A Year at the French Farmhouse(34)

‘Um, voulez-vous un café?’ Lily asked.

‘Non, merci,’ said her neighbour, still standing there.

‘Un thé peut-être?’ Maybe you want a tea?

‘Non.’ The woman abruptly turned to go. ‘? plus tard!’ See you later. She lifted her hand in a wave without looking round and disappeared back into the foliage.

‘OK, a… oui, à plus tard,’ Lily replied, feeling slightly sick. Hopefully the woman wasn’t going to come over for dinner and help her polish off the poor chicken. She was quite willing to accept that when it came to meat eating she was a hypocrite, but admitting you had a problem and actually plucking a chicken were two very different things.

Just as she was wondering whether she could get away with sweeping the bird into a bin bag and depositing it in the street-side bin without being spotted and causing terrible offence, there was a knock at the front door.

Tentatively, hoping it wouldn’t be yet another neighbour waving a dead animal or a jar of pee in her face, she moved forward to open it.

Outside, she was greeted by the smiling face of Chloé, who stood – miraculously immaculate in a white trouser suit and red scarf, despite having somehow negotiated the weed-infested path – with a gift bag.

‘Bonjour,’ said her former host, holding the bag. ‘Félicitations!’

‘Merci beaucoup,’ Lily said, her face breaking into a genuine smile at seeing someone familiar. ‘Come in.’

‘Thank you,’ Chloé said, stepping into the hallway, her eyes scanning the dusty floor, faded wallpaper and hanging wires. ‘I cannot stay, but I want to bring you thees gift, for your moving in – ’ow you say, ’ouse ’eating, yes?’

Lily didn’t correct her, partly because she would have felt like a hypocrite – Chloé’s English put her French to shame – but also because she quite enjoyed the little nuances and mispronunciations Chloé came out with. Plus, she loved the idea of calling it a house heating rather than housewarming. Especially as this particular house didn’t seem to have any decent heating at all.

Chloé held out the gift bag that contained the unmistakable weight of a bottle of wine. Now this was more like it. ‘Merci!’ Lily said, accepting the bag and walking through to the kitchen to put it on the dresser.

‘C’est votre poulet?’ asked Chloé, noticing the dead bird on the side and looking completely unfazed. ‘It’s yours?’

‘My voisin, my neighbour gave it to me. Un cadeau,’ Lily replied, unable to disguise the slight turn up of her lip.

Chloé laughed. ‘Quel est le problème? You are not végétarienne?’

‘Non, non, it’s not that. It’s just…’ Lily felt suddenly embarrassed. ‘I haven’t, I don’t know how… I don’t think I can…’

‘Ah, you do not know what to do weeth it?’ Chloé said, picking up the bird as if it wasn’t a newly dead, feathered murder victim, but a simple kitchen ingredient. ‘It is a big bird, no? You want that I ’elp?’

Lily paused. She wasn’t sure she wanted a tutorial in chicken plucking. Now or ever. Perhaps becoming a vegetarian might be a good option. ‘I’m not sure I can…’

Chloé laughed, seemingly reading all of this information on Lily’s face. ‘Then you want that I take him? And cook him for you?’

‘Would you?’ Lily coloured. ‘I just… I can’t…’

‘It iz not a problème. I will cook ’im and we will eat ’im tomorrow, if that work for you. I ’ave guest tonight but tomorrow, un pot-au-feu!’

When Chloé had gone, somehow sauntering up the tangled and hazardous garden path in her heels and fitted suit, bloodied chicken dangling at her side and still managing to look enviably chic, Lily realised she was smiling. She’d only been in the country a few days, but had already met someone who’d become a friend. Plus, she’d met and conversed with the maire. Plus, she seemed to have a nice – if a little rustic – neighbour.

Yesterday in the notaire, she’d felt as if she might have made a terrible error.

Yet now, just for a moment, she felt a flicker of recognition. As if somewhere inside she sensed that this strange, rural corner of France could indeed become her home.

As if on cue, her phone beeped. When she saw the name Ben, her heart turned over.

Ben:

Looks nice. Come home. I miss you.





She felt a pang: but reminded herself that, once again, Ben seemed just to be asking her to do what he wanted, without considering her.

Come here, she typed. But deleted her words.

I can’t,





she wrote instead.

There was no answer.





12





What was it about Emily? Lily wondered as she began trying to cut tough-stalked weeds with a pair of shears she’d acquired at the supermarket. She absolutely couldn’t wait to see her friend, knew that having someone here would cheer her up; she knew that Emily was coming with the best of intentions – to be supportive, to help make her feel more settled.

But when she cast a critical eye over her property, imagined Emily being here, looking at the dusty rooms and the wallpaper and the kitchen; taking in the garden, or the tangled overgrowth that passed for one, Lily felt a sense of rising panic.