Sally prayed that they would find a buyer for La Mosaïque soon, offload the premises, dissolve the partnership and save their friendships. The strain was already showing. Theresa had been short with her, and she with Theresa. William was even more bossy than usual, if that was possible. Benjamin was as likely as she was to go off the rails, and as for Carol …

Their friendships had been so strong before this restaurant fiasco.

Though, to be honest, after La Mosaïque was gone, she had no idea what she would do with her days.

If she could even get back her investment, or even the better part of it, she should be OK. But she realised she had got so used to being busy that an everlasting spread of long days of nothing to do held no great fascination for her, especially now that she was living with these thoughts of being old and, inevitably, death.

The phone rang. Carol again. While Sally was delivering in Nice could she please pick up some things for the restaurant.

‘Like what?’

‘More takeaway tin trays, and large cans of tomatoes?’

Sally glanced at the clock. Somewhere in the city there should still be a supermarket open this late.

Carol said she’d send the complete list by text.

Once Sally had delivered the last dinner, she promised to go to the big hypermarket near the Riquier station.

The clients this evening, unlike those in this morning’s fiasco, seemed genuinely delighted with their food boxes. Life was looking up.

The supermarket was insanely bright. The lighting had that neon white which made everyone look utterly washed out.

She was exhausted and dreaded to think what she must look like.

Taking out her phone, Sally scrolled through the list while she fumbled about in her pockets for a coin to release a trolley.

Nothing.

She stood for some time in a queue at customer services and was eventually provided with a plastic token.

This shop sold everything from potato crisps and wine to top-end televisions, bicycles and garden trellis.

As Carol had not written the shopping list in any particular order, this meant Sally had to traverse the same departments over and over. She was too tired now to think clearly and was in no mood to walk a marathon in the shopping aisles. She leaned on the trolley and suppressed a yawn. Her petit pause was interrupted by a siren, warning all shoppers that the shop would soon be closing and that as soon as possible they should make their way to a checkout.

Sally bent over and went through the contents of the trolley, checking everything off against the text, then she joined what looked like the shortest queue, only to discover it was restricted to customers with a specialist loyalty card which she did not possess.

She spun the trolley round and shoved it along, diving towards the next shortish line before more people arrived.

‘Attention!’ called a woman with a high-pitched, affected French accent.