A Year at the French Farmhouse(86)

The four days had flashed past, and she was yet again getting ready to take someone she loved back to the airport – to facilitate their flying hundreds of miles away from her.

‘I can’t believe you’re actually going already,’ she said, looking at her son as he emptied the bag out again and began rifling through the contents, probably looking for his passport. ‘It’s flown by, hasn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, only half concentrating. She wasn’t insulted. Over the past few years, she’d got used to teenage communication – one-word answers, grunts and shrugs. She knew they had more to do with the particular combination of lethargy, hormones and distraction spinning in the teenage brain than a desire to be rude.

‘Want anything from the p?tisserie? I’m going to pop there in a sec,’ she added. ‘Give the new wheels a spin.’

‘Just get me whatever,’ he said. By which he meant a selection of all available pastries, preferably in duplicate.

Yesterday, they’d gone together to look at a second-hand car at a garage just north of Limoges.

She’d seen an ad in the paper for a small Clio at a reasonable price had rung the garage and made an appointment to go and see it. But as the original car they’d showed up to see had proved to be more battered and bruised than she’d imagined, she had instead picked up a second-hand Micra, very similar to the one she’d hired. It had felt good to have Tyler with her – it was the first time she’d bought a car by herself and although she knew what she wanted, having a second opinion gave her the reassurance she needed to part with a few more thousand of her inheritance. She felt a little sick as she punched in her pin code in at the garage – she’d have to get this retreat up and running soon; or maybe talk to Ben about her share of the equity in the UK, or she’d be struggling.

Later, she’d be able to drop Ty and the hire car off at the airport and take the train back from Limoges afterwards.

Yesterday evening, Frédérique had called her to see if she’d fancied going out again later in the week and, despite his over-the-top behaviour in the town, she’d been over the moon to hear his voice. ‘Tyler’s going back tomorrow,’ she’d said, and told him about her plan.

‘But of course you must not go home in the train,’ he’d told her. ‘My love, I will give you a lift.’

‘Oh no,’ she’d said, thinking how Ty would probably not appreciate his accompanying them to the airport. ‘But thank you.’

It had been nice of him to offer.

Emily had called briefly too. She’d popped in to see Ben.

‘He cottoned on straightaway that it was an intervention,’ she’d moaned. ‘In spite of my brilliant excuse.’

‘Which was?’

‘I said I thought I might have left my sunglasses at yours a couple of months ago.’

‘That’s a pathetic excuse.’

‘So it seems. He rumbled me immediately.’

‘Whoops.’

‘But in a way it was nice, because it meant I could ask him about the anxiety and that. I mean, he knew what I’d been through, so I think it helped.’

‘And…?’

‘And I think he’ll be OK. He’s missing you of course.’

‘Well, yes,’ she’d said. ‘I know, but…’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it. I just felt sorry for him I guess. I mean, if he’d told you he was going through all that, you’d have understood why he didn’t want to move right then – maybe things would have been different…’

Lily had been silent. ‘Well, maybe,’ she’d said at last. ‘But you know… everything’s changed now.’

Then they’d changed the subject and spoken about Ty, and decorating the house and Lily’s idea for a house-warming party.

‘I hope I’ll be getting an invite?’

‘Well, of course, if you want to come all that way just for a little gathering.’

‘You know me – never say no to a party,’ Emily had joked.

‘You’re on then,’ Lily had replied. ‘And you know what? I might even have a proper spare bed by then.’

‘Oh, I was so hoping to sleep on that leaking airbed again.’

Lily made it to and from the p?tisserie in record time and was soon sitting opposite her son watching him put away pastry after pastry with a combination of fascination and envy. Oh, for a teenage boy’s metabolism – he had no need to eat slowly or concentrate on his food. He simply shovelled it in with no thought of the bottom line.

‘Nice?’ she asked once or twice.

‘Glub,’ he replied, nodding.

She tried not to get emotional as she watched the clock count down the time until her son would have to leave. After all, he’d be back at some point. Perhaps for longer next time. Even so, she could feel the tug on her heartstrings as each minute went past and his flight approached.

At 10 a.m. it would finally be time to start the trip to the airport. With ten minutes to go, they began to gather things together and do the obligatory passport, ticket, phone, wallet checks that precede each trip. It would only be the second time Ty had flown by himself and she was determined that it would go smoothly. She wanted him to want to come back; wanted to minimise any stress.