The Next Best Thing (31 page)

‘It’s a damn nuisance,’ she shouted back to Will, ‘though I suppose it could be worse. I could be by myself with darkness falling and the wolves creeping out of the
trees.’

‘The wolves I could cope with,’ said Will, ‘but I do hope you’re not expecting me to change a wheel.’

‘Oh come on, Will, everyone knows how to change a wheel. Even me, luckily.’

He held up his hand in self-defence. ‘Give me my due, Jane, you know perfectly well I don’t do cars.’

‘Well you’re a load of bloody use then.’

She found the toolbox behind the seat, then slid deftly under the car with a spanner to release the spare wheel. Luckily she hadn’t dressed up for the flight; she couldn’t imagine
her equivalent of Will’s grey linen would respond too well to such treatment.

In spite of her confidence, it proved more difficult than she’d imagined, and after several attempts with the jack, she realised she would need to call for help. Will was reading in the
passenger seat, having done his duty by finding her the relevant page in the car manual. Liberty was sleeping, still catching up on her early start to the day.

She took her phone from her bag and called Rupert’s number, walking away from the car.

Will stuck his head out of the window and asked her what she was doing.

‘Getting some help,’ she said.

‘Who from?’

‘Rupert.’

‘Why don’t you call the French AA?’

‘I don’t need the AA, I just need someone with a bit of muscle and common sense.’

‘I wouldn’t count on him being any more use than me.’

‘I would.’

‘How come you’ve got his number?’

I’m well-organised, remember. All-round handyman and travel rep, and I never travel without the right numbers. Rupert, thank goodness,’ she said when he answered, ‘I need
you.’

‘I need you too,’ he said, and she could hear the pleasure in his voice. ‘Are you nearly here? I’ve just put some coffee on.’

‘No, I mean I really need you.’ She explained about the flat tyre and her failure to engage with the jack.

‘No problem, where did you say you were?’

‘Just a bit after a posh restaurant called the Tour de something, with a load of flags flying.’

‘Give me fifteen minutes.’

Jane got back in the car to wait. Fourteen minutes later he arrived in a battered old Jeep, tooting his horn as he came down the hill, pulling across the road to park in front of them.

He jumped out of the car and came towards them, a picture of masculine capability. He was wearing old jeans of the functional variety and a faded denim shirt that Jane felt inclined to rip from
his broad body.

‘Good to see you Will,’ he said, extending his hand through the passenger window. ‘What an extraordinary car,’ he added. ‘Was this your choice?’

Will’s jaw tightened as he shook Rupert’s hand. ‘Jane assures me it was on promotion,’ he said, as though the words were a personal affront. ‘I leave these things
to her, though needless to say I wouldn’t have chosen such a ludicrous vehicle. But cars are not my thing, especially not when they go wrong.’

‘Of course, I remember now, you don’t do cars.’

Will glared at him. Was he taking the piss? And how did he know that Will didn’t drive?

‘Lydia told me,’ Rupert added quickly, ‘she said that Jane was the driver.’ He looked across at her, sitting nervously behind the wheel. ‘Come on then, Jane,’
he said, ‘let’s get on with it.’

Will picked up his book, anxious to distance himself from this humiliating episode. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he said. ‘I don’t think it takes three British tourists
to change the wheel of a rental Fiat Multipla.’

‘No indeed.’

Jane followed Rupert to the back of the car and watched him work. ‘I’ve never seen you out of a suit before,’ she whispered. ‘It suits you.’

He looked up at her, his red-blonde hair falling over his eyes as he turned the wheel. ‘Clothes have never been my thing,’ he said, straightening up and wiping his oily hands on his
jeans, ‘I’ve never seen what all the fuss is about.’

‘Nor had I until I saw you just now in your rugged outdoor wear,’ said Jane. It reminded her of all those Harrison Ford movies, real men battling with real tasks.

He touched her lightly on the cheek and her heart missed a beat.

The wheel was soon in place, and the punctured tyre replaced beneath the chassis.

‘All done then,’ he said, sliding out from under the car, ‘you can follow me for the rest of the way.’

He got back into his Jeep and set off up the hill, pausing for a minute to wait for Jane to catch him up. She started the engine and drove up behind him, admiring the set of his shoulders
silhouetted against the windscreen. How did she get herself in this situation? Driving in convoy behind the man she desired, while locked in grim silence with her life partner, who was still rigid
with irritation at having to be rescued.

She should have called out a proper mechanic in overalls instead of making him look like a pansy in front of that bloody banker, Will thought. He was the explorer, after all, the one who was
supposed to take charge in unforeseen circumstances. He should never have agreed to this holiday.

They reached the brow of the hill, then followed Rupert down the gently winding road, shaded by grey-green trees.

Jane had never expected it to be so lush, you could grow anything here. Liberty was awake now and back on chatty form.

‘That man is good at fixing cars,’ she said.

‘He only changed a wheel,’ said Will, ‘it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to unscrew a few bolts.’

‘And then he fixed Mum’s other car too. Didn’t he, Mum?’ She tapped her mother on the shoulder.

‘Did he? I don’t remember,’ Jane said brightly, her voice brittle in anticipation of what might follow.

‘Yes, he did, when you came to get me from school and you couldn’t find your keys and he came by in a taxi to give them back to you.’ ‘Oh yes, that’s right,’
said Jane in a giveaway nonchalant voice, ‘so he did.’

She glanced quickly across at Will, but she needn’t have worried. He had pulled the vanity mirror down and was performing his anti-ageing exercises, which involved sticking his forefingers
inside his upper lip and moving them about in order to maintain the elasticity.

‘It’s true, isn’t it, Daddy,’ Liberty went on, like a dog with a bone. ‘That man is good at fixing cars.’

‘If you say so, sweetheart,’ Will said indulgently. ‘And I must admit cars are not my own strong point. But then I never had pretensions to being an oily rag. Each to his own,
I say, or, as we are in France, A
chacun son true’

Jane’s relief at not being blown out did not extend to hearing Will slag off Rupert as a rude mechanical. ‘I wouldn’t say that being able to change a wheel qualifies you as an
oily rag,’ she said. ‘I would say it was all part of being a fully functioning human being.’

‘Whatever,’ said Will.

They reached Rupert’s village and followed him through the main street, past the old market place and the fountain spring and the stone troughs where the women used to
come to do their washing. Then up a side street which led into open country, with views down to the valley. A few minutes later he turned up a steep stony track which led them through high metal
gates into a forecourt shaded by cypress trees, beyond which stood a sumptuous stone
mas. A
row of generous windows with soft green shutters gave out onto a terrace lined with massive
terracotta pots bleached pale by the sun, filled with lavender, rosemary, cistus, sage, and other herbs that Jane couldn’t wait to identify. From the terrace, steps led down to a discreet
pool like a giant fish pond, hedged in by flower borders, and beyond that the lawn stretched seamlessly into the distant landscape.

Jane stepped out of the car and looked around her. It was so entirely perfect, she couldn’t see how she could ever leave. Rupert was watching her anxiously, reading her response.

‘What do you think?’ he asked.

‘I think . . . it’s like all my escapist fantasies rolled into one. I don’t know why you would want to live anywhere else.’

‘I’m working on it, as you know,’ he said quietly. He led her up to the house, stopping on the terrace to look at the early rock roses coming through, and the herb garden,
aromatic with basil and thyme, lemongrass and tarragon. ‘I’d have a proper vegetable garden, if I lived here all the time,’ he said. ‘Ten sorts of tomatoes and ratte
potatoes, and garrigue strawberries do very well round here, you know, those orangey-red ones, small oval shape.’

It was cruel of him to draw so clear a picture of a perfect life that she had decided she could not share with him. It was like wheeling a trolley of delicious food past a fasting man,
tormenting him with delectable smells of what he must refuse.

Lydia came out of the house to greet them, wearing a pale pink suit and holding a jug of steaming coffee. She set it down on a table and came towards them, the sun reflecting off what appeared
to be a pair of metal sandals.

‘Darling, how lovely to see you,’ she said, giving Jane a quick head-to-toe appraisal from behind her sunglasses. Clearly a trip abroad had done nothing to improve her dress
sense.

‘Nice flip-flops,’ Jane replied, following the modern convention that women should always comment on each other’s shoes.

‘Thanks,’ she said, ‘they’re Louis Vuitton. What have you done with Will and the child?’ Jane looked around guiltily; in her excitement she had forgotten all about
them.

‘Liberty’s found a playmate,’ said Rupert, pointing down to the lawn where she was throwing a stick for a large dog. ‘Don’t worry,’ he added, seeing
Jane’s anxious face, ‘he belongs to the caretaker, he’s perfectly safe with children. And Will’s around somewhere.’

‘There he is,’ said Lydia, ‘over there, poking round the
maison d’amis.
I’ll go and tell him to come for coffee.’

She went off to get him in her narrow pink skirt, leaving Rupert and Jane alone on the terrace, suddenly shy.

‘Can I see the kitchen?’ she said. ‘Now, while no-one’s here.’

‘Of course.’

He led her indoors and there it was, just like he’d said, a blue and white gingham cloth spread over a large farmhouse table that sat comfortably in the middle of a kitchen rich in old
charm and short on mod cons. A vase of wildflowers stood on it, and Jane guessed, correctly, that Rupert had gathered them for her.

‘I deliberately didn’t bring that jacket,’ she said. ‘I didn’t want anyone else making the same comparison.’

‘Me neither. That’s our memory. The first time we met, seeing you on those stairs, I could tell you were looking for something.’

‘My lens.’

‘More than that.’

‘No, not more than that. I was looking for my lens.’

‘You don’t believe, then, that people give off vibes of availability?’

‘Of course not. I wasn’t available then, and I’m not available now.’

He walked round the table to where she was standing and put his arms around her, pushing her gently against the old range cooker.

‘I think you are, though,’ he said hotly, kissing her neck, ‘I think you are, in your heart. But you just won’t admit it.’

She sank into his kiss, closing her eyes and thinking how easy it was, to love and be loved. How tantalising, how seductive to come and live here with him. She could set up an office in a room
leading out onto the terrace and in summer would work outside beneath an umbrella, a bottle of chilled rose by her elbow. In the evening, they would cook together, or walk into the village to share
a
bouillabaisse.

Except they wouldn’t, because she had a daughter, and that daughter had a father and if there was one thing Jane believed in, it was her child’s right to be brought up in an solid,
two-parent home. She didn’t want Liberty to go through what she had. Hearing her father speak tensely to her mother, before taking her off for a day in town, all guilt and compensation,
smothering her with treats before he brought her back and went home to his new wife. She wasn’t going to put Liberty through that.

‘Show me the rest of the house,’ she said, releasing his hands from behind her back, ‘tell me all about it, I want to know everything.’

As he walked her through the rooms, she thought how different it was from her visit to Rodmell, when she had been obliged to feign interest in Alison’s paint-finishes and endless stories
about tracking down knick-knacks. Here she was pushing Rupert for details, wanting to know exactly where everything came from. The furniture was from his family’s country estate, which
explained why it all fell together so casually, worn pieces of indifferent furniture mixed with the odd antique, non e of it screaming to be admired the way that Alison’s house was. He told
her he had bought the house on a whim ten years ago, when he had been driving through the area on the way to a friend’s wedding. It reassured Jane that this had been before he met Lydia. It
brought alive a whole part of him that had nothing to do with the guilty, reluctant fiance that she knew. It showed him in the light of someone free-spirited and open to possibility; the same way
that the house now showed her a new way of living, if only she chose to follow it.

By the time they got outside, Lydia and Will had finished the coffee so Rupert took the jug off to make some more. Liberty was still playing with the dog, overjoyed to have found a surrogate
pet.

‘I’m glad you made it,’ said Lydia, shrugging off her light jacket to reveal a low-cut tee shirt, ‘it can get a bit tedious stuck out here by ourselves. Rupert’s
not bothered, he fiddles around in the garden, but I get restless. Though at least the weather’s been fantastic, you do sometimes get that down here in April, a foretaste of summer.’
She lifted her feet onto a chair, pulling up her skirt to tan her legs, watching Will’s reaction from behind her sunglasses.

‘Do you know any of the locals?’ asked Jane, sitting down at the table.

Lydia pulled a face. ‘There’s no way I’m getting on that merry-go-round. Half of them are expats, boring old farts who have retired out here. They spend all their time having
dinner at each other’s houses and repeating the same conversations.’