So, what on earth was I doing there? In a tired farmhouse in the Luberon in Provence. In a small mountainside town, with terracotta-, orange-, yellow-, and peach-coloured houses. With my husband, the one constant thing in my life, back in the UK. Well, he’d been there in body, except when he’d been in someone else’s life and bed for that one-off when the stress of our situation had got too much. Sex to us had become about making a baby, not making love. I can’t remember the last time I made love. And all the time, as I thought back over my married life throughout that night, trying to work out where it had all gone wrong, the loose shutters banged, banged, banged against the windowpanes. Eventually, when I could stand it no more, I stood up and went to tie the shutter to the wrought-iron railings we’d had made to stop any visitors falling out of the window. But no one had visited in the six weeks we’d tried to make a go of things here. Once the move had happened, our ‘fresh new start’, once we’d eaten the bread and cheese, drunk the wine, taken down the ‘happiness in your new home’ cards, once the front door was shut, it was just Ollie and me, alone, our future spread out in front of us, like a long, long night with nothing on the telly. And nothing much to talk about, apart from shopping lists, people planning to visit, Ollie’s frustration with the internet and his daily battles with the phone in the car. He’d come back to the farmhouse after a trip into the town furious that he had got no further in improving our broadband and Wi-Fi connection and that no one spoke English.
‘Bloody country!’ he’d rant. ‘And they all stop for lunch! Who stops for lunch these days? How does anyone make a bloody living here? And, honestly, it beggars belief how many of them don’t speak English.’ The last six painful weeks played over and over in my mind for what seemed like most of the night.
I felt safer in the bathroom than anywhere else in the empty house, in what felt like the tatters of my marriage, with Ralph by my side. Suddenly my dog was there for me when I really needed someone and no one else was.
I thought about Ollie and our life together over the last few weeks. Mealtimes had become fraught as the work Ollie had tried to pick up, then deliver, became more and more difficult to achieve, and our savings from the sale of the house started to dwindle.
So, work was drying up for Ollie, and my French wasn’t nearly good enough yet for me to look for work in a local shop. We agreed, over the plat du jour in the most expensive brasserie in town, to put the house back on the market and phoned the removal company. Ollie complained at the size of the restaurant bill and that ‘nothing in France is cheap any more’. But we were both right. Nothing in our lives was working because our marriage wasn’t working. The glue had gone. We’d tried to fix it, but it was broken. It was over. I know I made the right decision for us both. That was how I ended up in the bath on my own.
‘Come on, Ralph, up we get,’ I say.
He’s suddenly alert and scrabbles out of the bath, ready for whatever adventures the day might bring. With every joint and muscle in my body aching, I ease myself out and pull out my phone. There’s a message from Ollie.
I’m back. Come to your senses yet?!
I don’t reply. I’ve said all I need to say. There’s no point in discussing it any more. I ripped the plaster off our broken marriage and my damaged heart yesterday, which hurt, but it’s going to get better, for both of us.
I walk over to the long bathroom window to retrieve my bra, the only thing I could find last night to tie back the loose shutter. I’d seen Joanna Lumley use hers as slippers when she was on a desert island, and mine did a great job last night. I untie it, then push the shutters back. I take hold of the wrought-iron railing and breathe in deeply. I can smell the pine and cypress trees. I can hear the birds singing as they flit in and out of the trees and the cockerel in the distance still heralding the new day. A donkey from up the road has joined in the morning celebrations and is braying. I can smell the rosemary plants under the window and the lavender hedge. The mistral has blown all the dust away and everything is bright and clear. They say that the clear colours after the mistral draw painters to the area, and I can see why as I stare at the valley below. I’m not mad. Ollie and I had come to the end of our journey. Going back to where we’d started would have made us even more miserable.
The sky is streaked with blue and pink as the sun rises over our field behind the house and beyond. I close my eyes. I open them and the birdsong, the smell of the pines, the wild rosemary and thyme on the white rocks make me feel calm. I look at the view, taking it in as if for the first time. I may have nothing in the house but I have this for now.
I smile at Ralph, sitting happily at my feet, and I reach down to stroke his soft ear. Instead of seeing it as a sign to bound around in play, he lets me. And I’m grateful for that. A smile pulls at the corners of my mouth and there’s a flutter of excitement in my stomach. Was it mistral madness? Whatever it was, this is a new day, a fresh new day, and there are far worse places I could be.
FOUR
The sun is warm already and I’d love to sit outside and feel it on my face, but with no food in the house, and nothing to sit on, I decide to walk into town. My large basket-cum-handbag, which I bought in the market on our first day, hangs over my arm. I tell Ralph I’ll be back with breakfast, and fill an old bucket I found in the barn with water. I think it may be the first time I’ve ventured into that barn. I also find an old blanket covering what looks like an ancient plough and put it on the kitchen floor for him, promising I’ll be back soon. I daren’t risk trying to walk him on the lead into town – we’d probably both end up in the river.
I shut the front door and lock it, then put the key into my bag. I stroll down the drive and out on to the lane beyond the metal gates. I can feel the sunshine feeding my soul as I walk. I breathe in the scent of pine and rosemary, trying to work out what I need to buy.
The town seems busier than usual as I walk along, watching an unusual amount of traffic arriving. And now I know why: there’s a market, not like our usual Monday market but for antiques, a brocante market. I can hear chatter and bargaining from the riverbank as I walk towards the town square. This is an amazing route into town. I knew this path existed but haven’t walked it before. Ollie always insisted on driving: he didn’t want to walk back with shopping. At the end of the path, I pass a clearing with what looks to be a small hut. Fairy lights are strung from it to the trees, and a blue velvet settee, with gold trim and legs, has been placed under a huge pine. Its beauty takes me by surprise. There’s a table and chairs too, with two men playing chess, so intent on their game that they don’t notice me.
I smile as I walk towards the busy market. I’m not thinking about last night, or yesterday, the months that led up to it, or what I’m going to do next. I’m just here, walking in the sunshine with all the other Sunday browsers. The bells I can hear from what was our house, Le Petit Mas de la Lavande, are ringing as church-goers pour out. I watch as a group of short women, dressed in black and smart court shoes, kiss each other three times on the cheek, then head off in different directions, probably going home to prepare lunch for the family. I feel a twinge of envy: there’s no family waiting for me. I think of my mum and the gaping hole her death has left in my life. I need one of her hugs to tell me everything will be okay. Will it? I wish I was here with Mum, Ollie and our child, getting ready for Sunday lunch at home. But I’m not. I’m here on my own.