The following day, Stephanie, Tomas and I slip quickly into our routine. He pulls over his chair, then she holds him on it and reads out the recipe. I get out the ingredients and Stephanie insists that I attempt to read the recipe aloud in French while she weighs everything. We give Tomas a little bowl of flour to play with. After making much-improved macarons – bite-size swirls of soft-centred crunchy white meringue, with the floral hit of lavender – we deliver them to Henri for lunchtime. I watch his delight at hearing Stephanie explain how we made them and seeing Tomas choose a lolly from the freezer. I may not be used to children, but I do remember the joy of ice lollies when I was a child. And I promise to attempt homemade sorbet and ice cream for Henri soon.
We return home, along the river path, Tomas’s ice lolly dripping on to his hands, him licking the dribbles. A truck is waiting on the drive. My stomach flips and I feel flustered.
‘Bonjour,’ he says, as he climbs out of the cab. Mimi peers out of the window at Ralph. He kisses Stephanie and Tomas first. I watch, nerves jangling. Then he kisses my cheeks, taking his time, just as he did with Stephanie. The soft bristles of his stubble touch me, sending shock waves through my body. I can feel his breath on my face and smell his aftershave, spicy and woody. With the morning greetings over, I step back and let myself settle. Stephanie is so pretty when she smiles.
‘I have something for you,’ he says.
‘Oh?’ I reply, wishing it hadn’t come out as high-pitched as it has.
‘An invitation to visit my friend Serge.’ He points to the other side of the valley. ‘He invites you to visit his lavender farm, see how it is grown.’
‘Great!’ I say. It really is. I’d love to know more about the plant. ‘When?’
‘Now, if you are available?’
‘Available?’
‘He means if you are free.’ Stephanie laughs.
‘Free, yes.’ Fabien nods earnestly. ‘Sorry for my English.’
‘No, no, not at all,’ I stutter.
‘No, you’re not free?’
‘Yes, I mean no.’ I stop. Grow up, Del! I tell myself. ‘I meant your English is fine. And, um …’
‘Yes, she is free,’ says Stephanie.
I’m suddenly torn. Do I want to go with Fabien to the lavender farm? On my own? I need to keep a distance. He has this ridiculous effect on me every time he’s near and I can’t let myself get involved, I just can’t. Everyone I’ve loved has gone. Mum, the man I married – that Ollie is long gone – and the child I never had, will never have. I need to move on alone. Just me. I can’t let myself fall for anyone. Any happiness that comes my way is given with one hand and taken away with the other. I’m not going to let that happen again. I just want enough to be content … I look at him looking at me.
‘Why don’t Stephanie and Tomas come with us? She’s as much a part of the business as I am now.’
Fabien misses only the slightest of beats before he says, ‘Bien sûr! Of course!’ And Stephanie’s smile is back on her face.
Only I noticed the missed beat. This is for the best. I need to keep my distance. It’s for the best, I repeat to myself.
We all pile in to the van’s cab, Tomas and Stephanie next to Fabien, with Mimi, disgruntled, on her lap and me last, beside the door. Ralph has to stay at home. There’s no room for him. Next time, I tell him. But I know there won’t be a next time.
‘On y va!’ Fabien says, turning the truck in the drive and snatching a glance at me. Stephanie is stroking Mimi and I distract myself by pointing things out to Tomas.
‘Dragonfly,’ I say, and he laughs as we head down the drive and across the river to the other side of the valley.
The smell hits me before Fabien has even stopped the van. We bounce around in the cab as we go down the rough drive and, instinctively, I find myself reaching out to hold Tomas steady, but Stephanie is there before me and Fabien reaches over too so I withdraw my hand. She smiles at me. His mum has him. I’m still not sure when I should help with him. Stephanie and Fabien seem so natural around Tomas, unlike me. Perhaps I never had the maternal instinct.
Two old dogs are barking and sniffing around the van as we pull up, and the small bent man from the market is there, dressed in blue working trousers and jacket, wearing a black hat, just like he was in the market, waving to us. We climb out of the cab and Serge shakes hands with Fabien, then kisses Stephanie and me. His hands are tanned but gnarled by arthritis. He grins, showing the gap where his tooth once was, and comments again on my ‘lovely smile’.
I blush and turn my attention to the farmyard, the dogs, the blue work trousers and jacket drying on the line. A large cockerel struts around the yard, and Serge beckons us forward.
‘Please, follow,’ Fabien says. ‘Serge will show you the lavender fields.’
As we walk around the back of the small, single-storey stone cottage, the sight takes my breath away. The fields around us are full of straight rows of glorious, deep purple lavender in dark red soil, speckled with white stones. I breathe in, finding strength and calm in its glorious smell. I can see my own farmhouse from here, the fields where once there would have been lavender like this. Serge holds out his arm for me to walk through the lavender. Tomas is ahead, running through the flowers, Stephanie not far behind him. Serge bends and picks two stems of lavender.
Fabien takes them, gives one to me and keeps the other for himself. ‘Smell it,’ he says. ‘He wants you to breathe it.’ Stephanie returns, following Tomas, who is giggling as he runs unsteadily up the row.
‘This farm has been in his family for four generations.’ Stephanie stops between Serge and Fabien, who is trying to translate as Serge talks in his deep, thick accent. I don’t understand a word he’s saying.
‘He says the fine lavender grows up here, enjoying the cool mountain air. Not like lavandin, which is taken from a different, cultivated plant and used in washing powders,’ says Stephanie. Serge wags a finger. ‘This is the lavender that can be used for medicinal purposes and for cooking,’ she goes on. Serge holds up a sprig. ‘It is part of the mint family, use it like rosemary,’ she says.
I’m so impressed with her English.
‘It used to grow wild up here on the mountainside,’ Stephanie translates, and I can feel Fabien watching me. ‘It was harvested and distilled here, in the fields. A still would be brought to the field on a cart, a horse pulling. That’s why farms were set up near the river, so they could use the water to distil the lavender into oil in the field.’ She points to the river. My land is on the other side.
Serge indicates his barn and beckons us to follow him. When he pulls back the doors, the scent is even stronger, wrapping around me and drawing me in. Dried bunches of lavender hang from ladders, held up by the beams overhead. I think of the recipe book that has mapped out my days since I’ve been on my own here: lavender has already become part of my life.
Serge goes to a box and hands me a little bottle of oil. ‘Un cadeau.’
‘Merci!’ I open it and am assailed by its restorative scent. He is watching Tomas chasing chickens in the yard, but turns away, takes down a bunch of dried lavender and hands it to me.
‘With hot water,’ Stephanie says. ‘Like tea.’
Suddenly Tomas shrieks and we whirl round. He’s tripped and fallen. Fabien is closest and goes to scoop him up, then carries him back to Stephanie, saying soothing words, Tomas’s sobs settling to a sniffle.
‘You have a way with children,’ I say, focusing on Tomas, not the image of Fabien holding him.
‘I have many nephews and nieces,’ he says, and my heart squeezes at the sight of him comforting the little boy. ‘But I don’t see much of them. They live further north. Families are more separated than they used to be,’ he says, and repeats it in French for Serge, who nods in agreement. ‘Serge grew up with my grandfather. Schoolboys together. My grandfather had the brocante from his own father. I joined after school but lots of our families moved away to find cheaper houses.’ Serge is talking and pointing around the farm and the fields. He holds Tomas’s hand and talks to him like a grandfather would, making him smile. Perhaps it’s only me who doesn’t know how to comfort or speak to a child. Tomas has been living with me, but I’ve had little to do with him. I’m not a natural, like Fabien, Serge and Stephanie.
Serge tells Fabien his family, too, are living elsewhere. He’d like to see more of them now his wife has passed away. He has no one to take on the lavender farm after him.
‘Would you like some plants to take with you?’ Stephanie translates for me.
‘Me?’ I say, surprised.
‘Oui.’ Serge gestures to an area where some pots are sitting in a damp patch, having been recently watered.
‘I wouldn’t have a clue what to do with them. I’m not really a gardener …’
He picks up one of the plants, then leads us to the field where Tomas is soon helping him to plant the lavender. When they have finished, Serge sits up on his haunches. ‘Très simple!’ he says. ‘Like falling in love.’
‘Simple, like—’
‘Falling in love,’ I cut Fabien off. ‘If only love were that simple. Falling in love is simple. It’s staying in love that’s the hard part.’
‘Finding it and recognizing it can often be pretty hard too!’ Fabien laughs, and my stomach flutters.
‘You will know it,’ says Serge, and Stephanie translates. I’m presuming he’s thinking about his wife and missing her. ‘You feel it in here.’ He bangs his chest. ‘Love is like the lavender when you have it in your life. It brings peace when you have it.’
He struggles to his feet, his hips clearly painful. He walks stiffly towards the plants and picks a couple up. ‘Et maintenant …’
‘And now,’ Fabien translates, ‘you have it in your life.’ Serge proffers the lavender and Fabien holds my gaze. It takes all my effort to pull it away from him and direct it to Serge.
I thank Serge and kiss him on both cheeks, then a third time, as he reminds me with a laugh. He instructs Fabien to take all of the plants by the back door and load them on to the truck for me. As I’m thanking him again, Stephanie and Tomas are helping Fabien. From a distance the three look like a family.
Serge tells me to take care of the plants and to come and find him if I need any help or advice. He’s happy to see lavender returning to Le Petit Mas. He’ll be watching, he says, pointing over the valley to my house opposite. Just for a moment, I stand in the lunchtime sunshine and imagine the whole valley covered with lines of purple.
We leave Serge and jolt down the bumpy drive. I’ve had a whole education in lavender and what it means to the area, and am determined to nurture my few plants. I feel I have my part to play and, somehow, that these plants are weaving me into the fabric of the place.
Fabien drops us off and I thank him again.
‘I shall return to check on the lavender plants,’ he says from the cab, his arm out of the window, Mimi by his side.
As the sun sets on another day, Stephanie, Tomas and I set to work, digging over the ground at the top of the field, planting and watering our lavender. When we’ve finished, we go back to the house and toast the new plants, with rosé from the bottle Serge also gave me. Lavender has returned to Le Petit Mas and I hope I will keep it blooming here. We sit and watch as the swifts fly overhead and the woodpecker rat-a-tat-tats in the woods.
As evening sets in, the bats swoop to and fro, and Tomas dozes in Stephanie’s arms. I remember the love and safety I felt in my mother’s arms when I was young and feel I’ve found some peace at last. I wonder what tomorrow’s recipe will be, knowing for sure that it will include lavender. I am beginning to feel content just being me, being here. Enough to be content.