spring. The hotels aren’t exactly busy – oh, except for Easter of course, which is late this year anyway. Being surrounded by all those hunky Frenchmen will be a bonus,’ Jane added with an innocent look on her face, which induced a resigned laugh from Belinda.
‘At least you won’t be there trying to matchmake,’ Belinda said. She and Jane had met at a book club three years ago when Belinda was struggling to cope after her unexpected divorce. Jane had been on a mission ever since to find Belinda a replacement husband, determined her new friend wouldn’t sink into a lonely middle age.
Several friends of Jane’s husband, Brett, had duly been introduced to Belinda at supper parties, but sadly not one of them had come up to Belinda’s new, exacting, requirements. Certainly none had given her even a tiny frisson of excitement when she met them. Jane had declared only last week that Belinda was impossible to please. She wasn’t really, she was just determined never to be hurt in the way Peter had hurt her ever again.
‘We’re talking northern Brittany here, not the Côte d’Azur, which, as we all know, is where all the hunky Frenchmen hang out. If Nigel had bought a campsite in Cannes or Antibes, I’d have gone like a shot. All that sunshine and je ne sais quoi, mmm.’ Belinda glanced at Jane. ‘Guess that makes me somewhat shallow?’
‘Just a bit. I don’t understand why you’re so upset at the thought of spending time in France. You’ve had holidays over there and loved it. You adore Paris and you’ve had several holidays in Nice. Paris and the Riviera aren’t the sum total of France, you know. Besides it’s not forever. You’ll be back before you know it.’ Jane looked at Belinda. ‘Anyway, you haven’t come up with a real reason yet for not going.’
‘I do know there’s more to France than the major tourist destinations, but Brittany is not somewhere I’ve ever longed to visit.’ Belinda shrugged. ‘I don’t like being out of my comfort zone these days. And, honestly, what do I know about campsites? I’ve never stayed in one. I like five-star hotels,’ was the only excuse she could think of without lying to her friend.
How could she admit to Jane the real reason behind her reluctance to go to Brittany? About that promise she’d made her mother when she was so ill? That she would go back to Brittany, lay the ghosts to rest. But it was a promise made under duress. Since her mum’s death, Belinda had guiltily pushed it to the back of her mind. After all, her mother would never know if she kept or broke the promise. Briefly, she toyed with the idea of telling Jane the real reason why she was fighting going to Brittany, but there were things in her past she’d never talked about to anyone outside of the family. Even Peter had only known the sketchiest outline of her previous life before she met him.
Belinda sighed. Jane was right. It wasn’t forever. She’d agree to go, keep her head down, concentrate on work, stay on site and ignore everything else. If the opportunity came up, maybe she would try and do something about those ghosts. And the good thing was she’d be back home ready to pick up her normal routine with the hotels in time for high season and summer.
3
To Belinda’s unspoken relief, her departure for France was delayed until late February by two things. The first was the fact that the Plymouth–Roscoff ferry was out of service in the New Year for six weeks of maintenance. The second was the organising of BB’s pet passport with all the necessary vaccinations and form filling.
As soon as she had a definite date for leaving, Belinda googled the nearest village to the campsite and booked herself in for a couple of nights at the Auberge de Campagne. That way she could check out the state of the cabins before living on the site. No way was she in the mood for slumming it in less than ideal conditions.
Despite the hotels being quiet in the first few weeks of the New Year, the days at work were busy for Belinda. Determined to leave everything in order for Nigel and Molly to deal with while she was away, she spent hours on the computer organising things.
In the evenings of the week leading up to departure day, she cleaned the flat until every surface shone, emptied the fridge