Petite Anglaise

by Catherine Sanderson

  ‘I do say so,’ he said firmly. ‘And I’m not trying to make light of the situation. It is important – and you’re right to care deeply about it – but I don’t think getting all wound up is going to help anyone. You’ll be fine. We’ll be fine. Just wait and see.’

  I turned, conscious of a movement on the periphery of my vision, and saw Mr Frog standing just inside the kitchen, lighting a cigarette at the gas hob. Had he been listening to our conversation, I wondered? Stepping inside, I pressed the mute button on the phone. ‘We can swap places if you like,’ I said. ‘You go outside with your cigarette, and I’ll take this call in the bedroom.’ Mr Frog nodded, poker-faced, as usual.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, once I’d closed the bedroom door behind me, ‘just had an awkward moment. I think I’d better go. It feels too cruel talking to you when he’s around. I’ll email you from work, tomorrow, instead.’

  Setting down the phone on the bed, I silently stepped out on to the bedroom balcony. I couldn’t see Mr Frog from here – the arched window of our living room jutted out and broke the line of the building – but I could smell his cigarette smoke, and if I leaned forward a few centimetres, I could see his forearm resting on the balustrade. Was he looking to the right, towards the park, towards the building where he would soon live, as he drew the smoke down into his lungs? Sometimes I wished it were possible to see inside his head, to read his thoughts, just as thousands of strangers read mine.

  The next morning, Mr Frog and I crept into Tadpole’s room to wake her earlier than usual. Stroking her forehead with the back of my forefinger, enjoying the feel of her silky skin, I began to sing. Mr Frog stood by my side, his expression difficult to fathom.

  ‘Happy birthday to you…’ Tadpole pursed her lips, eyes still closed, and rolled over to hide her face against the bedroom wall. I wasn’t fooled. I’d seen the telltale twitch of a smile dawning on her lips: she was only pretending to sleep. ‘Happy birthday to you,’ I continued, and this time Mr Frog’s voice mingled hesitantly with my own.

  ‘Non!’ Tadpole mumbled. ‘I busy sleeping!’ I shot an amused glance at Mr Frog.

  ‘That’s a shame,’ I said with a sly smile. ‘If you’re busy sleeping, who shall we give all these presents to?’ Tadpole shot bolt upright at the mention of presents, as I’d suspected she would, and I moved my face out of the way in the nick of time, narrowly avoiding a blow to the chin.

  ‘To me!’ she cried. ‘My presents! Because I two years old!’ She made an L-shaped two with the thumb and forefinger of her right hand, something which Tata must have taught her.

  ‘Joyeux anniversaire, ma puce,’ said Mr Frog. I stepped aside and let him scoop our birthday girl from her bed. The first hug of the day was always the best. Tadpole was warm, groggy and at her most malleable.

  Mr Frog and I had filled the living room with scores of pastel-coloured balloons of all shapes and sizes the previous evening, after my phone call ended, just as we had on her first birthday. Tadpole clapped her hands in delight as soon as she saw them, wriggling out of Mr Frog’s arms and scattering balloons in her wake as she ran to unveil her main present, a red and yellow tricycle which we had covered with a blanket. By its side a stack of smaller presents lay ready to be unwrapped – gifts which had arrived from family members by post. That evening, after work, I would bring out the Noddy cake I’d bought in England a couple of weeks earlier and transported home gingerly in my hand luggage, and there would be candles to be blown out, wishes to be wished. Amidst the popping of balloons under bicycle tyres, my camera would flash away, recording the bittersweet day for posterity.

  I made a print of the photo Mr Frog took of the three of us that day, his arm outstretched to take a surprisingly well-framed self-portrait. There we were, sitting on the sofa: Tadpole beaming in the middle, Mr Frog and I doing our utmost, smiling with our mouths, but not our eyes. In the photo album I’d been compiling since our daughter’s birth, I added her birthday photos one by one until I reached the very last page of the album. There I stuck the picture of the three of us, the very last picture taken of us together living under the same roof.

  When I’d finished, I flipped through the pages back to the beginning and my eyes snagged on a picture I’d taken of a week-old Tadpole nestling against her father’s shoulder, fast asleep on our bed; their faces, in repose, almost identical. They looked so innocent, so peaceful. None of us had suspected then what lay in store, two years down the line. Closing the album with an ache of regret, I hugged it to myself for a moment, then replaced it on the bookshelf.

  ‘I playing with this!’ cried Tadpole, as I tried, and failed, to swipe my lipstick from her stubborn paw. Luckily it still had its cap tightly in place. I removed my glasses, placing them out of Tadpole’s reach, as a precaution, and endeavoured to apply mascara, holding a tiny mirror in one hand, and bracing my other elbow against the fold-out table to steady myself. Our belongings – my make-up and Tadpole’s various forms of entertainment – were strewn across a table for four, and an elderly French lady was seated opposite us, reading a magazine. The last two hours had been spent spotting sheep and cows through the train window, reading Maisy books and drawing pictures. Despite my rising tide of panic at the prospect of meeting Amanda and Carrie, I had found reserves of maternal patience to draw on which I hadn’t even known I possessed. That was the beauty of parenting with an audience, performing the role of ‘perfect mother’ for a complete stranger.

  It wasn’t that I thought I was usually a bad parent. But I knew for a fact that I was a better one if there was someone else within earshot. Regardless of whether or not my audience was actually paying attention, I engaged more with my daughter, was far more likely to try to teach her a new word or invest some energy in eliciting a giggle if someone just might be observing us.

  I was proud of Tadpole’s drawings, her burgeoning bilingualism, her soft blonde curls and the peachy perfection of her skin. When I bent double under the table every few minutes to retrieve yet another errant crayon, I didn’t even grumble. We were a perfect double act. Every time the old lady looked up from her magazine and smiled at Tadpole, I basked in her reflected glory.

  But now I really did need that lipstick she was holding. Our train would arrive in Rennes station in just a few short minutes. Hopefully she would consider a finger of Kitkat to be an appropriate trade.

  Disembarking from the train gracefully was more difficult this time with a heavy weekend bag slung over one shoulder, a Maclaren buggy over the other, simultaneously trying to hold Tadpole’s hand and help her down the step on to the platform. My hair fell into my eyes; my excitement at the prospect of seeing James was tempered by the apprehension I felt about meeting his daughters.

  I spied him immediately, waiting further along the platform, flanked by two fair-haired girls who, at first glance, bore a striking resemblance to their father. I suppressed the urge to throw myself into his arms, contenting myself with a shy smile and an affectionate yet restrained peck on the cheek. Three young pairs of eyes would be trained on us all weekend. We would have to behave accordingly.

  ‘Good trip?’ enquired James, taking the holdall from my shoulder while I shook the pushchair open and pushed down on the locking mechanism with my right foot. ‘And who’s this little girl you’ve brought with you?’

  ‘Say hello, sweetie,’ I prompted, as Tadpole clung to my legs, doing a very convincing impression of shyness. ‘This is Mummy’s friend James.’

  ‘And these are my girls, Amanda and Carrie,’ said James, addressing his words to Tadpole. I was grateful to him for making the introductions – I hadn’t been sure which was which, and didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot by inverting their names. What if the tallest had also been the youngest? In fact, the tall, long-limbed girl wearing fine metal-rimmed glasses was Carrie, the older of the two; Amanda was shorter, curvier and looked more approachable. Both girls had been born in France, and spent their whole lives in Brittany, but to me they looked unmistakably Englis
h.

  ‘Hi,’ I said, kissing each on the cheek in turn. ‘It’s lovely to meet you both.’ We stood smiling nervously for a moment, sizing one another up until, flustered, I turned back to Tadpole, trying to coax her into the pushchair. ‘Are you going to hop in? It’s quite a long walk to James’s house.’ Tadpole shook her head, and I could see from her mutinous expression that if I insisted, a tantrum would surely follow. What a start to the weekend, I thought to myself, grimly, and after she’d been so well behaved on the train, too.

  It was Amanda who saved the day. As though it were the most natural thing in the world, she grasped Tadpole’s hand in hers and led the way along the platform, bending her head low and whispering something in her ear. I caught James’s eye and smiled, and we followed their lead, Carrie holding James’s free hand, while I brought up the rear pushing the empty buggy. Any stranger who had seen us traipsing along the platform that evening must surely have thought we were a family like any other.

  I would have blanched a few weeks earlier if someone had told me I was about to plunge into a serious relationship with a divorced older man, with children of his own and emotional baggage far heavier than the weekend bag which now dangled from his shoulder. On paper, it seemed like folly. But in practice? Well, maybe I had a bad case of the rose-tinted spectacles but, at that moment, on the platform of Rennes station, anything seemed possible.

  The next day, the girls and I loaded up the boot of James’s car with bathing suits, beach umbrellas and a picnic hamper, while he fiddled with the spare car seat he’d borrowed from Eve, fastening it in place in the middle of the back seat. Our destination was Saint Briac sur Mer, a small coastal town not far from Saint Malo, just over an hour’s drive north-west of Rennes. Setting out for the beach, it felt as though we were on holiday. But if Tadpole and I moved to Brittany one day, I thought to myself, there would be nothing to stop us doing this every other weekend, if we so desired. I could even get behind the wheel again – something I hadn’t done since I passed my test back in England, more years ago than I cared to remember – and learn how to drive on the French side of the road, a prospect which filled me with a mixture of excitement and trepidation.

  There was something about sitting in the passenger seat, racing along the motorway, my hair ruffled by the breeze blowing in through the sliver of open window, which made me feel more like an adult. It had often struck me that Mr Frog and I seemed like children playing at being grown-ups, whereas James seemed like the real thing. A half-smile on my lips, I listened to how his tone changed when he spoke to Amanda and Carrie, hearing the gentle authority in his voice. It was obvious that the two girls doted on their father. The previous night I’d noted with amusement how the girls fought bitterly over who would get to sit on the tiny sofa by his side. And I’d been surprised, but impressed, to see that he still disappeared up into the attic to read to them before bedtime. First I had known James as a lover, then as a friend. Now I was discovering another facet of his character, and I liked what I saw very much. The more three-dimensional he became, the more attractive I found him. I hoped that seeing me as a mother – as opposed to petite anglaise, or a lover – made him feel the same way.

  Through narrowed eyes I watched him covertly as he drove: his assurance behind the wheel; the smooth brown legs protruding from his blue shorts which I longed to reach out and touch. Not in front of the children, we’d decided. After all, to all intents and purposes I was still sharing a bed with Tadpole’s father. Nonetheless it would be excruciating having to wait until nightfall before we could finally spend some precious time alone, and even then I knew I would never be able to give myself over to pleasure in the same way, biting into the pillow, mindful of the children sleeping close by, the bedroom shielded from the living room only by a curtain.

  It was a scorching day, unseasonably hot even for June, and by the time we reached our destination, the sun beat mercilessly down on the sand. Walking barefoot burned the soles of my feet and I moved as quickly as I could, Tadpole in my arms, yelping from time to time as though I were jogging over hot coals. Once we’d set up camp, shielding our possessions under a large parasol, we headed into the sea to cool off. But although it looked inviting, the water was brutally, icily cold.

  ‘Jesus! It’s freezing,’ I protested, my teeth chattering, holding tightly on to Tadpole’s hand as the waves lapped around her knees.

  ‘What did you expect?’ James yelled back to me, striding much further in, following his daughters, who were up to their necks already, and swimming. ‘We’re in the English Channel, not the Mediterranean!’

  Tadpole loved to paddle, but there were sharp stones underfoot, and I hadn’t thought to buy her any beach shoes. To her dismay I soon dragged her, protesting, back under the parasol, where I reapplied sunscreen and half-heartedly built her a sandcastle, while James and his daughters frolicked in the waves.

  Under cover of my sunglasses I frowned as I watched them play, James pretending to be some sort of sea monster and diving under the waves to grab his daughters’ limbs, making them shriek with delight. All of a sudden I felt more like a petulant child than an adult. Coming to the beach had seemed like such a lovely idea, in theory, but now I wasn’t so sure. The age gap dividing our children was so great that we’d never be able to do the same things. A day spent sitting wistfully on the sidelines didn’t appeal to me at all. I’d come here to be with James and his children, not to be a spectator.

  ‘I’d forgotten how much work the beach can be with a toddler,’ I said wryly as James flopped down beside us on a towel, smiling widely and sprinkling us with a shower of welcome droplets. Carrie and Amanda had turned their attention to the contents of a rock pool some distance away. Tadpole, bored with building sandcastles, was busy bulldozing them instead. Rolling around on the ground before her sun cream had penetrated her skin, she was coated in a thick layer of sticky sand.

  ‘Aren’t you enjoying yourself?’ he said, genuinely surprised. ‘I’ve been so wrapped up in the girls, I didn’t stop to think…’

  ‘Oh. No. I mean, yes. We’re fine. Really.’ I spoke with more conviction than I actually felt. ‘It’s a gorgeous beach, and the outing was a really lovely idea.’ I swiped a mussel shell out of Tadpole’s hand, just as she was about to put it in her mouth, and braced myself for her howls of protest. ‘But I’d like to come here sometime just with you. Relax, eat some seafood…’

  ‘We will,’ he said with a smile. ‘Alone would be good. And definitely wear that bikini.’ I blushed. With all the weight I’d lost I’d managed to squeeze into a pre-Tadpole bikini I hadn’t worn in years. But James was no longer looking at me, his eyes were riveted on the distant forms of his daughters pottering at the foot of the cliffs. Carrie appeared to have caught something and was brandishing her bucket proudly. James was on duty; we both were. Half his attention was the best I could hope for right now.

  We braved the heat for as long as we could, munching our sandwiches under the parasol in a companionable silence and inspecting the small but feisty crab Carrie had caught before she released it back into a rock pool. But by the time our picnic was over, the heat had become unbearable, and we decided to head back to the car. James helped me rinse Tadpole – wailing and doing everything she could to squirm out of our grasp – under the cold tap set into a stone wall by the entrance to the beach, removing as much of the sand as we possibly could. To mollify her, I promised ice cream. We set off in the direction of a beachfront kiosk and I peered anxiously into my purse, wondering if I had enough money to treat the five of us.

  Amanda and Carrie walked with a spring in their step, chattering nineteen to the dozen, their arms linked through James’s, staking their claim with casual ease. Tadpole and I followed, the distance between us widening as she refused to walk at anything but a snail’s pace, my face growing longer with every step as we fell behind. It was irksome having to share James so soon after we’d met; frustrating having to melt into the background. I couldn’t help wishi
ng we were alone, just like on that first weekend. I understood why he was lavishing attention on his daughters – it was their fortnightly weekend with him, every minute was precious – just as I appreciated that he was being careful not to crowd Tadpole and me. But there was no escaping the fact that I felt left out.

  As if James could read my thoughts, he turned and looked back. ‘How about you come for a ride on my shoulders,’ he called out to Tadpole. ‘Would that be okay with Mummy?’

  ‘Oh, I think she’d love that!’ I replied, suddenly ashamed of my selfish thoughts. James hoisted Tadpole on to his shoulders and she cried out in delight, thrilled to see how different the world looked from her new vantage point. Quickening my pace, I fell into step with Amanda and Carrie, determined to make more of an effort.

  On the way back to Rennes the children were quiet, exhausted from the heady combination of heat and exertion. I tapped James lightly on the arm and pointed at his rear mirror. Tadpole’s head rested on the side of her car seat, a thin strand of dribble extending from her chin, while Amanda and Carrie dozed uncomfortably, their heads lolling against the windowpanes. Above the sound of the engine I thought I could make out gentle snoring, although it was impossible to spot the culprit.

  James caught my eye and smiled. ‘I told you there was nothing to worry about, didn’t I?’ he said in a stage whisper. I nodded and put a hesitant hand on his thigh and, since there were no witnesses, I let it rest there for a while.

  I knew that the blog post I was composing in my head would dwell on moments like this one, leaving out the petty feelings of jealousy I’d experienced on the beach, or the moments when I’d uncharitably wished our children away. If my glass were half empty, petite anglaise’s would be half full. It hadn’t lasted very long, I thought to myself ruefully, this desire for James to know the real me, warts and all.

  Not even two months into our relationship and I was censoring our story already.