The Little French Bistro by Nina George

Author:Nina George
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2017-06-13T04:00:00+00:00

Marianne had been waiting on the quayside for twenty minutes by the time Yann picked her up. She simply hadn’t been able to bear sitting in her room any longer, wondering whether she was dressed smartly enough. She could have spent many more hours changing her outfit. Jeans or red dress? Tight blouse or soft sweater? High-heeled pumps or flat-soled linen slippers? Good heavens, she simply had too little experience of what a woman should wear on her first date to make herself attractive but not too inviting. She had opted for the dark-blue jeans, pumps and a white blouse, which she buttoned up to the top.

She was incredibly excited, and had been for two days. She could barely eat, and above all she couldn’t wipe this ridiculous grin from her face. Excitement didn’t even come close to describing what she felt. Naked panic, more like. Foolish joy. One moment her complexion was pale white, the next bright red.

Eventually she had gone down to the kitchen to see Jean-Rémy and had let him pour her a shot of rum without any objection. It had calmed her down a little, but only until Jean-Rémy undid the top two buttons of her blouse, turned up the collar slightly and signaled to her to tousle her tidily arranged hair a bit. “Très jolie, très rock’n’roll,” he had said, and Marianne had gone shakily out onto the quayside to continue her wait.

Increasingly she felt like a boat at sea, drifting farther and farther from land until the coast was out of sight. The land of her past was fading in similar fashion. Sixty years appeared to have flashed past like a single day, and it was as if that day had occurred many centuries ago.

When Yann got out of his car and walked toward her, she was scared that she might either burst out laughing or dissolve into a never-ending fit of weeping. She was so nervous, her hands were sopping wet.

He gave her that look again. No man had ever looked at her so intently: Marianne could almost feel herself growing warm in the spotlight of Yann’s eyes.

“Salut,” he murmured as he bent forward to kiss her. This time all three touches of his lips were close to the corners of her mouth. He kissed her slowly and deliberately, and she inhaled his fragrance. He smelled of the outdoors, with a whiff of paint and nice tangy aftershave.

He guided her to his dilapidated car, opened the door and made sure that he also got to close it. She had no idea what to do with her hands and where to look.

Yann prayed ardently that he wasn’t about to commit the most stupid mistake of his entire life. Over the past two days he had been continually tempted to come and withdraw his invitation. But a man didn’t do such a thing. Invite someone to a funeral? What on earth had he been thinking?

Yann had often visited the fisherman Jozeb Pulenn in Penmarc’h to purchase ray and cod.

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