Poppy's Place in the Sun

by Lorraine Wilson

  And I’ve got a lot I’m still dealing with, too. I know you said I should see a bereavement counsellor to sort my crap out, but that’s your way of dealing with things, Sarah, not mine.

  I can almost hear you in my head saying I’m coming up with excuses about Poppy because I’m afraid to expose myself to the risk of more loss. See, you don’t even need to email me because you’re in my head!

  And you’d be right, that is a factor. I am afraid if I get close to Poppy she’ll go back to the UK and then I’ll have even more emotional crap to deal with. It’s not like I can just sleep with her to get it out of my system. Firstly, we’re neighbours, at least for the time being, so it could get awkward. But also this ‘thing’ between us, whatever it is, is far too intense to be a casual, nostrings affair. Poppy isn’t a nostrings kind of girl anyway. She deserves more, and I don’t think I have any more to give.

  Leo

  Chapter Eight

  ‘Be careful what you water your dreams with. Water them with worry and fear and you will produce weeds that choke the life from your dream. Water them with optimism and solutions and you will cultivate success. Always be on the lookout for ways to turn a problem into an opportunity for success. Always be on the lookout for ways to nurture your dream.’

  Lao Tzu

  I know I’ve taken a huge risk with Joanna, but it felt like the right thing to do. She needs somewhere to stay, and I’ve got a huge house and need another pair of hands, literally. I tried sanding the woodwork in one of the bedrooms the other day and ended up crying from the pain, unable to pick up a pencil for the rest of the day. Wielding a paintbrush isn’t so bad, but the bigger the brush the more difficult it is to hold for any period of time.

  Sharing the house with Joanna has been remarkably easy. She’s very quiet and seems to want to retreat beneath the cheap duvet we picked up at the E Leclerc supermarket in Limoux as much as I want to hide under mine.

  It feels like we’re two tortoises popping our heads out every now and then, but mostly retreating into our shells. We talk about practical things to do with the house. Virtually all I know about her is that she’s a good cook and that her dad was a painter and decorator. She used to work for him in the school holidays, so she knows what she’s doing. Beyond the fact that she’s “taking some time out to travel,” I don’t know much else. She doesn’t want me to ask, so I don’t.

  I haven’t told Mum and Dad or even Michelle in case it gets back to them. They’d be convinced I’m about to be scammed or robbed blind, but I’m positive I’m not. Anyway, I still haven’t arranged for the rest of my belongings to be brought down here yet. It’s surprising how little you get used to managing with if you have to. My laptop is ancient and virtually worthless, and I doubt Joanna wants to steal my watercolours.

  We bump into each other in the kitchen at two in the morning sometimes and share complicit half smiles, unable to disguise our bleary, red-rimmed eyes. But we never ask the other what’s up. We just get back under our respective duvets/into our shells.

  I think she talks to Pickwick sometimes. He’s taken to her, and sometimes he vanishes from my bed during a nighttime kitchen foray only to be found curled up on her bed instead. I needn’t have worried about the “must love dogs” clause, as they took to each other with mutual adoration. It’s nice to see Joanna smile at their antics.

  My theory is she’s running away from something bad; an abusive partner maybe, or something similar. So I don’t ask, and she doesn’t probe me for anything deep and meaningful in return, and we get on well.

  We’ve fallen into a daily routine. After a night of little sleep, we ply each other with caffeinated drinks in the morning. Joanna does the food shopping and has been working on prepping the bedrooms for decorating. We started off taking it in turns to cook at night, but Joanna’s a terrific cook, so when she asks, tactfully, if I’d mind if she cooks every night because she enjoys it, I accept gratefully.

  It gives me more time to work. I don’t know how long Joanna will stay before she moves on, but in the meantime I’m utterly grateful that we met that day at the café.

  I’m honestly not sure who’s helping who the most. I’ve met my Fenella Fairy deadline and am working on my donkey watercolours, budget spreadsheets and to-do lists that don’t contain the word “fuck.”

  Since the date/not date debacle, I did try avoiding Leo for a while, but after he caught me ducking out of sight in the kitchen window one day, I decided I was being silly. The more extreme my behaviour is, the more likely he is to assume I’ve fallen in love with him and thought he was going to kiss me on the date/not-date.

  Maintaining a semblance of self-esteem is important. I’ve done nothing wrong that I need to skulk in the shadows and hide from him. I’m opting for cool and breezy. I’m trying to be polite but detached.

  I’m not sure how well that’s going, but it’s marginally less embarrassing than getting caught ducking down below my kitchen window to avoid Leo’s line of sight when he was on his way into work.

  Well, I could’ve been tending to one of the dogs. Though the lowered brow and perplexed look he gave me when he was coming home from the surgery and I did it a second time, but a fraction too late, gives me the impression I’m fooling no one.

  I’d love to believe Sophie’s theory about things, but until Leo gives me any evidence he feels anything, it’s just that – a theory.

  In the meantime, I try to enjoy my new home – the beautiful views, the joy of doing outdoor yoga with no one watching, the fact the villagers know who I am and that I’m now no longer an invisible city dweller. I like the slower pace of life, and one of my greatest pleasures is drinking in the sunshine and feeling connected to my surroundings. I also get my head down and get on with work. I know I’m privileged to love my profession. I’m working through lunch one day, despite Joanna’s protests, when the dogs’ howling pierces my concentration. I am painting, and I’m “in the flow,” which is how I think of it. It’s almost as though I am a surfer, searching for the artistic current and that will carry me along. Both catching and riding the creative wave is what I try to do every day, sometimes with little success. So being disturbed from my flow when it’s going incredibly well can be annoying.

  I head over to where the dogs are balancing on the back of the sofa and getting pretty hysterical.

  “If this is just because you’ve seen a bird, you are in deep trouble,” I warn them and peer out of the window to see an open sided trailer with two goats on it, pulled by the most ancient farm vehicle I have ever seen. It is so caked in mud that I cannot make out the make of the vehicle, never mind read the number plate.

  Goats?

  Goats?! Why is someone bringing me goats? I definitely haven’t ordered any goats. I think I might remember. I carefully disentangle myself from the dogs to make sure that none of them are able to slip out of the door with me when I get outside.

  A wizened farmer steps out of the mud-covered rust bucket and lets loose a torrent of utterly incomprehensible French.

  When I don’t reply he gives me a dismissive shrug and starts unloading the goats, who seem rather woozy. Have they been drugged?

  “Attendez.” I stick my hand in the air palm forward, in what I hope is a universally comprehensible gesture.

  Then I run over to Leo’s, praying that he is in. I curse the local dialect, as individual in its own way of a Geordie or a Scouse accent, apparently. It is certainly not the French that I learnt at school.

  Leo is eating a sandwich as he opens the door. His face registers a strange mixture of emotions – surprise, pleasure – and then it almost immediately shuts down into his usual composed and inscrutable expression.

  “Please come quickly. Someone is trying to dump two massive goats in my garden.” I practically hop in my impatience to get Leo moving. “I can’t understand a word that he is saying.”

  Leo looks as though he can’t understand a word that I am saying either. Then a flicker of recognition, very qu
ickly suppressed, passes his face.

  “Goats?” he clarifies.

  “Yes, goats.” I try not to growl in my impatience. What if the ancient farmer has just gone off and left them there already?

  “Please can we get going?” I add and make a mental note to myself to spend more time talking to humans. The urge to growl is becoming more frequent nowadays.

  “Okay.” Leo sighs and eats the rest of his sandwich on the way back to Les Coquelicots.

  “I’m really sorry to disrupt your lunch break.” I avoid the temptation to run and try instead to match Leo’s long stride. In fact, I’m not especially sorry about interrupting his lunch break, but I feel I ought to be, which is sort of the same thing.

  Hmm. Maybe I’m not as over the Carcassonne date/not date as I thought. Leo’s frown deepens when he sees the goats staggering around the garden, and he starts a rapid fire interrogation of the farmer.

  After a couple of minutes of an exchange I can’t follow at all, I try to interrupt. This is, after all, my garden, and the goats are running about it, or, rather, staggering about it. Yet I may as well just be invisible, as both men are completely ignoring me.

  “Er, excusez-moi, mais pourquoi est-ce que les chèvres … um … sont ici?» I eye one of them nervously, a massive beast with curly horns and a vicious glint in its eye.

  The farmer stares at me like I’ve just spoken Swahili and laughs uproariously. Then he turns back to Leo, making a comment that makes Leo smile.

  I just know that they are talking about me, which is incredibly frustrating. I fold my arms around me, pathetic barrier that is. It makes me feel a little better.

  I’m just wondering if Google will be able to translate “WTF.” Maybe it’s universal. My back teeth are tightly clenched, and I’m almost into gnashing territory by the time Leo and the farmer finish what appears to be an acrimonious dispute but ends in a cheery “au revoir” on both sides.

  Next thing I know, the farmer is departing, but the goats are still in my sodding garden.

  “So, what did he say?” I ask irritably.

  “That you have a very sexy accent when you try to speak French,” Leo replies, amusement quirking at the corner of his mouth.

  “About the goats?” I ask sternly, although I file away the comment for later consideration. I can’t help wondering if Leo agrees with him. It never occurred to me that the French would find an English accent sexy in the same way that the English often find French accents sexy, too.

  Leo opens his mouth to speak, and then he stops and shrugs. I fight back the urge to tell him where he can stick his Gallic shrug and take a deep breath.

  “You were supposed to stop him leaving the goats.” I roll my eyes. “Why do I have two zonked out goats staggering about my garden, Leo?”

  I think I asked the question with admirable restraint. Leo sighs then gestures for me to sit down over at my terrace. “You might want to sit down for this.”

  Those are words you never really want to hear. It’s not like you ever get fantastic news if somebody tells it to sit down for it. Well I never have anyway.

  Leo takes my hand, and I eye our linked hands with suspicion, trying hard not to notice how my skin tingles where it comes into contact with his.

  I mustn’t read anything into this.

  Once I’m sitting down, Leo relinquishes my hand, and almost immediately I miss the contact. Goats. I must focus on the goats, not the gorgeous but no doubt untrustworthy Frenchman sitting opposite me.

  “It would seem that you have inherited the goats with the property,” Leo says, as though this is the most normal thing in the world.

  “Excuse me?” I raise my eyebrows.

  “I should have remembered.” Leo watches the goats, a glimmer of sadness in his eyes. “Amelie sent me an email asking how to care for feral goats. A villager was going to have them put to sleep, and Amelie persuaded my sister that she could keep them in the woodland.”

  “Feral goats?” This does not sound good. I eye the goats dubiously. “How can anyone forget feral goats?”

  Leo grimaces. “I was busy setting up my practice in Paris at the time. I never actually saw the goats, just told her to speak to Angeline. Then when I came back for the funeral the goats weren’t here, so naturally they never came to mind again. There was too much else going on at the time.”

  My heart softens a little. “Okay, that’s understandable. So where did they go in the meantime, and, more importantly, why are they back, stoned or drunk or whatever it is they are?”

  Leo’s expression hardens. “The farmer who gave them away in the first place took them back while the house was empty. When he heard the house was occupied again he decided to bring them back. As they don’t take well to being moved he drugged them with some of his wife’s sleeping tablets rather than pay a vet bill. I did tell him how dangerous it was, but I know he won’t take any notice. I also asked him to take them back for you, but he said he would put them to sleep, and I don’t like the idea of putting healthy animals to sleep.”

  “Oh.” I frown.

  “You do, by the way.” Leo attempts a small smile.

  “Do what?”

  “Have a sexy English accent when you speak French.”

  The new information gives me a powerful jolt. But I shake my head. I must keep on track.

  “But the goats, Leo? What are we going to do about the goats?” I get the word “we” in quickly to show I fully intend to make this his problem too. “And shouldn’t we do something before the tranquiliser wears off, if they’re really difficult to deal with as he says?”

  Leo eyes the goats dubiously. “Only one of them is meant to be a bit … demonic. She is called Celestine. The other is called Josephine, and she is meant to be a bit friendlier.”

  “Demonic goats?” My voice rises an octave. “I definitely don’t recall anything about demonic goats in the paperwork I signed. I would have noticed that phrase chèvres démoniaques listed in the items being left behind with the house.”

  “Maybe you should just calm down.” Leo suggests.

  “Oh, really? And when since the dawn of time has a man suggesting to a woman that she should calm down ever worked?” I give him my best death stare, usually reserved for queue jumpers or men who refuse to take no for an answer.

  Leo is apparently impervious, however. In fact, he surprises me by throwing back his head and laughing.

  “Good point. We shall instead be very stressed about the situation.”

  “Or you could dose us up with whatever they’ve taken.” I gesture towards the goats, and I can’t help smiling myself.

  That Leo has not mentioned the question of the paperwork suggests to me that the inheritance of the goats is not so much legal as an awkward obligation. I take another deep breath and try to remember that Leo’s niece was very fond of these goats.

  “Okay, I don’t want to see them … you know … executed.” I give in. “But I don’t know what I’m going to do with them. I don’t want them killing the dogs. I have no idea how to look after a goat, and I’m worried they might be a bit strong for me. I thought goats were small, but these are massive.”

  Leo casts me a grateful glance. “I suppose I could have a word with Angeline, see if she wants to add a couple of goats to her menagerie of sanctuary animals. And in the meantime, we could put them into your barn. I can get some hay from the donkeys. Do you want to head them in while I go and get some supplies?”

  I put my hand on his forearm, momentarily distracted by the warmth of his skin and his firm muscles. I suppose you would need strong forearms to be a vet.

  “Leo, if you leave me alone with the goats I promise you I will turn into the neighbour from hell.” I try to inject humour into the statement, but by the way I’ve clamped onto his forearm I think he knows I’m serious.

  He grins, and I feel a softening; a definite rapprochement opening up between us. Something of the ease that we used to feel in each other’s company is starting to creep
back into our relationship, and while part of me is doing inner cartwheels, I can also hear a few warning klaxons going off.

  “It looks like I’m helping you get the goats in the barn then.”

  “Bagsy Josephine,” I say quickly. “Which one is she?”

  “Bagsy?” Leo asks, confused.

  “It means I choose her first so you can’t.”

  “I have no idea which one she is.” Leo shakes his head. “Come on, have a bit of confidence. They are both still a bit doped. We can do this, okay?”

  “Okay,” I mutter, unconvinced, and head less-than-enthusiastically towards the goats, feeling very grateful that Leo is nearby.

  Throughout the next exhausting and humiliating thirty minutes that it takes us to get the goats in the barn, my gratitude at not coping with this alone intensifies. I can’t help replaying the sexy accent comment in my head and remember the feel of my hand in his.

  I wish I could trust him, but the memory of how crushed I was after the date/not date keeps my fantasies in check.

  Celestine proved the hardest to catch. She recovered remarkably quickly from her sedative, and neither of us liked the look in her eye. Eventually I came up with the idea of throwing a towel over her head. Leo said it showed alarming “black bag” tendencies on my part, but I think he was just jealous because my idea worked.

  “I thought that being a vet you would be a natural at this kind of thing.” I puff and sink down onto the bench at the back of Les Coquelicots. Leo is looking far too cool and collected for someone who has just been made a fool of by a goat.

  “At what?” Leo sinks down next to me. I try to ignore his thigh pressed up against mine and how it makes me feel. “Capturing, what did you call them? Demonic goats? Yes, this is how I love to spend my lunch break.”

  “Sorry,” I say, a little bit more sincerely now.

  “It’s okay. I’m just wondering what on earth Madeline was thinking.”