A Year at the French Farmhouse(98)

‘Definitely. Although having seen Frédérique, I have to say he’s a complication quite a few people would kill for.’

‘Well, yes, he’s a nice guy.’

‘Nice? Lily, he’s flipping gorgeous! Although don’t tell Gabriel I said that,’ she laughed, taking a band from her pocket and expertly pulling her red hair into a neat ponytail. ‘He’s grown a little man belly recently and is totally paranoid I’m going to run off with a muscle-bound farmer or something.’

‘Ha. Poor guy. When am I going to meet Gabriel anyway?’ asked Lily, changing the subject. ‘Can he make it to the party?’

‘He says almost definitely,’ said Sam. ‘Which coming from him is actually pretty amazing.’

‘Shy?’ Lily smiled.

‘Yeah, and socially awkward, but don’t tell him I said that.’

‘As if I would!’

‘Anyway, he’s great once you get to know him – just takes him a bit of time to thaw out, you know?’

Lily nodded. ‘Basically, the opposite of Frédérique.’

‘Yep!’ Sam stopped to take in the array of cheese. ‘Are we going down the cheese route?’ she asked.

‘Well, when in France,’ said Lily, picking up a few different types. She wasn’t a big cheese fan, but she’d lay a bit out with some bread and let people help themselves.

‘Anyway, at least you’ve been upfront with Frédérique,’ Sam went on, leaning some of her weight on the trolley and lifting her feet momentarily as it glided along. ‘I think he’s keen enough to hang around whatever boundaries you set in place.’

‘We’ll see,’ Lily said. ‘I’m trying not to put any pressure on it. Just see what happens.’

‘Good idea.’

‘Don’t tell him, but I have actually missed him a bit,’ she added.

‘Really?’

‘It’s the first time I’ve had a chance to, I suppose. I’d kind of got used to him popping up everywhere I went!’

‘But,’ said Sam, more carefully, ‘have you thought any more about Ben? I mean, you said that he’d told you he would have liked to come to France, right? If he’d been feeling OK?’

Lily stopped by a shelf heaving with crisps and picked up a giant packet of ready salted. ‘I’ve been thinking about him more recently – all the stress of buying the house and kind of settling in here, or starting to, sort of put him out of my mind. The way you can kind of switch off a bit from problems when you’re on holiday?’

Sam nodded.

‘I was surprised I wasn’t more… well, heartbroken I suppose when I first got here,’ she said, looking at the enormous packet of crisps in her hand.

‘Uh-huh?’

‘But now that the legal bit is done and I’m sort of getting on with normal life… I’m starting to notice that he’s not with me. I know that sounds weird – but I think it’s finally sunk in that this isn’t a holiday. And my normal life… well, he was always part of that. Always.’

Sam touched her shoulder briefly. ‘That’s tough.’

Lily flicked a tear away. ‘It is what it is, I suppose. I mean, it’s natural to feel… to miss him.’ She put the crisps in the trolley and grabbed a couple of other bags.

‘Any regrets?’ Sam asked, glancing quickly at her, then back at the food when she noticed Lily’s tears.

Lily began to move towards the next aisle. ‘Sometimes,’ she said. ‘Not regrets about being here. Wishing it had been different, I suppose.’

‘Yeah, ’course.’

‘But there’s no point – is there – running back to him. Because I’d have to live with knowing that I wasn’t enough, that he couldn’t take a risk for me. And I’d be giving up my dream, not just putting it on hold.’

‘Oh, Lily.’

Lily shrugged. ‘There’s no solution; the only thing I can do is move on,’ she said, trying to sound nonchalant but failing. ‘And I’m here and making a new life. And hopefully in a while I’ll be able to move on properly.’

‘Definitely,’ Sam said. ‘It sounds like he doesn’t deserve you.’ She stopped by the wine boxes and heaved a couple into the trolley.

Lily resisted the urge to snap back in Ben’s defence. It was one of those strange conundrums. Lily could say what she liked about Ben. But the urge to defend him when anyone else criticised him was almost overwhelming. She knew Sam was just being supportive, but felt incredibly defensive at her words. Ben always had deserved her. They’d deserved each other – in a good way. She’d always felt their relationship was balanced, each of them bending to the other on occasion, rarely fighting. They’d giggle more often than grown-ups ordinarily would, and had never lost their sense of fun.

Then, over the last few months– now she thought about it – they’d begun doing less, going out less. Communicating less. Ben had seemed absorbed in his work – spreading papers across the dining table in the evenings, disappearing into the office or burning the midnight oil in their home study. She’d been preoccupied with getting Ty through his mocks and the pending reviews at her work. Ben had been anxious, suffering, but she hadn’t realised.