Page 28 of The Bordeaux Book Club
In a bid to get her mind off it all, she made a coffee and took it and her book out to one of the wrought-iron chairs they’d bought and intended to paint. Looking over the sun-drenched back garden and the fields beyond, she felt a sudden sense of peace wash over her. All was virtually silent, save for the chittering of birds and the odd car crawling past on the road outside. It was still early, but there was a warmth in the sunlight as it played on her skin and promised a lovely day ahead. She had some free hours before her copywriting shift began later this afternoon, and she was going to make the most of them.
If she’d looked up at that moment, she’d have seen Scarlett’s face at the window, her features concerned, looking down at her mum sitting alone in the garden, the hole in the earth where the potatoes had been, and the abandoned fork left by her father lying forlornly on the earth.
11
APRIL
Leah slid the Scenic into the space with such ease that she wished someone had been filming it for posterity. Usually, when faced with a parallel parking situation, she chickened out – especially if there were other cars waiting. But having seen a space so close to Rue Notre Dame, she knew she at least had to try. And she’d surprised herself, thinking through the manoeuvre as carefully as a seventeen-year-old on their test, and somehow recapturing skills that had long lain dormant.
It must be a good sign, she decided.
When Alfie had emailed the group asking if they could meet in a café instead of at his home – ‘my mum’s a bit poorly today’ – she’d been a little relieved. It meant that wine would be off the menu, and coffee (and hopefully some sort of cake) would be on. She’d enjoyed the wine last time, but hadn’t wanted to ask Nathan to come to pick her up after the group had finished.
Not that anything was awry with her and Nathan. After their potato argument, he’d returned and apologised. ‘I just… it felt a bit like a slap in the face,’ he’d said and she’d accepted his apology. She hadn’t admonished him for roaring off in the car,or for the four hours he’d spent incommunicado. She was just relieved he was OK.
At least she’d been able to distract herself by racing through the last ofWuthering Heights, sitting in the garden and enjoying the spring sunshine while he’d been out. She’d just been turning the final couple of pages as the car had crawled guiltily back into its usual place on their drive, so when Nathan had seen her, had been wiping a couple of tears away.
‘Oh, love,’ he’d said, wrongly assuming she was crying with relief at his return. ‘I’m sorry.’
She hadn’t corrected him.
They’d settled back into their usual groove. Nathan had even sheepishly given her a gift – a bag of potatoes from the market. And she’d used the surplus eggs they still had from previous collections to make the frittatas after all (much to Scarlett’s horror: ‘Eggs! Again! Why can’t we eat something normal?’).
Still, despite the fact she’d cleared up the actual broken eggs, she felt a little as if she was walking on eggshells around Nathan. She didn’t want to upset him again if he was feeling vulnerable, and this meant she was barely able to talk about the garden, vegetables or even the chickens (sadly their three main topics of conversation these days) without carefully considering what she said and whether it was appropriate to make a joke. And she hadn’t been able to raise the subject of his frequent, fragrant trips out.
She wasn’t quite sure how she felt about being kept at arms’ length like this. It was healthy, though, wasn’t it, to spend a bit of time apart? She just wished he could do it without exuding that weird air of mystery.
‘You would tell me, wouldn’t you, if there was anything wrong?’ she’d asked him a couple of days ago when he’d appeared in a crisp, white shirt, smelling of soap and aftershave.And he’d laughed and told her this was what came of reading too many romance novels.
She hadn’t the energy to explain thatWuthering Heightswas a complex love story – a classic! But she’d felt a little offended that he’d mocked her new hobby.
Perhaps this latest novel was her equivalent of freshly pulled potato crop – jokes about her reading felt too close to home.
Wuthering Heights reminds me of a freshly pulled but ultimately disappointing potato crop,she imagined saying to Grace, and smiled to herself. Perhaps not.
Now, as she locked the car and began to walk towards the road where Alfie’s chosen café was situated, she tried to banish thoughts of her marriage and the latest disagreement with her teenage daughter (who’d asked to have her phone with her at night and was outraged at being denied) from her mind.
Despite living on the outskirts of one of the most beautiful cities in France, she didn’t make it into the centre as often as she ought to. She’d been along Rue Notre Dame before once or twice, when they’d first arrived and been exploring, but now any shopping expeditions she made were purposeful – she’d seek out large chain stores or out of town shopping areas rather than strolling through the older quarters, taking the time to appreciate the architecture and history.
Perhaps Nathan was right. Perhaps she ought to do this more often too.
Because it was truly beautiful. She took her time, allowing the April sun to caress her skin, and smiling at passers-by as they made their way past, holding bags inscribed with shop insignia, or clutching cameras, or camera phones, and snapping pictures of some of the quirkier shops or of the church that rose majestically above all of them.
The cafés and restaurants had set tables outside and most of them were taken, the punters making the most of the weather.There was a buzz of conversation in the air – she caught snippets of French words she recognised, the odd sentence in English spoken in an American or British accent. And she felt energy course through her as she breathed in the city at its best.
One of the reasons they’d moved close to Bordeaux had been her love for the city she’d first visited in her teens. How ridiculous that the place was practically on her doorstep, she rarely visited in a meaningful way. Life had become hectic, but when she looked at it objectively, perhaps she had made it that way. It would be easy to carve out time – Saturday mornings, Tuesday afternoons, maybe the odd evening – to spend properly soaking up the sights and sounds and atmosphere. Especially now Scarlett was older and would be more than happy to be left home alone.And there was always Gollum to ward off any would-be intruders, Leah thought to herself with a smile.
She was so deep in thought that she missed Alfie’s chosen venue altogether, emerging from the end of Notre Dame and finding herself in an unfamiliar street which was peppered with graffiti. She turned and made her way back, searching properly this time, until she found it:L’intemiporal– meaning timeless. She wondered whether Alfie had chosen the café for its name or whether it was just one he knew or was fond of.
She pushed open the door, walked in and was instantly bathed in the scent of fresh coffee. The space was light and bright, with an eclectic mix of round and rectangular tables, dotted with seats in a range of different designs. The walls were painted a bright cream and there were several large watercolours showing local scenes. The whole place was buzzing with life and she felt herself react to the bustling energy in the air – it was infectious, somehow, and made her feel more positive almost immediately.
The group was easy to spot – they’d pushed two round tables together, making an awkward figure eight, and had clearly stolenchairs from one of the other tables, which sat empty of customer seating. Alfie looked up and gave her a smile, before saying something to the group who all looked up in turn. The table was a mess of books and coffee cups and Leah had to check her watch to make sure she wasn’t terribly late.
‘Sorry,’ she said, as she approached, noting to her relief that most of the cups were full.
‘No problem m’dear,’ Grace said, pushing out the spare chair for her to sit on. ‘We’ve only just got here. And poor Monica had to rescue George on the way – he was at the café three doors down!’
George grinned. ‘Got a bit lost and panicked,’ he admitted. ‘Seriously, there are about five cafés on this one street!’
