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The next morning there was a tentative knock on her bedroom door. She groaned, rolling over, feeling her head throb. ‘Yes?’

‘No rush, but I have some breakfast for you in the kitchen when you are ready,’ said Pascal from behind the thick wood.

‘Oh! Thank you!’ she said, sitting up slightly. ‘I’ll just be a moment.’

She climbed out of bed rather reluctantly, and pulled on a pair of jeans and a sweater. She’d have her usual weird bath after eating, she decided, and made her way down the stairs.

After Pascal’s kindness the night before, she felt a little shy to see him, but he beamed at her as she came into the kitchen as if nothing untoward had happened.

He gestured to a plate of pastries on the table, a carafe of coffee, a plate and – in an apparent gesture of solidarity – one of her enormous white mugs.

Through the open door, she could see the interior of the still closed café; her eyes rested on the wall she’d nearly collapsed against last night. And she gasped.

‘But it’s…’ she said, looking at the smoothly painted wall. ‘You…’

Pascal joined her in the doorway, folding his arms. ‘Yes, perhaps I tidied it up a bit.’ He smiled and raised an eyebrow.

‘It looks… Thank you.’

‘Ah, it is nothing. I did a lot of painting for my mother in the past. And I had some time.’

‘In the night?’

He shrugged. ‘What is that you said? That rest is overrated?’

She turned to him, grinning, and gave him a playful slap. ‘Now you’re being facetious!’

‘Perhaps a little.’

She looked at the wall again. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Really. But… why?’

He touched her shoulder lightly, gently. ‘Last night you felt alone,’ he reflected.

‘Yes.’

‘When I came here, that’s how I felt too. A little lost.’ His arm rubbed her back lightly. ‘I wanted to show you that even when we feel we are alone, it is often not the case. I may not feel that the renovations you wish to do are necessary. But I will help you, Becky.’

Relief flooded through her and she stood on tiptoes and kissed him firmly on the cheek, flinging her arms around him. ‘Thank you,’ she said, seeing his neck redden.

‘It is nothing. Let’s get the café open,’ he said. He turned and walked back into the kitchen, his hand subconsciously rising up to touch his skin where her lips had been.

Becky pulled out a chair and sat at the table. ‘Wow, thanks for this,’ she said a few minutes later when Pascal wandered back through with an empty jug.

‘I do not always start my day this way,’ he replied, turning from the fridge with a bottle of milk and smiling. ‘Or I would probably not fit through the door into the café. But sometimes you need to do breakfast properly. This is one of those times.’

‘Well, it’s appreciated,’ she said, picking up a still warm croissant and pulling it gently apart on her plate. She popped a piece in her mouth and closed her eyes. It was delicious – buttery, fresh, just the right amount of sweet. ‘Are these from the boulangerie ?’

‘ Non , I made them myself,’ he said.

‘You didn’t!’ He truly was talented.

‘ Non ,’ he said mischievously, ‘I didn’t. They are from the boulangerie as you thought. I am an artist with words, but not so much with pastry.’

She laughed. ‘You’ll have to let me read your stuff.’

‘In French?’

‘Ah, perhaps not. Maybe if you get a translation some time?’

‘You will be top of the list.’

She sipped coffee in silence for a moment, still feeling around the edges of what seemed to be the beginning of a friendship. ‘So, tell me about Maud,’ she said. ‘How exactly did you meet?’

‘Well, I came here from Paris, two years ago,’ he told her, leaning against the counter, the milk forgotten.

‘I was given the opportunity to be a writer in residence at the Centre d’Arts and everything seemed wonderful to me.

But the placement ended after six months and I was no further forward with my work.

I was embarrassed to go back to Paris empty-handed, so I rented a small room in Vaudrelle and was determined to finish my book and go back triumphant!

’ He gave a wry smile. ‘Clearly this did not happen.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘It is OK. I wasn’t ready then. My work, it was too shallow, too young. Now it is better, I think.’

She nodded. ‘So you met Maud in the café?’

‘Yes. Sometimes I would come here in the daytime. It was winter and my room was often very cold – I was a cliché of a poor writer, slaving away for my art. Maud would serve me coffee, and we got to talk, and she was very sympathetic to me. She read some of my work and she said she liked it – perhaps she was just being kind? I am not sure. Then when my tenancy ran out, she offered for me to stay.’

‘That was nice of her.’

‘Yes. She was always a very kind person. And also, she told me that I could live above the café, instead of paying rent, which was kind. She became like a mother to me, perhaps. My own mother, in Paris, she wants me to work in a bank, or become a lawyer. And maybe I will one day. But I want to give this a chance first.’

‘Your mother doesn’t like your writing?’

He shook his head, smiling. ‘I do not know, she has never read it! My mother doesn’t think that being a writer is a proper job. She thinks I’m a silly boy.’

Becky gave a smile. ‘Well, I guess mums don’t always know best.’

‘ Non , this is true. Anyway, over time I became Maud’s friend. And I saw that she was not just an old lady, but a kind person with a big heart. And perhaps a little lonely too.’

‘Oh.’

He shrugged. ‘Maud was very popular in the village. She spoke beautiful French, had many friends. But no lovers. And no family around. I think she sometimes felt that… absence. She would talk a little about you – your mother was her niece, yes? – and sometimes tell me that she was sad that you stopped coming to see her. Because she didn’t really have a connection like that – of blood – with anyone else. ’

Becky laid down the piece of croissant she’d been attempting to eat, feeling rather sick. ‘I didn’t know,’ she said. ‘I suppose, I never really thought about Maud. I was so young when we stopped coming. I sort of forgot about her. Forgot to think of her.’

Pascal nodded. ‘It is easy to do this when we are young. We think that all adults have full lives and make the right choices, and that we have much to learn. Then we become adults ourselves and…’ He gestured to himself as if indicating that he was definitely an unfinished product.

‘Still. I should have written. Or come over when I was old enough. Just… well, not everyone in the family would have wanted me to.’ She couldn’t go into the issue of her mother right now. Pascal would never have time to serve coffee. ‘But it’s no excuse, really.’

‘You could go to see her now, to say sorry perhaps? It might make things feel a little better?’

She nodded. ‘I will. Soon.’

‘That is good,’ he said, softly. ‘I can take you, when you are ready.’

‘Thank you.’ She hated the thought of visiting a graveyard alone, scouring the headstones for her great-aunt’s. ‘And where will you go after this?’

‘I am about to open the café… then?—’

‘No! Sorry, I mean, after you leave here. Sorry, that sounds really crass. I’m not being… I don’t know, pointed. I just wondered what your plans are.’

He smiled. ‘It’s OK. I think I will go back to Paris when I leave here.

It has been a long time now. I have friends there, family.

My mother.’ He rolled his eyes to suggest that perhaps not everything was good between them.

‘And now I have an agent and possibly a publisher, maybe I will be successful enough for my mother to acknowledge.’

She smiled. ‘I do feel bad, you know. Kicking you out. Making you leave.’

‘Don’t. It is time for me to move on. I just want to do it properly.

To fulfil my promise to Maud to make sure the café is in good hands.

Perhaps it’s stupid – I am sure another owner will take the café and it will be just as successful.

But sometimes I think that Maud gave me a home, and because of her I have a chance to make a success of my writing.

And I am superstitious about it – I need to fulfil her dream because it will make it more likely that my dream will come true also!

’ he laughed, self-deprecatingly. ‘As you can see, I am completely mad.’

‘Well, maybe not completely…’ She grinned. Pascal looked up, their eyes locked and he returned her smile. It felt good to feel on the same side, not to be at war, as she’d assumed at first.

‘Can I share one more thing?’ he said, finally filling the jug with milk to take into the café.

‘Of course!’

‘Your aunt, she told me once she was worried about you. Because of your mother. Because she felt that your spark would be extinguished.’

‘My spark?’

‘Yes. Perhaps I am not explaining very well. But I think that Maud felt when you were younger, the two of you had so much in common. You used to paint together, yes? And you were creative?’

‘Well, everyone paints as a kid, I suppose.’

‘Well, she felt a bond. And she felt that your mother perhaps was not so keen on you being artistic. She was always seeking out money, success! I remember it clearly because I thought Ah, perhaps I am not the only one with a mother like this! ’

Becky smiled. ‘Perhaps not.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘But how did Maud know about my life? I… I mean, I was ten when we stopped coming.’

Pascal grinned. ‘Well, even here in rural France we have the internet. Instagram. Facebook. All of those things. She saw you sometimes online. She used to show me your picture and tell me about you.’

‘Oh.’ Maud had always struck her as so old, the village she lived in so backward, that the idea of her looking Becky up on Instagram seemed bizarre. ‘Well, luckily she was wrong. I never really missed the art.’

Pascal nodded, straightening up. ‘That is good.’ He smiled. ‘Do you want to help in the café today? Perhaps learn to serve coffee?’

Something inside her dropped. She really, really did not want to help in the café.

She wanted to find a decorator, to sort out the paint job.

To check that the tables were still coming.

But now that Pascal had been so nice to her, she ought perhaps to show a little enthusiasm.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘I’ll just get ready, then… for a little while?’

He nodded. ‘Good. I can perhaps do some writing while you serve? I can edit some pages before I send them to the publisher. They are ready, but I feel the need to check them just one more time. This could be ma chance en or .’

‘A golden opportunity?’

‘ Oui .’ He smiled, modestly. ‘It has been a long time coming, perhaps.’

She laughed. ‘Well, it sounds great. I’ll just freshen up first.’ She pointed to the stairs before turning and making her way up.

As the bath filled, she rang Amber. Usually by this time of the morning, both of their message threads would be filled with silly comments and GIFs, little jokes or anecdotes.

She hadn’t realised they had become such an important part of her everyday life until she’d missed them.

The first thing she’d done on waking was send a GIF of a puppy with enormous eyes, pawing at the camera with the words ‘I’m soweee’ written across the picture.

But she’d had no response, despite the fact a little icon told her that Amber had seen it.

As the line rang out, she felt a kind of sick feeling rising up in her. The answerphone cut in and she rang once more. This time she left a message.

‘Hi, Amber. It’s Becky. Well, you know that, obviously. I just… can you call me when you get a chance? I hope you’re OK. Sorry again. Bye!’

Then, stepping into the warm water and taking her habitual cat-in-a-cardboard-box position, she began to wash off the debris of yesterday and tried to focus on moving forward.