A Year at the French Farmhouse(84)

The speech had sounded good in her head, but Ty had seemed unimpressed.

The call itself had been awkward at first. Ben had answered, but his gruffness had left her feeling immediately on the back-foot.

‘Hi, it’s me,’ she’d said.

‘Hi.’

‘Sorry, I know you said you didn’t want me to call…’ she’d added, before feeling annoyed at herself for apologising.

‘Uh-huh. So, everything all right with Ty?’

‘Yes. He’s fine. Having fun, I think.’

‘Good.’

A silence.

‘Ben, he said you weren’t doing so well. Are you OK?’

‘Well… been better.’

‘Ben, look, I know things aren’t exactly easy for us right now. But we’ve got Ty to think of. And I’d like to think that we can be friends… eventually, at least. And look, I went through it all with you last time. You can still talk to me, you know?’

‘I know,’ he’d said, his tone more friendly than before. ‘It’s just… I dunno. I feel stupid, I suppose.’

‘Stupid?’

‘Yeah. You know. Weak.’

‘That’s ridiculous. Come on, you know that, Ben. It’s a medical condition. It’s nothing to do with not being strong.’

A silence.

‘So is it like last time?’ she’d ventured.

‘Pretty much.’

‘And how long…?’

‘About three months.’

‘Three months!’ She was genuinely shocked. ‘What, you mean before I… before we…? Before the whole French thing?’

‘Yep.’

‘Why didn’t you talk to me?’

‘I dunno. I just thought. I mean, you were busy. And I just wanted… I thought maybe I could beat it by myself, you know? I thought after last time, all those… strategies and things, I could kick it to the kerb without, you know… bothering you.’

‘Oh, Ben.’

‘Yeah. I know. I’m an idiot.’

‘Well, I wasn’t going to quite say that…’

‘Yeah, but you were thinking it, right?’

‘Well, maybe. But seriously, I wish you’d said something.’

‘Well, so do I now. But then all the French stuff happened and it kind of – I suppose everything began to feel out of control.’

It was funny how, as the conversation had gone on, it had felt more natural. And yet of course it made perfect sense – because he was the person she’d talked to more than any other over the last two decades. Despite their separation, the familiarity had crept quickly back.

He’d told her how he’d woken up one morning feeling panicked out of the blue, but had been determined to shake it off. How it had proven harder than he’d thought. How he’d begun to catastrophise – what if he crashed his car? What if something happened to Ty? What if he got lost his clients at work?

‘Then I got made redundant,’ she’d said.

‘Yep. And you know what, it wasn’t so bad. I mean, it happens all the time. But for me, just then, it felt like the end of the world. I began to worry about paying the mortgage, getting Ty to uni OK. But I didn’t… I couldn’t say because the rational part of me knew I was being over the top… I was just kind of… don’t know. Frozen. Like a rabbit in headlights. Trying to keep going. Trying to… well, trying to keep everything the same. You brought up the whole France thing… and…’

‘And?’

‘Lily, I just didn’t know what to do. What to say? Like how could I tell you then because it would have seemed a bit too convenient… You’d have thought I was putting it on to make you… well, stay, I guess.’

‘I wouldn’t have!’ she’d protested, but felt something shift inside. She might have, she’d realised.

After promising to stay in touch, they’d ended the call on a good note.

‘You know, what I said. About not contacting me for a bit. I mean, it seemed sensible. Everyone says, don’t they, when you’re trying to get… over someone, that you should cut all ties. But maybe… I mean, if you do want to call again, I think I’d be OK with that,’ he’d said, awkwardly.

‘Well,’ she’d said. ‘I might just do that.’





The waiter arrived to clear their plates just as she was lifting the last bit of lettuce into her mouth, and offered them the dessert menu.

‘Dessert, Ty?’ Lily said.

He nodded. ‘Always.’

Afterwards, as they wandered back to the car, they began to talk about his uni course and what he was looking forward to. He seemed to have very little knowledge of the reading list and she resolved to look up the information and send it through.

‘I can find out when I get there!’ he protested.

‘Ty, if you read the stuff now, you’ll feel more prepared,’ she said, sounding so much like her own mum that it was both annoying and heart-wrenching. She remembered a similar conversation with her mum back in the day, and she’d probably reacted more or less the same way. Evidently, it was a mother’s lot, it seemed, to be appreciated more posthumously – like Van Gogh or Edgar Allen Poe. The Cassandra of the family dynamic, cursed to utter truths and for no one to take them seriously.