“Go on,” pressed Nico, in a kinder tone. “What was it about him? And why are you so upset now he’s gone?”

  I didn’t believe for a second that a problem shared was a problem halved, but right now, what with Papi informing me he’d taken a bunch of flowers to Beatrice this morning, and the Selco meeting just three short weeks away, I’d willingly offload anything if it would help me sleep better at night.

  “You’re right. He wasn’t just someone to have sex with.” I gave a heavy sigh. I loved him. “I…I fell for him.”

  As if fell for him covered even a fraction of my feelings for Charles. More like somersaulted, back flipped, then triple-Salchowed headlong. My face heated nonetheless; exploring deeper emotions was a conversational first for all of us unless we were taking the piss out of Jerome and his endless saga with Léa. Maybe we were all growing up at last. “And now I’m worried sick about him.”

  “Why, because he’s not phoning you every five minutes?” Jerome threw Nico a knowing look. “Flor, mate, you might not want to hear this, but perhaps he just wasn’t as into you as much as you were into him.”

  “No, this isn’t about me. It’s about… him. He’s… I think he’s not well. And there’s nothing I can do to make him better.”

  I sucked in a deep breath and spilled my guts. I told them about Charles’s weird colours thing, which sounded even more weird when I was half drunk and describing it with the verbal dexterity of a five-year-old. Because, in all honesty, drunkenly trying to explain to a simple salt harvester and an oyster fisherman that your lover pictured you as brilliant flashes of silver darting through a background of lush forest green, and that splashes of buttery yellow equalled calm, homey happiness, then yeah, I guessed those could be difficult concepts to swallow. At least I captured their attention, though.

  “What, and this turned you on?” Jerome screwed up his big, freckled nose as if I’d just admitted an addiction to the late-night politics programme on the telly.

  “Yeah, well, not that part of things, exactly. But yeah, the whole package did. It was more than being turned-on.”

  Jerome snorted. “Mon dieu, and he was the one with mental health issues?”

  Whatever. I didn’t bother outlining my theory to Jerome, but I’d come round to thinking we all had our own brand of strangeness. Maybe Charles’s fucked-up mind wasn’t so many steps away from having a passion for salt farming or oyster fishing, or an annoying girl you’d loved since you were fifteen. Or accepting that even though you were worried sick about someone and wanted to be with them every second of the day, responsibility, pragmatism, pride, and respect for that person prevented it. Anchoring you, instead, to a dull tourist island and its changing winds and birdlife and tides and a demented grandparent. And a piece of island history that needed rescuing. Who knew what was going on inside someone’s head? Maybe, when it came down to it, we all harboured strange thoughts and dreams, but that perhaps only beautiful and ingenious sensitive souls like Charles organised the mess of their minds into colours. Seeing as I had a riveted audience, I carried on.

  “And when Charles felt stressed, a big orange ball would push all the other colours aside, out of his head. And if things turned really bad, then black shadows appeared too, which sometimes morphed into frightening creatures, invading his dreams so he woke up screaming. His mother had this stuff going on inside her head too, and she killed herself, and I think Charles believes it’s like a self-fulfilling prophesy that he’s going to end up the same way. And I don’t want him to, I don’t want to ever get that phone call, because I love him, and I kind of hoped that if we had enough time together, then he’d love me back. We could have had something really special; you know?”

  Time ticked by while I swigged the dregs of my beer and my friends exchanged looks that said Charles most definitely had a screw loose, that it might be contagious, and that I was next. Or perhaps it was my simple, honest declaration of love that had rendered them mute.

  “Waouh,” observed Nico, for lack of any other suitable comeback.

  “That was exactly my response when he told me, too,” I answered. “But, trust me, all that shit feels very real and is happening inside his head. And most of the time, it’s beautiful and amazing and part of his genius, because did I tell you the man’s a fucking genius? At numbers and business and shit. But when it all gets too much, then the colours are ugly and overpowering and he needs professional help and I just know he’s not getting it. Because he’s hopeless at looking after himself, he becomes too caught up in his work and his mind and the cleverness of it. To the extent that he forgets everything else. But there’s nothing I can do about that, because he’s a full-grown man with a life in London and I’m just a fucking salt harvester living on a little island, whom he spent a glorious summer with.”

  What could you say to that? Not much, and so my friends didn’t, they just eyed me with a little more trepidation than usual and bought me another drink. And then we talked about Léa and the baby and Jerome pretended he wasn’t too bothered about it when he was almost wetting himself with excitement. And then Nico began making eyes at a hot chick at the bar none of us had ever seen before, but whom I’d bet my salt tile Nico was going to be banging into the floorboards by midnight. So I zoned out for a bit.

  “Does he know how you feel about him?”

  Jerome had wandered over to talk to Julien and I hadn’t even noticed. Nico’s shrewd dark eyes watched me as he stubbed out his cigarette.

  “Not really.” I sighed. “We were having too much fun to dwell on what was coming next. And then, when it was on the tip of my tongue, he left, very suddenly. We didn’t get a chance to talk properly about the future. But I’m really worried about him, Nico. He… didn’t sound quite right.”

  “You could pay him a visit? If nothing else, you’ll work out where you stand with him.”

  As if I hadn’t had that thought every five minutes since the last phone call. I’d even gone so far as to check flight times. How would Charles feel if I turned up on his doorstep? He wasn’t out as bisexual, as far as I knew. The sudden appearance of a gay lover might be hellishly awkward. And maybe I was a total idiot and reading too much into the situation. Perhaps, as Jerome had put it, in his usual blunt manner, Charles just wasn’t that into me?

  “Practically, that’s a challenge until the harvesting ends. And also, what’s the point? He’s living his life, I’m living mine. That’s not going to change. He says he’s fine. He knows where I am if he needs me. He’s a grown-up, you know? I can’t tell him to work less hard or trot along to the doctors.”

  Had getting it off my chest eased the pain? Maybe a little, but it wasn’t changing anything. And as the evening rolled on, and in the days and weeks that followed, I came around to thinking that in the long run, maybe Charles leaving so soon was for the best. He’d have struggled to prise me from him if he’d stayed any longer, and I sure as hell couldn’t go back to London with him. So I did the next best thing, like a needy limpet on an oyster shell, I clung to every text he wrote and every phone call he made, even if the messages did become shorter and the calls more infrequent. And then, one sad day, petered out altogether.

  CHAPTER 25

  FLORIAN

  On the face of it, shopping for pushchairs and a corporate bid to take over a modest salt cooperative didn’t have much in common. But Jerome’s accounts of him and Léa accumulating a pile of pricey childcare equipment and fluffy toys, which they were both adamant a tiny person couldn’t live without, got me thinking. Because God knew Jerome and Léa didn’t have enough cash to buy all that expensive shit, and neither did Léa’s feckless parents. Which meant a difficult, grumpy bugger must be footing the bill, which meant, just maybe, that grumpy bugger had a heart after all.

  Every single salt farmer living on the island turned up to the extraordinary general meeting. By this time of year, the hangar at the cooperative building in Ars was crammed to the rafters with salt, dried out and ready to be packaged and sold off. So we couldn’t all squeeze in. The under-utilised function room upstairs in L’Escale was free, however, and if being on home turf made it any easier for me to face the masses and convince them not to follow the corporate cash, then I’d take it. And the bar had history—the first ever cooperative meeting had taken place here; I wasn’t above using nostalgic sentimentality to strengthen my cause. Nor, it seemed, was I above quoting Napoleon. I mean, why go to the trouble of inventing brand new speeches when France’s greatest orator had already created a few for you?

  Credibility, logic, and emotion. That was what Charles had said. I could have done with him here now in the audience, for moral support. Or better still, at the lonely front table alongside me, filling in the gaps where my mind had blanked. Michel, Jerome’s father, had already laid out the schedule for the meeting and it was brief and to the point: I was going to present the arguments for and against, and then we were going to vote on it. The Selco representative had been invited along but declined, so confident that their offer would be accepted. Which left seventy or more expectant faces staring up at me, and me alone, from rows of glitzy velvet padded chairs I’d only ever seen dragged out for weddings or funerals. Jerome, seated on the second row, gave a loud cough, which brought me back to the present.

  “Mesdames et messieurs,” I croaked, my throat parched like a desert. Nerves. Charles had said to ignore them; they just showed how much I cared. Sharpened me up for the challenge ahead.

  “There’s no ladies here, you daft sod,” shouted someone from the back. “Apart from you, Flora.”

  So much for credibility. My cheeks burned as the jeers of seventy blokes rained down on me. Ignore the goading, said Charles’s steady voice in my head. Don’t let them rattle you. Show them how strong you are. Focus on the prize.

  Sucking in a big breath, I counted to ten, waited until the noise settled, then ploughed on.

  “Messieurs.” Gentlemen.

  “At the last meeting, someone suggested it was impossible to hold our own against big business. Impossible for us to be competitive, impossible to turn a profit. Impossible to exist as a small, independent cooperative any longer.”

  A couple of older men at the back still shuffled around, but the room had mostly quieted. I had their attention, and my voice stopped squeaking.

  “Alors, listen carefully.” I tried to catch the eye of some of Michel’s bored-looking pals and turned up the volume. “I’m standing here tonight, as an ordinary young Frenchman, to remind you of this: impossible is not French!”

  Thank you, Napoleon Bonaparte. Not only did the guy have some killer uniforms, but he also had a bunch of cracking one-liners, and this one hit a nerve with just about every proud Frenchman lined up in front of me. So I followed it up with another.

  “Until we spread our wings, we have no idea how far we can fly.” A few nods filled the pause while my words sunk in. “And I’m going to show you how to spread them wide.” I opened my arms to demonstrate. “Because united, we can be as strong a company as any. Small, maybe, but together, like a flock of seagulls, and still produce the best salt in the whole of France!”

  Jerome’s facial contortions suggested I might be overdoing it a tad. Tant pis, I was going big or going home. Another of Marcus’s favourite expressions, according to Charles. Before anyone had a chance to ask the bloke next to him if sections of my oratory sounded familiar, I flipped over the first page of my paper chart. Technologically, we were still in the dark ages, but if I had my way, that was going to change. And over the next twenty minutes I outlined how. All of Charles’s graphs, simplified and drawn out in thick black marker. Page after page of them. Showing how we could make it work, how we could expand, consolidate, profit, secure our futures. Maintain our heritage, safekeep our ecological sites.

  You could have heard a fucking pin drop when I’d finished. Mind you, the sound of whirring brain cogs chugging around and around might have drowned it out, because in the few seconds that followed, I reckoned I had the votes of every single man in that room sitting in the palm of my hand.

  Until old Frederic, who’d spent all his wages at the bookies that week, but still wasn’t quite old enough to draw his pension, yelled, “Oi, Flora! Your fancy charts are all well and good. But what’s in it for me?”

  I could have thrown a fucking sack of salt at him. And a whole cartload at his mate Claude, who added his cents worth by waving around the Selco bid summary sheet and reminded all the old-timers of the tidy sum they could have in their bank accounts by the end of the year if they signed along the dotted line today. Jerome clutched his head in his hands, and I didn’t dare meet the eye of his fucking father. People twisted in their seats and started talking to their neighbours.

  Emotion, that was what Charles had said. Put some emotion in it. Speak to their hearts. Speak to Michel’s heart especially. Get him onside and the rest will follow. You can do it, Florian, I know you can. Trust in yourself.

  This was my last chance, and I banged the table hard with the flat of my hand.

  “I have one more thing to say,” I shouted above the noise. “Please let me say one more thing and then I’ll be quiet, and we’ll put it to the vote.”

  “Make it snappy, Flora,” hollered a voice from the back. “My dinner’s waiting for me at home.”

  Connard. With a big gulp of air, I steeled myself for a last-ditch effort.

  “There are men in here who hate each other’s guts. You know who you are. Men who have fallen out with their neighbours, their brothers, even their own sons. That is the nature of a small community and generations of families, whether we like it or not.”

  Quiet again. Some dropped their gazes to the floor, others exchanged knowing glances. Our island history stretched back to Napoleon and beyond; some legendary fallouts and grudges had passed down through several generations.

  “And some of you don’t care what happens in the future, because your line will end with you. And that’s fine. My own might even end with me. Although I hope it doesn’t, because my family have farmed our patch of land for as long as any of you.”

  “Better change teams then, hadn’t you, Flora?” quipped someone. Oh, fucking merde this Flora thing was going to stick. Although, to be fair, the man had a point. I did want kids one day, but unless I found a guy who wanted them too, then it was unlikely to happen.

  “So let me finish on this,” I continued, as if I wasn’t being name-called as though we were back in the school playground. “Some of you will want to pass on a legacy to your children. Children who are still young, or, like mine, not even born yet. And I hope you vote accordingly.”

  I waited, praying I’d struck a chord amongst a few of the younger men. Jerome for one was nodding as though his head was about to drop off.

  “But some of you have children disinterested in your business. Who are already grown and have moved away from the island or taken up different careers. Or who have their own patches of land and don’t need to inherit yours. And you know what? That’s okay too.”

  A few men chuntered, checking the time on watches or phones. I had about ten seconds left before I lost the entire room.

  “So let’s forget about leaving stuff to children. Because I have a feeling we will never agree on the value of that. But ask yourselves this: what comes after your children? How would you like to be remembered by future generations? As the foolish Frenchman who lost his land? As the ancestor who sold out so he could buy a luxury car, or take a Caribbean cruise? Or threw it away on the horses?”

  I halted, to focus my gaze on Michel. And then swept it across to old Claude and to Frederic. I had their attention now, at least, and fought the urge to squeeze my hands into tight fists, letting out a long slow breath before carrying on.

  “My papi started this cooperative. He was just a young man at the time, younger than me. Over sixty years ago now. In this very room, with his wife and a couple of friends. The majority of you know him, of course. I’ve lived with him most of my life, helped him work the land since I was a small boy. He was the father I never had.”

  And never missed, because Papi had been all the father I’d ever needed.

  “He’s old now. And a little forgetful. Sometimes very forgetful. And not always great company. His wife, my grandmother, is dead, and some days I think he is waiting to join her. Because she was the love of his life.”

  This hadn’t been in the script. For the very good reason that a huge lump filled my throat and threatened to spill over into tears. Trust the only fucking gay in the room to get all emotional. From the second row, I sensed Jerome imploring me to hold it together. Sniffing, I counted to ten again and blinked a few times. No way would they get the satisfaction of seeing me fall apart. Later, in the privacy of my own home, maybe. But not here. I cleared my throat.

  “And you are probably wondering what this has to do with salt. And the answer is: not very much. Yet, at the same time, everything. Because, when my papi dies, my abiding memories of him won’t be as a difficult old man who asks me the same question every morning and forgets his route back from the supermarket. Nor as a man who chats to his dead wife every day, as if she’s watching telly in the next room. But as a wonderful father and grandfather who worked to give me this: my very own piece of this precious island, a piece of this island’s history. And I’ll tell you this much: greedy rich companies like Selco will come and go. But no matter how rich they are, they don’t have what we have. They don’t have the rich history families like ours share between us. They don’t have the salt waters of our island flowing through their veins. They have never experienced the simple joy of witnessing the sun drop behind our crystal lakes, night after night after night, like it has done for hundreds of years. So, let me tell you this: if Selco want my patch of land? It will be over my dead body.”

  I stared straight at Michel as I finished. “Be like my Papi. Please. If nothing else, hold onto your land for your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, so that in years to come, they may remember you as the proud, canny Frenchman who secured their futures. Let them remember you with pride, fondness, and love.”