Read an extract from Love in Provence

Chapter One

‘Putain!’ I hear the smash of glasses and the shout. I race through the swing doors from the kitchen into the little restaurant, leaving the bouillabaisse I’m preparing for today’s lunch service. The front door slams, creating a huge gust and a cacophony of crashing. Glasses on the tables topple and roll this way and that. More hit the floor.

‘Putain!’

‘Stéphanie!’ I chide, with a smile in my voice. ‘You’re a mother of two now! Mind your language!’

‘Oui, Del. Je sais, je sais, I know!’ Stéphanie replies crossly, as we run to the door, turn the worn brass handle and dash out onto the small terrace.

Its red and white awning is flapping up and down in the wind, and the new sign for Henri’s Bistro, over the door, is swinging enthusiastically on its hinges. It matches the freshly painted gold writing on the window, ready for the summer visitors to the town, who are starting to arrive. June always sees visitor numbers pick up. They come for the sunshine and cicadas, the slower pace of life, the cobbled streets and the smell of Provence in the air as the lavender starts to bloom.

Stéphanie rushes forward to gather up the glasses that tipped over on the tables, muttering more expletives. No matter how often I correct her bad language I don’t think it will ever change. For such a slight figure, she has a very commanding presence. It comes with a lift of her chin and a lioness’s passion to protect her young. Stéphanie has had to learn the hard way in life. A single parent when I first met her, she did whatever it took to provide for her child, Tomas. Sometimes it’s easy to forget the road she’s travelled, and how far she’s come, when I see her now, running her own business, making the lavender bakes she sells at market and provides to cafés in the area. She has a smart new house where she lives with her husband, JB, and their now two children.

Stéphanie is like family to me, as I am to her. We were there for each other when life hit rock bottom. It hasn’t been an easy road back up, but we made it together. I gave her somewhere to stay when she and Tomas needed it, and she taught me French. Together we grew the market stall, baking from the kitchen in my old farmhouse, Le Petit Mas de la Lavande. Since then she’s moved the business into a purpose-built unit, and I run the bistro in this little side-street off the main square. I’d say life is pretty much exactly where we want it to be. Except for the mistral wind we have in the South of France, which likes to shake things up every now and then. But I smile as a chair swings to and fro and falls over, sliding across the terrace. Nothing we can’t manage. I grab the handle to wind in the awning as it flaps up and down, threatening to take flight.

‘Merde! Merde!’ Stéphanie expands her profanities as she gathers glasses to her chest, the little vases that were filled with dried lavender strands from last year’s harvest, and a red-and-white-check tablecloth doing its best to take off on the strong cold north-westerly wind.

‘It’s just a little mistral mischief,’ I say, turning the handle swiftly to get the awning wound in, telling Stéphanie what she already knows. Then I’m helping to gather more fallen glasses and rescuing more tablecloths – even though they’re pinned down with ornate dragonfly weights at each corner. The little vases of lavender are tumbling about as the wind whips down the alleyway. I snatch up the rest and Stéphanie adds them to the others she’s collected and runs inside, letting out the scent of the simmering bouillabaisse, steeped with saffron and fennel. It mingles with the aroma of pines and wild herbs, blow in on the wind, the smell of Provence in summer, the smell of my home. I stack the metal chairs against the window, as the wind roars up the narrow street past the restaurant, and bring in the rest of the tablecloths and condiments, rescued from the mistral, which steals hats from heads, ruins wedding days and turns life upside down.

A door slams upstairs in Henri’s apartment, which has been unused since he and my best friend Rhi got together and went travelling while time was still on their side. A shutter bangs against the stone wall. A dog barks in one of the nearby narrow streets that all lead to the square, just along the way from me. I lift my head to the wind and feel the memories it left that summer. I remember the havoc the mistral caused for me, turning my life on its head, the first time I encountered it, three years ago now . . . 

Love in Provence is out this June! Pre-order today.