The Country Escape. Jane Lovering
ears started to dwell on his voice. It had been his accent that had first attracted me to Luc, and I had to remind myself sternly how that had turned out: a desperate divorce and a daughter who was a cross between Emily Brontë and a character from TOWIE. A pleasant accent does not mean a nice person stands behind it.
A car engine slowed to a tick in the lane beyond the hedge. I heard the squeak sound of hawthorn branches being scraped past paintwork; the lane was really not a thoroughfare, although it seemed that the occasional non-critical satnav user got sent this way. We had heard the swearing, after they’d negotiated the tight lane only to find themselves faced with a slightly-too-deep-for-comfort ford at the bottom of the hill. At least they no longer had to contend with a wooden caravan in the only passing place for miles.
‘Can I have your phone number?’ He was still talking and I had to stop hearing the accent and start listening to the words.
‘No.’ I figured a flat refusal was best. What did he think I was, some floozy in a duck apron, who’d give her number to any man who asked? Even if he did look as though he should be on the cover of a magazine, minus those thick glasses and plus some proper clothes.
‘Er. In case I need to get in touch about Patrick?’ There was no hint in his voice, or face, that he thought my saying no was anything other than normal. ‘I’ve got a friend who might let me rent a field. I wouldn’t want you to come home from, uh, whatever it is that you do and find him gone without a word.’
I opened my mouth to say that I didn’t do anything, as yet, the market for French language teachers wasn’t quite as open as I’d thought it might be, but I reasoned that he might think I was lying. I had my hair tied up with a dishcloth and an apron covered in cartoon ducklings. I didn’t look like anything a responsible adult would trust with their children. ‘Oh. Right,’ was what I did say.
We exchanged phone numbers. I took my mobile out of the apron pocket to put his contact details in, and saw him suppress a smile. ‘I’m washing down paintwork,’ I said. ‘We only moved in two weeks ago and it’s a bit of a mess in there.’
‘Hence the gloves?’
‘No, it’s my fetish,’ I snapped, and instantly hated myself. ‘I mean, yes. The stuff I’m using isn’t good for the skin.’
‘You’re sugar soaping?’ He adjusted his glasses, straightening them out and pushing them up his nose. ‘No need to bother, to be honest. Modern paint will stick perfectly well if you just use water and some detergent.’
Patrick stomped back around and walked between us, which was good. It meant that my ‘oh, great, another man waltzing in and telling me where I’m going wrong’ face was hidden behind a fuzzy black and white body.
‘I’ll bear that in mind. Now, if you have to be off, I’ll give Patrick some water when I’ve finished with the bucket. And yes, I will rinse it out properly. Goodbye.’ I turned around sharply as some small birds fluttered out of the hedge, saw me moving and altered their flight pattern upwards.
‘Ah, yes. Sorry.’
As the kitchen door had slammed shut, I’d have to go back in through the front door, so I headed down the side of the cottage, aware that Gabriel was following at my shoulder. Fortunately the gap was too narrow for Patrick to follow him, although the sound of a horse trying to get its bulk into an alleyway was one that would stay with me for a while.
We rounded the shoulder of the cottage, where the porch stuck out and narrowed the entryway even further. ‘I’ll hear from you soon, then,’ I said, turning to go into the darkness of the porch, and jumping backwards to smack Gabriel in the face with the back of my head when I realised someone was already in there, and there was a car parked outside the gate.
‘Hello, Katie,’ said a voice from the darkest recesses of hell and also my porch.
My ex-husband had come to visit.
3
We sat in the kitchen, with Gabriel holding a tea towel to his bleeding nose and occasionally dabbing at the incipient black eye where his glasses had impacted. I’d just about stopped apologising to him and offering him ice, but it was touch and go.
Luc had pulled out a chair at the little table and was sitting with his legs outstretched. Comfortable. Settled in.
‘So, Katie,’ he said, his French accent sounding exotic in the confines of the little stone-flagged room. ‘You moved all this way, huh? To this…’ and he threw his arms wide, indicating presumably the poverty of my kitchen. ‘I never thought you could live this way in such a…’ he groped for an epithet ‘… a backwater.’
Gabriel had flinched at the outflung arms, which had resulted in more blood. I handed him another tea towel. This was horrible. No, this was beyond ordinary horrible and into Game of Thrones horribility. All we needed now was a dragon; we’d already got the blood and the psychopath.
‘You lost the ability to comment on my life when we divorced.’ I threw Gabriel an apologetic look. I really didn’t want dirty laundry to be spread out in front of this perfect stranger, but I didn’t feel I could ask him to leave when he was seeping bodily fluids into my Laura Ashley finest linen weave. ‘How is Mariette, by the way?’
It was a low blow, but the quickest way I could think of to sum up the break-up of our relationship. Yes, I was the cliché, the wife left for a younger, prettier and more successful woman. Although, in my case, I didn’t bear Mariette any grudges, more a kind of sideways sympathy along with the knowledge that she wasn’t the first, and would, undoubtedly, not be the last of Luc’s ‘conquests’.
‘She is very good, thank you.’ Luc was dressing twenty years younger now, I noted. Slim chinos and a collarless grey shirt, his hair smooth and still dark, damn him. I found new grey hairs every day, but then I had to deal with Poppy. ‘I came to see our daughter.’
‘She’s at school. Obviously.’
Gabriel looked as if he was trying to fade into the background, despite the blood. He kept looking behind him towards the kitchen door, as though he wanted to make a break for it. I didn’t blame him. This was awkward, with a capital A.
‘Term has started already?’ Luc did the Gallic shrug, which didn’t surprise me. We’d been together for nearly fourteen years, and for most of those, plus the year after we’d separated, he’d had a daughter whose comings and goings had regularly bemused him. Luc had been so busy doing Luc that he’d never had the brain-space to contemplate the fact that Poppy might need new clothes, a regular schedule or, in fact, food.
‘Last week. We spent a week moving in and then she started at the local school.’
‘And what year is she, now?’
‘Year Ten. Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but…’
Luc looked at his watch. ‘Ah. Maybe, then, I will come back later.’
‘I’d prefer it if you rang before you came, next time.’ I threw another glance at Gabriel, who looked as though he was desperately trying not to listen in, and Luc misread the look.
‘Of course! You will be wanting to start your new life.’ Another arm-fling, taking in Gabriel this time, who now had taken his glasses off to pat gently at his swollen eye.
‘Yes,’ I said gently. ‘I do. You’re welcome to see Poppy any time, of course you are, she’ll be over the moon, but—’ How did I sum it up? That I couldn’t have this glamorous Frenchman wafting in and out of my life any more, trailing his string of disappointed girlfriends and his trust fund. I was glad he’d met Mariette and decided to settle down. It might mean I knew where he was for more than a fortnight. ‘We aren’t together any more, Luc. It’s just Poppy.’
Luc stood up and Gabriel flinched again. ‘Well, I go. I will call Poppy, maybe I will see her tonight.’
‘I’ll