Page 70 of The Village Cafe in the Loire

‘Yes. I’m back. But you know, Mum, if I had decided to stay,’ Becky ventured, ‘it could have been a good thing. It was nice having… space. To think. To find myself. Maud wasn’t trying to ruin my life or anything.’

‘Poppycock! Finding yourself! Nonsense. I can tell you who you are right now, Rebecca. You are a young woman with a promising future, is what you are.’

‘Maybe.’

‘There’s no maybe about it.’

‘And a happy future?’

‘One and the same,’ her mother said firmly, all traces of vulnerability gone.

After the call ended, Becky felt drained. Leaning up against the headboard, she replayed everything in her mind. Her mum was hurt, that much was clear, but so stubborn, there was no obvious way of breaking down the barriers she’d put up between herself and Maud.

Sighing, she chose a safe outfit of black trousers and jacket, hung them over the back of her chair ready for the morning and,suddenly fatigued and aware how late it was, climbed between the cold sheets of her bed and tried to settle herself to sleep.

Her dreams were tumultuous and confusing; Maud at the café, Amber in her hospital bed. Her mother, chasing her down the aisles of a supermarket for no understandable reason. She rushed into consciousness to find it was just 4a.m., but knew that she wouldn’t sleep any more.

The night was just giving way to the first signs of daylight – a lighter grey hovered in the air. The city continued to move below her, almost at the rate it had in the daytime. Joggers pounded the pavements, people drove to work early. Nothing ever seemed to stop. She loved this about London and hated it in equal measure.

But she had to put all thoughts of France behind her for the moment. In a few hours she’d step into it, be pulled back into her old life. And perhaps that was for the best. This was where she belonged.

26

Stepping into the flow of people the next day, she realised she didn’t feel part of the river of the city any more, but something caught in its current, observing everything around her with new eyes. The flood of human life heading down the escalators, their faces focused, expressions grim; people with headphones lost in their own world; bodies packed together, touching but not acknowledging one another. Nobody said hello – the trick was to focus your eyes on something else: a phone screen, a text, an advert on the wall, to make it clear to everyone around that you were not under any circumstances to be approached.

She compared it with her daily walks in Vaudrelle, where she’d been greeted by every person she passed. Of course, this wasn’t necessarily a French versus English thing. More the city versus the countryside perhaps. People were so crammed in here, it was impossible to acknowledge one another without also acknowledging the strange, herded cattle sensation of being shoved so close to strangers, and the bizarre fact that you were paying for the privilege.

Two more Tube stops and then it was hers; she exited and walked up into Holborn, feeling relieved as she found herselfbreathing the comparatively fresh air of the street, with its tinge of dirt and smoke and sweet-smelling vapes. She could see her office building, its glass front four times as wide as the café back in Vaudrelle, its reception open, the line of lifts that would take her up to her desk, to slot into this part of her life again: she was a USB stick, ready to be plugged into the socket of an enormous computer. The thought made her step back.

She’d loved it. Just a month ago, she’d been thriving. So what had changed? Having a holiday? Maybe the shock of Amber’s situation? She wasn’t sure. She only knew that she no longer felt like one of the people streaming in and out of buildings on autopilot. She’d been woken up.

She checked her phone, it was only 8.30a.m. Her meeting was at 9a.m. She had time to calm herself down before going in.

She walked past the entrance to her office building, aiming to keep her gaze fixed forward in case she made eye contact with anyone she knew, and imagined she was a tourist, visiting the city for the first time. Tried to see the beauty of the city as well as the busyness and chaos. A building caught her eye – a Tudor design stretching the length of three houses, buried between concrete block and glass. How had she never seen it before? She imagined what it might have been like once, before modernity rose up around it. Taking out her phone again, she opened the camera app and took a picture, then another. And had the sudden desire to see whether she could draw it. Where had that come from? She hadn’t drawn for years. Hadn’t had the time.

Taking a breath, she turned and headed back towards Holborn, back to the building where she’d spent years of her life. She stilled herself outside, straightening her jacket, trying to push her shoulders back and act confident. And then she went inside.

‘So how are you feeling?’ Julie, the HR lead, asked once Becky was settled into her office. Julie crossed her legs andsmiled sympathetically. She had recently discovered contouring, but had not realised that the light she applied it in before she left for work was clearly a little duller than the light she sat under in the office. Dark brown stripes streaked her cheekbones, giving her the look of a soldier in camouflage paint.

‘You know. OK,’ Becky said, smiling. ‘Ready to return, if that’s possible.’

‘Yes. Wonderful. Wonderful. And you’re sure that all of the stress is… um, out of your system?’

‘Yes. I’ve taken some time and really worked on myself.’ Becky knew the right words to say to get herself off the hook and rolled them off her tongue with ease. It was a circus performance of form-filling and box-ticking and jumping through hoops.

‘That’s amazing. Well, well done you!’ Julie said, giving a little patronising clap. ‘So you were signed off for a month, that’s up middle of next week. But it looks as if you’re more than ready to slot back in!’ She smiled broadly. ‘How would you feel about starting tomorrow?’

This was unexpected.

‘Tomorrow?’ Becky had hoped to be deemed fit to work, but had assumed it would take more than twenty minutes with Julie to clear her for take-off; had assumed she’d have the time to fly over for the launch, say goodbye to Maud and Pascal properly.

‘But the doctor said a month…?’ Surely, legally, she’d need a doctor to sign her back into work.

‘I know. It’s tiresome,’ Julie said, nodding sympathetically. ‘But you know, it seems silly for you to wait until the exact date when you’re clearly fine and ready to go. You’ll have to see the doctor of course, to get her to sign you back in, but I can’t see that being a problem.’

‘Right, but?—’

‘Now, while you’re here, I expect you want to go and see everyone, touch base?’ Julie nodded towards the door thenswivelled her chair back to her desk, leaving Becky with no choice but to do as she suggested.

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