‘Oh.’ Lily dropped her gaze, not wanting Frédérique to see that it bothered her. ‘So she was being… it was a joke?’
‘Well, per’aps. She ’ave…’ow you say – she always cherche la petite bête.’
‘She looks for a monster?’ Lily said, brow furrowed.
‘She like to find something to be angry for,’ he said. ‘She like to pick for the nits.’
‘Oh.’
‘But don’t worry, she is OK. Give her time.’
‘Right.’ Lily sipped her coffee, feeling a little nervous. Behind the counter, she could see Sophie glancing in her direction. She tried to shake off the feeling of being unwelcome. She was sitting with the mayor; things really couldn’t be that bad. ‘Look, I was hoping to see you, Frédérique.’
‘Oui?’
‘Oui, j’aimerais faire des travaux à la maison?’ I want to do some work on the house.
‘Oui? You would like to obtenir une autorisation?’
This was the trouble with starting out in French. She quickly got out of her depth. ‘Um, well, yes. Authorisation. Permission – from you?’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘But I cannot… I mean, I will need to get the forms. It is not simple, the process.’
‘Oh.’
‘What did you want to do?’
‘Just… well, paint the kitchen. Um… maybe put some wallpaper up.’
‘Oh, to faire de la decoration?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘I thought… les travaux… we say this for bigger things… Par exemple, you knock down the wall, yes?’
‘Oh. No. Just la decoration,’ she said.
‘Well, this is not a problème for me! You do what you wish. It is your property, eh?’
‘Well… almost.’
‘Yes, yes,’ he said, flapping his hand as if the matter of the actual legal ownership wasn’t really important. ‘But yes, of course! And listen, I will introduce you to mes amis, oui? Zey can give you a good price for la peinture, if you wish? Et les matériaux?’
‘Oh, thank you. That would be très gentil. Very kind.’
‘It is no problème,’ he said again, before sipping the last of his coffee and standing up. ‘Come with me, Madame Buttercup, eh? I will love to ’elp.’
Standing up and walking out of the café next to Frédérique, Lily felt suddenly optimistic. With his help, and by making connections with some of his friends, she’d find her feet. She’d only been here a short time, but she already felt less alone.
As she passed Sophie, she thanked her, put a ten euro note on the counter and refused change.
Sophie thanked her and gave her a short smile. But as she left the café with Frédérique, his hand resting gently on the small of her back, Lily turned, only to find the waitress regarding her with a fixed, unsmiling stare.
21
As his key turned in the lock, she had to hold in a little shriek. He walked into the front room, ruffled but smart in his day-old work clothes and she rushed towards him. He dropped his briefcase and pulled her to him.
‘Wow, what on earth have I done to deserve this?’ he joked.
‘Ben,’ she said, waving the plastic stick close to his face. ‘We’ve… I’m…’
‘Really?’ He pulled back and looked at her, his eyes shining. ‘You’re really…?’
‘Yes, Ben. Really.’
Lily plonked the heavy bucket onto the dusty floor, slopping some of the contents out in the process. ‘Le seau,’ she said to herself, trying to memorise some of the words she’d learned for her shopping trip. She unwrapped the sponge (éponge) she’d also picked up at the bricolage and dropped it into the soapy mixture. Then, tucking the scraper (grattoir) into her pocket out of the way, she looked for one last time at the dated wallpaper.
The wallpaper looked back menacingly.
It ended here.
‘OK, here goes, wall,’ she said, taking a picture of the wall for posterity before slipping the phone back into the pocket of her old jeans. ‘Flock wallpaper out, neutral tones in.’
Using warm water, she began to soak the wall, seeing the faded colours darken as the water seeped through the thick paper covering to dissolve the glue beneath. She’d always enjoyed decorating – transforming a room from dull to beautiful, or changing the feel of a place by altering a colour scheme. One of the things she’d looked forward to about owning a ‘fixer-upper’ was being able to put her mark on a property properly.