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My mother had enjoyed painting and adored visiting galleries, too. Suffering the same affliction as me, she’d encouraged my artistic flair, in the belief that if we embraced the colours invading our minds, then we could control them. That theory proved flawed. Nonetheless, standing alone in the cool of the gallery in Ars, staring at the bright splashes of colour and the confident fluid strokes shaping a nude, I couldn’t help thinking I’d left much more than my bold garish canvases behind in Paris.
I waited three more days before joining a salt tour. Florian had made the offer out of kindness, nothing more, but having watched the harvesters going about their daily work, I admitted I was intrigued. Incredible in itself, given my current state of unhappy navel-gazing.
No doubt if I asked, Florian would declare his patch of salt marsh to be the finest on the island. He had a very attractive silvery confidence to him. He might have been right; his land was situated at a perfect angle to capture his slim outline as he raked at sunset. During the daytime, it was pretty special too, bigger than most, and in a prime position to entice tourists from the nearby oyster-tasting shed. Parked alongside was a small tractor—an ancient, dinky old thing, rather cute if tractors could be described as such. It may have been painted red, once upon a time, unless the reddish hue was rust.
Already, a few tourists had gathered—Florian also had the benefit of harvesting adjacent to a busy stretch of cycle path, and I guessed his handsomeness didn’t do his popularity any harm either. His pretty features reminded me of the French boys I’d flirted with in Paris. Add a manual job to the natural wiry leanness typical of young Mediterranean men, and Florian’s compact body was toned to within an inch. Which meant even simple clothes, like his faded grey Levi’s rolled up at the ankles and his unadorned white T-shirt managed to hang off his frame as elegantly as if he’d picked them up from one of the Parisian boutiques I’d been shooed out of as a scruffy young wannabe Bohemian. Today, the tattered straw hat hid Florian’s dark curls, most of them held back in an untidy ponytail. I imagined he had no trouble at all when it came to finding another body to warm his bed.
I joined the back of the group as, rake in hand, he sauntered like a catwalk model from the far side of his patch of marshland to greet us. Several older couples had already lined up—serious cameras and guidebooks at the ready, as had a few younger folk and families with children. Next to me, stood a bored-looking French girl hovering on the edge of adolescence, plaguing her smartly dressed father, while her dark-haired older brother hung off his mother’s arm. As she made an aside to him, he laughed and clung on even tighter.
Like I used to do at that age.
Without warning, buttery yellow teased the edges of my vision. I blinked a few times. Seemed my grief was yet to lose its sting. My mother had been dead for over nine months and an unwanted emotional lability had plagued me since, stirred by all sorts of unusual triggers. I wiped my clammy palms down my thighs. Was it too late to duck out? Should I leave and come back tomorrow?
Florian began speaking, introducing himself in his open, friendly manner. From the off, his easy smile captured the rapt attention of every woman in the group. I endeavoured to concentrate while he described the history of the island salt farming, trying to ignore the trickle of acid griping at my stomach as the mother, fair and willowy like mine, bent low and whispered something in her son’s ear. A gauzy film dropped over my placid forest green. Florian moved on to explain how his rectangular marsh was divided into sections called tiles, how the tiles flowed into each other. Trying to refocus, my attention snagged on the mother again, lifting her hand to gently brush something from her son’s face—a harmless fly maybe—oh God, a flash of charcoal, and he screwed his nose up, chuckling and batting her away even as he held on to her tighter. Florian’s voice faded to a dull humming; my head spun, and the edges of my green dimmed further.
Prickly sweat, nothing to do with the heat of the day, broke out across my brow as Florian picked up a spade or a rake or fuck knows what piece of equipment and began pointing out its merits. I mopped at myself with a loose tissue, smearing my expensive sunglasses but offering up a prayer of thanks I’d chosen to wear them, thankful they hid my eyes. My green darkened then vanished behind a dense curtain of ashy grey. I reached out a hand in an effort to steady myself as my legs swayed, finding the splintered wood of Florian’s shack. The movement caught his eye and a small frown appeared below the brim of his straw hat; his questioning eyes searched my face even as he handed around a couple of wooden boards heaped with salt to show the contrast between different grains.
Taking a measured breath, I tried to ignore the growing tightness in my chest and the dark shadows in my head. I needed to concentrate on Florian, if I concentrated on Florian, I could get through this. Mothers were permitted to die when one reached my age. I was a grown man, for fucks sake. I ought to pull myself together. Next to me, perfect mum and son examined the salt crystals, their heads bowed. Mum nudged him, and he smiled at a joke only they could hear.
Like we used to.
Not content with pounding in my wrists, like hot black tar my pulse hammered its way to my ears in a loud whoosh. I was surprised no one could hear. I mopped again; the tissue came away soaked, and my knees weakened further. How strange would I appear, if I flopped down on the grass?
Florian’s clear voice cut across my dizzy thoughts. “It’s a hot one this afternoon,” he announced, out of context and oddly loud. “Out here on the flats, the heat of the sun is reflected off the water, especially so at this time of day. If anyone feels it’s too much and needs to sit, then you will find a bench right behind you.”
Just in time, I staggered back, feeling for the coarse plank. As my thighs made contact, I clutched at the warm wood, convinced I was falling off the edge of the earth. But it was no use, as my vision darkened around the fringes, my hold on both the wood and my consciousness weakened, as I did my level best not to faint.
CHAPTER 6
FLORIAN
My day had begun with Papi and his usual querying of his clothes belonging to someone else. I’d been uncharacteristically short with him. And then he’d run through his plans for the morning, which had included a trip to visit Beatrice, and I’d been even shorter. An attitude that was unfair and unkind, as none of my current bad mood was down to him. Developing dementia was not his fault.
Even though my grandfather would have forgotten my ill humour by lunchtime, I shouldn’t have snapped. I was still cross with myself as I raked my tile, and hoped no one turned up for the tour, even as I knew they would. Peak tourist season was upon us, after all.
I’d woken to a flurry of waiting messages enumerating a host of ill-thought-out opinions. One of the guys in the cooperative had begun a WhatsApp group to discuss Selco’s bid, and Jerome’s father, Michel, had been quick to dominate it, his snide comments shouting down a couple of cautious contrary opinions. I might not know anything about business, but as I’d stressed to Jerome, we had to present a united front. Yet how could we, when cracks were surfacing already?
Naturally, the sun shone as if competing to outdo the sun next door, guaranteeing packed cycle paths. A decent-sized, lively crowd had already gathered for my mid-afternoon tour. The tours themselves were free—they were nothing more than a twenty-minute spiel, but the majority of visitors then showed their appreciation by dropping a few coins in the honesty box nailed to my shack, in exchange for a pouch of fleur de sel tied up with a pretty ribbon. Most of my earnings came from my percentage of the cooperative’s yield, but the roadside tips built up into a tidy extra bonus. I’d put on my game face, get this one over, then take my frustrations out on the rake.
The only silver lining was that Charles, the Englishman, hovered at the back of the group. For a few days, I’d been disappointed he hadn’t appeared, then, given I had plenty to think about, had almost but not quite pushed him from my mind. On seeing him, my mood lifted way more than it should, especially when a shy smile accompanied his self-conscious half wave. Pushing my worries to the back of my mind, I launched into my usual patter.
For the first couple of minutes of my tour, Charles was as attractive as I’d remembered, all cool English gentleman, his linen shirt matching the slate-grey of his eyes, a cashmere sweater draped over his shoulders like an afterthought. But as I talked on, he seemed increasingly agitated and unsettled. Maybe the heat was getting to him—today was a scorcher, the sea breeze as warm as a lover’s breath. Maybe he would ditch the sweater. He didn’t, though, and by the time I was handing around the salt samples, he looked set to pass out, and took me up on my pointed offer of the narrow bench, even if it did piss off the elderly American woman on my right.
“Too hot today, yes? If you want more information, I recommend a visit to the cooperative headquarters in Ars. It’s air-conditioned! And that’s where you will find our caramel fleur de sel fudge, the finest in the world!”
I smiled my most winning smile at the assembled visitors, hoping they wouldn’t notice I’d curtailed the tour. A young French lad beamed back, delighted I was finally shutting up; his mother wore a dreamy expression as if she could stare at me all day. I threw her a wink, even if she was betting on the wrong horse. Giving a dismissive but friendly nod to the assembled throng, I walked over to where Charles hadn’t moved.
“Here, I brought you some water.” I pushed the bottle into his hand. “It’s a bit warm—the ice in my cool box has melted. You look ill.”
Woozily, he took it, but instead of drinking, held the tepid bottle against his damp cheek. He removed his sunglasses and as I squashed onto the bench next to him, his eyes fluttered closed. The last of the tour visitors drifted away.
“I’m not ill,” he said. “Well, not how you’re probably imagining, anyhow.”
He rolled the bottle from his cheek to his forehead, a shade less green than a few moments earlier before weighing it in his hand. Opening his eyes, he studied it, as if registering its true purpose for the first time, then unscrewed the cap and took a swig. He tipped his head back, swirling the liquid in his mouth before spitting it out onto the sandy ground at his feet.
“I had a breakdown at the end of last year.”
He imparted the information dully, almost conversationally, as if breakdown could have been substituted for appendicitis, a new washing machine, or an extended weekend in Rome. As if it were the beginning of a light anecdote with a witty, amusing punchline.
