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He lifted his glass to his lips, hiding his expression. So that was interesting. What the hell was a suave, handsome thirty-something like him doing whiling away the summer on his tod in a backwater like Loix? He didn’t strike me as the kind of guy to indulge in a solitary yoga retreat, or one of the nerdy birdwatchers. Although he did appear a little nerdy. And if he was in the market for casual holiday sex then there were many more obvious destinations. The end of a relationship, maybe? Now I thought about it, maybe the sexy dark hollows under his eyes and the tired edges to his mouth did hint at something more. Perhaps the grey streaks were new. Perhaps the trip had originally been planned as a holiday for two, now fallen through, and he was making the most of it anyhow. None of my business, although his response still hadn’t answered my unspoken gay question. Left it hanging as a possibility, though.
“Well, you chose an excellent spot.” I raised my glass to my lips. “If you came here to eat, drink, relax, and do fuck all, then Loix is the best village on the island for that.”
That drew the smallest of smiles from him. “Are you biased?”
“Bah, oui. Of course. It is my home.”
“I feel like I’ve stepped back in time.” Charles’s eyes tracked around the bar, settling on my ramshackle bunch of friends. “The daily market only selling local produce, people cycling everywhere, oyster fishing, salt harvesting. Old folk playing boules.” We both twisted around in time to watch Papi smash his friend’s boule away from the jack. “Life seems very… uncomplicated here,” he added.
“It is.” I took a sip of my smoky yellow Ricard. Even my choice of drink probably seemed old-fashioned in his cosmopolitan world. “People come here to unwind. Parisians mostly. And if they don’t like it, then they can go somewhere else.”
“Have you ever lived anywhere else?”
What a ridiculous question. “Non, why would I?”
One of my uncle’s old buddies gave me a fond shove as he walked past our table. Léa, Jerome’s nightmare of an on-off girlfriend trailed in his wake, and I endeavoured to appear as unwelcoming as possible. My best friend Jerome was a pain in the arse, she had that right, but I did not need to hear her tipsily enumerating all the ways. They’d been doing this dance together since his balls had dropped. The sooner he just put a bloody ring on it, the better.
“You obviously have lots of friends here,” said Charles. And looked even sadder.
“I know everyone,” I agreed. “Jerome and Nico over at the bar—we are like brothers—and argue as much.”
“Are they salt harvesters too?”
“Not Nico.” I grinned. “Too skilled for him. His family works the oyster beds. Jerome shares a salt flat with his father, Michel, out on the road towards La Couarde. They fight. A lot.”
“Until I came here, it had never occurred to me how the salt that ends up on our dinner plates is produced,” confessed Charles, “Or any other type of salt.”
I pulled a face. “This is not how all salt is produced. Only the finest salt in the world is created this way.”
We had landed on my favourite topic. Jerome and Nico could attest I’d frightened away many a potential sexual partner explaining the intricacies of salt production. Charles, however, was either a very good actor or genuinely fascinated. “The cheap powdery white stuff you buy in the supermarket to sprinkle on your chips? That dust is not fit to be called salt. It is manufactured by the devil’s machines. It is fake, processed brine; they pump water underground and then artificially evaporate it with more of the devil’s machines.” I leaned forward to whisper in a low hush, as if imparting state secrets. “And then they add things to it, you know. Preservatives. Poisons! These big, moneymaking corporations make it impure; they spoil the taste, they grind it into ash.”
Folding my arms, I rested back again, and he gave me a cautious smile. Yep, the Englishman now thought he’d agreed to have a drink with the village loony. And I was just getting into my stride. His smile was nice, though.
“When you toss a pinch of that powdery shit over your shoulder for good luck, mon ami? My advice is to toss it in the bin instead.”
Charles took a longer swallow of his beer, probably trying to reach the bottom of the glass as soon as possible, so he could escape. “And… erm… from what I see, you don’t… erm… produce salt with… ah… devil machines?”
“Mais, non! Florian’s salt is lovingly gathered by these two strong hands!” I flexed my fingers at him, making sure my biceps tensed too, and was rewarded by another cute smile. “Our product here on the island is superior, more refined. And if you say that all salt tastes the same then I may have to kill you as well as Papi.” I flicked my eyes over to the old man in time for another triumphant cheer from the boules pitch. “Oh, fucking merde, he’s won another round. He will be insufferable this evening.”
I coaxed yet another smile, well worth the effort. It transformed Charles’s face, smoothing the tired lines etched around his full lips, rolling back the weight of whatever had drawn them there. And if a mere tease could make his grey eyes catch fire like that, then God knows what my eager tongue running across that swollen bottom lip could do.
Jerome wandered over after that; I was surprised he’d managed to resist as long as he had. I felt a flash of irritation as Charles, clearly feeling awkward, drank up and reached for his jacket from the back of his chair.
“I’ll leave you to your friends.” With a nod and a small smile to Jerome, he added, “Thank you for the drink—I enjoyed meeting you and your grandfather. And learning something about salt.”
It was a courteous brush-off, appropriate even, given that we were strangers. Charles was a smart tourist passing through, I was a salt-obsessed local lad who’d bought him a drink as thanks for his kind deed. My manners and gratitude would have left a good impression, nothing more; my existence forgotten by the end of the week.
“If you want to know more about real salt production, then I do tours,” I heard myself say. “Every afternoon, at three.”
I endeavoured not to wince as Jerome kicked me under the table, chortling into his beer. Charles hesitated, no doubt trying to think of an appropriate pleasant response. “Thank you,” he acknowledged. “I may take you up on that.”
“There’s an offer he won’t be able to refuse. A tour of your muddy pond.”
“It’s better than yours,” I retorted, “And it’s not what you think.” Even though I did track Charles’s loping walk across the square until he was out of sight. I’d have liked to buy him another drink. Idly, I wondered which house he was renting.
“It’s always what I think. And you are breaking Julien’s heart.”
We both turned to where the village policeman was also watching Charles walk away. Julien’s problem was that he had too much time on his hands—policing Loix was about as arduous as policing a nunnery. Two months ago, three of Nico’s dad’s sheep escaped and destroyed a lavender crop–literally, that was the biggest crime he’d handled this year. “I’ve never made Julien any promises. He needs to move on.”
