The sun is warm on my face as I walk around the stalls filling the square, the streets and side streets of the town. I don’t think Ollie would have liked it: he doesn’t like ‘second hand’. Although Le Petit Mas de la Lavande was picture-perfect, he wanted to replace all its original features with new. It needed work, but I liked it as it was, flaws and all.
I wander among the stalls, piled with mirrors, chandeliers, milk churns, even beautifully carved dark-wood furniture, where the car park usually is, at the top of the town, in the shade of the big plane trees there. I stroll leisurely. The only thing I have to do today is make plans for the rest of my life and, right now, I want to put that off for as long as possible. It’s far more appealing to mingle with people, furniture, clothes and bedding, full of stories about the life they had before and waiting for a new era to begin. A bit like me, I think, and tears spring to my eyes. I blink them away. I have just walked out on ten years of marriage and everything I know but I can’t let myself crack. I have to keep going.
I used to like the idea Ollie had for our life, our future. He preferred things to be perfect, even though life isn’t. But I can be happy, I think, picking up a jug and running my hand over its crackled glaze.
My stomach rumbles. I put down the jug and walk along the main street towards the boulangerie we’ve used every day since we’ve been here.
‘Bonjour, Madame,’ says the young woman behind the high counter. The baker is pulling baguettes from the oven in the kitchen behind her.
‘Bonjour, Mademoiselle, Monsieur,’ I say.
She smiles at me brightly behind her round glasses, asking me what I’d like.
I look at the pastries. I’ve been trying to avoid them, but I point to a pain au raisin. I take a baguette too. For later, although I have no idea where I’ll be. I have to drop the key to the house with the estate agent and work out where to go from there. I take the pastry and pay from the change in my purse. I still have the envelope of cash from the sale of our sit-on lawnmower that I was supposed to pay into the bank before we left France. I push the baguette into my bag and pull it up on to my shoulder.
‘I thought your husband said you were leaving,’ she says. ‘Did you forget something?’ She cocks her head sympathetically.
I look at her and see myself, a young woman with all of life’s opportunities in front of me. ‘I think I probably did,’ I say, and smile. Myself, I think.
I step out of the shop, take off my poncho, put it into my bag, then get out my pastry and take a bite. I shut my eyes and enjoy the moment, which takes me back to a time when food was fun, when I wasn’t worried about what I ate, before food became a battle, not a pleasure. Right now, this pastry is heaven. I open my eyes, and across the street an old man with a dark lined face, wearing a flat cap and jacket, grins at me and beckons me over to his stall. He’s selling lavender bags, bundles of dried lavender and essential oil. He picks up a small bundle and hands it to me. ‘Because you have a beautiful smile,’ he says, and grins, showing the gap where his front tooth once was.
‘Merci,’ I say. ‘Vous êtes très gentil,’ I try in my simple French. ‘Au revoir.’
‘Bonne journée, Madame,’ he calls.
Suddenly I feel really happy. I haven’t felt like this before. Why not? But I know the answer. Because Ollie and I had made each other unhappy.
I pass the estate agent’s window and see the smart young woman behind the neatly ordered desk talking to a middle-aged couple. I think of the big key in my bag. Surely it wouldn’t do any harm to hang on to it for a bit longer, just while I work out what I’m going to do. Give it until the weekend. Then I’ll start looking for a job and somewhere to live back home. I can’t just stay here, like I’m on holiday. I’ll have to go back to the UK soon and look for somewhere to rent while the house sells. I suppose we’ll split whatever profit there is, if any. The reality of the situation is sinking in: dividing our small ‘assets’. I’m no longer half of a couple. I’m no longer someone’s wife. It feels odd. It’ll feel strange telling people I’m separated. I sigh. We had lots of friends, but over the years I’ve felt lonely. The more people tried to sympathize when we discovered we couldn’t have children, the more I kept them at arm’s length. But now it feels good to smile, and here, in this town, although I’m on my own, I don’t feel lonely at all.
But if I’m going to stay until the weekend, I’ll need a few supplies. Everything went into that truck, except my bag with toiletries and essential clothes. At that moment I spot a pair of big double doors down a side street, inside a courtyard, behind wrought-iron open gates. I’ve never noticed it before. A large brocante, by the look of it, with all sorts of furniture, bedding and even a clothes rail. I need some bedding, maybe something to sleep on, a cup and a pan. Looks like I could get everything I need right here. Perhaps even sell it back to the owner when I leave. I walk towards it, seeing piles of fabric, kitchen implements and ornaments.
I run my hand over a bundle of bedding. A floral eiderdown, sheets and blankets, tied up with ribbon, for just five euros. Far cheaper than paying to stay somewhere. There’s a chair that’s been half upholstered, the fabric cut and in place: it just needs tacking on. I could live without a chair, but at that price, it seems a shame to leave it behind. There are boxes of plates, beautiful cups and saucers and cutlery, all cheaper than I could buy in the supermarket. There are wooden bed heads and stacks of thick mattresses. Then I see a lovely leather-bound book. A work of art in itself. A cookery book of the area, handwritten, and if I’m not mistaken, it’s about lavender. I smell the lavender in my hand, as I turn the pages. It could have been written for Le Petit Mas de la Lavande. I try to imagine my home in its heyday as a lavender farm, long gone.
‘Bonjour.’ A polite voice cuts into my thoughts.
An attractive young man is smiling at me. Dark curly hair, dark stubble on his chin. He has big green eyes and is wearing an old leather jacket, despite the sun, and a soft scarf around his neck. For a moment I just stare at him and feel quite hot. I fan myself with the empty pastry bag, scattering crumbs on to the book. ‘Oh, sorry – je m’excuse,’ I say, blushing.
‘No problem.’ He flicks away the crumbs. ‘It’s done.’
‘Merci,’ I say, and push the scrunched-up bag into my shoulder bag, on top of the key.
‘Are you looking for something?’ he says, in stilted English.
‘Um, well, yes,’ I say, wondering where to start and how to explain my situation. ‘I need … um … everything really! The basics. Cheaply.’
He smiles quizzically, not understanding. ‘Let’s start at the beginning,’ he says. ‘Can I get you some coffee?’
My mouth is suddenly dry. ‘Coffee would be wonderful, merci.’
‘Je m’appelle Fabien,’ he says, and holds out a hand to shake mine.
‘Della,’ I reply. ‘Everyone calls me Del.’
‘Enchanté,’ he says, and something shifts inside me, making me feel young again.
‘Let us have coffee and, er, talk about your knees,’ he says, leading me into the big warehouse.
‘My knees?’