T Williams - To Provence, with Love

‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, my dear, I think I’d better go back upstairs for a nap. Claudette and Eddie will look after you for as long as you want to stay, and they’ll show you the stable apartment before you go.’ She reversed away from the table in her chair and hummed across to Faye’s shoulder. ‘I’m really so very pleased you’ve agreed to do this for me. I look forward so much to seeing more of you.’ She looked and sounded as if she meant it, and Faye felt another wave of happiness at the thought of forging a link with this kind, generous old lady. Not to mention her adorable dog.

She was about to stand up, but as Miss Beech was in her wheelchair it made more sense to stay seated. She held out her hand. ‘Thank you so much for offering me this amazing opportunity, Miss Beech. I promise I’ll do my very best to help you come up with something really great.’

The old lady took Faye’s hand in both of hers and gave it an affectionate squeeze. ‘I know you will, and I know it’ll work out well. By the way, I asked Silas to prepare a contract for you. Eddie’s got it somewhere. I’ll ask him to let you have it.’ She gave Faye a tired smile. ‘One thing you learn in Hollywood is that the old adage that a verbal contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on is so, so right.’ Her smile broadened. ‘They say it was Sam Goldwyn who said that, but he never did, you know. Mind you, though, he told me once he wished he had done.’

Faye saw the old lady smile to herself at the memory, before refocusing as a sudden thought came to her.

‘Now I come to think about it, one thing Sam really did say was that nobody should write their autobiography until after their death. We’ll have to see if we can confound him.’

Faye smiled at the quote, but felt an immediate sense of regret that this dear old lady was approaching the end of her life. Somehow, she already felt a bond with her and knew she was going to enjoy this assignment more than she had hoped. ‘That’s very kind of you, Miss Beech. I’ll give in my notice as soon as I’m back at school so, all being well, I should be down here as soon as term ends.’

‘I look forward to it, my dear. Well, goodbye for now. It’s been lovely seeing you.’

‘Goodbye, Miss Beech, and thanks again. I really look forward to working with you.’ And she did.

Chapter Two

When Faye got back to England, she phoned her father to relay the wonderful news to him. He sounded delighted for her, if a bit concerned that she would be moving so far away.

‘Terrific, Faye, but what about accommodation? Where are you going to stay?’

‘The most amazing place, Dad.’ By the time she had finished describing it to him, she got the impression he was definitely coming round to thinking that she had made the right decision.

Faye’s tour of the stables with Eddie Marshal had been mouth-watering. Whereas the chateau was traditional old French style, with a distinctly medieval flavour, the inside of the first-floor apartment in the equally old stable block had had the full interior designer treatment not that long ago, and had been brought bang up to date in the twenty-first century. From the steel and glass stairs to the recessed lighting, state of the art kitchen and huge flat screen television, it was a symphony of modern chic. It looked as though it had just come out of the pages of a style magazine and Faye failed to see why on earth Miss Beech reckoned it needed to be redecorated.

It was immaculate, with a bedroom for her that was twice the size of the room she had been renting since splitting up with Didier, and a separate, comfortable guest suite with its own bathroom, if she ever chose to have visitors. The place was fully furnished, and everything from the sleek sofas in the vaulted lounge, to the comfortable-looking beds, screamed class and expense. She had been open-mouthed by the end of the tour, but, even so, Eddie Marshal had managed to flabbergast her even more.

‘We’ll make sure it’s spruced up for you before you come back, Faye. Recently, we haven’t had many guests staying over. It must be a couple of years since the last visitor was here.’ He glanced at her with disarming nonchalance. ‘That was that rather nice American gentleman, Mr Clooney.’

Faye’s jaw dropped. ‘George Clooney slept here?’

‘Yes, and I seem to remember him saying how comfortable the bed was.’

It took some days before Faye managed to get over the thought that she was going to sleep in the same bed as George Clooney, albeit not at the same time. It would have been nice to tell her friends about this, and indeed about the identity of her new employer, but one of the conditions of employment had been to promise to keep Miss Beech’s identity secret for the duration of the contract, only telling close family, and that just meant her dad.

The next weeks rushed by.

Faye handed in her notice as soon as she got back and was surprised and rather flattered at the attempts by Miss Dawes to get her to stay, all of which she cheerfully refused. At school, she burned the midnight oil, determined to do the very best for the students under her tutelage. She gave notice to her landlord and then spent more time than she had imagined packing her things, taking stuff to the recycling centre, paying bills, and informing people of her forthcoming change of address from London to Provence.

Often, as the weeks went by, she would take time to reflect upon how this major change of direction would affect her life. The writing job sounded fascinating, Provence charming and, even better, she knew that this would help her further distance herself from Miss Dawes and, above all, from Didier. Things were definitely beginning to look up at long last.

As far as her friends at the school and elsewhere in London were concerned, she could only tell them that she was going to France, where she would be working for a very secretive person, and she was constantly being bombarded with guesses as to just who it might be. Interestingly, George Clooney was suggested more than once, but nobody thought to mention Anabelle Beech. The interrogation became particularly intense on the last day of term, but she managed to keep the secret, even after her colleagues had forced liberal quantities of Prosecco upon her in the pub after work.

The next day her dad arrived in his car to collect her and her belongings. Faye hadn’t wanted to bother him, as she knew he was always so very busy, but she had just got too much stuff. Together, they loaded all her worldly belongings and drove back to Salisbury and, as expected, he spent most of the journey warning her to be careful of everything from poisonous snakes to the white slave trade, and issuing advice about exercise and diet, and even recommendations about what clothes to take to France. She didn’t mind, having got used to his incessant worrying for her wellbeing all the way through her life, and she put up with it with a smile. Her smile broadened as they arrived back home.

Standing on the drive outside the house she found a smart little white Fiat 500 with the red and green stripes of the Italian flag running along its side. She had asked her dad to find her a car, as she knew she would need her own transport and he knew the sort of thing she liked. She nodded to herself in approval. As they got out of his car, her father handed her the keys. ‘This one’s only a year old and it’s had one careful lady driver – or at least that’s what the salesman told me.’

‘Thanks, Dad. It’s exactly what I wanted. How much was it? With the huge wad of money I’m being paid, I should be able to afford it.’

He wouldn’t hear of it. ‘You leave that to me and save your money, Faye. Who knows how expensive life in Provence is likely to be.’