Close Encounters of the Romantic Kind
Happy Valentine’s Day! Wishing you close encounters of the romantic kind…
From The French for Love, Chapter One:
Lost in my thoughts, I nearly miss the turning into the lane between the vines. I swerve at the last moment, just making the turn.
And then have to stand on the brakes with all my force as the car comes face-to-face with a dark blue pickup that’s coming down the narrow lane towards me. My tyres screech and skid on a patch of loose gravel and, as if in slow motion, the back end of the car slides gracefully into the ditch. The engine stalls and I sit in sudden silence, shaking all over at my narrow miss. So near and yet so far – I’m only a few yards from the driveway to Liz’s house and here I am, disastrously stuck in what I can only wish was a proverbial rut but sadly and incredibly annoyingly turns out to be a real one.
There’s a tap on my window. The driver of the pickup has jumped down from his cab and run over. He peers in at me and I have an impression of warm eyes in a deeply tanned face. I roll down the window.
“Excusez-moi madame,” he says, concerned. His French has just a slight twang of the south-west accent that’s so common around here. “Are you alright?”
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’m shaken, but unhurt. I nod, covered in embarrassment. “Just stuck.” I open the door and try to clamber out but the angle is awkward with the backside of the car in the ditch and the nose in the air, and I miss my footing and almost end up on my own backside, slipping onto my knees and covering my jeans with mud in the process. Not the most dignified of entrances.
“Oopla!” says the man, clutching my arm with a strong hand and helping me back onto my feet. He grins widely, obviously highly amused at my predicament and my increasingly dishevelled state, then hunkers down to get a closer look at the back wheels.
“Don’t worry, I’ll tow you out of there. No damage done, fortunately. You were going far too fast for these small roads. ”
I bristle slightly. Listen mate, I want to say, the last thing I need right now is a lecture from a smug, know-it-all Frenchman. I’ve been travelling for twenty-four hours, have lost my job, my boyfriend, and most of my family, haven’t slept properly in months, have had to up sticks and move so far from my comfort zone that I can’t even remember what my comfort zone looks like any more, and now I and all my worldly goods have ended up in a muddy ditch. So it hasn’t exactly been my day, has it?
But I don’t say this, partly because my French isn’t up to it and partly because I manage to remind myself just in time that he is the one with the tow-rope and the four-wheel drive. And so, unless I want to leave my car stuck here and carry everything I own up the drive to my new home one cardboard box and bin-bagful at a time, I had better be polite.
I smile and manage a faint, “merci monsieur,” as he fixes the rope under the car. I clamber awkwardly back into the driver’s seat and then he carefully edges his pickup back, taking up the slack, and the car rights itself as it regains the road.
The man unhitches the towrope and comes back round to my window, brushing down his dusty green overalls. “There you go. A bit muddy on the derrière, but no harm done.” He grins again, his dark eyes twinkling, and I’m not sure whether he’s talking about me or my car. I re-start my engine but he’s still leaning in at the window, giving me an appraising look. In the midst of my confusion and embarrassment I register that he’s really rather good-looking. Which only makes me blush even harder.
“Yes, well, thanks again.”
“It’s my pleasure. Oh, et bienvenue en France!”
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