‘Yes.’ Aunt Cicely didn’t like her tone. ‘What about you?’
‘No one special,’ she replied. ‘Until I find Mr Wonderful, men have their uses.’ She chuckled, thinking of all the exotic places she had travelled to thanks to the fat chequebooks of her lovers. Aunt Cicely raised an eyebrow but Alicia only laughed. ‘It’s the seventies,’ she said, as if that excused her louche behaviour.
‘Well, don’t have too much fun, or the important things in life will pass you by.’
Alicia rolled her eyes. ‘You and Mummy!’ She sighed heavily and shook her head. ‘Life has never been so good.’
As she drove off she pictured the love-sick Marcel turning up on the beach in Antibes. What a ridiculous sight he had been. She would have slept with him had he not rejected her the year before. He had missed his opportunity. The fool. She had flicked him away like one would a harvest fly and he had begged her to reconsider, professing undying love, claiming that he couldn’t eat or sleep because of her. ‘My life is a mess,’ he had said in desperation, turning to walk back up the beach. ‘I have left your aunt, who I loved, for a mirage.’ And because of the painting he could never go back.
The wedding was set for 29th October. Audrey dusted off her sewing machine and made Leonora the most exquisite dress out of ivory silk, embroidered with daisies and ivy and a fairy costume for Grace who was to be bridesmaid. Panazel gave his son one of his caravans so he and his bride could start their new life together in the middle of the field where they first met and Aunt Cicely promised to keep them on after she sold the farm, for the grounds of the estate needed looking after and she felt too old and uninspired to do it herself, now that Marcel had gone and left her all alone again.
No one knew of Florien’s clash with Alicia in the tractor and no one wished it hadn’t happened more than he. He went out of his way to avoid her. But his guilt pounded against his conscience like a pestle on a mortar.
Leonora was so happy that her face acquired a beauty all its very own. Not the sharp, all-consuming beauty of her sister, but a softness of the features and a serenity of expression, an altogether quieter beauty.
As the summer gave way to autumn Audrey took long walks along the beach. Grace was at school and Cecil now worked in the nearby town for a small investment firm. He earned little compared to his salary in Buenos Aires, but living was cheaper in England. She reflected on their new life. To her surprise she discovered that England was an easy country to love. The undulating hills and patchwork fields were so green and vibrant, the sunsets a luminous flamingo pink and the sky a delicate watery colour, as if the rain had washed the blue away. Little by little such a gentle landscape captured her heart. She was close to Cicely and saw Leonora all the time and Alicia now came down to visit most weekends. She missed her mother, though, and the loss of her father still hurt. She often thought about Aunt Edna and she missed her too. But she had been a small sacrifice for the restoration of her marriage. She could never have made it work out there where her aunt knew too much and was a constant reminder of her weakness.
In the fresh English air she had been given a second chance. She had made an effort to forgive her husband for sending the twins away when they were little and she had been rewarded. She couldn’t pretend that she never thought of Louis. Yet, Cecil was a good man. She knew she had done the right thing. Every day brought her closer to him and took her a little further away from Louis, so that the pain of leaving him was now a dull ache that she could choose to ignore. She had kept her vow not to play ‘The Forget-Me-Not Sonata’ again and although there were times when her fingers fidgeted for those notes still so familiar, the fact that she refused to indulge them was an important part of the healing process.
She no longer danced and she had locked her little silk book away for ever. Only Grace was a constant reminder of Louis, but as far as Cecil was concerned she belonged to him and Audrey’s admiration for her husband grew as she watched them together, both so very different and yet united as father and daughter. ‘Her head’s in the clouds with angels and other such nonsense,’ he would say, ‘but I don’t have to understand her to love her.’ And Audrey loved him for loving her.
The morning of the wedding arrived. Leonora awoke tingling all over with excitement, Florien felt sick with guilt and nerves and Alicia climbed out of bed unable to believe that he was actually going to go through with it. She had enjoyed him that day in the tractor. But now the reality of his imminent wedding hit her between the eyes and her head spun, causing her to sit down to overcome the nausea in her stomach. She was certain of Florien’s love for her. She had held his heart from the first moment they had met and she was sure she could keep it until she was ready to give it back. Only she wasn’t ready to give it back. Today he was going to be united in wedlock to her sister. She ran to the bathroom and threw up.