The French for Love by Fiona Valpy

Author:Fiona Valpy [Valpy, Fiona]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, mobi
Tags: Fiction, Contemporary Women
ISBN: 9781909490093
Google: XwttngEACAAJ
Amazon: 1909490091
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2013-07-09T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SEVEN

The State of the Nation

To-Do list:

• Re-hang shutters—ask Thibaults

• Buy more teabags

• Practise taking deep breaths and letting go—ongoing

• 45 mins Pilates (frustration still taking its toll...)—daily

• Stop obsessing about incredibly romantic moment with unattainable married man with children—ongoing.

Celebrations and jubilations—that’s the last shutter finished! I’ve left the heavy ones that flank the doorway until the end and now they are neatly sanded, undercoated and painted and are resting on the trestles to dry. I’ll ask the Thibault brothers to put them back on for me tomorrow. All the windows are now framed with the sage-green panels and I pause for a moment on my way back to the house to survey my handiwork. Most satisfying.

I’m cleaning both the brushes and my green-spotted hands at the kitchen sink when there’s a tap at the door and a faint ‘Coucou!’ I turn, and am delighted to find Mireille on the doorstep.

‘I’ve come to inspect all the work that’s been going on here—both yours and my sons,’ she grins, her eyes bright as a bird’s in the leather-brown folds of her face.

‘Well, you’re just in time for tea, too,’ I reply.

‘Good, I hoped that might be the case.’

We go out onto the terrace where Pierre is passing roof tiles up to Cédric. Raphael and Florian are elsewhere this week, finishing up other jobs before their break.

‘The building inspector is here,’ I call, and the men pause in their work.

Peering down from his scaffolding perch, Cédric says in mock alarm, ‘Oh, mon Dieu, not that one! She’s particularly difficult.’ He climbs down to join us. His manner is always nothing but professional when any of his brothers are around, but today I sense that he’s been a little more distant with me and it’s as if our moment of intimacy at the festivities last night never happened.

The boys explain to their diminutive mother what they’ve been doing and she squints up at the newly rebuilt chimney and the surrounding roof with a critical gaze, before finally giving their work a nod of approval. ‘We’re still waiting for the cowl for the chimney. It’s on order at Lacombe and will only be in at the end of the month, but as it’s summer Gina won’t be lighting any fires I think,’ says Cédric. Our eyes lock and I blush at his words as, unbidden, a sudden vision enters my mind of a roaring fire on a winter’s night, the two of us sitting in front of the flames sharing a bottle of wine, his lips on mine...

‘And there’s still the internal plastering to be done,’ he continues, but his gaze is still focused on my face and I feel even more flustered at the thought that he may be reading my mind. ‘But we’ll come back after the holiday to finish that off.’ I snap back to reality and try to concentrate on the discussion once again.

‘Are you going to use wet plaster or plasterboard?’ Mireille asks knowledgeably. I have no idea what the difference is,

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