The French for Christmas

by Fiona Valpy

  ‘No,’ he says quietly. ‘I think maybe I’m working so hard to save my own.’

  * * *

  It’s another glorious morning, bright and clear with a scattering of silver frost; across one corner of the window, the delicate lace of a spider’s web is traced in sparkling white, as if someone’s come along in the night and shaken out one of those tubes of glitter that Tess and I used to make homemade Christmas cards with when we were little. We’d sit at the kitchen table cutting out lacy snowflakes from folded squares of paper and then dot them with glue and sprinkle on the glitter, shaking off the excess onto a tray so that it could be scooped up and used again. Then we’d paste the intricate shapes onto bright-coloured card. We’d work side by side, in companionable silence, sharing the scissors and the glue pot, occasionally glancing over to admire each other’s work. And in the background, Mamie Lucie would potter at the stove, filling the air around us with heady scents of cloves and cinnamon as she prepared her Christmas baking. I remember how Tess, two years younger than me, would try so hard to make her snowflakes as intricate and neat as mine, the tip of her tongue poking out of the corner of her lips as she concentrated on manoeuvring the scissors.

  My heart lurches suddenly, with love for my little sister. I wish I could wrap my arms around her and give her a big hug. I miss her so much. And there’s so much we should be sharing now. I should be there to support her, but I guess I’ll have to make do with hiking up the hill later on and sending her a message...

  I pick up the heavy pressure cooker that I borrowed from Eliane, which I’m going to return to her now that the pudding’s three-quarters cooked. I’ll finish it on the day by simmering it for another couple of hours in a normal pan.

  I find her working in her garden at the back of the cottage. She’s hoeing the dark soil, keeping the weeds out. There’s a wicker trug of produce beside the neatly dug bed, containing some tender baby leeks, some salad leaves and other greenery that I don’t recognise. At my appearance, she pauses, smiling, and pushes a few strands of her fine, white hair away from her face with the back of her hand.

  I kiss her on both cheeks. ‘Your pressure cooker. Thanks for the loan, Eliane.’

  ‘Your Pudding de Noël is made then? Was it a success?’

  ‘We’ll only know on the day when it’s had its final boiling and is ready to eat. I had to adjust the recipe a bit, though, so who knows? Are you and Mathieu doing anything Christmas Day? If not, I’d love it if you’d join me for lunch. Didier will be there too. But I guess you’ll probably be spending it with your family?’

  ‘You mean on the twenty-fifth? Actually, no. Here in France we have our big celebrations en famille on the night of the twenty-fourth of December. We call it Réveillon. Mathieu and I will be going to my sister, Mireille’s, for dinner that evening. She has four sons, three of whom are married, and ten grandchildren, so it’ll be quite a party! But on the twenty-fifth we normally just have a quiet day à deux. So, yes, thank you, Evie, we’d love to join you and have a chance to sample this famous pudding of yours.’

  ‘So you and Mathieu don’t have any children of your own? Or do they live elsewhere?’

  Eliane gazes off into the distance and I get the impression that her clear grey eyes seem to be watching scenes that only she can see. The wind gusts suddenly, blowing strands of hair across her face, but this time she doesn’t push them away. Her expression is so sad that it speaks volumes.

  ‘Sorry,’ I apologise, kicking myself. I, of all people, should know to be more sensitive when it comes to asking that question. Time was, in the early days after losing Lucie, I couldn’t even begin to find the words to express my loss, so naturally my friends and my family stopped mentioning her altogether… Although I sometimes used to wish people would still ask, instead of awkwardly skirting around the issue, so that I could have talked about Lucie, painful though it might have been. At least it would have been an acknowledgement that she’d existed. And now I understand that it might have given me a chance to work through a little more of my pain too—the same pain I see written in Eliane’s expression.

  She turns back to me. ‘Come,’ she says, propping the hoe against a fence post. ‘And leave that pot here.’

  We walk up the driveway that leads past the cottage to the château up on the hill, but halfway up, we turn off it, onto a small path worn through the grasses that bow and bend their heads as the wind, which seems to be getting up a little now, brushes past them. The path leads up along one side of the vineyard, towards the wooded crest of the hill. Just below the trees, there’s a whitewashed wall enclosing a small square of land. I assume it must be an old sheep-pen or something. But Eliane pushes open a little wooden gate set into the wall and suddenly we’re standing in a tiny graveyard.

  Half a dozen simple gravestones are clustered behind the shelter of the walls, in the embrace of the dark trees on the hill behind. ‘Pierre-Henri Castel. Henri Jacques Castel. Mathilde Castel, née Leblanc,’ I read.

  ‘These are the grandfather and parents of the owner of the château,’ Eliane explains. She leads me to a side wall where several small plaques have been set into the plaster. ‘These are memorials to Mathieu’s father and brother. They died in the war. And these,’ pointing to three small white ovals, ‘are my children.’

  ‘Mathieu Dubosq; Amélie Dubosq; Liliane Dubosq.’ I say each name carefully. There are no dates.

  ‘I never managed to carry a child to full term. But nonetheless I gave birth to each of them so they are our children and we remember them here. So you see, Evie, I understand a little of what you’ve gone through.’ She turns that clear gaze on me again, seeing into my very soul. Then says, quietly, ‘Rose told me you lost your baby.’

  My throat catches as I notice three fresh posies of sweet-scented white hyacinths that have been laid under each of the plaques.

  ‘I come here often, to visit them and talk to them, and bring them flowers. In summer, I bring honeysuckle and roses; at this time of year, these hyacinths, to remind us all that spring will come again. We just have to wait it out. Just as the winter eventually passes, so does our grief. You have to give it time, Evie. Time, and love. That’s the only recipe for healing.’

  I nod, unable to speak, as my throat is full of sudden emotion. I think of the basket of baking she left on my doorstep to mark St Nicolas’s Day, which has new significance now. Perhaps it’s her way of comforting herself, of entrusting her babies to the saint’s care. What was it the priest said? A simple, practical gesture of remembrance can be a balm for the soul when we are grieving. I fumble in my pocket for a Kleenex and wipe away the tears that spill from my eyes.

  ‘You will always carry your baby in your heart, Evie,’ says Eliane, laying a hand on my arm. ‘But, you know, the time will eventually come when you’ll be able to set down the grief you’ve been carrying there too, and start living again. I believe we become the ambassadors in this world for our unborn children; it’s our duty to live our lives to the full on their behalf, because we are living life for them as well. Otherwise death will have won. And we cannot let that happen.’

  We stand together in silence for a while, each lost in our own thoughts.

  Eventually, when I can speak again, I say, ‘Why is it so hard to move on? I feel so stuck, Eliane. I’m not sure it’s even so much to do with losing Lucie anymore. Lighting a candle in the church, and accepting that she’s safe now, helped me begin to let go of my sadness. But I still feel so angry. Angry at Will, for not being there when I needed him the most. Angry at myself, too, I guess, for not being able to save Lucie.’

  ‘Ah, anger,’ she smiles sadly. ‘Anger will weigh you down and eat away at you, eroding any chance you have of beginning to live again.’

  I nod. ‘That’s exactly how it feels. Like I’m sinking into quicksand under this burden I’m carrying.’

  ‘Sometimes we direct the anger we feel about things we can’t control towards those who are closest to us. At the very people we
love the most. That’s where the power of anger is at its most destructive. For your own sake, you have to try to forgive. Forgive your husband. And, most importantly of all, forgive yourself. And yes, that is one of the hardest things of all. True forgiveness takes enormous strength and very great courage. A person who can forgive is one of the bravest people there is. It may seem impossible, but you have to do it, Evie. Even if it means you have to keep on trying to forgive, and go on forgiving again, every single day of your life.’

  I shiver, despite the warm sun and the protection from the wind that the walls of the little graveyard offer.

  Eliane smiles and takes my hand, squeezing it reassuringly, as if to help give me the strength that she knows I’m going to need. ‘You are getting chilled. Let’s go back down and have a cup of tisane.’

  We walk back towards the cottage, the wind gusting, buffeting us, suddenly with a much colder edge to it. ‘Look here,’ Eliane beckons me into a little orchard of bare-twigged fruit trees set out in neat rows just above the vegetable patch. Three white wooden boxes with sloping roofs, like dolls’ houses, sit here raised on bricks. ‘My bees. Listen.’ She presses her ear to the side of one, and I do the same. There’s a low hum, deep in the belly of the hive, like a faint engine. ‘They sit out the cold, retreating into the heart of the hive, where they cluster together around the queen for warmth. The worker bees flutter their wings and move their bodies constantly to generate enough heat to help the swarm survive. They know that if they can just keep going through the cold, one day summer will come. They couldn’t survive as individuals, but together, as a community, they get each other through the tough times. A good example to us humans.’ She smiles her gentle smile, making me feel a part of this community, grateful to her and Mathieu and Didier, these new friends who have helped me, in their different ways, to keep warm in the depths of winter; to keep alive the hope that, some day, summer will return.

  As we pass by the vegetable patch, Eliane scoops up the trug and the pot, carrying them into the kitchen.

  ‘What are these?’ I ask, pointing to some yellow-green leaves that nestle in her basket alongside a bunch of darker green lamb’s lettuce, grateful for the distraction in the wake of so much emotion in that little graveyard up the hill. ‘I don’t recognise them.’

  ‘Around here, we call this navet des vignes. I don’t know its scientific name, nor what you’d call it in English.’

  ‘Navet? That means turnip. So “turnip of the vines”. How curious!’

  ‘It’s delicious, and in fact it does taste a little like turnips. I’ll cook it in a savoury tart with eggs and cheese and serve it with a salad of this mâche.’ She gestures to the leaves of lamb’s lettuce. ‘All of this I picked in the vineyard this morning. They grow wild there. Food for free.’

  ‘What, these baby leeks too?’

  She nods. ‘We call these aillet. You use them as you would normal leeks. But,’ she frowns, her expression severe, ‘you know, they really shouldn’t be here at this time of the year. It shows how crazy the weather’s been this year. Normally I’d be picking all of these in the spring, in April or even May. These poor plants have got confused with the cold, wet autumn we had and then these warm days now. They very foolishly poked their heads above the ground far too early. I’ve been gathering them this morning before the storm arrives, when, I fear, all will be lost.’

  There she goes again with the doom and the gloom! Sipping my steaming cup of verveine tea, I glance out at the window to where Bruno the dog lies asleep in a sheltered, sunny corner of the yard, his tongue lolling and his long tail flicking the dusty ground with an occasional twitch as he dreams of chasing rabbits.

  ‘What makes you think there’s going to be a storm? I checked the forecast a few days ago and the weather seems to be set fair.’

  She shakes her head. ‘Pah! What do they know? These forecasters who sit in their windowless offices in front of their computer screens! You know how I’ve explained to you about the thirteenth moon? Well, even worse, now it’s a lune rousse, a red moon.’

  I remember the moon from that evening with Didier, and nod. ‘I noticed. It did look kind of rust-coloured the other night.’

  ‘Précisément. Which foretells bad weather to come. You mark my words, Evie, there’s a storm on the way. The birds know. When you go for your next walk up the hill, see if you can spot any of the usual birds of prey up there. This morning, when I was gathering this produce in the vines, there wasn’t a single one to be seen, not a buzzard nor a red kite. Even the crows have flown off. And if anyone knows, apart from the moon itself of course, it’s the birds. I’ve told Mathieu to bring the horse in and keep her in the barn now. It’ll be her time to foal before too long and we don’t want to risk it being born outside in stormy weather.’

  As I take my leave from Eliane, she hugs me tight. ‘Come and see me again soon, Evie. We can do some cooking together perhaps? Food always tastes more appetising when it’s shared—the preparation and the eating.’

  ‘I’d love that. I’ll bring my grandmother’s recipes to show you too. I’d like to try out some more of them and you’ll be able to show me how they should really be made.’

  I set off up the hill to check my emails, raising my face to the clear blue sky above. The wind snatches at my hair and my jacket, teasing and goading, like a bored child who can’t resist making mischief. I settle down, my back to the solid face of the milestone, and re-check the weather forecast. The temperatures seem to be down a bit and the wind a little more lively, but nothing more than that. It’s still predicting sunny days. I glance into the blue of the sky that arches over me. Eliane was right about the birds though. Nothing moves there, apart from the bare branches of the trees, to which the wind has now turned its attention, shoving and shaking, and making the fronds of mistletoe shimmy as they shiver in its teasing gusts.

  The mistletoe reminds me of that New Year’s Eve party in Paris, all those lifetimes ago, at the apartment of one of our fellow students from the cookery school. She was a Swiss girl, whose parents had a pied-à-terre in the elegant Sixteenth Arrondissement, far more sumptuous than my own tiny attic shoebox. We stood in the elegant, high-ceilinged reception room, beneath sparkling chandeliers, dressed in our glad rags, self-consciously trying not to catch sight of our reflections which appeared at unexpected moments in the vast mirrors at either end of the room.

  Very soon though, after a few glasses of party cheer, all self-consciousness was forgotten. The laughter level rose along with the temperature as more and more guests arrived, and soon we were crammed in, part of a jostling throng. Will had to shout to make himself heard as someone turned up the music, and I leaned in close to make out what he was saying. He was always popular, the good-looking joker of our group of friends, and that night, as ever, he was glowing with the attention, in his element as party-animal-in-chief.

  And I, young, naïve, far from home for the first time in my life, was seduced by the fact that he had chosen me. We shared a zest for life and a passion for cooking and we were so in love, there in the world’s most romantic city. It was all perfect.

  At midnight, as the countdown started, he pulled me to him under a bunch of mistletoe that hung in one of the tall window bays, and he kissed me as the clocks chimed and the room erupted in cheers. He leant in and whispered something in my ear. I couldn’t quite hear what he said over the excited hubbub all around us, as so many beautiful young people heralded in the New Year and a future where everything was possible.

  I put a hand behind my ear, turning my head to hear him more clearly as he whispered again.

  ‘Marry me!’

  I stepped back in amazement and gazed at his handsome face, his eyes glittering with the same delight that flooded my body. I took it all in for a moment, suspended in time: I can see it all so clearly still. The elegant room, the mistletoe hanging above us, the Paris skyline framed in the window, fireworks sending up bursts of multicoloured stars into the night above the Bois
de Boulogne. And, of course, I whispered back, ‘Yes!’

  On my bleak hilltop, I shiver as the balls of mistletoe in the bare trees wag their fingers in warning. I should have known. Because, yes, it was all so perfect. But that was the problem. It was so perfect that our relationship had never been tested. We were young, living in a golden bubble of joy and hope and possibility. We had no idea that, like the bubbles in the glasses of champagne that were thrust into our hands as we celebrated that night, ours would disappear too, popping when it met the real world outside, unable to withstand the pressures of life.

  I think about what Eliane said in the graveyard above her cottage. About forgiveness. She’s right, I realise. I probably have turned the helpless anger that I feel towards myself—or, more accurately, towards the universe over which I have no control—against Will. And, impossible though it may seem, I need to try and let it go. For my own sake, as much as for anyone else’s.

  I hesitate, then type Will’s name into Google. The screen on my phone fills with listings, reviews, photos, interviews with the new rising star of celebrity chefs. He seems in his element again, just as he was in our student days. Prince William. The centre of attention.

  And I know it’s not too late. I could be part of it too. He said so all along, urging me to get up out of bed when I lay there, poleaxed by grief, to come join him in the kitchen; to take an interest in the offer we’d received for the bistro; to help him decide whether to risk pursuing the route to a possible career in television or whether to carry on building the success of our restaurant...

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t focus. I couldn’t decide. I couldn’t summon up the energy to lift my head from the pillow, let alone get up and get going again. I was marooned in the fog of my depression, post-natal hormones running riot. And so, reluctantly, he reached out and grabbed the life preserver that was being held out to him, saving himself. Because he couldn’t save me. He couldn’t save us.