French Leave

‘Please, Livvy. I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t so important to me. You know how I’ve always felt about France, and I know that you feel the same. It’s a part of us, after all…of our heritage, and I want to pass that heritage on to the boys…I want them to experience at least a part of their childhood growing up in the French countryside as we did…’

Wryly, Livvy mentally acknowledged the skill of her cousin’s argument. She had enjoyed those childhood times in France, and treasured the memory of them. They had given her a view of another nation’s way of life that she felt had broadened her horizons and her awareness in a way that very few people were fortunate enough to experience.

‘And it’s not just that,’ Gale continued, sensing victory. ‘I’m not just being sentimental. There’s the fact that their French is bound to improve, and by the time they’re adults the ability to speak a second language will be a very important career asset. You’re the one who’s always said that the inability to understand one another’s languages is one of the greatest barriers between peoples.’

‘Yes, I know,’ Livvy acknowledged.

‘All I want is enough time to make George see reason…To make him listen…If only we could get away ourselves, but it’s impossible at the moment. He’s working virtually twenty-four hours a day. Ever since Robert Forrest took over the company…’

‘Robert Forrest?’ Livvy was interested.

‘Yes. I told you, the millionaire entrepreneur who bought out the company last year. George thinks he’s wonderful. Personally I blame him for the way George has changed, the way he’s behaving. He’s completely dominating George, making him work virtually twenty-four hours a day. Just because he’s not married…

‘At least, not any more. He was once, but his wife left him for someone else. Small wonder. She got an enormous divorce settlement, apparently. She’s dead now…a car accident with her new man…’

She broke off as Livvy made a small sound of compassion and exclaimed, ‘Poor man, what a dreadful thing to have happened. It’s bound to have made him a bit bitter.’

‘A bit bitter? The man’s a misogynist. A marriage-wrecker,’ Gale stormed. ‘I’d love to tell him exactly what I think of him and what he’s doing to our marriage…to our children. He hasn’t got any of his own. Men like that never do, do they? Of course George defends him like a dog protecting a bone.’ Her eyes flashed, her face flushing.

She was a very striking-looking woman…commanding rather than pretty. Despite Gale’s bossy way, Livvy was genuinely fond of her cousin, who had been very generous with both her advice and more practical help in the form of rent-free accommodation in the early days when Livvy had first been teaching.

She was fond of George, too, and of their children, and a summer spent in the Dordogne was a tempting prospect.

There was nothing after all to keep her at home for the summer; no plans…no special relationship. Yes, a couple of months in the Dordogne was certainly a far more enticing prospect than the same period of time spent in her small flat.

Even so…

‘Look, Gale, are you sure that you’re not being a little bit unfair to George? With so many people losing their jobs…’

‘Unfair?’ Gale turned on her indignantly. ‘Just how fair am I supposed to be? How fair is he being to us, to me? I told him, Livvy…I told him that he owed it to us to spend more time with us…that he was neglecting us and that if he wasn’t careful he could lose us. I told him he had to tell Robert Forrest that he had a right to his private life; I even gave him an ultimatum and warned him that, unless he did so…’ She broke off, shaking her head.

‘That was last week, and since then nothing’s changed…nothing. He left for work at seven o’clock this morning and he won’t be back until close on midnight. That’s if I’m lucky…

‘You tell me, Livvy. Am I being unfair?’

Sadly, Livvy shook her head. No, Gale wasn’t being unfair, she reflected later as she drove home. But she could perhaps be more understanding…more compassionate…more aware? Wryly Livvy admitted that the chances of her strong-minded cousin’s exhibiting any of those emotions were very slim indeed.

‘Two months in the Dordogne, rent-free—you lucky thing,’ her colleagues had sighed enviously.

‘Mmm…maybe you’ll meet some gorgeous, sexy Frenchman,’ Jenny, the maths teacher, had teased her.

Livvy had laughed. ‘We’re talking about rural France, not Paris,’ she had told her. ‘Any Frenchmen I do meet, handsome or otherwise, will be very, very firmly attached to their wives and children.’

‘So?’ Jenny’s eyes had twinkled. ‘Who’s talking about anything permanent? What’s wrong with a small summer fling, an excitingly brief affair?’

‘What’s wrong with it is that I don’t want it,’ Livvy told her firmly. ‘Getting involved with a man who just wants to use me isn’t my idea of fun.’

‘You might not be able to stop yourself. What if you fall in love?’

‘In lust, you mean,’ Livvy had corrected her, shaking her head as she added determinedly, ‘No, I’d never do that. My self-respect wouldn’t let me. When I do love a man it will be because I admire and respect him intellectually and emotionally, not because I’m turned on physically by his body…’

She had left the staff-room with Jenny’s laughter still ringing in her ears.

‘Be careful,’ Jenny had called warningly after her. ‘You could be tempting fate, saying something like that.’

‘No way,’ Livvy had responded with a grin. ‘Tempting fate, or a Frenchman, is the last thing I intend to do!’

At twenty-five she considered herself far too responsible and mature to plunge into the kind of reckless, hedonistic, dangerous type of affair Jenny had teased her about. Such affairs, from what she had observed of them, inevitably led to someone being hurt, and badly, and she considered that she was far too cautious and self-protective by nature to risk bringing that kind of pain upon herself.

No, she would be far too busy preparing for the new term and thinking about her own future to have time for romance, even if it were something she wanted—which it wasn’t.

Not that her time in France was going to be completely taken up with work, though: she had promised herself some relaxation, some sightseeing trips and explorations. She had even generously offered to take off Gale’s shoulders the burden of liaising with the local tradesmen and suppliers in connection with some of the more urgent renovations Gale was organising, agreeing that it would be far easier for her to deal with the French contractors, since she was in situ.

‘Are you sure you actually want to go ahead with these alterations?’ she had asked her cousin when they had discussed Gale’s plans for modernising the existing bathroom and adding a new one. ‘After all, if George does insist on selling…’

‘He won’t. Not once I get him out of Robert Forrest’s clutches for long enough to make him see sense. I shouldn’t be surprised if he’s the one who’s turned George against the farmhouse in the first place; he’s that kind of man,’ she added darkly.

Livvy had given her a thoughtful look. She hoped Gale was right about being able to persuade George to keep the property, because she could tell how important it was to her. She understood Gale’s desire for her sons to experience the same pleasure they had known as children, but at the same time she felt, fair-mindedly, that a smaller and more modest environment would provide those benefits just as well and be far less of a financial burden on George.

She wondered if Gale was right to lay the blame for George’s changed behaviour at the feet of his new employer. As the victim of an unhappy marriage, it was perhaps only to be expected that he should have a bias against marriage and feel suspicious or antagonistic towards the female sex.

She hoped Gale would not ride too roughshod over George’s views. He was a nice man and a good husband and father.

She stifled a yawn and moved sleepily beneath the duvet. The more she observed of other people’s relationships, the more wary it made her of that kind of commitment. She was glad she was not the type to fall drastically and dangerously head over heels in love.

Beneath the bedclothes she gave a small shiver. Knowing her luck, if she did it would probably be with entirely the wrong type of man.

Like the one across the hallway, for instance? Ridiculous—what woman in her right senses would fall in love with a man like that, who for all his spectacular aura of raw masculinity and power had shown by his attitude that he had as much awareness of and respect for the female psyche as she had of what went on inside the head of a man-eating tiger?

No, if she ever did fall in love, it would be with someone compassionate and caring, intelligent and aware, a man who valued her as an equal human being, not one who dismissed her as a sexual object, condemning her with cold-eyed disgust.

The BMW was still in the car park when Livvy left early the next morning. She gave it a dismissive look as she walked virtuously past it, reflecting on the laziness of its slothful owner and the fact that he was missing what was for her one of the best parts of the day.

Well, at least she was unlikely to come into contact with him again, she reflected thankfully as she let herself into her own car and pulled on her seatbelt.

Having planned her route carefully in advance, Livvy didn’t have any trouble in reaching Beaulieu, which was the nearest sizeable town to the farmhouse.

She ate a late lunch in the town and shopped for provisions, just enough to tide her over for the first couple of days. After all, one of the pleasures of being in France was the food. Her French grandmother had taught her how a Frenchwoman shopped and the important role that not just the consumption of food but its purchase and preparation played in the traditional French lifestyle.

It was mid-afternoon before she started the final part of her journey, taking her time as she carefully checked each road sign, not wanting to miss her way on the mass of narrow country roads which criss-crossed the countryside, and her diligence was finally rewarded when she drove into the small village closest to the farmhouse.

Although she had not visited it before, she had seen photographs of it and had agreed with Gale that it was idyllically situated, surrounded by lush countryside with a view looking out across a small tributary of the Dordogne river, its privacy assured by the farmland which surrounded it…

George had tentatively expressed the view that it might be a bit too isolated, but Gale had told him firmly that he was wrong and that its isolation only added to its appeal.

‘For us, maybe,’ George had conceded. ‘But the children…’

‘The children will love it,’ Gale had interrupted him. ‘Clean, fresh air, a simple country lifestyle will be very good for them; it’s exactly what they need.’