I can’t believe how easy it was in the end, travelling with my baby.
Adrenalin beat fear.
And bloody hell, Fleur was good. Slept through take-off, barely a whimper at landing.
We were drowning, in the airport and on the plane, in offers to help us. With bags. To hold Fleur (an emphatic no) while I had my drink. With compliments too: how beautiful the baby was, how well I was doing on my own, what a great dad I was.
‘Good for you, lovey,’ said a woman in her seventies, and I think she would have pinched my cheek red if she wasn’t a foot shorter than me. ‘What a lucky girl, having a daddy like you.’
I can’t lie: I bloomed. Always have, with praise.
‘I’m the lucky one,’ I told her. And I leaned down to cover Fleur’s face with kisses.
The questions hung in the air though: where was her mother? And why were we on a flight to France when she was clearly a newborn?
Thank God, in the end, for the emergency passport application: her mum sick abroad. She went to the top of the pile, my girl, and off we went. No hold-ups.
I glance in the rear-view mirror on the way to the house with Romilly and see that face, slowly unfurling, slowly being known to me.
You and me, Fleur: we did this.
We did it!
We get lost on the way to the house, then we stop to pick up some nappies and formula, basics for Romilly and for me too, and by the time we get there, it is 9 a.m. and twenty-six degrees outside.
‘After you,’ I say to my wife.
She hesitates for half a second; we no longer know how to be around each other. Then in she goes. I follow, the car seat hooked on my wrist.
The note I read yesterday from the owners telling us to enjoy our stay, recommending the local Moroccan restaurant in the courtyard. We wouldn’t have know it was there but we were told we mustn’t miss their lamb.
When Fleur is fed, I put her into her makeshift bed without a blanket.
‘Doesn’t she need …?’ says Romilly.
Her mouth clamps shut. I know what she’s thinking: she hasn’t earned the right to query my parenting decisions. She still doesn’t believe it: that the postpartum psychosis is to blame; that none of this was her choice.
I sigh. God, this is hard. Explaining it to someone who’s suffering delusions, paranoia. And expecting her to listen.
I look at her then for the first time properly, as her arms hang loose and aimless, reminding me of Loll’s that time at our house. Our house? My house?
Depends if you’re coming home to it, Romilly.
I tread carefully.
My wife turns and walks away to get a glass of water. The house is filled with antique trinkets and I expect the glasses to be the same but what comes out jars and is pure supermarket; the cupboards stocked for the Airbnb crowd who will drink too much rosé and smash two or three during their boozy, carefree fortnight away.
She gulps it down.
Behind her, I check the lock again and that big old stone door; make sure they are closed behind us.
Romilly turns; watches me over her shoulder. Her eyes are wide.
‘I’m sure it’s a safe area,’ I reassure her. ‘But I worry so much now we have a baby.’ I laugh. ‘I think I’ve become one of those paranoid parents. That didn’t take long, eh?’
Romilly nods, slowly. Dazed.
I touch the key in the pocket of my shorts. Walk up and down the room, trying to read the French on the vintage tourist posters that line the walls: Marseille, Cassis, Arles.
And all the while Romilly watches me, sits, silent.