The French for Love Read Online Free PDF Page A

‘Very apt at this precise moment. You taught me that rhyme. How does it go? One for sorrow, two for joy, three for a girl, four for a boy. Five’s for silver, six for gold... And I forget what seven is?’
    Liz smiled. ‘Ah, seven. Seven for a secret never to be told. All of life is there really, in that one simple rhyme.’ She took a sip of her wine, musing for a moment. ‘Clever birds, magpies. But they can be cruel and ruthless too. Which reminds me,’ she’d said, eyebrows raised in an expression of mock innocence, ‘how is that complete bastard Ed these days?’
    ‘Aunt Elizabeth, really!’ I protested feebly, my heart not in it as she well knew.
    ‘Well, what a spineless shit, carrying on behind your back like that. I hate to say it, but I didn’t really take to him that time you brought him here last year. Too smooth for his own good. And not nearly good enough for you, if you ask me. Although, of course, you didn’t and I’d never have dreamt of saying so at the time. And what was all that nonsense about the family name?’ she continued, warming to her theme, comfortingly outraged on my behalf. ‘A load of pompous rubbish he used to go on about.’
    ‘I know,’ I sighed. ‘Edmund Wilberforce Cavendish. He was named after a bachelor uncle in the hope that he’d inherit some huge family pile. The funny thing is, though, the old bloke ended up marrying some glamorous divorcée at the eleventh hour. She had three children and he left the whole lot to them instead. So Ed ended up with nothing.’
    ‘Well it serves him right,’ retorted Liz, still briskly indignant. She paused, then said, a little more gently, ‘Did you really love him?’
    I’d hesitated, contemplating how to answer her question. ‘I don’t know if it was love exactly, but I’d become very used to having him around. It certainly wasn’t a grand passion, but you can’t hang around forever waiting for the love of your life to come along, you know. I did think we were probably going to get married eventually...’ I tailed off, hearing how half-hearted that sounded.
    My good friend and former fellow wine buyer at Wainright’s, Annie Mackenzie, has a theory that the difference between good wine and mediocre wine is the same as the difference between good sex and mediocre sex: to be good, it has to engage the mind as well as the senses. Talking to Liz on that warm spring evening, Annie’s theory popped into my mind and it suddenly struck me that Ed had been more of a bottle of plonk than a Grand Cru. More plonker than prince, now I come to think of it.
    ‘Well, you deserve far better than that,’ Liz retorted. ‘The love of your life is exactly what you should be waiting for. Don’t settle for anything less.’
    ‘But what if the right man doesn’t come along? What if I never have children? I always imagined I would, but that clock’s ticking fast these days. What if I don’t meet anyone in time?’
    ‘Then you will live a happy and fulfilled life on your own,’ Liz said firmly. ‘It’s not that bad, you know.’
    ‘Is that what you did? Decide not to settle for anything less than the man of your dreams, I mean? Did he just never come along?’
    Liz had reached down to deadhead some daffodils growing in a pot beside us. It was a nonchalant gesture, but it struck me as maybe just a little self-conscious too, like she was avoiding meeting my eye. ‘Oh, I met the man of my dreams all right. But it was complicated. In fact so complicated that it was impossible. And yes, after that I did decide that I could never settle for second best. But that’s way back in prehistoric times now.’ From her brisk change of tone I knew she was firmly fending off any further questions. ‘It’s far too late for an old dinosaur like me. But you are a mere spring chicken, with everything going for you and time still on your side, so just hang on in there. What are you now? Twenty-seven?’
    ‘Twenty-eight and counting. It’s funny,