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He was right, as much as I didn’t enjoy hearing it. We ran on the same lines as my Papi had done back in the 1960s. Much of it based on families, trust, and repeating what had worked the year before.
“In summary, the good people in the Guéronde enjoyed the Selco windfall, which they actually spent wisely, modernising their grain storage facilities. But now we’re three years down the line, and since then, several farmers have sold their plots, the business has condensed, and the farmers that have remained are chained to reaching ambitious production targets, with penalties in place if they don’t achieve them. It’s my bet that within two years, the partnership will have dissolved and Selco’s sister company will buy everyone out for a fraction of what the business was worth two years ago.”
His eyes met mine. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.”
Putain de merde. Branded T-shirts and the ugly Selco logo on salt packets were the least of our worries. My entire livelihood was at stake.
“How can you be so sure they’ll want to do that to us?”
He laughed. “They’re sharks, remember? And sharks never stop swimming forwards.” He threw me a sheepish look. “And also it… um… takes one to know one.”
I needed to squeeze this font of knowledge dry, I needed Charles to run through his graphs and diagrams more slowly, with me making notes along the way. But I had to get back to work. Rain was forecast for the weekend, which meant no salt harvest. On the upside, I’d have a few spare hours to plan my campaign. The downside meant working late today instead of lounging around Charles’s beautiful temporary home with him in my arms. Not that I’d been invited to do that, but one lived in hope.
He walked me back through the house. An easel stood in the corner of a large, airy sitting room, angled to catch the light.
“Do you paint?” I squinted, trying to make head or tail of the thick black lines criss-crossing the canvas. It resembled a person’s face, in a kind of abstract style; the person had what appeared to be silver flames shooting out of their hair.
“After a fashion,” he answered. “I’m trying to get back into it. My mother encouraged art because she thought it might help me process my synaesthesia as a child.”
He turned to me with a cautious smile. “It took me many years to understand not everyone viewed the world through the same rainbow kaleidoscope as I did.”
“Did the painting help?”
He seemed to consider before answering. “Yes, on balance. Regardless, it gave me a lifelong love and appreciation of art. After I fell ill, the therapists at the hospital also encouraged me to take it up again. They thought it might help with my nerves.”
“You know we have a lot of artists on the island. They come for the light and then stay to sell to rich tourists.”
“Maybe that’s where my future lies,” he teased. “I need to improve first.”
“Who’s the model?” I gave a backward glance at the easel.
We arrived at the front door, and he stopped, resting his hand awkwardly on the handle. “I’ve… I’ve been trying to capture a certain something on… on the face a young man I met recently. It’s proving a challenge.”
Still wearing the sexy glasses, he pushed them up his nose, his eyes flicking up to mine and away. Mon dieu, he meant me. My heart skittered to a halt. I covered the hand on the door handle with mine.
“Why is it so difficult?”
“Well,” he began, blushing and studying our hands like he’d never seen either of them before, “The model is… well, he is on the move a lot. He’s not particularly good at sitting still. And he has a lot of varied expressions, and I want to get it right.”
“Perhaps it’s time for a private tour of a salt flat, Charles, if you would still like one? You can study the model’s face really close up.”
Finally, his shy eyes met mine. “I… ah…that sounds an excellent idea. I don’t suppose there is a private tour running tonight?”
Oh fucking merde, yes. Yes! “I’ll have to check the salt farmer’s extensive personal diary, because as you know, life rushes by at a mile a minute around here. But I think he could probably squeeze one in, for the right individual.”
CHAPTER 13
CHARLES
The marshes held a timeless quality. If I closed my eyes and blocked out my colours, I fancied I could hear them breathing, an undulating whish as the reedy tall grasses bowed down to each puff of wind. Night was falling, layer upon layer, the sky turned a deeper and deeper blue. Fading sunlight daubed the straggly, jointed stems of samphire in a pink blush, while the still waters of Florian’s tile lapped lazily at its shallow clay banks. I was struck by an utter absence of unnatural sound.
I found him tidying away his stall, securing the shutter on his shack, and scooping up the coins from the honesty tin—yes, such a thing still existed. He was dressed in his work clothes; I think it was how I liked him best—rolled up ragged denim above slim tanned calves, a sun-bleached T-shirt leaving his strong sinewy arms bare, the tattered Panama shielding his handsome features.
“Hi! You came!”
I couldn’t have stayed away. Not only had that kiss at the firework display woken dim recollections of other kisses enjoyed during another lifetime, but for the first time since my mother’s death, an icy chill coiled within my veins had been usurped; warmth now settled there. “Yes, I came.”
His face broke into a guileless smile and his silver halo shimmered. “Then your private tour awaits, monsieur. Is that what you came for?”
