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“I know, yes. When I took a wrong turn. I showed him Beatrice’s old cottage. Dreadful Belgian accent.”
I stiffened, recognising it as the first time he’d alluded to getting lost. He didn’t seem anxious about it though, so I let it slide.
“Charles,” he repeated, as if trying to file the name away. “His accent is awful. Who is he again?”
Gritting my teeth, I reminded myself he had no idea he’d asked me the same question less than a minute earlier and kept my voice calm. I’d been doing some reading—web-surfing really, and there were some useful coping strategies for carers out there. And as tedious and painful as it had become, our breakfast routine, the absolute mind-numbing sameness of it, was apparently a good thing.
“Charles. An Englishman, staying in the village for a while.”
He nodded and tore off a strip of stale baguette. “That’s right. Charles. Good salt weather, isn’t it?”
I happened to have become rather fond of Charles’s terrible accent. Especially when promising words like bisexual dropped from his delectable mouth. So fond, I took his accent into the shower with me that morning, spending much longer than usual under the hot jets, imagining all the things I’d do to him if only I could break down those high walls. And then the next set of high walls they shielded, and probably the sturdy fortress after that, because Charles Heyer was not a straightforward man. I was desperate to probe deeper into his odd condition, about his evident decline in mental health and why he was here, but so far, he’d been hesitant. And who could blame him? So I had reined it in and reminded myself that good things came to those who waited.
The satisfied glow stayed with me as I loaded the cart hitched to my bike that I used to transport my tools before making my wobbly way to the salt flats to start another day. I carried a sense of relief too, at sharing my worries about Selco with someone clued into big business. Charles’s grey eyes had perused the documents with a professional coolness, interest flashing across them as he’d pursed his lips and glanced up at me and offered to investigate. I’d googled Selco myself, of course, and been met with a snazzy website structuring corporate assets, listing pre-tax profits, global investments, environmental strategies; the whole lot swirling in a miasma of business-speak that left me feeling nauseous in the way David must have felt in the run up to facing Goliath. Charles, on the other hand, had promised to get back to me in a couple of days, which had pleased me on several levels, not least that I’d be seeing him again.
Jerome joined me at lunchtime with a blow-by-blow account of Léa’s pregnancy sickness, which wasn’t the most ideal accompaniment to my pâté sandwich. And he didn’t seem to care one jot when I told him so.
“When are you planning on breaking this joyful news to your dad?”
He shrugged. “Dunno. It’s up to Léa really. But we’re going to have to save some money if we want to get a place of our own, and so living at home for a while is the only option. He’ll go berserk.”
Jerome would be living at home for more than a while if he hoped to stay on the island. Rich tourists had pushed house prices out of reach of most of us.
“It’s not like you’re both school kids and this is an unwanted teenage pregnancy,” I pointed out. “You and Léa have been arguing then making up with each other for more than ten years.”
“Tell me about it. And I love her, and I’m excited about the baby, or I will be when she stops puking. It’s just the money, to be honest. And not having a place of our own and having to shack up with my dad.”
“The Selco deal would give you some money,” I pointed out cautiously. “Initially, anyhow. It might even be enough for a deposit somewhere.”
“That’s what Léa said.” He kicked at a pebble, sending a small flock of red shanks panicking into the sky. “But, do you know what, Flor? I’m with you on this. I’d rather live under a railway bridge than sell my soul and a share in my salt flat to a bastard company that will make me wear their logo on my T-shirt and sell their merchandise. The only person who will ever be getting their mitts on my salt flat is currently cooking in Léa’s belly. So you need to come up with a way of persuading everyone to say no to the bid.”
“Why don’t you do it yourself? I’ll warn you now, the railway bridge option won’t land too well with your Léa.”
“I can’t. Because I’ll be up against my dad, won’t I? He’ll kick me out. You know, ‘if I speak, I am condemned. If I stay silent, I am damned’.”
I burst out laughing. “Now who’s sounding like a revolutionary? Listen: can you hear the distant drums?”
“It has to be you, Flor. You’re brave enough. Your Papi was a founding member, and people like you. They listened to you the other night. But do it soon, because once my dad knows Léa and a wailing baby are going to be living under his roof, he’s going to grab that money with both hands.”
CHAPTER 11
CHARLES
Bastille Day. Fourteenth July. A day of flags, fireworks, fraternity, and food. A day for families. A day to remember a nation’s proud revolution, to celebrate the crumbling of the old world and the ringing in of the new. An excuse for a party, and for the first time in as long as I could remember, I was going to one.
And I didn’t know how I felt about that. Strangled by guilt mostly. I woke drenched in orange that a phone call from Marcus deepened to a fearsome burnt sienna. His news left me bathed in a sheen of cold sweat and reaching for my anti-anxiety meds. A pleasant chat on the surface, my brain translated as we went along.
Lucinda and I are planning on dropping by on our route back from the Dordogne in a couple of weeks’ time. We’ve missed you, old boy. (I’m coming to check up on you.)
Great! (Fuck. I’m not ready.)
Someone needs to report back on how the tan’s coming along. (Ditto above. This is basically an extended holiday. You’ve malingered long enough.)
I’m still my usual pasty self. (Please don’t belittle my illness. I don’t have the strength to defend myself.)
Any news? (Feel free to tell me you’re coming back to work soon?)
Yes! I’ve made a friend. (Can I distract you with this?) A nice chap. I’m meeting him later for a drink. (I sucked salt from his finger. He fills my head with silver, making me forget myself for a while. I dream about kissing him.)
