‘Felix,kaixo!’ someone shouted, and Felix pulled me towards a stall that was selling cheese. There were huge wheels of cheese everywhere and a man who looked around eighty smiled at Felix.
Felix talked away to him and, still holding on to his hand, I gazed around the market, completely mesmerized by this other world. When Felix tugged me gently, we walked away.
‘Kaisho, what’s that?’ I asked loudly, to be heard over the hum.
‘Kaixo. It means hello in the Basque language. Sometimes you will see it on signposts, and some of the older generation still speak it. But I only know a few words,’ Felix explained.
‘Wow,’ I said. This world, it was so different from mine. I was so utterly intoxicated by this place, by this boy.
‘Here we are,’ Felix said, and led me to a stall with towers of home-made soap, decorated with dried flowers, and little baskets. It smelled like heaven and I breathed it in, trying to calm the feeling of impending doom of meeting Felix’s mum.
‘Felix!’ A woman came round from behind the table and kissed Felix on both cheeks. She was small, thin and elegant. She had dark hair and was wearing an apron over a cream blouse.
‘Maman, c’est Margot,’ Felix said, grinning, and his mumlooked at me with deep blue eyes that sparkled in the rays of sun that cut through the gaps in the wooden roof. And just like it was with Felix, I felt immediately accepted, safe.
‘Margot.Enchantée.’ Felix’s mother came towards me and kissed both my cheeks. She even smelled like soap.
‘Enchantée,’ I replied awkwardly. She looked at me the way her son did sometimes, like she didn’t want to miss something. She smiled. ‘Si, si belle.You are very,verybeautiful,’ she translated.
‘Thank you,’ I said, pushing hair behind my ear.
Felix started talking to her in French and I looked at the stall, running my fingers along the towers of soap, picking some up to smell.
‘Lavande.’ A girl’s voice.
I looked up to see a teenage girl in an apron behind the stall. ‘It is the favourite of Marie. I think she will give you some. She has a good instinct for the girls who are with her boys,’ the girl said.
I put the soap back and looked at Felix, a bit confused, but he was still deep in conversation with his mum, so I turned back to the girl.
And I just couldn’t help myself. ‘Are there a lot of girls with Felix?’ I asked her.
‘With Felix?Non,’ she said, making a Jenga tower of soap. ‘But –’
‘Margot, you are ready?’ Felix called over to me.
I walked away, bemused, but figured it was just something that got lost in translation.
‘For you,’ Felix’s mum said. She handed me a brown bagfilled with soap. I lifted it to my nose and breathed it in. ‘Lavande,’ she said.
‘Merci beaucoup,’ I said. Yet it felt tainted after what the girl had just said. Delphine’s remarks about tourists flooded my mind too. But I smiled gratefully.
We walked away and I followed Felix out into the blazing sun.
‘I am sorry,’ he said. ‘Maman, she likes to give soap to people.’ He shrugged and looked embarrassed.
‘I love it,’ I said simply, and he smiled with such relief that I leaned forward and kissed him right there, outside the market, and the moment was so nice that I decided to shove the ‘other girls’ out of my head.
‘Can we eat now?’ I asked.
‘Bien sûr!’
17
We walked through the narrow streets hand in hand, and it felt like we were proper grown-ups. Like we’d come on our own holiday and were exploring the town. I took so many photos. Usually I’d put them straight on Insta, but I was still trying not to look at it after seeing Theo’s post.
Felix led me down a side street and I almost tripped on the cobblestones, but he pulled me up and pushed my hair behind my ear as I laughed.
‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘Sometimes the best restaurants are in these hidden streets,’ he explained.
