One Day in May - Catherine Alliott [83]
Montauroux was heaving when I finally arrived, late in the evening. The main square was full of tourists who’d left it late and were looking for a spot for supper. Patrons at their awnings now turned away those who they’d recently sought to entice inside with promises of fresh moules, escargots swimming in garlic, or a fridge full of oysters on display. Seasoned antique dealers from London, however, did not leave so much to chance. They were already on their café cognacs and post-supper cigarettes, eyeing up the best sites for their trestle tables under the trees in the morning, preparing for an early night.
I greeted those I knew with a wave and a promise to yes, possibly join them for a drink later, and no, Maggie wasn’t with me but would be along in due course. There was a camaraderie amongst us, as well as a fierce rivalry: we’d drink into the small hours together and laugh like drains, but the following morning, had no qualms about selling one another something we’d bought for half the price the previous week. In the early days Maggie and I had fallen for some classic ruses, but were unlikely to be duped now.
Amongst the French contingent of stall holders – most of whom looked like they were straight out of central casting – I spotted Antoine Renard propping up a long zinc bar. Jowly and bug-eyed, a Gauloise dropped from his lips as he ostensibly read Le Monde, but in reality scanned the crowd to see which of his rivals from the porcelain world were here. Jacques Dupont, he of the seedy dark looks, who’d smile and sell his own grandmother, was with him. At a table for one, under an awning, the once beautiful, now haggard, Madame Alain – never Pascale – with her dyed orange hair and tiny nervous dog on her lap, was impeccably dressed as ever, dripping with jet beads, and feeding Kiki the remains of her plat du jour.
‘Ça va?’ She smiled and tapped my arm with a heavily jewelled hand as I approached.
I kissed her three times, as was her wont.
‘Ça va,’ I agreed, ‘mais fatiguée.’ I let my shoulders droop.
‘Ah, oui, c’est normal pour moi!’ Her own shoulders went up and her eyes popped as she let me know by her horrified expression that no one, however long they lived, or however far they travelled, would ever be as tired as she, Madame Alain.
I sat and chatted a while, wondering guiltily if she were the woman I dreaded becoming, then got up and moved on.
I booked into my usual hotel – no balcony, I noted with a smile – and once showered and changed, went back down to the square with my book. I deliberately made for a café down a backstreet, which I knew wasn’t frequented by tourists, but did a very good plate of saucisson, which with a glass of wine, was all I fancied tonight.
Having settled myself at a table outside and ordered, I opened my book to read by the twinkling fairy lights in the trees above. As I did, a shadow fell over the printed page, blocking the light. I glanced up to see Hal Forbes standing over me.
I stared.
‘Hello, Hattie.’ He smiled, and then as if no water whatsoever had flowed under any bridges in the intervening years, indicated the seat opposite. ‘May I?’
Still speechless I gazed as he sat down. Finally I found my voice. Took my glasses off. ‘What on earth are you doing here?’
‘Hm?’ He looked around for a waiter, as if it were the most natural thing in the world to be sitting opposite me in a cobbled street in Montauroux, seven hundred miles from home.
‘I live here. Or at least I have a house near here, in Seillans. Didn’t I say the other week?’
I opened my mouth. ‘Oh. Yes. Well – no. At least… well, I knew you were getting married here. I didn’t know you actually lived here.’
‘I’ve had a house here for five years. This is my local bar. They do the best saucisson for miles. Shall we make that a bottle?’ he asked as the waiter approached with my glass of wine. ‘You wouldn’t want to stay here, though,’ he warned as the waiter, recognizing Hal, broke into