Page 30 of The Riviera House Swap
She was about to turn and wander around the block a couple of times hoping for an opening when a shaft of sunlight brokethrough from behind the light cloud, playing on her face. And almost simultaneously, the man with the beret rose, checked his watch, slipped his phone into his pocket and took his empty cup inside the café.
Probably, he was going to leave, she thought. It was possible, of course, that he was going for a refill and she was slipping into his place too quickly. But the sun’s rays illuminating the spot, the man’s fortuitous leaving, obstacles clearing from her path… maybe this was a sign? If she didn’t take it, someone else would and she was tired of skulking in the shadows, both literally and metaphorically.
She set her bag on the table territorially, and almost instantly, a waiter in jeans and a grey T-shirt appeared at her side. ‘Oui madame?’ he said, pulling out a notepad with a slight sigh, as if by gracing the café with her custom, she was making his life just a little bit more tedious than it had been already.
She smiled at the waiter, hoping to break him. And he returned a small grin. ‘Can I have a black coffee, please,’ she said with her best French accent, picking up the menu from the table. ‘And do you have any croissants left?’
‘But of course,’ he said, adding, ‘your French is very good, madame.’
It was a compliment, but in a way insulting, as she’d hoped in her naivety that by using French, she might pass for a native, at least when the conversation was limited to ordering caffeinated drinks. Clearly, her British accent shone through despite her efforts.
‘Thank you,’ she said graciously, scared afterwards to say much at all in French in case she shattered his illusions of her ‘very good’ language skills.
After the waiter took her menu and disappeared, Nina glanced over at the office building. It was a large premises, several businesses perhaps housed inside. A few lights alreadybloomed at the windows, but much of the building was still gloomy and unlit. Once in a while, a person would arrive, type in a code and enter through the security doors. But so far, nobody had looked even slightly like Pierre.
Her order arrived and after eating her croissant, she sipped her coffee slowly, hoping it would last for at least three quarters of an hour. She drew her book from her bag and rested it on the table as a decoy, angling herself so that a casual observer would think she was engrossed with the page rather than staring at the entrance of the office block opposite like a private detective on a stake-out.
As time went on, more and more people seemed to enter the building. The sliding doors were activated and people came and went without the need for security codes. Lights appeared in all of the windows and she could see people inside moving past, too small and indistinct and fleeting to be identified.
Perhaps she’d missed him. Perhaps he worked from home. Perhaps the website she’d found had been out of date. Perhaps he was already in and she simply hadn’t recognised him so many years after the fact. She began to get restless – the coffee not helping and her croissant a distant memory.
The moment she tipped the final dregs of her cup into her mouth, the waiter appeared at her side again. ‘Madame,’ he said. ‘Can I get you anything more?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A tea, if you have it?’
‘What kind?’
‘Just ordinary,’ she smiled, turning her attention back to the office block.
‘But what is ordinary?’ he asked, confused. ‘We have earl grey, mint tea, English breakfast, camomile…’
‘English breakfast please,’ she said. ‘With milk.’
He nodded, his brow furrowing slightly as if she’d made an unusual order and once again vanished into the café’s interior.
She glanced back over at the offices, without much hope. She’d finish the tea then take a walk along the front, and maybe come back later. And if that didn’t work, well, she’d think of something else. It had been a long shot to think she’d come across him on the first day, be able to pin him down so easily.
But, just as she was resigning herself to the fact her initial mission had failed, someone caught her eye. It wasn’t the face that she recognised first, but the walk. Something distinctly his, that her conscious mind had forgotten but her memory had stored somewhere. A jaunty, confident walk, his arms swinging by his sides. She allowed her eyes to travel up to the walker’s face and almost gasped.
Because it washim. And she realised she’d have recognised him anywhere. Yes, she’d been studying pictures of him on the internet, she’d known how his features had changed, how his face had widened, his looks had matured. She’d been more or less aware of how the man she was seeking would look twenty-three years after she’d last glimpsed him in the flesh.
What she hadn’t realised was how she’d still see traces of the boy he had been beneath the man he’d become. The turn of his head, the way he held himself. That walk. It was him.HerPierre. Two decades on, yet still somehow the same.
She watched as he strode purposefully through the sliding doors and was swallowed up inside.
‘Madame?’ a voice broke through her reverie and she realised the waiter was back at her table, holding a mug on the tray.
‘Here is your milk and your teabag.’ He lay an English breakfast teabag in a packet next to her.
She looked at the cup, full of milk clearly warmed with the cappuccino machine, touched the side to feel that it wasn’t much more than tepid, wondered what a ‘tea latte’ might taste like, and almost sent the whole thing back. Then found herself smilingand saying ‘thank you’ as if it was actually just what she’d ordered.
Because it didn’t matter, at least not that much, she thought to herself as she sipped the strange, milky, slightly browned drink moments later. She might not have got what she ordered, but she’d definitely got what she came for.
17
Nina had heard the expression ‘walking with a spring in her step’ before – but had never really known what it meant. But making her way back to Jean-Luc’s, she felt euphoric and every step felt lighter, more purposeful than it did usually. Seeing Pierre and feeling for that moment that whatever else had changed, the essence of the young man she’d loved was still there, made her feel that her plan wasn’t so ridiculous, that her quest wasn’t so pointless. That actually, just maybe, she might be on the cusp of a brilliant adventure.
The mild air felt pleasant and she turned her face slightly to feel the rays of the sun, weak but still warm, play on her skin. Breathing deeply, she felt it all fall away: the divorce, the job she may or may not return to, the worries about her age, the time she felt she’d wasted. For a moment, none of it mattered and she felt light and free and younger and full of possibilities.
