Chapter 10
10
By late afternoon, Sasha had finished painting both the walls and the skirting boards in the sitting room and was feeling pleased with herself, if a little sore and achey from all the bending and stretching. Shower time now.
A knock on the front door made her jump. Who on earth…? Freddie was back banging away at something in his cottage. Besides, he wouldn’t bother knocking anyway. Sasha glanced down at her paint-splattered jeans and gave a sigh. Whoever it was would, as her mum used to say, ‘just have to take her and the cottage as they found them,’ and she opened the door.
A tall, fair-haired man – in his early thirties, Sasha guessed, giving him a hesitant smile – was standing there holding a bouquet.
‘ Bonjour, Sasha. I am Jean-Paul. These are for you to say merci beaucoup for helping with les moutons ,’ and he held the bunch of flowers out to her.
‘ Merci ,’ she managed to stutter as she took them before he’d turned and walked away. Even she, with her poor French, realised he’d brought them because she’d helped Ingrid with the escaped sheep. Which was really kind of him. When Ingrid had spoken of Jean-Paul, for some reason, Sasha had imagined the farmer would be about Ingrid’s own age, fifty- or sixty-something. Instead, Jean-Paul was nearer her own age. And he’d brought her a thank-you present.
Closing the door, Sasha took the flowers into the kitchen and tried to find something to put them in as she didn’t possess a single vase. In the end, she divided the colourful dahlia blooms between two jugs – one she left in the kitchen, and the other she took upstairs to the small landing and placed it on the low table she’d put there in front of the window. The mix of vibrant pink, white and orange colours brightened up the landing, and as Sasha made for the bathroom and the hot shower which the arrival of Jean-Paul had interrupted, she promised herself to try to always have some flowers up there.
Downstairs, fully refreshed after her shower, she slipped her phone into her pocket and set off to explore the chateau grounds in a different direction to the one she and Freddie had taken on their first walk. Freddie, after his three days of working in the grounds with Peter, had said they were beautiful, especially the Italian garden, which he was thrilled to be helping restore.
Without conscious thought, her feet took her in the direction of the stables. There was a small car parked outside on the stable yard and she could hear water being splashed about. Somebody was busy mucking out.
Sasha stood for a moment or two, taking in the warm smell of the stables as it drifted towards her, a mixture of horse, hay and feed. An earthy, country smell that was evoking so many memories of her teenage years. Her Saturday job at the local stables had been the highlight of her week, back then. She had begged her parents to let her go to college to do a diploma in equine management so she could work with horses, maybe even have her own stables one day. Her dad had insisted, though, that she also did a six-month online business and office management course. He wanted her to have something to fall back on should she ever need to earn more money than working with horses was likely to provide. It had been hard doing both courses and after almost three years of study, it had saddened her that she never got to follow her dream.
Shortly before she finished her diploma, their dad had died. Freddie had already left home, so there was no way she was going to move away and leave her mum alone. When a friend of the family had offered her an office job in the local town, she’d taken it. And that had been the beginning of putting her dreams on hold, never to be revisited, as life with all its commitments and duties took precedence.
But here she was in France now, starting over. A new beginning that she was determined would be different and have a certain amount of fun in it.
‘ Bonjour .’
Sasha came to with a start. A woman about her own age was standing in front of her with a smile on her face, her hands gripping a wheelbarrow piled high with muck.
‘Oh. Bonjour, je suis désolée …’ Flustered, the carefully rehearsed words to say she didn’t speak French had completely deserted Sasha.
‘I speak English. I am Colette. I think you must be Sasha? Ingrid told me you have bought one of the lakeside cottages.’
‘Yes,’ Sasha said.
‘Would you like to meet Starlight, my horse?’
Sasha nodded gratefully. Ingrid had clearly told Colette about her interest in horses. ‘Please, but I don’t want to interrupt you or get in the way.’
‘This pile of muck can wait,’ and Colette rested the wheelbarrow on the ground.
Starlight was in the second stable stall with its tall iron partition sides on top of the wooden surrounds, and watched them as they approached, her head in the curve of the decorative ironwork of the door. Sasha held out her hand to the bay-coloured mare, allowing her to inspect and sniff it before gently stroking her muzzle. ‘She’s lovely. About sixteen hands?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do you compete with her? Jumping or eventing?’
‘There’s not a lot of opportunity locally, but there are a couple of showjumping events over the summer I try to get to. Did you have a horse in the UK?’
Sasha shook her head. ‘No, never, sadly. Always my dream to have one. But I did ride a lot as a teenager. Would you mind if I took a photo of her with her head over the door?’
‘Feel free.’
‘I like sketching horses and Starlight is beautiful.’
‘Will you show it to me when you’ve done it?’
‘If I think it’s any good, yes,’ and Sasha stepped back and took several shots on her phone of Starlight’s head from different angles.
Colette chatted away about how grateful she was to Ingrid and Peter for allowing her the use of the stables as she finished the mucking out. ‘I wish there were more horses in here, though. I don’t like the fact that Starlight is alone a lot of the time while I’m at work. Hey,’ she turned to Sasha. ‘You could get a horse and keep it here. Get back to riding again. We could hack out together. I know all the best rides around here.’
Sasha laughed the suggestion away. ‘Once I’m settled in, maybe. Right now, I’ve enough things to sort out.’ She closed the camera app on her phone down. ‘I’ll let you get on.’ Turning to go, she hesitated. ‘Do you work every day? I could come down and check on Starlight during the day if you’d like me to?’
‘Oh please, do that whenever you’ve got time.’
‘And, if you ever go away and need someone to look after her, just let me know,’ Sasha said, giving Starlight’s muzzle one last stroke.
Sasha walked back to the Cottages du Lac thinking about Starlight, the empty stables, and Colette’s suggestion of her getting a horse. The timing wasn’t right, but suddenly her dream of having one of her own was back, and this time maybe it wouldn’t turn out to be such an impossible one.