I had noticed over the few days we had been here that French children were immaculately turned out at all times. I had no idea how their parents contrived it, but I had yet to see a child in public with a single stain or mark on his or her clothing. All Alice’s clean clothes were drying on radiators after my marathon hand-washing session the previous night, so she was wearing her pyjamas, at eleven in the morning. I saw the scene through their eyes, and put my face in my hands.
‘Would you like a drink?’ I managed to ask politely.
They looked at each other. ‘No thank you,’ said the woman quickly.
‘Would you like to come and stay with us?’ asked the man, kindly. ‘We have plenty of rooms now our children have left home. And a hot shower.’
‘And a washing machine.’
I managed to decline. As I tried to say goodbye, I realised I had irretrievably forgotten their names.
In the afternoon, Alice played with old pans on the kitchen floor while I went through the architect’s plans for the new windows in the back of the house. Monsieur Dumas, the head of the builders’ cooperative, was laughing at the mess in which we were living.
‘It can only get better,’ he marvelled, as the rain dripped into a bucket at our feet. I had tidied up for their visit, but they would never have believed that if I had tried to tell them.
All the forms were apparently in order, and we were ready to apply for planning permission for the windows. Both Monsieur Dumas and the architect were convivial, and we understood each other with a mixture of languages and a dictionary. I knew no French building terms, and most of the key words that were being bandied about were not in the dictionary, but mime seemed to be doing the trick. I was looking forward to the new windows. Suddenly, half the house would be usable; and life might become a little bit more bearable. At least there would be plenty of space for visitors.
Monsieur Dumas handed me a sheaf of forms to sign. After purchasing the car, I knew exactly what was going to come next. He peered at my first signature.
‘Em-ma Meadows?’ he asked, looking at me, puzzled. He frowned slightly. Like all the other Frenchmen I had seen in the past week, he was clean-shaven and well turned out. ‘But we have here Monsieur et Madame Smith.’ He pronounced it ‘Schmidt’. They both stared at me, waiting for an explanation. I sighed.
‘We’re not married,’ I told him, and watched both men’s surprise registering on their faces. ‘In England it’s not at all rare. There are many families where the parents aren’t married. We will get married soon.’
There were raised eyebrows and uncertain nods. ‘Perhaps it’s best if Monsieur Schmidt signs the forms?’ suggested the architect.
I smiled. ‘OK. Leave them with me. He’ll be back soon.’
‘MummEEEEEE,’ said Alice, tugging at my jumper. ‘Mummy. I’m bored. I want to go to school. I want to go back to our house. I want to go play with Lily. Mummy. Play with me. I want Daddy.’
There was a crunch of tyres on the gravel outside. I rushed to the window, but it was not Matt arriving home on cue. It was a lorry. A lorry bearing all our possessions. I picked Alice up and rushed out into the rain to look.
Five minutes later, I was standing in the hall, directing the British removals men, who were thankfully not the same people who packed it all up in England. These ones were willing to speak to me. After initially addressing themselves to Monsieur Dumas, they quickly decided that a British woman was better conversationally than a foreign man. I stationed myself inside the front door, and made sure that every piece of furniture, every box, was taken straight to the correct room, even though it would all be shifted around for the total renovation of the house.
My heart lifted when I saw our double bed coming off the lorry, in pieces. Alice’s low single came soon after. I vowed to puncture the lilo and throw it on someone’s bonfire, to be sure that I would never have to attempt to sleep on it again. At the thought of sleeping in my old bed that night, I suddenly became weary. I had barely slept for four nights. I hated the sitting room, hated the tiles, hated the mice that scurried perilously close while we slept. I was going to have sheets and a mattress. It felt like an enormous luxury.
I offered a cup of tea and ended up making five. The builder and architect were horrified at the addition of UHT milk. They asked for a slice of lemon, and when I couldn’t oblige, ended up accepting a glass of wine each instead.
I looked at the lorry to check progress, and suddenly saw Matt, standing in the front garden, getting wet, surveying the scene. He was wearing his work clothes, with his top button undone and his tie sticking out of his jacket pocket. He looked tall, handsome, and a little confused.
‘Well, well,’ he said, catching my eye. Alice noticed him seconds after I did, and rushed out of doors and into his arms. I followed her. ‘So you’re coping with all this?’ he asked, pulling back and looking anxiously into my eyes. He picked up a strand of my hair and examined it. ‘Not torn out yet. Hair intact. Not white. Still brown. That has to be good.’
‘Of course I am,’ I told him, suddenly relaxing. ‘It’s been a huge learning curve. Come on. Out of the rain. Have a glass of wine with the guys. Sign some forms.’ I pointed to the side of the road. ‘Do you like my car?’
‘Look, Daddy!’ yelled Alice, pointing to the treasures being unloaded. ‘Mine bike! Mine doll’s house! Mine garage!’
‘Monsieur Schmidt!’ said Monsieur Dumas warmly. ‘You must marry your wife.’
‘Now if you’re offering, we wouldn’t say no to a drop of the old vino,’ observed a passing removal man, eyeing Monsieur Dumas’ glass.
I kissed Matt’s lips.
‘Welcome home,’ I told him.
He looked at me sharply. ‘You said home.’
I shrugged and looked away.
Jo grinned with anticipation as she opened the envelope. It was her Eurostar ticket. She checked the dates and times carefully, to make sure they hadn’t made any mistakes. Everything was perfect.
‘Mum!’ shouted Olly. ‘I
need
you!’
She walked back into the open-plan kitchen and dining room, barely glancing at the rest of the post in her hand. She put the tickets carefully on the sideboard and resolved to ask Hugh why he always flew. The Eurostar was not much more expensive. So much more civilised to sit on a train all the way, she thought. And better for the environment, too. She couldn’t wait to hand Olly over to her mother – nervous but willing – and to curl up in her seat, with a book.
She was going to Paris for the weekend, in three weeks’ time. It felt good. Her friend Lara had had the idea.
‘Have a weekend away,’ she had suggested, when Jo had divulged a little of her unease about Hugh’s behaviour. ‘He’s working in Paris every weekend for six months? Well, hello? Go to Paris for a weekend with him. It’s the only thing to do, surely?’
Jo had been horrified to discover that her initial reaction to the suggestion was, ‘I can’t.’ When she thought about it for a split second, she’d realised she could and she must. They hadn’t had any time together without Olly since he’d been born. She had been away working fairly often, and Hugh had been away almost all the time. At the moment they were both so busy that they barely saw each other from one week to the next. She would be able to put her niggling worries aside, she was sure, after some proper quality time with her husband. Their problem stemmed from the fact that their lives were so separate. Paris would sort that out.
‘Why do you need me?’ she asked Olly, smiling indulgently and making sure the tickets were out of his reach.
‘Because,’ he said imperiously, ‘I drop my spoon.’
On Alice’s first day of school, I was determined to be early and make a good impression. I was far more nervous than she was. I put on a token lick of make-up. My one lipstick was brown and slightly fluffy, but I smeared it round my mouth as delicately as I could. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any foundation or powder. I used an old mascara on my eyelashes and hoped no one would notice my shiny face. I pulled my hair back into a ponytail because it was so greasy, and put on the least worst clothes I could find, which meant not wearing my faded old jeans.
Alice looked much better than I did. She was dressed simply, in a skirt and jumper, tights and sturdy shoes. Her hair was glossy, and she shrugged her new school bag – her
cartable
– onto her shoulders proudly.
‘I’m ready for school,’ she announced, looking at me with eager brown eyes. It was quarter past eight. She had been up, raring to go, since six. It would take me four minutes to drive her to school. I knew because I had timed it. She had to be there in an hour.
‘Too early,’ I told her. ‘You play. I’ll wash up the breakfast. We’ll phone Daddy.’
Matt’s phone was switched off. I knew he was still asleep. At ten to nine, he called us back.
‘Am I too late?’ he said instantly, anxiously.
‘Not at all,’ I assured him. ‘We’re going in ten minutes.’ I looked at Alice. ‘We have one impatient little girl.’
‘So my timing’s perfect.’ He sighed. ‘Excellent. Oh, I do wish I could be there. It’s a milestone, isn’t it, taking our child into the classroom for her first day. And what am I doing instead? Going to a meeting about some cost benefit analysis that I won’t bore you with.’
‘Don’t give yourself a hard time,’ I told him, watching Alice standing by the door, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. ‘It’s not your fault. And she’s only staying till lunchtime, so it’s not her first full day. You can take her on Friday.’
It had been an extremely cold night, though I hadn’t realised it as I had yet to work out how to regulate the heating system. Its only setting, so far as I was aware, was extremely hot. We both slept on top of our duvets, and I was surprised, that morning, to discover my car so iced over that I had to use all my strength to yank the doors open.
‘Oh dear,’ I said as casually as I could.
‘Why oh dear?’ asked Alice, climbing into her car seat, putting her school bag down by her side, and threading her arms through her straps. I scraped some ice off the windscreen with my fingernails. It was dispiriting work. The ice was so tightly attached to the glass that I could barely make scratch marks in it. I wished I had a scraper or a can of de-icer. Matt had both in his car, sitting useless at the airport.
‘Oh dear because I can’t drive the car,’ I told her, beginning to panic slightly. Two cars drove past in quick succession, both containing children on their way to school, both with ice-free windscreens and happy-looking mothers who waved to me. For a split second I considered flagging them down, but I could not get past the fact that I didn’t dare. ‘I’m going to boil the kettle,’ I told Alice, snapping her straps into place. ‘You stay there,’ I added unnecessarily.
We did not, of course, have a kettle. I put a lot of water in a pan, stuck a lid on it, and waited, and waited and waited.
We arrived at school four minutes late. I knew, logically, that this was not the worst crime in the world, but I felt terrible. I thought I had failed my daughter. I imagined the teacher, who was kind, calm, and younger than me, rolling her eyes and complaining behind my back about the slapdash English.
Alice looked around the large classroom. Twenty-four children looked back at her. She smiled. Some of them smiled back. I watched her looking at the art on the walls, the little tables with four children sitting at each one. She looked up at me.
‘Where are we going to sit, Mummy?’
‘The teacher will find you a place,’ I told her quietly. ‘I’ll come back and collect you later.’
She held my hand tightly. ‘No, you stay here.’
I squeezed her hand. ‘No, I have to come back later. Look, these boys and girls haven’t got their mummies here, have they? You’re a big girl. The teacher will look after you.’ I bent down to kiss her, and she attached herself to me. I pulled her fingers off my coat and tried to yank her arms from around my neck. She began sobbing. The teacher came and held her, and tried to comfort her. Alice’s arms waved like tentacles, trying to find me through her tears.
I disappeared as quickly as I could. As I walked across the courtyard, back to the car, I heard shrieks of ‘
Mummeeeeeeeeeee!
’ I glanced at the classroom windows, and saw Alice staring out at me, desolate. Her eyes were full of my betrayal. I looked away.
I waited by the phone for an hour, awaiting a call asking me to come and fetch her. While I waited, I busied myself with the list I had been given. Alice needed a napkin for her school lunches. ‘Please sew elastic onto two corners,’ read the note. I was hoping that she could start having lunch at school the following week, so I began to sew elastic onto the corners of the pink linen napkin that she had chosen.
I sat by the window and sewed, wondering why the school hadn’t called yet, and also speculating on when the daffodils would begin to grow, and wishing that Matt was with me.
‘There we are,’ I said, eventually, and held up the napkin. I was pleased with the loop of elastic on each corner. She would now be able to hang it on her peg. I cast around for another activity to fill the void. In the end, I left the phone behind and went out for a walk through the icy lanes.
I wrapped up warmly, and stomped up the hill. The road was just wide enough for two cars to pass, though it was rarely necessary. The ditches on either side were dotted with icy puddles, and the black and white cows in the field next door were clustered together. I wondered whether they were sharing body heat. A tractor chugged past me, and I recognised the neighbour whose name I had forgotten. I waved to him and he slowed down.
‘
Ça va?
’ he asked. I assured him that I was fine, and we exchanged pleasantries. This mainly involved me assuring him that we had furniture and thus that we were fine. I trudged on.
How strange it was, I thought, that my life had brought me here, to the depths of the French countryside, to a place where I had no roots at all. I had never imagined myself emigrating. I was lost. I looked across to the next hill, and eyed a huge old stone house enviously. That house must have stunning views. But it was far bigger than ours, and our house was already too big. Besides, I told myself, if you lived on a hill everyone would look at your house all the time. I liked being insignificant. I thought, with a pang, of my insignificant terraced house in Brighton.