‘A tractor girl? Fantastic. When do we get to see Max again? You’re fond of him, aren’t you?’
‘Hold on, who’s we? That new girlfriend of yours who doesn’t like cooking?’
‘Oh, hobgoblins! Your mother. Madame Bernier and me. And? Speak now or forever hold your peace. I’m allowed to meet up with my ex-wife, aren’t I? Well, actually, since the fourteenth of July … we’ve done a bit more than meet up. Of course, she sees things differently. She says we simply had a fling and I shouldn’t get my hopes up.’ Joaquin Perdu’s smoker’s laugh descended into a jovial splutter.
‘So what?’ he said. ‘Lirabelle’s my best friend. I like the way she smells, and she’s never attempted to change me. She’s a marvellous cook too – I always feel so much happier with life when I’m there. And you know, Jeanno, the older you get the more you feel like being with someone you can talk to and laugh with.’
His father would presumably have signed up without hesitation to the three things that made you really ‘happy’ according to Cuneo’s worldview.
One: eat well. No junk food, because it only makes you unhappy, lazy and fat.
Two: sleep through the night (thanks to more exercise, less alcohol and positive thoughts).
Three: spend time with people who are friendly and seek to understand you in their own particular way.
Four: have more sex – but that was Samy’s addition, and Perdu saw no real reason to tell his father that one.
He often spoke to his mother on his way from a café to the bookshop. He always held the phone up to the wind so that she could hear the sound of the waves and the gulls. That September morning the sea was calm, and Jean asked her, ‘I hear Dad’s been eating at your place a lot recently.’
‘Well, yes. The man doesn’t know how to cook, so what am I supposed to do?’
‘Dinner and breakfast, though? Overnight too? Doesn’t the poor man have his own bed to go to?’
‘You say it as if we were up to something obscene.’
‘I’ve never told you I love you, Maman.’
‘Oh, my dear, dear child …’
Perdu heard her open a box and close it again. He knew this noise, and the box too. It held the tissues. As stylish as ever, Madame Bernier, even when she came over all sentimental.
‘I love you too, Jean. I feel as if I’ve never told you that, only thought it. Is that true?’
It was true, but he said, ‘I noticed all the same. You don’t have to tell me every few years.’
She laughed and called him a cheeky so-and-so.
Great. Nearly fifty-one, and still a kid.
Lirabelle complained about her ex-husband a bit more, but her tone was affectionate. She grouched about the autumn book releases, but only out of habit.
Everything was the same as ever – yet so very different.
As Jean walked across the quayside towards the bookshop, MM was already rolling the postcard racks out into the open.
‘It’s going to be a beautiful day!’ his boss called to him. He handed Madame Monfrère a bag of croissants.
‘Yes, I think so too.’
Shortly before sunset he retired to his favourite spot in the corner of the shop. The one from where he could observe the door, the reflected sky and a scrap of sea.
And then, in the midst of his thoughts, he saw her. He watched her reflection. She looked as though she were stepping straight out of the clouds and the water. Unbridled joy surged through his veins.
Jean Perdu stood up. His pulse was racing. He was readier than he’d ever been.
Now! he thought. Now the times were converging. He was finally emerging from his period of numbness, of standing still, of hurting. Now.
Catherine was wearing a bluish-grey dress that set off her eyes. She walked with a swing in her stride, upright, her tread firmer than before …
Before?
She has made it from the end to the beginning too.
She paused for a second at the counter, as if to get her bearings.
MM asked, ‘Are you looking for something in particular, Madame?’
‘Yes I am. I’ve been looking for a long time, but now I’ve found it. That particular something there,’ said Catherine and beamed across the room at Jean. She walked straight towards him, and, heart pounding, he went to meet her.
‘You cannot imagine how long I’ve been waiting for you to finally ask me to come to you.’
‘Honestly?’
‘Oh yes. And I’m so hungry,’ said Catherine.
Jean Perdu knew exactly what she meant.
That evening they kissed for the first time – after they’d had dinner and enjoyed a wonderful long walk by the sea, long, relaxed chats in the hibiscus garden by the veranda, during which they drank a little wine and a lot of water, and above all enjoyed each other’s company.
‘This warm air is so comforting,’ Catherine said at one point.
It was true: Sanary’s sun had sucked the cold out of him and dried all his tears.
‘And it gives you courage,’ he whispered. ‘It gives you the courage to trust.’