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EPILOGUE – PART ONE

E IGHT YEARS LATER

MATTHEW

‘The ants are back.’ Matthew stands in the garden by the smaller barn, watching the creatures march towards his vine.

Ever since they moved to France, the ants across the region seem to have conspired to mock him. He imagines them having little meetings in their horrible little anthills. Laughing at him. Let’s go torture the Englishman.

Sally strides across from her herb patch and leans forward. ‘There aren’t that many. Come away.’

‘There are millions , Sally. Did you not read that article I sent you?’

Just last week, Matthew had found a newspaper feature about a town in the north-west of France which had become completely overrun by ants. Nasty, bitey ants. An infestation lasting years. It was like something from a horror movie.

Sally starts to laugh.

‘Don’t laugh at me. This is serious. This is going to affect the value of the property. And the rental potential, if we really are going back to Devon.’

But she carries on laughing, tilting her head and shielding her eyes from the sun. And as he watches her with her golden tan and her soft freckles, he forgets himself. Thinks, as he so often does, how much France suits her. And soon he is sighing. His mind drifting.

And then finally smiling too.

‘Come inside and have some wine. I can see Mel’s car. Look.’ She signals to the road winding from the distant farm and Matthew lets out a huff. Mel and the family visit every summer and they’ve had cherished times. Healing times.

They’ve been on a day trip, he doesn’t remember where, and it’s their last evening so Sally wants to spoil them. A supper outside in the courtyard with candles and the fairy lights she’s strung across the mellow stone of the larger barn which is their home. She will go to a lot of trouble as she always does for Mel and Tom and George. He can already smell the beef stewing in wine. And Sally is carrying a basket of edible flowers to dress the salad. Berries for the cheesecake. Grapes for the cheese board.

She loves the garden here. All the different things she can grow in the warmer climate. The many flowers this sunshine nurtures. The rich orange of the campsis (he calls it ‘the triffid’) weighing down the pergola over the courtyard dining table.

Hard to believe the difference from eight years back. It was a complete wreck when they bought this place. He remembers telling the estate agent they were looking for a ‘doer upper’ but when they were first shown around he whispered to Sally that it was more of a ‘falling downer’. Two barns, one large and one much smaller, with a courtyard between and two acres. But it was what they both needed back then. A project. A fresh page. Something to fill their days. And their minds.

He’s done a lot of the building work himself, enjoying the hard labour and the company of the tradespeople he’s employed to help along the way. The plumbers and the electricians. The plasterer and the ironmonger who’s done special commissions for them. A beautiful black gate into the courtyard and large hooks for the hanging baskets. Many of the builders have become new friends who congregate in the courtyard for Sally’s Friday night suppers.

She’s returned to property management these past four years. Set up her own little company which manages the rental of their second converted barn and some other local properties too. It’s worked well.

They thought at one point that they would stay for good. But apparently not.

Matthew puts his hand to his forehead to shield the sunshine and watch Mel’s car wind its way along the narrow approach road. She remains his best friend in the world. But sometimes when he sees her, it is hard. It all comes back.

That moment when the police team came from the caravan near the woods.

And shook their heads.