But she’d wanted to hear his voice, she realised. She’d wanted him to come around and look and laugh about it, and make her feel better.
At the heart of it all, she’d just wanted to see him.
22
‘So you’re a plasterer and a farmer?’ Lily said to Claude as he removed the loose bits from her wall and began to mix up some filler. They were standing in the hallway, the front door open to let in the light, which cruelly revealed not only the mess she’d made with the wallpaper, but the millions of dust particles that floated in the air, every chip and dent on the skirting board and probably every single one of her wrinkles.
‘Mais, non. I am just un agriculteur,’ he said with the obligatory shrug. ‘I’m a farmer, just a farmer. Mais, j’ai aussi une maison – I have a house too, uh? You learn to care for la maison.’
‘Right.’ Lily nodded. ‘Well, merci beaucoup for your help… votre aide.’
‘Ton aide,’ he corrected. ‘Et de rien, it is nothing.’
She’d tried to hide her disappointment when he’d knocked at the door this afternoon, complete with bucket, box of plaster, some sort of mixing tool, wearing a navy-blue pair of overalls. ‘Frédérique, ’e say you need some ’elp?’ he’d said by way of greeting. ‘You ’ave… ’ow you say – made the wall tombe? It fall down?’
‘Er, yes. Well, sort of,’ she’d said, standing back to let him in.
When she’d finally spoken to Frédérique and explained the situation on the phone last night, he’d seemed really concerned. ‘I will fix this,’ he’d said. ‘Don’t worry.’
He’d clearly outsourced the job to Claude, but if she was honest, she’d been hoping he’d be the one arriving at her front door. It was probably for the best though, she told herself. It was fun having a little crush on someone, but she wasn’t in the market for a relationship, or even a bit of fun. Not yet. Things were too raw.
‘Would you like a coffee?’ she asked now.
‘Oui, bien s?r,’ Claude said, keeping his eyes on the battered wall and starting to fill the gaps with white paste.
‘So,’ she said, handing him a steaming mug a few minutes later, ‘you must be very busy at the farm.’
‘Oui, all the time.’
‘And you don’t mind Frédérique, well, outsourcing things like this?’
‘Sorry, je ne comprends pas – I don’t understand. What is this “hout soursy”?’
‘Je suis désolé. You don’t mind helping Frédérique as well?’
‘Ah, non. We ’elp each other,’ he said with a shrug. ‘We are amis. And he pay for les matériaux.’
‘Oh. Well, that’s kind.’ Lily wondered whether it was her poor French, or the need for Claude to concentrate on his work, but she couldn’t help feel there was a bit of an atmosphere between them. Perhaps it was the incident with Emily. Or maybe he really was very busy and this was a terrible inconvenience.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said then, ‘for Samedi dernier – last Saturday. My friend, she is not usually… so…’
‘Tellement soif? She is thirsty, pour le vin?’ he said, with a raised eyebrow and a smile. ‘It is no problem. Frédérique, ’e explain. Mais, pour moi, for me it is just – ’ow you say – très dr?le. It was funny.’
‘Oh good… I mean, bon,’ she said. ‘I mean I am glad – je suis heureux – that you are not… um… um… vache.’
Claude paused his trowel and gave her a quizzical look. ‘You say that you are glad I am not a cow?’
‘No, no…’
‘Une vache, c’est une “cow” oui? MEUH!’ He lifted his fingers into the shape of horns and pawed the ground slightly, then grinned at her.
Lily laughed. ‘Non,’ she said, ‘not a cow…’
‘Per’aps you mean, you are happy that I am not f?ché – annoyed, non?’ He smiled.
‘Yes, f?ché,’ she said. She felt more relaxed after his cow impression for some reason. Ironically, he seemed more human.
He laughed. ‘I am not a man who make anger very often,’ he said. ‘Life is too short, iz it not?’
She nodded. ‘Definitely.’
‘And your friend,’ he added, his brow furrowed slightly. ‘She is not well, Frédérique m’a dit, ’e say?’