L'amour Actually Read online

  L'AMOUR ACTUALLY

  Copyright © Melanie Jones 2013

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted, nor translated into a machine language, without the written permission of the publishers.

  Melanie Jones has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  Condition of Sale

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Summersdale Publishers Ltd

  46 West Street

  Chichester

  West Sussex

  PO19 1RP

  UK

  www.summersdale.com

  eISBN: 978-0-85765-938-5

  Substantial discounts on bulk quantities of Summersdale books are available to corporations, professional associations and other organisations. For details contact Nicky Douglas by telephone: +44 (0) 1243 756902, fax: +44 (0) 1243 786300 or email: [email protected].

  For Ciaran and Emily,

  still my greatest achievements

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine - Six Weeks Later

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Chapter Twenty-two

  Chapter Twenty-three

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Chapter Thirty-two

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Chapter Thirty-seven - Six Weeks Later

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  'Ladies and gentlemen, as the captain has now illuminated the "Fasten Seatbelts" sign, would you please return to your seats...'

  The gentle Irish lilt of the stewardess roused me from my daydreams and as the plane started its descent into South West France, I took a deep breath. I knew that the slightly sick feeling in the pit of my stomach had more to do with the reality of starting a new life in another country than the change in altitude. What on earth had I been thinking? Was it really only three months since that awful day at work when I had decided to leave everything I knew and loved in London, and move to deepest rural France? It had seemed such a good plan at the time. Well, at least to me. Now, as the reality began to sink in, I had to admit that the whole thing seemed like a rubbish idea.

  I had secretly hoped my boyfriend of the past year would want to share my dream of living the good life, but Alex had just laughed and told me to let him know when I came to my senses. He had said it in that particularly patronising way of his that made me want to squeeze his neck. Tight. Although he wasn't Mr Right – more Mr Right Now – a friendly face beside me and a bit of moral support would have made all the difference.

  'Ahhhh, I always breathe a sigh of relief when I get home,' commented the woman in the next seat, leaning across me and absorbing the view from the tiny window as if she was a Russian dissident being allowed back to her homeland for the first time in decades.

  And I'll breathe a blooming sigh of relief when you get home too, I thought. She was one of those irritating expat types and clearly felt she owed it to the world to impart every ounce of her superior knowledge about life in France.

  'You speak the language of course, don't you?' had been her first question when I told her I was moving to France. We had barely taken off when the interrogation started.

  'Well, not exactly. I did French GCSE but, it wasn't exactly my greatest moment.'

  'But you did do a refresher course before you left, at least?'

  'Er, not exactly.' Leafing through the pages of French Vogue at work probably didn't count. 'Oh!' she exclaimed. 'How on earth will you manage?'

  'I'll be fine. I have a French dictionary, a phrase book and some language tapes, and I'm sure I can find some lessons when I get there. I mean, how difficult can it be?'

  'Ah,' said the woman, wagging her finger in my face, 'many a person has said just that until they got to the subjunctive.' She was, as it turned out, a retired French teacher.

  'Oh well,' she continued, 'I suppose you'll manage the same way as all the others who couldn't be bothered to learn the language. You'll just rely on those of us, like me,' she said pointedly, 'who do.'

  I smiled politely and went back to the book I was reading, determined not to spend the rest of the flight being talked at by this woman. If I avoided engaging with her, I might just stand a chance. 'And then there's integration…'

  I smiled and carried on reading. The woman was clearly on a roll and had no intention of stopping.

  'Integration is the key. You have to find yourself a few nice French friends. Get to know them and their way of life; join their clubs, not the expat ones. Learn how to play boules. Have people round for apéros or hold a few soirées. Watch out for the Brits, most of them are on the run from the taxman or their ex-wife.'

  Or her, I thought before saying aloud, 'Oh, I'm sure that's not true. It's France, not the Costa del Crime.'

  Damn. I'd broken the rules and engaged her in conversation. That was definitely A Bad Move.

  'They're all builders from Birmingham…'

  'What? All of them?' I was starting to get a bit irritated.

  'Well, those that haven't re-invented themselves. Everyone's apparently had some fantastic job and a marvellous life with a huge house in the country. No one ever comes from a council estate in Bradford. Which, of course, begs the question, why are they here? So what did you do?'

  'Celebrity PR, films, that sort of thing.'

  The woman looked at me disbelievingly.

  'Of course you did. Well Trevor, that's my husband...'

  Poor bugger, I thought.

  '... and I never mix with the English. What's the point of moving to a foreign country then building your own Little England?'

  I realised that if I didn't stop her right then, she'd be bending my ear all the way to France.

  'Actually,' I said, leaning in towards the woman, 'I'm planning to integrate my way into the boxers of the first good-looking Frenchman I see. Can't think of any better way to learn the language myself. You wouldn't happen to know the French for "Fancy a shag?" would you? Voulez-vous coucher avec moi just seems a bit 1970s these days.'

  The woman recoiled as if she'd been slapped. I winked at her and went back to my book. Shock and bore, I thought. It works every time. I shock you because you bore me.

  Still, at least the woman had given me a whole new vocabulary to look up in my ridiculously outsized English/French dictionary, a present from my former boss, office Lothario and all-round buffoon.

  As the plane touched down, I craned my neck to catch a glimpse of my new
ly adopted homeland. From today onwards I was no longer Miss Jones of Flat 6, Morton House, Wandsworth; I was Mademoiselle Jones of Les Tuileries, a little cottage that I'd found on the Internet in the hamlet of St Amans de Pierrepoint. How cool was that?

  Well, not very, according to my friends. There had been a real tumbleweed moment when I'd dropped that particular bombshell. I could still picture their looks of complete disbelief that a confirmed city girl like me would even entertain the idea of moving to the country. They really didn't get my need to change my life and slow down a bit, or understand that I felt I couldn't do this just by moving to the Home Counties, as my sister had suggested.

  'Yes, but why France?' Daisy had asked me on that fateful evening when I'd told her.

  I couldn't really explain why France. It was just something I wanted to do while I was still young enough to give it a try. Still, at least they had come round to the idea in the end.

  The plane taxied to a halt outside a small metal hut, which, I was reliably informed by Ms Know-all in the next seat, was the airport terminal building. I'd been expecting the airport to be something along the lines of Exeter, or maybe even Bristol; but frankly, I'd seen bigger village halls than this. Blimey, I thought, how on earth did O'BrianAir ever find this place, never mind decide to operate flights to it? It was little more than a runway in the middle of open fields.

  Tripping gingerly down the aircraft steps in my heels – well, a girl had to keep up appearances, even in the French countryside – I paused for a moment to breathe in the pure, clean air of rural France. The pollution of central London was a thing of the past for me now. I took a deep breath.

  'Jesus Christ!' I spluttered. 'What on earth is that awful stench?'

  A few hundred metres away I spotted a large herd of doe-eyed, cream-coloured cows all lined up along a fence like a welcoming committee. A mist of flies hovered around them. Cows mean only one thing to me. Cowpats. And these cows were filthy. Nothing like the ones in the butter adverts at home.

  Up to that point, my only real taste of country life was when a client had invited me to his country house for a weekend shooting party. It hadn't been my sort of thing in the slightest and I certainly didn't see myself as a tweed and wellies girl; but sometimes you just have to take one for the team. His 4,000-acre estate had been put to good arable use, so to me the countryside was a fragrant place, heavy with the rich smell of ripening corn. I was the first to admit that my idea of rural life came from Country Living magazine rather than Farmers Weekly, but I still hadn't expected it to be this smelly.

  At least the sun was shining. A brief twinge of pity for my friends, stuck in their dull offices in cold, rainy London, pricked my consciousness. OK, so the weather had been beautiful when I left, but it made me feel better to imagine it that way. I tottered across the tarmac towards a sign saying 'Entrée', that hung drunkenly over a doorway leading into the terminal. Inside, I found myself sweltering in the intense heat of a single room which served as either Arrivals or Departures depending on the time of day, but had certainly never been blessed with anything as twenty-first century as air conditioning. Within seconds, little rivulets of sweat started to course down my back and the fetid smell of several hundred perspiring bodies assaulted my senses.

  Everyone was crowded round a rather Heath Robinson baggage reclaim belt, which was little more than a long table with rollers. Through the plastic flaps in the wall, I could just make out a sturdy, thickset man, complete with bushy moustache, frantically slinging all the cases onto the table. The eager hands of the passengers propelled them along the rollers to their owners, while the unclaimed ones were left to drop unceremoniously onto the floor. Until I was sure I was going to stay in France, I had decided to downsize my life into one very overstuffed suitcase. The rest of my belongings were in my parents' loft.

  Barging my way desperately through the milling passengers, I just managed to catch sight of my beloved vintage Louis Vuitton suitcase (genuine, of course) as it arced off the baggage reclaim belt and onto the cement below. To my horror, it sprang open as it hit the floor, spilling out my clothes and worse still, my best La Perla lacy knickers which were immediately trampled underfoot. Silently I cursed my sister for losing the key.

  Uttering cries of 'Excuse me' and 'Excusez-moi', one of the few phrases I remembered from my GCSE French (which I'd failed dismally), I pushed through the crowds and threw myself down on the ground to wrestle my clothes from beneath the feet of my fellow passengers.

  'Do you mind?' I shouted crossly, trying to extricate a pink thong from around the ankle of a military-looking man.

  'What in God's name are you doing woman?' he boomed in a clipped, upper-class voice.

  'Isn't it obvious? I'm trying to get my knickers off…'

  'I beg your pardon?' he choked; his large, veiny nose glowing purple and his eyes bulging.

  'No, off you, not off me! Look!' I pointed at his feet.

  The man looked down to see a tiny scrap of material wrapped around his size ten Church's brogue. 'Call those knickers? More like bally dental floss if you ask me.'

  I smiled weakly as he lifted his foot to release my thong, while I scrabbled around on the floor, shoving assorted items of well-trodden clothing back into the case.

  With all items restored to their rightful place, I straightened up, smoothed down my ruffled hair and joined the queue for what was laughingly called Passport Control – just the one very grumpy-looking border guard sitting behind a little wooden desk. Thinking I'd better give home a quick ring to say I had arrived safely, I rummaged in my handbag for my mobile. Pressing the 'on' button, I waited for it to burst into life. Nothing. The little phone icon had a nasty black bar going through it.

  'No network, mademoiselle,' said a lady standing near me, her English heavily accented, 'you cannot get a signal 'ere. You 'ave to use the phone box.'

  'Does it take bank cards?' I asked.

  The lady looked at me quizzically. 'Cards? Non, espèces only, 'ow you say, cash.'

  'Cash? Gosh, I haven't seen a phone box like that for years. How quaint. OK, thanks anyway, um, merci,' I said, wishing it had occurred to me to bring some euro coins as well as notes.

  As the queue gradually got shorter, I indulged in a little bit of people watching. There seemed to be far more English voices than French. In fact, it reminded me of a donkey sanctuary what with all the braying that was going on. When I finally got to the head of the queue, I wished the border guard a cheery 'bonjour' and handed over my passport. He looked at it closely then looked at me. All right, so my passport did make me look like a member of a terrorist cell, but wasn't it a universal truth that passport photos made you look either slightly deranged or like the latest mass murderer?

  He narrowed his eyes, studying me from beneath a pair of spectacularly shaggy eyebrows, then slapped my passport closed and shoved it back at me with a gruff 'merci'. I had hoped for something a little more auspicious to mark the beginning of my new life in France. Surely it warranted bells and whistles or something? Taking my passport and suitcase, I headed outside to the taxi rank – except there didn't seem to be one. I threaded my way through groups of hugging relatives and friends to have a better look. Nope, there definitely wasn't one. Maybe you just had to wait and one would turn up.

  Lugging my increasingly cumbersome suitcase to the front of the terminal building, I cursed my decision to make a pair of spike-heeled Louboutins the footwear of choice for the trip. There wasn't even a proper footpath, just what looked like builders' rubble everywhere. Not ideal in heels. Must be all those builders from Birmingham emptying out their boots before they start their new lives as retired brain surgeons, I thought, making my way carefully along the path.

  From out of nowhere, a huge people carrier with blacked-out windows purred up to the kerb, the rear door sliding open automatically before it had even stopped. A young woman wearing oversized sunglasses which covered half her face pushed past me and, almost knocking me off my feet, jumped
into the back. 'Well don't mind me!' I shouted crossly.

  The woman didn't even look up as the door slammed shut and the car took off at speed. I glared up the road after it.

  'It was her, I'm telling you Mum,' I overheard a teenage girl say as she passed me.

  'It can't have been. What would she be doing here?' her mother replied.

  Who? I thought, wondering if I dare ask them. In my line of work, I mixed with famous faces all the time and although I had only glimpsed the woman briefly, she certainly didn't strike me as anyone I should have known. Oh well, now I'd probably never know.

  Dumping my suitcase on the ground, I sat on it and waited for a taxi to arrive... and waited and waited. Half an hour later I was still sitting there, increasingly hot and bothered and wondering whether I would ever make it to Les Tuileries this side of Christmas. By this time, the airport was deserted, my fellow passengers had long since left. Who would have thought it? An airport deserted in the middle of the day. Where were all the flights? In desperation, I went back into the terminal building in search of someone, anyone, who might be able to help me find a taxi.