Page 70 of The Riviera House Swap
Half an hour later and a glass of wine down, he still hadn’t arrived. She was checking her phone every few minutes, but there was no message, no missed call. She didn’t yet want to call him – she wanted to retain some dignity, after all. But she began to wonder whether he’d turn up at all. Perhaps he wasn’t as enthusiastic about reconnecting with her as he’d seemed. Perhaps he’d had second thoughts. After all, she didn’t really know this man. Not really. A childhood version of him, someone she’d spent seven days with and a few months writing to. A stranger really. Someone she’d projected all her needs and feelings onto, but for what reason?
By the time he walked through the door ten minutes later, she’d drunk half the bottle and emptied a table basket of slightly dried bread. He saw her, his face split in a grin, flooding her with relief, and he raced over to the table. ‘I am so sorry, my love,’ he said, kissing her. ‘We had a meeting at work and I couldn’t leave, and I ran all the way as soon as I could.’
At once, everything she had been feeling changed. His enthusiasm, his apology made any doubts melt away. And something about his proximity to her felt so insanely ‘right’ thatshe suddenly she felt that did believe in fate and things that were meant to be, after all.
He slipped into the seat opposite and clicked his fingers for the waiter. She’d always hated people who did that, but it was different here, she supposed – perhaps it was just the French way. The waiter appeared and took Pierre’s order of a beer and some bread for the table.
‘I am sorry that they sat you here with this empty basket,’ he said in a low voice when the waiter had gone. ‘They should have at least given you some bread.’
‘Never mind,’ she said, wondering how she was going to manage to eat anything else after consuming what must have been half a French stick.
This time, their conversation was less interrogative. They filled in the blanks in each other’s history, had the basic backstory, and were able to talk more generally. The things they liked, how they’d spent their day, what they thought of the restaurant. There were silences, too, but comfortable ones, where she’d sit and watch people pass by on the street through the restaurant window and imagine how she and Pierre must look. Perhaps like a couple who had been together since age seventeen, she mused.
Pierre made her laugh with some of his jokes, told her about a person at work who had produced a meticulously crafted birthday cake with an enormous spelling mistake. Asked her about life in England and whether she ever saw herself living elsewhere.
Just as she was trying to answer without saying,Depends if you ask me to marry you and I move here and we have a couple of kids or puppies or both and a white picket fence or whatever the French equivalent of that is,a woman stopped outside the window, just in front of their table. She seemed to be staring in, and at first Nina wondered whether she was looking at her ownreflection, checking her hair, not realising there were people right on the other side of the glass. Nina looked down at her food and waited for the awkward moment to pass.
Pierre glanced up too. But rather than laugh or look away or say something to Nina, he rose suddenly to his feet and raced out of the restaurant towards the woman. Nina saw the woman turn and look at the approaching Pierre with a scowl on her face. He took her by the arm and led her a little along the road, although Nina could still make them out in bright light spilling from the small boutiques along this out-of-the-way backroad.
As she watched, feeling sick, she saw that they were arguing. Pierre no longer looked relaxed and affable, but seemed almost to grow in stature, towering over the woman, who looked up at him defiantly, waving her arms as she spoke. There was no mistaking her body language. This was a woman who was incredibly angry.
Who could she be? Did Pierre have a girlfriend? A wife? A sister? Who would get angry at seeing him in a restaurant with Nina, other than someone who felt they had a claim on him romantically? She watched as the woman turned to go and Pierre grabbed her by the arm quite forcefully. She span and slapped him in the face, then continued on her way, soon lost around the corner of the street.
Nina quickly turned her gaze to the plate of chicken she was working her way through, not wanting Pierre to know that she’d been watching the whole time. She felt her face burn. She’d make her excuses and leave, she decided. She didn’t want to get mixed up in whatever this was. If Pierre had someone and hadn’t told her, then he definitely wasn’t the person she’d thought he was.
He arrived at the table seconds later, panting slightly, his face red. ‘I am sorry,’ he said, sliding into his chair, his body slumping slightly. He looked pained and somehow defeated. ‘I wish that had not happened.’
‘Who is she?’ Nina said, trying to keep her voice light. Give him a chance to come up with an explanation, she thought. Don’t get up and walk out and leave him in your past again. He deserves that much at least.
‘Ah, she is a devil,’ he said, his brow furrowing. ‘She was my girlfriend two, perhaps three, years ago. And we broke up. But she still loves me, and now she has started to watch me sometimes. She cannot accept that we were not right for each other. And now she has seen me with you and she is jealous.’
‘Oh,’ said Nina, feeling simultaneously sorry for Pierre, a little suspicious and a tiny bit hopeful. Was it OK to hope that your date (boyfriend?) was being harassed? She wondered. It probably depended on the circumstances. ‘What did you tell her?’ she asked, thinking of Pierre’s body-language, the way he’d pulled the woman by the arm.
He sighed and took a big gulp from his water glass. ‘I told her that she must accept it is over. That we had a good time together, but she needs to forget about me now. I said that I have a new girlfriend and that we are very serious about each other.’ He looked at her, his eyes intense. ‘Because I think, and I hope it is not too much, that what we have, it might be serious, no?’
Her heart flooded. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I feel that too!’
‘I think,’ he said, reaching for her hand, ‘Nina, I think that I am in love with you already. Perhaps I never stopped loving you. Maybe this is why I can never stay with my girlfriends. Because perhaps I knew that one day you would come.’
She wrapped her fingers around his – they felt cold. Their eyes met – his earnest and honest and full of hope.
‘Pierre,’ she said. ‘You’re right. It is quick. But I think I’m starting to feel the same way.’
37
THEN
Dear Pierre,
Thank you for your letter. I am also sad that we didn’t get to spend more time together. We have a long break this summer after our exams and maybe I’ll talk to my parents to see if I can come to France. I am old enough to travel by myself after all! Or maybe you can come to England?
I loved meeting you too. And I was so glad when you came with the letter. I thought we might never see each other again.
Hope to hear back!
Nina x
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