I do remember, I remember the faded red Citroën that rarely made it to a destination without at least one breakdown. It was my first car, the first one I had bought for two-hundred-and-fifty euros from an old man who had moved into a care home. That car belongs to Etienne’s brother now, along with anything else that couldn’t be dragged back on a Ryanair flight.
Dad lowers the glasses back onto his nose and surveys the itinerary he had insisted on printing out, including the address of the place that Sam had booked on my behalf: an old Grenier apartment a few roads away from the square. It’s not on a street I’m familiar with, and I’m grateful for that. I figure that the stranger things feel, the easier it will all be.
He puts the papers back into a plastic wallet that he had found in his study. ‘I can run this all by Steve?’
I scrunch up my nose. ‘Who’s Steve?’
‘He’s one of your father’s friends from golf, used to work in property law,’ Mum fills in. ‘You met him last month at the Round Table lunch.’ I think about that awful lunchtime outing where I was sandwiched between my parents like a ten-year-old amongst a sea of pensioners. It was one of their many attempts over the past three years at getting me out of the house and talking to some people that I wasn’t directly related to.
‘Can Steve speak French?’ I proposition, leaning over the table towards my father who I know is only trying to be helpful but has never quite adjusted to the fact that I am a certified adult. Perhaps, in his defence, I had used my first taste of independence to take a year abroad where I swiftly sacked off my university degree for a man ten years my senior that I had met at a café, so his trepidation might be valid.
Dad shrugs. ‘He can probably use Google.’
I can’t help but grin, take his arm in my hand and squeeze. ‘You don’t need to manage everything, Dad, I managed to survive perfectly fine for seven years before…’
Mum can hear the waver in my voice before I can control it. Her hand reaches out for mine and takes it. She is making that face she does when she’s trying to appease me, when she’s trying to avoid a scene. ‘We know, love, but you weren’t doing it all by yourself for long were you? You had him and now… well, we’re just trying to help.’ She doesn’t want me to cry at an airport. She is very English when it comes to things like public emotions, she gave me a Valium at the funeral so I wouldn’t have to feel things ‘too hard.’
Finally, the plane pops up on the board and Dad pats down his thighs and coughs loudly.
‘We’ll leave you to it then, you should have enough time to get through security.’
‘I’ve got two hours, Dad, it’s Stansted, how big do you think this place is?’
‘Well, better safe than sorry.’ I can feel my eyes begin to roll again and I stop it before he sees. I don’t want to leave like this. If Ettie’s death taught me anything it’s that you only get one goodbye, and it counts.
He kisses me on the cheek. His hand grips onto the top of my arm, pinches it a little too tightly.
‘Now I know you won’t accept anything now but if you need it, we can send you over some—’
‘Thanks.’ I stop him before he can finish the sentence. I have a few thousand euros in a bank account I haven’t touched, Ettie’s parting gift.
‘Well anyway, give us a ring when you land, hope it’s a good flight.’ Mum calls Dad off the attack with a wave of her hands. She hugs me. She smells of patchouli oil and linen, smells I only notice on the first and last hugs.
They wait in their seats, watching me, whilst I steer the trolley towards the sign for check in.
I sit down at my departure gate. It is quiet, only a few ageing faces peering down at their newspapers. I open my passport. Take a glancing look at a younger me, early twenties, trying not to smile, excited about where it was going to take me. It turns out it wasn’t the ticket to a host of exotic places, just multiple hops across a small stretch of channel to Ettie and back home again.
My phone lights up with another message from Mum asking how things are going. I shoot back an update that I am not currently being frisked in a back office behind security. There’s a message from Archie too. I try to ignore the small warmth that spreads through me; it feels entirely treacherous.
‘Thinking of you,’ he says in a little blue bubble. ‘Think I might even miss you.’ My thumb hovers over the keyboard.
‘Thank you,’ I reply.
Chapter 4
Ipull the silverrental Fiat up the curb to the red dot on Google Maps. 22D Rue Saint Jacques. It feels like the only street in Monpazier that I have never walked down. The more I think about the café with its faded red umbrellas, a mere kilometre up the road, I feel a sudden and immovable weight on my chest.
I step out of the car. The street is shadowed by tall stone buildings with shuttered windows and wonky balconies. As for signs of life? They prove to be minimal. Someone’s washing is fluttering out of a window, there’s a skinny ginger cat that slinks its way up a side street. The only proof that I haven’t landed in some simulation of a tiny French market town is that there is the low hum of conversation coming from the square, the voices and words indistinguishable, but it’s proof enough that I’m not entirely alone.
‘Ava?’ A voice cuts through my train of thought. An elderly woman emerges fully out of an imposing doorway. She is long and willowy and whilst she is sporting entirely white hair that she has pulled up into a bun, her bright red lipstick and black horn-rimmed glasses make her difficult to age. She could be both sixty and ninety. Her lips pull up into a large grin showcasing impressively perfect teeth as if she realises the riddle. It is only when I step towards her that I notice her outfit. She is draped entirely in a black satin kimono, with tassels on her sleeves which almost touch the ground. I get a sudden and powerful urge to curtsy. She feels like someone I should at least bob my head to.
‘You’re the… estate agent?’ My voice is strangely hoarse. It is the first time I have spoken since I left my parents at Stansted.
She lets out a short, sharp puff of air through her lipstick and gestures to her outfit. ‘Do I look like an estate agent?’ The words slip out in American, a broad unidentifiable transatlantic accent that adds to the impression of misplaced grandeur.
‘Well… no.’
‘I’m the owner, honey.’ She winks, and another year falls off her.
