Daisy's French Farmhouse, page 6
“Any problems?” he asks, crouching down to encourage Pickle back out from under the desk.
I follow him in. “No it was fine, honestly. I think I made a little progress with Pickle. I suppose it’s early days though.”
“He likes you, I can tell.” Anton looks up at me and smiles that warm smile at me that threw me so much the first time.
“Er… so all this is to do with your appraisal work?” I gesture to the books and papers.
“Not exactly, no.” Anton gets back up to his feet. “I’m working on a book about the myths and legends of the area, where they originated and which ones have endured.”
“Really? That sounds fascinating.”
“I’m glad you think so.” He treats me to another warm smile.
“I don’t know where you find the time to write a book on top of keeping your shop open and carrying out your appraisal trips.”
Anton shrugs. “The shop is only open part-time and we are not so busy. Often I have time to carry out my research there. I sometimes come across interesting material in my work. I started the project to keep myself busy in the evenings. You know…”
He seems more subdued now and I realise the significance of what he’s telling me – or trying to let me know without having to spell it out. This book started out as a grief project, a much-needed distraction from the chasm of nights alone.
“I understand,” is all I say in response, trying to fill my voice with as much kindness as possible.
Anton half turns away and picks up a book from his desk, seeming keen to push uncomfortable emotions to one side and move to the firmer, more intellectual ground of his passion for history.
“We can learn so much from the objects of the past,” he says, a gleam in his eye. I almost laugh. I want to tell him he’s preaching to the converted but as a conversation opener that’s never gone down too well. Sceptics don’t usually bother me, as long as they don’t make a point of haranguing me, but I realise with a pang that Anton’s opinion really does matter to me. I really want him to like me.
After all, he’s a client; of course I want him to like me. Is there something more to it though? I dismiss the idea. I’m feeling compassion for him, that’s all. Yet the strength of my emotions around Anton, on a day when Scott has basically asked for my phone number makes me wonder if what I feel, what I felt, for Scott was more infatuation for the man I believed him to be.
I watch Anton showing me some of his recent acquisitions and find I’m genuinely really interested. He’s writing about the things that lie beneath the surface. He’s clearly a man of depth and has real passion for his subject. I like seeing him so animated. It’s like a snapshot of Anton pre-bereavement.
Also, I already feel that there’s something special about this area, more than the sunshine and the sense of community, and finding out about its past, its legends, and ancient, long-buried tales really appeals to me.
“Like this, it’s an old… how do you say… botanical book with natural and herbal remedies.”
“It looks very old.” I eye the volume warily, sensing a kind of energy from it already.
“Here, you can look if you like.”
Before I can say anything he’s placed the volume in my hands, the swiftness of his enthusiasm taking me by surprise.
I feel a powerful jolt of accumulated emotions – warmth, love, pain, and sorrow, and a deep fear… I blink hard and breathe slowly, trying to let the emotions wash over me without taking any of them on. I carefully place the book back onto the table, shaken; I’ve felt this kind of energy before.
“It’s a grimoire, isn’t it? A witch’s grimoire?” The question has escaped my lips before I can stop it. I’m too caught up in the moment and the connection to the past.
He gazes at me curiously.
“You know the word grimoire?” I ask, wondering if it’s a language issue or a ‘me’ issue.
“Yes, I know it – it’s a French word. You looked very… strange when you held it, like you were reading with your eyes closed. How did you know it belonged to a witch? I didn’t tell you.” His tone isn’t sceptical as such, more curious.
“I felt it.” It’s my turn to shrug now. I really don’t want to be having this conversation, not with an important new client. I’ve had too many people turn on me in the past, sometimes unexpectedly and very hurtfully so. But, on the other hand, if I’m going to find a way to be my authentic self somehow, I don’t want to lie. It feels important to me that I don't lie to Anton. “I’ve touched similar books before and they have a certain… energy signature. The owner may well have just been a healer – she did good in the community – but I can’t shake the feeling she was persecuted as a witch.”
I edge back from the book. I don’t want to touch it again. There was too much emotion attached to it and properly shielding myself mentally takes time. I wish I hadn’t let myself get so caught up in the moment.
“I think we are maybe having a translation issue…” Anton frowns, puzzled. “How could you feel it? Sorry, perhaps it is an idiom I have not come across?”
I cross my arms over my chest, feeling edgy and wishing I’d never started the conversation. I could just pretend Anton is right, that it was a translation mistake and invent something to make any potential awkwardness go away. Yet there’s a stubborn streak inside me that refuses to retract the words. It belongs to the young girl who was fed up with being punished for something she couldn’t control, the teenager who had to swallow down her anger when she was spat at and called a weirdo, or the young woman who was rejected by a boyfriend for being too odd; for all those parts of me – and maybe because of the nature of the book I was holding and the persecution its bearer suffered – I am going to stand by what I said and what I felt.
“No, you understood correctly, I meant that I felt it, felt the energy.” I continue to hug my body, my arms forming a defensive shield. “I felt the energy of the woman who owned the book. You know archaeologists have sometimes used people like me, psychometrists, to helps them locate relics. It might be an odd concept if you’ve not come across it but maybe it’s not all that surprising when you consider we are electromagnetic beings, and even Einstein came to believe in the end that everything was energy, even matter. If machines can pick up electromagnetic currents from trees and plants then why not objects too?”
“But you… you are not a machine taking a reading.” Anton frowns.
I’m not sure if it’s the meaning of my words he’s struggling to accept or that it’s quite a complex translation. I rarely discuss my gift like this. I can’t think what’s come over me that I am choosing now with my brand new client to talk so openly about the gift I’ve tried to conceal for much of my life.
The courage I felt is draining away to be replaced with an edginess that propels me towards the door. I need to put some distance between me and this room, between me and Anton.
“Anyway, I really mustn’t take up any more of your time,” I say, making plain my intent to leave. “I must get back to the guesthouse to help with dinner preparations.”
Anton immediately switches into polite and professional mode, pulling out his wallet to pay me and thanking me for coming.
At the front door I make a huge fuss of the dogs, not wanting to meet Anton’s gaze, hoping against hope that I won’t see any loss of respect there. It upsets me that the smiley, animated Anton, so excited to show me his project, has been replaced by his usual, more measured and reserved persona. It would upset me far more to feel I’ve fallen in his estimation, which is crazy. After all, I barely know him.
The bike ride home does little to relieve my mood, though being in motion and pedalling hard does help me work the edginess out of my body. The image of Anton and the two dogs on the doorstep seeing me off is niggling at me and I’m having to ignore the temptation to turn back to try to erase the awkwardness, to get back to the easy connection of earlier, before my ‘gift’ took us to a stranger place.
It’s been a strange day. I barely think about Angie’s message until I get to bed, yet even then, as I toss and turn, unable to settle down to sleep, somehow it’s Anton’s face that haunts me, not Scott’s, and underlying it all is a sense I’m where I need to be and it’s time to stop hiding. When I do drift into sleep, I swear I feel something of the courage of the woman whose grimoire I held. I dream or sense or hear her whispering to me, soul to soul, telling me it’s time to grow into the woman I’m meant to be.
Unapologetically me.
Chapter Four
“Trust your intuition and be guided by love.”
Charles Eisenstein
Hi Angie, thanks for letting me know. Men, eh? What is it with their sense of timing? I think the sensible thing to do is have a clean break. He might be separated but he’s still married and I’m trying to get a fresh start here. I want to make a go of it. I really like it here. Maybe I’ll regret saying no but I think it’s the right decision. Thanks for passing on his number though.
Anywaaaaay... how are things with you? Did you go for my old job?
D xx
The next day Poppy, JoJo, and I are all taking an afternoon break in the garden. Poppy and JoJo are having a yoga session and I decide to join in. It’s been a while since I made it to a yoga class but I do remember how relaxed they always used to leave me. And relaxed is something I’m definitely not today. I’ve decided I’m definitely not going to contact Scott. I know it’s the right thing to do but still I’m feeling off somehow and kind of out of sorts.
Running out on Anton before he had a chance to fully process what I was trying to tell him yesterday hasn’t helped. I still don’t understand why I felt the need to go into quite so much detail with him. I’m worried he’s thinking I’m really odd now. A bit of recentring is just what I need.
Flump, Peanut, Treacle, and Pickwick have joined us and are having great fun trying to use us as climbing frames. It’s a little disconcerting to be in the downward dog position only for Flump to walk between my back legs and lick my nose, but I get why Poppy lets them join in. With the chihuahuas trying to scale her legs and Pickwick throwing his ball onto anyone foolish enough to be in a lying down position, soon we are all giggling.
“I say the humour element of the dogs joining in is just as good for us as the actual yoga,” Poppy asserts and flops into a sitting position on her mat, giving up for the moment and throwing Pickwick’s ball for him.
“I certainly feel better for it.” I sit cross-legged and stroke Peanut, who has hopped onto my lap for a cuddle, claiming the spot before anyone else can.
“Yes, I thought you seemed a bit fed up earlier. Anything wrong?” Poppy gazes at me shrewdly.
“A few things,” I say, looking down at Peanut on my lap. “Scott turned up at my old workplace and wanted to pass on the message that he was separated from his wife. Oh, and he wanted to pass on his phone number. Angie, my friend, wouldn’t give him my number but it’s possible if he asks Becca she might do it, just to stir things up.”
“Really?” Poppy asks. “I can’t believe you’ve taken this long to tell us about it!”
“So, have you sent him a message?” JoJo asks.
I shake my head.
“Are you going to?” Poppy joins in the interrogation.
“No.” I shake my head again. “I don’t think so anyway. But that’s not the only thing bothering me at the moment. Something… weird happened yesterday at Anton’s.”
“Weird how?” JoJo takes a swig of water from her bottle. I don’t know how she manages to look so radiant while Poppy and I are beaded with perspiration.
I hesitate, not sure how much to say. I don’t know JoJo well enough to know if she’s likely to judge me because of it. Obviously I don’t know Anton well enough either but that conversation happened in the heat of the moment.
“Was it to do with your gift?” Poppy asks casually, stretching out her legs. “It’s okay – I told JoJo about it.”
Seriously? I raise my eyebrows, but don’t say anything; there wouldn’t be much point. Poppy always errs on the side of giving people the benefit of the doubt which is very nice and all, but my experience of people’s reactions have varied from sceptical and patronising to virtually accusing me of being in league with the devil. It’s often impossible to know how someone will react. I suppose she knows JoJo very well though, and the echoes of the dreams I had last night about not being afraid to stand tall and be myself, to grow into the woman I’m meant to be, still resonate with me now.
At least, I’m pretty sure it was in my dreams. Last night is still a little fuzzy in my mind.
“It’s fine, Daisy, don’t worry. I’m pretty open-minded about things like that,” JoJo says and I relax a little. “You know Cal is a bit of a science geek on the quiet and he’s always telling me about some latest quantum biology or quantum physics experiment that backs up something that previously people have believed but not been able to prove.”
“Oh really? That sounds interesting,” I say, encouraged. “It would be interesting to talk to him. I’ve tried reading up about it but I struggle to keep up with the science.”
“Be careful. Once you get him going on the subject he’ll never shut up.” JoJo laughs. “He says the gap between science and spirituality is noticeably smaller than it used to be.”
“What sort of things does he say science is now backing up?” I have to admit I’m both curious and pleasantly surprised. Generally, in spite of the reading I’ve done regarding the possible science backing up psychic phenomena I’m not used to a good reception from the scientifically minded, and they aren’t interested in listening to me. They start from a closed-off mindset and don’t listen to what I have to say.
“Oh, things like the electrical field around our bodies, that’s generated by our heart reaching much further than previously realised, now they’ve got more sensitive equipment for picking these things up,” JoJo says airily. “So I’m sure he’d say there may well be a scientific explanation for your gift, we just haven’t found it yet. I mean, you’re right aren’t you, with the details you give? Poppy said you’ve always been spot on. Cal would say it would be statistically impossible for you to always be right, particularly if you knew nothing about the object previously. Therefore it’s the more likely explanation that you are actually picking up on something, the same way that some people have a superior sense of smell, it’s just that we don’t understand why.”
I like the sound of this side of Cal and I’d love to talk to him about his reading. Both he and JoJo are very down to earth and nice. I can see that JoJo was completely misrepresented by the media and I’m not at all surprised she ran away to France to get away from all the nasty gossip.
“Well I’m glad not everyone here will think I’m weird.” I sigh and fill them in on what happened with Anton and the defensive way I’d reacted to try to explain myself.
“To be fair, you didn’t give him much of a chance to react, if you rushed out immediately after,” Poppy says. “And you don’t actually know what he’s thinking. Maybe he’s more open-minded than you’re fearing.”
“Hmm, I suppose,” I admit. “I’ve had a few upsetting past experiences that made me unwilling to stick around to find out, but I’m going to have to face him soon.”
Peanut tilts her head back up at me, wondering why the steady stream of fuss has stopped. I resume stroking her and she snuggles back into me.
“So you care what Anton thinks about you.” Poppy smiles.
I shrug, rattled that she’s picked up on it.
“He’s my biggest client, so of course it matters what he thinks of me,” I reply, my words sounding more than a tad defensive, even to me.
“Uh-huh.” Annoyingly she just smiles and exchanges a look with JoJo.
“You should’ve heard what Cal thought of me when we first met,” JoJo says. “I actually overheard him talking about me and let’s just say it really wasn’t good. He’d read all the bad press about me and even though he knows how the media works he was still sucked in by some of it.”
“Really?” I raise my eyebrows. “And you forgave him?”
“Well he really is a god in the kitchen.” She shrugs and beams. “Not to mention a few other rooms too. To be fair, we both misjudged each other a little at first and he did apologise.”
“And look how they ended up,” Poppy adds, her eyes gleaming a little with mischief.
“Stop what you’re thinking right there. There’s nothing like that going on. I just meant it was awkward,” I warn her. “For one thing, he’s still a grieving widower. Secondly, I’m definitely focusing on myself for a while and can do without any messy complications. Oh, and thirdly, he’s an important part of my business. He’s probably going to be my biggest client.” I pretend not to notice the looks exchanged between Poppy and JoJo. Instead, I get up to play with Flump and Pickwick who are always up for a bit of active play, chasing balls or toys or playing tug of war, while the chihuahuas and Barney tend to prefer cuddles on the whole. I don’t know why their teasing is bothering me; I know they’re only messing around but for some reason I feel deeply unsettled. I probably didn’t do enough yoga.
“I expect Paul will view your ‘no men’ agenda as a challenge. Has he asked you out yet?” JoJo calls out after me.
“Oh yes, pretty much every time he bumps into me. He seems to know my dog walking routes and manages to be having a break at opportune moments,” I say. “He really is thick-skinned, isn’t he? At least out of all the dangers you warned me about I’ve only come across him and the Kamikaze-cat. No psychotic goats or Foreign Legion soldiers with guns. Not yet anyway.”
She and Poppy laugh.
“Give it time,” JoJo replies. “It’s still early days.”
“Won’t he ever get tired of it?” I turn back and ask, while Pickwick drops a ball on my foot in case I’ve forgotten what’s really important around here, namely a miniature Yorkshire terrier in need of a stick throwing machine, or failing that a human with a high tolerance threshold for terrier antics.
