Page 72 of Love In Provence
‘Yes! And I realized straight away she wasn’t the person I wanted to be kissing! I wanted to be with you! That’s when I told them I was leaving. Last weekend. But you were busy kissing Henri’s son!’
‘Because you were away! I was confused, lonely. And it was him kissing me! I was just trying to talk to him about Henri when he suddenly cried.’
‘Crocodile tears to get you into bed!’
‘No. It was just a heat-of-the-moment thing. He just leaned in and kissed me.’
‘And you let him!’
‘No! I stopped him.’
‘Eventually!’
‘You can talk!’
Suddenly there is a cough. We turn.
It’s Carine.
‘I can see this is a bad time. I’ll come back later,’ she says.
Fabien and I glare at each other, neither knowing what to say. He picks up his glass and drains it, then grabs his bag and storms upstairs.
At thebrocante, everyone is ready for service. The candles are lit and it’s hot, really hot. There hasn’t been any rain for weeks.
There is a strange atmosphere in the courtyard tonight. Everyone is looking at me and each other and I can’t help but think they must have heard our argument. Embarrassed and broken inside, I walk to the gates and write up the menu. This is all Zacharie’s fault. If it hadn’t been for him starting this war between us none of it would have happened. Outside l’expérience braziers are burning brightly, despite the heat of the night, dramatic against the cream walls of the alleyway.
I won’t let him win. He can’t destroy everything.
‘Let’s get cooking!’ I call to the team. ‘And bring in as many as we can, perhaps go out onto the square and point people in our direction. Let’s do what we can to get them into Henri’s and away from l’expérience!’
Jen and Graham go out into the alleyway and the square, pointing people towards us, offering them a glass of wine on the house. The place is buzzing, lots of happy diners. Ed and Maria are exhausted, serving from the tiny kitchen. At the end of service, I’m dead on my feet. We load the plates into crates with the cutlery and dishes.
‘So, last night tomorrow,’ says Graham, as I sit fanning myself.
He’s right. We agreed to do this just for the week.
‘We’ll have to make sure it’s a goodie!’ I try to smile.
Back at the farmhouse, it’s silent. Fabien is either asleep or avoiding me. I check my phone. Nothing from him.I try to think of a message to send to him. But what can I say? He’s not wrong. We took our eye off the ball. We strayed from the path and now it looks like there’s no way back. We’ve hurt each other. And what should have been his first lovely night home ends with us in separate rooms, so close, but so far apart.
29
The next morning, I’m awake early. I listen for sounds of Fabien moving around, but there’s nothing.
‘Oh, Fabien! How did we get here?’ I say aloud, checking my phone again to see if he’s messaged. He hasn’t. I have to speak to him, see if we can put things right. But what if we can’t forgive each other? What if we can’t get over this?
I get up and head down to the kitchen, my head turning to dishes we could make for our last supper club at thebrocante. We need to make it our best ever.
I let Ralph out into the field, now harvested, ready for a rest until next year. And right now, I feel I could sleep for ever. I put on the coffee and when it’s ready I pour myself a cup.
We may not have been able to convince Zacharie to take on Henri’s recipes and ethos, but the supper club showed the town that there was room for both sorts of cooking, the trained French chefs and the home cooks, sharing their generosity on the plate. If only we could have worked together. I look down at my pad, my pen hovering over it, wondering what to make for tomorrow, a huge final feast.
As I’m sitting on the terrace, the smell of my coffee turns my stomach and I push it away, craving something fresher. I head back into the kitchen, take a few sprigs of lavender and pour boiling water on them, lavender tea. I hold it to my nose, inhale its soothing scent and take it back out on to the terrace.
‘Hey,’ says a voice behind me.
It’s Fabien, his hair messy from the pillow he’s just left. He looks tired.
