‘I’d rather you didn’t spend half your holiday doing job applications, true. But I do understand that you can’t control when the jobs come up. What I do have a problem with is that you seem to have become obsessed with it. Obsessed to the point that you’ve neglected our daughter.’ It was his turn to point at Amy. ‘And I don’t just mean today either. How often have you been swimming with her or read her a story since we’ve been here? You couldn’t even spare five minutes to sit and watch her cartoon this morning because you had something more important to do.’
He looked at her, eyes narrowing, then glanced over her shoulder, only just seeming to register that she had come from the direction of the grounds, not the terrace, which was her usual place to work.
‘What were you doing anyway?’
‘Nothing! I was . . . I was walking around the garden. Is it so bad that I need five minutes to myself sometimes?’ She felt herself grimace. Was that really the best she could come up with?
‘Amy, it’s not that—’
‘All right, David, I get it,’ she said, cutting him off. ‘I’m the world’s worst parent and I almost killed our daughter.’
Anger flared in his eyes, then his expression softened.
‘I know you’re under pressure,’ he said, taking a step forward, arms reaching for her.
‘I don’t need your bloody sympathy, David,’ she growled, dodging his approach.
‘Amy, I was only trying to—’
‘I know what you were trying to do,’ she snapped, stalking back up the steps towards the terrace. ‘I’m going to check on Tilly.’
‘Amy, please,’ said David to her back. But she just kept on walking.
Chapter 16
Amy wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but the lavender festival was astonishingly lavender-heavy: stalls selling lavender soap, lavender scent, lavender pillows; even the baguettes on the bakery stall were lavender-infused. There was a parade of local farmers in traditional dress: berets, waistcoats and knotted kerchiefs for him, full skirts and bonnets for her, all driving tractors or horse-drawn wagons, each decorated with huge armfuls of lavender or sculptures of stags and horses twisted from the stalks. Tilly and the twins loved the spectacle, running around in circles, whooping and laughing. The only thing they didn’t like was the ice cream, which tasted of flowers.
Josie trailed in their wake and Amy stole glances at her, then at David, when she knew she would be unobserved. She had been stewing on the bra, on their argument, for days. If they were having an affair, then they were damned blasé about it: the only time Amy saw David look at Josie was when he asked her if Tilly was wearing sunscreen. Still, what did that actually mean? One kind of deception was the same as any other, right? If you were capable of shagging in the wife’s bed when she was a few dozen steps away, then pretending you had an entirely professional relationship the rest of the time would be a breeze.
Amy clenched her teeth and tried to put it out of her mind. There was nothing she could do about it now. She followed the rest of the straggling group through the stalls and up towards the lavender fields, where, according to the brochure handed out at the entrance, the highlight of the festival – the harvesting contest – would take place. A circular section of field to one side of the festival grounds had apparently been left unshorn, so that the most burly sons of the soil could wield the traditional scythe against the clock; there was even a grandstand positioned to ensure no one would miss the action.
Tilly had run on ahead and came back reporting in a disappointed voice that ‘the flowers are all gone’. Another glance at the leaflet – exclusively in French, of course – revealed that the contest was over, having been sensibly run earlier in the day before the sun was too high.
‘Ah well,’ said Juliet. ‘At least we get free lavender.’
A side benefit was that the rest of the field was open for visitors to wander up and down the long rows of lavender and pick as much as they wanted. Max and Peter took one look at the flowers and agreed that they would find a stall that sold wine: ‘not lavender wine’. David, Claire, Josie and the children followed, leaving Amy and Juliet alone.
‘This is amazing,’ said Juliet, taking a deep inhalation. ‘It’s good to get out of the villa, out of town.’
‘Hmm,’ said Amy, still distracted.
‘How are you feeling?’ said Juliet intuitively. ‘You’ve been quiet all week. David said you weren’t well the other day.’
‘I’m just stressed,’ Amy said with a wave of her hand.
‘Have you been taking the BlissVit?’
‘I have, actually, though maybe I need Dr Al Saraf to up the dose.’
‘Are you sure everything is okay?’ Juliet persisted. ‘I mean with you and David? There seems to have been a bit of an atmosphere the last few days.’
‘It’s fine. He just thinks I’m obsessed with work.’
‘Well he’s right about that, isn’t he?’ Juliet smiled.
Amy paused, then looked at her friend. She had to talk about it with someone, had to let it out or it was going to eat a hole in her brain.
‘What do you think of Josie?’ she said finally.