A Year at the French Farmhouse(65)

She waited for the number to connect, then listened to it ring out before going to answerphone.

‘Hi, Frédérique. It’s Lily. Can you call me when you have a moment?’ she said. ‘A wall in the house has… well, I think it needs to be repaired.’

As she hung up, a thought struck her. That, rather than needing to speak to Frédérique, she’d wanted to.

Of course it was sensible to inform the homeowner when you’d ripped half a wall down by mistake. It was just, she realised, that wasn’t the only reason she’d raced to dial his number. Although the wall looked unsightly, it wasn’t going to actually fall down. There was no urgency in having to call him. She’d calmed down talking to Sam and knew what she needed to do.

In reality, she probably should have downed tools and gone to the beach with Sam immediately. Switched off for a bit. Built a sandcastle if the urge had taken her. And embraced some of the calm that came with being close to the still, cool water and lush green trees.

She didn’t even need to ring Frédérique to find a suitable artisan to help her make the repair. There was Sam – who’d literally been right there – and Chloé. Each probably knew one or two people. All things being equal, a rational decision might have been to leave Frédérique alone – after all, he’d already tackled a rogue gang of squirrels for her, and was trying to manage the reputational damage from Emily’s drunken exhibition.

But she’d wanted to hear his voice, she realised. She’d wanted him to come around and look and laugh about it, and make her feel better.

At the heart of it all, she’d just wanted to see him.





22





‘So you’re a plasterer and a farmer?’ Lily said to Claude as he removed the loose bits from her wall and began to mix up some filler. They were standing in the hallway, the front door open to let in the light, which cruelly revealed not only the mess she’d made with the wallpaper, but the millions of dust particles that floated in the air, every chip and dent on the skirting board and probably every single one of her wrinkles.

‘Mais, non. I am just un agriculteur,’ he said with the obligatory shrug. ‘I’m a farmer, just a farmer. Mais, j’ai aussi une maison – I have a house too, uh? You learn to care for la maison.’

‘Right.’ Lily nodded. ‘Well, merci beaucoup for your help… votre aide.’

‘Ton aide,’ he corrected. ‘Et de rien, it is nothing.’

She’d tried to hide her disappointment when he’d knocked at the door this afternoon, complete with bucket, box of plaster, some sort of mixing tool, wearing a navy-blue pair of overalls. ‘Frédérique, ’e say you need some ’elp?’ he’d said by way of greeting. ‘You ’ave… ’ow you say – made the wall tombe? It fall down?’

‘Er, yes. Well, sort of,’ she’d said, standing back to let him in.

When she’d finally spoken to Frédérique and explained the situation on the phone last night, he’d seemed really concerned. ‘I will fix this,’ he’d said. ‘Don’t worry.’

He’d clearly outsourced the job to Claude, but if she was honest, she’d been hoping he’d be the one arriving at her front door. It was probably for the best though, she told herself. It was fun having a little crush on someone, but she wasn’t in the market for a relationship, or even a bit of fun. Not yet. Things were too raw.

‘Would you like a coffee?’ she asked now.

‘Oui, bien s?r,’ Claude said, keeping his eyes on the battered wall and starting to fill the gaps with white paste.

‘So,’ she said, handing him a steaming mug a few minutes later, ‘you must be very busy at the farm.’

‘Oui, all the time.’

‘And you don’t mind Frédérique, well, outsourcing things like this?’

‘Sorry, je ne comprends pas – I don’t understand. What is this “hout soursy”?’

‘Je suis désolé. You don’t mind helping Frédérique as well?’

‘Ah, non. We ’elp each other,’ he said with a shrug. ‘We are amis. And he pay for les matériaux.’

‘Oh. Well, that’s kind.’ Lily wondered whether it was her poor French, or the need for Claude to concentrate on his work, but she couldn’t help feel there was a bit of an atmosphere between them. Perhaps it was the incident with Emily. Or maybe he really was very busy and this was a terrible inconvenience.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said then, ‘for Samedi dernier – last Saturday. My friend, she is not usually… so…’

‘Tellement soif? She is thirsty, pour le vin?’ he said, with a raised eyebrow and a smile. ‘It is no problem. Frédérique, ’e explain. Mais, pour moi, for me it is just – ’ow you say – très dr?le. It was funny.’

‘Oh good… I mean, bon,’ she said. ‘I mean I am glad – je suis heureux – that you are not… um… um… vache.’

Claude paused his trowel and gave her a quizzical look. ‘You say that you are glad I am not a cow?’

‘No, no…’