Katie Jones is twenty-one and embarking on her year abroad, working as a groom for a French family. She can't wait to get started, but things never seem to go smoothly for Katie. Juggling the challenges of a foreign language, four uncooperative hors...
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either products of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
SUNDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 1997
It was a simple enough question. Even in French.
I gazed back into Séverine's blue eyes, feeling my cheeks flush a little. I didn't know what to say. She settled down beside me.
"Your boyfriend in England," she prompted again, tucking one slim leg underneath the other as she folded herself into the armchair beside me. "What's he like?"
There was nothing hard about the question. It was just that, as always, I felt immediately awkward at the prospect of sharing intimate details with a near stranger, and wondered what on earth I could tell her. "Well, um, he's great," I ventured eventually.
"Go on," she pressed. "Tell me more! How did you meet? How long have you been together? Was it love at first sight? Details!" She bounced up and down a little on her chair and I couldn't help smiling. I relaxed a little into my own chair beside her and took a deep breath.
"Well, we met at university. And it certainly wasn't love at first sight, well not for me anyway." Realising that sounded a little harsh on poor Sam, and catching a look of surprise on Séverine's face, I continued hastily. "What I mean is, we were just friends for ages really. We got on like a house on fire straight away, always going out drinking together. Then, in our second year we shared a house together and, I don't know. Things changed."
I smiled, the memories pulling at my heart strings a little. Séverine grinned at me and took a sip of her drink. "We eventually got together, and there you go. Here we are nearly a year later, still together."
"A year! Wow, so is it love?" she prompted.
"Well, I guess so. I mean, probably." I felt horribly uncomfortable talking about such things but gritted my teeth and tried to bear it. She was French, after all. I had to give her some leeway.
"So what's he like? Tall, dark, handsome? The classic English hero?" she prompted hopefully. I spluttered a little into my coke and had to wipe my mouth hastily, feeling extremely gauche.
"Hardly! No, he's actually rather short, quite stocky and kind of blond haired. I wouldn't say he's handsome, but he's got a nice face. He smiles a lot, and makes other people smile. Here."
I pulled out a crumpled photo of the two of us at a social a few months earlier. He was wearing his favourite rugby shirt, holding aloft a pint of lager that was swilling over at the sides, cheering towards the camera. I was tucked under his arm, laughing and gazing up at him. We looked pretty loved up. It was a good night; lots of happy memories and good friends. Séverine took the photo from me and inspected it avidly while I took a much needed slurp of my drink.
