Page 58 of The Village Cafe in the Loire

‘Your eye,’ Pascal said, seemingly noticing immediately. ‘It is vibrating.’

Not again! She touched her hand to her eye, before realising she had paint on her fingers. Instantly, it began to sting. ‘Oh, God.’

‘Attends,’ Pascal told her, standing up and striding quickly to the sink. He ran a clean tea towel under the water then rushed back, kneeling down next to her and gently dabbing at her eye. ‘I think it is OK,’ he said, giving her the towel to hold over her eye, which was still stinging slightly. ‘I don’t think anything got into the eye itself.’ He gently put his hand under her elbow and encouraged her to stand and walk to one of the yellow chairs. She sat down gratefully, not enjoying the throb of her eye, but if she was honest, enjoying his touch; his evident care.

‘I will get the doctor,’ he said. ‘Just to be sure.’

‘No! Oh, you really needn’t.’

‘He is a friend, he will come,’ he said confidently, getting out his phone.

She was grateful, moments later, when he told her the doctor was nipping out of the surgery at the end of the village to make a quick house call. ‘He will be here in five minutes.’

‘Really? That’s impressive.’ She tried to remain stoic despite the throbbing and stinging sensation.

The doctor arrived, sporting jeans and a short-sleeved chequered shirt. He looked to be around fifty years old, his hair still glossy and full, the lines around his eyes and mouth givinghis age away. He looked at her eye and tutted. ‘Mon Dieu, you were lucky,madame.’

While adding a solution to some cotton wool and expertly dabbing at her sore eye, the doctor explained how while a tiny bit of paint had entered it, it had confined itself mainly to her lower lid. Any more and it might have been a catastrophe.

She felt her heart turn over. It was that serious? The idea of it made her feel a little shaky. The doctor created a makeshift patch from some gauze and plaster tape, leaned down and carefully applied it to her sore eye. ‘You will be OK. I will send a nurse tomorrow to remove the dressing,’ he said, straightening up.

Pascal shook the doctor’s hand and walked with him to just outside the door, where the two men stayed chatting in the sunshine before the older man turned and walked back in the direction of his surgery.

Pascal re-entered to find her holding her hand over the gauze, feeling rather shaken. ‘It hurts?’ he asked.

‘No. It’s OK.’

‘We should probably wear goggles.’

‘Yes. Or maybe not put painty fingers into our eyes.’

‘That sounds like good advice.’

She felt herself smiling a little.

‘Let me see again,’ he said, kneeling before her and gently lifting her hand and inspecting the gauze, his face just centimetres from hers, as if he were a doctor with X-ray vision to boot. It was nice, feeling his face so close to hers. She looked up at him with her one good eye and marvelled at his thick eyelashes, the depth and concern in his expression. ‘You will live, I think,’ he concluded, not moving his head. She gave the slightest inclination with her own and moments later their lips brushed in a gentle kiss.

She hadn’t realised just how much she’d been longing for him to touch her again until that moment when she felt herself melt. She put her arms up and around him, pulling him a little closer for another kiss. Then another. Until:

‘Non,’ he said, standing up abruptly. ‘We should not.’

‘Oh!’ she said, feeling her cheeks get hot. ‘I’m sorry I…’

‘Non,do not be sorry. It is not that I do not want to,’ he said, crouching down again so they were the same height. ‘But if I kiss you again, I will ask you to stay. And I know that you must go. And I will want to stay here too, but I cannot.’

‘What if I did stay?’ she said unthinkingly.

‘You want to stay?’

‘I could if I wanted to.’

He laughed. ‘This is true. You are a free agent.’

‘You too,’ she pointed out. ‘Didn’t you say once that you could write from anywhere? Why does it have to be Paris?’ She blushed. ‘I’m not asking you to stay. Obviously. I just mean, sometimes I wonder why I tell myself Ihaveto do this or that… I suppose we just know what’s best, long term.’

‘Perhaps,’ he said. ‘Or maybe we are afraid.’

She nodded, looking up at him.

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