The look she gives me would be less incredulous if I’d told her there was a flock of pterodactyls swooping overhead. ‘Why is he shirtless?’
‘Because he’s an idiot.’
‘I didn’t know idiocy caused men to spontaneously remove their shirts. If that was true, there’d be a lot more shirtless men in my life.’
I smile as I look over at her. She’s got friendly blue eyes that are accentuated by her short haircut, and her bright green top is colour-coordinated to perfectly match the green bits of her hair, her eyeshadow, and the bracelets around her wrists. Everything about her screams of someone who’s supremely comfortable in their own skin.
‘I could introduce you, if you want,’ I say against my better judgement. She seems like a nice person. She deserves better than Julian.
‘Nah. I’ll trust your judgement. Besides, I’ve got my eye on someone. He hasn’t got the body of that glorious creature, but he’s got a smile that makes me go weak at the knees every time I see it. Of course, he’s only in town twice a week for the market and he doesn’t speak a word of English, but I think we have some kind of lost-in-translation connection.’
‘In all fairness, most men don’t understand English. Communicating with them is hard enough in the same language, so maybe non-verbal relationships are the way to go.’
She laughs. ‘I hear you on that one, lovely. I also sometimes think pushing them out of a window might be the way to go.’
‘If you want to test the window theory, please come in and try it from the fifth floor…’
It makes her laugh again and nod towards the château. ‘So what about him? Is he a workman or something?’
‘No, unfortunately. If he was, he’d be leaving soon.’ I sigh, unsure of how to explain sharing this place with Julian in a way that makes sense. ‘We’ve inherited half the château each. We’ve both turned up at the same time and there’s nothing either of us can do about it.’
‘Oooh, forced to share a house with him. I wouldn’t complain about having to look at that body! It’s a shame it’s such a big house really. You’ll probably never even see him.’
‘I live in hope.’ I go to tell her about my plan to drive him out, but I stop myself. It seems just as childish as everything else I’ve done since I’ve been here, and I get the feeling she’d tell me I’m being unreasonable, and I don’t want to have to admit that I am being a teensy bit unreasonable. Like, the teensiest, tiniest bit.
‘Well, I must be getting on, lovely, but I’ll come back tomorrow. If you could arrange for that gorgeous Scottish thing to be shirtless again, I’ll feed you for free.’
‘What if I could arrange for him to be upside down in the moat? Would that work?’
‘Aww, I’m sure he’s not that bad. Do you want anything else before I go?’ She pulls back the cover of her cart to reveal a selection of goodies I hadn’t even seen until now. ‘I’ve got croissants, pains aux raisins, cinnamon twists, brioche, and white crusty loaves that’ll still be fresh by lunchtime.’
Everything’s set out on her cart in individual clear plastic boxes and, even with the lids shut, the smell is divine. The bakery at work never smells like this. It always smells of the chemical preservatives the company pumps into their dough to keep it looking fresher than it is.
This is proper baking, proper fresh, proper food. The noise I let out sounds positively orgasmic. ‘Oh God, one of everything, please. Two of that iced twisty thing.’
‘And for your gorgeous housemate?’
‘Ha. He can feed his bloody self. After all that taunting last night, I wouldn’t get food for him if you paid me in fresh baguettes and gold bars.’
She gives me a curious look, obviously having no idea what happened last night, and I blush. ‘I’ll just run in and get my purse.’
When I get back, Kat’s still standing in the courtyard, looking around at the surrounding land, and I’m feeling sheepish.
She’s bagged everything up into brown paper bags, and I tip my empty purse upside down as I walk towards her. ‘What do I owe you? Because I’m fairly sure it’s more than the three euros I’ve got left.’
‘Six euros.’
I hand her my last three coins. ‘I used the last of my cash to pay the taxi driver yesterday. Can I cancel—’
‘You know what, don’t worry about it,’ she says with a smile.
‘No, I can’t do—’
‘Seriously. Coming here and seeing the, ahem, sights has really perked up my morning. It’s the least I can do for a fellow Brit.’
‘I can owe it to you. If you’re coming back tomorrow, I’ll have it by then.’
‘There’s no need,’ she says with a shrug.
‘Speaking of, where is this village you mentioned earlier? Is there a shop there? Because I need to get cash out and I really need to get some food in, and some teabags. I haven’t had a cup of tea in over twenty-four hours. I’m failing as a Brit.’
She starts laughing. ‘If you think you’re going to get a cup of tea around here, you’re sorely mistaken.’
‘What?’ My stomach plunges in unease. ‘No PG Tips?’
‘Not a chance. The French don’t do tea. Not in the way you mean, anyway. In cafés, you might find teapots full of some pseudo tea liquid too weak to drown a gnat, but you won’t find proper tea here. You’ll be hard pushed to find a kettle in the shops.’
‘We’ve probably got a kettle,’ I say, glancing back at the château. I still haven’t had a chance to look around properly and haven’t found the kitchen yet. Even as I say it, realisation sets in that anything here has been unused for twenty-odd years. If there is a kettle, I can’t imagine it still working. ‘They must sell teabags somewhere.’
‘Yep. Back in Britain. Next time you come out, stock up and fetch them with you. The French are wine and coffee people.’
‘Great,’ I mutter. While wine and coffee have their place in the world, the day just got infinitely worse. This is why people have comfort zones. Never mind poisonous snakes and plants with homicidal tendencies – it’s because there’s never a shortage of PG Tips in London.
‘I’m going there now if you want to tag along.’
‘Hmm?’
‘To the village,’ Kat says. ‘It’s about a forty-minute walk, but I’ve got to make some stops on the way, obviously. You’re welcome to come with me, if you want. It’s best to get there early. It gets busy at lunchtime.’
‘Oh yeah, that would be great,’ I say, even though it makes me nervous too. I’m not good at new places, and I’d be guaranteed to get lost trying to find this village on my own, but I’m equally not good at new people, and I envision forty minutes of awkward silence as Kat and I run out of things to say to each other before we’ve got to the end of the driveway.
I gather up my baked goods, leaving a croissant to eat on the way, and run back inside. I dump them on a table near the door, make sure to slip my key into my pocket, just in case Julian gets any ideas about locking me out, and run back out to the courtyard.
‘It’s so beautiful here,’ Kat says as we walk along the little lane outside the château grounds. There are no pavements and it’s barely wide enough for a car. If one comes by, we could be in trouble. ‘You’re so lucky to own such an amazing house.’
I haven’t felt very lucky so far. I still miss Eulalie like I’m walking around with a hole in my stomach, and no château can