Page 13

After her fight with Pascal and subsequent phone call with Amber, Becky didn’t feel like coming out of her room.

The last thing she wanted to do was face him, or have him see her face all red and streaked with tears.

Eventually though, she became so hungry that she thought she might begin to gnaw the woodwork; it was time to take a risk.

She searched ‘local restaurants’ on her phone, but details were sparse. Nobody seemed to have a website, and the information thrown up didn’t include any contact details.

Left with no choice, she went to the bathroom and put on enough make-up to hide her red blotches.

Then, wrapping a light coat around her, she crept downstairs as stealthily as a teen sneaking out to see a forbidden boyfriend.

Pascal was in the kitchen, so she crept out the back way instead, across the little patch of grass – another underutilised area – behind the café, then over the small wall onto the patchwork pavement.

It was only nine o’clock – still light and still with enough warmth in the air to make her coat unnecessary after five minutes’ walking.

The main road through the village was flanked either side by stone houses, of various designs.

Some three storeys high, with attic windows open to let the cooler evening air in; others were squat bungalows or renovated barns.

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the design – as if the town had sprouted up organically according to need, with no real central plan.

One or two businesses were tucked along the way – a hairstylist’s bordered by two ordinary houses, then a front for some sort of decorating firm.

A small shop, which had closed at 7p.m., its windows gloomy with no light from within.

She put her face to the glass like Charlie from Roald Dahl’s famous book – wondering what delights she might glimpse inside.

But it looked to be mainly pots of jam and tins of confit, an empty windowed cabinet where perhaps there’d been pastries earlier in the day.

Anyway, what was she going to do? Break in?

She’d had enough food with her for her first evening – a sandwich she’d acquired on the plane that had been too enormous to eat, a couple of glasses of Pascal’s wine and some bread to mop it up with had felt fine.

In Tours, she’d grabbed a few bits and pieces from a small grocery store at the retail park, but now supplies were running low, and she barely had a croissant to her name.

Now she was hungry and too annoyed with Pascal to get off her high horse and ask him where she could get something to eat.

Her phone beeped as she walked along and she looked at it keenly, but it was just an overdue text from her phone company welcoming her to France and reminding her about roaming charges. Still nothing from Amber.

Before she could think too much about the argument and torture herself again with her friend’s words, a smell hit her nostrils and she sniffed the wind like an animal picking up the scent of a tasty piece of prey.

Someone, somewhere, was cooking. Please be a restaurant , she thought. Oh, please be a restaurant.

She turned down a little road just beyond the tiny church with its mismatched stained-glass windows and enormous wooden door, and could just make out a lit-up window with a sign above the door which read: ‘ Chez Régine’ . Jack-bloody-pot, she thought, picking up her pace.

The restaurant was tiny, only served one special, and was almost empty, but it was open.

And that, by this point, was all that mattered.

She walked in and took a seat at one of their small wooden tables, nodding at an elderly couple across the other side of the room.

The smell inside was even more delicious and she was horrified to hear her stomach start to growl audibly, certain that everyone within a ten-metre radius must be able to hear the noise of her digestive juices grumbling.

Then, at last, a woman stood at her side, notebook poised. She looked to be about forty, with a long floral dress, apron around her waist, beautiful wavy hair tied back. She smiled. ‘ Qu’est-ce que je vous sers ?’

And of course, this was where her little bit of French came in handy.

They’d done a whole unit on cafés at school and she could just about work out that she was being asked what she wanted.

She pointed to the specials board. ‘ Le plat du jour ?’ she said.

She wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but she knew it would be food.

And right now, that was enough. ‘ Et un verre du vin rouge,’ she added in her imperfect but hopefully understandable French.

As long as wine would be served, she didn’t much care about her grammar.

Not usually a big drinker, the upset of earlier, the fact she was in a strange place, her eyelid’s determination to keep on flickering now and then, whenever she thought it might have stopped, had tied her insides in knots. A glass of red would help her to relax.

The woman nodded, said something rapidly in French – about the special perhaps?

– and disappeared with a smile. She’d eat whatever she’d ended up ordering, Becky decided.

She looked at the few other patrons: a couple in their seventies, the man pouring the woman a glass of wine from a carafe; another much younger couple, holding hands across the table.

Watching them, it didn’t bother Becky that she was alone; she was used to being single, often popped out for a bite on her own during lunchtime or sometimes in the evening.

The final table was occupied by three women who looked to be in their thirties and were a little more dressed up than the rest of the clientele, in fitted trousers and colourful tops.

They were laughing at something, one of them leaning on another and all completely lost in the moment.

Watching them, Becky felt a sudden longing to call Amber.

Or to be at home in their flat, putting the world to rights with her best friend.

She turned away, feeling suddenly flooded with emotion, not wanting to embarrass herself in this restaurant, which might well be the only one in Vaudrelle.

Without a hire car, she was going to need to come back here frequently if she hung around.

An hour later she made her way a little unsteadily along the dusky road, the light fading and making the houses look more uniform, their colours merging together into an indiscriminate grey.

She passed a couple walking their dog, but otherwise the streets were silent and felt rather eerie.

Her footsteps echoed on the stones of the pavement and she felt strangely isolated.

Lights shone in the windows of houses, the flats above the few shops, but here she was, alone in the shadows.

She shook herself. ‘Just get home and sleep it off,’ she told herself firmly. ‘You’ll feel better in the morning.’

When she reached the café, she let herself in the front door, winding her way around the furniture – the old tables and the new chairs clashing even in the half-light – and made her way to the kitchen.

Pascal was nowhere to be seen – hopefully he’d gone to his room for the night and she could avoid him until tomorrow.

She didn’t know whether she was angry or ashamed, but knew she couldn’t cope with any more conflict tonight.

She’d overeaten a little and her stomach felt uncomfortable. She’d been so hungry that she’d eaten the rather plain-looking, but actually delicious stew she’d been served in hungry gulps, washed down with red wine and followed by an ill-advised mousse-cake for dessert. She’d never sleep like this.

She helped herself to a glass of water from the dispenser on the fridge door and took a few sips. A little light still came through the window – the last of the daylight mixed with the first light from the moon – and rested on the tins of paint she’d stacked in the corner.

Pascal was wrong, she decided. The café needed a makeover and there was nothing wrong with bringing something up to date.

In fact, she’d prove it to him. Suddenly energised, she slipped off her shoes and pulled her hair back with a band she kept on her wrist. Then, before she could overthink it, she lifted one of the paint pots and inspected the colour. It was beautiful, even in this light.

She’d show him. Taking a brush, a palette and the tin, she made her way a little unsteadily through the door to the silent café.

There was no way she’d be able to paint the whole thing, but a few metres of colour would be a great way to prove to Pascal when he came down in the morning that Becky meant business.

She switched on a couple of the low lamps rather than go the whole hog and illuminate the café at this late hour, and dipped in her brush, drawing it across the flat, plastered surface, watching it turn from off-white to a gorgeous deep blue. Then again and again.

But soon she was flooded with tiredness and regret: the paint was thin, the paintbrush poor quality, and her body felt heavy and tired as the wine and the adrenaline wore off. She kept having to revisit her work to pick out hairs and work the paint to get it smooth.

Her back began to sweat, her neck prickled and she began to wish she’d never started. But she had to at least leave it in a reasonable state before she went to bed. ‘Fuck,’ she said to herself as yet another hair came out of the brush and stuck to the badly painted wall.

Bending down to dip the brush in again, she took in the smell of the paint and gagged slightly – it was non-toxic, but still packed quite a heady punch.

She was so tired. And so overfull. And probably a little bit drunk.

Then, out of nowhere, she felt a strange sensation fizz through her limbs; felt her knees buckle.

She grabbed for something, and in her haste upset the tin which spewed its contents across the floor, turning the tiles blue.

Just as her vision began to flicker, she heard her name being called.

Strong hands grabbed her waist and helped her move to a chair where she slumped, her head on the table as the dizziness subsided.

When she finally raised her head, aware that her hair was sweaty and messy, her face red, her body still not quite sure whether it was going to remain conscious, she saw Pascal, dressed in chequered pyjama bottoms and a white T-shirt, hair dishevelled; his eyes filled with concern.

‘Here,’ he said, pushing a glass of water towards her on the table. ‘Drink.’

She lifted the cool glass and drank, feeling how dry her throat was. Finally, she looked at him.

‘What were you doing? It is almost midnight. I thought someone had broken in!’ His voice was tense, but his eyes remained fixed on her; kind, gentle. He was worried, she realised.

‘I know, I just wanted… Needed really to… This wall – I just thought…’ Their eyes met.

‘You are rushing,’ Pascal said simply, putting up his hand and touching her shoulder lightly. ‘First we look after number one. Then we work.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Like on a plane: the mother must fit her own oxygen mask before she looks after her child. You must take care of yourself before you can take care of the café.’

She felt a slight wave of dizziness and nodded mutely. Then, ‘I just want to make this work,’ she said. ‘This has to work. Otherwise…’ Her voice cracked.

‘Otherwise what? Otherwise the café will be white instead of blue? The chairs will be slightly less comfortable? It is nice to improve things. But it is not important. Not really. Not worth making ourselves ill over.’

‘But I can’t fail at this too,’ she found herself saying.

‘I am sorry if I made you feel like this,’ he said. ‘Like you are not succeeding. Sorry for my words earlier. I do not think you have nothing. Perhaps I find it hard to understand you. But I should not have said those things.’

‘It’s not you. I’m just… I feel a bit lost I suppose.

Anyway, you were right really. I actually do have nothing.

My mum, well, she’s… I suppose she’s never been quite like you’d imagine a mum would be.

Never very… nurturing. I have my friend Amber – although I think I’ve messed things up with her.

And my work is a disaster. I’m a disaster. And now I’ve made a mess of this too.’

Her head fell forward, partly from tiredness, partly from misery.

But Pascal reached out and lifted her chin gently with his fingertips.

‘ Non ,’ he said. ‘You are tired. And perhaps have chosen a bad time to paint. But nothing is so bad. It is just paint. It will dry. We will correct it. In ten years, maybe less, someone new will paint it again. It does not matter.’

She nodded miserably.

‘Let me clear this up,’ he instructed. ‘You go to bed. Things will be better in the morning, you’ll see.’

She nodded again and got to her feet, standing for a moment to test her balance before finding that she was OK to walk. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

‘It is nothing. Just a paintbrush to wash.’

‘No. For everything. For being kind to me. It’s… well not many people in my life are kind. Or maybe they are, and I’m too busy to notice.’ Her eyelid flickered again, and she felt suddenly just how tired she was of all of it.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Do not think about it. And I am sorry you have so many horrible people in your life. Maud, when I got stressed about my work, she always used to say that it is OK to get things wrong. To fail. This is how we grow.’

‘Well, looks like I’m going to be growing A LOT,’ she said with a watery smile.

He laughed, lightly. ‘Perhaps,’ he said.

Before leaving the room, she turned and looked at him, earnestly clearing up her things, and felt a rush of gratefulness before turning and making her way to bed.