Page 54 of Sisters Making Mischief
17
‘So, youdon’thave a date with Luc!’ Isabel said gloomily as we drove away ten minutes later. ‘After all that effort. I knew it. I knew my plan wouldn’t work.’
‘You had a plan? Don’t you think you should have told me?’ I said.
‘I just thought that as you are on your own and so is he, you might sort of – pair up? There aren’t many good-looking, unattached men around here.’
‘I think I have been ambushed,’ I said, ‘and why are you so determined to pair me off with someone?’
I sounded annoyed, but I was looking out of the car window and feeling rather confused and disappointed with the way things had turned out. Even at my age I didn’t want to be thought of as some old bird who might be interestingbut…
I hadn’t been on a proper first date for decades. I hadn’t spent any time alone with a man who wasn’t Stephen, a doctor, dentist, or solicitor for years. I’d just spent a lot of time on my own. And much as I enjoyed relative peace and quiet, being lonely was a very different thing.
I spent the rest of the journey listening to Isabel recommending various cafés and restaurants where we could have gone, and then berating herself for coming back downstairs too soon.
‘I’m not looking for anyone,’ I said, ‘and nor is he. Stop trying to tidy me away; married couples always do that, a woman on her own seems to make them twitchy for some reason. You’re wasting your time.’
I didn’t volunteer much to the conversation after that. As always with my sister, it was easier to let her get on with it. But I did think about it a lot. I wondered if it was as hard for men his age as it was for women. How did they know what the dating rules were these days? I certainly didn’t. And I was beginning to see that he was just as nervous about it as I was. Perhaps I should do something to help myself, to help both of us over the first stumbling steps. And if it all went badly wrong, so what?
The supermarket was stuck on the side of a new industrial estate, which I didn’t remember at all from my previous visits, and it was huge. In fact, it seemed far too big for the small, scattered communities I knew about, but Isabel said it was very popular, although the local traders in town had been predicting doom and disaster for their businesses ever since it had opened.
We took a big trolley and headed off down the aisles.
I loved visiting foreign supermarkets; they were full of unfamiliar food and unexpected things. Even the sight of the price cards, written in the classically French way, with curly script and sevens written differently were exciting. Back home I knew my local shop so well, I could have navigated it blindfolded; here things were different.
There were dozens of different jams and spreads, scented honeys, boxes of rounded sugar cubes, a whole aisle devoted to various mustards and flavoured salt, hundreds of chilled desserts. The shopping cart was half full in no time.
I added a few things, proper English tea bags, some lavender soap in a beautifully rustic block, a new comb, because I’d mislaid mine, and someMère Poulardbutter biscuits. I didn’t much care what the biscuits were like, but the square tin was delightful, with vintage writing and a picture of Mont St Michel. Then I added some rather more exotic chocolate cookies.
‘We’d better get back,’ Isabel said at last as she threw a new dog toy into the cart. ‘I didn’t actually plan on buying half these things, I just need some of those brioche rolls, I’m going to make burgers.’
‘Just one thing before I forget, or it’s too late,’ I said as we loaded our shopping into the car, ‘please don’t go spreading this nonsense with Luc all around the town, will you? I know how gossip works.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Isabel said, rather outraged, ‘as if I would! I am discretion personified!’
‘So, you have a date with Jean-Luc,’ Eugénie said the following morning when she called in unannounced for coffee.
I gave my sister an exasperated look, and her eyes slid away from mine.
‘No, I don’t. I don’t know where you heard that,’ I said, trying to sound outraged.
Eugénie sat down and took off her gloves, which were dark blue leather. Underneath her hands were, as always, beautifullymanicured, with just one large diamond ring sparkling on her left hand.
‘Goodness me,’ I said, seeing an opportunity to deflect the conversation, ‘what a beautiful ring, are you and Charles engaged?’
Eugénie flared her nostrils at me. ‘Ridicule! Of course not. What an idea. I am married to Bastien.’
‘He has been dead for twenty-three years,’ Isabel muttered, ‘poor Charles.’
Eugénie bridled. ‘Pas le pauvre Charles!Not poor Charles at all. He is the most fortunate of men to spend time with me, and he knows it. This is a friendship ring. He gave it to me a long time ago. It was his mother’s. I expect it is glass, and worth nothing. But it is pretty, I’ll admit.’
‘Is he still wooing you with romantic songs?’ Isabel asked.
‘He has taken to singing “Boum”, all about his heart beating with love for me. But he pronounces it “Bum”, which spoils the effect. Charles Trenet sang it much better. Now then, Jean-Luc. Tell me about that.’
‘There’s nothing to tell,’ I said, at last realising it was pointless to lie about it. ‘Felix suggested Luc should ask me out to dinner, but it was obvious he didn’t want to. Which is fine by me.’
Eugénie pulled a face and then sighed.
