Weak at the Knees (23 page)

He doesn’t bother with a kiss, but goes straight for the hug. I embrace him warmly, understanding that he must have been through one hell of a week with his father.

“Alexandre told us about your dad. How is he?” I ask.

“He’s okay, thank you for asking, but it was touch and go for a while. He’s back home now as of this afternoon.”

“That’s excellent news, I’m so pleased.”

“Yes, it’s been a hard week. Olivier has in particular found it testing.”

I’m relieved Michel’s mentioned his brother. Now I can bring him up without it looking odd.

“How is Olivier?”

“He’s good now. I’ve just been with him and he’s gone home with his wife. I suggested he come with me to say goodbye to you and Gina, but he said he was too tired.”

I feel numb, dead inside. I’ve been given too much information. Olivier’s gone home with his wife and had no intention of coming up the mountain to say goodbye. What more do I need to know? I want this conversation to end and to be left alone, but Michel isn’t playing ball.

“Danni,” he continues, “I just want to tell you again how much I like you. If you want to stay here with me I will be very happy.”

I can tell from his nervous, slightly cheeky smile that he doesn’t really expect me to say that I feel the same way, but he’s got nothing to lose. I’m going home tomorrow.

“Michel,” I try to smile, “that’s nice to know. I promise you’ll be the first person to know if I change my mind.”

 “Are you sad to be leaving Montgenèvre?”

“Very sad,” I admit, “I love it here.”

There’s so much more I’d like to add. Like I love your brother, I don’t want to leave and can’t bear the thought of going back to London, to nothing. I can’t believe this is happening this way, that Olivier isn’t even going to come to say goodbye and it’s going to end like this. Instead I engage in small talk and lie prostrate on my giant suitcase whilst Michel tries to squeeze the zip round. Then I give him
Sauces for
Seduction,
telling him it could work wonders on his love life. Finally, at close to midnight, the wrong Monsieur du Pape walks out of my life.

When Amber and I watched movies at home or the cinema, I always liked the neat, sell-out Hollywood endings, she liked the sad ones. It doesn’t always work out happy ever after, she’d say. Life’s not like that. But I couldn’t stand that
Dr. Zhivago
had a heard attack and never saw Lara again and was equally as gutted that Robert Redford and Barbara Streisand didn’t get back together in
The Way we Were.

I toss and turn all night, failing to sleep a wink, miserably aware that my story’s about to finish the way Amber would like. I’m not convinced she’d be happy to see me suffer, but she might consider it fitting. If you play with fire and help commit adultery, you are likely and should get burned. Its payback time and I’m getting no more or less than I deserve. Gina and I have finished packing and cleaned the flat. We’ve checked under the beds, in the cupboards and behind the shower curtain. We’re done. We’re ready to leave. Only I’m stalling, playing for time because once I’ve gone it will be too late and I don’t want it to be too late. I don’t want to go home, I want this to be my home, but not without Olivier. I’m looking for a miracle, something to take away the raw pain and emptiness I’m feeling inside. I step onto the balcony for one last time and check if there are any familiar vehicles driving along the road snaking towards the resort one last time. Gina comes to join me.

“It’s very quiet,” she says.

It’s true. The resort’s like a ghost town, much as it was when we arrived, only there’s no longer any snow. When the season is officially over, people don’t hang around. They clear straight off to sort out their summer work, which more often than not is by the sea.

“Do you think I’m being punished for doing a bad thing?” I ask Gina.

“Danni, you weren’t the one committing adultery and anyway, you know I think that’s a load of rubbish. Lightning never struck me or Pierre down.”

“What about your accident?” I probe.

“Don’t go getting fatalistic on me,” Gina is unchanging. “My accident was a coincidence. Plenty of people do bad things and get away with it, and a lot of horrible things happen to those who least deserve it. So no, I don’t think you’re being punished. And I don’t think adultery is such a heinous crime either.”

We lapse into silence. I can see Gina looking at her watch out the corner of my eye and dread what I know she’s going to say.

“I really think we should make a move,” she starts, bang on cue, “to try to get a full days’ driving in before it gets dark. I’m so sorry Dan. I really thought he would come or call or something.”

I nod. My eyes start filling. I dab them with a tissue, reluctantly follow Gina inside and pick up my rucksacks.   

*****

The car’s loaded. We’re all set. I walk right up close to the edge of the road, which drops sharply below, and drink in the view. The mountains feel all majestic today and look wise and knowing. Like they’ve seen it all, people coming and going, my story over and over which always ends in tears. I take a deep breath of fresh alpine air, enough for me and for Amber to savour and lean over the railing to peer down the valley. There’s not a car arriving in sight; the only thing that catches my eye is a glint from the Russian wedding ring Hugo gave me for my 18
^th
. It looks so innocent and pretty on my wedding finger.

My mother has always been superstitious. She’s spent a lifetime warning me not to walk under ladders and to be careful on Friday 13ths. She also warned me that it’s unlucky to wear a ring on your wedding finger unless you’re actually married. “It can lead to always being the bridesmaid, never the bride,” she’d said. I’ve worn Hugo’s ring on that finger for nine years and never given it a second thought, but suddenly I’m convinced that this band of three linked circles is to blame for Olivier not coming. I’ve cursed myself into never getting married. I twist the guilty accessory up and down, desperate to inch it off my digit so that I might be relieved of this curse. If I can get this stubborn thing off, perhaps things can still be turned around. Eventually it twists off in anger, my skin red and sore. I hold it up, as if about to perform a sacrificial ceremony and walk as close to the road’s edge as I can possibly get. I close my eyes for a second and toss it into the valley with all my might.

“Sorry Hugo,” I yell.

The phrase echoes three times in the silence, each time getting fainter. I watch it spinning down at speed, out of vision, before deciding it really is time to make a move and accept my fate. And then something comes along and bashes into my knees, pushing me so off balance I nearly topple over the barrier.

“What the fu-

I cry, blindly hitting out as I turn and when I do, I’m greeted by a brown-haired, slightly shaggy, slightly panting, furry friend. It’s the cheese shepherd.

*****

Asterix is here, but as I scan from right to left there’s still no sign of his master. I kneel down to stroke the dog, with furious palpitations in my chest, praying for his owner to present himself. And then he walks round the bend, only stopping when he reaches the other side of his dog. I stand and meet his gaze.

“Salut ma biche,” he says softly.

“Salut,” I croak, barely audible, a plethora of thoughts simultaneously shooting through my head. Has he come to say goodbye, good day or good luck? He looks tired, with huge bags under his eyes which today are twinkle-free. No doubt mine look equally as dead.

“I’m really sorry, Danni. I couldn’t get here till now. It’s been a truly terrible week. Please don’t go. Please come back with me so I can explain everything.”

“Explain what?”

“Explain that I still want us to be together if that’s what you still want.”

“Is your wife there?”

“No, she’s just left for the week. But my father had a heart attack and-

“I know. Michel came to say goodbye yesterday.”

Olivier nods.

“You could have called,” I tell him. “I know you’ve had a terrible week, but you could have called.”

“I know how it must look. I need time to explain everything and maybe then you’ll understand. Please stay. Let’s talk this through. Don’t leave here now, like this.”

A tiny part of me thinks I should go home, to teach him a lesson and make him suffer like I have this past week. But as I look into his tired, trusting eyes, I know I can’t turn my back on him. I owe it to myself and to us. I’ve gone so far down this road that I might as well travel a little further. A fresh (and not necessarily aphrodisiac) carrot has been dangled in front of me. I have to take a bite.

“I’ll get my stuff out of the car,” I say.

*****

Gina’s lying back on the bonnet, soaking up the rays. She sits up as the two of us approach. When we arrive, she jumps down and fists Olivier’s arm playfully.

“You cut that one a bit fine,” she tells him.

He grins sheepishly. She’s guessed that I’m not going home after all and hands me the car keys and joins me as I open the boot.

“Look,” she suggests, “it’s probably best you don’t keep all your stuff here with you. And seeing as you’re going to have to go home at some point, why don’t you take what you need for now and I’ll take the rest of your stuff back. That way I get to see you one more time in England.”

“That’s a good idea. Are you sure you don’t mind?”

“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I did.”

I select the two bags I want to keep with me and unload them.

“Will you be alright driving all the way home by yourself?” I check.

“I’ll be fine. I made it here alone, so I’m sure I’ll make it back in one piece too.”

I hug her tightly, squeezing until she squeals. Our clasped bodies sway slightly off-balance.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” I say.

“Me too,” she whispers, “but hey Dan, he came. It’s going to work out you know. Trust him.”

We squeeze each other one last time before reluctantly pulling away. Then Gina gets into the car, winds the window down and turns on the ignition. Olivier, Asterix and I wag a limb each as Gina’s rusty green Vauxhall fades into the distance.

*****

Back at the bohemian converted barn, in its large field for a back garden, we lie facing one another on a blue batik sarong bought by Michel in Indonesia. While listening to the birdsong and drinking homemade mint tea, Olivier explains everything. How when his father had a heart attack he felt guilty and responsible, as if this was his punishment for being unfaithful. He convinced himself that if he called me, then his Dad wouldn’t make it through. When his father had been given the all-clear and was finally taken home last night, Olivier had planned to leave his wife and come up to see me. But then Michel told him that he was coming and seeing as Olivier didn’t want to be there at the same time as his brother, he decided to wait till today.

“But you could have called,” I say.

“Yes, but I hate the phone. I couldn’t have explained all this on the phone. I needed to speak to you face to face.”

“By the time you got here it could have been too late. I might already have gone,” I say.

“You’d have had to leave really early for me to miss you. Besides, we’d have crossed paths en route.”

A slight breeze blows a few strands of hair into my mouth. Olivier brushes them away and strokes my cheek.

“Shall we talk practicalities ma biche?”

Olivier, it transpires, has a plan. What with everything going on last week, he hasn’t yet told his wife, although he thinks a part of her senses it and guesses. As he knows I don’t want to be here full-time until he’s done the deed, and as his wife’s away for the next five days, he suggests I stay until then and then maybe go back home for a few days to sort things out my end. And then I can come back so that we can start the rest of our lives together.

“How does that sound?” he checks.

“You won’t go changing your mind or springing any other nasty surprises on me?”

“I promise.”

“Then I accept.”

We lie back a while longer, basking in the sun and enjoying the tranquillity. Then we pick up the mugs and makeshift rug and head indoors.

*****

Late afternoon, I’m sifting through one of my bags, looking for a hairclip, when I come across the Abba piano sheet music, my birthday present. I hold it up, excited.

“Do you mind if I play?” I ask.

“Of course not, you can play whilst I make dinner. I’m cooking something special tonight, to celebrate.”

I walk to the Steinway upright and flick through the music book. Sight-reading is not my forte.
Take a Chance on Me
has too many sharps.
The Winner Takes it All
has too many flats. I finally settle on
Mamma Mia
. It sounds nothing like it should do until at least half-an-hour later, tenth time through, which is when I start to sing, without realising.