amount she had spent on keeping herself hydrated since she came to France, Veronica made a mental note to bring a couple of empty bottles next time she walked up to the town.
‘You look a bit heavy-eyed. Did the morning bells wake you?’ asked Melanie sympathetically. ‘They used to chime through the night as well, but some newcomers to the village complained about the “noise pollution”—’ she pulled a face to show she disapproved ‘—so after hundreds of years of happy tradition they now only ring the daylight hours. Mum used to say that one of the lovely things about coming here was that, day or night, she always knew the time without having to wear a watch.’
‘I think I was awake well before the sun came up,’ admitted Veronica, thinking of all the times in the night she had pored over the luminous dial of her watch, hoping to see that her ordeal was nearing an end.
‘I know what that’s like,’ sighed Melanie, adjusting the set of her sling. ‘I don’t wear this in bed but if I lie the wrong way on my arm I feel like a knife is jabbing into me.’ She frowned. ‘I hope it wasn’t because your bed was uncomfortable?’
‘I think maybe I haven’t quite recovered my sleep patterns after being sick in Paris,’ said Veronica hurriedly, successfully diverting the older woman from the embarrassing reason for her sleeplessness.
Melanie instantly demanded the details and was aghast at her lonely suffering. ‘Oh, you poor thing. You should have said something … perhaps you’d like to stay up at the Mas until you—’
‘No, really—I’m fine now,’ Veronica interrupted hastily. ‘It’s probably more the heat than anything else.’
‘If you get hot in the night you should go for a swim in the pool,’ said Sophie as they turned the corner to see the sign for the bakery at the top of the main street, next to the bell-tower archway that led to the St Romain Château, now a private medical clinic. ‘That’s what Luc does. He said he had a midnight swim last night.’
Ha! thought Veronica. She hoped it was a case of the biter bit.
‘What did you think of Luc? Did he say anything to you when he walked to the car last evening?’ Melanie startled her by asking.
‘About what?’ said Veronica cautiously.
‘Oh, I don’t know. I just wondered if he seemed all right to you. I never quite know where I am with Luc,’ she confessed ruefully. ‘It seems an awful thing to say but even as a child I found him a bit intimidating. Oh, not that he was a bully, or anything like that,’ she said quickly, on seeing Veronica’s stiffening expression. ‘He was always quiet and polite, so much so it used to worry me. He had a genius IQ, you see, and seemed such a … self-sufficient little boy. He never seemed to really need me for anything, not the way my biological children did …’
Veronica tried to control her fascinated expression as Melanie sketched a brief word-picture of young Lucien, born the son of Melanie’s best friend, who had died in childbirth.
‘Don and I got married straight away so he wouldn’t lose custody of Luc—but we were really only friends, and a pretty ill-matched pair at that.’ She laughed wryly. ‘He was a motorcycle stunt rider, for goodness’ sake! And no way was I ready to be a mother. I think we were both in a state of shock and thought we were doing the right thing for Lucien, but when it wore off we realised we were heading for disaster. The marriage didn’t even last six months. Don kept custody of Lucien and moved to Australia, but when Luc was ten Don was killed in a motorcycle stunt and, since there were no other relatives, Miles and I agreed to take him in.’
They halted outside the narrow little shop and Sophie slipped in through the creaking screen door as Melanie wound up her brief story.
‘We never regretted it, and I made sure he knew he was a welcome part of a loving family, but I always wondered whether I’d failed him as a baby by letting him go with his father, and I think that guilt made it difficult for me to push myself in where I was afraid he wouldn’t want me to go … so I let him be too aloof, respected his privacy too much when I should just have waded in and smothered him with hugs and kisses whether he wanted them or not, as I did the others. Of course, the twins were toddlers then, and sucked up a lot of my energies, and I was starting to write, so Mum looked after Luc after school a lot of the time. If ever I mention it now, Luc claims that Don was a great dad and he was never aware of missing a mother when he was little, but he never could bring himself to call me anything but Melanie in the whole six years he lived with us, so I guess that tells me something. If anything, I think Mum is more of a mother-figure to him than I am. I’ve heard him call her Gran sometimes.’ Melanie looked abashed as she heard her own words. ‘Do I sound a little jealous? Maybe I am. Mum and he just seemed to click with each other from day one …’
‘Perhaps being a grandmother-figure put her at a more comfortable emotional distance for him,’ ventured Veronica. ‘For a boy without a mother the whole concept might have been a bit overwhelming.’
Melanie’s blue eyes lightened with the thought. ‘You know, you just might be right.’
‘You’re not all that much older than he is, so perhaps he looks on you now as a sort of big sister rather than a stepmother,’ Veronica added, holding the screen door open, her mouth watering as the sweet and savoury smells of hot bread and sugary spices wafted out to greet them.
She had spoken seriously but Melanie was still laughing about it when they stepped back out into the sunlight, Sophie’s basket stacked with long loaves and sticky buns and Veronica clutching her bag of warm croissants.
‘Oh, hello, Luc, we were just talking about you!’
Lucien shifted the armful of square plastic containers against his chest, revealing damp patches on the front of his tee shirt and jeans as he chopped back his stride to join their leisurely pace, walking on the cobbled road to leave the footpath free for the three females.
‘Saying something nice, I hope,’ he said, tilting his head in Veronica’s direction as she ducked hastily to the far side of Sophie.
‘Flattering to me, anyway,’ smiled Melanie. ‘Veronica thinks I’m young enough to be your sister.’
‘Well, there’re only two more years between you and I, than there are between me and Sophie,’ he pointed out, with a gentle amusement that suggested to Veronica that she might have been right. She was jolted out of her complacency when he went on: ‘What about your family, Veronica? How do you enjoy being a big sister?’
Lured into the conversation, she was forced to politely respond to his persistent queries until mention of Karen prompted Melanie to break in:
‘What a pity she wasn’t with you in Paris when you were so frightfully ill. Veronica was stranded in the apartment with a bad case of flu for most of her stay and missed out on a lot of what she wanted to see,’ she told Luc, too absorbed in her own thoughts to see the snapping look he sent across to the other side of the footpath. ‘Perhaps she can somehow add a few days onto the end of her holiday and go back and do all the things she’d planned. I don’t think the apartment is booked up—I’ll check on it for you, Veronica. Otherwise … perhaps … I thought she might stay at your place, Luc—?’ she began diffidently.
Veronica could feel herself start to hyperventilate. ‘Oh, no—’
‘Why, yes, for some reason I can quite clearly picture her happily snuggling down there,’ Luc overrode her spluttering protest with gloating smoothness.
