Page 11 of A French Country Escape
There was silence on the phone.
‘Are you okay, Penny?’ Emma asked, a concerned note in her voice. ‘Has Rory been bullying you?’ Emma was another one on the long list of people who hadn’t taken to him.
‘Yes. I know when he finds out I’ve left, he’ll assume I’ve gone to France, which I plan to do, but no harm in giving him a little misdirection first.’
‘Happy to misdirect him,’ Emma said, laughing.
When Penny unblocked Rory’s number on her phone twenty-four hours after she’d told him their relationship was over, it immediately began to fill with texts and voice messages from him, all declaring his love for her and asking for forgiveness. After reading his latest text, Penny decided it was time to reply and she typed a carefully worded message back.
I realise you are sorry, but you frightened me the other evening. I think you know we do need to talk about our relationship, because I can’t simply ignore what happened. And neither should you. I’ll meet you for dinner, seven-thirty Saturday evening at Billy’s Bistro. Please do not come to the flat, ring me, email me or harass me in any way in the meantime. I need space to really think things through. See you Saturday. x
Penny read the message again, wondering about deleting the kiss she’d put at the end, before deciding to leave it in place. Her texts to Rory had always ended with three kisses. If she didn’t put any, it might send a signal she didn’t want to give him, and she needed to keep him onside for a few more days. Putting even just one kiss would, she hoped, reassure him that he was in with a chance of saving their relationship and buy her some time.
She pressed ‘Send’ and turned the phone off. She’d keep it off and switch it on only when she needed to make calls and check her messages. Hopefully she now had a week to fine-tune her plan and put it into action.
9
The next few days passed in a whirl for Sasha as she finished her unpacking and settled into No. 1. She and Freddie had breakfast together before he walked up to the château to begin working for Peter. He’d also started to put out feelers in the village for some more work. One evening the two of them, Sasha armed with her tablet, had gone through the two cottages room by room, making notes and deciding what needed doing first. Freddie was upbeat and happy.
‘Basically, the cottages are sound, with good roofs. They haven’t stood empty for years and years like some do. Bathrooms and kitchens need updating, but we knew that when we viewed. Windows could probably do with double-glazed units, but we can leave that for a few months.’
Sitting on their mum’s Chesterfield, they’d sketched out the plans for the two bathrooms, each slightly different, which Freddie was going to plumb in and then they’d help each other decorate. Freddie had also driven them into the nearby town twice. The first time, they’d explored Carhaix with its Roman remains a little before doing a large supermarket shop. The second time, they’d braved the builders’ merchants, buyingpaint and the other DIY things they needed as well as choosing and ordering baths, shower units, sinks and toilets, all to be delivered in a couple of weeks when everything was in stock.
Today, Freddie had gone into the village to meet someone who had seen his notice in the villagetabacoffering gardening services. Sasha, itching to start turning the cottage into her own, had scraped the wallpaper off in the sitting room, rubbed the walls down and was now painting them, having pushed the settee into the centre of the room and thrown an old sheet over it. She’d chosen a pale cream paint and the three walls she’d painted so far were looking good. The last one, with its large window overlooking the garden and theroute de galop, was next. The sky was blue, the sun was shining and Sasha hummed happily as she brushed the paint on. It was hard to believe she’d been living in the cottage for little more than a week, she felt so at home. Of course, she knew it was early days and life here wouldn’t always be plain sailing, but it was a long time since she’d felt as happy as she currently did. Freddie, too, seemed a lot more relaxed, especially now he was earning some money.
Painting slowly around the window frame, a movement outside caught her eye. Sasha hesitated before carefully putting her brush down, going through to the kitchen and stepping out into the garden. Ten or fifteen sheep were nonchalantly ambling along the lane, enjoying the shoots of spring grass in the verges and down the centre of the route.
Sasha looked up and down the lane. There didn’t appear to be anyone with them. She grabbed her phone out of her pocket and rang Ingrid.
‘Hi, there are sheep wandering down the back lane. Are they allowed to do that?’
Sasha smiled as she heard a muffled swear word. Obviously not.
‘Are they headed towards the village?’ Ingrid asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Typical, when both Peter and Jean-Paul are out for most of the day.’
‘Freddie’s out somewhere too,’ Sasha said.
‘Okay, I’ll block the lane with the Land Rover to stop them getting onto the main road,’ Ingrid said. ‘And then I’ll try to encourage them down towards you. Could you walk down the other way and see if you can spot where they got out? If you stop a few feet the other side of the gap, we can try to persuade them to go back through it. Just remember – no quick movements or they’ll panic and run in all directions.’
Sasha made sure the garden gate was closed firmly behind her as she stepped onto theroute de galop. The sheep seemed to have edged a little farther up the lane and were grazing happily. Slowly, Sasha walked away from them, hoping that Ingrid would have blocked the lane at the road junction, whilst she searched for a break in the hedge. Eventually, she found a well-trodden muddy gap in the bank where the flock had clearly pushed through. She stopped a couple of metres farther on in front of the gate at the end of the lane and turned to wait for Ingrid.
It was a few minutes later before she saw and heard the sheep being urged in her direction by Ingrid. As the herd got closer, Sasha stepped back towards the gate to give them more space to approach. Ingrid was close behind them now and as the leader of the flock hesitated by the gap, she held out her arms in a sideways gesture and patiently waited for the first sheep to decide to step up the bank and into the field. Sasha held her breath as they both watched, and she heard Ingrid’s sigh of relief as one by one the sheep followed the leader back into the field.
‘Thank goodness for that,’ Ingrid said. ‘That was easier than I expected. Sheep can be notoriously stupid.’ She pulled a round orange ball of baler twine out of her pocket. ‘The hole isn’ttoo big. Hopefully I can block it with enough twine and small branches to keep them in until Jean-Paul can fix it later today.’
And she set to work, tying the twine around the trunk of a small oak tree on one side and stretching it across the gap and wrapping it around the thin trunk of a hazelnut tree on the other. Sasha helped her criss-cross the twine several times before they collected some broken small branches to thread through the twine and pile some close to it as another deterrent.
‘Not perfect,’ Ingrid said, ‘but it’s the best we can do. I’ll ring Jean-Paul and tell him. He and Peter have gone to a farm auction today near Gourin.’
Together they started to walk back up the lane.
‘Good job you saw the sheep when you did,’ Ingrid said. ‘It would have been mayhem if they’d reached the road.’
Sasha shrugged. ‘It was pure luck. Do they get out often?’
