Chapter 3
3
The next few weeks passed in a daze for Sasha. Since their offer on the Cottages du Lac in Finistère had been accepted, her life had been beyond busy. There was a never-ending list on her laptop of jobs to be done, people to be contacted, contracts for telephones, Netflix, internet, electricity – to name but four – to be cancelled, packing up her few possessions, her notice to be worked. Handing in her resignation had prompted Derek, her boss, to try to bribe her to stay with a pay rise. A pay rise she would gladly have accepted months ago, but now it was just too late to be told how valuable a member of the team she was and that they didn’t want to lose her. She had a new life waiting for her in France and nothing they said or offered was going to delay the start of it. A life that would not include spreadsheets, if she had anything to do with it. Of course, she realised that her schoolgirl knowledge of French was going to limit her choice of jobs, especially at first, but hopefully that would change once they were living there and using the language on a daily basis.
It was in the middle of the night that the worries and the fears flooded her dreams in full Technicolor, waking her with a start and leaving her catching her breath. Were they doing the right thing? They were both aware they would have to be careful with money. Would they make friends? What were the Chevaliers like? Sasha wished that they’d had time to meet them before buying the cottages – what if they were Parisians who’d moved to Brittany for a different way of life after the pandemic? She’d been told Parisians were difficult to get on with. Full of attitude and superiority. Solange had assured them that the owners were really lovely people, but then she would say that, wouldn’t she? However hard she tried, the worries of the unknown future she and Freddie were voluntarily leaping into wouldn’t be stilled.
Since her divorce from Bradley, she’d struggled to get not only her finances back on an even keel, but also her life. Her mum had been her champion there. Sasha knew that she could have spiralled into depression if it hadn’t been for her mum insisting she was not a failure and calling Bradley names, not so quietly under her breath. There hadn’t been a marital home to sell, no children, no joint account to divide – just divorce lawyers to pay. Now, two years down the line, she’d recovered from the trauma of that period and was happy enough with her life, although, if pressed, she would admit to being ready for another relationship. One that this time would lead to the family she longed for. She pushed that thought way. Her top priority was settling in and sorting out her cottage, and then finding some sort of revenue.
Her savings were reasonable, but wouldn’t last forever in France without being topped up with an income from something or other. She planned on trying to set aside some money by being as self-sufficient as possible when they got to France – growing their own vegetables, mainly tomatoes and lettuce in this first summer, and things like that. She figured that buying small plants and putting them in weed-free, freshly dug soil would give her a head start on recognising the weeds when they started to appear which, of course, was inevitable. Freddie was going to plant a couple of things in both the cottage gardens that they’d taken from their mum’s plot. Some cuttings of a couple of the rose bushes and some roots of the ground-covering snow-on-the-mountain to edge the paths.
Asking herself how long it would take to improve her French, find a job and settle into a new culture was a proverbial unanswerable question. But Sasha hoped it wouldn’t be as long as she feared it might be. She was determined to have room in this new existence of hers to have some fun, to spend time doing things she enjoyed and to make new friends.
As she packed sketch pads and paints into a box ready to leave England, she knew she wanted that side of her life back too. Before she and Bradley had got together, she’d built up an Etsy shop with her sketches and watercolours of horses, dogs and cats. Bradley had called it her ‘side hustle’ and made rude comments about her ‘little hobby’ whenever he got the chance. Although he hadn’t been adverse to her spending the so-called ‘pin money’ on dinners out for the two of them, or on putting the petrol in a car she rarely drove. By the time they divorced, sketching and painting had virtually disappeared because of Bradley’s insistence that she spend more time with him, and her Etsy shop had been down to merely ticking over. Recovering from the hurt Bradley had inflicted on her when he’d left her for Monica – the woman living two doors away from them – had taken time as she struggled to pick up the pieces of her existence again.
Best not think about that. It was in the past. He was in the past. And there was no way Sasha was going to let a man rule her life like that ever again. She took a deep breath, closed and sealed the last box, pushed her shoulders back and promised herself that her new start in France would be different and wonderful.
And then, like a bad smell, Bradley turned up again.
It was the week before they were due to move when an unsuspecting Sasha answered a knock on the door of her flat. Assuming it was one of her downstairs neighbours, she opened it without thinking. Struck dumb for a second or two from the shock of seeing him standing there, she tried to close the door in his face, but Bradley already had his foot in the way.
‘What are you doing here? And how did you get in?’ Sasha demanded.
‘Hi, Sasha. How are you? I heard about your mum, and I thought the least I could do was to come and pay my respects.’
‘There was no need, but thank you and goodbye,’ and Sasha pushed the door again to try to close it. Bradley’s foot though stayed firmly wedged in the way.
‘I’d also like to say I’m sorry for the way I behaved.’
Sasha caught her breath as she gazed at him, dumbfounded.
‘Please may I come in and we can talk?’
‘No. There is nothing to talk about,’ Sasha said. ‘Just leave. I’m expecting Freddie any moment.’
‘Of course you are.’ Bradley gave a sceptical laugh. ‘Monica and I are no longer together. I realised I’d made a mistake.’
‘Still lying your way through life,’ Sasha replied. The day she’d bumped into Monica in the local shop and been told the truth directly would stay in her mind for a long time. ‘It was Monica who realised the whole thing was a mistake and kicked you out six months ago, which quite frankly made me laugh. A bit of karma there I think.’
Bradley shrugged. ‘Doesn’t matter how it happened. It’s us I want to talk about. You have no one else in your life and neither do I now. We could start again, give ourselves a second chance in a home of our own. Make it work this time. What do you think?’
Sasha took a deep breath as she realised what this visit was truly about. ‘What do I think? I think you are not only delusional but also a despicable human being. You heard about Mum dying, realised Freddie and I might inherit some money, and thought you’d like some of it. Now please take your foot away from my door and leave. I don’t want anything to do with you ever again.’
‘And to think I once thought you and I were soulmates.’ Bradley gave her a contemptuous look. ‘You’re nothing but a selfish cow.’
‘Looks like I got here just in time,’ Freddie said, stepping onto the landing. ‘You all right, sis? Or do I have to accidentally trip up this scumbag so he falls down the stairs?’
‘I’m leaving,’ Bradley huffed.
‘Good decision,’ Freddie said. ‘I won’t assist you then.’ And he and Sasha both stood watching as Bradley strutted down the stairs and disappeared.
Sasha gave a deep sigh. ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish. I can’t wait to get to France and begin my new life in the Cottages du Lac.’