The Baby Who Saved Christmas

by Alison Roberts

  ‘You really know your way around a kitchen, don’t you?’

  A snort that could have been laughter came from Julien. ‘I should hope so. I’ve been working in them for twenty years now.’

  ‘Twenty years? You don’t look old enough to have been working that long.’

  ‘I’m thirty-five.’

  ‘You started working when you were fifteen? After school?’

  ‘No.’ Julien carelessly sprinkled a handful of sea salt flakes into a pot of boiling water and then tipped a packet of pasta in. ‘I had to drop out of school.’

  ‘Why?’ Alice wouldn’t normally ask such personal questions of someone she had only just met but the champagne was making her reckless.

  ‘My mother died. I had to get my sister away from our stepfather and I had to support her. The only job I could get was washing dishes in a restaurant. Sometimes I was given other jobs to help the chefs and...and I was good at it.’ He lifted his glass in a toast. ‘And so I learned to cook.’

  He’d taken off his tie and unbuttoned the top of his shirt before he’d started work in the kitchen and his sleeves were pushed up as far as they could go. The escaping tress of his hair had been joined by a couple more and his cheeks were pink from the heat of the stove. He looked dishevelled. And...as delicious as the smell of whatever he was cooking. Alice could only begin to imagine how many fans he must have.

  ‘And you’re a musician as well...’

  ‘Pardon? Je ne comprends pas...’

  The puzzlement on his face made the meaning of his words clear.

  ‘The show you were talking about? The film crews? I thought...you must be a singer. In a band.’

  He was looking at her as if she’d lost her mind. ‘It’s a show for television. Food television.’

  Alice’s jaw dropped. ‘Food television? You’re a...chef?’ Images of a rock star were being blown apart. No wonder the doctor’s wife was such a fan. Maybe the media waiting outside the gates had nothing to do with how famous her father had been.

  ‘Exactement. The Christmas show I was talking about? It is for a morning television show on Christmas Eve. I am demonstrating a traditional English Christmas dinner to compare with another chef who is doing the French one.’ Julien drained his glass of champagne and came over to the table to refill both their glasses. ‘The actual cooking will be pre-recorded but I will be a guest on the live show to talk about it on the day. If my test doesn’t confirm my immunity so that I can leave this house, it will be a mess that will be very difficult to deal with. A lot of people will be extremely annoyed.’

  As if in sympathy with the statement, a whimper came through the monitor. It was a startling reminder of the responsibility they both had to Jacques and for a long moment they both stared at the screen of the handset but, with another tired-sounding cry, the baby settled back into sleep.

  Julien sank into the chair opposite Alice, his gaze still focused on the screen, his brow furrowed. ‘What is that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘In the bed with him? That...’

  ‘Oh...it’s a toy. A rabbit. I thought it must be special because it looks very old.’

  The way Julien’s throat moved suggested that he was having trouble swallowing.

  ‘It’s le lapin brun... It was Colette’s special toy when she was tiny. I...didn’t know she had kept it.’ His voice cracked. ‘She must have put it in the nursery before he was born because... I don’t think she ever saw him after he was born...’

  Tears sprang to Alice’s eyes. ‘That’s so sad...’ Then she shook her head slowly, in disbelief. ‘Such a tragedy... Was...was she very sick?’

  ‘Non. She had come to see me only the week before. The first time I had seen her in over a year and she had never looked so well. She was so excited about the baby. It made her want to reconnect with her own family, she said. It made her remember...’

  He had closed his eyes and that gave Alice permission to let her gaze linger on his face as he seemingly became lost in his own thoughts.

  Dear Lord, even when you couldn’t see those astonishing eyes, he was a beautiful man with those strong features and such a sensitive-looking mouth. Eyelashes that caught your attention because they were a little longer than you’d expect on a man—like his hair.

  This was no time to ask what had caused such a rift between these siblings. Whatever it had been, it sounded like they’d been ready to forgive and forget. ‘What did she remember?’ Alice asked softly to break the silence.

  ‘That her first memories were of how I’d looked after her. How important I’d been in her life for ever. That she didn’t want to lose that and that, maybe, this baby could help bring us back together. And I thought she was right. She texted me when she went into the hospital and so I went to visit and...and I saw her die...’

  ‘Oh, my God... No...’ It was instinctive to reach out to touch him. To cover his hand with her own.

  His eyes were open again and the shock of his words cut even deeper as she saw unshed tears making them glisten.

  ‘They said it was an embolie. I don’t know the word for it in English...’

  ‘An embolism?’

  ‘Probablement.’ Julien shook off the translation as unimportant. ‘Something to do with the water around the baby and it gave her an attack of the heart and... Il ne pouvait rien faire... They tried. I saw how hard they try...’

  That his English was fractured only made this more heart-breaking. Alice could feel Julien’s distress so deeply that, unlike him, she couldn’t stop tears escaping, but he didn’t need her reaction to make the memories worse. He needed something very different.

  Comfort.

  With a huge effort Alice banished her tears and steadied her voice. She squeezed Julien’s hand as she spoke.

  ‘I love it that Jacques has the rabbit,’ she said softly, paying careful attention to pronouncing the name correctly. ‘One day you’ll be able to tell him how special it is. And how much his mother must have loved him to give it to him.’

  The glance she received was almost bewildered. And then Julien gave his head a tiny shake as if he was sending those memories back where they belonged. In the past. He stood up, sliding his hand from beneath Alice’s with no acknowledgment that she had touched him, and her fingers curled as she pulled her hand back.

  She could only see his back now.

  ‘Let’s eat. My penne ragout will be ready.’

  * * *

  He was too tired to feel particularly hungry.

  Or perhaps his brain was too occupied with other things to notice he was only picking at his food.

  The words Alice had spoken were turning slowly, a new ingredient that was going to simmer in his head, along with everything else that had happened today, like a kind of emotional ragout.

  Memories associated with the brown rabbit were strong enough to throw the mix off balance. The sight of it shocking enough to make him talk to someone about that terrible day for the first time.

  Maybe it was easier to be open with a stranger?

  Except that it hadn’t felt like he’d been with a stranger. Alice was different. She was real. And she cared. That human touch of comfort had almost left a brand on his skin that he could still feel.

  He hadn’t seen that toy for so many years he had forgotten how important le lapin brun had been. Colette would not go to sleep without it. And if he’d taken her to hide—under a bed perhaps—to escape one of their stepfather’s drunken rages, then brown bunny made it so much more bearable. Little Colette would cuddle the toy. And he would cuddle Colette.

  And now Jacques was sleeping with it and Alice had found something good about that. Something to celebrate...

  But that was confusing the flavour he’d been so sure was the right one for whatever recipe his head and heart wer
e inventing—the cocktail of grief and resentment and even hatred. He could imagine Colette putting the toy into the bed she had prepared for her baby and gifting him the thing that had brought her such comfort, but for him to have it suggested that André had known of the toy’s significance and he’d wanted his son to have something precious that had belonged to his mother...

  Because he’d cared?

  Because he’d loved Colette that much?

  If that was true, then he himself had been wrong in trying to stop the marriage by persuading Colette what a terrible mistake she was making. It would make those strained months of him not being welcome in his sister’s home—after the wedding he’d refused to attend—a stupid, wasted opportunity. And the sworn hatred between the two men wouldn’t have overridden almost everything else at Colette’s funeral.

  He knew he had failed her but maybe it was in a different way than he’d thought.

  ‘This is amazing...’ Alice’s words broke the increasingly negative spiral of his thoughts. ‘It’s the best pasta I have ever eaten. It’s...it’s magnifique...’

  Her passable attempt at a French word made Julien tilt his head in acknowledgement of both her effort and the compliment. It made him look up and catch her gaze and it seemed like every time that happened it became more familiar and the hit of whatever it was that the eye contact gave him became more powerful.

  He couldn’t identify what it was but there was no getting away from the knowledge that it warmed something deep inside his chest. It was something as real as the comforting touch she had given him. Maybe he hadn’t known how precious little of anything that real there was in his life.

  ‘Merci beaucoup. I am delighted that you like it.’

  Suddenly Julien felt hungry himself. Really hungry. He loaded up forkful of the pasta coated in the spicy sauce and could taste it properly now. Yes, that balsamic vinegar had added a perfect, balancing note to the sweetness of the tomatoes and the bite of chilli.

  A small thing in the grand scheme of things but it was often the small things that could be unexpectedly important, wasn’t it?

  Like an old, battered toy...

  By the time Alice had finished eating her delicious meal it was obvious that she could barely keep her eyes open.

  ‘Dessert?’ Julien offered. ‘Some coffee, perhaps?’

  ‘No, thank you. I... I should go and check on Jacques and then I think I need some sleep myself. I thought I would use the nanny’s bed, if that’s all right? That way I’ll be close when he wakes. He may need a night feed and I’m sure he’ll need some more paracetamol before morning.’

  Morning. The start of a new day and who knew what new problems might present themselves? Julien rubbed his temples. He had more than enough to deal with now. Too much. Top of that list would be to call a teleconference and try to organise a way to manage the fallout if he couldn’t film the Christmas show. He had tried to contact the head of his production team as soon as the doctor had dropped the quarantine bombshell but he hadn’t got through. And then he’d been completely distracted, hadn’t he—at first by the appalling thought of Alice having to stay in the house and then by the emotional roller-coaster that had started the moment he’d held his sister’s child in his arms for the first time ever.

  It was all too much. He needed some time out and maybe it wasn’t too late to try and make the first of those calls tonight. He pulled his phone from his pocket and was already scrolling his contacts list as he spoke.

  ‘I’ll use one of the rooms near the nursery,’ he told Alice. ‘You can call if you need help with anything.’

  ‘Don’t worry... I’m sure I can cope.’ There was a moment’s silence and he knew Alice was looking at him, waiting for him to look up, but he resisted the urge. Enough was enough. If that peculiar sensation he got when he met her eyes kept happening, he might have to try and identify it so that he would know how to deal with it. And he had the funny feeling that giving it a name might only open a whole new can of worms.

  He knew she had gone by more than the sound of her boots on the flagged floor of the kitchen.

  Her departure also left the room feeling disturbingly empty.

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE MESSAGE HAD been crystal clear.

  It felt like they’d been so close in those moments when Alice had been holding Julien’s hand as he’d told her about the tragedy of his sister’s death but he hadn’t even looked at her when she’d excused herself to check on Jacques, and whatever barrier he’d put up around himself, having pushed her away, was still firmly in place the next morning.

  He barely came near the nursery for the whole morning, other than to bring her a tray of coffee and some amazingly melt-in-the-mouth croissants, still warm from the oven, at seven a.m. At nine a.m., with a phone in his hand, he came briefly to the door to ask if Jacques was any worse and if she needed the doctor to visit today. He vanished as soon as she shook her head.

  Being abandoned upstairs with an unwell baby should have felt lonely. Scary even, but the time was passing quickly and, for such a huge house with only one other adult in it, it felt surprisingly busy.

  Phones were ringing at frequent intervals and delivery vans began arriving from mid-morning. From the nursery windows Alice could see them coming up the driveway, and if she was near the door to this suite of rooms she could hear Julien talking downstairs or faint clattering sounds from the direction of the kitchens.

  Would he deliver another tray for her lunch? And then dinner after a whole afternoon alone with Jacques? By one p.m. Alice felt like she’d been sent to Coventry—as punishment perhaps for engaging in a conversation that had become too personal. She didn’t even try and ignore her rebellious streak this time. As soon as Jacques was down for a sleep after a lunchtime feed, she took the baby cam monitor and marched downstairs.

  Her determined stride faltered at the bottom of the stairs. There were boxes littering the foyer. A suitcase. And...

  ‘Good grief...’

  Julien appeared from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a dish towel.

  ‘C’est horrible, n’est pas?’

  ‘Horrible.’ Alice tried to repeat the word. ‘It’s a...a monster.’

  A monster bright blue teddy bear that was in the corner beside the door.

  ‘It is a gift from Madame Laurent. It has a tag that says, “For my beloved grandson”.’

  Alice let out an incredulous huff. ‘It’s five times the size of her grandson. It would probably terrify him.’

  ‘That is why I have left it down here.’

  ‘And the suitcase?’

  ‘Some clothing and other things I needed. I can arrange for some to be brought for you?’

  ‘I’ll manage. I have a spare shirt and...’ a blush threatened as she stopped herself mentioning underwear ‘...things. I’m fine. I just came down for...’ Some company. ‘For something to eat.’

  ‘Come.’ Julien’s hand wave encompassed the boxes. ‘I have had many things delivered, including some work that needed extra food.’

  Alice followed him into the kitchen. There were pots simmering on the stove and the table was covered with sheets of paper, most of which had glossy photographs along with the text.

  ‘Is that a recipe book?’

  ‘They are the—how do you say it—proofing pages?’ Julien began scooping them into a heap. ‘There is a deadline and I want to check some of the recipes by cooking them again. What would you like for your lunch? A mushroom risotto perhaps? Or chicken Dijon?’

  Alice chose the risotto. He presented it to her on a tray but Alice didn’t want to leave the room, even if he was busy working. She sat at the table and watched him. She hadn’t intended interrupting him any further but she only took a few mouthfuls before her good intentions evaporated.

  ‘How do I say “I love
it” in French?’

  The smile was the kind of lopsided one he’d given her more than once now. Maybe that was the only way Julien smiled. It meant something, though, because he stopped what he was doing and came to sit opposite her.

  ‘Je l’aime.’

  Alice repeated the phrase. ‘And if I want to say “I don’t like it”?’

  ‘Je ne l’aime pas.’ Julien frowned. ‘You don’t like the risotto?’

  She grinned. ‘No. Je l’aime. A lot.’

  ‘Beaucoup.’ He listened to her repetition. ‘You have a good accent,’ he told her.

  The praise was unexpected and Alice felt suddenly shy. ‘I think I’d like to learn French,’ she admitted. ‘I was never allowed to take it at school and I haven’t really listened to it properly before but...it’s beautiful. Like music.’

  ‘It is a beautiful language.’ Julien gave her a curious look. ‘Why were you not allowed to learn at school?’

  Alice had to look away. ‘Because of who my father was, I imagine. My mother never talked about it but my grandmother hated anything French.’

  Julien let her eat in silence for a minute. ‘Perhaps your mother hated André Laurent, too, after the way he treated her.’

  ‘I don’t think so. If she had, she might have found someone else she could fall in love with and she never did. I don’t think she even tried.’

  ‘Perhaps your village was too small.’

  ‘It was small but Mum trained to be a nurse after I was born and she met a lot of people through her work.’