A Year at the French Farmhouse(63)

But worse was to come: as she continued to pull, it seemed that the glue on the paper was actually stronger than the plaster, and even some of the stone beneath. Great chunks of wall crumbled as she tugged, revealing – instead of an improved, flat blank canvas of wall – a mottled, ruined surface. ‘Oh shit,’ she said as she looked at the pitted plaster, the loose crumbling mortar and the chunks of wall that had somehow stuck to the wallpaper strip in her hand and dislodged with it, like hair on a strip of salon wax.

Perhaps it was just that one panel, she thought, feeling herself begin to sweat. She pulled at another strip of paper, but the wall beneath was even worse, crumbling and uneven and damp beneath its colourful disguise.

‘No…’ she said. ‘Please, no.’

Her heart beating hard, she stepped back to observe her work. One clean, smooth strip of wall, then a mess of stone and rubble and broken plaster. Crumbled chunks of loose mortar and tiny rocks at her feet. And a wall that looked not only unsightly, but actually downright dangerous to her untrained eye.

‘Oh no,’ she said to herself, close to tears. ‘Oh no, oh no, oh no.’

Was it her fault? Had she done something wrong? Soaked the paper too much? Pulled on it too enthusiastically? Or – worse – was it the house? Was it that her little piece of paradise was actually not all it promised to be?

Wiping her face roughly with the back of her hand, she pulled her phone from her pocket, thumb scrolling instinctively for Frédérique’s number. But before she could dial, she noticed a text message from an unknown French number. She clicked on it, wondering who it could be from.

Hi Lily, we’re in your neck of the woods this morning – off to the lake. Fancy joining us? SAM





She and Sam hadn’t spoken for that long at the party; then after she’d left abruptly, holding back the tears brought about by Ben’s break-up messages, Lily had assumed she probably wouldn’t hear from her. But it seemed she had made a friend after all. Or at least had the beginnings of a friendship with someone who’d seemed wonderfully normal.

She replied:

Having a nightmare but I’d love to escape.





What’s wrong?





Decorating disaster…





Shall I pop over on the way – sure it can’t be that bad. You live right by the lake, right?





That would be brilliant. I need a second opinion. I may have accidentally demolished a wall!





Oh dear.





‘Ah,’ Sam said, half an hour later when she arrived with two excited children in tow. Derek, three, was already running up and down the hallway, laughing loudly. And Claudine, four, was hiding shyly behind her mother’s legs.

‘Yep,’ said Lily, looking at the mess she’d created again, but somehow feeling less devastated than she had at first. Just having someone there with her helped her to see it in more practical terms. She could get it fixed. And the damage wasn’t a result of her lack of DIY skills. The wall beneath the paper had already been in a state. She grinned. ‘I guess I’m not quite as good at do-it-yourself as I thought.’

‘Oh, don’t beat yourself up,’ Sam said. ‘There’s DIY in the UK. But in France? In one of these properties? DIY is a whole different beast.’ She rubbed her hand lightly on the bare wall, loosening a tiny sprinkle of debris and dust, which crackled as it landed on the wooden floor. ‘Oops. Sorry.’

‘No problem.’

‘Yep. If you’d told me beforehand you were doing this… well, I’d have advised you to stay well clear. Every job we’ve ever done in our stone ruin has just revealed seven more jobs underneath. You learn to approach everything with caution after a while.’

‘Oh really? So it’s not just me?’

‘Nope, we’ve all been there,’ said Sam. ‘Plus, worse. We had exposed wires and all sorts coming out of the wall. Someone had literally shoved wallpaper over an electrical nightmare.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. Anyone who’s bought one of these stone houses… I mean they’re beautiful. But… well, put it this way. There’s a reason why they’re for sale.’

‘Ah.’

‘And often there’s a reason why the wallpaper’s still in situ. Or covered up with more wallpaper, rather than stripped.’

‘I can believe it.’

‘Lots of the younger French people I know live in those little new-build houses. They leave the stone wrecks to idiots like us.’

‘Oh.’ Lily had seen the peach-coloured houses dotted around. Little rectangles of brick and mortar, devoid of personality. ‘Aren’t they a bit… well, bland?’

‘Well, maybe. But bland is underrated,’ Sam said, gesturing to the wall. ‘Gabriel was desperate to buy one when we got married. He was all, We do not wish to be a slave to our home.’

‘Well… yes.’

‘But I insisted we went for something more traditional. And you know, I’m glad I did. But there were moments when I totally saw his point too.’

‘Oh.’

‘I think,’ Sam said, ‘we see the beauty in the houses like this because we haven’t grown up living in one, and we’re looking to come out here and live a completely different kind of existence. But local people want to get on with their lives, their careers. They can’t spend hours working on a house as it crumbles around them.’