A Year at the French Farmhouse(53)

‘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.’

‘Yes, maybe I should see if they have any jobs going.’

As the evening had worn on, Emily had become more nervous. They’d taken a walk about ten o’clock at night, in an attempt to drive the restlessness from her body. But it hadn’t worked.

It had been a difficult night. Their bed at La Petite Maison was a neat, small double and even sharing it with an intimate partner might have been a challenge. Sharing it with a wriggling best friend and a mind full of worries had not led to the most relaxing night and Lily had woken early, her back aching more than it had after her fall from the iron bedstead.