CHAPTER 9
‘Putain!’ I find myself saying under my breath, borrowing Stephanie’s favourite expletive. It seems to help and sums up exactly how I’m feeling. I slam down the pen on the blank page of my notebook and clutch my face.
My head is pounding with the rising heat of the day and tension, despite another successful morning’s picking. Fabien and I exchanged a few messages last night. He was busy at a festival. There was hardly any signal, so I just told him I missed him. And he misses being here, he says, but there’s nothing we can do about the miles between us. He’s promised to stay on with the band until they can find a new player, and they can’t. I wish he sounded a little more frustrated about it, but he seems to be enjoying himself. Exactly what I wanted him to do when I told him to go. So why am I feeling so scratchy, wishing he was here and not there?
I mean, things have been busy of late. Sometimes at the end of the night, we come together in the kitchen and share whatever I’ve been cooking that day before we go to bed, sliding under the covers where, more and more, we’re too tired to do anything more than fall into a deep sleep. But on lots of days we’re like ships that pass in the night, though I know he’s there for me, and I hope he knows I’m there for him. We have to make more time for each other. I just wish I knew if he was worried that we’ve let things slip. Or is he ahead of me on this? Is he feeling this is the beginning of the end and taking the chance to make a getaway plan? Maybe they’re not looking for a replacement guitarist at all. And why did I feel I was being made a fool of with the shouts of ‘Grandpère!’ on the phone call?
Did I push him into this to test him? To see if he really wants this life here with me?
But what if he realizes just what a crazily busy life we have on the farm, in the brocante, at the bistro, and it’s just too much for him? What if being back with the band he discovers there’s more to life out there and this isn’t what he wants?
I always worried that the age difference would be a problem one day. What if he’s wondering about us, and if we really have a future together?
‘Putain!’ I slam my fist onto the kitchen work surface.
‘Hi!’ says a voice behind me, making me jump.
I turn, quickly slamming my empty notebook shut. ‘Hi,’ I say, as if I’d been caught revealing my innermost thoughts. ‘Sorry if you heard me swearing.’
‘It’s fine,’ says Maria, at the terrace doors to the kitchen.
‘Come in, it’s hot out there,’ I say. ‘Do you want some water?’
She steps into the cool of the kitchen.
‘No, I’m fine, thank you.’ She holds up a hand, but I’m on automatic pilot and don’t register her response.
‘Help yourself,’ I say, filling a jug, popping in some ice cubes from the freezer, grabbing a glass and placing it on the table in front of her. She pours some water, probably out of politeness. I have no idea why I didn’t take no for an answer. Clearly I think I know better than everyone else. Maybe it’s time I learn to stop interfering in other people’s lives.
‘I just came to see if I could borrow an adaptor. I haven’t brought a French one with me. Well, I thought I had but Marco has the only one we own. I’ll get one in town, but if you have one maybe I could borrow it for now?’
‘Yes, of course.’ I step aside, pull open a drawer and see her eyes drawn to the debris on the work surface where I’ve been trying to recreate my usual weekday menu.
‘You’re cooking?’ She scans the work surface, which is scattered with flour. ‘What are you making?’ she says.
‘It’s not going to plan. Not like it usually does.’ I look down at the sorry mess and press my palm hard onto the empty notebook. If only I can remember the recipes and write them down, so this brain fog clears. It’s like I have stage fright of some sort. Not that I’ve ever been one for the limelight. I feel completely paralysed when I get out a pan to begin to cook. It’s usually my favourite time of day when I gather my ingredients from the market or other suppliers in town, shut myself into the kitchen at the bistro and make a start. I step into my happy place. But now …
‘I don’t know what’s going on. I cook this every week!’ We stare at the shopping on the work surface. ‘I just don’t know where to start. It’s like I’ve forgotten how to do it. Which is stupid. How can you just forget what is second nature to you? Perhaps I should bring Stephanie up to cook for you all,’ I say. ‘But she has enough on her plate. She’s got a small unit in town to bake from. I should be helping her, really.’ I’m rambling. ‘Especially as she has the two little ones, and with little Louis missing Fabien so much …’ I straighten and gaze at Maria, who is standing with the adaptor in her hand.
My mind is still whirring. I can’t ask Carine to help, even though I know she’d do anything for me. She barely eats let alone cooks. I let out a long sigh.
‘Could I help?’ Maria says slowly. ‘I cook at home. A lot. For my friends.’
My head is still swimming. I stare at her, as if I’m walking the route I’ve always walked but have lost my bearings. To be honest, I’m scared. I have no idea what’s happening to me.
She steps in beside me, picking a knife from my hand that I’m turning over and over. I can’t help but feel grateful.
‘I can make something from this, if you want.’ She looks at the ingredients, the white onions, scented tomatoes and plump peppers.
I nod slowly. ‘Enough for all of us?’ I’m concerned. It’s like she’s thrown me a lifeline but I want to check it’ll bear my weight.
‘Plenty, with leftovers.’ She rolls up her sleeves and washes her hands.
Ralph looks up from where he’s been lying by the door, clearly missing Fabien. He has found his way back to my bedroom at night. That hasn’t happened since Fabien and I first got together and he moved in here.
‘You know, if you don’t mind me saying …’ she says, hesitating over chopping an onion.
‘Go on.’ I pour myself a glass of water, my hand still shaking slightly.
‘Grief can come out in different ways.’
I sip the water. Is that what this is? Grief for Henri? But if it is, that means he’s really gone – and I still can’t believe it. I pull out a chair at the table and sit down, feeling as if I’m having an out-of-body experience as I watch and allow someone, a virtual stranger, to make themselves at home in my kitchen.
‘If you don’t want to talk about him, it’s fine, just say. Marco says I always ask too many questions, talk to strangers too much.’ She shrugs. ‘Maybe I do. I can be quiet if you’d prefer.’
‘No, it’s fine.’ I smile at the lovely young woman’s infectious and enthusiastic interest. ‘I’m happy to talk,’ I say, pouring more water.
‘Were you and Henri related?’ she asks, chopping fast.
I shake my head. ‘No. Although it feels like we were. He’s – he was,’ I correct myself although it feels so strange, ‘a dear friend. He helped me when I first came to live here. He was my first customer when I started baking with lavender. He helped Stephanie too, when she was a young single mum. In fact, Henri had a knack of being there and helping when you needed him.’
‘Looks like you do the same,’ she says.
‘Oh, I don’t know about that.’ I stop and think about Fabien. Maybe I do. Maybe I spend too much time putting others first and forgetting the most important ones. ‘Wow!’ I say, as a punch of powerful spices fills the kitchen.
‘Oh, it’s my spice box, my dabba. My grandmother gave it to me. I take it everywhere,’ she says, holding it up.
‘It smells amazing.’
‘I hope they like it.’ She stirs the spices into the big pot.
‘Why wouldn’t they?’ I ask.
She pauses and drops her head. ‘It’s hard sometimes. Feeling different.’ She’s stirring as she adds onions, garlic and ginger to the pan. ‘This is the paste, after the spice,’ she says.
‘What did you mean about being different?’ I say, going to the fridge and finding the jug of rosé there, cold and inviting. I pull it out and pour two glasses, passing her one. ‘I don’t know about you, but I think we deserve it,’ I say.
She smiles and thanks me. ‘When I was growing up, there was a boy who used to tease me, and say I smelled. Others would join in.’
My stomach twists.
‘It was the smell of my grandmother’s cooking. I loved her cooking. It hurt. I just always felt a bit different. And then when kids heard I was adopted, they could be cruel. But when I’m cooking I feel close to my grandmother. After she died, we moved to Australia and that really mixed things up. I have no idea what or who I am.’ She laughs. ‘But the cooking takes me back to my grandmother and helps me.’
‘People thought I was mad,’ I say, ‘when I refused to leave here and return home with my husband. He sent Rhi and my other friend out to see if I’d had some kind of breakdown. But I felt I belonged here.’
We continue chatting, in the kitchen with the French windows open, and the sun begins to dip in the sky. Mostly we talk about food, and I tell her about the bakery business I set up with Stephanie. As we drain our glasses, she holds out the wooden spoon for me to taste.
‘My take on coq au vin, chicken with spice,’ she says shyly, as if waiting for approval.
I taste it, the spicy heat hitting me in the mouth, then warming me from the inside, reviving me. ‘It’s fantastic! Thank you so much for doing this.’
‘It was my pleasure. I don’t get to cook much at the moment, what with us touring around. I’d better be getting back. Marco will wonder where I’ve gone.’ She takes her phone from the charger. ‘Oh, yes, plenty of messages from him!’
‘Maybe I should just buy ingredients, put them in the barn kitchen and let people cook for themselves of an evening. It’s got to be better than the beef I served on the first night,’ I wonder.
‘Well, it would take the pressure off you. And you have a lot on your plate right now, so to speak. Presumably sorting out Henri’s funeral.’
Rhi still hasn’t mentioned a funeral.
‘Things are often clearer after the funeral,’ Maria says.
‘Did you lose someone close?’ I ask.
‘Just my grandmother,’ she says. ‘The one who gave me her tin.’ She holds it to her chest. ‘When I smell these, wherever I am, I feel at home,’ she says, and smiles. ‘My mother didn’t cook. She runs a business, an estate agency, with my father in Australia. Everything changed after my grandmother died, and this tin sort of helps me navigate that.’
‘Well, your food is amazing,’ I tell her.
‘Not everyone is as appreciative as you.’ She laughs, and I’m not sure why but I laugh with her.
At seven o’clock, we take the big pot of spiced chicken out onto the terrace where the other pickers are waiting. Graham is pouring wine and Marco is telling an amusing story, making the rest of the group laugh. I can see why he’d be fun to be with.
Maria waits for him to finish his story, then puts the big pot on the table. Suddenly I think about Fabien and the nights we spent in our early days together eating out on this terrace, when I fell in love. When did we last eat out here, just the two of us, with him looking at me over the candles and a bottle of chilled rosé? I can’t remember.
‘So, this is Maria’s take on coq au vin … with her own twist on things,’ I say, putting down the rice she’s also cooked and the basket of bread I sliced.
‘Has she been taking over in the kitchen again? She can be very bossy!’ Marco chuckles.
I see Maria blush. ‘No, not at all,’ I say firmly.
‘I offered.’
‘And I was very grateful. We thought it would be fun to share someone else’s food,’ I say.
‘Well, it smells delicious,’ says Jen.
‘It really does,’ agree Graham and Keith.
‘Oh, yes, she’s a great cook,’ Marco says, holding out his plate as she poses with the serving spoon.
Maria’s smile returns and so does mine, but I still can’t get over what happened in the kitchen this evening, how I froze. The first time, the burned beef, I put it down to shock. But tonight? What was that about? I’ve made coq au vin time and time again. Henri taught me what to do. What if I’ve forgotten it for good? I pick up the glass in front of me and watch the water wobble in my shaking hand. I take a sip. Then put it down and pick up the glass of rosé Ed’s poured for me, as Maria puts down a plate of chicken. When everyone is served, Maria sits.
We lift our knives and forks and dip them into the glossy spicy dish. She’s even made chapatis – I watched in awe as she toasted them over the gas ring.
‘I saw my grandmother doing this for years until finally she felt I was ready to learn. But it’s not something you can just expect to go right,’ she said, explaining why she didn’t need the help I offered. ‘My dad’s more of a barbie man. Never happier than with long tongs in one hand and a beer in the other. And Mum is always watching her weight.’
We eat the chicken, the spices reaching the corners of my mouth and reminding me of how long it is since I’ve eaten like this. ‘I don’t think I’ve eaten curry since I moved to France,’ I say. ‘We used to have a fantastic Indian restaurant where we lived before we moved out here. I think it’s the only thing I miss.’
We all laugh. And that feels good, really good.
Later that night, I stand by the window, staring at the lavender fields. It’s warm and the mosquitoes are determined to feed off me tonight. But I’ve covered myself in lemon juice and that seems to keep them at bay.
The sky is laden with stars, and I think of Fabien. He’ll be on stage now. I try to imagine him as I gaze upwards. The nights we’ve sat under the stars, a quiet time after a busy day. When did life get so frantic for us that we stopped having time to sit under the stars like we did on the night he convinced me to take a chance on us?
When I arrived back at the farmhouse from the riverside clearing, the night after Henri had come home from hospital after his first heart attack, I remember Fabien waiting for me on the terrace where we watched the stars. Henri and Rhi had decided to change their lives, to stop focusing so much on their businesses and their grown-up children and see the world while they could. That was when Henri had offered me the partnership in the business. I agreed to stay and work in the bistro, whether Fabien and I had a future or not. But he was ten years younger than me, and I knew the one thing he wanted was a family, which I couldn’t give him. I’d had all the tests and treatments. I’m not sure if that had finished my marriage to Ollie or we realized we wanted different things. Or, in his case, a different partner. But that’s water under the bridge. Fabien’s happy and so am I – at least, I thought we were – but I can’t remember the last time we did something as simple as sit out under the stars.
That night, there had been so much going on at the riverside clearing. Henri was home from hospital and stepping back from the bistro. I looked for Fabien and he’d gone. But when I got back to the farmhouse, there he was, the terrace lit by candles, the bats flitting to and fro, and a cold bottle of rosé waiting with two glasses. It was there he told me that the age gap made no difference. I was enough for him. Our stuck-together little family, with Stephanie and Tomas and now JB and little Louis, was enough for him. I was everything he wanted. That was enough for me too. He was everything I wanted, and that night meant everything too. No marriage vows, just those words to each other as we went to bed and started our life together here.
What would it have been like if I’d gone with him on tour? Should I have let the harvest go for this one year?
I turn from the window above the terrace, overlooking the lavender fields and the town in the distance, lit by the silver light of the moon. I turn back and look over the barn from the other window. There’s a light on in the little kitchen. With sleep doing its best to avoid me, Ralph clearly interested, I say to him, ‘Need to pee?’
Together we head down the stairs, him for a quick wee while I go to switch off the lights that someone must have left on.
I head over the gravel towards the barn kitchen. When I see someone there I jump, startled, making Ralph bark.