Page 32 of The Village Cafe in the Loire

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 ownerwill 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 thoughtAh, 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 bema 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.

13

‘So, is it all sorted?’ Her mother didn’t even bother with a hello. Becky, who had had quite a relaxing start and was just enjoying a cup of coffee in the kitchen before a quick shift at the café, felt tension return to her body immediately.

‘Not quite,’ she said, thinking of the beautifully finished wall Pascal had somehow made good, and trying not to panic at how she might fare when she wielded a paintbrush again.

‘Well, what are you doing? You’ve been there a week. Surely it’s time to up sticks!’

‘Mum, it’s going to take a bit of time, I think.’

‘Oh, tosh! Rebecca, think about it. What if that firm of yours comes to its senses and needs you to come back in urgently? They’re hardly going to warm to the idea that you’re lazing around in France, are they? And I don’t see what you can achieve there that you can’t achieve back here. It’s one world these days with technology. I think you should get yourself back home.’

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