Page 45 of The Little Provence Book Shop
Had her mother been feeling as weary as she did as she fixed on a smile and pulled a plastic spade from her backpack? Had the outward display of reckless abandon been a carefully orchestrated show for her and Kevin? Each stage of motherhood Adeline entered made her feel closer to her mum somehow; she’d slipped behind the curtain of childhood and was seeing how everything worked backstage. She wished Mum were here so she could answer the questions that Adeline hadn’t known to ask back then.
‘What’s the matter?’ Lili asked.
Adeline jumped a little. ‘Sorry. Mummy was just dreaming for a moment.’
Lili seemed satisfied with this response and pointed to the spot on the sand she’d chosen. ‘Here!’ she said proudly as if she’d discovered something unique and amazing at the random little patch of sand.
‘Perfect,’ said Adeline, unfurling a towel and laying it down for them to sit on. She set the backpack at one end, and slipped off her shoes and set them at the other in case the breeze got any ideas about whipping the towel away. ‘You start,’ she said to her daughter, handing over the spade. ‘I’ll just a have a little rest, then I’ll join you.’
Lili didn’t need telling twice. She was soon drawing out shapes in the sand with the corner of the spade, mapping out the ambitious design of a castle that was clearly going to take all of their construction skills combined to create.
Looking across the scene, Adeline watched a small dog at the lakeside, trotting and dancing in front of a man who’d occasionally throw a ball into the shallows for the dog to splashily retrieve. To the side, a couple sat on a picnic blanket, sipping something warm from a flask. There were a couple of olderchildren – possibly around ten years old or so – kicking up sand at the water’s edge. Otherwise, the beach was empty.
Perhaps everyone was waiting until the afternoon, she thought. Lunch, she knew, was sacrosanct in France – probably people would be in the restaurants or at home with family, then hit the beach later on. She wasn’t too disappointed. It would be nice to see a few more faces, have a few more sights and sounds to add to the atmosphere, but in some ways, it was nice to have this privacy, a little slice of paradise just for the two of them.
She pulled the flask of coffee she’d made before setting off from her bag and poured herself a tiny serving in the small cup that served both as a lid and a receptacle. Sipping the hot liquid, she hoped it would give her the impetus she needed to build what by now looked like the plan for an entire medieval village.
‘I see Monique has given you a holiday at last!’
The voice made her jump. She opened her eyes and saw the face of someone standing behind her, looking over, his face stretched into an enormous smile.
‘Michel!’ she said.
‘Oui, c’est moi,’ he said, moving around to face them. Lili looked up briefly from her digging then went back to work, clearly too busy to be interrupted.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, almost clapping her hand over her mouth after the question escaped it.
He laughed, clearly amused, and rocked back on his heels slightly. ‘Ah, even professors get weekends. I am here to paint.’ He nodded to a leather case under his arm which apparently contained his art materials. ‘The light is perfect here,’ he added, looking across the sun-dappled water; ‘I often come at weekends.’
‘Oh. Monique didn’t mention that when she recommended this spot to me.’
They looked at each other for a moment, sizing up the situation. Another engineered meeting?
‘Well, hope it goes well!’ she said. ‘Unless you want a cup of coffee?’ She waved the tiny flask and laughed.
He stepped forward, and she was sure he was about to move off, then realised that he was actually moving to the spare piece of towel. Before she’d had time to say anything – although honestly, what would she have said? – he’d plonked himself down next to her, so close that they were almost touching. ‘Thank you, that is very kind.’
A British person probably would have known Adeline’s offer had been a friendly rebuff – an offer made in the certainty of polite rejection. Only the nuance was lost on Michel.
She tried to calm the slight annoyance she felt at his presumption – because she’d actually offered, she had to remind herself – and instead tipped the last drops of coffee from her cup and rinsed it out using water from Lili’s bottle, before pouring him a fresh cup.
‘Merci,’ he said, blowing steam from the top of the black liquid. ‘This is exactly what I need.’
‘No problem.’
They settled into silence, Adeline still feeling a little out of sorts at the thought that Monique might have recommended the beach to her for a very specific reason. She’d have to have words with her boss – but how?
‘Ah, so Lili is now on holiday,’ Michel said, his voice close to her ear.
‘Yes.’
A silence fell over them.
‘I am sorry, I’m interrupting,’ he said, sensing the atmosphere.
She felt suddenly guilty. ‘No, not really. I just…’
He looked at her, his eyes so intelligent, it felt as if he were reading her. She sighed; there was no point in beating around the bush. ‘It’s just Monique. Do you think she’s trying to – I don’t know…work her magicwith us?’
