‘So, you’ve got the weekend to relax,’ said Alexandra.
‘Yes,’ said Antoine. ‘And after tonight, we must speak to Meg in French all the time, so she gets used to it. Pierre – he’s the chef – agreed this would be a good idea.’
‘Luckily a lot of the language of the kitchen is in French, so I’ll know those things,’ said Meg.
‘No need to be anxious,’ said David. ‘As I’ve said before, many times, you’re going to be fine.’
Somehow this heartfelt assurance didn’t make Meg feel very much better.
Antoine had found a little car for Meg to use so she could get herself to and from the restaurant, and the next morning, she and Alexandra did a trial run to the small market town and identified somewhere she could park.
‘It’s an easy journey and there won’t be much traffic at seven in the morning,’ said Alexandra.
‘Yes. It’s so kind of Antoine to get me a car. I’ll have to sort out an international driving licence.’
‘Antoine will help you with that.’
‘And it’s so kind of you to make sure I have plenty of whites and trousers. And neckerchiefs. I never wore them in London. I never worked anywhere that bothered with them.’
‘The chef, Pierre, is very traditional, I gather. But don’t worry, he has strict instructions not to make you cry.’ Alexandra paused. ‘How long will be you working in the restaurant, do you know?’
‘I suppose until Pierre either gets fed up with me or takes me on as part of the team. We’ll have to see.’ Meg smiled bravely, but she knew come Monday, she’d be shaking in her chef’s shoes.
Although it was only 7 a.m. there were a few people buying bread for breakfast in the little town the next morning and the café on the corner was sending out wonderful coffee smells. Meg was almost tempted to have one before starting her day but Alexandra hadgot up very early to make her coffee already; she didn’t really need more.
She knocked on the side door of the restaurant, as instructed, and after an anxious few moments, it was opened. Pierre, the chef-patron, was there to greet her in a torrent of French Meg couldn’t understand. She picked up a few words includingjoliemeaning pretty andtrès très jeunewhich she knew meant very young.
Let’s hope it means they’ll make allowances for me, she thought, following Pierre down a narrow passage to the kitchen.
Strangely, the kitchen made her feel at home immediately. She’d been in lots of restaurant kitchens and they were all different but also the same. There always seemed to be a very tall young man with spots and a prominent Adam’s apple whom everyone was rude to but who didn’t seem to mind. There was always an older man who was obviously much respected, and there was always a chef.
The atmosphere in the kitchen was currently calm but everyone looked at her as she came in and started commenting. She was glad she couldn’t understand much French but was relieved that Mme Wilson had insisted on using French culinary terms: she should be able to recognise those, even if they were spoken in a strong Provençal accent.
What was worrying her most was her lack of her own knives. It had been explained to Pierre and he had agreed to lend her a set, but it made her look unprofessional, she felt. While she had worked inprofessional kitchens it had always been as part of a team who had been brought in to make desserts for a special event. She’d never been a permanent member of staff.
Still, during her weekend at the chateau she had sharpened all Alexandra’s knives so that she could sever a tomato in two with one long stroke. She had also done a lot of chopping, dicing, and slicing very, very thinly. It had been supposed to distract her from thoughts of Nightingale Woods but she couldn’t help wondering how everyone was getting on without her. They were probably managing brilliantly.
Now, Pierre put her in front of a chopping board and said in English, ‘Wait here. I will fetch your knives.’
There was a fair amount of staring and commenting while Pierre was gone but Meg looked straight ahead, wishing she wasn’t blushing, glad she didn’t know quite how rude they were being about her.
‘Et voilà!’ said Pierre, putting a knife-roll on her bench. ‘Now be careful! These knives are sharp!’
‘Oui, Chef,’ said Meg.
Then he put a crate of potatoes down. ‘Wash and peel these and turn them into spheres, all the same size. Bigger than a marble, smaller than a golf ball.’
‘Oui, Chef,’ she said again.
She wished when Pierre had said ‘turn them into spheres’ he had meant there was a trick to it. But Meg knew that ‘turn’ meant carving the potatoes so they were perfect balls. She was grateful she didn’t have to dig them out with a melon baller. They’d learnthow to do that at Mme Wilson’s. It created blisters on your hand if you had to do too many.
She was expecting to be bullied and harassed as she knew this was not uncommon in kitchens but she discovered that the atmosphere wasn’t unkind at all. The tall boy with acne showed her where to scrub her potatoes and later on, when she was carving them and saving the parings for soup, he brought her a mug of coffee. She smiled gratefully and said, ‘Merci,’ in her very best French accent. She realised she was not the only one who blushed as he acknowledged her response.
Her feet felt as if they were no longer attached to her body, her back ached and her hands were operating automatically, and this was before lunchtime service.
She had washed, dried and picked the parsley off the stalks, had been told off for bruising it and was shown how to make a chiffonade so as to make as few cuts as possible but still end up with fine parsley. She had picked the leaves of thyme, no stalks permitted this time. She had chopped the tarragon for a traditional sauce béarnaise – a sauce she would have been making herself if she was still at the hotel.
The advantage of working so hard, under challenging circumstances, meant that, in theory at least, she didn’t think about Justin, or about everything she’d left behind. And the hard work did help. By the time Pierre took her knife out of her hand and led her to where she’d put her outdoor things and pushed her out of the door, her brain was a maelstrom ofeverything she’d done that day. There hadn’t been much time to think about the past.
