I turn back.
‘Where are you going?’
‘To take the bread to the people, like you said. I’m going to market. I’m not going to let him win.’
She grins. ‘Bon courage! Bon profitez!Oh, and, Juliet?’
‘Oui, Madame? Sorry, I should have saidau revoir…’ I remember my etiquette.
She smiles again. ‘I think you must call me Charlotte now. After all, we are friends.’
‘Au revoir, Charlotte,’ I say, feeling more than a little touched.
I walk towards my dusty little car, waving to Laurent as I pass thetabac, my basket full of baguettes and hope.
Chapter 35
‘How was it?’
Madame B is in the bakery, leaning on the broom, brushing her white hair off her face with her forearm. It is covered with flour, which is now spread across her forehead. She is beaming.
‘Lots of tourists browsing. Not buying much. And all the locals were already walking around with their baguettes from the machine,’ I say, sitting down heavily on the chair at the table in the window. I help myself to water from the jug and the little stack of glasses I placed there this morning for the women buying their early-morning baguettes and staying for coffee. ‘I mean, who is going to buy bread from the British woman in the Fiat Panda?’
I’d tried offering samples but got the same answer from everyone: ‘Non.’ And sometimes a ‘Non, merci’ as they hurried past me to the vending machine.
‘If we can get the locals on board, we will have to start baking a second batch in the afternoon forle dîner, when word gets around,’ says Madame B, clearly ignoring the fact that I haven’t sold anything this morning.
Through the clean white net curtains hanging halfway across the front window, I see Claude’s van pull up at the vending machine, ready to fill it with baguettes for lunchtime. I slide lower in my seat, hoping he won’t see me, and praying he won’t come in. I don’t want to face him until I’m making a go of this place.
‘Laurent was asking where you were when he came in for hisbaguette. He says he’ll be at the mill to make more flour this weekend.’
I feel a flutter of excitement. A weekend with Laurent at the mill … My thoughts turn to the picnics we’ll share on the lawn, reminding me to cut the grass. I stand and take my glass to the kitchen. Madame B is finishing the tidying.
The bell tinkles. I finish washing my glass and wipe down the draining board, then hurry out as I’m drying my hands on a tea-towel.
‘Sorry,je m’excuse, how can I help?’ I stop in my tracks. There, standing in the doorway, is Claude’s wife. The woman I met at his bakery, the one who sold me the stale croissant. A way of warning me off. I feel myself go cold.
She stares at me with her hooded eyes. ‘I am Vivianne, Claude’s wife.’
I forget all etiquette, totally at a loss in situations like this. ‘I know.’ My cheeks are burning, as if I’ve been slapped. I don’t know what to say. If I didn’t know better, I’d say even my eyeballs were sweating.
‘Look I’m sorry,’ I attempt to say. ‘I didn’t kno—’
She cuts across me crisply. ‘I know that you and my husband kissed. He says you were chasing him.’
I feel sick. Like a silly girl, rather than the mature woman I am. What was I doing, thinking I was having some sort of Shirley Valentine moment? I left theUKto just be me, to be Juliet. To be seen. Now, I was anything but that …
‘Please, I can only apologise, but it wasn’t like that. For a start, I didn’t know he was married. I was flattered by the attention at first … And he kissed me. It certainly wasn’t the other way round. And then he told me he was married and I told him to leave. I actually can’t stand him. I’m sure you find him …’ I swallow.
I’m making a pig’s ear of this. I’ve never been in this situation.Not even when I was younger. I met Pete and we were never apart from then.
Suddenly I feel very foolish for thinking I could do this on my own. I’ve made an idiot of myself and now a woman is standing in front of me, as if we’re in a spaghetti western, guns drawn, but I have no desire to fight over her man. Neither do I know what she’s likely to do now. What I do know is that I don’t want anyone else to find out about this.
‘Please, I really didn’t … It’s so out of character for me.’
She holds up a hand. ‘No, it’s me who’s here to apologise. The croissant I gave you was stale. I knew it was. I didn’t want you to have a fresh one. I didn’t want you to stay. I knew he would find you attractive. You’re his type. I wanted you not to feel welcome. I wanted to believe it was you making a move on him and not the other way round. But I knew that really it wasn’t the case. I’m sorry.’
‘What? You can’t apologise for your husband’s behaviour! And the croissant – honestly, forget it.’
