‘Work?’ I say, aiming for a bit of solidarity.
‘None of your business,’ she snaps.
She’s right, but it still smarts.
An hour later we pull into Camping Nature L’Ombrage and I feel a sense of relief run through me. The site is pretty – although busy, it’s spread over seventeen acres and each camper or tent is given a secluded spot, set against a backdrop of beautiful foliage. There’s a pool and decent showers and I glance at Sarah to see whether she approves. But her face remains closed; still too hard to read.
As we make our way to our pitch, we pass a family. The father is carrying a small boy on his shoulders and both boy and mother are laughing. Her arm is reaching up to touch the boy’s leg as if to reassure herself he’s safe. And I’m not sure why but I feel my eyes sting with threatening tears.
To our mutual relief, Sébastien instantly bounds off to explore, leaving us on our own for the first time in hours. I help Sarah settle onto a chair, then stand, looking at her. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say.
She shrugs. ‘He’s OK. It’s just… you know, it’s a lot. It wasn’t the best surprise to find you’d invited him.’ Her voice sounds small, tired.
‘Believe me, I wish I could uninvite him now. Just another instance of me not thinking it through.’
She nods.
‘What’s up? I mean, other than being interrogated about your love life for three hours by an enthusiastic stranger?’
She looks down, and I think at first she’s going to mention the leg, but she doesn’t. ‘I asked Louis,’ she says. ‘I sent him a text earlier to see if he was OK. And he called. You know, I didn’t mention anything about your conversation before, but…’ She shrugs and I get it. She wanted to see if he’d confide in her.
She turns towards me, her eyes sharp. I can suddenly see her in court. Wig on. Addressing a judge or a jury. Although if I’m honest, I’m not sure if she ever does this, or what she wears in court if she does go. ‘When you and Louis had a conversation,you told me… well, it was about intimate stuff… Was it? Or did he tell you… you know, his news?’
Now I’m totally confused. ‘News?’
‘So he didn’t tell you anything?’
‘Nothing that you’d call news… no.’
Sarah studies my face for a moment, brow furrowed. Then, when she’s carried out whatever analysis of my expression she feels is necessary, her shoulders relax as if she’s finally accepting that I’ve told her the truth.
‘Hal, Summer’s pregnant.’
17
SARAH
So there it is, I’m going to be a grandmother. I know that it’s good news in almost every sense of the word – Louis and Summer are twenty-two and while it’s young, it’s not disastrously young like it was for Hal and me. They’re in love, they’re getting married. They’re having a baby. These are all good things.
At least, they are as long as Louis – or both of them, obviously – are happy about it. And that’s something you can’t ask, is it? Certainly not by text. When he told me, I sent immediate congratulations, together with a picture of a champagne bottle that my phone provider suggested. What I wanted to say was, ‘Are you OK about it?’, ‘Is Summer?’ and ‘Was it planned?’
But these worries are mixed up too with my own feelings – I’m thirty-nine, an age where lots of my friends are still on the cusp of things. Some are mothers trying for a second, some are married. Some are still single, still determined to find the right relationship and settle down. They are in the stage of life classed as ‘young’.
Somehow, in the same amount of years, I’ve had a baby, watched him grow into a man, and now I’m mother-of-the-groom and prospective grandmother. Both of these descriptions conjure a mental picture of a woman in her fifties at least, dressed in a flowery hat and matching dress. A side character in a drama at best. Not someone you expect anything interesting to happen to.
I’m not sure whether I’d ordinarily be able to shake this off. Remind myself that this is just a stereotype, that I haven’t missed the happiness boat when it comes to relationships or even family – women have babies well into their forties these days. But the combination of the leg and fatigue that seems to have engulfed me over the past couple of days is weighing on me, and I feel about 102.
Sébastien borrowed Hal’s spare sleeping bag to sleep under the stars, next to the camper, so we had a bit of privacy last night. But although I’d hoped to talk to Hal properly about how he’s feeling about Louis and whether he’s worried at all about our son’s sudden transition to full-blown adulthood, I felt myself being dragged into sleep. The painkillers are strong, they knock out the feeling, but they also mess with my head and make me drowsy.
This morning, when I woke up, Hal and Sébastien were already sitting outside at the table, eating bacon sandwiches that Hal had cooked on his tiny portable stove. The smell of them makes my stomach rumble, so I pull on an enormous cardigan over my pyjamas and gingerly make my way from the bed to Betty’s door.
The pair of them look at me when I exit, and I feel a bit like a child walking into the room where her parents are dining.
‘How did you sleep?’ Hal asks.
‘Coffee?’ Sébastien offers at the same time.
They’ve clearly been up for a while, based on the fact that there’s a bag of shopping at Hal’s feet and their mugs are empty. I wonder what they find to talk about between them and hope to God it’s not me. But I’m sure I’ve come up.
