his head came up. ‘Oh, yes, of course. I’m sorry. I was just thinking. I’m a bit… yes. Yes, of course.’ He gave his head a quick shake, as though trying to lose something in the movement. ‘Can you give me a hand?’
I opened the gate. A whirl of pockmarks showed where Patrick had come in in a hurry, pitting the entrance, and we had to struggle to pull the van through the ridged mud. But eventually, with each of us tugging one shaft, we dragged the surprisingly light vehicle in and parked it against the far hedge, with the shafts up on their rests. It looked very at home there, with its red bow roof squeezed between inquisitive bramble stems, the paintwork almost glowing as the sun caught it. The big yellow wheels with their red trim stood as stickily in the long grass as the pony did, and there was a certain similarity also in the squat wide body. Patrick, in the meantime, grazed near the kitchen door and took no notice of us gasping and pulling, until we stepped away from the van, when he ambled up to scratch his tail against the woodwork.
Gabriel gave me a grin that made him look less like a distracted computer programmer with a modelling contract. ‘That should do. I can tell Granny Mary that it’s all safe and cared for now. I’ve sent her a couple of pictures, so she’ll know he’s not tethered in the middle of the M5 being forced to eat his own knees.’
‘But only temporarily. We agreed. You’ll find somewhere else for him soon.’
‘For Patrick. Can’t the van stay?’ He flipped hair away from his face with the back of his hand, and I noticed his glasses were askew. ‘You could use it for…’
‘Firewood?’ I was being sarcastic, of course. There was no way anyone with a soul would chop this beautifully painted object up.
‘A summerhouse? I mean, hopefully Granny Mary won’t be in the hospital for long, just while they run the tests… and then she’ll be back on the road.’ The way his accent said ‘road’ made it sound like ‘rowd’ and my ears started to dwell on his voice. It had been his accent that had first attracted me to Luc, and I had to remind myself sternly how that had turned out: a desperate divorce and a daughter who was a cross between Emily Brontë and a character from TOWIE. A pleasant accent does not mean a nice person stands behind it.
A car engine slowed to a tick in the lane beyond the hedge. I heard the squeak sound of hawthorn branches being scraped past paintwork; the lane was really not a thoroughfare, although it seemed that the occasional non-critical satnav user got sent this way. We had heard the swearing, after they’d negotiated the tight lane only to find themselves faced with a slightly-too-deep-for-comfort ford at the bottom of the hill. At least they no longer had to contend with a wooden caravan in the only passing place for miles.
‘Can I have your phone number?’ He was still talking and I had to stop hearing the accent and start listening to the words.
‘No.’ I figured a flat refusal was best. What did he think I was, some floozy in a duck apron, who’d give her number to any man who asked? Even if he did look as though he should be on the cover of a magazine, minus those thick glasses and plus some proper clothes.
‘Er. In case I need to get in touch about Patrick?’ There was no hint in his voice, or face, that he thought my saying no was anything other than normal. ‘I’ve got a friend who might let me rent a field. I wouldn’t want you to come home from, uh, whatever it is that you do and find him gone without a word.’
I opened my mouth to say that I didn’t do anything, as yet, the market for French language teachers wasn’t quite as open as I’d thought it might be, but I reasoned that he might think I was lying. I had my hair tied up with a dishcloth and an apron covered in cartoon ducklings. I didn’t look like anything a responsible adult would trust with their children. ‘Oh. Right,’ was what I did say.
We exchanged phone numbers. I took my mobile out of the apron pocket to put his contact details in, and saw him suppress a smile. ‘I’m washing down paintwork,’ I said. ‘We only moved in two weeks ago and it’s a bit of a mess in there.’
‘Hence the gloves?’
‘No, it’s my fetish,’ I snapped, and instantly hated myself. ‘I mean, yes. The stuff I’m using isn’t good for the skin.’
‘You’re sugar soaping?’ He adjusted his glasses, straightening them out and pushing them up his nose. ‘No need to bother, to be honest. Modern paint will stick perfectly well if you just use water and some detergent.’
Patrick stomped back around and walked between us, which was good. It meant that my ‘oh, great, another man waltzing in and telling me where I’m going wrong’ face was hidden behind a fuzzy black and white body.
‘I’ll bear that in mind. Now, if you have to be off, I’ll give Patrick some water when I’ve finished with the bucket. And yes, I will rinse it out properly. Goodbye.’ I turned around sharply as some small birds fluttered out of the hedge, saw me moving and altered their flight pattern upwards.
‘Ah, yes. Sorry.’
As the kitchen door had slammed shut, I’d have to go back in through the front door, so I headed down the side of the cottage, aware that Gabriel was following at my shoulder. Fortunately the gap was too narrow for Patrick to follow him, although the sound of a horse trying to get its bulk into an alleyway was one that would stay with me for a while.
We rounded the shoulder of the cottage, where the porch stuck out and narrowed the entryway even further. ‘I’ll hear from you soon, then,’ I said, turning to go into the darkness of the porch, and jumping backwards to smack Gabriel in the face with the back of my head when I realised someone was already in there, and there was a car parked outside the gate.
‘Hello, Katie,’ said a voice from the darkest recesses of hell and also my porch.
My ex-husband had come to visit.
3
We sat in the kitchen, with Gabriel holding a tea towel to his bleeding nose and occasionally dabbing at the incipient black eye where his glasses had impacted. I’d just about stopped apologising to him and offering him ice, but it was touch and go.
Luc had pulled out a chair at the little table and was sitting with his legs outstretched. Comfortable. Settled in.
‘So, Katie,’ he said, his French accent sounding exotic in the confines of the little stone-flagged room. ‘You moved all this way, huh? To this…’ and he threw his arms wide, indicating presumably the poverty of my kitchen. ‘I never thought you could live this way in such a…’ he groped for an epithet ‘… a backwater.’
Gabriel had flinched at the outflung arms, which had resulted in more blood. I handed him another tea towel. This was horrible. No, this was beyond ordinary horrible and into Game of Thrones horribility. All we needed now was a dragon; we’d already got the blood and the psychopath.
‘You lost the ability to comment on my life when we divorced.’ I threw Gabriel an apologetic look. I really didn’t want dirty laundry to be spread out in front of this perfect stranger, but I didn’t feel I could ask him to leave when he was seeping bodily fluids into my Laura Ashley finest linen weave. ‘How is Mariette, by the way?’
It was a low blow, but the quickest way I could think of to sum up the break-up of our relationship. Yes, I was the cliché, the wife left for a younger, prettier and more successful woman. Although, in my case, I didn’t
