A Year at the French Farmhouse(8)

Either way, she had to check.

‘What?’ he said.

‘Look, we need to talk about this,’ she said, sitting up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed and trying to sound more upbeat. ‘But let’s get some tea first, yes?’ She looked at her husband, crumpled in the bed, clearly feeling sick and felt a surge of guilt. Sure, he’d pooh-poohed the idea of a month away, but she’d sprung the idea on him last thing at night. He’d have probably at least agreed to the holiday plan if she’d waited until this morning. They could have worked out convenient dates. Then once he was there… something inside told her that he’d fall for France as much as she had. But going behind his back wasn’t the right way to do it.

She imagined how she’d feel if he’d done the same. It had all seemed so simple last night. So bloody obvious. But that was what the lethal cocktail of best friend and red wine did. Gave the illusion of ease when actually even going on holiday could be complicated.

But perhaps she was worrying about nothing. Best to see what she’d actually done before panicking about it.

‘Are you sure you don’t want me to get it?’ he said, once she reached the door, in a voice that was suddenly croaky and weak.

Ordinarily, she might have called his bluff and taken his non-offer at face value. But today her laptop was calling.

‘What would you do if I took you up on that reluctant offer?’ she said instead.

‘I’d probably cry. But I’d do it. I just hoped you’d take pity on me,’ he said, his eyes playfully puppy-like.

She shook her head. ‘Idiot,’ she said, with a small smile, then turned and walked her reluctant legs towards the stairs, and towards the laptop that held the answers she was looking for.

She reached the downstairs hallway and headed for the kitchen to get the kettle on. Ty had obviously been up for a midnight snack – the cereal cupboard was open and another newly opened box of Frosties had been knocked on its side. By the sink, there was a bowl with traces of cereal and a small pool of milk. Lily picked up the errant box, put it back in the cupboard, then walked to her laptop, left casually on the kitchen table, and opened it up.

She had a sudden flash of self-awareness, seeing herself in the kitchen as if from outside. There she was, tidying up after someone who didn’t give her a moment’s thought.

How many times had she had the ‘close the cereal cupboard and wash your bowl’ conversation with her son? At least once a week for the past eight years. Probably twice. So about eight hundred times. Eight hundred times she’d explained to her boy that now he was old enough to clear up his own mess, the buck stopped with him. And to have a little respect. And that cereal cupboards were a magnet for ants and flies if left open.

It wasn’t such a terrible thing, having to wash someone else’s cereal bowl. Some of her friends had three children, even four, and came down to sinks heaving with discarded crockery. It was just the thought of all those minutes of her life – probably at least four thousand she thought, doing the maths – completely wasted. She might as well have kept schtum and let him scatter Frosties in his wake wherever he went.

Outside, the early morning brightness had given way to a shower of rain. Water began to hit the window and, as she looked out at the view over the back terrace, with its plastic chairs and the pile of single-use barbecues left over from last summer, she was struck by the contrast between the view she’d absorbed every day for twenty years while doing the washing up, and the view she could have, displayed on her now open laptop. She tried to click on the picture to see further details, but realised the screen had frozen.

She shut the laptop down and rebooted it, hoping she’d be able to retrace her steps and find out what she’d booked, and where, and for when. As her system came back to life an email pinged.

Of course! She’d have a confirmation email of some kind. ‘OK, Lily,’ she said to herself, ‘let’s see what we’ve got ourselves into.’

Her inbox contained the usual offers of 10 per cent discount, strangely worded spam and confirmation that a pair of tights she’d ordered two weeks ago had left the warehouse. (Constant updates meant she knew more about the whereabouts of her hosiery than her son most days). And then another email. From eBay.

She’d known she’d looked at holiday properties on the auction site, but had no idea that she’d booked a place through there. It had just been one of a number of pages she’d had open at the time.

The title of the email was half obscured ‘Congratulations!’ it enthused. ‘You placed the winning bid for…’

She clicked on the email, eager to find what she’d let herself in for, and crucially, for how much.

As she read the text, she let out a little involuntary yelp.

‘Everything all right, love?’ Ben called from upstairs.

‘Yes,’ she lied. ‘Fine. Just… burned my finger. I’m fine.’ She closed her eyes for a minute, just trying to breathe. And work out what on earth she should do.

She had no idea.

She walked to the counter and poured hot water into their two mugs, feeling herself break out in a sweat. Was this even binding? Could doing something like this really be as simple as a click? She desperately tried to calculate how much money they had in their savings, on their credit card, with her redundancy money factored in. Would that even cover it?