Chapter 1
NOW
‘I’m back!’ she called, closing the door against the February afternoon and almost instantly feeling her whole body relax.
The house was warm; the wood burner had been lit early that morning and Pete had clearly been feeding it all day.
She turned the key in the lock behind her and the bolt slid into place, leaving the darkening garden firmly outside.
The welcome sound of the kettle whistling on their stove met her ears and she grinned.
Pete knew her only too well – the instant she got in, she was always gasping for a cup of tea.
She smiled as she unwound her cream wool scarf and hung it over the dark wood of their coat stand, unbuttoned her black winter coat and hung it up beside his.
They’d argued this morning again – this time about the habitation bill that he’d forgotten to pay.
But that seemed a lifetime ago – and there was something reassuring about being here, being home, being with him.
Shutting the door against the winter weather and knowing that while there were still leaks to fix, gardens to maintain, the website to update and more tiny snagging jobs than she could bear to think about, they still had this: their home, the life they were building together, their adventure.
It had been harder than they’d imagined living in rural France; the business less lucrative, the move less a happy ending than a new beginning.
They were managing though: she was working hard to prepare the garden for spring; Pete was spending most of the time fixing small leaks on the roof.
But soon it would be done, the season would start, and things would feel possible again.
Each year in France had been a learning curve, but they were growing and beginning to streamline the business. Things were good. They would be good.
‘Hi,’ she said, walking up to him as he poured tea from her favourite teapot into two large mugs.
He nodded. ‘Hi,’ he said, adding an extra slug of milk to his own mug, along with a heaped spoon of sugar, making it look more like gone-off milk than proper, honest tea.
He passed her a mug of her usual – stronger – brew.
‘Thanks.’
She pulled out a chair and sank onto it, plonking her elbows on the heavy farmhouse table that they still hadn’t got around to sanding down. Pete pulled out a chair opposite.
She sipped her drink, feeling the warmth of it flood her senses and begin to thaw her cold body, and they fell into silence.
Pete added a log to the wood burner and she watched the flames encased behind iron and glass flicker and throw out a weak halo of light.
Usually, by now, they’d be discussing their day; talking about tomorrow. Arguing about who would do what. One of them might mention their lack of bookings, suggest they join another site. But tonight, every time she opened her mouth, something stopped her from making a sound.
She could sense something in him. Something different.
‘Are you OK?’ she said at last, setting her mug down.
He did the same, before sitting up straight for the first time that evening and fixing his steady brown gaze on her.
Later she’d wonder if this was when she’d known. When she’d had that horrible lurch of dread that comes when you sense something is wrong. Perhaps. Still, even that anticipatory feeling hadn’t prepared her for what was to come.
Then he cleared his throat. ‘So, I mentioned that I wanted to talk to you about something…’
‘Uh huh.’ She nodded.
‘I love you, Bella, you know that.’
She swallowed, suddenly feeling nervous. It wasn’t the kind of ‘I love you’ that happened in isolation. This was the kind of ‘I love you’ that happened before a revelation. ‘Of course,’ she managed to say.
‘But I just can’t do it any more.’
‘Can’t…?’
‘This isn’t working, is it. We can’t—We work so hard and it’s so difficult. I haven’t—I’m not happy, Bella. I haven’t been for a while. I think we have to stop.’ His eyes searched her face looking for something. ‘Or I do at least.’
‘Stop?’
‘Stop pretending this is ever going to work.’
‘The B she could feel the hammer of her own heart against her chest.
At last, he spoke: ‘I love you. You know that. And I thought this was what I wanted. But…’ He made brief eye contact then looked around the room, holding out his arms as if illustrating his point. ‘It was never my dream, not really. You know that. And I miss England. I miss who I was in England.’
‘But you were…’
‘What? Just an apprentice living in a bedsit? Maybe. But I had prospects. Friends… Don’t get me wrong, I wanted to come. It was… has been amazing. But I’m only thirty-four, I just can’t see myself spending the rest of my life here.’
Bella worked hard to steady her breathing. ‘I can’t go back. You know I can’t.’
He shook his head. ‘I’m not asking you to.’
‘But I can’t stay here without you either! How would I cope?’
‘You’ll be fine. Come on, Bella. You’re stronger than you think.’ He reached and tried to take her hand again but she snatched it away.
Her breathing was erratic now, sweat beading on her forehead. Recognising the signs, Pete came around the table, sat next to her. Held her. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Breathe. In. Out. In. Out. That’s it. Shh. It’s OK.’
She nestled into him and for a moment let herself believe that the last few minutes had been in her imagination. Because he couldn’t be leaving, could he?
‘Please stay,’ she said. ‘I know it’s been a struggle. But please, give it another chance.’
He shook his head. ‘I’ve tried; believe me. But France was always your thing. And it’s been fun. I just don’t belong here.’
‘You can’t leave me,’ she said then, her voice stronger, more insistent. ‘We’ll try something else! We can do anything we want! You can’t throw away a marriage because a business has… well, not failed exactly, but…’
‘We don’t want the same things. And lately we just argue all the time.’
‘But that’s normal! Marriages are like that. That’s why you work on them!’
He was silent for a moment. ‘It’s just too much. It’s too hard.’
‘So, what? You want a separation? A break?’
‘I’m sorry, Bella. I know this seems out of the blue. But for me… I’ve been thinking about this for a while.’
‘How long?’ Had he been thinking about it last summer, on their eighth wedding anniversary? Last week when they’d snuggled on the sofa in front of a romantic movie? Had he been thinking about it last night when he’d moved over to her side of the bed and begun kissing her ear?
‘Does it matter?’
‘How long?’
‘Just a few… well, months.’
‘A few months!’ Her voice was loud in the empty kitchen; the shrillness of it shocked them both.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
His words hung in the air. Their eyes met.
And she felt her heart rate accelerate, her fingers tingle.
She took in the face as familiar as her own: his short, sandy brown hair, the sun-kissed tone of his skin; the brown eyes that seem to look right into her.
This was the person who’d been at her side for over a decade, who’d come with her on this adventure.
She’d watched him grow into himself, mature – and knew every new line and wrinkle. Her life was anchored to his.
She saw how nothing they had built could survive his leaving – she couldn’t afford to run the B wouldn’t be able to buy him out. She’d have to sell. Move.
‘Please, Pete. You can’t just—’
‘Look, I know you like it here. But it can’t be just about you.’
‘Me?’
‘Your happiness.’
‘You’re happy too?’
‘I’m not!’ He stood up abruptly. ‘And maybe you’d notice that, if you weren’t so wrapped up in yourself all the time!’
‘Wrapped up in myself? All I do is work!’
‘Work and order me about.’
‘What?’
‘Oh Pete, the roof is leaking again. Pete, can you change Room 2’s bedding? Pete, make me a cup of tea,’ he said, his voice becoming a sneer.
‘But… I mean, that’s your job. Our job.’
‘I thought I’d come here and be… free. But it’s worse. Because here we don’t have any money, and this is meant to be our business, but somehow you seem to think you’re my boss.’
She tried to steady her voice, now fizzing with held-back anger. ‘I take charge because someone has to, Pete. If I didn’t tell you the roof was leaking, you’d probably not even notice!’
‘Seriously?’
‘And if anything, I’m working twice as hard as you most of the time.’ The last thing she wanted to do was argue, but suddenly it was as if she’d opened a floodgate, and the anger she’d suppressed over the last few years was escaping in a torrent.
‘Oh, here it comes,’ he said, rolling his eyes.
‘Yes. Here it bloody comes! You say you’re in this business with me, but most of the time you just complain, or go out to “price materials” and spend most of the day elsewhere.
You haven’t kept up with your French, you haven’t made any friends here.
If I’m honest, you’ve stopped feeling like a husband.
It’s like… it feels like I’m your mother! ’
He looked at her, his face thunderous. ‘And that’s what I mean. It’s over, Bella. You don’t respect me. And I’m not happy.’
‘What about me?’
‘You said it yourself, Mum, you’re old enough to sort out your own life. Apparently.’
‘Look,’ she said, swallowing her anger for a moment, reaching for him. ‘I’m sorry. I know it’s been hard. But could we try again? Try to… I don’t know, recapture what we had? Think about what this would mean, Pete. We’d have to sell, move on. Where would I go?’
‘What about Kitty? Maybe go back to her place for a while. God knows she’d be pleased to have you.’
‘You know I can’t do that!’
‘Still not sure I understand why. You love Kitty, right?’
‘I know, but she’s so overbearing. Judgemental. And…’ She waved her hands, unable to express the way Kitty made her feel. Inadequate. Small.
He made an awkward face, gave her no answers. She realised that, even now, the Pete she’d known was gone. The one who’d sit down and work out problems with her, however insignificant. She was stuck.
‘At least think about it for a bit. Give it some time?’ she suggested.
He at least had the humility to blush at this, to look away. ‘I’ve booked a plane. Tomorrow. I’ll go to my mum’s for a bit. We’ll have to pack up. Sell the place.’
‘Hang on… You’re going tomorrow?’
‘I should have said something earlier, it’s just…’
‘You’re getting on a plane tomorrow and leaving me?’ She stood up, sending her chair rocking backwards noisily. ‘Leaving me to do everything? Sell the house? Wind up the business?’
‘I’m doing it for you! I thought you’d want me out of the way once you—’
‘No, Pete. You can’t do this. You can’t just disappear because you’ve changed your mind!’
‘I think it’s for the best. We can’t stay here together. Not now.’
‘For the best? The best for you, you mean! Pete, you’re expecting me to deal with this news, deal with the bureaucracy of selling the house, the business. Pack it all up, and what? Send you a cheque with no hard feelings?’
‘Oh, come on, Bella.’
Bella wasn’t given to temper tantrums or outbursts.
She was more likely to deal with something with passive-aggressive silence than a huge explosion.
But the man she loved – and yes, she’d known they were in a rocky patch, but that was marriage, wasn’t it?
– had dumped her in the most callous and selfish way.
She’d never thrown anything in anger before.
But she suddenly felt the teapot in her hand, still weighed down with half a pot of cold, stewed tea and couldn’t resist the urge to fling it with all her might.
The pot sailed almost gracefully through the air, before plunging onto the terracotta tiles and smashing spectacularly, sending dark liquid and sodden leaves across the floor.
They both stood for a moment looking at what she’d done. Then Pete simply walked from the room.
When the door closed, she sank onto a chair, all the vibrating, jitter-inducing energy and shock dissipating for a moment.
She lay her forehead on the table’s hard, smooth surface, smelling the familiar aroma of the wood and polish, and wrapped her arms around her face.
She tried to breathe, to focus on what had happened, make sense of it.
But there was no sense to make. Pete – her husband, her best friend, her business partner – was leaving. Everything she’d imagined for her future was falling away. And she had no idea what she was going to do next.