Page 18 of Where Do We Go From Here?
The next morning, Wendy wakes up to discover a day that is as cold as it is grey.
The thermometer stuck to the outside of the bathroom window tells her the temperature in the garden is seven degrees. It’s a bit of a shock really – she had stupidly imagined it would be sunny every day.
Actually, that’s not strictly true. Logically, she’d known there would be grey days, it’s simply that she failed to ever imagine what she would do with herself.
She switches on some lights, re-stokes the wood burner and makes a pot of coffee. She points her new blow heater at her feet until the fire begins to roar.
I need a plan for dull days, she thinks.
She could visit one of those coastal towns, but in the end wouldn’t that be a better thing to do in the sunshine? It would be more fun to do it with Jill, too, if she’s really coming. Wendy can’t remember exactly how they left things but she suspects that, knowing Jill, she’ll be here soon enough whatever was officially decided.
She takes her mug of coffee to thewindow and peers outside, searching for a break in the cloud cover but it’s wall-to-wall grey.
She returns to the sofa and checks the weather app on her phone. Cloudy all day with a 60 per cent possibility of rain in the afternoon. Yuck.
She has never been good at dealing with winter, with the cold, or even with rainy days in summer, for that matter. Which is silly really, because she knows logically that without rain we’d all be dead. She suspects she suffers from that SAD thing everyone’s always on about. Grey days inevitably make her feel lethargic and, when she’d been living alone at Jill’s, she’d sometimes struggled to even get out of bed. Which of course is why a six-month sabbatical in the south of France was so much more attractive than the original idea of a cabin in Norway.
Come on, she tells herself, fighting a rising sense of melancholy.You can do this. You’re British!
She showers in the chilly bathroom and dresses warmly then steps outdoors. Just as she does so, a little yellow van pulls up next to her hire car. A woman with a military-grade haircut – young, not much older than Fiona – jumps out and strides towards her.
‘Bonjour !’she says enthusiastically.‘J’ai du courrier pour vous – enfin, pour Madame Blanchard.’
‘Bonjour,’Wendy replies, smiling as she crosses the garden to meet her. She has no idea what the girl said but she did hear the word ‘Blanchard’ which she knows is the name of the woman she’s renting from.
She takes the three letters from the post lady’s outstretched hand and checks the envelopes. They aren’t for her; how could they be? All the same, she feels a stab of disappointment. There are few things she likes more in life than getting letters.
‘Vous êtes la nouvelle locataire ?’the girl asks.
Wendy has no idea what that means either.‘Désolée,’shesays, with an exaggerated shrug designed to communicate cluelessness.
‘You’re English?’ the girl asks. ‘Or American? Or…’
‘Yes, English,’ Wendy replies.
‘Is OK,’ the girl says. ‘I speak it. My good subject in the BAC. The only! How long you stay here?’
‘Six months,’ Wendy says.
‘Six month!’ the girl says. ‘Is long. Maybe I practise my English with you.’
‘Yes,’ Wendy says, sounding vague because, in her mind, she’s busy trying to concoct a phrase in French.‘Oui !’
‘Cool,’ the girl says. ‘You give these to Madame Blanchard? Or I put in the box of letters?’
‘No, I’ll give them to her. No problem.’
‘Good. Sociaountil next time!’ And then she turns and strides back to her van, jumps in, reverses jerkily out then, spitting gravel, accelerates off down the track.
‘Bonjour ?’Wendy admonishes herself out loud.‘Désolée ?!’
She shakes her head at this miserable failure to seize the moment. After all, that was the first time she’s had any real contact with a French person, and a keen friendly French person at that. All she managed wasbonjour,désoléeandoui. Three words. Not even anau revoir.
She glances back down at the letters in her hand and returns indoors to get warm.
She sends the owner a message to inform her she has mail at the cabin. It’ll be interesting to meet her, Wendy thinks. She glances around at the mess and immediately starts to tidy up, just in case. She has no idea where the owner lives. She could be a hundred yards down the road. She might knock on the door at any moment.
Ten minutes later, as she’s guiltily hiding the new room heater in one of the cupboards, her phone pings with a reply: a friend, Erik, will collect the mail at some point.
