Love in a Warm Climate Read online

  I wonder how many thousands of couples end up looking back at their wedding photo with regret and bitterness, for what reason?

  Do I now regret marrying Nick? No, of course not, since I have the children. Life without Nick I suppose I can get used to, but I can’t imagine wanting to go on living without them. I wonder how he can.

  Sarah says he’s beaver-struck. This rather charming phrase means that he can think of nothing apart from what lies between Cécile’s legs.

  “It melts their brains,” she told me in an email yesterday. “I’ve seen it happen hundreds of times. They’re no longer thinking straight and they do the most stupid and unimaginable things.”

  I suppose at least he makes the effort to call and talk to the kids almost every day. They are thankfully not asking too many questions, he was always going to be working from London so they expected him to be away a lot, and to save money he was only going to come home a couple of weekends a month before the vineyards got busy.

  Do I regret moving to France? Despite what has happened, I have really enjoyed living here – loved being somewhere different, loved eating lunch outside in winter, adored the markets, the fresh food, and the beautiful language, even if it is totally incomprehensible, especially the way they speak it down here with the Midi twang. But my French has improved by about one hundred and fifty per cent in the two months we’ve been here – I’m not sure how much my lessons with Valérie helped but watching television and listening to the radio have made a huge difference. Every time I drive anywhere, I listen to all-talk shows such as ‘France Culture’ or ‘France-Inter’. The first few times I understood practically nothing, but slowly I began to distinguish words and the great thing is they repeat the news every fifteen minutes so you can often get what you missed the first time.

  I love my home, with its stone steps that make me feel like the queen of the castle every time I walk up them. I love the way the thousands of footsteps that have walked up and down them have made them dip slightly in the middle, like stones under a waterfall.

  The early-morning sun is glistening on the olive leaves. I love being here, love the fresh air, the lack of people, my deep red rose plant on the balcony, the view from my balcony across my vineyards and the Château de Boujan to my right. The track to the left in between the two Sauvignon Blanc vineyards that leads to the plane-tree lined road along the boundary of the château land and then on to the village in the distance.

  But instead of the confidence I had when we moved here, the anticipation of a new life for us, I feel out of my depth. I still don’t think I can cope all alone; the house is too big, the vineyards are a mystery, and the language is still fairly impenetrable. How could I even have thought about running a vineyard? A bit of pruning is all very well, but how do I go from here to making wine? Sarah is mad; she’s impulsive and has no fear. Which is great in some ways, but doesn’t work when you’ve got three children to look after.

  The children, my little ones, are going to be so upset. They love their school and Edward even has a best friend. At home he was always alone in the playground, pretending to be Spiderman. Now he has two little friends, Charles (pronounced in a rather sexy French way, Charle, making him sound like some kind of exotic chocolate mousse) and Sky, whom he jumps around with.

  How will they cope with going back? How much will they miss it? I feel like the wicked witch of the west packing them all back to England.

  Talking of the children, I have to collect them from school. I’m late so I decide to drive. I’m just about to get in the car when my mobile phone rings. I wonder if it’s Nick and if he’s calling to find out what my plans are. We have talked a bit but I really haven’t felt like telling him much, after all he created this mess, how I get us out of it is my business. I answer the phone. It’s not him; it’s my partially deaf estate agent.

  “Mrs Reed, I have some very good news,” he says. Yeah right. Good news for him and his seven and a half per cent. “Pending permission for their campsite, Mr and Mrs Spratt would like to make you an offer for the house and land of €775,000, which I know is less than you paid for it, but I think in the current market it’s a fair offer.”

  I don’t respond.

  “Especially considering the weakness of the pound,” he goes on.

  I still can’t think of anything to say. That should give me enough to buy a semi-detached house in one of the dodgier parts of London, I calculate.

  I look back towards the house; it has just started to rain, and the rain and the sun are battling it out. The sun has come out behind the house, creating a halo effect around it with a rainbow just in front of it. The soft rain-drops falling make it look like one of those magical castles in a child’s toy, one of those things you shake and the snow flies around it.

  I feel a desperate pang of loss and sorrow as I tell him I will accept their offer. He sounds delighted and tells me he’ll be up in the morning with the compromis de vente.

  I stand by the car for a minute wondering what I’ve done. I haven’t even asked Nick what he wants to do, he’ll probably be relieved I’ve managed to find a buyer so quickly – some places are on the market for several months.

  Wolfie comes and stands at my side. Now and again he flicks up his head to nuzzle my hand. I feel guilty and miserable. I have betrayed his hard-won trust.

  Rule 11

  Lip-gloss is part of the armour you need to go into battle

  The French Art of Having Affairs

  So how to tell the children we’re moving? We are all in the sitting room playing cards and waiting for Johnny’s new TV show to start. They are being incredibly sweet. We are having a lovely evening; they ate a dinner of fresh asparagus, gorgeous olive bread and goat’s cheese outside in the sun. They have already adopted the local habit of dipping their goat’s cheese in olive oil and a touch of salt. I love watching them get used to eating the French way – another reason I am dreading going back home to England where the culture of food is nowhere near as important.

  I still can’t eat much and am living off coffee and fat reserves. I should write a diet book; the Lose your Husband and your Midriff Diet. Funnily enough, my world may be falling apart but my body hasn’t felt this good in years. I have lost five kilos so far and am toning up thanks to Sarah’s exercises. I can now manage twenty leg lifts before I feel like spontaneously combusting, and then I fight my way through the remaining sixteen. I have become hooked on her little routine and it’s amazing how much difference it makes. Though I am dreading my birthday when I have to add yet another leg-lift.

  I told Sarah this on the phone the other day.

  “There, you see,” she replied. “Every cloud has a silver lining. Soon you’ll find some sexy Frenchman who will just adore the new you and bring you to multiple orgasm within seconds of meeting him.”

  A nice idea, but unlikely. Funnily enough, finding another man is hardly top of my ‘to do’ list.

  Sarah was also full of the news of multiple orgasms of her own. She and Mr Enormous had been out for dinner the evening before and ended up back at her flat afterwards.

  “Oh my God, Soph, if I thought his kissing was good, well, you cannot IMAGINE how unbelievable his oral technique was.”

  “His oral what? It sounds like you’re talking about some kind of swimming stroke.”

  “The way he, you know, down there… Arrrggghhhhhhh it was incredible, totally and utterly amazing, I must have had 15 orgasms in an hour, and we haven’t even had sex yet. Oh Soph I think I could seriously fall in love with this guy.”

  “That’s what worries me,” I said. “What happens next? Where does this move on to?”

  “More orgasms?”

  Just as I settle down to play snap with the kids my phone rings, it’s Nick. Once he’s talked to them all I take the phone and walk out on to the terrace.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi Soph,” says Nick. “How are things?”

  “More importantly, Mr Viagra, how are you?”
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  “Oh don’t. If only you knew.” He sounds suddenly very tired.

  “Knew what?”

  “Doesn’t matter, you’d never believe me.”

  “You’re probably right, I wouldn’t.”

  “Anyway, I’m good, thanks.”

  You’re not good, you’re an evil bastard is on the tip of my tongue but instead I say. “I guess we need to have a chat about the future?”

  “Yes.”

  “And your thoughts are…?” I suddenly realise I’m delving into my pocket to get out my lip-gloss as we talk. What’s wrong with me? He can’t even see me. Still, it makes me feel better.

  “Soph to be honest I just don’t know. I feel terrible about all this and terrible about the kids. Shit, I never thought it would come to this.”

  Maybe, like Sarah, he just thought it would come to a lot of orgasms.

  “Well, it has. Believe me if I could avoid disrupting their lives I would, but I don’t see how I can stay on at Sainte Claire, running the vineyard and doing everything. Added to which, I don’t want to have to rely on you for a living. Or anything else for that matter. So I’ve accepted an offer on the house.”

  I can hear him gulp all the way from London.

  “I understand Soph, but you know I’ll do what’s right.”

  “Do I?”

  “Of course,” he says vehemently. “I’ve been a prat but I won’t see the kids suffer any more than they have to, or you.”

  “Well, that’s a comfort,” I tell him, although the only thing that would truly be a comfort would be to have him weeping and begging to come back. “Bye Nick, I’ll keep you posted on our plans.”

  I walk back in to the sitting room and we start our game. Edward keeps saying ‘snap’ every time which drives the girls mad, but I find it quite endearing. I guess that’s indicative of our relationship dynamic; I find him angelic and sweet and they want to murder him.

  “Quiet,” says Charlotte. “It’s starting.” We stop playing Snap and focus on the TV screen.

  The music begins and Johnny appears, looking rakish. Before Jane Eyre starts they show a film about Johnny’s life. They show pictures of the small council house he grew up in, his parents, who died in a car crash when he was a boy, the aunt and uncle who brought him up, and then they show clips, starting with the first TV role he landed, playing a disgruntled young man in Blackpool, and ending with his Oscar-nominated performances in two films and then his latest role as the brooding Mr Rochester. It really is a rags to riches story; someone should make a film of it.

  He does look dashing in his Mr Rochester kit with his long curly hair. The female lead is pretty. I wonder if they’re an item. A part of me still regrets that we never got together.

  “He won’t love her, Mummy, will he?” says Emily after the show is finished. “He loves you.”

  I laugh. “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “Yes it is, he told us so.”

  “Oh I think he was just being dramatic,” I say.

  “What’s gramatic?” asks Edward.

  “Dramatic,” I correct him. “It means you say things to get a reaction, they’re not necessarily true.”

  “Well, I don’t think he was being…” Emily can’t remember the word so resorts to her favourite one: “Whatever. I think he loves you. I hope Daddy won’t mind. He won’t like you having a boyfriend.”

  Now would be a good time to tell them. To just come out with it and say “Guess what, Daddy won’t mind at all because he’s got a girlfriend”. But I chicken out and take them upstairs for a bath.

  Whenever Nick was away on business or working late in London, we would all get ready for bed together. It was a ritual that I loved. I loved being with them, getting all clean and cosy with them. I would have a bath with the children, and then we’d all get into our pyjamas and get onto my bed, where we’d either read a book or watch a film. There is nothing quite as lovely as newly bathed children, all fresh and rosy-cheeked from the bath, tired but not over-tired, and ready for a story.

  Tonight we reinstate that old favourite ritual. I run a hot bath and put some lavender oil into it. The smell of the lavender spreads throughout the room, making me feel calmer than I have done in days. This is just the kind of evening my raw nerves need. A calm, cosy evening with the children and an early night before I face tomorrow, when I will sign away the house and our new life.

  I go to bed shortly after the children do, but sleep badly. I have dreams about Johnny mixed up with the house here and boxes of belongings tumbling all over the place and the children crying, coupled with memories of my parents’ split-up, my father’s silent grief, my mother’s histrionics.

  I am woken up at four in the morning by Emily, who tells me there is a ‘meanie fly’ in her room before going back to sleep next to me. I am left awake, feeling totally unsafe, insecure and lost. I don’t want my children to go through the trauma I went through as a child. I suppose Nick and I will be mature about it – more reasonable perhaps than my parents were. My last memory of them together is walking across Hyde Park one day when I was about four years old. They were arguing. I tried to put their hands together. My father accepted the gesture but my mother rejected his hand. I never saw him again.

  I lie there fretting about our future and the reality of going from this to a semi-detached in a grey suburb from which I will have to commute to central London every day. The children will wear their house key around their necks and try to avoid getting stabbed on their way home from school. I think about what is left for me in England, now that my husband has opted for a life with Cécile and her perfect sex drive.

  And I think about that couple from Sussex living in my house and living the life I so longed for and dreamed about for so long. I think about the children missing out on the chance to speak flawless French and having the experience of living somewhere else, knowing another culture and being justifiably able to support a national football team that sometimes wins things. I think about the vines, now neatly pruned and waiting to be sprayed before it starts to rain so they won’t get mildew and rot.

  I fall into a fretful sleep and wake at seven with a phrase from Johnny’s TV programme going round in my head. I don’t know where it came from, but suddenly there it is, like the bright neon light that hangs over the Boujan bar. At one stage on the show someone asked him what he attributed his success to.

  “Belief in myself and hard work,” he replied. “With those two things you can achieve anything”.

  He’s right. Of course you can do anything. He went from a council house in Leeds to meeting the Queen (I saw the picture in Hello!, she was at the première of one of his films).

  So if Johnny can do anything, why can’t I? At first the thought makes me laugh and I respond with an automatic ‘Don’t be silly’ to myself, roll over and try to go back to sleep without disturbing Emily. But the thought won’t go away. I sit up in bed. Actually, why not? Is it sillier to think you can run a vineyard with no previous experience or think you can become a film star when you are an orphan from a council house? Why shouldn’t I run a vineyard? Plenty of people do. Even Australians, as Sarah points out.

  Maybe I can make a life here for us all. Maybe there is no need to run away. I can do it. I may not be able to hang on to my husband but I can hang on to the life I want for me and my children. I can learn to drive a tractor. And I will just have to make friends with old M. de Sard when he finally pitches up, and maybe borrow some of his workers if I need to, and some of his expertise.

  I leap out of bed feeling more energetic and happier than I have since before I found Cécile’s bra. I almost feel like running upstairs and waking the children to share the good news with them, but luckily I hadn’t told them I was planning to drag them back to soggy old England in the first place.

  I go out onto my balcony and look at my rose, my view, and my vines, soon to become exquisite wine, sold in all the best restaurants in London. The sun is already up and shining, ready to
inspire me. This feels so right. For the first time in days I feel like I know what I want, although I’ve still got to work out how to do it.

  “We’re going to make it,” I tell my rose confidently.

  I go inside to get the phone. The deaf agent will be happily printing out the compromis de vente any time now. I have to stop him. I call him on his mobile from my terrace.

  “Please tell them I said no,” I tell him sternly.

  “What? Who is this?” He sounds a little sleepy.

  “It’s Mrs Reed from Sainte Claire. Please tell those people that I’ve changed my mind.”

  “Mrs Reed, I’m not sure they are willing to increase their offer,” says my agent patiently.

  “No, you don’t understand,” I reply as Wolfie runs by underneath the balcony, looking up at me briefly and wagging his tail before vanishing around the corner. “Sainte Claire is no longer for sale. We’re staying.”

  Rule 12

  Always be prepared, your next lover could be just around the corner

  The French Art of Having Affairs

  “What do you mean you haven’t had a lover since you were married?” asks my new French friend Audrey. “What’s wrong with you?”

  I look down at my body for signs of any obvious physical malfunctions.

  “Well, nothing. I mean, once you’re married, you’re supposed to stay faithful, you know, forsaking all others and all that?”

  Audrey throws her head back and laughs. The lonely alcoholic at the bar nursing his Pernod turns to see where the noise is coming from. Not much happens in Boujan’s bar. There is a dog that wanders up and down the length of it like a condemned prisoner in a cell, and said alcoholic will occasionally fall off his stool, but normally it is pretty quiet. A young woman laughing is big news.