The slow smile that began to curve his lips was interrupted by the sales assistant approaching and Tilly felt a sharp pang of disappointment, as if she’d just missed out on a coveted prize.
She watched Angus as he paid for the jeans, choosing to keep wearing them like he had with the leather sneakers and having his chinos consigned to the same bag as his more formal shoes. She wanted him to smile again.
Arealsmile that came straight from his heart.
‘Is there anything else you’d like to buy?’ she asked. ‘Like one of those?’
She turned her gaze to the shelf of men’s hats beside the cashier that displayed a range of fedoras, Panama hats, flat caps and berets.
Angus shook his head but he did step closer and pick up a flat cap that looked like it was made out of soft dark-brown leather.
Tilly was the one who ended up smiling in the end, when she translated the shop assistant’s spiel.
‘He says this is the perfectcasquette platefor driving,’ she told Angus. ‘Especially in a convertible.’
But Angus shook his head. ‘I don’t do hats,’ he said. ‘And I know it’s still early but we’ve been up since well before the crack of dawn and I didn’t have any breakfast and, I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. Can you find me something very French to eat?’
Tilly was still smiling. ‘Come with me,’ she invited.
* * *
Angus recognised the mossy fountain and the restaurant where they’d eaten their steak frites – had that really only been last night? – but the rest of Aix’s main street, Cours Mirabeau, was unrecognisable.
Striped umbrellas lined the sides of the road, beneath the plane trees, and it was a scene of vibrant colour, noise and crowds of people. There were tourists with backpacks, looking for souvenirs, and locals with grocery baskets and wheeled trolleys, doing their food shopping. There were adults, children, babies in strollers, dogs on leads. There was music to be heard from buskers, laughter and the call of greetings and an astonishing range of things to smell, like the heavy perfume coming from lavender soaps, the sharp sting of baskets of spices and then an unmistakeably fishy odour from a huge metal bowl of paella being cooked. Buckets of sunflowers competed in brightness with the rainbows of the fruit and vegetable stalls, where boxes of tomatoes and carrots and bananas framed pretty summer berries arranged in tiny cardboard punnets. Angus found himself turning his head from one side to the other, spotting bright ceramic jugs and plates here, cured meat there, olives and then handbags and now a whole block of clothing stalls. It was a kaleidoscope of too many things hitting his senses and, for someone who liked to be able to assess everything around him, it was starting to feel chaotic.
Angus needed to stop for a moment to catch his breath.
Tilly kept walking a few paces and then turned, as though she’d felt his absence. He couldn’t see her eyes behind her sunglasses but she sounded curious.
‘What is it, Angus? Have you seen something you’d like to buy?’
‘Erm…’ He didn’t want to admit the sensory overload that he was only experiencing because his normal life was so lacking in this kind of buzz.
‘Aye,’ he added, forcing a smile. ‘I’m a tourist. I think I need to buy a… a…’ His gaze swept the stall he was in front of. ‘A tee shirt.’ He pointed at the ones hanging right beside him. ‘One of those.’
It was a pale grey tee shirt. The large font of ‘Aix-en-Provence’ made a dark blue semicircle enclosing the GPS coordinates of the city, a coat of arms and the date of 123BC, which was apparently when it had been established. Angus preferred polo shirts for leisure wear but this was, at least, a perfect potted history of a place he wanted to remember.
And a reminder of a person he was never going to forget. Minutes later, when he’d chosen his size and paid for his purchase, she led him deeper into the market and then stopped by a small food truck.
‘This is what I think you should eat,’ she told him. ‘Socca.’
There was an oven inside the truck and Angus could see real flames at the back of it.
‘Like a wood-fired pizza?’
‘More like a pancake,’ Tilly said. ‘It’s made from chickpea flour and some oil and water. Very Provençal.’ She was watching the vendor slide a large flat pan from the oven with a wide metal paddle. Then he swiftly chopped the contents into slices and loaded them on paper plates for the people ahead of them in the queue, sprinkling the slices with salt and pepper as requested.
Angus was watching Tilly more than the action at the counter. She had that look on her face again. That ‘in the moment’ anticipation of something good about to happen, like that child on Christmas morning.
And it was adorable.
Angus had a ridiculous urge to tap her on her shoulder and, when she turned to see what he wanted, he would look into her eyes and hope that she could see exactly what he wanted.
Her.
He wanted Tilly.
He wanted to kiss her senseless. To make love to her. Or, if she didn’t want that, he would be content to justbewith her.
