A French Wedding

by Hannah Tunnicliffe

  ‘Yes, that’s them.’

  ‘That’s awful.’

  ‘Yes, yes it was. We were all devastated. I didn’t know the family well. They have a lot of children, five I think. Thanh was the eldest. You know …’ Stephanie leaned over. ‘I didn’t pay them much attention. Then when poor Thanh lost his life I couldn’t stop seeing them everywhere. Thanh’s brothers and sisters, his parents, I felt terrible for them. Many people came in, to buy bread and cakes for the family, to talk. I think I wasn’t the only one to feel guilty that I had never paid them much notice.’

  Juliette nodded. A shiver moved over her skin, perhaps a chill from the wind and rain outside. She glanced at the front door, the frame painted blue, and out to the alley. It was a typical winter’s day – the light lifeless and dull, the drizzle relentless. She tucked her arms closer to her sides.

  ‘I’ll take the gâteau Breton, Stephanie. Just half. Thank you.’

  ‘Demi? No problem.’

  Stephanie reached into the cabinet for the cake, cutting it down the centre to reveal the prune paste inside. It was the prune paste Juliette’s mother especially loved; though most gâteau Breton these days came without, Stephanie always included it. Stephanie Jeunet was not fussed about fads, about making what was popular. The boulangerie-patisserie had not changed at all since Juliette was a child. The same woven baskets on the windowsill behind the counter, thick layers of dust on their wicker handles, the same good luck charms and ornaments on the counter. The floor worn, the two small tables for customers to eat at, cardboard wedged under the legs to make up for the undulating stone floor. A sticker of the Gwenn-Ha-Du, the black and white flag of Brittany, stuck to the bottom right of the front window. Perhaps being back in this village was giving Juliette the shivers. It was like a time warp. Douarnenez, forever unchanged and unchanging, made her feel off balance, feel unlike herself. Or, more accurately, like an old version of herself. A teenage version; riddled with anxieties and resentments. Watching it become a new year and a new millennium from the thick, brown carpet of her parents’ lounge had all those old, angry feelings bubbling up like stew in a pot. She’d been invited to at least three different parties in Paris for New Year’s Eve, all of which would have involved too much alcohol, laughing, a long kiss with someone, anyone, at midnight. Instead her mother had hugged her too tight, even cried a little, and she’d had to make do with the dogs as her company in bed, their bodies warm at least, but their snoring syncopated, keeping her awake. She’d basically been sober too, which made the injustice of it all the more sharp and piercing.

  Stephanie Jeunet slid the gâteau into a box and then pushed it gently towards Juliette. Juliette retrieved her purse from her father’s raincoat and counted out notes and coins.

  ‘I’m surprised your parents didn’t say, about the accident. Your mother knows Madame Reynauld so well. Does she still teach her?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Juliette passed the money to Stephanie. She still had her old cash register, which made a chiming noise when she opened the drawer.

  ‘It was her nephew –’

  ‘Thanh?’

  Juliette took the cake box, thinking about how she would carry it so it didn’t get wet.

  ‘Oh no!’ Stephanie frowned. ‘No, not Thanh. A son of her much older brother’s. They weren’t close. But she was the only family left to do all the arrangements. I don’t suppose you knew him, her nephew. Jean-Paul.’

  Juliette lifted her head, sharply. ‘Jean-Paul?’

  ‘Yes, he was much older than you. You wouldn’t know him. It was his boat. Really he should have had the equipment updated but I cannot pass judgement; I don’t like new things either. But with Thanh on board … poor boy.’

  Juliette stood, frozen, as Stephanie shut the till. Juliette felt his warm breath against her face, his bristles tickling her cheek. ‘Take this pan, ma cherie. It was my father’s mother’s. Don’t tell, they’ll want it for themselves. Seasoned to perfection. You can’t buy that. It comes from age. It’s like wisdom. This pan has wisdom, see? Like me.’

  Juliette could hear his laughter, close to her ear, like he was right there beside her. Loud, unapologetic.

  ‘Juliette? Are you okay?’

  ‘Oui. Yes. Sorry.’ Juliette nodded. ‘I should go …’ She stepped to the door, feeling her cheeks turning pink. Stephanie Jeunet frowned.

  ‘Are you –?’

  ‘I will pass your wishes to Mum and Dad.’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Take care, Juliette.’

  Juliette leaned hard against the door, pushing with so much force it swung quickly outwards, despite the wind. She took in big gulps of the cold air, which shocked her throat and made her eyes smart. She could hear Stephanie, behind her, calling, and it took her two streets to realise she had left her umbrella behind. The wind and rain lashed at her, cruel wet whips against her cheeks and fingers.

  ‘This might not be good for you, my little bird. Me, no one cares about. I’m a lost cause. But you they have high hopes for.’

  Juliette tried not to imagine Jean-Paul flung about in the foaming cauldron of the sea. Tried not to think of his throat filling with saltwater. His ears. His skin pricked and stung by the unbearable cold. She tried not to cry, biting her lip until she tasted her own warm blood.

  ‘You be different, Juliette. Go. Get out of this place. Be who you are. I’ll watch on.’

  She smelled his boots at the door, flecked with dried scales, the stones of his kitchen floor, the grease on his crepe pan, hanging by the pantry door. Cotton sheets he washed with old-fashioned, laundry soap, the pouch of tobacco he took out to sea.

  The tears poured out of her as she rounded the corner, turning into her parents’ small street, almost bumping into a boy on a skateboard who scowled at her. It wasn’t anyone she knew, or anyone’s son, but then Juliette had been gone for so long she no longer knew every face. Gone so long she didn’t know what had happened to whom. Didn’t know of marriages or funerals, of boats and bodies in pieces. She didn’t even have friends who let her know of those things.

  Jean-Paul had loved her when she felt unlovable. He had somehow known the things she had tried to keep secret, to keep private; the things she was ashamed of; scared of, even. Go, he had said, knowing that leaving would free her. He had held her, his little bird, so very lightly in his palm, unlike anyone else, that Juliette had never felt more safe.

  Opening the front door, Juliette moved briskly up the stairs. Her mother called to her first. Both of her parents were sitting at the dining table. Her mother, glasses at the end of her nose, repairing something with a needle and thread. Her father, reading the paper. Juliette’s lips trembled.

  ‘You got something, darling?’ Juliette’s father asked, eyeing up the sodden white box.

  ‘Gâteau Breton.’ Juliette spat. Her voice cold and glassy.

  Her mother peered over the top of her glasses and smiled. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’

  She stood to go to the kitchen, pausing to lean on her chair for a moment. Juliette flung the box towards her. It bounced on the table and fell open. The cake inside broke in two ragged pieces, the prune jam spilling out. Her mother and father stared at her.

  ‘Juliette –’

  ‘When were you going to tell me?’

  Her father glanced at her mother. ‘Tell you what, love?’

  ‘About Jean-Paul?’

  Juliette studied her mother’s face. That warm, round face that everyone loved. That nearly always had a smile on it. Her hand went to her mouth.

  Her father cleared his throat and took a breath. ‘Juliette, your mother and me …’

  Juliette’s eyes did not leave her mother’s. ‘Were you ever going to tell me?’

  ‘I … It was …’

  ‘You were just hoping I’d never find out?’

&
nbsp; ‘It was so long ago. I didn’t know you were still … in contact …’

  ‘I wasn’t!’ Juliette heard her voice rising, felt herself falling into being that age again. ‘I wasn’t in contact! That was the point, remember? Of sending me away?’

  Juliette’s father stepped closer to his wife. ‘Juliette, that wasn’t the point. Your grandmother had wanted you to have a year in England. She left money. And your grades –’

  Juliette shook her head, pointing at her mother who had taken off her glasses and looked like she might cry.

  ‘You sent me away because of Jean-Paul. I’m not stupid. The grades …’ Juliette paused for breath. The grades had been bad, but there were other reasons for that. Reasons her parents would never understand. Reasons she had confessed only to Jean-Paul, who had kept them safe and made her feel like she wasn’t so strange, so dirty, so wrong. Juliette felt her tears returning. ‘You made me see the Father, remember? To make me feel even worse … To make me promise …’

  ‘Oh darling, you were so young.’ Juliette’s mother stepped towards her daughter but Juliette raised her palm. Her father’s hand went to her mother’s back, comforting. He frowned, his eyes pleading with her to stop.

  ‘He was my friend,’ Juliette sobbed. ‘It wasn’t about sex.’ Juliette’s mother flinched at the word. ‘It wasn’t like that. He was my friend. I had no one!’ Her voice was full of tears, almost a howl.

  ‘You had us!’ Her mother begged, crying too, her hand reaching out.

  ‘No!’ Juliette said, shaking her head. ‘No, I didn’t have you.’

  Juliette rushed past both of them and into the hallway. She yanked off the yellow raincoat and threw it, down the hallway, towards her parents’ room.

  ‘We did what we thought was right!’ she heard her mother call, voice desperate, but didn’t turn around. She went into her room and slammed the door so hard it rattled on its hinges. She threw herself onto the bed. Her hair was wet, her skin covered in goosebumps, sobs rising up so thick and fast they hurt her throat. She was seventeen again. Seventeen and sentenced. Going to England to repeat her final year of high school. She would have no further contact with Jean-Paul. She would do as her parents thought best. It was all ‘for the best’. She would leave. Leaving was the only part that had felt bearable. Jean-Paul had been her unexpected ticket out of Douarnenez but the price of losing him was high, and Juliette had left feeling worse about herself than ever.

  Jean-Paul had warned she would be the one who would be judged, but Juliette had not imagined the judgement from her own parents. She had seen in their faces the pity and the disappointment, the sad surprise. Their perfect little girl in a union with the village fisherman. The one who got drunk in bars, had greening, handmade tattoos on his arms and neck, and made no efforts to hide his affairs. Who had a woman in every port, they said, and not as a joke. Who didn’t go to church, who didn’t want a wife, who swore. Who was undesirable. But the Jean-Paul they saw and the Jean-Paul she knew were two different creatures. As Jean-Paul had known Juliette, so too had Juliette known him. She knew the softness of his touch, the kindness he had inside. The way he cooked, with so much love, and listened without interruption. Juliette had told him all her stories first; by the fire with a plate of fish and vegetables on her knees. Then her hopes, another time. Then, finally, her secrets. Jean-Paul had not baulked, he had seemed to know already. He had told her of much worse things; of cruelties he’d suffered and unkindnesses he’d endured. Bad things he’d seen, felt or done himself. He wasn’t perfect, he had been cruel too. He told her these things not to get her pity but to show her there were darker acts and people worse than herself. He did love women, he did swear and smoke and drink too much. But those things weren’t the sum of him. Not even close.

  Juliette pulled the blue-floral pillow on her bed into her mouth and bit down and sobbed. Instead of seeing Jean-Paul sucked into the deep, white with cold, mouth open, and drowning, his soul ripped from his body, along with that poor boy’s, she tried to think of him as she’d known him. Tried to think of the times they had laughed and sung and cooked. The warm smells of soup and fish and bread. Breton songs in her ear. His broad, generous laugh. His soft touch. His kindness. The times she had felt safe and warm and finally, enough, in his tiny cottage by the water. Replacing every ghoulish, drowning image of him with a memory was exhausting. After a while she fell asleep, gripping the pillow which was wet through with tears. When she woke someone had taken off her shoes and pulled up a quilt against the cold. But Juliette was already resolved. Resolved to harden her heart and sharpen her ambition.

  Chapter 10

  Max

  The least charming person he has ever met.

  Max has met some really uncharming people before. Some champs. Some medal winners. But Soleil would take out the podium. And what was truly irritating about Soleil was that she looked perfectly normal, as though she should be charming. Perfectly sweet, other than the hair; Max hates the hair. He wants to touch it, and that makes him feel weird.

  He stands to join Nina who is perusing the lounge shelves, filled mainly with photography books.

  ‘She’s something,’ Max mutters, as Nina runs her index finger down the spines.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Soleil.’

  Nina frowns. ‘You didn’t need to call her a rich girl.’

  Max scowls.

  ‘I think that upset Helen,’ Nina adds.

  ‘She’s not exactly friendly herself,’ Max replies petulantly.

  ‘She’s young,’ Nina says. ‘Hey, you’ve got some beautiful books here.’

  ‘She’s not that young,’ Max says. ‘She’s not a teenager,’ he adds.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about teenagers,’ Nina says in an almost wistful voice.

  ‘She’s rude,’ Max presses.

  ‘Oh, Max.’

  Max shifts his weight. He hasn’t much experience with mothers; Nina might come as close as he is going to get. Something about the tone of her voice is the bittersweet blend of love and disappointment. The kind that makes you feel both good and terrible about yourself at once.

  ‘Well, she is.’

  ‘She’s Helen’s sister.’

  ‘It’s bloody hard to believe,’ Max mumbles.

  ‘You should probably try being nicer.’

  ‘I don’t see why that’s my job. She should try being nice to me.’

  Nina straightens and raises an eyebrow at him. ‘You sound like Hugo.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Nina!’

  Nina bursts into laughter.

  ‘Take that back.’

  Nina’s voice softens. ‘You can be nice, Max. It’s your birthday. Have fun. Surely there are bigger things to worry about than Soleil. You seem wound up; it’s not like you.’

  Max glances across the room at Helen. Her head is resting in the cup of her hand. She is smiling at something Rosie is saying. He stares at her hand and takes a deep breath.

  Next to Helen, Soleil is perched on the arm of the couch, stiff and straight.

  ‘I’m okay,’ Max says. ‘Got to loosen up a bit though, eh? You’re right.’

  Nina pats his shoulder and smiles, returning to scanning the books.

  Max looks down at the drink Juliette has brought him. Tequila with big chunks of ice. It is meant to be sipped. He tips his head back and takes a swig that burns all the way down his throat. It feels just right.

  *

  The Cure.

  The Smiths.

  Jane’s Addiction.

  R.E.M.

  These are the greats. These are the songs Max knows inside and out. Every beat, every moment between beats, any imperfection.

  Max falls into music the way a person falls into cool water; he swims in it. It is tangible to him and yet fluid, like the silk of water against skin. It fills him. It makes him whole.


  Music is his saviour, that much is clear to him and probably everyone else. It hadn’t mattered that his father teased him about it, had once broken a record over his head; music is in Max’s blood and veins, there is no getting rid of it. Music is the one constant. The thing he can count on. Music has kept Max alive.

  Music saturates Max. It goes through to the bone. It changes his mood, moves his world, rearranges his cells. Makes him feel as though he can fly, makes him feel as though he cannot take another breath. It lifts and crushes him, soothes and lacerates him. It is better, worse and wilder than any drug he has ever taken.

  As the song fades and Paul Simon, the master, starts to sing ‘Graceland’, Sophie comes into the room with her father. Max notices, in a fuzzy, slightly drunk way that Sophie’s clothes and hair are wet.

  ‘You’re soaked,’ Nina says from the couch.

  ‘I’ve been knocking on the door for about twenty minutes.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry, honey. The music –’

  ‘Yeah, no shit.’ Sophie shoots Nina a look that could maim.

  ‘Sophie …’

  Sophie shakes her head, wet hair sticking to her face. ‘You all swear,’ she grumbles.

  Lars laughs. ‘You’ve got to give her that. I’ll get you a towel.’

  Sophie looks pointedly at Nina. ‘Thanks, Dad.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just come around the back? We would have seen you.’ Nina gestures to the big glass doors. Sophie crosses her arms.

  ‘Are you hungry?’ Nina asks, changing tack.

  ‘All we do here is bloody eat. And drink,’ Sophie mutters.

  Lars returns with a big towel, which he drapes around his daughter. Nina steps out of her seat and starts rubbing Sophie’s arms.

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘You’ll catch a cold.’

  Sophie backs herself into a chair so her mother cannot reach her.

  ‘You should have a shower and get into some dry clothes,’ Nina says.

  ‘I’m fine.’