What Happens at the Beach... (18 page)

He took the towel and smiled at her. ‘We all do silly things from time to time. At least this time it all worked out fine.' He didn't ask her anything about her friend, or how come he had fallen asleep. He made no comment at all, and she loved him for that. She found herself staring at his hard chest muscles, clad in a light covering of fair hair, right in front of her face, and for a moment she came very, very close to letting herself fall into his arms. It took a lot of effort, but she restrained herself. Instead, she glanced down at the T-shirt she was now wearing.

‘Can I give it back to you tomorrow?'

‘Keep it, Natalie. I've got loads of T-shirts. Now, are you going to be all right to walk home from here? I could easily run back and get the car.'

She shook her head, pulling herself together. The shivering had stopped and she was beginning to feel warm again. She knew she was safe and protected here with him. Her head began to clear as her strength came back. ‘Mark, you're a star; a real knight in shining armour.' She glanced down at the T-shirt again. ‘Well, in a Harley Davidson T-shirt, anyway. I'll be fine.' She knew she had to tell him, even if he wasn't interested. It was something she had to do for herself. ‘He's a very nice man called Philippe and he took me sailing with his uncle and aunt. Only he drank too much and passed out. That's all that happened.'

He gave her a little smile. ‘Like I already told you, it's your life. You don't owe me any explanations.'

‘I know that, Mark. I just wanted you to know, that's all.'

To her surprise, she saw him reach across and touch her cheek with his fingers and she felt his touch all the way through her body. ‘Thanks for telling me.' No sooner had he done so than he removed his hand hastily. ‘Well, if you're sure you're okay, I'll go for my swim. Here, do you want to keep the towel as well? I'm not bothered. I can run home after my swim.'

‘No, thanks, Mark. I'm fine. Now I'm fine.' And, after his touch, she knew she was.

‘Then I'll see you tomorrow. Okay?'

Natalie stood on the beach with the dog for five minutes or more, watching Mark swim strongly out to sea. She reached up with her fingers and ran them across the gold and silver design on the front of the black T-shirt, finding that she could still smell him on the material. Gradually she felt her strength returning as the sun warmed her and dried her. After a while she crouched down beside the dog and hugged him. ‘You're a very lucky dog; he likes you a lot. You know that, don't you?'

She received an affectionate lick in return.

The walk back up the hill seemed to take forever. Her bare feet seemed to land on every sharp little pebble on the way up the path and her legs felt like lead. She stopped a couple of times, taking the opportunity to look out to sea, picking out Mark's distant shape the first time, but by the time she turned the second time he was out of sight. When she got to the house she found her grandmother and Jeanne, the carer, busy bringing things that didn't want to get wet into the house and taking plants from inside out onto the terrace for a good soaking in the predicted rain. Natalie knew she should really help, but she felt too weak. She gave them both a wave and went in to take a long, hot bath.

Once in the water she soaped herself thoroughly and washed her hair. She spent a long time in there and by the time she got out again she had begun to feel better. She dried her hair, letting it hang loose down onto her shoulders, then she changed into clean clothes, leaving Mark's T-shirt soaking in the basin. Clean again, she went down to the kitchen and put the kettle on. The old wooden clock on the wall told her it was almost seven o'clock. A glance out of the open doorway showed her that the sun had already disappeared behind a bank of grey clouds that had appeared on the horizon as predicted.

She heard the carer's car crunch off down the gravel track as the kettle boiled, so she made two mugs of tea and took them out onto the terrace where her grandmother was sitting. She sat down with her and, after a few moments' hesitation, told her the whole story. Colette listened quietly as the tale unfolded, right up to Natalie's return to the beach and Mark's chivalrous intervention. Finally, as Natalie sat back in silence and took a couple of big mouthfuls of tea, Colette responded.

‘Well, thank goodness you're all right. You really shouldn't have attempted such a long swim by yourself. Something could have happened to you. And it was lucky Mark was on the beach to offer you his towel.' She gave Natalie an encouraging smile. ‘He's a good boy, your Mark.'

‘He's not my Mark, Gran.' Natalie did her best to smile back at her. ‘There's Hortense, and I'm sure there must be any number of other women waiting in the wings for a man like him. And you're right about him being a good man. But that's the trouble. The good ones all get taken. The ones that are left are the rejects.' The smile slipped from her face. ‘I know I've been saying I need to concentrate on finding myself a job and getting started on my career, but I'd better not leave it too late. Maybe David was right; I've wasted the last few years studying a subject that won't ever get me a job and, while I was doing that, I lost the plot. I neglected him or, if he isn't the one, I wasted precious time when I could have been looking for the right man.'

Colette snorted. ‘Don't be so silly. You were born to study medieval history. It's in your blood and of course you'll find a job.'

Natalie looked down at her mug. It was empty. She glanced at her grandmother. ‘More tea?'

Colette shook her head. ‘You know what I'd like? There's a bottle of Muscat in the fridge. I'd really like a glass of cold, sweet wine.' She smiled. ‘And a drop of good wine won't do you any harm either.'

Natalie went into the kitchen and located the bottle of
Muscat de Rivesaltes
. She took two glasses out of the cupboard and added some ice cubes, then she filled them with the strong, yellow wine, the ice cubes crackling and spitting as the wine flowed over them. She took them out onto the terrace, set them down on the table and passed one to her grandmother.

‘
Santé
, Gran.'

‘
Santé
, Natalie.' Colette clinked her glass against Natalie's. ‘And thank goodness nothing happened to you.' She sipped the wine and sighed appreciatively. ‘Lovely.'

Chapter 12

Natalie didn't sleep well that night. She found herself slipping in and out of complicated dreams, from which she would wake even more confused and tired. Some of these dreams were of David in his smart suit, sitting in his parents' garden; some were of Philippe snoring on his yacht; and more pleasantly, if frustratingly, there were thoughts of Mark peeling off his T-shirt and passing it to her. She finally drifted off to proper sleep well after midnight, but she hadn't been asleep for more than a few hours when she was woken by a tremendous clap of thunder that made the windows shake and dust fall from the wooden beams of the ceiling. Disorientated, she sat bolt upright in bed and waited for the house to fall down. After a few seconds it became clear that this wasn't going to happen, so she reached for the bedside light. Unsurprisingly, it didn't work.

She climbed out of bed, felt her way over to the open window and pushed the louvered shutters outwards. As she did so, there was a blinding flash of lightning, followed a second later by another deafening clap of thunder. Natalie ducked back into the shelter of the house and made her hesitant way through to her grandmother's room, running her hands along the wall and across the furniture to orientate herself, her night sight now hopelessly compromised by the lightning. She pushed Colette's door open and called out in a low voice, just in case she had somehow managed to sleep through all the disturbance, ‘Granny, are you awake?'

‘Natalie, my darling, of course I'm awake. I'd have to be as deaf as a post not to have been woken by the thunder.' Just at that moment there was another flash from outside that illuminated the cracks around the shutters and the gaps between the open slats themselves. For a second her grandmother looked like a zebra. This was followed almost simultaneously by another massive crash of thunder.

‘It sounds like it's right above us. The electricity's off. Have you got any candles, Gran?'

‘In the kitchen. In the cupboard under the sink, and the matches are on the mantelpiece. Do you want me to go down and get them?'

‘I'll be fine. Just you stay here and I'll go and fetch them.' As Natalie walked back out onto the landing, another flash illuminated the stairs through the big old stained-glass window in the wall above. Again, a crash of thunder came almost simultaneously. Natalie had been in thunderstorms before, but this one was the scariest by far. She made her way down the stairs, her progress punctuated by flashes of light, until she reached the kitchen. She had no trouble in locating the candles and the matches, and gave a little sigh of relief as the first candle caught light. There was an empty tuna tin on the draining board so she dripped some wax into it and stuck the burning candle in there as a makeshift holder. Then, picking up a handful of candles along with the matches, she climbed back up the stairs again, holding the lighted candle in front of her to show her the way.

‘There's a plate on the dresser you can use for another candle, my dear.' Colette pointed across the room. Natalie fetched it and soon there were two candles lighting up the room. In the meantime, the flashes and bangs, while still scary, were coming a bit less frequently and it was clear that the storm was heading past them. Natalie sat down on the edge of her grandmother's bed.

‘You scared of thunder, Gran?'

Her grandmother shook her head. ‘I used to be, but by the time you get to my age, you just accept it for what it is: a force of nature that puts us insignificant little humans in our place.' She reached over and touched Natalie's arm. ‘What about you? Were you sleeping well?'

Natalie shook her head. ‘Eventually, but I've been turning everything over in my head.'

Colette gave her a little smile. ‘If it helps, I envy you. Oh, how I'd like to be going out and enjoying myself, maybe even feeling just a tiny bit in love.' The smile broadened. ‘Or am I wrong?'

‘I don't know, Gran, I really don't. The fact is, though, that he's already taken. It's not easy.'

‘Of course it's not, but it's more fun than lying in bed wondering if you're going to wake up next morning.'

‘Don't say that, Gran. Of course you'll wake up.' Natalie realised how much she would miss her grandmother when she finally died. ‘Anyway, the thunder's moving away fast now. I think I'll go back to bed.'

‘And sleep well, darling. It'll all work out.'

When the thunder finally stopped, the rain started, and by the time Natalie woke at seven, the ground outside was sodden and rivers of water were coursing down the hillside. As she opened the shutters, the noise of the rain drumming on the stone terrace was quite deafening and the massive raindrops were bouncing back up again as they hit the ground, creating an impression of a waterfall. The rain was so hard that it actually made it difficult to see out across the garden to the trees beyond.

Natalie toyed with the idea of going down for a swim in her costume, knowing she would be soaked to the skin within seconds of leaving the house, but the grey, overcast feel to the day didn't inspire her to try. Instead, she did something she had been meaning to do for ages. She waited until she heard movement from her grandmother's room and then went down to the kitchen. Fortunately, the electricity had come back on, so she boiled the kettle to make tea. At the same time, she put a pan on the stove and prepared ham and scrambled eggs. She knew her grandmother had always had a love of all things English, so a mini English breakfast on a rainy day seemed like a good idea to cheer them both up.

When the eggs were ready, she put some bread in the toaster and called up the stairs to her grandmother who appeared almost immediately, her nose having already told her what was waiting in the kitchen.

‘Natalie, what a treat!' She gave her a big hug. ‘The garden gets a well-needed drink and I get an English breakfast cooked by my very own English girl.'

They were just finishing their ham and eggs when the phone rang. Natalie answered it. It was Dominique from the restaurant.

‘Hi, Natalie. Are you two all right up there? You haven't been washed down the hill?'

‘No, we got deafened by the thunder but otherwise we're fine. What about you? Presumably all this water that's rushing down the hill has to go somewhere, and you're at the bottom of the hill. Not flooded, I hope.'

‘We're fine, but there's been a lot of damage in the area. I've just been watching the local news and there are villages flooded and cars washed away only a few kilometres from here. Anyway, I was calling to tell you I've got your phone here.'

Natalie's spirits rose. ‘Fantastic. Philippe brought my stuff in, did he?'

Dominique's voice was heavy with mockery as she replied. ‘It's not just your phone. There's a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, sandals, sunglasses and what looks like a box of chocolates. Just what were you up to yesterday, Natalie?'

Natalie was delighted to hear that her clothes had been returned. ‘I'll tell you all about it next time we meet up. Did Philippe say anything when he brought them in?'

‘A very sheepish-looking Philippe, according to Alain. He saw him and, of course, because my husband's a stupid man, he didn't enquire further. Apparently Philippe stuck his head round the door yesterday evening, gave Alain a bag and asked if he could pass it on to you. He then disappeared in a flash.' There was a brief pause after which Dominique's voice held just a trace of apology. ‘I took a look inside the bag, just to be sure it was your stuff.'