I have two projects going right now. First is the epic and rather grim novel based on my experiences in West Africa – this one is rough going, and will no doubt take years to complete. In the meantime, however, I have started work on something else, a more light-hearted series of books to be based here in Southwest France.

Synopsis: Jean-Marc Delors, professor of Comparative Medieval Studies at University College London, has inherited the family farmhouse in southwest France from his great aunt Bernadette. Jean-Marc was born and raised in Montpellier, but has lived in London since he was a teenager, and is eager to rediscover his family’s roots in the very rural Quercy. His plan is to move there for a year with his wife Haley and their two young children and to write what he hopes will be a definitive study of Occitan folk tales of the region. Jean-Marc and Haley find that adapting to rural French life is not as easy as they thought, but they learn as they go with the help of a quirky cast of characters including their retired English neighbors, their shy dreadlocked handyman and the loquacious baker’s wife. When Jean-Marc’s position at the university is eliminated and he is left jobless, the couple must decide whether they will return to London to look for work or remain and make a go of living in this quiet corner of the world that, for all its faults, they have come to love.

Below is my current draft of Chapter One. I’m still tinkering with just about everything here – I don’t even have a working title yet – but my goal is to create something intelligent, readable and enjoyable for a broad audience. Think summer reading for smart people. It’s still rough, but I’d be grateful for any comments, whether postive or negative, detailed or general, that might help me sculpt this idea into the lovely book – or even series of books – that I believe it has the potential to become. Feel free to give ideas in the comments section or to email me directly. Thanks,

Gregory Mose

1.  Littlewood

Haley looked worried.

“This can’t be it, can it?”

Jean-Marc swung the wheel with a little too much brio, revving the motor hard to propel their shiny new rental car through a hairpin turn and into an abrupt climb. He remembered this little turnoff like it was yesterday, the steep country lane, little wider than his car, that heaved upwards at an angle from the Departemental and began its tortuous climb through a steep tunnel of oak and chestnut, and he was not about to let apprehension get in his way. Haley might well be intimidated, that he could understand. Until today this place had been little more than stories for her, ancient relics of another life in another country – to commit to spending a year in so obscure a place, site unseen, as the Americans would put it, would be daunting, of course it must be daunting. But for him it was different. For Jean-Marc Delors, EutropisNaturaPharma Distinguished Lecturer in Comparative Medieval Studies at University College London, this was a homecoming.

It had been a good thirty years since he’d last seen Le Bousquet, the rambling old farmhouse that had been in his family since as long as anyone could remember. He’d come close to visiting once or twice in recent years when in the region for conferences or research, but always there was too little time, always another engagement. And as the years had dragged on, and Aunt Bernadette slipped further into her own idiosyncrasies, visiting became next to impossible. So whenever Jean-Marc and Haley had needed to escape London and get another taste of France, they would touch upon the idea of a holiday in the quiet rolling farmland of the Quercy before settling once again on a visit with his more immediate family in Montpellier. The real south, the Mediterranean, was too irresistible in its combination of sophistication and charm to be lightly traded in favor of Jean-Marc’s vague sense of nostalgia.

But he remembered the place well, and steadfastly maintained that it couldn’t have changed much. These old farms just linger on, he had explained patiently to Haley, acquiring from time to time some new piece of kitchen equipment, or perhaps a more modern heating system. Some had been scarred by cinderblock extensions or modern PVC windows, of course, but Aunt Bernadette would never have done such a thing. Never. To have paid money for something as paltry as comfort wasn’t her style. “Je n’ai pas froid,” he could hear her say. “C’est pas la peine de changer.” If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

Anyway, the farm had never lacked for anything. A enormous cantou fireplace, a woodburner in the kitchen, cellars underneath protecting the living area from rising damp, it was, like any old Quercy farmhouse, a stone bunker, impervious to heat, cold and wild wolves alike. At least, that’s how he had remembered it from a few summertime childhood visits. A bijou, a gem, pure and simple. What better place to spend his sabbatical? A year for the children to soak up their paternal heritage and master their French, for him to complete his landmark study of Occitan folk literature, and for Haley to escape the grimy, drizzling mess of London. They would restore the old place lovingly, respecting the old traditional building methods, and then could rent it out as a gite when not using it as their own holiday house. As usual, Jean-Marc had it all figured out.

A signpost with three rectangular white panels, one dangerously askew, flashed by as the car began its ascent: Le Bousquet, Mas Delpech, La Cazelle. Emilie stared out the window as best she could, strapped unmercifully into an enormous bright red car seat, her eyes wide. Next to her, perched upon a far more dignified booster seat, tapping frantically at his Nintendo DS, Phillip remained totally unaware of the peril they faced. Her parents had clearly lost control of the situation, letting this strange-smelling car plunge them into some kind of evil dark faerie forest. Papa wasn’t even managing to drive on the correct side of the road until it became so narrow that it no longer mattered. The whole family was doomed.

After a few more minutes of winding through the woods, the car re-emerged into the open air. Grassy fields opened up to both sides of the car, sloping down on the left and up on the right. The downward slope was obligingly studded with sheep and farther up the road an old honey-coloured stone farmhouse, its terra-cotta tile roof glowing red in the warm summer sun, completed the fairytale image of country life. It was a painting, and Haley found herself already aching for her own brushes and a stretch of canvas.  This place was thankfully as beautiful as it was remote. A painter’s dream come true. Any sensible English woman’s dream come true. She glanced fondly at her husband, his trim beard, his little wire glasses, looking every bit the lord of the manor as he approached his ancestral inheritance.

“I guess this really can be it,” she said, giving Jean-Marc an affectionate squeeze of the shoulder. “It’s gorgeous.”

“It’s Le Bousquet bas. Le Bousquet is just a little farther.”

Haley remained silent for a moment, her forehead wrinkling in consternation.

“The neighbors are also called Le Bousquet?”

Jean-Marc gave her the Look. Haley didn’t often get the look anymore, but it still popped up now and then, and she still found it infuriating. Jean-Marc denied it, of course, be she knew. The Look, translated into English, meant something along the lines of: sacrebleu, I have married a savage. Generally he would follow it with a prim little adjustment of his glasses and a brief civilizing lecture on whatever topic happened to have summoned the beastly look from its benign slumber. And, generally, she would retaliate by giving this benighted Continental a true taste of British culture, most often in the form of the disdainful silence.

This was too beautiful, too momentous a day to waste time on lectures or on cold shoulders.

“Le Bousquet,” Jean-Marc replied evenly, “used to be one estate, so the lieu-dit name covers both houses. It’s cleaner than I remember.”

“So someone else lives there?” she ventured.

“The most charming old widow, her name was Madame, ouf, c’etait quoi alors, Madame Hugon, or Hublot. Hugon, yes, it was definitely Hugon. I’m absolutely certain. I used to help her with small jobs, feeding her ducks, that sort of thing. She would give me eggs, still warm from the chickens. Elle est charmante.”

Haley smiled but didn’t answer. She tried to imagine Jean-Marc as a little boy helping out on a farm, but the image kept falling apart. She had spent enough time visiting her own aunt and uncle, who were both avid riders and kept horses at their weekend house in Wiltshire, to know what farm life meant. The idea of her fastidious husband mucking around among livestock was simply too much of a stretch.

Passing the house, the road seemed to narrow even further, hemmed in by a line of overhanging trees on the left and an embankment on the right. After about half a mile the road curved around to the right and the view opened out before them, a gently sloping meadow terminating in a dense line of oaks and hornbeams, and beyond, a winding valley, a row of hills studded with woodlands, fields and farmhouses. Haley drew a quick breath. Just a little ways further up the road stood a large, rambling cluster of stone buildings.

“Le B-B-Bousquet,” Jean-Marc announced, his slight stutter betraying the nerves behind the broad smile on his face. “Phillip, put that thing away and look.”

Phillip reluctantly glanced up from his video game, bleary-eyed, as the car pulled into a wide grassy courtyard between the front of the farmhouse and a long barn. For a moment, they all just sat and stared. A flight of stone steps led up along the face of the house and disappeared into what appeared to be a solid mass of lush, overgrown wisteria. The other half of the house was an expanse of dark honey-colored stone, withering here and there to a dark grey, and jigsawed by a network of joints between the stones whose mortar had crumbled with the passing years. At the near end the house doglegged to form an L-shape, ending in a lovely paned window whose brown, flaking shutter hung oddly from one hinge.

“C’est magnifique,” Jean-Marc muttered to no one in particular. Emilie burst into tears.

“Ah, poussin, I know it’s a lot to take in, but we’re going to love it here. Come, let’s have a look.”

Jean-Marc nearly tumbled out of the car and stepped back to admire the house. It was a Quercy farmhouse, as traditional as they came. Cellars at ground level, living space on the first floor and in the attic. House, barn and pigsties forming a U-shaped courtyard. The pigeon house, he remembered well, was propped up on old stone pillars in the field behind the house. His mind raced, and he felt that he’d already half-planned the renovation work by the time Haley and Phillip climbed out of the car. The sound of Emilie whimpering could still be heard, muffled though it was by the car window.

“Cool,” Phillip squealed as he ran towards the open sided section of the barn, filled with jagged remains of rusting plows, harrows and other more obscure farm equipment. Turning round in an exaggerated 360 degree spin, he stopped to ask his father, in his best concerned voice, “But where are we going to live? I mean, we’re not sleeping in there, are we?”

Haley, who had come round to the other side of the car and lifted Emilie into her arms, gave Jean-Marc a curious look, as if she had been wondering the same thing.

C’est pas serieux, he thought, annoyed at his family’s apparent immunity to the charms of his ancestral home. They’re just being difficult. They’ll melt like goose fat in a hot pan once they’ve had a look around.

“It’s rather… rustic. Isn’t it?” Haley forced herself to smile. “I mean, it’s beautiful, it’s gorgeous, really. But it does seem a little, well, rough around the edges.”

“This,” he answered, “is pure authenticity. La France profonde. The real deal. Let’s have a look inside.”

“Mum, look at this, there’s water down here!”

Haley turned to find Phillip’s posterior pointed to the sky and the entire upper half of his body vanished over the edge of an old stone well.

“Phillip! Are you mad? Get back here right this minute,” she squealed, doing her best to sound in control for the benefit of the tearful little girl in her arms. “Come, we’re going to have a look inside.”

Jean-Marc was already half way up the steps, and in another instant had vanished into the tangle of vines. Haley bit her lip, took Phillip by the arm and heaved Emilie a little higher on her hip before starting to climb. Peering through the open door, she could just make out the vague outline of Jean-Marc standing beside a large wooden table. The vines held one of the windows’ shutters closed tight, so the only unobstructed light was what filtered through the second window at the far end of the room, and a bit more coming through the open doorway to the room beyond.  Slowly her eyes adjusted to the darkness and the rest of the room came into focus – a kitchen counter, a sink, an oven, stacks of plates. And behind Jean-Marc, a fireplace, an enormous fireplace about five feet tall and perhaps seven or eight wide. A large black wooodburner squatted within, off-center, surrounded by a thick skein of cobwebs.

“It’s been two years since she died,” Jean-Marc announced solemnly. “I doubt anyone has been here since she left.”

Haley spotted a light switch and flipped it, but nothing happened. She set Emilie down and walked over to the sink, but opening the faucet produced nothing. This place was beautiful, sad, and every bit as dead as its previous owner.

“We had some wonderful dinners in here. Confit de canard, pommes de terres sarladaises, lettuce and tomatoes straight from Aunt Bernadette’s garden… You don’t taste food like that in England.”

“Fab. Jean-Marc, we can’t live in this.”

“Come see the living room.”

Jean-Marc bounded to the far end of the room through an open doorway. His eyes were twinkling. Haley couldn’t see his eyes, of course, in this dank dusty cavern of a house, but she knew they were twinkling. She could feel them twinkle. Phillip had opened a drawer and extracted a large carving knife with which he began to demonstrate his skills with a broadsword. Emilie had not moved from the spot where Haley had set her down.

“Phillip, drop that. Come, both of you, let’s see what your father has found in there. Perhaps a dead badger.”

The living room was a lovely, well-proportioned expanse of pink and cream striped wallpaper, punctuated by three windows, a door and another fireplace. Haley couldn’t help but smile. It was every inch a living room for a French Great Aunt Bernadette. The pink sofa matched the wallpaper, nearly, and was by some theory complemented or offset by two avocado green upholstered chairs perched to either side of the fireplace. They gave the impression of guards, great green mastiffs flanking the doily-draped mantelpiece as if it were the entrance to hell.

“It’s a great room,” she said weakly, already imagining the enormous task of putting it right. Dust out, wallpaper off, most of the furniture to be burned without mercy, with the exception of that enormous wooden sideboard perhaps, and the wicker-seated chair in the corner. Carpet up – what might be lurking underneath that carpet? Floorboards like those in the kitchen, she hoped.

Color would be a challenge. Triple aspect, but with small windows, so not all that much light. Southern climate, but cold winters. It was the living room, where they’d be sitting by the fireplace in winter, so a warm color would be nice, but with little light she couldn’t go too dark. An ochre of some sort – she could use natural pigments in a lime wash to give it a good warm southern farmhouse look, something almost Tuscan. Yes, she’d do something with this place, restore it to its former glory. That’s what she came here for, wasn’t it? An adventure, an escape, a chance to sink her teeth into a new life and live, at least for a time, in the sort of place you usually only read about in novels? Her life had become so damned ordinary. This place, something between Jean de Florette and Gormenghast, was anything but ordinary. And it was anything but clean.

“This really could be a great room. But Jean-Marc, seriously. Do you have any idea how much work it will take to make this place habitable? We can’t just move in like that. Not with the children.”

Jean-Marc smiled. “Ah, but I am married to an art restorer, aren’t I.”

“I do paintings, not ruins…”

“Don’t worry, we have two weeks in the gîte first, plenty of time. You have to see the view. You can see half of France from here.”

Haley peered out the window. Half of France seemed to be covered in a granular fog until she swung the dusty window open and leaned out, letting a little gasp escape as she did so. The view – rolling hills, farmland, woodland, scattered old stone farmhouses, an absurdly perfect tableau of a hundred shades of green capped by searing blue sky – was marred only by gentle convex arc of black cables spanning the distance between a corner of the house and large electric pole at the edge of the road.

Jean-Marc came up behind her, placing his hands on her hips and kissing the back of her head. That thick tumble of flaming red hair was what had caught his eye when they had first met. Her beautiful hair, and the large 13th century wood carving of Christ that she and a grubby-looking man in overalls were loading into a van. Had the vicar not intervened before he called the police, he and Haley might not be married today.

“La France profonde. It doesn’t get more authentic than this, ma biche.”

“Anything but biche, sweeheart,’ she answered gently, “you know what that sounds like in English.”

This was a new habit, she thought to herself. Since a few weeks before they left England, Jean-Marc had started using French pet names for her, and peppering his nearly flawless if sometimes unidiomatic English with French expressions. She hadn’t yet decided whether it was charming or a bit annoying. Both, she concluded, but she wasn’t about to be called his biche all day.

“We’re not in England anymore, are we?”

No, they certainly weren’t. Haley smiled again.

“In Occitan, ‘my doe’ would be ‘ma cervia.’ Is that better?”

Haley laughed. “We’ll have to work on it, darling. Cervia makes me sound like a cheap Spanish beer.”

“Are you happy?”

Haley leaned back into her husband and let him wrap his arms around her. They had talked so long about getting the children out of London, at least for a while, and this was as far out of London as one could imagine this side of Abu Dhabi. A new life, even if a temporary one. It was daunting.

“We’ll need the kitchen, a bathroom and two bedrooms knocked about a bit before we can move in. And a very thorough clean. And a trip to Ikea.”

“Ma petite anglaise, we’re going to have a wonderful year.” Haley glanced down at the bramble-covered slope that stretched away from the house towards the road; she could just identify the disintegrating corner of one of the shutters emerging from the tangle below her.

Before she could respond, Jean-Marc gave her another quick kiss and let go of her.

“We have to go say hello to Mme Hugon. Children! Let’s go see the farm up the road. They have chickens.”

Haley started to object that they hadn’t even seen the rest of the house yet, but she caught herself. The downstairs was already more than she could take in. The rest would keep until later; if there were any more unpleasant surprises lurking in one of the bedrooms, she didn’t want to know about it just yet.

Jean-Marc swept Emilie into his arms and headed for the front door, Haley and Phillip following behind. She stopped for a moment just outside the door to let her eyes adjust to the blinding sunlight. After the cool darkness of the half shuttered house, the outside air felt rich and warm in her lungs, silky on her skin. These old houses, Jean-Marc had promised, stay cool in summer and warm in winter. But then again Jean-Marc was full of promises these days:

“Le Bousquet is impeccable – a little dusting and we can move right in.”

“My family is Villeneuvoise since before the Revolution – the villagers will welcome you like one of their own.”

“A few months in the village school and Phillip’s French will be perfect. The children are going to love it.”

Haley had never questioned it, at least not openly. She was used to seeing Jean-Marc’s enthusiasm get the better of him. But France – she’d been before, plenty of times, if not to this part then at least as close as Montpellier. But that was the Med. That was a city. This… well, this was stunning, at least. She’d give him that.

Phillip was a good fifty yards ahead of them by the time they rounded the corner and stepped onto the road. Emilie trotted happily in front of her parents, not entirely clear on whether she wanted to catch up to her brother or not, but happy at least to be out of that strange, dark, untidy house. She didn’t want to visit that house again; Papa had said something about his aunt, but as far as she was concerned, Papa’s aunt would do better to visit them in the pretty, clean little house they had slept in last night. It smelled funny, and Mama wasn’t happy about the bathroom being under too much pressure, just like she sometimes complained about Papa being under too much pressure, which was when he was grumpy, but a bathroom couldn’t really get grumpy so perhaps Mama was just confused. But at least that house was cleaner, and there was a swing set.

Haley and Jean-Marc walked side by side, separated at ground level by a line of grass and weeds forming a ridge down the middle of the crackled asphalt. Jean-Marc was telling stories again, memories of the few times as a child when his family came to visit great aunt Bernadette, including a momentous week when he and his sisters stayed with her on their own.

“Whenever she found us annoying, which was most mornings, she would tell us to go see if we could help Madame Hugon. Tante Bernadette. She was, well, you could say she was a difficult woman. Difficult. Ah, but Madame Hugon. She never came up to our house, but we were always welcome to come look at the animals and hide from our aunt. She gave us walnut cake. Gateau aux noix is a very Quercynois little cake, you’ll love it.”

Approaching Le Bouquet bas, Haley was again struck by how well-maintained it looked. Lavender-filled flower beds, glossy red shutters, even the mortar between the Cotswold-style stones looked fresh. Next to the old-style but newly-made front door with double-glazed window panes, a rectangular ceramic plate, clearly hand-made, hung from a nail on a leather cord. “Littlewood.”

“Um, Jean-Marc, how old was this Madame Hugon when you last visited?”

Jean-Marc puffed and thought.

“Well, I don’t know, she seemed very old, but I was only twelve the last time we came. You know, every adult seems old at that age. Her hair was grey, I remember that.”

“Thirty-five years ago?”

The front door opened, startling Jean-Marc and a thin, attractive woman stepped out. Her age was difficult to guess – her hair was blond but not naturally so, her breasts pointed skyward but clearly with some advanced technological help, and while her skin suggested she was somewhere in her fifties, her long slender legs would have been the envy of women half that. Whatever her age, the pain she took to conceal it suggested that it was higher than she was likely to ever admit under anything less than Guantanamo-like conditions.

“Eh, b-b-b-bonjour madame,” began Jean-Marc, put off balance by the appearance of this clearly-not-Mme-Hugon person at Mme Hugon’s front door. “Jean-Marc Delors. Je cherche Madame Hugon, est-ce qu’elle est la?”

“Bonjour,” the woman, smiling uncertainly. “My francais n’est pas very, pas tres bien.”

“You’re English?” interjected Haley. Her face relaxed and her smile widened.

“Oh thank goodness. My French is horrid. Can I help you?”

Jean-Marc continued to stare, looking like a little boy who’s just opened a brightly wrapped Christmas present only to find a new pair of socks inside.

“Who’s at the door, love?” came a loud voice from inside. Behind the woman appeared a man of roughly the same height but easily twice the girth.

“My name’s Haley, and this is my husband Jean-Marc. We’re the owners of Le Bousquet. Well, of the other Le Bousquet.”

“Oh, well hello, how good of you to come by. We’ve wondered for ages who owned it. People said the owner died years ago.”

Jean-Marc shook off his disappointment at Madame Hugon’s demise – of course, of course, she’d have to be about 110 by now – and answered “My Great Aunt – the house has been in my family for many generations.” For the moment, being able to play the lord of the manor and trot out a line like that more than compensated for the death of a cherished but distant childhood memory. “So you have only recently moved in?”

“Three years now,” chimed in the man standing just behind her. “Seems like just yesterday.”

Jean-Marc held out a hand, trying hard to forgive these people for being so unFrench. “You are Mr. Littlewood, I presume? Jean-Marc Delors.”

“Arthur Bunting,” he answered, vigorously shaking Jean-Marc’s hand.

“And I’m Miranda, so pleased to meet you.”

“Ah, I assumed…” Jean-Marc glanced at the little plaque by the door.

Miranda laughed.

“No, Littlewood, that’s not us, it’s the house. Le Bousquet, it means little wood in old French, doesn’t it? That’s what the estate agent told us anyway. Arthur would have preferred Dunroamin,’ wouldn’t you Arthur?” She gave him a teasing sort of nudge with her hip. Arthur puffed out his cheeks a little, but said nothing to interpret the gesture as either an affirmative or a negative.

“But I loved the idea of naming it Littlewood,” she continued. It’s so homey and rural but still respectful of the local customs.”

“Le Bou…bou…bou…” Jean-Marc paused to catch his breath before trying again. “Le B…b…b…”

“Le Bousquet is actually Occitan” Haley interposed before Jean-Marc managed to get his stutter under control. Whatever he thought, these were going to be their nearest neighbors for the coming year, and she was determined that neither intellectual rigor nor national pride was going to muddy the waters.  “It’s not technically old French; it’s closer to Catalan than anything else. And the old people still speak it around here; it’s having a sort of renaissance, actually.” Haley had patiently listened to enough of Jean-Marc’s impassioned discourses about the revival of Occitan to be able to tell the story for him. She could have gone on for ages had she not noticed Arthur and Miranda’s eyes beginning to glaze over.

“Really? Can’t say that I’ve heard it, but then Arthur and my French isn’t exactly fab. You have done your homework, though, haven’t you?”

“Occitan is Jean-Marc’s specialty” she added, exaggerating a bit her look of pride in the hopes of keeping Jean-Marc politely mute. “He’s taking a year’s sabbatical to write a book about it. That’s why we’re here.”

“How interesting. Now, is this a hobby, or…?”

“He’s a professor at UCL. Comparative Medieval Studies.”

“Really?” Miranda gave him a funny look, something between amusement and alarm.

“That stutter can’t help, can it?” Arthur spurted out. Miranda turned bright red.

“Arthur!”

“Just being honest, Rand. He’s not offended, are you Marc?”

Haley gave Jean-Marc’s arm a little rub, a consolation tinged with warning. Taking a deep breath, he managed a smile and replied “Bien sur, of course, no offense taken.” The look of disdain on his face said otherwise, but only Haley seemed to notice.

“I’m a little blunt sometimes.”

“Arthur is from Hull,” added Miranda, looking more than a little satisfied at the explanation.

“Yes, darling.”

“Mum, come look at this!” Haley hadn’t noticed her son’s absence until he raced out across the grass from behind the house.”

“Phillip! You can’t just go wandering around these nice people’s garden. I’m so sorry, he’s just very excited.”

“Well he’s not adopted, is he?” laughed Arthur, staring at Phillip’s red hair.

Haley forced a smile. Did everyone have to say that?

“Yes, he’s got my eyes, hasn’t he?” she answered.

“They’ve got a playground, mum, it’s amazing. Sandpit and a slide and a climbing tower with ropes and everything.”

“We built a playground for our grandchildren,” Miranda explained, a slightly forced dreamy look passed over her face. “They come every summer. Arthur spoils them.”

Emilie ran to Phillip and they disappeared again around the corner.

“It’s very safe,” Miranda continued, misjudging Haley’s look of concern. “They’re welcome anytime – we both love children. They’re not afraid of dogs are they? Grimsby is very good with children.”

“Emilie frightens a bit easily, perhaps I should just check, if you don’t mind.”

“No, no, come around, come have a look.”

Miranda and Arthur both stepped out the front door and led Haley and Jean-Marc to the back of the house, where a covered patio cast a cool shadow over a teak dining table and half a dozen chairs. Beyond was a small swimming pool, neatly fenced and surrounded by a meticulously groomed planter filled with lavender. The lawn was freshly mowed, and little gravel paths led of in different directions in what amounted to a small park. To one side, a small duck pond with a faux-marble fountain in the center. To the other, a small neat vegetable garden. And behind the pool, a perfect little playground, where Haley spotted the children running happily alongside an enormous collie. Beyond was the large fenced field that spanned the distance between the road and the woodland farther downhill, where about twenty sheep grazed with complete indifference.

“Well,” said Jean-Marc, his voice sounding slightly manic in his attempt at being affable, “it has certainly changed from when I was last here.”

“So you’ve been here before, then? How long ago what that?”

“Too long,” he answered, without elaboration. “C’est pas possible, Emilie is chasing the dog. She’s quite afraid of dogs.”

“Oh, no one’s afraid of Grimsby once they get to know her. Purebred collie, she is. A real princess. Have a seat. Miranda, sit them down and be charming, I’m just going pop in and get us a little something to drink. Rosé all right?”

“We really don’t want to be a bother,” began Haley, but in truth, to sit here, outside, with happy children and no year-long DIY project menacing them from all sides sounded blissful.

“No bother, no bother at all,” shouted Arthur as he disappeared into the kitchen. Jean-Marc looked at his watch, disoriented, but allowed himself to be led over to a chair on the terrace. It was only four o’clock, not quite apero time. But then… les anglais. He’d spent his entire adult life on that foggy, permanently inebriated island and was accustomed to their unpredictable drinking habits. The shade felt wonderful, though – he had grown unused to the force of the southern summer sun – and a cool drink wouldn’t hurt.

“So you’ve inherited the house? How wonderful! And how long are you staying?”

“A year, to start with. And then we’ll be back for holidays, of course.”

“Wonderful. The summer here is so gorgeous. Winter’s a bit quiet, but I expect with your husband’s book and doing up the house you’ll have enough to keep you busy.”

“I don’t imagine being bored…”

“Right, here we are.” Arthur’s voice boomed across the terrace as he emerged carrying a tray of wine glasses, a bottle, and a bowl of pretzels. “Chateau Plonk, the Lot’s finest.” He set the tray down and emptied the bottle of rose into four cavernous glasses. “They do great rosés here,” Arthur added, looking directly at Jean-Marc. “Good rich dark rosés, a bit sweet. I can’t stand those tinny ones from Provence. Like drinking petrol. Well, cheers, welcome to the neighborhood.”

“Chin chin,” added Miranda, smiling sweetly at Jean-Marc as they all clinked glasses. Haley took a sip, swallowed, and glanced at Jean-Marc. She could seem him doing his best not to wince. She was no connoisseur, and could never be sure of what wine Jean-Marc would like, but she could spot one he’d hate. She couldn’t help but smile though – after all his brave talk, this was good for him. Loud, brusque but thoroughly kind retired English people, with a Leeds accent, no less, people who spoke no French and didn’t know Occitan from a bar of scented soap… it was pretty much the last thing any of them expected to have next door. It was probably the last thing Jean-Marc would want.

But as the afternoon drifted by, and a second bottle was opened, and the pretzel bowl refilled, she began to see it all. This life here, this year in the sun, their great adventure was starting to seem somehow manageable. The next couple of months would be hard. The house, getting the kids settled into the local school, polishing up her French, making friends, it would all be work. But looking around, she felt nothing but hope. The children were laughing and playing, shuttling back and forth between playground, dog and duck pond. Jean-Marc was on his third glass, laughing more loudly than usual, sharing horror stories of academic life the Arthur and openly admiring Miranda’s legs. Miranda was passing along whatever local gossip she knew, and frankly confessing her bewilderment at the local way of life.

“We’ve always said that house needed someone to take proper care of it,” Miranda was saying. Haley hadn’t managed to talk very much at all, but at the moment that suited her fine. “It’s got such… potential.”

Haley glanced up the slope, where she could just make out the outline of Le Bousquet through a line of oaks. Yes, it did have potential. It wasn’t quite dreamy yet, but it would be. With a lot of work, it would be. Their place in the sun, away from London, away from the land of ASBOs, the Underground, Ant and Dec and other peculiarly English horrors. Her children could spend their summers basking in the sun among animals and farmers and forests, their Christmas holidays bringing in firewood and looking for animal tracks in the snow. They would learn to eat duck.

“Doesn’t it though?” she answered quietly, taking another sip of wine. She was already tired just thinking about it. Tired, and nervous, and excited.

Above all, Haley was happy. They were far, far from London and everything they knew. They were far from their normal, everyday life.

And yet, in some odd, not quite definable way, they were home.