Having carried out a bowl of soup and the pastries to my parents’ garden, I photographed them set out on the wrought-iron table, then started work on the words to accompany them. The day flew by, busy and productive.I wasn’t even annoyed with Charlie anymore. As Kim has often reminded me: ‘It was bound to happen one day. You’re lucky he’s adored you this long!’
So I went to bed feeling happier than I have in a long time, and when I woke up this morning I had that ‘today is a good day!’ feeling before I’d even figured out quite why that was. A warm breeze wafted through the window, carrying in the scent of lavender and thyme. I lay there, not quite sure why I was so excited at the prospect of seeing James again, but unable to deny that I was.
‘I’m a recipe content creator,’ I tell him now, when he asks what I do for a living. ‘Sounds a bit pretentious, doesn’t it?’
‘Not at all,’ he replies. ‘Although I can’t pretend to understand what it means.’
‘I devise recipes, then test them, write them up and cook them for photography. And I usually shoot my own pictures too.’
‘You do the whole lot?’ he asks in surprise.
‘Yeah. I suppose it is quite unusual to do the whole package.’
‘How did that come about?’ As we take the road inland that climbs high up into the mountains, I tell him how I’d landed a job as a secretary on a magazine at twenty-one – thirty years ago now. And when a vacancy had come up in the cookery department I’d moved over to that. ‘Mum’s a brilliant cook,’ I add, ‘and I grew up alongside her in the kitchen, always watching how she did things and wanting to help.’
‘Sounds like that was a dream job,’ James says.
‘Oh, it was. And it was the golden era of magazines really. But then they started to sell less and less, and it became so easy to find recipes online, so those cookery departments that were so expensive to run began todisappear. Magazines started reusing old recipes and photos from the archives, changing the colours of the tablecloths, the plates and whatnot in Photoshop—’
‘You’re kidding!’
‘Honestly, they really did.’ I’ve surprised myself by telling him so much. I suppose it’s a novelty, spending time with someone new. My friendships are all fairly long-established now.
‘So what happened then?’ James asks.
‘I was made redundant and set up as a freelancer, working on my own.’ It’s not quite as simple as that, but I’m sure he doesn’t need to hear all the details.
‘Thatisimpressive.’
‘Not as impressive as saving a dog’s life!’ I cast him a quick look.
He shrugs self-deprecatingly, as if it was nothing. ‘So, did you teach yourself photography? Or do a course?’
‘I just picked it up along the way,’ I say vaguely, really not wanting to go into all that now. Because the day is perfect: sunny and bright and showing off Corsica at its very best. He certainly doesn’t need to know the whole story, I tell myself. He’s a hardworking vet who just wants to have a fun time.
We stop at a mountain village where pale stone cottages huddle around the ancient church. There’s a second-hand bookshop and an inviting coffee shop where we sit outside, and our chat turns to James’s work. ‘Are you a birthing calves kind of vet, or more dogs and cats?’ I catch myself and sense myself reddening. ‘Stupid question. I’m sorry. I always imagine there are just the two kinds.’
‘Well, there are really,’ James says. ‘It comes down to whether you’re country or urban, and my practice is close to where I live.’ We’ve already established that we’re both north Londoners although, unlike me, James has nevermoved out. ‘So it’s mainly dogs and cats,’ he adds, ‘with a few rabbits, ferrets and the odd gecko and tortoise thrown in to keep things interesting.’
‘The only thing I know about tortoises is that they live to be a hundred years old. Is that even true?’
‘Even older in some cases,’ he says.
‘Poor tortoises. Everyone’s obsessed with their age.’
‘It’s kind of important,’ James says, with an earnestness I can’t help finding endearing, ‘if you’re thinking about taking one on. I mean, in terms of commitment …’
‘Charlie wanted stick insects but it turned out that one of his friends’ mothers just wanted to offload them, so I said no.’
‘Probably wise,’ he says with a smile. It strikes me again how attractive he is with those kind, intelligent blue eyes. I discover that being vet is literally all he ever wanted to do. ‘Probably because I wasn’t allowed a pet,’ he explains. ‘My aunt wasn’t having it so of course I was obsessed with animals. You know how kids always want the very thing they’re not allowed to have?’
I nod. ‘You lived with your aunt?’
‘My aunt and uncle, yes. So I started walking neighbours’ dogs, doing some cat-sitting, that kind of thing.’ As he doesn’t elaborate further, I don’t ask why he lived with his aunt and uncle and not his parents. However, I do learn that he’s divorced, and that his daughter, Esther – who was supposed to be here now – does something to do with social media; again, he skims over the details and I’m trying not to fire too many questions, interrogating the poor man. ‘You’re so nosy, Mum,’ Charlie’s teased me over the years. I probably am, although I prefer to think of it asbeing interested in people.
As the glorious afternoon unfolds we drive further up into the hills, stopping for lunch in a shady café wherecrimson bougainvillea cascades from the terracotta-tiled roof. Later still, we stroll with ice creams as I take James to the spot where the spectacular valley opens up below us. In between our stops, we’ve chattered away in the car I’ve hired for my stay here, due to my parents’ vehicle being ‘a bit rustic’, as Mum puts it, with a grimace: ‘In a taking-your-life-in-your-hands kind of way,’ I tell James. ‘But Dad refuses to get a new one. He really is the stubbornest man on earth.’
‘What’s your dad into?’ James asks.
