“My God! They’re packed in there like sardines,” Toddy exclaimed. “Are they all alive?” Poppy spilled out and ran to her mother.
“Did you see the rainbow?” she cried. “It was enormous!” Ava took her hand. It was cold and wet.
“Did you see pink?”
“Yes!” And she listed the colors one by one. “Pink and green go together, don’t they, Mummy?”
“You’re right, darling. Pink and green go together. They are my favorite colors.” She turned to Jean-Paul. “Next time, look out for pink. It’s there, but you have to really look for it.”
“Like beauty,” he said. “Beauty is in everything if you really look for it.”
“That’s open to debate,” interjected Toddy. “I look for it every morning in the mirror but it still eludes me.”
“I think your children see it every time they look at you,” said Jean-Paul. Toddy looked embarrassed. “Your own beauty is not yours to find,” he continued.
Ava walked on, holding her daughter’s hand. She was certain that Jean-Paul had found his own beauty in the mirror a long time ago.
That night Ava laid two places for dinner at the kitchen table. She busied herself cooking a lasagna so that she didn’t have to look at them. Those two placements made her feel anxious, as if she were on a first date. It was years since she had eaten alone with a strange man. It didn’t feel right. Had Jean-Paul been plain or gauche, it wouldn’t have mattered. The fact was, he was handsome. Worse, he was predatory. Her stomach twisted with nerves. What on earth was she going to talk about? She decided not to have pudding. That way dinner would be short and she could leave him in the sitting room watching Dallas and go to bed. She contemplated keeping Archie up, but that might look odd. She didn’t want to behave like an inexperienced twenty-year-old. Good God, she was a married mother of thirty-seven. Finally, she put the place settings on trays and decided they could both eat in front of the telly.
To her surprise, Jean-Paul left straight after he had eaten. He said he was tired, and thanked her for a magical day. “I have already learned a lot,” he told her. Then with a smile that made Ava regret her churlishness, he added, “I have learned to look out for pink. Next time I see a rainbow I will look harder.” With that, he took her hand and brought it to his lips in the same formal way with which he had greeted her the day before.
X
The taste of warm wine, the smell of burning fields, the last of summer sunshine
The following day Ava took the children to church. Jean-Paul moved into the cottage. She didn’t see him all day. Hidden away on the other side of the river he kept to himself, though he did borrow her old Morris Minor to drive into town. He said he wanted to take a look around. Explore the neighborhood. Ava didn’t think he’d be too impressed. It was a universe away from Paris.
She didn’t have time to miss Phillip. Besides, she was used to his long absences. In an old pair of jeans and shirt, her hair piled on top of her head and held in place with a pen, she pottered about the garden while the children played on the lawn. It was a warm October day. Unusually warm. The sun shone brightly as if it were June, the temperature rising to sixty-eight degrees. Poppy discarded her clothes and ran about in her pants. The boys dragged all the terrace cushions out of the shed and made a castle on the grass, which they destroyed by jumping on it before rebuilding, only to do the same all over again. With her secateurs and wheelbarrow, Ava was as contented as a bee in summer, humming quietly to herself in the bushes.
Bernie lay under an apple tree, sleeping through the whoops of laughter echoing across the lawn. He awoke a few minutes before Phillip’s car could be heard coming up the drive. Ears pricked, he sat up, then galloped down the lawn to the archway cut into the hedge and bounded to the front of the house. The children followed excitedly, pursued by Ava wielding a trowel.
By the time Ava reached him, Phillip was holding Poppy in his arms, patting Bernie and listening to his sons’ breathless chatter. He saw her standing in the archway, laughing at him. “Hello, Shrub!”
“Hello there, you!” she replied, looking at him coquettishly.
“I’ve brought back a brace of pheasants.”
“Wonderful. Jean-Paul has moved into the cottage.”
“Well, ask him to join us. More the merrier.” Ava was disappointed. She had hoped they could enjoy a quiet dinner together.
“I haven’t seen him all day. I think we should leave him in peace,” she replied. No sooner had she uttered those words than Jean-Paul came striding up the field in a pair of brand-new Wellington boots.