The French House

by Nick Alexander

  ‘Right,’ I say.

  ‘So where shall I meet you?’ Victor asks.

  I glance at the window. ‘It’s sunny. So how about the park?’

  ‘Regent’s?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll, um, meet you at the top of the hill. Where Primrose Hill Road meets the green.’

  Victor nods slowly. ‘Right, sure. In an hour, then?’

  I nod.

  Victor smiles weakly, turns to leave, but then hesitates. ‘You will come, won’t you?’ he asks.

  I look at his face and see raw emotion, and all I want to do is run across the room and hug him close. Instead I simply say, ‘I’ll be there.’

  Once Victor has left the house, I add milk to the cup of tea that he started and sit and stare out at the back garden. The Leylandii, once the bane of my life, is now a withered brown pole with not a trace of green left.

  Where once its shadow had turned my lawn into a patch of mud, now grass is starting to sprout again. For a while, I superstitiously saw that tree as some kind of inverse barometer of the happiness in my life. The bigger it got, the worse everything else seemed to get until I thought the darkness it produced was going to swallow me whole. But now despite the fact that it’s all but gone, everything is still a big complicated mess: I’m pregnant by a man who doesn’t trust a word I say, and who wants to live in a place that despite my most determined efforts, I hate.

  A hand touches my shoulder, making me start. I turn to see SJ standing beside me. She’s wearing a pair of men’s pyjamas.

  ‘You OK?’ she asks.

  ‘Sure,’ I say. ‘I was just looking at that tree.’

  ‘Oh God,’ she says. ‘I just remembered. They’re supposed to be coming to cut it down today.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yeah. The old lady over there asked if we’d chip in.’

  ‘Mrs Pilchard?’

  ‘Yeah. I know you don’t like her, but she’s really nice with me.’

  ‘Words fail me,’ I say.

  ‘Anyway, George was worried it would fall on the house, so we gave her fifty quid towards the cost of the tree-feller fella. Is that OK?’

  ‘Oh, absolutely,’ I tell her. ‘Gosh, is it really going today?’

  ‘That’s what they said,’ SJ says. ‘She asked if we wanted the wood, but we said no.’

  ‘No, there’s no fire to burn it in, so . . .’

  ‘Exactly,’ SJ says, then, ‘Was that Victor’s voice I heard?’

  I glance at the kitchen clock and then stand and swig down the last of my tea. ‘It was,’ I say. ‘And I need to get a move on. We’re meeting in the park. To talk.’

  SJ rubs my shoulder and smiles at me. ‘Be nice to him,’ she says, ‘and he’ll be nice back.’ I snort. ‘I’ll try,’ I tell her. ‘No,’ she says. ‘Don’t try. Be nice to him.’

  When I get to the green an hour later, I can see Victor, his back to me, hunched against the cold and sitting on a park bench. His breath is rising in little white bursts.

  ‘Hi,’ I say, when I reach him. ‘You’re not too cold, are you?’

  ‘Huh?’ Victor says, looking startled, his mind apparently elsewhere. ‘Oh, a bit, maybe. Let’s walk.’

  We start to cross the green in silence then Victor says, ‘Look. All that stuff about Distira and Carole—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say, it seems to me, rather generously.

  ‘Exactly,’ Victor says. ‘That’s what I was thinking.’

  I raise an eyebrow and glance at him from the corner of one eye. Despite my downgrade of their status as relationship-wreckers and attempted-murderers to ‘unimportant’, I had still been hoping for an apology.

  ‘What?’ Victor asks, apparently picking up on my glare.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say defensively. ‘Nothing. It’s fine.’

  ‘So if we both agree that all that shit that happened was just a hiccup . . .’ Victor says.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, we’re OK then, aren’t we?’ he asks earnestly.

  I turn to look over at the horizon, thinking, Men!

  A group of school children are jogging across a different track towards the park, and I remember briefly the hell of being forced to do cross-country running on a cold morning.

  ‘Aren’t we?’ Victor asks again.

  I turn my head and look back at him. ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘That’s the truth.’

  We reach the main road and have to pause with some other pedestrians before we can cross. When we get to the other side and the space between us and our fellow park-goers has increased again, Victor asks, ‘You do want to, don’t you?’

  I frown. ‘Want to what?’

  ‘Carry on,’ he says. ‘You do want us to carry on together?’

  ‘My main problem is that I don’t want to live there any more,’ I say, avoiding his question.

  ‘In France?’

  ‘Yes. In La Forge.’

  ‘Oh,’ Victor says. ‘I had no idea. Is this because of Distira and Carole?’

  I shrug. ‘A bit,’ I say. ‘They aren’t the house’s strongest selling point, I’ll give you that. But it’s not just that. The truth is that it’s also cold and it’s miserable, and frozen and muddy and—’

  ‘It is cold,’ Victor concedes. ‘But I’m not sure that calling it miserable is being objective.’

  ‘I am,’ I say.

  ‘I’m not sure that a place can be miserable. Isn’t that more how you feel than the place itself? Isn’t whether you feel miserable about it up to you?’

  This comment reminds me of Iain’s justification of his behaviour with Mark, which of course unintentionally annoys me. ‘So it’s my fault?’ I say. ‘Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘No, I wasn’t saying anything is your fault.’

  We pause to cross the Outer Circle, then once over, we walk for a few minutes in thoughtful silence before either of us speaks.

  Finally I break the silence by saying, ‘What are you thinking?’

  Victor snorts lightly.

  ‘What’s funny?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, it’s just . . . Jeremy was saying last night . . . the way women always ask what you’re thinking. And most of the time we’re thinking about football or motorbikes or sex, and we have to pretend to be thinking about relationships, or love, or whatever.’

  I nod, not quite sure how to take this. ‘So are you thinking about football or cars right now?’ I ask.

  ‘Of course not,’ Victor says. ‘No, it was just a funny thing Jeremy said.’

  ‘Right,’ I say. ‘Anyway. It’s just not how I expected the South of France to be. That’s the point.’

  Victor exhales sharply through his nose. ‘I had a feeling this would happen.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You not wanting to live there. And it not living up to your glitzy expectations. And me having to choose,’ Victor says.

  ‘I didn’t have glitzy expectations.’

  ‘But you don’t want to live on a farm any more.’

  ‘No, not on that farm. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It isn’t fair, you know. I mean, you knew when you met me. This was all already planned. I warned you. And you said you wouldn’t ask me to stay.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So was that, like, part of the plan?’ he asks.

  ‘The plan?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, sounding almost snide now. ‘Did you plan to get your claws into me nice and deep before you dropped your little bombshell?’

  I stop walking, and turn to face him so that he can appreciate the full anger I’m working into my expression here. ‘I don’t have claws, Victor,’ I say, raising my hands to show him. ‘Just fingernails. Fingernails damaged by lots of DIY.’

  ‘It’s a figure of speech,’ he says.

  ‘It’s a figure of speech that I don’t appreciate the tiniest bit.’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘I’m sorry. It’s something Jeremy said.’

  I think, Jesus, I hate that creep.

>   ‘Wipe that,’ Victor says.

  And I think, I wish I could.

  ‘And no,’ I say, ‘I didn’t plan anything. I didn’t plan for the South of France to be like Siberia. And I didn’t plan to have a digger knock the walls down and turn our garden into a mud-field. And I didn’t plan to have our drinking water contaminated by dead kittens.’

  ‘But that will all get sorted. You know that.’

  ‘How?’ I say. ‘What are we going to do? Wait for global warming to turn La Forge into St Tropez?’

  ‘Summer will come,’ Victor says. ‘It’s already warming up down there. And everything’s sorted with Distira and Carole. And we’ll sort the garden out again.’

  ‘But I don’t want to live there,’ I tell him. ‘It’s too isolated. It’s too far from everything and everyone. And above all, I don’t . . . I’m just not sure I . . .’ My little speech peters out because what I was just about to say – that I don’t want to bring a child up there – would change everything. And dropping it on poor Victor at this point still doesn’t seem fair.

  ‘You don’t love me any more?’ Victor says, misinterpreting my hesitation. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘I . . . I do,’ I say. ‘I think I still do.’

  ‘You think you still do,’ he repeats, and I hear how hollow – how devastating – that sounds.

  ‘I’m pretty sure I do,’ I say, realising as I say it that this doesn’t sound much better. ‘It’s just that there’s been so much . . . so much bad blood. With Distira and the water and everything . . .’

  ‘That still?’ Victor says.

  ‘Yes, that, still,’ I say.

  ‘But you just said that it didn’t matter.’

  ‘It doesn’t. But the fact that you didn’t believe me does matter. It matters a lot.’

  Victor nods. ‘I see,’ he says, and of some unspoken common accord we start to walk again.

  ‘You’re right,’ he says, eventually. ‘It was wrong of me. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You weren’t there for me when I was ill. I was counting on you, Victor, and you let me down.’

  ‘I thought it was flu,’ Victor says. ‘The symptoms were flu symptoms. I couldn’t have known.’

  ‘I thought you were a doctor.’

  ‘Look. I know you won’t believe this, but actually there’s no way to know. The symptoms are the same. I mean, there are blood tests you can do, but mainly doctors diagnose swine flu by knowing that it’s going around. That’s why they do it by phone. And they know that it’s going around because they get bulletins to tell them so, and they see other patients who have it. And I didn’t know. Because I’m not a GP.’

  ‘But you could see how ill I was.’

  ‘True. So I fucked up. And I’m sorry. But so did the other doctor, he didn’t spot it either.’

  ‘Which doctor?’

  ‘The one who came to the house.’

  ‘Only he didn’t. He never came.’

  ‘No,’ Victor says. ‘OK then. Well if he didn’t, I thought he had. But I’m sorry.’

  I reach briefly across the icy divide between us to touch his back, but he doesn’t react. In fact, I’m not sure he even notices, so I let my hand fall back, and then stuff it back in my pocket.

  ‘So what can I do to fix all of that?’ he asks. ‘What can I say to make that OK?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure there’s much you can say.’

  ‘If I promise never to doubt you again? Would that do it?’

  I glance at him and see that he’s being entirely genuine. He looks like a twelve-year-old pleading for a train set.

  ‘If I promise to always believe you . . .’ he says.

  ‘That’s sweet,’ I say softly.

  ‘But it doesn’t help?’

  ‘No, it does,’ I tell him.

  We cross paths with an old woman walking her dog. I notice that she has the same handbag as mine, and wonder if she is a vision of my lonely future.

  ‘So will you come back?’ Victor asks, once she is past.

  ‘To you, or to La Forge?’

  ‘Well, both,’ Victor says. ‘Seeing as that’s where I live. Where I thought we lived.’

  We must walk almost half a mile in silence as I struggle to reply to that question. Because the wise part of me – the loving part – is screaming for me to reply, ‘Yes, yes! Of course!’ But the truth is that La Forge has come to symbolise a nightmare in my mind, a nightmare of cold and loneliness and illness, and even fear. And it’s beyond my powers to say ‘yes’ to going back there.

  ‘Well, that’s my answer then, isn’t it?’ Victor says finally. ‘It’s hopeless.’ And indeed, every ounce of hope has vanished from his voice.

  He has stopped walking, so I pause and turn back to face him.

  ‘Basically I give up my dream, or it’s over for us,’ he says. ‘That’s what you’re saying.’

  I shake my head. ‘No. Look, I’m so sorry. But I hate it there. I want to say “yes”, really I do, but . . .’

  ‘Then say it,’ he says. ‘It’s just a word. Say it.’

  ‘I can’t. I’m sorry. I’d go with you anywhere else. Honestly I would. But not there. I’ve tried it. I put everything I had into it. But I don’t want to go back there.’

  ‘Right,’ Victor says, then, ‘God, I had no idea you could be so hard.’

  I shake my head. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I had no idea it would be so horrible.’

  Victor’s eyes flit across my face for a second, and then he sighs and says, ‘Any chance of a hug?’

  I stare at him for a moment then step towards him, wondering if somehow physical proximity can heal all of this.

  As he wraps his big arms around me, he sniffs my neck and says, ‘I just want to remember the smell of you,’ and suddenly I realise that this is not a healing hug, but a final hug. I gasp and feel tears forming.

  ‘I really thought that this was going to work,’ Victor says into my ear, his voice cracking. ‘Bummer, huh?’

  I move my own lips to repeat the word, ‘Bummer,’ somehow so incongruous and yet so descriptive. He pulls away and grips my shoulders so hard that it hurts a little.

  ‘You take care, OK?’ he says, and I see that his own eyes are watering.

  ‘Victor,’ I say. ‘Don’t . . . Please don’t . . .’

  He shakes his head, swallows hard, rubs one hand across his beard, and then turns and starts to walk away.

  ‘Victor!’ I cry.

  But he simply raises one hand over his shoulder as if to say ‘stop’, or perhaps ‘bye’, and then hunches down and starts to walk even faster away, leaving me standing, alone in the icy wind, tears rolling down my cheeks.

  By the time I leave the park, I have managed to pull myself together just enough to stop crying, though I’m still shivering. Whether this is from cold or shock, I’m not quite sure. It only takes one look at the concern on SJ’s face to set me off all over again, though.

  ‘Oh darlin’!’ she exclaims as I collapse into her arms. ‘Whatever’s happened now?’

  We hug in the hallway for a moment then move inside the flat and close the door.

  I shake my head and sink into the armchair. ‘It basically came down to would I go back and live there or not. I think I fucked up.’

  ‘You said no?’ SJ asks, apparently astonished.

  ‘I hate it there, SJ,’ I say. ‘I hate it so much.’

  ‘More than being single?’ she asks. ‘More than bringing up a baby on your own? Are you sure you’re not being a bit dramatic about it all? I mean, how bad can a place be?’

  ‘You have no idea,’ I say. But I suspect that she may be right.

  For the next hour, as on TV, a snide chat show host coaxes a bunch of other couples to argue for the cameras, I continue to ponder this.

  SJ sits and knits her tiny baby jumper. She claims that knitting relaxes her, and even suggests that I should give it a try, but because she spends most of her time swearing about dropped stitches, I’m not en
tirely convinced.

  Around four, I head through to the kitchen to make tea and notice that the dead tree is still standing. ‘What happened to the tree feller?’ I shout down the hall.

  ‘Dunno,’ SJ calls back. ‘He didn’t come.’

  ‘That old bag Pilchard has probably run off with your fifty quid,’ I tell her.

  ‘Probably!’ she agrees.

  Just as the kettle starts to boil, the landline rings, but it’s a short call because by the time I get back to the lounge, SJ is hanging up. She looks up at me and licks her lips. She looks grim.

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  She sighs.

  ‘What?!’

  ‘That was Victor,’ she says, her mouth turning downwards.

  My heart misses a beat. ‘Victor?’

  ‘Sorry, I tried to get him to talk to you, but . . .’

  ‘What did he say?’ I ask.

  ‘He just asked me to tell you that he’s leaving.’

  ‘He’s leaving,’ I repeat, flatly.

  ‘Tonight. He’s just bought a flight back.’

  I nod numbly. ‘OK.’

  ‘He said he’ll be in touch.’

  I nod again and try to work out whether the fact that he’ll be in touch is a positive or a negative. I sink onto the edge of the armchair.

  ‘Is that all? What did he say exactly, SJ?’

  ‘That’s pretty much it,’ she says. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I need to know the exact words he used.’

  ‘Of course. Um . . .’ she rolls her eyes to the ceiling and then looks back at me and continues. ‘He said, you know, “Hi, Sarah-Jane. It’s Victor. Can you give a message to CC?”’

  ‘Right,’ I say, annoyed that she’s now giving me a little too much detail.

  ‘I said I would rather he spoke to you himself.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘And he said, no, would I just give you the message that he’s found a flight and is off back tonight.’

  ‘And that’s it?’

  ‘He said to tell you he’ll be in touch.’

  I sigh deeply. ‘Well that’s something, right?’ I say.

  ‘He said he’ll be in touch,’ SJ says, pulling her unhappy face again, ‘about your stuff.’

  ‘Mary mother of Jesus! So that’s it then?’

  ‘I . . . I’m sorry, CC.’