‘Honestly, you wouldn’t get away with it back in the UK,’ Cora says. And she’s probably right.
‘Something has to be done about those people,’ she says, then warns me, ‘Mind yourself on that riverbank path. You want to stay away from there – anything could happen. The sooner that lot get moved on the better.’ She looks at Carine, then at Henri, who is standing in the doorway, neither saying a word. No one seems to be agreeing with her, apart from her friends. Then she turns back to me. ‘Let me know if you fancy lunch, or meeting up in the pub,’ she says. ‘We’re here for you, for each other.’ She smiles and they leave.
We watch them go.
Henri shakes his head. I wonder if Cora or the shoplifter has worried him.
We finish our coffee and Carine pays.
We begin to walk away. ‘So, you are at the start of your new life,’ she says, ‘here in Ville de Violet.’ She links arms with me. ‘Let me know if I can help.’
‘Actually, Carine, there is something. I need to find work, a job. Do you know of anything?’
‘Not at the moment, but I’ll keep my ear to the ground. You could always turn your house into a chambre d’hôte,’ she says. ‘Have people pay to stay in a Provençal house, vraiment charmant. I’m asked about places to stay all the time. I could send customers looking to live in the area to stay with you, give them a taste of France before they buy.’
We walk slowly back to her shop where a couple are studying the window display. They’re clearly British.
‘People still want to come to Provence,’ she says. ‘And who wouldn’t? There’s sun, wine, herbs, lavender …’ We laugh.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I say. As we part, I know I’ve made a good friend in the town already.
I walk back along the riverbank, taking my time, carrying my bags. There are more people under the tree now. A group of younger people, with dogs off leads sniffing around. Some have dreadlocks, wear army surplus clothes, and a few are drinking from cans. Almost all acknowledge me.
I wonder if this was what Cora was worried about when she was telling the mayor that something had to be done. I walk on, catching a whiff of lavender from a garden.
A chambre d’hôte, Le Petit Mas de la Lavande? It’s a shame there’s no lavender now, and that I haven’t enough money to get a B-and-B up and running. I’d need to paint and furnish the place, tidy up the shutters and get all the right paperwork. I need to work to earn money straight away, but as I walk home, the idea follows me, and won’t leave me alone. If only I could … Could I? I stare at the house from the drive, imagining how it could be. I have plenty of room, but no furniture. And, sadly, with no income, and the mortgage repayments, I know it can’t happen yet. It may not be a big mortgage, but I have to find that money to stay. Otherwise I’ll have to put the house back on the market. There must be a way to make it happen.
EIGHT
I’m the owner of an old Provençal farmhouse, with no money and no way of earning any. To stop myself slipping back into despair at the reality of my situation I throw myself into baking the tuiles. I put the old recipe book on the clean, empty work surface and open it to the first page. ‘Okay,’ I say to myself. ‘Let’s try this. If I’m going to live here, I need to do everything in French, including reading a recipe.’ I put on the reading glasses that are still relatively new to me, and attempt to interpret the instructions for the recette. I run my finger under the words and every now and again reach for Google Translate on my phone.
I turn on the oven. I’ve hardly used it in the weeks we’ve been here. Bread, tomatoes and cheese seem to have been our staple diet, when we weren’t eating out, Ollie complaining about the prices. We could have eaten in far cheaper places than the brasserie in the middle of town that charged a supplement for its location.
In the box of utensils, for which Fabien charged me next to nothing, I find a chipped old mixing bowl and an electric whisk. I plug it in and switch it on. It works! I start to cream together the butter, sugar and vanilla extract. Then I separate the eggs. The yolks are as orange as the brilliant sun and I whisk each one into the butter mixture. I add the egg whites and when they’re incorporated I turn back to the book. I’m pretty sure it’s telling me to fold in the flour. If I do a recipe a day, my French is bound to come on. I add the flour – and now for the lavender.
As I focus on what I’m doing I’m thinking less about Ollie and our life together. The memories that have kept me awake at night are of the good times, before we drifted apart. I’m not missing my mum so much as realizing that cooking makes me feel close to her. I can feel her with me, in the kitchen.
I step outside into the sunshine and on to the terrace overlooking the field and pick a few sprigs of lavender. I have no idea how much I’m supposed to use or whether I can use it fresh – but nothing ventured, nothing gained. I go back to the kitchen and run my fingers down the lavender stems and the little flowers fall off. I scoop them up and sprinkle them into the dough, much as I would if I was using rosemary. I’m cautious with the lavender. I have no idea how it will taste.
I roll out the dough with a jam jar full of baking beans that was in the box of utensils and other kitchen bits and pieces, then reach for one of the cups I bought and use it to cut out neat circles. When I try to lift them off the work surface they stick, and I have to start again. Phfffff! This time I roll it on the greaseproof paper I bought to line pans. Having cut out the circles, I lift the paper straight on to a baking sheet. Da-nah!
I turn to the rumbling oven and open the stiff door. Inside, it’s spotless from when I blitzed the house before we were due to move out just three days ago. It seems a lifetime ago. I slide the baking tray into the oven. Dust off my hands. Put a timer on my phone, then step back on to the terrace and look out over the valley.
I need to work, but what can I do? I’d love to ask around for shop work. But my French isn’t good enough. How can I work with the public when I’m still trying to string basic sentences together? Back home I loved my job in the department store. I joined as holiday relief, and stayed. My two best friends moved on. Rhi left to train as a hairdresser so she could set up in business on her own after her husband left her with two young children, and Lou struggled to work again after she lost her husband to a heart attack. We’ve stayed close, meeting up when we can.
I pick a few more sprigs of lavender from the hedge outside the back door, hold it to my nose and inhale. It fills my senses. I can smell the tuiles cooking, and imagine Fabien’s face when I hand them to him.
Ralph bounds around chasing the little white butterflies that flutter away, leaving him mystified. He turns his attention to the bees buzzing around the lavender, interested but hesitant, eventually backing off and going to search for more butterflies. What would it have been like for Ralph to go to an apartment after this place? It would have been kinder to find him a new home, somewhere like this. A small lump rises in my throat.
I check my timer. All good. Ralph is still being given the run-around by dancing butterflies. In the distance I can see a purple field of lavender. What a sight the deep purple must have been when it grew here at Le Petit Mas. And the smell must have been amazing! Had this still been a lavender farm I could have grown and distilled it, made oil and soap, perfume eventually, then sold it, using my skills from my job in the department store, but one small hedge isn’t enough.