‘But you can have a small city. Anything bigger than a village in France is avilleand that can be a town or a city. And Vence has a cathedral and some people think that makes it important enough to be a city.’
Was it really only yesterday that Tilly had found it awkward being enclosed in a vehicle with Angus McLeod, trying to find something to talk about? How could such a small blip of time make her feel like she knew him so well? As if he was a welcome addition to her life that she might not want to lose?
The wind on her face now was a caress and the warmth of the sun on her head was filling her heart. The corners of her scarf were moving and, with her body absorbing the vibration of the car as it picked up speed, it felt like the world was coming alive around her. A new adventure was starting.
‘Can we stay away from the motorways?’ Angus asked. ‘We don’t want to be driving with petrol fumes all around us while the roof is down.’
Tilly pulled her phone from her satchel and opened her ViaMichelin app. She chose a discovery route mode and laughed aloud a moment later.
‘What’s funny?’ Angus asked.
‘The Michelin map says that its discovery mode will take us on the favourite scenic routes for tourists. Green roads. Remarkable routes.’ She was still smiling. ‘The mostpicturesqueroads.’
The snort of laughter from Angus confirmed it.
They had a private joke. A code word, in fact, that only the two of them would translate as ‘romantic’ and that, apparently, made it acceptable.
And it felt, almost, like the faintest brush of a kiss.
* * *
The soft leather cap might be keeping his hair in place but the sunshine-flavoured breeze that swirled behind the Alfa’s windscreen seemed to be blowing hard enough to be messing with parts of Angus that shouldn’t have even been vulnerable to any external factors.
He was feeling something he could barely remember ever having felt before, and it took most of the delightful drive through the countryside outside Aix-en-Provence, headingtowards the Valensole Plateau, famous for its lavender fields, for Angus to figure out what it was.
Freedom?
Yes, but not simply the freedom of having a few days off work and away from a normal routine and the expectations of others.
This was a much deeper level of freedom. The kind that came with a sensation of anticipation that was extraordinarily close to excitement. Something that Angus had never experienced as an adult. An emotion that he could only vaguely remember from childhood, in fact, when the world and the future was totally unknown and it was completely believable that you could be – or do – anything at all. The possibilities were endless. A train driver or an astronaut, a pilot or the captain of a submarine. He couldn’t do any of those things in life now, of course, but it was that feeling – and the power – ofchoicethat was the freedom.
And, just for a few days, in a country where nobody knew him, Angus was letting himself be someone different. Someone who wore sneakers instead of brogues. Chinos instead of jeans. A flat leather cap. A man who could kiss a girl in the sunshine in a glittering mountain stream and buy her a stupidly expensive scrap of fabric to tie around her hair. And get a kick out of doing all those things.
He was enjoying himself, Angus realised.Reallyenjoying himself.
Loving the warmth and the occasional waft of a floral scent that was pure summer and driving this beautiful car that hugged the curves of the country roads. Passing the purple swathes of lavender fields on one turn and blinking at the glowing yellow of thousands of sunflowers around the next. Listening to Simon and Garfunkel and getting gently buffeted by wind. The combination was making him feel…alive– that’s what it was.
Angus felt more alive than he had since those heady days as a kid when he was allowed to take some oat cakes and apples anda bottle of orange cordial in a satchel and head out with Robbie for a summer holiday adventure with no thoughts whatsoever of any risks or reasons why it might not turn out to be the best day of his life.
The first reminders that he was in the adult world, where almost anything and everything could go wrong if you weren’t careful, came about an hour into this drive. Traffic was slowing. Cars were parked haphazardly along the grass verges and, unexpectedly, it turned out to be several ancient-looking tractors that were causing disruptions. A road into the town of Valensole was blocked and a policeman directed Angus to take the car off the main road and into the town.
Tilly was scrolling on her phone.
‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘How could I have forgotten? Today’s the lavender festival.’ She looked over her shoulder at the traffic built up behind them on the one-way street and then at the map she had open on her phone. ‘We can’t go back. Try the next turn to the right,’ she said. ‘We might be able to bypass the chaos.’
But the street Angus turned into was full of people that were dressed in traditional costumes – the men in white shirts and waistcoats and wide-brimmed black felt hats, and the women in colourful long dresses and aprons with shawls around their shoulders and white bonnets on their heads. People shouted and waved at him and he had to stop. Tilly called out, asking for directions for somewhere they might be able to park and a man clearly took pity on her and they had an animated conversation. She took some cash from her satchel and he pointed to an alleyway.
‘We can park in there,’ she told Angus, ‘until the festival starts winding down in a couple of hours when the main parades will be over. There’s not much point trying to get through before then.’ She offered him a hopeful smile. ‘You never know, you might enjoy this. It’s very Provençal.’
But Angus could feel muscles tightening in his jaw as he followed the directions and tucked the car into a small space between two buildings. He didn’t want to enjoy this. He felt trapped instead of free now. And what about the car?
‘Is it safe here?’ he asked.
‘Put the roof up again and lock it. It should be fine.’ Tilly was taking the scarf off her head. She folded it carefully, tucked it into her satchel and climbed out of her seat with a graceful movement that suggested she had planned this all along and she was quite confident he was going to appreciate it.
Angus gritted his teeth. That was extremely unlikely. He didn’t do impetuous and, if it was forced on him, he was quite capable of hating every minute of it. This aspect of Tilly’s personality that made her always look on the bright side of anything was already tiresome. He had a very different manner of coping with adverse events. He identified the problem and amplified it so that he could develop plans to try and mitigate any further complications. Tilly simply minimised the problem and then tried to twist it into becoming an advantage.
She hoped for the best rather than preparing for the worst. They really couldn’t be more opposite, could they?
