Mirepoix, France, Summer 1981
Sneaking to the farmhouse became part of her day after that. Instead of waiting on the driveway for Benoit to pass by, she would head down into the garden, pick lavender flowers from wildly overgrown bushes, and watch as the water in the nearby brook ran over the rocky bed. It reminded her of home, or at least a place she had once called as such. But had that place ever really been home? Weren’t you supposed to feel a sense of belonging in such a place, a draw to return, no matter how far you traveled? If that was what home was like, that was not the place she had left behind. The idea of leaving France next month left her cold.
Benoit had taken to leaving the house unlocked, but most days when he arrived she was outside waiting for him. Hearing the chug of his car excited her, the anticipation of his arrival something too good to miss. Sometimes they stayed in the garden where he found her, especially if he was in a rush, just enough time to kick off his shoes and have a roll about in the overgrown grass. But other times they went inside. The first time she had lain with Benoit she had felt awkward and unsure, afraid almost to move in the wrong way at the wrong moment. But with each time they were together, which had been countless since then—sometimes one right after the other and which Benoit said was as much a surprise to him as it was to her—it had become easier. On some occasions their lovemaking was calm and slow, and he would ask her if she was okay and call her mon amour. Other times it all seemed to be over in a flash, a rush of bodies moving to a rhythm set by him. Only a few days had passed when they had been forced to go without, when the urgency of the day before came back to haunt her each time she peed. Benoit got in a flap about it, apologizing, saying it was all his fault, before rushing to the shops to buy cranberry juice and antibiotics. That afternoon he served her like a waiter, canceled his meetings, and never left her side once. It had been easy to forget about the discomfort with that sort of undivided attention.
“What would you say to a little trip?” he asked her that afternoon. Sunlight was pouring through the windows, a trickle of warm breeze that did little to ease the humidity. It was too hot to be pressed up against each other, so he was lying with his legs stretched out of the sheets, his chest bare save his necklace and key. Any initial embarrassment she had felt about her naked form had vanished by then, so she was on her front, bottom in the air. Every so often he reached across and stroked it, and it made her feel as if they had passed some unmarked barrier, that they were no longer just two people who cared for each other, but were people playing by different rules that they themselves had made up. Nobody else could touch her like that.
“Where to?” she asked, nibbling a nail.
“I was thinking Toulouse. It is far enough away that nobody will spot us, and close enough that I can pull some strings. I don’t want to spend all our time together stuck in this house, and there is something happening there that I want to show you.”
“Okay.”
A glint shimmered in his eye. “Can you get away for a day?”
She loved it when he asked if she could manage the details of a plan. As if she had a full, rich life with so many things going on that she had to fit him in. “I should think so,” she said with a wink. “For you. And why is that?”
“Because you love me.” He smiled.
“Because I love you,” she repeated.
Rolling over, he used his elbows to drag himself to Frances. Just as she expected, his hand slid over the top of her behind, his lips on her shoulder. But then he slipped his hand all the way underneath her hip, before rolling her over so that she was lying on her back, tucked against his body, hair all over her face.
“Now I want to do something for you,” he said, brushing her hair from her eyes, before letting his hand wander. “Something I know you’ll like.” His fingers settled as soft as snowflakes on her chest, stroking, circling, moving like the figure eight.
“How do you know I’ll like it?” she asked, but he said nothing, only smiled. Seconds slowed to minutes with his soft touch against her, minutes to hours as his fingers and eyes roamed all over her skin. Whispers in French went unheard, until his hand reached between her legs and she went to pull away.
“Do you want me to stop?”
She shook her head.
“Are you sure? Perhaps I’m too quick. I’ll slow down. Is that better?”
“What are you doing to me?” she asked, but it wasn’t really a question. Closing her eyes, she let her head rest back against the pillow. How did he know she would like this? Because he was right, she really did. His breath was hot as he whispered in her ear.
“You didn’t finish yet. But you will now, like this.”
It was new to her, the way he touched her body, but she knew what he wanted to see. For some reason then she thought of Amélie, and what she would tell her if she could. Had Gaspard done this to Amélie? With her eyes tightly closed she felt his body moving, his fingers never once losing their rhythm. Daring to look, she saw his head was by her knees, and just a moment later he took over his efforts with his mouth. “It’s different for a woman,” he said, and there was that word again. A woman. A woman who was free to choose. And with that she let herself go, falling somewhere, into a place as deep as the darkest ocean, and from which after a time, she didn’t want to return.
Everything was different after that, the way they were together, the way she felt about him. It had nothing to do with the orgasm either, not the first, fifth, or . . . however many it was they had tallied by then. Instead it had everything to do with how she saw herself. Even after writing letters to Benoit, kissing, and perhaps even making love the first few times, she had still thought of herself as a girl bound by her father’s laws. But now she felt capable of making choices that only a short while ago would have seemed impossible. Benoit’s friendship had laid paving on a road she had struggled to see, because he, more than anybody else, saw her. During the drive to Toulouse the following week she flung her arms out through the open roof of Benoit’s 2CV and let her hair chase currents in the wind.
“What are you doing?” Benoit asked, struggling to concentrate on the road. It was the first time he had looked at her with any confusion.
What could she tell him? Not what she truly wanted, that meeting him had broken the chains holding her back. That she would return home changed, if she returned at all. There was no way she could tell him that she wanted to stay, here with him, in their farmhouse home. Was there? Maybe she could. It was after all the place where she felt most like herself, where there was not a single part of her she had to hide. But whether she could or she couldn’t, now was not the time to get bogged down in conversation.
“Je vie,” she shouted into the wind, and it had never been more true.
Leaving the fields of yellow harvests behind they drove into the city of Toulouse, parking up in a small side street. Exiting the car, her heart was racing, and as if he read her thoughts he reached for her hand and strolled as if neither of them had a care in the world. They soon found themselves in a tunnel of oaks, high branches casting them in shade. They were near the edge of a park, but the deeper they got, the quieter it became.
“Where are you taking me?” she asked.
“You’ll see.”
Temporary fencing marked a barrier, and just beyond she saw workers planting shrubs. They walked together across a jade-green lawn to a small hill that he helped her negotiate because her sandals were slipping against the loose dry earth.
“What is this place?” she asked as they stood on the brow. Beyond, men and women worked, arranging plants and laying stones. Water trickled, and in the center of it all she could see a lake, the water shimmering in the gentle sunlight, a red bridge cutting a path across.
“These gardens are still under construction. Almost finished. They will be the most beautiful Japanese-inspired gardens in the whole of Europe, I am sure of it.”
He went to move forward, opening a gate in the constructed fence.
“I don’t think it’s open yet,” she said.
“I know. But that’s why we are here. To enjoy it before anybody else.”
Later she would learn that Benoit knew the mayor, that the gardens were commissioned under his instruction. But in the moment her thoughts were captivated by what she saw before her, the beauty of the wildflowers, the bushes that seemed to slope into the water. Monolithic stones jutted from the landscape, dwarfing the immature shrubbery snipped into perfect spheres. It was, she believed, the most beautiful place she had ever been.
“Do you like it?” he asked.
“It’s stunning,” she said.
“Here, mon amour, come take a look at these.” He gestured for her to sit on the ground, and so she did, and before her he spread out some rolls of paper he had been carrying with him. An artist had rendered the missing details, the plan to be followed by the workers. “It will be like this when it is done. Quite different from now. But even when they are finished planting and the gardens receive their first official visitors, it will still need a lot of time to settle and mature. For the flowers to grow, and for the trees to put down their roots.”
“I think it’s already beautiful. Even before it’s finished.”
“As do I. But imagine how it will be in a year, two years. Perhaps ten.” His eyes were on the ground, his hand brushing against the soft grass. “How it will change and grow, need more water to sustain itself, but at the same time, need less support by which to flourish. It will be quite something, non?”
“It will.”
From a small satchel he produced bottles of juice, brown paper bags with bread and cheese. Together they sat and ate, Benoit propped up on an elbow, Frances with her head on his chest. Gazing toward the ceiling of blue, they watched the passing clouds forming shapes and countries in the sky.
“I could stay here forever,” she said then.
“Wouldn’t you miss England?” he asked, rolling onto his side. He picked leaves from her hair, brushed crumbs from her lips.
“I don’t think so. I like it more here.” Could she tell him now that she wanted to stay? Hadn’t he already said as much himself, that the farmhouse would be their little home? She couldn’t imagine saying goodbye to any of this. “In this place I can be myself.”
Chewing the last of his bread he reached across and took her hand in his. “Are you not always yourself? Who have I been with up until now?” he asked, laughing.
“Maybe I am.” She wanted to tell him then that England wasn’t home anymore, not now that she had met him. That with him she felt more like herself than she ever had. That she wanted to belong to him. But that felt too big, too unruly to wrangle into words. So instead, she said the closest thing she could. “But I still think I belong here in France. This place is supposed to be my home.”
He stood then, held out a hand for her to take. She did, and he pulled her to her feet. Their trip was over, and she felt disappointment swell like a pain that needed either medicine or excision. “Home is not a place, Frances. Not in this beautiful city of Toulouse, or on a mountainside in Japan. Home is not the place we shelter. Instead it is the place we are free.” He placed a hand against her chest, and she felt her own heart beating against it. “Home, mon amour, can only exist in here. Only once you know who you are in your heart, and when you live as the person you are supposed to be, will you find the place you truly belong. It will have nothing to do with your location in this world, or which person you choose to love, or who loves you in return. But it will have everything to do with how you choose to love yourself.”