Page 48 of The Village Cafe in the Loire

Rather than lingering behind Pascal, allowing him to make introductions as she’d expected, she rushed to the woman’s side. ‘Auntie Maud!’ she said, arms outstretched.

Maud looked up, her creased face breaking into a smile, her eyes dancing. ‘My Becky!’ She reached up and they enveloped each other without any self-consciousness at all. Anyone seeing them would have thought they’d been in each other’s lives for years and years without a fracture. And that’s how it felt, too, for Becky. She remembered Maud’s arms, the way her head rested lightly on her shoulder. The sound of her breath. And the smell of lavender water. She might not have seen her in the flesh for years and years and years, and yet here they were, as if no time had passed at all.

‘You’re alive!’ she found herself saying. ‘You’re really alive.’

‘Yes,’ said Maud, grinning as Becky straightened up. ‘I rather think that I might be.’

19

Pascal quietly pulled a chair up for Becky and she gratefully sat in it. Maud held both of her hands and the pair grinned at each other. ‘Thanks, Pascal,’ Becky said, not looking around.

‘It’s OK. I think I might go for a walk now.’

‘Oh, you don’t have to!’

‘Non, it will give you two a chance to talk.’ He leaned down and kissed Maud lightly on the cheek, then turned to Becky, pausing as if deciding whether to do the same to her. He shook his head lightly and smiled before walking off.

Had he not wanted to kiss her in front of Maud?

Or did he already regret last night?

This was one of the reasons she’d stayed single for so long, she remembered. The exhausting second-guessing that came with meeting someone new.

‘Such a nice boy,’ said Maud when he’d gone. Was it Becky’s imagination or did Maud give her a knowing look?

‘He really does seem lovely.’

There was a moment’s silence. When you have twenty years of absence to unpick, it’s hard to know where to start. In the end, Becky said, ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘What for?’ Maud looked at her with interest.

‘Well, all of it, I suppose. For losing contact. For not responding to your Christmas cards. For… well, for not realising you were alive. And I guess the kind of… monetary way I seized on the café.’

‘That’s a lot to apologise for,’ Maud observed.

‘Well, yep.’

‘It’s not your fault,’ she said firmly. ‘Goodness, you were only ten when I last saw you. You could hardly have defied your mother and flown to see me on your own. And memory is fickle at that age; your parents are your whole world. I never blamed you for any of it.’

Becky was determined not to let herself cry again, but she was having trouble keeping her resolve. ‘Who do you blame?’ she asked, more interested than anything. ‘Mum? Cynthia, I mean?’

Maud shook her head vehemently. ‘Poor Cynthia. Has she changed at all since I last saw her? Mellowed, perhaps?’

Becky snorted, unintentionally. ‘Sorry. But no. She’s, if anything, more forceful.’

‘I’m not surprised. Losing Peter must have been quite awful.’

Any humour she had felt at Maud’s observations on her mother faded. ‘Yes. Poor Dad.’

‘He was a good man.’

‘Yes. Yes, he really was.’

‘But Cynthia,’ Maud shook her head. ‘Not the easiest woman to love.’

‘No.’

‘God knows I tried to be there for her after her mother died. And other times, too.’ Maud’s lips pursed slightly. ‘Silly girl would never let anyone close.’

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