‘Thank you,’ Lily said.
‘But your friend, eh?’ Frédérique added, raising an eyebrow. ‘She like to ’ow you say, she like a drink a little too much, per’aps? She is a bit crazy?’
‘I know. But… c’est compliqué,’ she said. ‘It’s complicated. She is… un peu malade.’
‘She is sick?’ Frédérique looked concerned. ‘From the drinking?’
‘No. Well, yes. But no, I mean… She’s not sick exactly. It’s more that she’s triste, sad.’
‘She ’as une dépression?’
Another female word, Lily thought. Great. ‘Well, a bit. At the moment,’ she said. ‘She…’ But she couldn’t find the words to explain without betraying Emily’s confidence. And she wasn’t sure whether Frédérique would cope with the mention of a cervix over the breakfast table.
Frédérique nodded sagely. ‘I understand,’ he said. ‘You want that I tell people this?’
‘Oh no! Please don’t tell everyone she’s depressed!’
‘I mean,’ he said, leaning forward slightly, his face only inches from hers; eyes earnest, ‘I mean to tell them that she is not well, that it is pas normal for ’er to, how you say, drink the piss?’
‘To get pissed,’ Lily corrected, with a grin. ‘And yes, please. I mean, if people say anything about it.’
‘OK, I tell them,’ he said. ‘But I tell them for you. Because you are my friend, oui?’ He held her gaze for a moment and she found herself looking away, face flushed.
‘Yes. Yes, definitely,’ she said.
Frédérique stood up decisively. ‘And now you can go back to the new ’ouse, without les ravageurs, the little pests!’ he said with a grin.
‘Yes. Thanks for that again. And sorry about… the bites. Do you want me to… do I owe you anything?’
‘No, you do not need to pay me,’ he said. ‘After all, it iz still my ’ouse pour l’instant, eh. Zey were my petite pests, oui?’ He smiled. ‘But maybe when your friend goes back to Angleterre you can buy me a beer? Tell me about your dessins et your plans’
She looked up at him, his earnest, injured face so open and friendly and found herself smiling.
‘Definitely,’ she said.
He reached a hand out and gently touched her shoulder. ‘And perhaps, Madame, you will solve another mystery for me – eh? ’Ow such a beautiful woman end up coming to zis small place alone?’
It had been a while since she’d been touched. She wanted to say something, to say that she wasn’t available – not like that. But perhaps he didn’t mean anything by it. It was just a friendly gesture.
She wanted to say something modest, like, Pah! Beautiful! You need your eyes testing. Or something Emily might say, such as, Do you mind taking your hand off my shoulder. Perhaps even, Unhand me, sir!
But actually, it was quite nice to feel his hand on her shoulder. And she didn’t know what she wanted to say about it.
‘Well, yes,’ she said. ‘I’m not sure when Emily’s going. But yes. That would be très bon.’
There was a clatter from the hallway and, as Lily lifted her head to look she saw Emily peeping around the doorway – invisible to Frédérique from her position. She made a little face at Lily, unsure whether or not she should come in.
‘Hey, Emily!’ Lily said loudly. ‘Frédérique, this is my friend, Emily. Emily, this is Frédérique, the maire, the man who is selling the house to me.’
‘Bonjour,’ said Emily, walking up to them and sticking out her hand for a shake. She eyed Frédérique with interest. She’d changed into a pair of white jeans and a red, flowered blouse and looked so fresh and groomed from the shower that Lily suddenly felt sweaty and inadequate in comparison.
‘Rebonjour, Madame,’ Frédérique said, briefly touching his fingers to hers. ‘I ’ear you ’ave quite an experience au marché this afternoon, huh?’ He grinned.
‘That’s one way to describe it, I suppose.’
‘It is OK, I now, I know your secret ah? I will tell all zat this woman, she is not like this normalement. She does not mostly like to drink like the poisson, eh? All will be well.’
‘Well, thank you,’ Emily said, looking at Lily with eyes that told a different story.
‘Well, I’d better go,’ Frédérique said, looking at them both with a wide smile. ‘Bonne soirée, Mesdames.’
‘Bonne soirée,’ they chimed in unison as he left the room.
‘Right, missy,’ Emily said, grabbing Lily’s arm and pulling her into a chair. ‘You have got some explaining to do.’
‘I have’
‘Yes, first of all, what secret of mine is that man going to tell to the entire Limousin?’
‘Oh, it’s nothing to worry about… it’s…’
‘And didn’t you think to tell him that I’m quite able to fight my own battles?’
‘Well, I probably should have but—’
‘And,’ interrupted Emily with a grin, ‘much more importantly, why didn’t you tell me that the man you were buying the house from looked so much like Max Skinner?’
‘Max Skinner?’ the reference was briefly lost on Lily. ‘Who’s—’
‘“This place does not suit my life”,’ said Emily, with a dramatic flourish. ‘“No, Max, it’s your life that does not suit this place.”’
‘Oh god, you’re right,’ Lily said, her mouth dropping open.
‘“Pardon my lips”,’ began Emily.
‘…“they find joy in the most unusual places”,’ finished Lily. ‘Oh, bloody hell.’
‘Lily, I hate to break this to you. Yes, the house is a bit smaller and you don’t have a vineyard. But other than that you’ve pretty much just stepped into the set of your favourite film.’
Because behind the beard, behind the bites, when you imagined him in a cream linen suit and with slightly longer hair, Frédérique was the spit of a younger Russell Crowe.
18
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, wrapping his arms around her tightly. ‘We can try again.’
‘But what if it doesn’t work?’
‘Then we’ll try again… again.’
She felt her heartbeat calm as she lay against his chest. Then, ‘Ben,’ she said, ‘what if it never happens?’
He was silent for a minute. ‘Then,’ he said at last, ‘I will still be the luckiest man in the world. Just to have you. Anything else, well, that would be the icing on the cake. But you know what? The cake’s pretty damn good just as it is.’
She laughed then, despite the tears. Despite the tenth negative pregnancy test in a row. ‘Who are you calling a cake?’ she said.
The house smelled musty and damp when they arrived and Lily spent the first twenty minutes grappling with blinds and old window catches to try to air things out a bit. ‘It’s funny how it had started to feel like home, but now it doesn’t,’ she said to Emily. ‘It’s like it’s reset itself while we’ve been away – reverted to its original form.’
‘I can always get some loirs to move in again, if you think that’s the problem?’ said her friend, giving her a squeeze.
‘No, thanks. I think I’ll do without.’
‘Come on, cheer up. I know what you mean. But it’ll soon feel like yours again. We’ll get some coffee on and blast out that musty smell for a start.’
‘Thanks, Em.’
‘Hey, it’s what I’m here for,’ Emily said, with a wry smile. ‘To lift your spirits.’
‘Well, that and because you’re running away.’
‘Well, yes. That too.’
‘Are you… well, how are you feeling?’
‘Absolutely shitting myself, darling.’
‘Oh, Em. Not long now.’
It was 9.30 on Monday morning and although they’d packed up their things and come to the house early to keep themselves occupied, it was impossible not to think about Emily’s imminent call to the clinic. She’d rung up yesterday at Lily’s insistence to chase the errant result, only to be told that – although the clinic was open at weekends -there was nothing new in her file and her consultant wouldn’t be in until the next morning.
‘Don’t worry,’ the receptionist had apparently said, ‘these things take a little more time to go through the system sometimes.’
‘She sounded as if she expected me to laugh and say: “Ah, don’t worry about it” – as if it was a pair of knickers I’d ordered that had got lost in the post, or a library book I’d reserved. Not an actual medical result that might change my life forever,’ Emily had fumed afterwards.
‘I suppose when you work with that sort of thing day in, day out, it becomes very ordinary,’ Lily had suggested. ‘You can’t feel it all the time or you’d go mad.’
‘Yes, but surely she should understand a bit more about what people need to hear in this situation,’ Emily had said. ‘She was just so… breezy. She could at least have made a sympathetic noise or two.’
‘What kind of noise?’
‘Well, hmm, haaa,’ Emily had said, tilting her head to the side and fluttering her eyelashes.
‘That is very impressive.’