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“Knock, knock!” a cheerful voice calls.
We both turn in unison like a pantomime couple caughtin flagrante. It would be funny if it wasn’t ridiculous.
A young woman with navy-blue hair steps in, a bearded young man behind her.
“Pierre?” Elodie seems to know them.
“Haven’t seen you since you first got here,” she says,moving aside for a man. “I hear you’re reopening Hedge’s honey shop here.”
“Who told you?” Elodie moves away from me. “I mean, hello.”
“Myles de la Cour mentioned it.” The man says, coming in and offering me his hand to shake. “I’m Gabriel.”
He’s about my age, dark hair, and a short beard. A camera hangs by a strap from his shoulder. “Hal, is it?” he asks, and I nod.
“I’ve been meaning to come and see you,” Pierre glances around. “This looks amazing, it’s ten times the size of the old shop.”
Elodie glances towards me uncertainly as if wondering why I’m still in her house. “Don’t let me keep you.”
“I was just leaving,” I say pushing my glasses up my nose before I can stop myself.
“Don’t.” Gabriel turns back to me. “Have you met Pierre?”
The blue-haired woman is called Pierre? She gives me a wide friendly grin. “I’m Lord M’s assistant. And the two of us,” she moves a finger between her and Gabriel, “have been working with him on the La Canette folk revival.”
Pierre comes over to where Elodie and I are still standing uncomfortably close. “Please don’t leave. We came to see if Elodie needed a hand, not to get rid of her only helper.”
Calling me a helper makes me feel worse because I’m far from helping, I’d been hindering. Normally, I’m a good man, but the LeFevres bring out a surprisingly mean-hearted side of me.
“How much more do you need to finish?” Pierre asks, looking around the space.
“Just sanding the floor so I can paint it. I have a plan.” Elodie squares her shoulders. She really looks confident, and it almost deceives me…if I hadn’t seen her fighting tears not five minutes ago.
“You’re opening on Monday, aren’t you?” Pierre’s eyebrows scrunch together now.
Monday?Despite myself, I turn to scan the vast empty rooms with rough floorboards and a heap of broken furniture and wooden crates at one end.
Monday as in two and a half days from now.
She hasn’t a hope.
Elodie must sense our disbelief. “I have a schedule so it can all be done in time,” she says with a determined smile.
“If you don’t sleep.” Gabriel isn’t fooled either. “Why didn’t you ask for help?”
Pierre starts stripping off her skirt, a colourful tie-dye thing. Underneath she is wearing leggings tucked into her wellington boots, which are painted with blue waves and pebbles, as if she’s wading into the sea. The woman is a walking street-art project.
She hangs the skirt on the door handle and comes over. “I like your music. Steppenwolf isn’t it? Eighties rock is the best for DIY. We can work and talk.”
Gabriel picks up a roll of sandpaper on the floor. “How much of the floor needs sanding?”
“No really, you don’t need to…” Elodie looks torn between her pride and the endless expanse of rough floorboards. “I’ve managed this bit.” She points to a pitifully small corner. “I should finish it before I paint it tomorrow, then it can be dry for Monday.”
She speaks with the optimism of someone who has never done DIY. By the look of Gabriel, on his knees with a piece of sandpaper, he too has no idea what he’s taking on.
“You’ll never finish all that by hand.” My mouth is moving so it must be me speaking. “I have an electric sander.”
The last thing I need is getting tangled up in someone else’s work, but it’s a small thing to lend them a power tool for a day, to make up for being an arse earlier. That’s not getting involved.
