As usual, the young woman arrived early, the first there. She stood alone at the gates of the tiny Ecole Publique de Plogoff in the centre of the village of the same name. Plogoff lies on the western peninsular of France in the Brittany region. A strange place for a young Muslim woman to be, miles away from her home in the Middle East.

There were fifteen minutes until the school bell would toll, signalling the end of learning for the day. During this period she would gradually be joined by fellow parents, all Bretons, all greeting her with a warm hug and a kiss on each cheek. Hugs and kisses had always been her favourite and now she lived in a land of them. It was a far cry from when they arrived in the tiny village as strangers, just the two of them then. The tall, shy, old Englishman and his beautiful heavily pregnant Arab wife, in their battered old Land Rover. They had bought the old Bureau de Poste after it had closed. Something else the locals observed with suspicion, as if it had been their fault that the Post Office had closed a year earlier.

That was seven years ago and in the intervening time, the couple with their new baby daughter, became welcome members of the small community. This was mainly due to their efforts to integrate and the young woman’s ability to charm even the most grumpy of Breton elder. She had a beautiful smile, bags of empathy and amazing stories of world travel.. Her husband was rarely around, spending most of his time writing as well as converting the old Post Office into a family home for the three of them. However, he was often volunteered by his young wife to help with odd jobs around the village. The population, until recently, had been predominantly elderly as the young left the region in search of work. The small school had a population that hovered around the fifty mark, another reason why the young mother had been accepted so quickly.

When the giant brass bell rang, at the hands of the elderly headmistress, a buzz of anticipation emanated from the gaggle of eager parents. Every last one cherished the gift of life that existed behind the large blue gates. Said gates opened with a creak and a mini tsunami of tiny bodies flooded through like a burst dam. Each little person found its parent as spring lambs do on a remote hillside. The exquisite smile on the face of the young Arab woman was like the Atlantic sunset as she caught a glimpse of her tiny replica in the crowd. The child ran up to her mother and took her cheeks in her hands, squeezing them so that her lips pursed. She then planted a soft kiss on them and stared into her mother’s eyes. Her own eyes, the young woman observed, were the colour of her fathers, like that of the nearby ocean.

“Daddy, Daddy! We’re visiting Daddy!” she screamed, pulling her mother by the index finger. They certainly were, her mother pondered, allowing herself to be towed along far too easily by the child. Under her arm, the girl carried a present, just like every Wednesday. It was craft day and she’d made something for her Daddy to put with his collection. They eventually arrived and the child ran to hug her father, just as she always did. The young woman stood back and allowed them to have precious time together.

The child was full of it as usual, reminding the woman of herself at that age. Bombarding her father with questions which she answered herself, in three languages, Arabic, English and French, with a smattering of Breton thrown in. She placed the gift next to the others in his collection, a mix of paraphernalia constructed from cereal boxes, plastic bottles, yogurt pots and crepe paper. Soon the visit was over and the woman approached the child. “Come on Jasmine, time to go, say goodbye to Daddy” she whispered in the child’s ear. The girl stamped her foot in defiance as always but relented and hugged her father again kissing him on the forehead as she’d done from being old enough to do so.

As the child skipped away, the woman moved close to her husband wrapping her arms around him. She then kissed the ceramic photograph that was inset into the large granite headstone, just as her daughter had done before. Leaving the small Cimetiere de Plogoff she caught up with the child, the daughter she’d always wanted, the one he gave her before he left. “What would you like for tea my love?”, she asked, taking her tiny hand.