our nights are like your days”. That is how I think of the summer nights here.”

I walk into the
cave
. Just as I am about to put the light on I see the beam from a torch by the large vat. I stop and watch it progress up the ladder. Why would Kamal not have put the light on? Maybe the bulb has gone? He really does work all hours. I flick the light switch and after a second or two the whole place is flooded with light.

“It’s okay, Kamal,” I say. “The light works.”

As my eyes adjust to the bright light I see that it is not Kamal clambering up the ladder but Jean-Claude.

“Ah, Sophie, how are you?” He turns around to greet me and starts climbing down the ladder.

“Jean-Claude? What are you doing here?”

He saunters over and kisses me on either cheek. “I heard about your famous treasure and wanted to come and taste for myself,” he says. “Great news, eh?”

“Yes,” I say enthusiastically. “I’ve emailed all my wine-bond people again and told them they can get delivery of the cases of red within weeks. I have had orders for more than 1,000 bottles; this’ll definitely tide us over until after the harvest. But you should have called me, I would have arranged for you to taste it…”

“Sophie,” he interrupts me, grabbing my shoulders and pulling me towards him. “Let’s go inside for a coffee.”

The way he says it sounds like he doesn’t mean coffee at all. Or does everything the French say just sound like they’re talking about sex?

Is this what I want? How did I get to this point? Actually I think I do want it. But what about Johnny?

Well, I suppose if I’m going to make the right decision I might have to try them both on. Not that they are comparable to pairs of jeans, but how does one know otherwise? My sensible alter-ego would say I should just be alone for a while and see how I feel, but she’s not here this evening.

We walk to the house and I make coffee. He watches me.

“Cheers then,” I say raising my coffee cup. Jean-Claude finishes his coffee in one gulp and walks over to me. He takes the cup from my hands and puts it on the table. All the while he does this he smiles and looks at me with those bright blue eyes. I am not sure what he is up to but at least I no longer have to think about what I should do; I just follow his movements.

He leans over, takes both my hands and beckons for me to stand up. We are now standing opposite each other, very close. He put his hands on my shoulders.

“I seem to remember that last time we were this close, we were interrupted by your husband,” he says looking down at me.

“Ex-husband,” I correct him.

He raises an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yes,” I say, “the decree nisi came through a few days ago.”

Jean-Claude draws me closer to him and leans his head forward until our noses are almost touching. I feel dizzy from being so close to him; his presence is intoxicating and there’s that aftershave again.

“May I be the first one to kiss the former bride?” he asks.

I nod.

He touches my lips with his and puts his arms around me. Slowly our mouths open and we kiss. It occurs to me briefly that Nick and I stopped kissing a long time ago.

I put my arms around Jean-Claude’s neck and pull him towards me. He is a very good kisser, but then what did I expect from a Frenchman? He is delicate but firm and very, very sexy. His tongue and mine play a game of getting to know each other, tentatively first and then with more confidence. I feel our bodies getting closer. I can feel what I assume is an erection pressing against me. This is all very unfamiliar. When you’re married, sex is almost perfunctory. There is rarely romance involved – you never stand in the kitchen snogging like a couple of teenagers. Or at least not in my
experience.

Jean-Claude moves his hands from my back to my buttocks and pulls them closer to him. He starts to kiss my neck, which sends shivers of lust all through my body. I move my hands up to his head and run my fingers through his thick hair. It is when I feel him undoing my trousers that I suddenly realise that if I’m not careful, I could end up naked on the kitchen floor with a Frenchman. Not that there is anything wrong with that in itself, but a) one of the children might walk in, b) I’m not sure getting laid the same week as your decree nisi comes through is good for your sanity, c) I still haven’t harvested my pubes to French standards, and d) It wasn’t many hours ago I was kissing Johnny and I should really be taking things a bit more slowly.

Having said all that, I put my hands on his hips. Hmmm, I could certainly get used to this. These French do have a way of kissing that is so, well, French. I caress his body and come across something long and hard – wow, really long and hard. But that’s a strange place for a… Then I realise it is cold and made of glass.

I pull away from him. “Jean-Claude why are you carrying a bottle of wine?” I ask laughing. “Surely you don’t get that desperate for a drink?” I pull the bottle out of his pocket and look at the label:
vinaigre de cidre
.

“Why do you have a bottle of vinegar in your pocket?”

Jean-Claude laughs. “Oh that, it’s a present for you, from Provence.”

“Thank you,” I smile. “How sweet of you.”

Somehow the bottle of vinegar has broken the kissing spell and what it was fast turning into.

“I must go,” he says. “I promised to call my aunt at 9pm. Thank you for a perfect kiss. Can I take you out for dinner next week?”

“Of course.”

I show him out and he walks off towards his château, but not before we have another massive snog outside the house. Then I run upstairs to watch him from my terrace. I love the way he walks; it’s so graceful, almost feline.

When I get there, I see him talking to Kamal. I watch them chat for a bit then go in.

I walk into the kitchen and put the vinegar on the table.
Vinaigre de cidre de Bretagne
, reads the full label. Strange: I thought he said it came from Provence? Oh well, I suppose he could have bought it in Provence. It strikes me now that he seemed in a rather frenetic mood. And I still don’t quite understand how we ended up snogging.

But I hope he comes back soon, and that he sees the children soon – they adore him, and I love watching them all speak French together. It makes me
feel so…cosmopolitan. I can even understand most of what they’re saying.

Jean-Claude is one of those people children just adore, I don’t know what it is about him, but they seem to trust and like him. A few days ago when Charlotte fell off her bike on the way back from the village chemist, he arrived carrying her in his arms, her grazed knees bleeding and tears streaming down her little face. He walked into the kitchen where I was making dinner and she insisted he stay with her until I had done the nasty antiseptic thing and got the plaster on. I kept thinking about that sad thing he said the first night he came for dinner about not having children.

The morning after the French kiss, once I’ve done the school run and an hour’s frenetic
cave
-organising, I meet Audrey at village chemist which is amazingly well stocked. I am told this is perfectly normal, because French women will tolerate nothing less. I am buying all the things she has told me I need. The list seems endless: night cream, eye cream, slimming cream, bust gel, hand cream, lip plumper, and so it goes on. It seems every part of my body needs an individual cream – even my feet.

“I hate diets,” says Audrey. “I’d rather die. That’s why I buy slimming creams.”

“But surely a slimming cream can’t work? How can a cream possibly make you thin?”

Audrey gives me an old-fashioned look. “You’re so Anglo-Saxon,” she tells me sternly.

In an effort to prove I am changing my Anglo-Saxon ways, I tell her briefly about my weekend.

“
Mon dieu
!” she exclaims. “You’ve been a busy girl. Good for you. This is a very French attitude; always have a back up. Men are notoriously unreliable so you need to have a reserve at all times. For example, I always carry two lip-glosses, just in case one runs out.”

“I feel guilty all the time and a voice inside keeps telling me I have to make a choice between them,” I protest.

“Can’t you tell the voice to shut up? I mean it is a perfect situation; one lives next door and the other travels all the time. So when the film star is off filming you entertain yourself with the other.”

I sigh. “Johnny would really not like that idea.”

“Of course not, but he won’t know.”

“No, but I will,” I say. “I just don’t want to treat him like that, he’s been so good to me, and we go back a long way. It’s almost like fate has finally
brought us together, although I wish it hadn’t happened quite so quickly. I just don’t feel ready yet.”

“Stop being too serious about all this. Just enjoy the attention and have some fun, Sophie. You don’t have to have either of them forever.”

She’s right of course. Why am I being so puritanical about this? Or as Audrey would say “Anglo-Saxon”.

“What perfume do you wear?” she asks me, as she catches me looking at a bottle of Lily of the Valley.

“I wasn’t actually going to buy it,” I defend myself. “It’s just that my grandmother used to wear it and I was very fond of her.”

“A woman should have what I call a signature-scent,” says Audrey. “I have been wearing Cuir de Russie by Chanel since my first boyfriend gave it to me when I was only 17. And I have been faithful to it ever since.”

“Unlike to your boyfriends?”

“
Bien sûr
,” she says. “Some things in life demand absolute fidelity. Perfume is essential. As Coco Chanel said; ‘A woman who doesn’t wear perfume has no future’.”

While I am paying for my new stash of goodies, we see Calypso racing past the front door of the chemist on a bicycle, closely followed by Tim. I notice with some relief he doesn’t have a gun with him.

We dash outside to see what happens, Calypso makes a bee-line for the bakery, runs in and locks the door behind her. Tim is outside shouting and stamping his feet.

“It must be his old Gulf War Syndrome,” I say to Audrey. “But it’s not even windy.”

Audrey looks perplexed. “Gulf War Syndrome? What is that?”

“Nothing you can use to make your thighs look thinner,” I explain. “Calypso’s husband was in the Gulf War and sometimes the wind reminds him of it and it sends him off his head and he tries to murder her.”

“Aaah,” says Audrey, “and I thought he was just trying to murder her because she’s having a lesbian affair with Colette.”

For some reason this news doesn’t even surprise me.