She remained silent.

‘Would you like to join us for a drink, Salz, old girl, once we’ve put the shopping in the Beamer?’ Eggy looked around. ‘God knows where the exit is to this place, but there must be something resembling a bar nearby. After all, this is France.’

‘I don’t think I can manage tonight, Eggy. I have to get all this back to the restaurant.’

‘Which restaurant? We could all go there, perhaps, for supper?’

Sally started to panic now. She looked at her watch. Ten p.m. She was relieved to see that it was the deadline for last orders.

‘I’m so sorry, Eggy. It’s miles away. We’ll be too late, tonight. Maybe another day.’ She took a few steps forward and was now nearly at the till. ‘How long will you be here?’

‘In this shop?’

‘No. I mean when do you go back to England?’

Eggy gave an enormous sigh. ‘That, my dear Sally, is in the lap of the gods. Things have popped up and we are both going to be around for quite a bit longer.’

‘Any particular reason?’ Sally didn’t really care, but could see that Eggy was leaning out to be asked.

He gave her a coy smile. ‘Can’t say, I’m afraid, Salzy.’ He looked around then knocked his own head. ‘Superstitious, you know. Touch wood.’

Sally had now reached the cashier. She started unloading the contents of her trolley on to the conveyor belt.

Moving away, Eggy made a mime of a telephone with his fingers.

‘We’ll meet up soon. When I have a better idea of what’s what. Ta-ta, old girl.’ He turned away and twisted back. ‘Did Phoo tell you how we were all laughing with Odile the other day talking about how hopeless you were as an assistant stage manager? Oh, how we howled. I bet you’re glad to be out of all that showbiz stuff, Salzy, and being over here, on easy street.’

Sally gave a wan smile and nodded. ‘Sure.’

While she was paying, Eggy was summoned by a cry from Odile, who needed her coat. He obediently trotted away, leaving Sally to stack the paid-for items neatly back in the trolley. Then, grinding her teeth in fury and dismay, she shunted it down the ramp to the car park.

She wasn’t a useless actress. She had had quite a success, in her day. But when she thought of the reality of the present, with the restaurant and all its problems, that didn’t polish up so brilliantly.

Eggy was right. She was a failure.

She felt desolate and dreaded the promised call where she would have to put up with more humiliation.

It was only when she was in the lower car park, steering the trolley towards the van, that she realised with enormous delight that Eggy didn’t actually have her phone number.

SIX

Theresa had woken later than she planned and it was only when she was closing the front door that she remembered she had promised to send Lola the photo of herself with her sisters, posing next to Catherine Ségurane’s wall plaque in Nice.