I still had my job at the big department store in town and loved everything about it. I was a department manager. I was good at it. I was respected. It was where I fitted in. I loved talking to customers, arranging the stock, cashing up the tills at the end of a busy day. I knew who I was. Now, I have no idea where I fit in. Not here in France any more, that’s for sure. Not that we ever did. We went to a few parties laid on by some of the expats living here when we first arrived, but I didn’t meet anyone I really connected with. I found no one who loved the food of the area, or wanted to learn French with me and could tell me about a local class, or anyone who was making a living that might have given me some ideas on how I could start a business of my own, a way of putting my experience at the department store to good use. We met the group of expats every Thursday in the local ‘pub’, the bar in the middle of the town, on the square, for a few drinks and English quiz night, organized by a friendly, smart woman called Cora and two of her friends. Ollie had loved those nights. I was never one for quizzes. A wide general knowledge has never been top of my list of attractive qualities in a person. But Ollie loved the glory of being on the winning team.
I wander back inside to the kitchen, hoping Ralph will follow if he thinks food’s on offer. The kitchen still smells of the ripe melon I had for breakfast, trying to eat up the last of the food from the fridge, and feeling I should have something, although my stomach was tight with tension. I look out of the French windows at the terrace, to the side of the house, where we’ve yet to enjoy one of those long, happy, friends-surrounded meals we kidded ourselves we would, and the field that slopes to the valley and the river. The other side looks out over the town and the purple lavender surrounding it.
I turn back to the hall. Ralph is circling Mr Broderick as he makes his way outside, whistling, carrying one end of the settee with Lexie at the other. As she bends I can just see the top of her leopard-print thong and wonder if I will ever enjoy wearing sexy underwear again. Since we left the UK to make ‘our life in the sun’, I’ve gravitated to cotton midis and Ollie hasn’t noticed, but that may be because he’s been sleeping in one of the spare rooms since week one, ever since he did his back in trying to be Dick – Dick from Escape to the Chateau, that is – and attempting to sort out our blocked drain, creating a leak, a flood and bringing down the salon ceiling. We had to find a plumber, a plasterer and a decorator, and used up nearly all our savings putting it right.
Thankfully, the doctor Ollie saw about his back thought we were here on holiday and treated Ollie accordingly, without us having to worry about big medical bills as well. And that was how it felt: like one long holiday from hell. Everything that could have gone wrong has gone wrong, including Ollie’s plans for working from home, doing business online: our internet is so poor he’s had to drive to the next big town to send emails. It’s been a disaster.
Ralph goes into a barking frenzy, rushing outside, kicking up even more dust as he goes haring down the drive to whoever might be passing.
‘Ralph! Ralph!’ He ignores me and carries on careering down the drive. I know only too well that he has trouble stopping and is likely to crash into whoever he is greeting and knock them off their feet.
I run after him, calling his name. Luckily I’m wearing lace-up trainers with a thick, cushioned heel, three-quarter-length jeans and a V-neck poncho over my white T-shirt. But I can hardly see him in the pink dust the wind is creating. I catch up with my dog, who is barking at nothing but the wind blowing in the trees, grab his collar and turn back towards the house.
Halfway along the drive I stand and look at the stone farmhouse and its lavender-blue shutters, rattling in the wind. I think of all the excitement for the future it came with when Ollie brought me here, telling me he’d found and bought our perfect home while I was working out my notice in the UK.
I look at the peeling paint now and think about the crack that had appeared in the salon ceiling before it fell down. The crack that had been covered with a thick layer of paint to patch it and make it last a little longer. That’s exactly what this house was: a thick layer of paint to patch the cracks in our relationship … and now our ceiling has fallen down.
I watch Ollie talking urgently into the phone, leaving the packing to the people he’s employed and me. I watch him, but he doesn’t notice me. I turn back to help the removers. There’s no let-up in the mistral, making the job twice as hard, the shutters and doors creaking, whining and banging. But, in what feels like no time at all, Mr Broderick and Lexie have the truck packed. They’ve done it. My entire life is inside it, ready to go home.
Home. That word again. Back to where we started. Back to where the cracks first appeared, after the failed IVF attempts, Ollie’s redundancy and then my mum dying. What exactly is left of our home together? What exactly is left of us? I take a final look around the empty house to make sure we’ve left nothing behind. I take a forgotten photograph off the wall on the staircase. The only one that made it on to an existing nail. When Ollie tried to put in others, the walls cracked some more. It’s a wedding picture, with all the hopes and dreams from before the cracks happened and couldn’t be filled. All that’s left is me, this picture and Ralph, now sitting at my feet, panting and exhausted by all the excitement.
‘Right! All set?’ Ollie is standing in the doorway, finally off his phone. ‘Think we’re all sorted,’ he says. ‘We’ve got a couple of houses to see when we get back. They’re nothing special but it’s a start.’ He goes back to trying to text from his phone.
A start. Another new start. Starting over. The house I left was special. I loved it. I thought it was going to be our family home for ever. Just like I loved my job. Now we’re going back to our old lives, without the house I loved, or the job I was good at. Now we’re going back to the start. And if I was starting over, would I do it with Ollie, knowing what I know now? Is this a fresh start – the words have formed in my head before I know it – or is it the end? Suddenly I feel a sense of calm, of stillness, of absolute clarity among the chaos of the day.
I look at him and say exactly what I’m thinking.
‘I’m not coming, Ollie.’
TWO
‘What?’ He looks up from his phone as if he’s misheard me.
‘I’m not coming. I’m not going back,’ I say. I can’t go back to where we came from. Not the house or the job, but us. I can’t go back to feeling how I did before we came here. Ollie had moved on very quickly at the end of our IVF treatment. He bought Ralph for me, let him sleep on the bed and decided we should move to France. I can’t go back to the unhappiness and the loneliness I felt in our marriage.
‘Don’t be ridiculous! The van’s all packed up! They’re just about to leave! Of course we’re going!’
I take a deep breath. ‘I’m not, Ollie. We have to be honest with ourselves. Our marriage wasn’t working in the UK, it didn’t work out here and it won’t work back there, because neither of us wants to be in it any more.’
He doesn’t argue. I think about the ladies we meet at quiz night who love Ollie and how long it might have been before he gave in to their charms, blaming it on our ‘problems’ … like last time: just the once, he said, back ‘home’. Home isn’t there for me. I don’t know where it is, but it’s not back where we came from in a rented house with Ollie.