Free Plan B by Emily Barr

farmers, and they lived a little way up the hill. From the end of the garden, I could see their farmhouse, across a couple of bare fields. They smiled constantly, and congratulated me, repeatedly, on my French.
    ‘You speak like a Frenchwoman!’ they kept marvelling. I knew this was not true. Either they were being kind, or the reputation of the English as monolinguists was so well established that French people were amazed and impressed that I spoke any French whatsoever.
    I invited them into the house, without thinking. We stepped into the living room. Then I saw their faces as they took it all in. They saw that we were living in a single room, sleeping on a blow-up bed. Clothes and toys were strewn around the floor, and Alice was playing an elaborate game with her dinosaurs in the grate. Her face was smeared with ash and her hands were covered with it.
    I had noticed over the few days we had been here that French children were immaculately turned out at all times. I had no idea how their parents contrived it, but I had yet to see a child in public with a single stain or mark on his or her clothing. All Alice’s clean clothes were drying on radiators after my marathon hand-washing session the previous night, so she was wearing her pyjamas, at eleven in the morning. I saw the scene through their eyes, and put my face in my hands.
    ‘Would you like a drink?’ I managed to ask politely.
    They looked at each other. ‘No thank you,’ said the woman quickly.
    ‘Would you like to come and stay with us?’ asked the man, kindly. ‘We have plenty of rooms now our children have left home. And a hot shower.’
    ‘And a washing machine.’
    I managed to decline. As I tried to say goodbye, I realised I had irretrievably forgotten their names.
    In the afternoon, Alice played with old pans on the kitchen floor while I went through the architect’s plans for the new windows in the back of the house. Monsieur Dumas, the head of the builders’ cooperative, was laughing at the mess in which we were living.
    ‘It can only get better,’ he marvelled, as the rain dripped into a bucket at our feet. I had tidied up for their visit, but they would never have believed that if I had tried to tell them.
    All the forms were apparently in order, and we were ready to apply for planning permission for the windows. Both Monsieur Dumas and the architect were convivial, and we understood each other with a mixture of languages and a dictionary. I knew no French building terms, and most of the key words that were being bandied about were not in the dictionary, but mime seemed to be doing the trick. I was looking forward to the new windows. Suddenly, half the house would be usable; and life might become a little bit more bearable. At least there would be plenty of space for visitors.
    Monsieur Dumas handed me a sheaf of forms to sign. After purchasing the car, I knew exactly what was going to come next. He peered at my first signature.
    ‘Em-ma Meadows?’ he asked, looking at me, puzzled. He frowned slightly. Like all the other Frenchmen I had seen in the past week, he was clean-shaven and well turned out. ‘But we have here Monsieur et Madame Smith.’ He pronounced it ‘Schmidt’. They both stared at me, waiting for an explanation. I sighed.
    ‘We’re not married,’ I told him, and watched both men’s surprise registering on their faces. ‘In England it’s not at all rare. There are many families where the parents aren’t married. We will get married soon.’
    There were raised eyebrows and uncertain nods. ‘Perhaps it’s best if Monsieur Schmidt signs the forms?’ suggested the architect.
    I smiled. ‘OK. Leave them with me. He’ll be back soon.’
    ‘MummEEEEEE,’ said Alice, tugging at my jumper. ‘Mummy. I’m bored. I want to go to school. I want to go back to our house. I want to go play with Lily. Mummy. Play with me. I want Daddy.’
    There was a crunch of tyres on the gravel outside. I rushed to the window, but it was