The Beekeeper's Promise (Page 7)
Abi: 2017
For a moment, I can’t think where I am. Early-morning sunshine slants across the pillow through slatted shutters and my legs, which ought to be constricted by a narrow sleeping bag, slide freely over smooth sheets. And then I remember: so Château Bellevue and its owners weren’t just a lovely dream I conjured up during the best night’s sleep I’ve had in years.
I check my watch. It’s early. Thomas said he’d run me back to the yoga centre after breakfast as he’d be going that way anyway. I stretch luxuriantly one more time, making the most of the space and comfort of a proper bed, and then reluctantly throw back the covers and plant my feet on the floor. I’m conscious that the room I’m staying in is part of Sara and Thomas’ business and that I’ve created enough extra work for them already, so I strip the bed and clean the bathroom, leaving the room looking as if I’d never been there.
As I scoop up the bundle of bedding, a memory ambushes me out of nowhere. The simple, everyday gesture of holding an armful of washing suddenly brings back associations for me that touch a nerve running right to my very core. In my mind’s eye, I see myself as a teenager again, back in the flat trying to get Mum’s bed sorted. She’d have been drinking all day, as usual, and I’d persuade her out of her sodden bed when I got home from school and help her into a bath. Then, leaving her changed and propped in an armchair beside the gas fire, with a silent prayer that she wouldn’t set fire to herself and the flat, I’d bundle the sheets into a bin bag and trudge around the corner to the launderette. I’d sit there in the soap-scented warmth, doing my homework while the machines juddered and sloshed around me. If we had enough money that day I’d stick a fifty-pence piece in the dryer and come home with a stack of neatly folded still-warm linen. But more often, and especially towards the end of the month, I’d have to turn the bin bag inside out and stuff the wet sheets back in, my arms aching after hauling the heavy bundle back home to drape them over a plastic clothes horse in front of the fire.
‘Caring’, they call it these days. To me, it just felt like surviving. I was terrified of the alternative, of being taken away from her. I suppose children almost always want to stay with their parents, no matter what. So even when Mum got really bad I didn’t let on; I just looked after her the best I could.
Her own family had made it clear that they wanted nothing more to do with her when she got pregnant with me. I have no idea who my father was – and, to be honest, I’m not sure that Mum really knew either. She told me various stories, over the years, depending how much she’d had to drink and whether she was in one of her full-on happy moods or on a complete downer . . . Maybe he really was a soldier who’d been killed in a friendly-fire incident on training manoeuvres shortly after I was conceived; or maybe he was the Australian backpacker who had disappeared without leaving his number (or even, apparently, his name); or maybe he was just some scummy chancer who’d taken advantage of a girl who’d been too drunk to know what she was doing. Anyway, we were a team, Mum and me, and we managed just fine on our own, so long as she was sober enough to collect her benefits and didn’t blow the whole lot in the off-licence on her way home.
I shake my head, rousing myself and shrugging off the memory, and take the bundle of bedding downstairs. Sara is already bustling about in the kitchen.
‘Good morning,’ I say. ‘And thanks for the best night’s sleep I’ve had in ages. Where do these go?’ I show her the armful of bedding. ‘If you give me a fresh set I’ll get the bed made up again. I’ve cleaned through, but I just need to give the room a quick going over with the vacuum and then it’ll be all ready for your wedding guests.’
She nods, approvingly. ‘Here, give those to me. I’ll stick them in a laundry bag. Thanks for doing that, it’s a huge help. I’ll give you a hand re-making the bed, but sit down and have your breakfast first.’
Thomas comes in, whistling cheerfully, and we sit around the kitchen table which is set with a red-and-white gingham cloth. I help myself to fresh fruit and a big bowl of cereal, as Sara pours us each a mug of richly fragrant coffee.
Thomas and Sara exchange a glance. ‘Look, Abi,’ she says, ‘I know this is probably going to sound like a crazy proposition, and it’s right out of the blue, but how would you like to try working at Château Bellevue for the season? Thomas and I discussed it last night. You seem very practical and I’m sure you’d pick it all up very quickly. Heaven knows, you’d be doing us a massive favour as we’re desperate for another pair of hands. We can offer you accommodation in the mill house, as long as you don’t mind it being a bit of a building site. But I promise you the room you’d be sleeping in would be as far away from the mess and noise as possible. It would certainly be a lot more comfortable than a tent!’
I laugh. ‘Are you serious? You’ve only just met me.’
‘Yes, but I can see that we already get on well. I’m afraid the pay isn’t great, but you get your meals when you’re working so that helps. I think you’d fit in well as a member of the team. I know this is all very sudden, so maybe you could think about it for the rest of the week while you finish your yoga retreat? And then, if you decide you’re happy to give it a try, you can see how it goes.’
I think of the empty apartment waiting for me back in London, of its huge floor-to-ceiling windows, which look out across the docklands on to the vast sprawling city beyond, and of how lonely and isolated I feel among all those millions of people. There’s no sense of purpose to my life there. Whereas here, I realise, I’ll be busy. I won’t spend hours trapped inside my own head as there’ll be so many other things to think about. Weddings! Parties to organise. Guests to look after.
But then I hesitate again. Will I be up to the work? What if I let them down? What if I ruin someone’s special day because I make some terrible mistake? What if I have a panic attack at being in a crowded room and collapse, gasping for breath, in the middle of someone’s elegant reception?
As if she can read my mind, Sara smiles reassuringly. ‘Abi, I know you’ve told us you haven’t been well lately, and if it’s something that means you can’t work then we would completely understand. But it seems to me you are a very capable woman – maybe more capable than you think. You could give it a go on a trial basis and if you decide, at any point, that you don’t want to stay on then you can go home straight away. But, honestly, any help you can give us will be better than none. It’ll free up Thomas to get on with the work on the mill house during the day; otherwise the project’s going to over-run badly and the bank manager won’t be very happy. And although the weddings are quite hard work, you might find that it’s quite enjoyable too.’
I look from Sara to Thomas and back to Sara again, both waiting for my answer.
And then I decide. And, despite the events of yesterday afternoon, I clearly haven’t learned my lesson about the dangers of spontaneity at all, because I say, with a grin, ‘Is there room for a yoga mat in the bedroom at the mill house, do you think? If so, I could probably start right away.’
Eliane: 1938
‘Pass me the rolling pin if you’ve finished with it, would you, Eliane?’
Mother and daughter were busy in the kitchen at the mill, preparing food for the holiday weekend. Eliane was slicing the pears that Madame Boin had allowed her to bring home from the château’s kitchen garden, and arranging them in a neat fan shape on top of the frangipane tart she was making.
Lisette looked over at her handiwork approvingly. ‘Very good; that looks perfect.’
‘I’ve tried to make an extra effort for Mireille coming home. She’s probably used to fancy Parisian pâtisseries now and will find our home-made offerings far too ordinary. Do you think she’ll have changed, Maman? I imagine she’ll be very sophisticated now.’
Lisette laughed and shook her head. ‘Not our Mireille. You know tarte aux poires is her very favourite dessert. This will be more delicious than anything you could buy in a shop, even in Paris. I’m looking forward to seeing her clothes, though. Working in such a prestigious atelier she’ll know about all the latest fashions.’
Happily, All Saints Day fell on a Tuesday that year, so Eliane’s sister Mireille had been allowed to take the Monday off as well and was coming back to the mill for the first time since she’d left in May to embark on her career as an apprentice seamstress at a Parisian couture house.
Yves entered the kitchen, whistling, accompanied by a flurry of fallen leaves that blew in on the late-October wind as he opened the door. He set a lidded wicker basket on the table with an air of triumph. Lisette came over to inspect.
‘Oh là-là, what beauties!’
‘Eighteen of the finest langoustines the river can offer.’ He lifted one of the plump crawfish out of the basket and pretended to threaten Eliane’s ear with its fierce-looking claws. She batted him away, unruffled by his teasing, and he picked up a piece of her leftover pastry instead and popped it into his mouth.
The sound of the truck pulling into the barn brought them all to the kitchen door and then Mireille was there, laughing and exclaiming as her family engulfed her, her dark curls blown into a tangle by the blustering October wind.