How a hitchhiker gave me a glimpse into my past

On the mantel shelf of the cave there’s an invitation to my middle daughter’s wedding in August. This happy event is causing anxiety on several counts, not least finding something to wear. I hate shopping. Algorithms send me dozens of hideous armour-plated mother-of-the-bride outfits daily but I want to know what Kate Moss would wear if she were shorter, ten years older, half a stone heavier, had a budget of £450 (including accessories) and didn’t look like Kate Moss.

Last month I finished a portrait painting. The sitter was pleased and came over with the second instalment, €1,000 in cash, which I put in my handbag. After he and his wife left, I argued with myself – lost – got in the car and headed for the department store Printemps in Toulon, an hour’s drive away. 

Standing beside the road outside the village was a woman hitching a lift holding a sign, ‘Brignoles’, a town half an hour away in the direction I was going.

In this part of rural Provence there are few buses. Kids often hitchhike home from school or friends’ houses. If I can, I pick them up, especially the girls, reasoning that if they were my daughters I’d want me to pick them up.

A few years ago on the way home I stopped for a young couple. The girl was very young, 15 at the most. She giggled a lot, smelt of BO and weed, and her face was dirty. The boy was older and embarrassed.  The following day I recognised her on a missing person Facebook post and called in to tell the gendarme I’d seen her. Eight months later I saw her in the post office; she looked happy, clean and heavily pregnant.