‘You know, what I said. About not contacting me for a bit. I mean, it seemed sensible. Everyone says, don’t they, when you’re trying to get… over someone, that you should cut all ties. But maybe… I mean, if you do want to call again, I think I’d be OK with that,’ he’d said, awkwardly.
‘Well,’ she’d said. ‘I might just do that.’
The waiter arrived to clear their plates just as she was lifting the last bit of lettuce into her mouth, and offered them the dessert menu.
‘Dessert, Ty?’ Lily said.
He nodded. ‘Always.’
Afterwards, as they wandered back to the car, they began to talk about his uni course and what he was looking forward to. He seemed to have very little knowledge of the reading list and she resolved to look up the information and send it through.
‘I can find out when I get there!’ he protested.
‘Ty, if you read the stuff now, you’ll feel more prepared,’ she said, sounding so much like her own mum that it was both annoying and heart-wrenching. She remembered a similar conversation with her mum back in the day, and she’d probably reacted more or less the same way. Evidently, it was a mother’s lot, it seemed, to be appreciated more posthumously – like Van Gogh or Edgar Allen Poe. The Cassandra of the family dynamic, cursed to utter truths and for no one to take them seriously.
She was just pondering this when a voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘Bonjour!’ it cried loudly.
She looked up, across the road was Frédérique – dressed in a short-sleeved shirt and linen trousers. A slight purple stain at the corner of his mouth revealing he’d had a couple of glasses of red over lunch. He was grinning widely.
She lifted her hand to wave at him before walking on, but he waited for a car to pass then strode determinedly towards them.
Merde.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see Frédérique. In fact, she’d been checking her phone for text messages like a lovelorn teenager since their date. It was seeing him with Ty – not knowing how to introduce him and not wanting to upset either of them in doing so. Plus, she’d told him specifically that she didn’t want the pair of them to meet, not yet.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘I know you say it’s too soon for us to meet, but I cannot resist to stop and say hello when I see you walking.’
‘It’s OK,’ she said, embarrassed that he was revealing she’d asked him to stay away. ‘Um… This is Ty – my son. Ty… this is my friend, Frédérique.’ She made wild eye contact with Frédérique in the hope that he’d pick up on the fact that she wasn’t ready to come out as anything more.
‘Ah, we are friend, yes!’ Frédérique replied with an elaborate wink, before leaning forward and kissing her proprietorially on the mouth. ‘Very good friends, eh!’
Was he actually doing this on purpose?
‘Enchanté,’ he said, reaching a hand out to Ty, who studiously ignored it. ‘But wait, this cannot be your son. He is a man. You are not old enough to ’ave a child who is grown. Maybe he is a lover, eh? Maybe I should be jealous?’
The humour didn’t land well with either of them. ‘Oh, thank you,’ she said, blushing. ‘But… we’d better…’
‘She’s forty-four,’ said Ty, sullenly. ‘She had me when she was twenty-six.’
‘Mais oui, but she look so young!’ Frédérique continued, not really sensing the tone. ‘She is beautiful, your mother, non? You must be very proud!’
‘Um.’ Ty seemed lost for words.
‘Anyway, we’d better…’ Lily said again, pushing past him slightly and grabbing the sleeve of Ty’s shirt to keep him at her side. ‘We’re… well, I’ll call you – OK?’
‘Oui, for our next date, per’aps?’ Frédérique called after her. ‘The last one, it was perfect. I cannot wait.’
She felt her shoulders stiffen. But resisted the urge to turn and glower at him. It would only make things worse.
They walked to the car silently then slipped in.
‘So who was that?’ Ty said, his tone flat.
‘Frédérique? Well, he’s… he’s a friend, I suppose. A new friend.’
‘A friend you’re dating?’
‘Well, yes. Sorry. Someone I’ve been on a date with. But a friend, too.’
‘Right.’
‘Which is OK, Ty. I mean, I’m single now, right?’ she said, giving him a worried sideways glance.
‘Yep,’ he said, shortly.
She didn’t push him. It was always going to be difficult for him to think of his mum as someone who could go on dates. Especially as he was clearly clinging to some sort of hope for her and Ben.
What had Frédérique been playing at? After her message explaining the situation, to plant a kiss on her mouth, and mention dating in front of Ty – it was as if he was forcing her hand. But surely Frédérique wasn’t like that? Perhaps it was the wine, she told herself. Wine at lunch was never a good idea. Or maybe his lack of subtlety had been a language issue?
As the drive continued in silence she wondered whether she ought to tell Ty that she and Frédérique hadn’t slept together yet. But after constructing the words in her head in several different ways, she concluded that any mention of – or even allusion to – sex was not going to help matters much.
‘I wondered if you might help me this afternoon,’ she said instead, trying to sound bright and cheerful. ‘I’ve found a second-hand car on LeBonCoin and thought maybe you could come and see it with me.’
‘Yep, no problem.’
There was a few minutes’ silence, then she tried again. ‘You know, Ty, I’ll always love your dad.’
He was silent.
‘And Frédérique and I… well, we only went for a meal. It was nothing… really.’
‘It’s OK, it’s none of my business.’
‘Well, it kind of is your business though. And I don’t want you to feel… well, you know.’
‘So,’ he said, ‘what kind of car is it?’
29
‘Don’t forget these,’ Lily said, handing Ty some underwear she’d washed for him.
‘Thanks, Mum.’ He stuffed them into his bag where she suspected they’d be mixing with dirty socks and other sweaty garments and would need another good wash once he unpacked them – probably in a month or so’s time. But it was the thought that counted.
The four days had flashed past, and she was yet again getting ready to take someone she loved back to the airport – to facilitate their flying hundreds of miles away from her.
‘I can’t believe you’re actually going already,’ she said, looking at her son as he emptied the bag out again and began rifling through the contents, probably looking for his passport. ‘It’s flown by, hasn’t it?’
‘Yeah,’ he said, only half concentrating. She wasn’t insulted. Over the past few years, she’d got used to teenage communication – one-word answers, grunts and shrugs. She knew they had more to do with the particular combination of lethargy, hormones and distraction spinning in the teenage brain than a desire to be rude.
‘Want anything from the p?tisserie? I’m going to pop there in a sec,’ she added. ‘Give the new wheels a spin.’
‘Just get me whatever,’ he said. By which he meant a selection of all available pastries, preferably in duplicate.
Yesterday, they’d gone together to look at a second-hand car at a garage just north of Limoges.
She’d seen an ad in the paper for a small Clio at a reasonable price had rung the garage and made an appointment to go and see it. But as the original car they’d showed up to see had proved to be more battered and bruised than she’d imagined, she had instead picked up a second-hand Micra, very similar to the one she’d hired. It had felt good to have Tyler with her – it was the first time she’d bought a car by herself and although she knew what she wanted, having a second opinion gave her the reassurance she needed to part with a few more thousand of her inheritance. She felt a little sick as she punched in her pin code in at the garage – she’d have to get this retreat up and running soon; or maybe talk to Ben about her share of the equity in the UK, or she’d be struggling.
Later, she’d be able to drop Ty and the hire car off at the airport and take the train back from Limoges afterwards.
Yesterday evening, Frédérique had called her to see if she’d fancied going out again later in the week and, despite his over-the-top behaviour in the town, she’d been over the moon to hear his voice. ‘Tyler’s going back tomorrow,’ she’d said, and told him about her plan.
‘But of course you must not go home in the train,’ he’d told her. ‘My love, I will give you a lift.’
‘Oh no,’ she’d said, thinking how Ty would probably not appreciate his accompanying them to the airport. ‘But thank you.’
It had been nice of him to offer.
Emily had called briefly too. She’d popped in to see Ben.
‘He cottoned on straightaway that it was an intervention,’ she’d moaned. ‘In spite of my brilliant excuse.’
‘Which was?’
‘I said I thought I might have left my sunglasses at yours a couple of months ago.’
‘That’s a pathetic excuse.’
‘So it seems. He rumbled me immediately.’