by Jo Thomas
SIXTY-ONE
At the clearing we wash up and shut the serving hatch.
‘Bonne nuit.’ We all wish each other a good night. The fairy lights go out, but the firepit still glows, lighting the faces of those still sitting there, and again I realize how lucky I am to have a house to go to.
I pull out my phone and take a picture, then flick to Facebook, Ollie’s page, where he’s announced the birth of his baby boy and his own arrival into the ‘sleepless nights club’. I look at Ollie and the baby, and discover the pain has gone. Today I felt real pain when I thought I’d lost Stephanie, Tomas and JB for good. Pain like I’m feeling about Fabien. But the hurt of the dream that never was with Ollie is gone. In the darkness I look at the bright screen and type, Congratulations. Wishing you all the very best, and I mean it. Let Ollie wait till the teenage years kick in to find out what sleepless nights are really all about. I know – I’ve been living with a teenager.
I follow the little family up the riverside path, Lou and Alain kissing Henri and Rhi as they head back to his flat above the bistro. And as we walk, watching the bats flit this way and that, I can’t believe how lucky I am. I may not have Fabien in my life, but I do have all of this. And you can’t have everything, can you? Enough to be content.
SIXTY-TWO
Back at Le Petit Mas, we all walk up the drive and I see a glow. We all slow down. The terrace is lit with candles and someone is waiting there. I hope it’s not Ollie, running out on his new family already. We walk slowly up the path. It isn’t Ollie. My heart gallops. It’s Fabien.
‘I guessed the only way to get to talk to you was away from crowds,’ he says, a bottle of rosé on the table with two glasses.
Stephanie says goodnight, kissing me on both cheeks, as does JB, and I kiss the sleeping Tomas in his arms.
Lou disappears into the house with Alain. And now it’s just me and the brocante man, standing on the terrace looking back at the town over the lavender field that is filling the warm night air with its scent. Something about that smell and this place seems to heal people. I hope it can heal the hurt between Fabien and me.
‘I hope you don’t mind.’ He cocks his head in the way that he does and his black curls fall to one side.
‘No, no, I’ve wanted to talk to you,’ I say.
‘You’re in demand, Del. A popular lady.’ He pours the wine into the glasses. The light pink liquid tumbles joyously out of the bottle, glowing in the candlelight. ‘Perhaps now you understand why I find you so attractive. You attract people, Del. People are drawn to you. You are a very beautiful person, inside and out,’ he says. ‘I can’t apologize for falling in love with you.’
I catch my breath.
‘In love with me?’ And there and then I want to just kiss him and never stop. But I can’t.
‘I loved you from the moment I saw you. But I understand you think I’m too young for you. Perhaps you are still in love with your husband.’
‘Oh, no.’ We sit down and look out over the field at the bats flitting through the trees. I take a large glug of wine. It hits the spot with its refreshing cool flavours that reflect the sunny terroir in which it’s grown here. I breathe in the lavender. It’s time to explain why I can’t be with him.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I’m here to stay. I’m going into business with Henri. I was never going back to Ollie. Our journey ended a long time ago. It just took me a while to realize it.’
‘Then what?’ He looks confused.
‘We …’ I hesitate. ‘I couldn’t have children. We spent years trying diets, alternative therapies, and then IVF, which left me depressed, as if the old me had moved out and left just a shell of me behind. I felt I’d been excluded from a club that everyone else was allowed to join. But out here, on my own, I started to find me again, and I like her.’
‘I do too.’ He smiles gently. My heart and stomach shift and resettle.
‘And then … I met you. And I … fell in love and made love for the first time in years. I felt loved.’
He says nothing.
‘It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let myself fall in love with you.’
‘But I fell in love with you too!’
‘But I can’t be with you, Fabien.’
‘I don’t understand!’ The candle flames flicker and light his face.
‘Because I can’t give you the one thing you really want, and that’s a family. You have to meet someone who’ll give you everything you want in life, and that isn’t me. It’s best we stop this now, before we—’
‘Fall in love? Isn’t it a bit late for that?’ he asks. ‘Del.’ He stands up and looks across the lavender field, breathing in the night air, then turns to me. ‘I loved you from the moment I met you, when you arrived at the brocante. When I heard you were here alone and trying to make life work for yourself.’ We both laugh. ‘Then you set up the stall, gave Stephanie a home, took on the bistro and the riverside clearing project, and you took on Cora. My love for you has grown.’
‘But you need to be with someone who can—’
‘Give me a family? Carine told me what she said to you. She hadn’t realized we were together for the short time we were. When I thought I had finally met and got together with the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.’
I’m hot, my heart racing, and I feel like I’m looking down from a cloud at the life I want to have but can’t quite reach.
‘Yes, it’s true, I have always wanted a family. But you have shown me that you don’t need a baby to have a family. You, Stephanie, Tomas, JB, that’s family, isn’t it?’
I nod slowly.
‘And you, Stephanie, Tomas and JB are all the family I need. Everything I want in life is right here, right now, with you. I want you as my family. Isn’t that enough?’
‘It is for me. More than enough,’ I say quietly.
‘And for me,’ he crouches beside me, ‘it’s much more than enough to be content. It is everything! I would be a rich man! You are my family, Stephanie and Tomas too. We may not have children, you may not have given birth, but you have created a family, here and in the town. I want to be at your side until I’m old, sharing family life with you.’
Without thinking, I reach out and touch his face, because I can’t not. I hold my hand to his cheek and he kisses my palm, keeping his lips there, sending fireworks through my body, like Bastille Day celebrations, when the French rejoice in a new dawn in France’s history. And this, I think, is mine. I can’t fight it. I can only celebrate it. This is my new dawn with a man I love and a family that has come together through love and trust, and that’s enough.
‘Now,’ he stands and I wonder if he’s leaving, ‘will you please let me take you to bed,’ he says, picking up the wine bottle and the glasses, ‘and let me enjoy starting our new family life together? I don’t need a baby to want to spend the rest of my life with you, Del. You are all I need.’
‘Really?’
‘Trust me. Because we do at least have that.’
I smile and take his hand. I have everyone around me that I love, and that is more than enough. I know that Mum, looking down on me, would agree as the sun disappears over the horizon of the lavender fields, preparing for the new dawn.
Epilogue
There is lavender everywhere, in milk churns, across the terrace over an arch at the clearing with the lavender field behind it. Everything is set. Cream and lavender ribbons blow in the breeze.
‘I want Ralph to come with me,’ says Tomas, in his thick French accent, now totally bilingual and impressing his teachers when he started school.
‘I’m not sure Ralph would make a very good ring-bearer,’ I say, attaching a small lavender corsage to his buttonhole.
‘I want Ralph!’ he says, and his face starts to crumple.
‘Okay, okay, Ralph can come too!’ I don’t want anything to spoil the day as we make our way out into the lavender field.
Everyone is there, on the white chairs from the brocante, in the c
ool of the spring sunshine.
The music begins and Tomas, holding Ralph’s collar, leads him down the aisle to the lavender-covered archway, where the celebrant, the mayor, is waiting and smiling.
‘Bonsoir, and in English for all our guests, good evening. Welcome to Le Petit Mas,’ he says, looking up from his notes. ‘I am delighted to welcome the families of the bride and groom here today, JB’s family and the family of Stephanie, the beautiful bride.’ Stephanie turns to me and grins at the row of eclectic family there. Fabien and me, Lou and Alain, Henri and Rhi, Carine and her new baby: Stephanie’s family. And I couldn’t have felt prouder when Stephanie asked me to be by her side today, her witness at the mairie earlier and now here, holding Tomas’s hand as he walks down the aisle as ring-bearer, feeling like her mum on her wedding day. As I let go of Tomas’s hand and find a tissue, I’m crying a mix of happy and proud tears, very different from the sorts of tears I’ve cried over this year. They blur my eyesight and will probably turn my nose bright red but I couldn’t care less. I have everything I need here. This is my family and I love them all.
As the service ends and they prepare to exchange rings, Ralph runs off through the lavender field, Tomas just behind him.
‘Bring back the rings, Ralph! The rings!’
And we all laugh.
I stand and kiss Stephanie.
‘He may not have been planned, but he is what brought us all together,’ she murmurs.
‘He did! And life has a way of not going according to plan,’ I say. Stephanie looks at me, beautiful in the dress from the brocante, which we have made over, as we did the chairs, the white tablecloths, laid with a fabulous buffet, and even the wrought-iron table. Because everything deserves a second chance.
‘Talking of plans,’ says Stephanie. ‘Good job this one was!’ She lays a hand on her stomach.
‘Huh?’ I exclaim. I couldn’t be more excited.
‘You’re about to be a grandmother all over again!’ she says. And although I’m not sure I’m quite ready to be called that, feeling as if I’m mum to Stephanie is the best thing in the world. That, and sharing it with the man I love, because we all deserve a second chance at life and, thank God, I got mine.
‘So, how do you feel about being a grandfather already?’ I ask Fabien.
‘More toys to find and do up from the brocante.’ He kisses Stephanie on the cheek, then me on the lips. ‘I love it!’
Acknowledgements
Writing and producing a book is a team effort and I want to thank my fabulous new team at Transworld for their lovely welcome to me in my new home. To Francesca Best for coming to find me and Sally Williamson for taking over at the helm so seamlessly and helping make this book the best it could be. And in particular the fabulous Vicky Palmer for making it all happen. And, as always, my brilliant and lovely agent David Headley for his hard work, guidance, friendship and fun.
This book wouldn’t have been possible without my love affair for France, which started at a very young age. Annual holidays in the Renault 14 and camping throughout France were followed by summer holidays on parent-free PGL holidays canoeing the Ardèche gorge and camping in the chestnut forest. It is also the place I most associate with my Dad. I can picture him now, holding his face to the Provençal sunshine, back in his happy place despite the difficulties his illness brought. I can see him and Mum, him in his wheelchair, her showing him the wine list and holding up his glass for him to drink. No matter how bad that illness got, there were still pleasures to be found in life in Provence, in the sunshine amongst the lavender fields and with a good bottle of wine and a bowl of moules marinière. My biggest memories of these times were the meals we shared at La Garde-Freinet, at Rose’s pizza place which always holds a special place in our hearts, for the food and the wonderful warm welcome we always received, and to my final birthday meal with my Dad, sitting in a pop-up restaurant, on the beach, in a huge thunder storm, the sides of the tarpaulin flapping, enjoying every moment of the food, wine and company. Happy memories that stay with me. It was here my love affair with France really began and on leaving college I went to work just outside Saint-Tropez as a waitress. It was such an adventure and a time when I felt life could have taken different directions, but it seems it led me right back here, to Provence, in the pages of this story. Of course, then there were the many trips to the old watermill in Brittany, but that’s for another day! So, returning to Provence to write this book was an absolute joy.
Thank you to my wonderful travelling companion Katie Fforde for coming on the journey again, and to my Mum, for starting the journey and joining me on it too. Hope you enjoy this trip to the lavender fields of Provence, and if you get to go there yourselves, do take a trip to the wonderful Musée de la Lavande, the Lavender Museum in Provence …
www.museedelalavande.com
Their lavender oil and the wonderful sleep it brought me not only helped me through tricky nights but brought back the wonderful memories I have of this region and inspired this book, Escape to the French Farmhouse.
Read on for recipes that will take you back to the heart of Provence
Lavender shortbread
Follow this recipe to make delicious lavender shortbread cookies, just like Del in Escape to the French Farmhouse.
Ingredients
75g softened butter
30g caster sugar
100g plain flour
1 tsp fresh lavender buds
A pinch of salt
Method
Preheat the oven to 190°C (fan 170°C), gas mark 5 and line a baking sheet with baking parchment.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Chop the lavender buds (leaving some whole for decoration later).
Mix the chopped lavender and a pinch of salt into the flour then combine the dry ingredients with the butter and sugar mix until it has the consistency of breadcrumbs.
On a lightly floured surface bring the dough together into a small ball, then wrap in cling film and leave to rest in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.
After the dough has chilled, roll it out on a well-floured surface to about 4mm thick and use a cookie cutter to stamp out small circles.
Transfer the biscuits on to the lined baking sheet and return to the fridge to chill for a further 15 minutes.
Bake in the preheated oven for 12–15 minutes or until pale golden. Allow to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before moving on to a wire rack to cool completely. Serve with the remaining lavender buds sprinkled on top. You can store your biscuits in an airtight container for up to one month (or eat them immediately!).
Apricot jam sponge cake
A classic jam sandwich sponge cake never disappoints, but why not try it with Apricot jam and a sprinkling of lavender to bring the taste of Provence to home?
Ingredients
4 eggs
Self-raising flour
Caster sugar
Butter
1 tsp vanilla extract
Apricot jam
A few lavender buds, chopped
Method
Heat the oven to 180°C (fan 160°C), gas mark 4.
Grease two 20cm cake tins, and line the bases of each with baking paper.
Weigh the eggs in their shells and then weigh out the same amount of flour, sugar and butter.
Cream the butter until soft and then add the sugar and beat together until light and fluffy.
Add the eggs one by one, mixing as you go. Then add the vanilla extract and stir through.
Sift the flour into the mixture, then gently but thoroughly fold it in.
Divide the batter equally between the cake tins and bake in the oven for 25–30 minutes.
Leave to cool in the tin for a couple of minutes, then turn out on to a wire rack to cool completely.
Once cool, spread one cake very generously with Apricot jam then place the other cake on top.
Dust the top of the cake with a touch of extra caster sugar and a sprinkling of lavender.
; Lavender lamb
Two lovely spring and summer flavours in one! Serve this delicious dish with potatoes and some seasonal veg.
Ingredients
1 kg leg of lamb (approx.)
6 garlic cloves, peeled and cut into slices
A handful of lavender, chopped
Salt and pepper
1 tbsp lavender honey
For the glaze:
4 tbsp lavender honey
1 tbsp olive oil
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C (fan 160°C), gas mark 4.
With a sharp knife, make incisions in the lamb then push the garlic and lavender into the openings.
Put the lamb in a roasting tin, season with salt and pepper and brush with the honey, and cook for 40 minutes.
Meanwhile, make the glaze. Warm the honey and oil in a saucepan until runny, then beat firmly and quickly until emulsified. Put in the fridge for a few minutes to cool and thicken.
Once you’ve removed the lamb from the oven, brush the glaze all over the lamb.
Put the lamb back into the oven for another 20 minutes, brushing on more glaze every few minutes until it is used up. The lamb should be tender and the juices running a pale pink when pierced with a skewer.
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