Escape to the French Farmhouse

by Jo Thomas

  He looks at me, his eyes teasing, then breaks into a smile. I breathe a huge sigh of relief. ‘These are really good.’ He has another bite. ‘You have used just the right amount of lavender. Too much and it overpowers. Lavender was used as a herb, like rosemary, a flavouring in food for a long time, but sadly seems to be dying out. Maybe people used too much and went off it. They see it as a flower nowadays, not as a herb. These are perfect.’

  I’m feeling happier than I have in a long time. I’m sitting here in the sunshine, enjoying a glass of rosé, and have taken a tiny step to show I want to be part of this community. I look at Fabien, and feel a tiny fizz of excitement about my new life in France and what the future may hold.

  Just then Fabien calls to someone and raises a hand. It’s Carine. I wave too. She crosses the road and comes into the courtyard and the shade of the olive tree where we’re sitting.

  ‘Well, this looks wonderful,’ she says. ‘Bonjour, Del.’ She kisses me, then turns to Fabien. ‘Bonjour, chéri.’ She kisses his cheeks with her bright red lipstick. He slips his arm around her waist and kisses her back.

  ‘Here, I got a glass ready,’ he says as she sits down, and I realize Carine and Fabien must be an item. Which is fine! They’re the right age for each other. They make a lovely couple. Of course they do. Someone in their late twenties or even early thirties isn’t going to look twice at me, ten years older. I hope she doesn’t think I’m some desperate, newly single, practically middle-aged woman preying on her man. He’s handsome, with those amazing green eyes, and he has a way of making you feel good about yourself. He’s a lovely man, and Carine is a lucky lady. Thank goodness love and happiness are still out there for some, even if it’s not what I want right now. In fact, a man is the very last thing I want in my life. Now I can relax, knowing that Fabien is with Carine and we can be friends.

  Carine lights a cigarette and blows the smoke into the sky. Fabien tuts.

  ‘I know, I know,’ she says, wafting away the smoke. ‘I keep promising him I’ll give up!’ she tells me. Then, with her free hand, she reaches for a tuile. ‘What are these?’

  ‘Oh, just something I made … I haven’t cooked in years …’ I hope she won’t think I was making a play for her boyfriend with them.

  ‘A thank-you present to me, for a book I gave her and for helping her settle in,’ Fabien fills in.

  ‘To prove,’ I say boldly, ‘that I’m here to live and be part of life here.’

  ‘Of course!’ He grins.

  ‘And to say thank you for driving my furniture to the house.’ I put the situation on a firm business footing and feel much better.

  ‘Fabien is very kind,’ she says, and takes a bite of the biscuit. ‘Hmm, these are good,’ she says. ‘Just the right balance of lavender.’ She confirms what Fabien said.

  ‘You should have a stall at the market. Sell lavender bakes, biscuits, macarons. They even make nougat with lavender.’ Fabien tops up our glasses. ‘Use recipes from the book!’

  ‘Yes!’ Carine exclaims. ‘That’s a brilliant idea! Biscuits and sweet treats from Le Petit Mas de la Lavande!’

  My heart is pounding with excitement. ‘Really? Do you think I could?’

  ‘Of course!’ they say.

  ‘Do you have any experience?’ Carine asks.

  ‘Well, I used to work in a shop. A big shop.’ My confidence is about to leave me. I may know about shops, but a market stall, selling bakes I’ve made? ‘I’m not sure …’ I’m worried that my French isn’t good enough – or my baking for that matter.

  Carine claps her hands gleefully. ‘I will speak to Monsieur le maire for you. His office will deal with everything. I will tell him you are a friend of mine! It won’t be a problem. I will organize a stall for you for next Monday,’ she says. ‘It is sorted!’

  Fabien looks at Carine with a raised eyebrow. I’m not sure what his expression means.

  ‘But … why would you do that for me?’ She barely knows me.

  She seems to understand. ‘I like you. I like your …’ she searches for the word ‘… your bravery. You are making a life for yourself. Everyone needs a helping hand. I think you will take it,’ she says. ‘Not everyone wants to come here and make a life. They want a life without change.’ I wonder if she’s referring to the people she showed around Le Petit Mas. ‘I see it all the time. And when it’s not how they want it, they leave. You want to stay,’ she blows smoke into the air, ‘and I’m happy to help.’

  ‘And I will find you a stall,’ says Fabien.

  Carine and Fabien are looking at me. I’m not sure if it’s the wine, or the sunshine, or just that I have no other ideas as to how I’m going to make a living. Or maybe I feel I still have something to prove to Fabien that makes me say, ‘In that case, I’d love to! If you think I can.’

  ‘I think you can,’ says Fabien. I feel he’s challenging me, and I’m determined to show him I can do it. It will bring me in a bit of cash each week to live on and I can use the rest of the lawnmower money for the first mortgage repayment next month. In the meantime, I’ll work out how to turn my house into a chambre d’hôte.

  ‘The place by the river for the homeless people …’ I say.

  ‘The art installation?’ Carine laughs, then explains to Fabien that that was what I’d thought it was.

  ‘What about it?’ Fabien takes another tuile.

  ‘Is there ever any trouble there?’ I ask carefully.

  Fabien shakes his head. ‘Only the trouble others make for those who live there.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Some people don’t want them there. But they do no harm to anyone. They don’t have a place to call their own, and they need somewhere to rest and sit. It’s a human right.’

  ‘The blue settee had been pushed into the river this afternoon when I walked past. They were fishing it out.’

  ‘The settee? Tsk!’ He shakes his head. ‘I will find a replacement.’

  ‘You gave them the settee?’

  He nods. ‘I find pieces and take them over. It’s a small help. But others don’t like it and try to put a stop to it.’

  ‘It is a small gesture to help keep everyone in our town happy. We all live together happily … well, most of us,’ says Carine.

  ‘I’ll find something and take it over to the river in a bit. The blue one will take ages to dry.’

  ‘Who would have done that?’ I ask.

  Fabien shrugs. ‘People who don’t want homelessness on their doorstep. People who think life here in Provence is … photo-perfect.’

  ‘Picture-perfect?’

  ‘Yes!’ He smiles. ‘It may be beautiful here, but life is just like it is anywhere else. You can’t run from the problems. They are all around.’

  ‘Everywhere,’ I gently correct him.

  ‘Exactement!’ he says.

  After I’ve said goodbye to Carine and Fabien, I stroll back towards the slowly setting orange sun and the riverbank. The blue settee is there, but no one is around. There on the verge is my plate, clean, washed in the river, and a note on a roughly torn piece of paper, held down by a stone: Merci.

  I pick up the plate and head for my home, where I belong. Now all I have to do is bake the tuiles again for my stall next Monday. I’m in business! How hard can it be? I used to run a department in a big shop. Selling my own bakes is a long way from where I used to be. Is any French person going to buy lavender biscuits from an Englishwoman?

  TEN

  I spend the next week trying to decipher the recipes in the book and testing them, a new one every day. Each morning I get up and turn the next page in the book, as if I’m opening a window in an advent calendar. It’s the reason I need to get out of bed, and with every recipe I feel as if Mum is in the kitchen with me.

  On Tuesday I make shortbread. It’s crumbly and buttery, just as it should be, and I think I’ve conquered the oven. On Wednesday, I attempt macarons, which come out of the oven a bit wonky. Thursday is a chocolate gateau with lave
nder, and on Friday, I make apricot jam, with apricots from the greengrocer in town and lavender from the hedge in the garden, and use some to fill a sponge cake. Each day I walk down the river path with my bake and deliver it to Fabien at the brocante, where Carine joins us for coffee. We all agree the macarons need more practice. The chocolate gateau is delicious, rich, moist and floral, but too crisp on one edge: I may need to turn the next around during cooking. The brilliant orange jam could be sold in jars to display its bright colour, like the sun, with the flecks of lavender … Provence in a jar.

  ‘It reminds me of my grand-mère,’ says Fabien.

  ‘She was orange?’ Carine says, and we both laugh. Her English is much better than Fabien’s.

  He looks momentarily confused, then shakes his head. ‘No! In the garden. The apricot trees. My brothers and I would play there. Pick apricots. She made jam with lavender, just like this. We had it on bread, with thick butter, in the mornings, with chocolat chaud from big bowls.’ His eyes seem to mist.

  ‘I remember that too!’ says Carine. ‘I was in the house next door. I loved stealing the apricots from the trees.’

  Then Fabien says, ‘She’s dead now, of course.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I say.

  ‘The house was sold to a British family, for holidays. A Provençal farmhouse.’

  ‘They cut down the apricot trees for a pool,’ says Carine.

  ‘They are practically never there,’ Fabien finishes.

  I feel sad and want to hug him. ‘Are the rest of your family still here?’ I ask.

  ‘My parents moved to be closer to my brothers. They live north of here. This is a very expensive place to buy houses and they all have families and need room for them,’ he says.

  Like they would have in my mas, I think. I’m one of the people to blame for French families moving away. I have a big family home with just me in it. I feel a stab of guilt and can see why he would resent people like me living here.

  ‘The estate agents must be very rich,’ he says. He’s looking at Carine and making a joke. She sticks out her tongue at him.

  I can’t believe how much I enjoy cooking again. I haven’t baked in years. Not since Ollie decided we needed a fitness regime to improve our chances of getting pregnant. ‘No takeaways, no alcohol, no cakes’ became no carbs, protein shakes and nights at the gym for him. I used to love cooking for him. On the first occasion I made a Portuguese pork and clams dish, followed by pineapple upside-down sponge with custard. He told me there and then he loved me and planned to marry me. I laughed. I laughed a lot in those days, and I loved to make others smile. Mostly that was through cooking. I liked nothing more than having friends round on a Saturday night after work for a pot of chilli and chocolate pudding, or for Sunday lunch, beef with all the trimmings, and Yorkshire puddings that got a gasp when I brought them to the table. One day, I thought, I’d be feeding our own family around the table. But when that didn’t happen, the meals around the table stopped. Even eating together became a chore as Ollie would insist on tiny portions, saying he wasn’t hungry. It was as if I’d cooked a meal just to annoy him.

  Ollie has sent several sharp text messages this week, which I’ve received intermittently when I’ve walked to town for provisions. In the last one he said he’s given up trying to ‘talk sense into me’. I haven’t felt so happy or excited in a long time. Or maybe excited and nervous. I have a market stall to prepare for: I’ll be back behind a counter, selling to people, where I’m happy. And I’ll turn my home into a chambre d’hôte, just as soon as I can afford paint and furniture. I have a plan. I’m just not sure it’s going to work. But it has to. I have to make a living. If I can’t, my new life will be over when it’s barely begun. Tomorrow, market day, I’ll find out.

  ELEVEN

  I breathe in deeply as the early-morning mist rolls around the valley and up the hill towards the house. I’m taking a moment to settle my nerves. It’s barely light. I have been up baking from, well, the middle of the night. I have packed all the biscuits and shortbread into boxes Fabien got for me from the greengrocer on the main street, and I make a note to shop there by way of saying thank you and to take her some apricot jam. And I think of Fabien’s grandmother, with a sunny orange face and her apricot trees.

  I finish my coffee and look out on the mist again, rolling up the valley, burning off the morning dew, promising a glorious day, and try to calm myself. I have to make this work. It’s my only chance of earning some money and staying on here.

  I walk over to the lavender hedge. There is a smell in the air, the same smell I noticed on the morning after the mistral, when I hadn’t returned to the UK and had decided instead to stay. It is the scent of a new dawn and a new day. The cobwebs on the lavender are covered with dew, which sparkles like diamonds. I pick some of the lavender and hold it to my nose. It seems to calm me. What’s the worst that can happen? I ask myself. That I don’t sell anything. Panic grips me again.

  As if on cue, I hear a friendly toot and the crunch of tyres on the stony ground at the front of the house. My stomach flick-flacks. This is it! I’m going to make it work. I want to be a part of this community, at the heart of it, and I want it to be my home.

  Ralph practically falls over himself, trying to co-ordinate his legs in his excitement at greeting a visitor. He barks, then catapults to the front of the house, banking round the corner, probably taking out Fabien’s legs from under him as he bowls into him with sheer joy.

  ‘Whoa!’ I hear Fabien laugh. He could charm anyone with that laugh. If he can get Ralph to do as he’s told, I’m sure he has women falling at his feet all the time. But he and Carine are a solid couple.

  ‘Ralph! Ralph!’ I call, and follow him to the front of the house. ‘Ralph!’ The morning peace is shattered.

  I round the corner, slow to a standstill and catch my breath. Ralph is sitting obediently, his tongue hanging out, panting, raising his paw to Fabien for him to shake. Fabien, wearing his battered leather jacket and a bandanna around his neck, smells delicious, I realize, as I move closer.

  ‘Bonjour, Del. All ready?’ He steps away from Ralph and kisses my cheeks, the delicious scent wrapping itself around me, like a hug. Ralph barks at him impatiently, but Fabien ignores him.

  ‘Bonjour, Fabien.’ I felt his breath on my lips as he kissed me. Dawn is breaking on the skyline and the cockerel down the road crows. Night turns to day in what feels like an instant. As light begins to seep through the trees, there’s a spring in my step.

  ‘Oui!’ I smile.

  ‘Have you slept?’

  ‘Not a wink!’ I laugh. ‘I’m too excited. And I’ve been up baking!’

  ‘It smells delicious,’ he says, and follows me into the kitchen to pick up the boxes. I lay a tablecloth on top of one. I found it in the bundle I bought from Fabien. A beautiful Provençal print, slightly faded but still full of colour and life.

  ‘I have a table for you in the back of the truck and Carine has organized your pitch with the mayor and his office. It is a little out of the way,’ he shrugs, ‘but they don’t know you yet. You are from out of town. It is a start, though.’

  ‘Merci,’ I say, as I follow him out to the truck where his little dog is waiting patiently in the cab. Ralph seems to be doing the same beside it, as if he’s expecting to come too. ‘I’m so lucky to have met you and Carine,’ I say, as we put the boxes into the truck and he climbs in to tie them in securely.

  ‘The feeling is very mutual,’ he says, his green eyes twinkling at me. As he pulls the ties tightly into place, a shiver runs up and around me. I rub my arms.

  ‘Do you have everything?’ he asks, climbing down.

  ‘Yes. I’ll just put Ralph inside.’ I call him, but Ralph doesn’t move. He just stares at the cab in contained anticipation.

  ‘He can come with you? Non?’ says Fabien. ‘Keep him on a lead.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know …’ I say. Then I think about the shredded blanket and the upturned water bowl. And n
ow I have furniture in place, maybe it would make more sense to have him where I can keep an eye on him.

  ‘Okay, come on, then, Ralph. But you have to promise to behave!’

  ‘Move over, Mimi,’ Ralph tells the Jack Russell, as he gets into the driver’s seat.

  I open the cab door and Ralph jumps straight in, much to Mimi’s chagrin. She resettles herself and stares out of the window, ignoring Ralph. He tries to copy her but can’t stop panting, filling the cab with his hot breath. Fabien and I sit at either side of him and laugh. That’s certainly put paid to any attraction I might have felt, had I been riding next to Fabien in the truck. He is a friend and the last thing I want is to find him attractive. Thank God for Ralph, I think, as I wind down the window and breathe in the warm, pine-scented Provence air as Fabien sets off down the drive.

  It’s not even 7 a.m., but the town is alive with chatter and the clatter of stalls being erected, shouts of directions as vans are parked, goods unloaded and displayed. It feels like the opening night of a big musical and we all have our own part to play in it. Fabien talks briefly to the woman from the mayor’s office who points to my pitch. It’s down the alleyway, between the square and the main road leading to the car park. A bit off the beaten track maybe …

  Fabien seems to read my mind. ‘So it’s not the best pitch … but it’s a start.’

  ‘It’s great,’ I try to enthuse, but it really is out of the way and I’m terrified that all our efforts will have been for nothing.

  ‘They don’t know you. You’re from out of town – out of the country! You’ll have to work for your custom. If you want it, you’ll have to go and get it,’ he says. Again, I feel he’s challenging me. What he means is, I have to prove to the mayor and the locals that I’m really here to stay.

  ‘But at least it’ll be out of the sun.’ Fabien smiles one of his killer smiles.