‘We’d all come and stay often,’ I said with a grin, ‘if you got a house somewhere gorgeous like that.’
‘We’d move in,’ said Gray. I looked at him quizzically and he winked back.
Steve laughed. ‘Ha! I’d charge you rent!’
‘Maybe we should all just chip in and buy a place big enough for all of us,’ Gray said. ‘Sell up here, buy ourselves a whopping great property over there that’s big enough for all our kids to visit us, and retire in style.’
There was laughter around the table, but Gray looked at each of us in turn. ‘No, really, why don’t we? Makes perfect sense. It’d be more economical overall – shared bills and all that. Property is cheaper there than here – at least cheaper than it is in the south of England. And imagine the lifestyle – we’d be out cycling and walking, skiing in the winter, growing our own veg. We should do it now, while we’re still fit enough. None of us have jobs to keep us here anymore.’
‘We could employ a cleaner,’ Manda said, ever the practical one.
‘And a gardener. And a chef.’ Phil grinned.
‘We could keep chickens and have fresh eggs every day.’ Steve’s eyes lit up. He’s such a foodie.
‘I’d get a dog.’ I’d always wanted one.
‘Can I have a horse? Let’s get a place with stables,’ Manda said, to a bit of eye-rolling from Steve.
‘It’d need somewhere to store all our bikes,’ Gray, our resident cyclist, chipped in.
‘There needs to be plenty of spare rooms for guests. Our kids would want to come to stay.’ Me, again.
‘Imagine at Christmas! All of us together – we’d have a ball!’ Steve said – actually, if he wasn’t a bloke, I’d have said he squealed this.
We were all speaking at once. The idea had taken shape, invaded all of our minds, and yes, the quantity of wine consumed had helped but as the conversation went on, I could see it taking root. At some point Gray and Steve both pulled out their phones and began searching for properties to buy.
‘You can get an eight-bedroom château for about a million euro,’ Gray said, peering at a list of search results. ‘That’s about the right size for us five plus visiting kids.’
‘We could afford that, if we all sold our houses here. That’s two hundred thousand per person. Your place is worth, what, six hundred thou?’ Steve looked at me and Phil.
‘About that, yes. And the mortgage is paid off.’
‘So you two put in four hundred, that’s euro not pounds, and you’d still have a huge wodge of cash over. Manda and I do the same, Gray puts in two hundred.’
‘Look at this place! It’s got a medieval defensive wall!’
‘This one’s got a tower, like something from a fairy tale.’
‘Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair!’
‘Who’s Rapunzel? Steve’s bald as a coot, can’t be him!’ Manda teased.
‘You, dearest! Always wanted you to grow your hair long!’
We were passing phones around, looking at the various large properties currently on sale across France. There certainly seemed to be a lot of intriguing-looking châteaux that were within the ball-park price range Steve had suggested. It was a fun evening, and as we indulged ourselves in this little fantasy of selling up and moving to France together we laughed and joked and I felt so happy and comfortable with my friends around me.
It’d never happen, of course. It was just a bit of a giggle, a way to spend the evening with lots of laughter. That was all. We were all far too settled in our current homes and towns. And I, for one, was not good enough at French to be able to manage living abroad.
We’d met during Freshers’ week, the five of us. We’d all gone to the Clubs and Societies Fair, and had signed up for the Mountaineering Club. The county of Sussex does not actually contain any mountains of course, but the club arranged weekends away travelling by minibus to north Wales, the Lake District, Brecon or the Peak District for camping, walking and climbing trips. The first meeting of the term was at the end of Freshers’ week, where first-years were welcomed and the programme for the term was laid out. I signed up immediately for a trip a fortnight later to Langdale in the Lake District. So did Manda, and we agreed to share a tent. By the end of the meeting we were chatting with the other first-years – Phil, Gray and Steve – and the five of us decided to go on to one of the student bars for a beer. And that was it. We bonded. We were practically inseparable from that moment on, sharing digs during the second and third years, although it wasn’t till after university that Phil and I finally paired up, closely followed by Steve and Manda.
‘No one left for me,’ Gray had said, with a mock-tremble of his lower lip. He was best man at both weddings. And there was never any shortage of girlfriends for him throughout the years. Melissa was the one who lasted longest. They never married but had two daughters together before splitting up when the kids were little. Gray shared custody of the girls with Melissa, having them for half of every week throughout their childhood. He was a great dad. Then there was Leanne who lasted a while, but Gray’s commitment phobia sadly finished that relationship in the end.
Phil and I had two kids as well – our sons Tom and Alfie. And Manda and Steve had their daughter Zoe. All were now grown-up, finished with university, earning a living, flying high and happy in their chosen lifestyles. They didn’t really need us much anymore, other than for the occasional loan from the Bank
