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I smiled to myself. No way could I imagine my grandparents as young adults, sitting across from each other, maybe even at this old table, strategizing about how to draw everyone in. The only conversations I’d ever heard them having had been gossiping about their friends, moaning about the price of literally everything, and telling everyone how much nicer the island had been before they built the toll bridge and let the noisy Parisians in.
“So I did,” he carried on. “I pointed out that I wasn’t doing any of this for me. I mean, I was of course, but they didn’t need to know that. I said I wasn’t even doing it for my children. Or anyone else’s children, as some of the men in the room already had their grown sons working with them or moved away. So that wouldn’t swing any arguments.”
“What did you say, then?”
He gave another satisfied nod and tapped on the table. “I suggested we were all doing it to protect the grandchildren we didn’t yet have. For boys like you, Florian. In order that our families’ futures would be safe long after we’d gone. We all agreed on that.”
So that kicked me in the gut much harder than I’d anticipated. Could I pull the same thing off with men who had bags of coins being dangled in front of their faces? Was family as important to modern men like it had been back then? Would appealing to a future common good work? Fucking merde if I knew. I didn’t have a father myself, and would probably never have my own kids, never mind grandchildren. Nevertheless, I added it to my mental list of reasons to oppose the takeover.
Unaware my eyes had become all watery and having reached the end of his tale, Papi resumed dipping his bread into his coffee. I’m sure it hadn’t been as romantic as he made it sound; it wasn’t exactly a bonus scene from Les Misèrables, no one was hurling salt at the barricades to a background of beating drums. Nonetheless, it was an inauspicious moment to realise revolutionary spirit simmered in my blood.
No pressure then.
“Alors, what are you looking all dressed up for? Have you had a court summons?”
Nico and Jerome eyed my clean jeans and ironed long-sleeved T-shirt as if I’d waltzed into L’Escale in top hat and tails. After a meticulous shower, my curls had erupted from the top of my head like a volcano, so I’d slicked them back while they were still damp and secured them with a tight band. Hoping to distract my friends from my spruced-up appearance, I’d launched into a tirade about the cooperative saga until they’d begged me to stop.
“Shouldn’t that be who is he all dressed up for?” Nico smirked and took a long drag of his roll up. In stark contrast, unless he was experimenting with unusual aftershaves, he’d come to the pub straight from the oyster beds.
“At least I don’t smell of dead fish.”
“It’s manly and alluring.” Nico waved his roll-up at me. “Trust me, the ladies love it.”
The bloody annoying thing was, he was right. There was something about Nico’s don’t-give-a-shit, unwashed, bad boy demeanour that had them flocking to him. Mind you, if they were hoping to tame him, they were out of luck. Nico was never going to change.
“It’s that man, isn’t it?” Jerome cocked his eyebrow. “That old Englishman you’ve got a crush on. You have very strange taste in men, Flor. He looks like he’s spent every day of the last twenty years holed up in a library.”
“Every night, too,” added Nico. “He looks ill. Or maybe it’s his age.”
Jerome gave me a nudge. “Julien spotted him helping you with the raking yesterday, when he went out on patrol.”
I rolled my eyes. Julien called it patrolling, being a responsible policeman. Some days it felt closer to stalking.
“Putain, Charles is not old! He’s only about ten years older than us.”
“What’s he been doing for those ten years? Sleeping in a coffin?”
“He’s a friend. That’s all. And I’m pretty sure he’s straight. He’s not giving out gay vibes, that’s for sure.”
That recent mental illness and grief accounted for Charles’s pallor was not something I felt a need to share. Whatever light had once shone in his eyes had been comprehensibly snuffed out. He’d given me a glimpse into his recent struggles while slumped on my bench, and his pale hand clutching the water bottle had trembled like a leaf.
“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” scoffed Jerome. “Nico’s uncle Thibaut has five children and he’s as bent as —"
“Merci, mais non,” interrupted Nico. “That is all speculation, not knowledge.”
“‘Speculation’?” spluttered Jerome. “Don’t you remember giving him a lift back from that gay bar Flor dragged us to, in La Rochelle? And him spending the entire journey home boasting about the man he’d blown in the toilets?”
“He was drunk, that’s all. Talking gibberish.”
Mon dieu, even Nico’s aunt had worked out her husband preferred men. I sniggered as Nico blew his smoke in Jerome’s face.
“Keep that disgusting shit away from me!” Jerome covered his nose, jerking his chair back as if he hadn’t chain-smoked his way through the last ten years. “I’m going to be a papa soon! I’ve given up.”
Nico’s grin was wicked. “I bet you haven’t told the old man you’re going to be a papa, have you?”
“Shh! Not so loud. Not yet, no. And if Léa finds out I’ve shared it with you two mecs, I’ll be in big trouble. It’s too early, anyhow. We need to have the fourteen-week scan before we go around telling everybody.” He sounded like a proper little expert.
“Make sure you break the news to your dad somewhere far away from me,” said Nico.
