She instinctively reached across and placed a finger on his mouth. ‘About that,’ she said. Because if she didn’t have the conversation soon, things were going to get out of hand.
‘Oui?’ he said, his lips released. ‘There is a problème per’aps?’
‘Peut-être, maybe,’ she said. ‘But maybe just a problem avec le langue.’
‘OK?’
‘In England, we don’t usually use the term “lover” very much. It’s… well, it’s only really used to talk about someone you have…’ she lowered her voice ‘… sex with. And probably not much else.’
‘Ah, but—’
‘Hang on…’
‘OK.’ He looked chastened.
‘It just… it makes me feel uncomfortable. It’s a language thing. But maybe… well, we could say “girlfriend”?’
‘But you are not a girl?’ he said. ‘You are a woman! It is strange this expression.’
‘Yes, I suppose it is,’ she said, thinking about it. But they couldn’t say ‘partner’, could they? It sounded far too permanent. ‘Well, what other expression could we use?’
‘Peut-être, mon chou?’ he suggested.
‘My…’ She racked her brain. ‘Cabbage?’
‘Yes, but we don’t fink of it as cabbage, eh? It is short for choux à la crème, a delicious cake, eh?’
‘Oh.’ She shook her head. ‘But… no.’
‘Then,’ said Frédérique, ‘I will call you mon coeur.’
‘My heart?’ she said. It was certainly better than being a cabbage. And definitely less graphic than being called his lover.
‘Oui.’
She nodded. ‘I like it.’
He smiled. ‘Well, I am glad you can tell me this, eh, mon coeur. I do not wish to cause you any pain.’
‘De rien,’ she replied. It is nothing. ‘But look, that’s not all. I… I’m not sure we’re seeing this relationship in the same way.’
‘Oui?’
‘Yes. I want to be clear, from the start. Because… I don’t want anyone to get hurt.’
‘But of course! I would ’ate for you to get ’urt, my love.’
‘OK. It’s just you seem… very… well, keen.’
‘Keen? What is this keen?’
‘Um,’ she said, quickly scrolling on her phone translator. ‘Désireux?’
‘You want,’ he said, his eyebrows bunching together, ‘that I love you less? That I am not so pleased to be with you?’
It did seem crazy when he put it like that. ‘Not exactly,’ she said. ‘Just… well, you know, I’ve only just broken up with Ben. We were together for twenty years. I have a son. It’s all new… and I don’t feel ready for too much. I need to be slow… careful, you know?’
He nodded. ‘I understand.’
‘You do?’
‘Oui, now you tell me, je comprends! I know exactly what you wish me to do, eh?’ he said, giving her an elaborate wink. ‘I am very good, of course, at understanding les femmes.’
‘Are you sure? Because I mean,’ she said, not convinced his reaction was as she’d expect it to be in the circumstances. ‘I can explain… what I’d like is…’
‘Oui,’ he said, and it was his turn to reach across and touch her lips gently to stop her from talking. The fizzing sensation happened again and suddenly she wanted to take her words back and ask him to come to her maison and make wild passionate love, get married and never leave her side. Luckily, her head was just about able to overrule her enthusiastic heart.
‘I…’ she began.
‘Shh,’ he said, shaking his head fondly. ‘Mon coeur, you ’ad me at “be slow”.’
‘I…’
‘And I know, don’t worry, exactly what it is I am going to do.’
33
‘And you haven’t seen him since?’ Sam said, pushing the trolley laden with wine, beer, paper plates and cups and a badly balanced cake box along the aisle.
It was lunchtime, and the supermarket had emptied of people as it usually did the minute the restaurants started serving food. Some of the local stores shut up between twelve and two, but the supermarket remained open and tantalisingly unused in the middle of the day. They were making the most of the wide, empty aisles and lack of queues to stock up on party items before the house-warming.