A Year at the French Farmhouse(48)

Looking out of the window at the view with its myriad greens and yellows, dotted with ramshackle stone houses and topped with a blue sky, she knew she was exactly where she wanted to be. The problem was she felt utterly alone.

With her friend unconscious and unable to tell her whether or not this was a Bad Idea, she decided to ring Ben.

‘Hello? Lily?’

It was the first time they’d spoken properly since she’d left. Text messages and voice notes had passed between them. But she hadn’t directly heard his voice, or directly responded to it. It felt strangely intimate.

‘Hi, Ben.’

‘Hi.’

A silence.

‘I just wanted to call to say… well, I wondered how you were, I suppose.’ Her whole body suddenly ached for him; she wanted his arms around her, wanted him to be on her side again. She sniffed, determined not to cry.

‘I’m OK. Well, not really OK. You know how it is.’

A silence.

‘I do. Look, Ben, I am sorry. I really am. I never… it was never in my plan to leave you, to break us up. But…’

‘I know. But you did leave.’

‘I know, but I suppose I could say… you let me?’

His voice became harder, more guarded. ‘So you’re not calling to say you’re coming home.’

‘No. I’m just… I suppose I just miss you, that’s all.’

The line went dead.

She wished she’d never called. Sipping the last of the tea, she tried to close her eyes, to focus her thoughts on something else. But it was almost impossible.

Half an hour later, the lump on the bed began to groan.

‘Coffee?’ Lily asked.

The lump made a sound that seemed a bit like a yes, so Lily tore open a small stick of instant coffee and poured it into a mug. Then, she boiled the little kettle, filled it and added two sugars for good measure.

She walked to the side of the bed, sat on it, and placed the coffee on the bedside table. ‘Here you go,’ she said, looking at Emily’s ashen face. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Bloody awful.’

‘Physically? Or…?’

‘Oh god. Physically,’ Emily said, gingerly sitting herself up. Then, ‘Hang on. I didn’t… the table… the café. I – my singing. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.’

Lily smiled gently and passed her the mug. Clutching it, Emily carefully blew steam from the top before sipping it and placing it back on the bedside cabinet.

Then: ‘Emily, what’s wrong?’ Lily asked.

‘It’s a bit hot is all. I’ll drink it in a minute. Unless you could put a splash of water in…’

‘Not wrong with the coffee! What’s wrong? With you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, I’ve known you for more years than either of us can bear to count. But I’ve never seen you like this.’ She sat on the edge of the bed and put her hand gently on Emily’s arm ‘What, drunk?’ Emily said, squinting against the sunlight.

‘No, you know what I mean. Since you arrived. You’re just not… you. You know?’

Emily was silent. ‘It’s probably just all this French stuff,’ she said. ‘I’m not in my natural habitat so I stand out.’ She pushed her curls away from her face and gave a little shrug. ‘And that strawberry stuff, whatever that is, is strong. I’ll go easy next time. And I’ll pay for the table obviously. So…’ She shrugged again. But her eyes told a different story.

‘Come on, Em. You can tell me anything, you know? Are things OK with Chris? Has something happened?’

Emily picked up the coffee mug again, went to sip it, then seemed to remember that it was too hot, and put it back down. She placed her hands together on her lap, and began examining one of her nails.

‘Emily?’

‘OK,’ she said. ‘But don’t be mad.’

‘What, madder than I am already?’

‘Good point.’





‘You want that I make you un café?’ Chloé asked an hour later as Lily walked out onto the terrace.

‘Oh, no. I’m fine thanks. Just thought I’d get a bit of air.’

‘And Emily? Is she joining you?’

‘No, she’s just… she’s not feeling very well. I’ve left her to sleep for a bit.’ Lily smiled. She wanted to ask whether Chloé had heard anything about the café incident on the local grapevine, but thought it better to keep it to herself rather than risk opening that particular Pandora’s box unnecessarily.

Instead, she slipped off her trainers and walked over to the large cherry tree at the back of the garden. Clearly decades old, its trunk and bark were weathered and twisted, but the fruit that hung from its branches was fresh and juicy, shining in the afternoon sun. Wasps buzzed around, attracted to the sticky juice, or crawled on half-eaten cherries that lay on the grass.

Lily sank into one of the sun-loungers, after brushing it free of stray leaves and stalks, and closed her eyes. The sun gently shone through tiny gaps between the leaves and dotted her face and body with spots of light. She tried to breathe deeply, her thoughts racing at a hundred miles an hour.

Here, at least, she could take a moment to be alone, to digest what her friend had said. To take stock of everything that had happened in the last few weeks. She could…