Bella had been one of those five-year-old girls who were already casting around for people to nurture. She had been the sort who would put her arm round the child who fell over in the playground, even if it was the fat girl who no one liked, and would march her to the teacher, saying importantly, ‘Miss, Pearl’s crying.’ She would then be dispatched to take Pearl to the sickroom and stay with her till the nurse sent her back. Having her own orphaned – as good as orphaned – cousin moving into the bedroom down the corridor had been Bella’s idea of heaven. She made sure I sat next to her for every meal. She gave me toys. When she discovered that I didn’t have a special toy to take to bed with me, she had given me her second-best teddy, Gavin. I still had him.
Bella had grown up into a flamboyant fashion editor with six-year-old twin boys and a penchant for expensive, tightly fitting clothing. She was my sister and my best friend. I did not doubt that she would have dropped everything for me had I needed her to. I had never needed her to, and I did not intend to start now. I just missed her.
The only other woman in the room was sitting three tables away, with a man. She had been smiling at Alice. Alice was ostensibly ignoring her, but she was sucking on her straw with studied cuteness. She knew exactly what she was doing. Finally, the woman came over.
‘
Que tu es mignonne
,’ she cooed. Alice looked at her briefly, and looked away, beaming but shy. ‘
Que tu es belle. Comment t’appelle tu?
’
I looked at my daughter. ‘What’s your name?’ I translated.
It came out in a near whisper. ‘Alice.’
‘Alice!’ exclaimed the woman. She turned to me. ‘
Elle es jolie, votre fille
.’
I thanked her, and we conversed in French as best I could manage. Despite my French degree, I was desperately self-conscious about speaking the language. She told me about her two-year-old grandson. I explained that we had just moved here from England.
‘I know,’ she assured me. ‘You’ve bought the Leclerc house in Pounchet. You’re the English who’ve come without the television people. How are you finding it? The weather’s terrible, isn’t it? Did you bring this rain from England?’
I looked at her. She was, I guessed, in her late fifties. She was expertly made up, and elegantly dressed in black and white, with a pair of black stilettos. I was acutely aware of my crumpled shirt, my muddy jeans and my scuffed boots. I hadn’t had a shower for four days, and my hair was pulled into a tight ponytail to try to hide its lank and greasy state. I was wearing no make-up and I was certain that my face was red and shiny, and that the bags under my eyes were as black as bruises. I vowed to buy some cosmetics, to wash my hair in cold water that evening, maybe even to purchase some new clothes. I recalled Paula asking about my due date in Clifton Street, and pulled my stomach in.
I was overcome with embarrassment, to the point where I could barely say another word. The woman looked at me kindly. I felt compelled to explain.
‘I am sorry,’ I told her, haltingly. ‘You are very chic. We are waiting for our things to arrive on the lorry.’ For some reason, I found myself miming a steering wheel. ‘From England. We have no . . .’ I tailed away, unsure of the word. ‘No hot. No hot water. We are not chic.’ I tugged my lifeless ponytail to emphasise my point.
She laughed. ‘You are both so pretty. You have no hot water? No heating? That is terrible. Have you spoken to the company?’
I shook my head and reached into the handbag to show her the letter with the address and phone number on it. The woman instantly took out her mobile phone and dialled. She looked at it and tutted. No reception. ‘One moment,’ she told me, and went outside. I saw her talking animatedly, indignantly, gesturing with her free hand.
‘OK,’ she announced, when she came back in. ‘It’s done. They’re coming to refill your tank this afternoon, about three o’clock.’
I gaped at her. ‘You’re very kind.’
‘It’s nothing. Welcome to the region.’
I smiled. A genuine smile felt novel and pleasant. By the time I had composed a suitably grateful sentence in my head, the woman had gone. I watched her talking to her companion, and saw him turning to look at us. He smiled and gave a little wave. I waved back. My breath escaped in a big rush. I remembered her mentioning television people and tried to catch her eye to ask what she had meant, but she was looking the other way.
Buoyed by the kindness of the woman, I paid our bill, buttoned Alice into her raincoat, pulled her hat down almost over her eyes, and took her out into the gloom. The tourist office, our first official stop of the day, was in the main square.
I knew, theoretically, that St Paul was a lovely town. I knew because we had sat outside one of the other cafés in the autumn, and shared a beer and looked at the long shadows the late-afternoon sunlight cast on the stone buildings. The church here dated from the tenth century. The buildings around it were tall, and stone, with wrought-iron grilles and balconies. There were bakeries, a fishmonger, a little cinema and a couple of grocers. It was a classic small French town and I had almost been able to imagine us settling here happily, back in October. I had imagined Matt and Alice and me, with an entourage of happy, envious house guests, sitting outside cafés laughing and whiling away summer afternoons.
Today, the black clouds were piled above us. It had stopped raining but the clouds clearly had no intention of moving. I stepped into a puddle and felt the water seeping into my trainers. Sometimes I thought I saw a chink of clear sky, but it never was. It was just a grey cloud, standing out amongst its black colleagues. The square looked bleak and dull. The tourist office was on the corner near the car park, and we tumbled in, out of breath and dishevelled.
‘
Oui?
’ asked a bored-looking woman with blonde hair in an immaculate chignon. She barely looked up.
I stumbled through my little speech, about being new in the area and needing help with a few things. She looked at me closely, smiled a little and cut me off mid-sentence.
‘You want your local school?’ she asked.
‘And a car,’ I added.
She marked St Paul’s
école maternelle
on a map. There was a car dealer on the way.
‘Good luck,’ she said, with a small smile, and we left.
‘It’s still raining?’ Bella asked incredulously. ‘Sweetie, are you sure you’re in the right place? You did go to the
south
of France? You’re not in Calais?’
‘It’s fine,’ I told her, firmly. ‘It is still raining, and we are in the right place, but I don’t mind the rain. Alice has got a place at the village school which is brilliant. I’ve got to go to see the mayor and get her a certificate, and she’s got to have a TB jab, but once that’s done they’re happy to have her in the
tous petits
. It’s the sweetest place and she loved it. And at least we’re warm, now. I’ve had a shower. I can’t tell you what a luxury it was. I just wish I had a hairdryer.’
I shifted closer to the radiator, and looked out of the window at the small front garden. The trees were bare. Water was coursing down the path, into the ditch. At least the front garden was manageable. The water drained away and the plants were small and bare. The fig tree didn’t look, to my inexpert eyes, as if it needed pruning. The whole of the back garden seemed to be a swamp. A hectare had sounded just right. Half of it was completely wild. All of it was boggy. I stretched the phone lead and pulled the cable through the hall, so I could look at the back garden through the windows in the door. It was a wasteland. I tried to imagine the trees in bud, the lawn soft and not muddy, the flowers pushing up.
‘All this water must be good for the garden,’ I added brightly.
‘Emma!’ Bella was almost shouting at me. ‘Emma, for fuck’s sake. Let me get this straight. You’re in the arse-end of nowhere with wet hair. You know nobody. Your central heating has just been fixed after five days and that’s only because a random woman in a café took pity on you. It’s rained every single moment since you arrived. You’re sharing a camp bed with a two-year-old. Water is pouring into your attic and you have to empty twenty containers every hour or so. Matt’s in London, merrily working away without a care in the world. He’s taking nice long lunches and sleeping in a bed under clean sheets. OK, he has a bachelor pad, doesn’t he, so maybe they’re not that clean, but still, it’s a bed. And you’re still pretending that this does not constitute a disaster of the first magnitude? I know you’ve half convinced Mum that it’s great, but I’m not that gullible. Don’t you dare try to tell me you wouldn’t rather be in Brighton.’
‘I would rather be in Brighton,’ I admitted, putting on my bravest voice, ‘but it’s all fine. All this is temporary. And it’s an air bed, not a camp bed. How are you? How’s Jon and the boys?’
‘We’re all right. You know, working. Boys are on good form. Do you want me to come out?’
I bit back my ‘Yes!’ I did want her to come out – I wanted to see her, desperately – but I couldn’t have borne it had she felt sorry for me. She would have been angry with Matt for ever. She would have seen that the house was a shell, that everything needed replacing. I wanted to present my friends and family with the finished product, not with the present mess. I wanted to show them success. I wanted them to admire me. I needed to sort everything out before anyone was allowed to see it.
‘Oh God!’ I exclaimed, suddenly. ‘Bel, can I call you back? I haven’t rung the builders.’
By Wednesday, I was almost proud of myself. It had always been me, rather than Matt, who had made arrangements, but I had never sorted out a whole new life before, and particularly not in a foreign language, even if it was one that I used to speak well and which was coming back quickly. One by one, I was getting things done. It was a steep learning curve. The school was delightful. It was a welcoming place, built around a central playground. The window frames were painted blue. There were coat pegs with the children’s photos next to them, there was a canteen with its own chef, and there was a row of little toothbrushes for after-lunch brushing. I had been overcome with delight when the teacher said they had a place for Alice. I wanted to go there myself.
Alice was bored out of her mind and was desperate to go. She had already had the skin test for her BCG, and had an appointment for the injection on Friday. She was due at school on Monday. Monday, however, seemed a long way off. I felt that I might as well have been telling her she could start school in twelve years’ time.
‘I want to go
now
,’ she kept sobbing.
‘You can go on Monday,’ I told her, yet again.
‘NOT MONDAY,’ she shouted. ‘I tell you already. NOW. I want to play with the fire engine and the kitchen and the scooter and the books!’ She had retained, it seemed, a photographic mental record of every toy in the classroom.
The school was the best thing about our new life, so far. I hoped that Alice was going to like it as much when she got there as she had done on our two visits. It was a long day, from nine fifteen till half past four, and the school provided a three-course lunch and an afternoon nap. I worried about whether she would cope, alone among children who would not understand her. I told myself again and again that children pick up languages quickly, that she was going to be bilingual in no time.
I knew that my own French was fine, but I still felt self-conscious. I hated approaching people, making my foreignness known. If Alice and I walked down the street speaking to each other, heads turned, people clocked us as
les anglaises
. Every time I made a phone call, or approached anybody for any reason, I had to steel myself. It was an effort for me to push open the door of a shop, any shop. I was constantly overcoming my nerves, my reluctance, my fear of looking stupid.
I had bought my own car. It was a small Peugeot, a silver 206 automatic and I was surprised at how easy it had been to buy it. I did not think the salesman had ripped me off. It had come in just under what we had budgeted and I actively liked driving it. I had never had my own car before, and I had always hated driving in Britain. The roads here were empty and I was still getting used to the novelty of not having to change gears. I had found a radio station called Nostalgi which played French chanson and the Beatles, and if I was on a clear stretch of road and it wasn’t raining, I could get Radio Four on long wave.
On Wednesday morning, Martine popped round, just as I had finished washing up the breakfast dishes. I had vowed that when the builders came round that afternoon, I was going to make sure that the kitchen was a priority. I had had enough of bending double to wash the dishes. A normal-height sink would be good. A dishwasher would be better.
I went outside to meet her. She looked at the house and declined my invitation to come in.
‘Would you like some eggs?’ she asked, smiling broadly. Martine was in charge of Pounchet, I had come to realise. She was small and wiry with her hair in a bun, and, as Charlotte had prophesied, she wore a blue printed overall under her thick coat. Martine monitored all the comings and goings in the hamlet.
‘Matthieu will be back today?’ she asked, as she handed over a plastic bag containing ten eggs, freshly laid by her chickens.
‘He will,’ I agreed. I wanted to sort things out a bit before he arrived. But almost as soon as she had gone, some other neighbours turned up. These ones were a couple, about ten years older than Matt and me. He had a shock of jet-black hair, and she was small and soft and well dressed. They were farmers, and they lived a little way up the hill. From the end of the garden, I could see their farmhouse, across a couple of bare fields. They smiled constantly, and congratulated me, repeatedly, on my French.
‘You speak like a Frenchwoman!’ they kept marvelling. I knew this was not true. Either they were being kind, or the reputation of the English as monolinguists was so well established that French people were amazed and impressed that I spoke any French whatsoever.
I invited them into the house, without thinking. We stepped into the living room. Then I saw their faces as they took it all in. They saw that we were living in a single room, sleeping on a blow-up bed. Clothes and toys were strewn around the floor, and Alice was playing an elaborate game with her dinosaurs in the grate. Her face was smeared with ash and her hands were covered with it.