For the next few weeks, before Oliver was born, Jo had overflowed with excited anticipation.
‘Let’s go to the cinema,’ she would suggest. ‘Let’s go to dinner. Let’s do all the things we won’t be able to do any more once the baby’s here.’
He had acquiesced. When he wasn’t sitting in front of films with a hand on Jo’s bump, feeling his unborn son kicking and squirming inside her, he was looking after Emma, taking Alice for walks to give Emma a break, walking around the sitting room with Alice half asleep on his shoulder. He woke up when the baby squeaked at midnight, three o’clock, half past five and seven; he stroked her soft hair as she lay on the duvet between her parents. He pined for Alice. She was the innocent in his life, and he had already let her down.
Hugh sighed mentally, still reading to Olly. It had started as a normal infidelity. Now he had two toddlers to contend with, and he couldn’t ever put them in a room together and tell them to play.
Olly squirmed. ‘Why didn’t the baby say please?’
Bloody two-year-olds. ‘He just didn’t.’
‘The bad baby was
very naughty
.’
‘Yes he was. That’s the elephant’s point, in a nutshell.’
‘What’s a nutshell? What means point in a nutshell?’
It had been Jo’s fault, to begin with. Before he met her he had been geeky and boring. Jo had told him that he was lovely; genuine, sweet, unthreatening. He had, she insisted, a warm and tender smile. He was the antithesis of a bastard. He made her feel safe and happy and loved. Hugh had been amazed, and he had worked on his good points.
He thought of the shameful string of extra-curricular liaisons he had had before he met Emma. His present situation was, he imagined, karma. He wondered what would happen if he told Olly, right now, that he had a sister.
‘Why? Why’s she got a different mummy? Why’s she live in France?’ There would be hundreds of whys, and the answer to every single one of them would have been: because I’m crap. Followed by: no. No, you can’t meet her. No, Mummy doesn’t know her. No, you mustn’t tell anyone. No, no, no, no, no. This had all started off as a celebration of his unexpected ability to attract women, and it had ended up, he admitted to himself, as a complete fucking nightmare. He was deeply impressed with himself for the fact that he had carried it off so far.
There was no obvious way out. He knew that, when his year was up, or sooner, he would have to leave one of them. The thought of actually leaving Jo was gut-wrenching. In Paris he had been surprised by how much he still loved her, by how funny she was, by how much he relaxed in her company. He had a creeping, unanalysed feeling that he might be swinging towards choosing Jo, after all. Then, at other times, it was Emma he wanted. It was all very confusing.
He pictured Oliver growing up scarred by his father’s behaviour and emulating him by turning into a grade A bastard. He imagined Alice, scared of life and anxious not to offend, like her mother. He knew that his behaviour was potentially blighting the future happiness of his children, and yet he did not know how to make everything better.
Jo listened to the comforting hum of Hugh’s voice through the wall as she tidied their bedroom and filled the white laundry basket with dirty washing. She unzipped his bag, ready to add his clothes to the laundry heap, and to put a load in the washing machine. Pants, socks, a spare shirt. He never took much away with him and most of it still seemed to be clean. She rolled her eyes. Men.
As she tipped it all out, a piece of paper fluttered down from the side of the bag. Jo picked it up from the white floorboards, and studied it.
‘Hugh?’ she called. ‘When you’re finished, can you come in here?’
One Wednesday morning, Alice and I called round to Coco’s flat, which was in the middle of St Paul. It was large and airy, with huge front windows looking down onto the street. The sky was pale blue and the sun was out, shining into her sitting room and dazzling us.
Coco grinned as we came up the narrow stairs. ‘Come in!’ she called. ‘Alice, Louis wants to do some painting with you.’
Alice nodded, understanding, and looked around for Louis. We had been to Coco’s flat a few times now, and we were both still shy there. Coco was friendly and Alice liked Louis, but I still held back, and Alice sensed that. I had always found it difficult to make friends. I was polite with Coco, but I could not relax with her.
‘Coffee,’ she said, and handed me a tiny glass espresso cup.
‘Could I have a tiny bit of milk?’ I asked.
‘Of course you could. I forgot again. You are so English, drinking milk in your coffee.’
‘Don’t the French? You must do or the English wouldn’t always call it a
café au lait
. Every English person knows that phrase.’
‘Which is funny since the French are much more likely to call it
café crème
.’
‘But the English can’t say
crème
. It’s too throaty for us.’
‘You just said it.’
‘It took years of practice.’
‘The French might drink a
café crème
in the morning. Afterwards, a coffee is just to wake you up and give some focus. To have milk in it would be to make it into something else. It’s like food then.’
‘Anglo-Saxons like a snack. That’s why we’re so fat.’
The children were soon deeply involved in their painting. Coco chatted away and I answered as best I could. I watched her while she talked. She was impossibly chic. I thought my waist must be twice the circumference of hers, and her clothes were far, far out of my league. I wondered why she wanted me for a friend.
‘She just turns up!’ she was saying, huffing in annoyance. ‘Any time she feels like seeing us! Last night she brought food. I tell her that I don’t want it but she insists. It’s so annoying.’
I laughed. ‘My aunt would never do that. She’s the opposite. Quite distant.’ I decided to try to open up and to tell her about my mother. ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘At least you’ve got a mother.’
Coco raised her eyebrows: ‘At least you’ve got a partner.’
I stared. ‘You haven’t got a partner?’
She looked around. ‘Do you see him?’
‘I just thought he was at work.’
She shook her head. ‘Louis’ father and I split up when Louis was seven months old. It was horrible. He’s Swiss. He lives in Geneva now.’
‘Does he see Louis?’
She put her head on one side. ‘Mmm-hmm. Not regularly. When he can fit him in. I refuse to go all the way to Switzerland so he has to come here to see him. He’s coming this summer. He always makes it into some big event as if he’s the best father in the world for travelling for a few hours to see the son he deserted. Arsehole.’ She said the word in English. ‘We manage. That’s why my mother’s in my hair all the time.’
‘God, Coco. I couldn’t do that.’ As I said it, I knew that it was literally true. ‘I don’t have the mental strength to be a single mother. All that responsibility.’
She laughed at me, not unkindly. ‘Emma? You are almost a single mother as it is. Whenever I see you you’re on your own. OK, sometimes I see you and Matt at the market on Saturday, but mainly it’s just you and Alice. Isn’t it? You’d be fine.’
‘It’s not the physical presence. You’re right, I am fine, and that’s because I know that Matt’s going to be back tomorrow. I know that he’s always with us on Thursday evening and he always stays till Sunday. Nearly always. That’s why I can manage three days on my own. I need that kind of support. When he stayed away for the weekend it was horrible. I couldn’t manage on my own at all.’ I looked at her and smiled. ‘Of course I’m pretty sure it’s not going to happen.’
Coco smiled. ‘Of course not. But if it did you would surprise yourself. I stayed with André far longer than I should have because I had the same fears. He left me in the end. I regret that. If I could go back in time, I would leave him as soon as I was pregnant.’
Alice and Louis stampeded into the room. Alice was holding a toy ladybird that lit up. Louis was starting to cry.
‘
C’est à moi!
’ he shouted. Alice hugged it tightly, her brows knitted into a tight frown.
‘Share your toys!’ Coco told Louis.
‘It’s Louis’. Give it back,’ I told Alice.
They both glared.
‘Shall we take them for a walk?’ I asked hesitantly.
We walked towards the café. The sun was bright, now. I thought of my flowers coming into bud. The daffodils and other, surprise flowers that I could not yet identify were going to flower soon. There were lots of birds in the garden. Even the boggy ground was almost dry now.
I looked up. ‘How long will it last this time?’ I asked. There had been intervals of good weather, but the rain and clouds always came back.
‘How long will it last?’ Coco echoed with a smile. ‘This is spring. Finally! I’ve never known a spring as bad as this one has been. You must have brought the weather from England.’
‘Sorry. Everyone says that.’
I looked around. The trees had leaves on them. All the blossom had been washed away by the rain, but now the greenery was strong and blooming. The paving stones beneath our feet reflected the sunlight, almost dazzling me. All the cafés had their chairs out. I decided to send Matt a text later to announce the delayed arrival of our French summer. I felt silly for not having noticed it before.
Coco suddenly burst out laughing. I followed her gaze. A man and a woman were strolling towards us, deep in conversation. A man walked backwards in front of them, with a camera trained on them, and a platinum-blonde woman dressed in black was next to the cameraman. The camera crew looked sorely out of place in this tiny town, and passing shoppers were turning to stare.
The couple looked as if they were in their mid-thirties. The man saw Coco and raised a hand in greeting. He had a small goatee beard. The woman was rosy-cheeked, with short, curly hair and a broad smile.
‘
Bonjour
, Coco,’ the man called. She laughed under her breath and took me by the hand.
‘You might like this,’ she said quietly. ‘Or you might hate it.’
Coco approached the couple and kissed them on each cheek. She nodded to the woman in black. The cameraman stepped back and turned his camera off.
‘This is Emma,’ Coco said, in English. ‘Emma — Andy and Fiona.’
Andy and Fiona both laughed warmly.
‘Oh,
hello
!’ said Fiona. ‘Are you the other English people? The ones who live in Pounchet?’
‘I am. We are. I take it that you’re the ones with the television people?’
They shrugged their shoulders, uniformly sheepish. ‘That’ll be us,’ the man admitted. ‘This is Rosie.’ The woman smiled politely, and went back to conferring with her cameraman. ‘Rosie is in charge of our lives. So tell me, Emma, how did you manage to move to France
without
featuring in your own documentary?’ We all laughed. I turned to Coco, suddenly embarrassed about Andy and Fiona hearing my French when I had no idea how good theirs was.
‘In England,’ I told her hesitantly, ‘there are too many programmes on the television about people who move to France, Italy, Australia, Spain . . .’
Coco raised her eyebrows and nodded brightly, not really interested. She was watching Louis and Alice, who were holding hands and jumping off a step together, screaming with fear and laughter.
‘Louis!’ she called. ‘Shhh!
Doucement!
’
I felt obliged to tell Alice to stop screaming too, although I could not really see who they were disturbing. I supposed that this was why French children had beautiful manners and their British counterparts ran wild.
‘Do you always have an entourage?’ I asked. ‘Isn’t it horribly intrusive? I’d feel self-conscious all the time.’
Fiona cocked her head to one side. ‘You get used to it,’ she said. ‘I’m actually surprised at how quickly you do get used to it. They’re nice people. When they’re filming we just pretend they’re not there. When they’re not filming, we have a laugh with them. It’s been good to have the company, to be perfectly honest with you.’ She looked at the children. ‘Is that your little girl? She’s a
treasure
.’
I called Alice over to say hello and, as she approached, I saw Rosie looking speculatively at the children. Coco took Louis by the hand, and bade us all goodbye. I could understand her not wanting her little boy in a British documentary. I did not particularly want Alice or me in it, either.
‘Come next Wednesday,’ Coco called back over her shoulder.
Andy and Fiona were friendly. Andy suggested going for a coffee, and Rosie immediately asked if she could come with us and film us. I thought about it, assessed my scruffy appearance, ran my fingers through my hair, and agreed. Before anyone pointed a camera at me, however, I announced that I was not pregnant.
‘The last thing I want,’ I explained to Fiona, ‘is you making that mistake and me having to correct you on camera.’
‘I didn’t think for a moment you were!’ she said, patting my shoulder. The cameraman checked with the café owner, and we went in and sat down.
‘What does your husband do?’ Andy asked. ‘That’s always the first question, isn’t it? I can’t count the number of friends at home who’ve said, we’d love to do what you’re doing, but what would we do for money? How have you worked it?’
I decided not to correct his use of the word ‘husband’.
‘He’s a project manager,’ I said, feeling awkward in front of the camera. I fiddled with my hands and twisted my hair around my finger. ‘I’ve never entirely understood what projects he manages, or what he exactly does on a day-to-day basis. But he still works in London three or four days a week. He works from home most Thursdays and every Friday, and of course he’s here for weekends.’ I noticed Fiona pulling a sympathetic face. ‘It’s not ideal,’ I conceded. ‘Alice and I knock around the house a bit when he’s not here, but we do OK. And when he is here, it’s just brilliant.’
‘Ahhh,’ said Andy. ‘Look at the way her face lights up. You can’t do a thing like this without sacrifices, can you?’
‘No,’ I agreed. ‘To be honest, it was Matt who wanted to move here, not me, and when he’s with us, he’s so happy. He loses all that tension he used to have when we lived in Brighton. It makes it all worthwhile. He’s absolutely in his element, and that fires me up as well. And he’s looking into ways to work from home almost all the time, so that’ll change everything for the better.’ I smiled, feeling braver than usual. ‘It’s all good,’ I said.