‘I wish to buy you. Everything. La Mosaïque, the premises, the equipment, the goodwill.’

Theresa gasped. ‘You don’t mean it?’

Marcel’s surprise suggestion even made Benjamin and Sally sit up.

‘First, I will need to see the accounts, discuss them with my accountant, and if you agree in principle then we will discuss the price.’

He stood, smiling encouragingly. He placed his chair carefully into the table, taking care not to scrape along the mosaic.

‘Can you bring round the paperwork, William, and leave it with me. Give me forty-eight hours to go through everything and we can meet in here same time the day after tomorrow. Yes?’

Everyone echoed his yes.

It was Theresa who reminded them that, before deciding on anything, they were obliged to let Zoe take part in the vote, and that Zoe was off in Switzerland on one of her ‘mini-breaks’, which they all knew were a few days under the knife or being injected with sheep’s placentas, under the guidance of some famed surgeon who promised her eternal youth.

But Marcel must remember that any decision on behalf of La Mosaïque had to be unanimous, and that a majority would be against the terms of their original contract.

He said he understood and moved towards the front door.

Theresa put out a hand to touch him as he passed. ‘Thank you, dear Marcel.’

When he had gone, the buzz in the room was palpable.

‘It will save us so much misery,’ said William. ‘And he’s right. It would be in all our best interests. After all, we’re all planning to stay on in Bellevue-sur-Mer, so we might as well be on friendly terms with the local eatery!’

Aware that she needed to catch the last post, Theresa busily flipped through the orange album, skipping past old photos of her wedding and those of Imogen as a teenager, and extracted the picture of the famous wall in Vieille Ville, Nice, in which she and her granddaughters posed in front of the bas-relief of Catherine Ségurane. She took an envelope from the welcome desk, addressed it to Lola and inserted a brief note, before sealing it. Explaining to the others that she would be back in a matter of minutes, she ran out to the postbox.

As she trotted past the brasserie, she could see Marcel inside talking earnestly with a small group of people.

She had just popped the envelope into the box when the postwoman’s van drew up. Theresa felt happy that the photo was on its way home.

The grandkids had once been a bit of a problem for her, but the magic of this town had changed all that. They had come over here, and learned that she was not the enemy.

She was now so fond of them, and clearly they of her.

As she passed the brasserie for the second time, Theresa gave Marcel a wave and he winked and mimed a kiss in her direction. She blew him a kiss in return, using both hands.