The following morning, the farmer appeared at my front door with a bag of potatoes and a plait of garlic.
‘It is only a token, but I want to thank you for helping with the fire,’ he said. ‘It took courage to come to my aid with everything they say about me.’ I must have looked surprised, because he added, ‘I’ve heard the stories.’ He gave me a half smile. ‘Some of them, although maybe not all. There are villagers who wish me to know how unwelcome I am.’
‘You think someone did this deliberately to force you to move out?’
‘I think it’s possible.’
One of the neighbours walked past the house and peered at us, not bothering to hide his interest. I stepped back and waved the man inside. ‘Please, come through.’
He looked a little unsure then followed me along the tiled corridor. His limp seemed worse than the night before as he navigated the three steps into the pale blue farmhouse kitchen. He stood awkwardly inside the doorway. I motioned for him to take a seat at the bleached pine table that ran most of the length of the room.
‘Coffee?’ I asked lifting the garlic and hanging it temporarily on the handle of the small window above the bread bin.
He nodded. ‘Please.’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know your name,’ I said over my shoulder.
‘It’s Henri.’
I poured us both a mug and sat down opposite him. ‘So, apart from what happened last night, how are you finding living in the New Forest?’
He gave a slow shrug with his right shoulder. ‘It’s a beautiful area, much better than some places I’ve lived. I am not certain how long I will remain here.’
I could understand his not wishing to stay. What had he ever done to anyone here to deserve their distrust? ‘Where did you live before coming here?’
‘Many places. I grew up in Paris.’ He hesitated frowning thoughtfully, then added, ‘I moved many times, but lived mainly in Marseille.’
I sensed that he didn’t often share information about himself and was only doing so to be polite. There was something slightly mysterious about him. However, I still didn’t think that excused people’s suspicions about him. It infuriated me to think of customers in the supermarket whispering behind their hands as he shopped for basics.
At that moment, Katie ran into the room. ‘Nana Mimi said she wants to speak to you in the garden.’
Sensing someone else was in the room with us, Katie turned and shrunk against my legs, one arm wrapped around the back of my thighs, the other tugging my skirt.
‘This is my daughter, Katie,’ I said, ruffling her bed hair.
‘I’m Henri.’ He looked at Katie. ‘I live on the farm near the woods.’ Katie murmured a barely coherent greeting and Henri’s face softened. It was the first time I’d seen him smile. ‘How old are you, Katie?’
‘I’m nearly five,’ she said letting go of my skirt and edging closer to him. I willed her not to say anything she shouldn’t. ‘Why have you got a hurt on your face?’
I winced.
Henri raised his hand to touch the scarred cheek. ‘I was bitten by a dragon,’ he said quietly, bending slightly towards her.
Katie’s eyes widened. She glanced at me to gauge if he was telling the truth. ‘Is it sore?’ she asked
He seemed younger than I’d assumed him to be initially, maybe in his mid thirties. It was hard to tell. ‘Not now. It was for a while though.’
‘Do you have animals at your farm?’ she asked, leaning against the long bench, bored with his scars.
He nodded. ‘I ’ave the horses, sheep, hens… and a dog, Patti. Patti is ’aving puppies soon.’
Katie jumped up and down gleefully. ‘Can Mummy and I come and see them, please?’
I hated that she’d put him in such an awkward position; how could anyone say no to an innocent request from a four-year-old?
‘But, of course.’
‘Mummy?’ She came to me and placed her hands on my skirt, a pleading expression on her face, willing me to agree. It seemed I had another actress in the making living with me.
I nodded, liking the idea of seeing them myself. ‘Yes, when the puppies have been born,’ I said, not wishing her to visit when the ruins of the fire were so fresh and probably still smouldering. ‘Now, run along and tell Nana Mimi I’ll come outside to see her soon.’
We watched Katie leave the room. ‘Thank you for bringing these,’ I said, pointing at the garlic. ‘Did you grow them?’
He nodded. ‘On my previous farm.’
‘How lovely, thank you.’ I held the string of garlic up to my nose and sniffed. Heavenly, I couldn’t wait to use them in my cooking.
‘Do they know yet if the fire was started deliberately?’
He looked at me. ‘It seems an accelerant was discovered at the side of the barn. I didn’t put it there.’
Fury coursed through me on his behalf. ‘How could people be so vindictive?’
‘There are a lot of evil people in this world, er—’ he struggled to think of my name.
‘Sera. Short for Seraphina,’ I explained.
‘It’s an unusual name,’ he added after a slight pause.
Used to this sort of comment, I said, ‘My mother wanted a glamorous name for me and that’s what she came up with.’
‘It suits you.’ He cleared his throat and glanced at the kitchen wall clock. ‘I must go. The animals are restless. I don’t want to leave them for long.’ He positioned the palms of his hands against the table and pushed himself up to stand, wincing in pain. I resisted taking his elbow to help him, not imagining he would take kindly to my assistance. ‘I worry that if I am away from the farm they might come back.’
Disturbed by this thought, I stood up to show him out. ‘Call to see us again if you’re in the village. I’ve only been back here a couple of years myself, so I know what it’s like to have few friends.’
‘That is kind of you,’ he said.
I watched as he walked down the front steps and closed the front door quietly. I turned to go and join Mum in the garden, but was surprised to see her walking in the back door.
‘Has he gone?’ my mother asked a second later, as Katie ran past her up the stairs.
‘Mum, don’t be mean.’ Her attitude really annoyed me sometimes.
‘He’s not the sort of man you should get involved with, Sera.’ There was no mistaking the distaste in her tone.
I laughed, shocked by her histrionics. ‘Really, Mum. He brought a thank-you gift, that’s all.’
Sometimes I wondered if returning to live in Oakwold with my mother after Marcus’ death had been the right move for me. It might be a pretty village, but it could be a little suffocating at times, especially when she treated me like I was still a teenager.
‘I don’t know how you think you can tell what sort of man someone is by having a sneaky look at him from a distance,’ I added, walking upstairs to find Katie, my heart pounding with irritation.
‘I know I’m right about this one,’ she said following me into Katie’s room. ‘But you never did listen to my advice.’
Probably because I never thought she knew any better than me, I mused. I reflected on my childhood filled with her rules and regulations.
‘Nana Mimi, can we go to the sweet shop today?’ Katie whispered.
‘We’ll go tomorrow when Mummy is at work,’ Mum said, grabbing Katie and tickling her.
Katie’s giggles made me smile. Their closeness never ceased to amaze me. For some reason, she was able to show her love to Katie in ways that were still surprising to me. I watched them for a moment. At Katie’s age I’d craved attention from Mum. I now realised that as a single mother she had needed to accept any acting jobs she was offered to make enough money to keep us giving her little time to focus on me.
‘How would you like to come to the shop with me, Katie?’ I said, yearning for ten minutes in an air-conditioned store.
‘Nana Mimi, you coming?’
She shook her head. ‘No, darling,’ Mum said, smiling at me over Katie’s head. ‘Nana has to learn her lines.’
‘Boring lines.’ Katie pouted, then remembering my offer, gave me a beaming smile and grabbed hold of my hand. ‘Sweets?’
‘Yes.’
‘That little one will go far,’ Mum said as we all walked back downstairs and into the kitchen where I’d left my short shopping list. ‘You two go and enjoy yourselves and leave me in peace with this.’ She pulled a creased script towards her and waved us away.
Ignoring my mother’s prophecies of doom and determined to help Henri feel more included in the community, I drove up to the farm moments later. Maybe he needed me to fetch him something from the shop.
The heat gave the roads a watery sheen. I lowered the sun visor to shield my eyes and turned off the main road onto the dusty dirt track leading to his home. Even the birds seemed quieter in the intense heat. A light breeze did nothing to ease the temperature, but swept across the heads of corn in a nearby field giving the impression of gently rolling golden waves.
‘Henri,’ I called from my battered Golf. It was thirty-five degrees inside but still cooler than standing in the direct sunshine. ‘I’m going into town; do you want me to pick anything up for you?’
I waited outside the run-down farmhouse, its stone walls almost completely covered with rampant ivy. The front door didn’t open. I wasn’t sure if I’d done the right thing coming here. As I was tempted to go and knock, the weathered oak door was pulled back and Henri, scowling, looked across his dusty yard at me.
‘No, thank you’ he said, before going back inside, his shoulders stooped.
Not wishing to overstep the boundaries of our fragile acquaintance, I didn’t say anything further, but couldn’t help wondering if his limp was always this bad, or if he’d been hurt trying to put out the fire.
I started the ignition. I wasn’t certain, but thought I felt him watching me from one of the windows. I wished he would let me in, just a little, but maybe me coming here so soon after the visit to Mum’s house had unsettled him. We all needed friends and I suspected he needed them more than he let on.
‘Mummy, do you think Mr Henri is sad?’ Katie asked from the back seat. ‘Nana Mimi said he isn’t nice.’
My grip on the steering wheel tightened. I wished my mother would keep her opinions about Henri to herself. I didn’t want her worrying Katie about someone who hadn’t done anything wrong.
‘Nana Mimi doesn’t know Mr Henri. He is nice, but sometimes when people like to be left alone it makes them seem sad.’
There was a moment’s silence as the car drew out of the farmyard, while she contemplated this notion. ‘Like you, when you’re working?’
‘Yes, just like that.’
As much as I loved living back in Oakwold, I also enjoyed leaving the peace of our village with its quiet, tree-lined lanes, red-brick cottages and pretty colour-filled gardens, and the wild ponies coming looking for food if you didn’t keep your gate shut. It was picturesque, like the perfect backdrop on a social media post. And just like so many filtered posts, looks could be very deceiving.