Poppy’s Place in the Sun: A French Escape

Despite the warm patches of sunshine, it’s cool beneath the dappled shade of the trees as I cross the square, passing elegant buildings with pale blue shutters and roses trailing up the walls. I pause briefly on a wrought iron bench beneath a leafy tree and let the dogs sniff around while I check my phone. I’ve got one text from Mum, one from Dad and one from Pete.

I look at the texts from Mum and Dad first to get them out of the way.

Are you at the house? Have you got water and electricity yet? I do wish you’d waited and gone with Pete, I don’t like to think of you abroad all alone. Mum xx

How are you coping with driving on the wrong side of the road?

The second text from Dad is meant to be a joke. I hope. The first is a typical Mum text, full of worry and always assuming I can’t cope on my own. It’s not as though I’m eighteen years old and have just left home. I’ve just turned thirty, and I’m tired of being labelled as the dreamy one of the family. Just because I went to art college instead of “a proper university” like my older sisters doesn’t make me incapable. Of course, I then compounded their view of me by choosing to illustrate children’s books instead of doing “real art.” By “real art” they meant an in-house industry career that would have slowly sucked the spirit out of me.

I suppose it didn’t help that I missed a year of school with glandular fever and post viral fatigue when I was younger. After that I was the “delicate one” who needed looking after. I was a problem to be dealt with, and nothing I did after that could get them to see me differently.

Gran was the only one in our family to take me seriously. She loved the little stories and pictures I created in notebooks and encouraged my “doodling.” That was what Mum called my art. For all I know, she still does. Gran bought me my first set of watercolours and proper brushes to work with, as well as a good quality sketching pad. I can still remember the excitement that seeing those blank pages stirred in me.

Today is a blank page waiting to be filled with this new life I’ve chosen.

Gran was always so interested in my work and would send me flowers or chocolates whenever I got a new commission. She bought every single Fenella Fairy book and displayed them proudly on her living room bookshelves. She showed them to anyone she managed to lure onto her sofa with the enticement of tea and a piece of cake. She once accosted the meter reading man “who said I was lucky to have such a talented granddaughter.”

I swallow down the lump that rises in my throat. I miss her so much. It’s been ten months since she died, but the time that’s supposed to heal all wounds hasn’t done anything for mine so far.

I did try to explain to Mum that I had to come to France in person to sign the papers. Well, I could’ve elected a representative, but I really didn’t want to wait anyway. I wanted to do this stage in person. I sigh. I’ll reply to Mum later.

I open the text from Pete.

Sorry Poppy, but I won’t be joining you in France. I’ve been waiting for a good time to tell you, and I can’t put it off any longer – when I went to hand my notice in at work, they offered me a promotion with lots of extra money. I couldn’t turn it down. I would’ve been an idiot to say no. France is more your thing than mine anyway. I hope you’ll be happy.

Pete

What the … What? WHAT?!

I stare at my iPhone, unable to take it in. Peanut, the most sensitive of the three dogs, stops sniffing at the tree with the others and puts her tiny paws up on my legs, soulful brown eyes shining with concern. I scoop her onto my lap and chew my lip pensively. My mind is blank. I can’t think of a single thing to type in reply to my boyfriend. Or I suppose that should be my ex-boyfriend. How can my life be turned upside down by one text? It’s not just like having the rug pulled out from under me but also discovering that underneath is an open trap door and I’m falling.

Pete was waiting for a good time to tell me? And he considers today, once I’ve finally committed myself to the house purchase, to be a good time? From his point of view, maybe, given I’m currently too far away to make a scene or cause actual bodily harm. I’ve never actually hit anyone – well, except my sisters when we were all little, but as an adult I tend to stay away from conflict. But I think I’d be prepared to make an exception in Pete’s case.

Has he met someone else? That’s the only explanation that would make sense right now.

Dumped by text. I’m a clichéd statistic. It’s one of those things you hear about but think will never happen to you. Just a few symbols on my phone screen, and Pete has burst the bubble of happiness I’ve been floating along in since I put in an offer on the dream house. Supposedly “our” dream house. He has brought me back down to earth with a nasty bump.

It looks like Mum and Dad are right. I am “the dreamy one with her head in the clouds.” How else could I have missed this coming? My cheeks burn, but I feel strangely cold.

I look down at my hands. They’re shaking. I put my phone away before I drop it but stay rooted to the bench. I stroke Peanut absentmindedly, still reeling.

How could he … How?

Watching A Place in the Sun should come with a health warning. I used to record all the programmes and watch them on my iPad at night. I fell asleep dreaming of picturesque villas with mountain views and vivid turquoise swimming pools shimmering in the heat. Vibrant images danced in my mind, luring me away from everything I was used to. Taking me away from a world that was safe.

I would imagine having breakfast on a sun-drenched terrace, my dogs lying contentedly at my feet. Then I’d drink wine as the sun slipped down, streaking the mountain skyline with crimson as I headed off to work in my purpose-built art studio, converted from an outbuilding.

Only now does it occur to me that Pete didn’t feature much in my daydreams. He was there in some of them – walking hand in hand with me through the markets and then us sitting together having dinner at a restaurant in an elegant and sunny town square.

Part of the daydreams or not, Pete was a pretty essential part of the overall plan. He was meant to take charge of turning the outbuildings into gîtes. He’s the one with the project management skills, and his financial contribution to the project was meant to pay for all the renovations. We had it all planned.

Or at least I thought we did.

Why didn’t I question the fact that he didn’t want to be on the property deeds “for capital gains tax reasons”? He planned to hold onto his flat and rent it out. He didn’t want to be clobbered for tax and said his flat would give us somewhere to go back to if everything went wrong. A safety net. Ha!

I absentmindedly stroke Peanut, and she nestles into me.

It seemed to make sense at the time. Have I been selfish? Gullible, perhaps, but I don’t recall bullying Pete into the decision. I’ve been so busy getting my flat ready for sale and then getting my non-essential belongings into storage for Pete to bring down with him in a rented van. We haven’t spent much time together recently, but he always seemed very enthusiastic about moving. Why on earth didn’t he say something before now?

I pull the new house keys out of my pocket and finger them. The Estate Agent tag is still attached – it’s labelled “Les Coquelicots,” which roughly translates as “The Poppy House.” It seemed like such a good sign at the time. Not that I go around looking for signs, but the name jumped out at me from all the property details I had. None of the other options even came close.

I remember a phrase from the letter Gran put in with her will – “Find a home in France, Poppy darling, somewhere they aren’t afraid of ‘tall poppies.’ I’m convinced there is somewhere magical waiting for you – a place you can put down roots and grow to be the tall Poppy you are destined to be, without anyone trying to cut you down to size.”

So, the house name was more than a nice coincidence. When we viewed it, the wild poppies had just begun to flower. They flourished and dominated the cottage garden, and something deep inside me tugged me towards the property, almost like a magnetic pull. It was very strange. I just knew. This was my new home.

And we hadn’t even opened the front door yet.

Everything about it felt perfect, and as a possible holiday accommodation property it had great potential, Pete said. With the medieval walled city of Carcassonne to the north, easy access to the coast in the summer and ski resorts in the winter, it should make a perfect tourist retreat.

Should do. Could do. Will do?

I’m determined not to think in the past tense. I can do this on my own, right?

Oh, crap and double crap.

A knot of panic twists in my stomach like a physical pain. I take a deep breath and get a grip. There’s no point thinking about what I could’ve done differently. I now have the keys.

New keys. New house. New life.

I take another deep breath and try to put Peanut down, but she clings to me like a baby koala, as though she’s picked up on my barely suppressed panic. She probably has. I remember reading that dogs can smell our stress pheromones. Peanut acts like she’s big and tough, and the other two boy dogs accept her as pack leader without a quibble, but she’s often insecure. Both she and Treacle are rescue dogs and hate me leaving them. Pickwick is more confident, but then he was Gran’s dog. He’s always known what it means to be loved. She left him to me when she died, along with the money to help me make this move.

I cuddle Peanut back, her affection and vulnerability making it even harder not to cry. I don’t feel like moving but am aware of the penetrating stares of an old lady in a housecoat sitting outside her house opposite the bench. There’s something about her suspicious, hooded eyes that gives me the jitters. She looks like she thinks I’m a serial murderer or burglar or both and will set about me with a broom if I don’t move on.

I gather up the dog leads and head for the village market before going back to the car. It’s not as big as the Monday market in nearby Mirepoix that all the tourists flock to, but it has everything I need for the moment. The desire to get supplies in so I can lie low and lick my wounds has kicked in.

I haven’t got much of an appetite, but the market manages to distract me. The aroma of freshly baked bread draws me towards a stall laden with baguettes, freshly baked cakes and pastries. I buy a baguette, a quiche Lorraine and a golden, flakey pain au chocolat that doesn’t resemble anything like the more pallid, additive-packed offerings in the supermarkets back home. Then I head to the fruits and vegetables and buy some of the reddest cherry tomatoes I’ve ever seen, still on their vine. I’m tempted by the watermelons bigger than cannonballs but haven’t got a bag suitable for carrying one back to the car, so in the end I settle for ripe, luscious peaches and local cherries.

The dogs’ noses are up in the air, and as one they tug me towards the butcher’s van. I relent and buy a remarkably cheap steak for us all to share tonight. After all, the dogs need cheering up too. Pete has abandoned them as well as me. He said he adored them. But then he also said he loved me, and that obviously wasn’t true.

By now I’m finding it a strain keeping up the “I’m here to support the local economy and not to drive up house prices and leave your children homeless” smile. It’s a tough sentiment to portray with faltering French and sore cheek muscles, not to mention a sore heart.

I ignore the stalls selling intricately patterned scarves and handmade jewellery, quickly buy some free-range eggs and head back to the Mini before the smile slips. There’s a tightness spreading through my chest, making it hard to breath. By the time I’ve put the shopping and dogs in the car, the sensation is developing into a full-on panic attack.

Being on my own shouldn’t feel so terrifying. After all I’ve lived on my own for years. I’ve been happily single before. But that was in a country where I had a support network around me. Where I speak the language well enough to handle any crisis thrown at me.

I get in and start the engine. It won’t be as terrible as I dread. I’m just feeling bad because Pete has dumped me. By text.

And also because I don’t know a single sodding soul in this country except for a lecherous notaire and his receptionist who is beautiful, elegant and far too cool for me.