‘What do you want for lunch?’
Viola looks up again. Lunch? Is it already time for lunch? Did she have breakfast? She must have, surely. But, if so, she can’t for the life of her remember what she ate. Croissant? Toast? Yes, toast. She usually has toast on a Monday. Her day off. Toast with what? Butter? Jam? Marmalade? It’s impossible to find marmalade in Paris. Let alone Marmite. Daisy sends her daughter packages of English delights every few months.
‘Vi?’
‘Oh, sorry, I just …’ Viola trails off. ‘I’ll eat whatever you’re making.’
‘I was thinking of frying up the leftovers and adding fried couscous with a dressing of yoghurt, cardamom and mint. What do you think?’
‘Yeah, sure, sounds great,’ Viola says. ‘Thank you.’
‘Mon plaisir.’ Henri bends down to kiss her. ‘Happy Boxing Day, my little English cherry.’
Oh, yes. Of course, Viola remembers now, though she’d rather forget. Christmas.
Mathieu sits with Hugo on the sofa. Mathieu waves a plate of chocolate madeleines under his son’s nose. Hugo shakes his head.
‘I’m stuffed. If I eat anything else, I’ll puke.’
‘Alright, then,’ Mathieu says, whipping away the plate. He can now only vaguely remember a time when Hugo didn’t eat, a time when all he worried about was how to get more calories into his little boy. Nowadays Hugo, nearly a teenager, barely stops eating. Mathieu has to go shopping three times a week. It’s costing him a fortune. At least Christmas is costing his brother a fortune instead. As if on cue, François saunters into the room.
‘Right,’ he says, clapping his hands briskly. ‘Get up you lazy bastards—’
‘Fran,’ Mathieu protests, weakly. ‘Language.’
‘Oh, please.’ François raises his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Hugo taught me every English swear word I know. That boy is not as innocent as you think.’
Mathieu glances at Hugo, who simply shrugs.
‘Right,’ François says again. ‘Get up. We’re going out.’
Mathieu and Hugo groan in unison.
‘Boxing Day isn’t for going out,’ Mathieu protests.
‘Exactly,’ Hugo echoes. ‘Christmas Eve is for presents, Christmas Day is for gorging and Boxing Day is for lounging. It’s in the Bible.’
‘It is not, you little heathen,’ Mathieu says, with a sigh. ‘Still, I’m with the teenager on this one, Fran. I’m not good for anything but decomposing on the sofa and watching shit TV.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ François snaps. ‘You’re in France, we don’t have Boxing Day here, so you’ve no excuse. And, I’m not suggesting we run a marathon, just get a bit of fresh air. You two have been glued to that sofa since you got here. Paris awaits. Come on!’
François strides over to the sofa, takes one of Mathieu’s legs and one of Hugo’s and tugs, hard, so they both crash to the floor.
‘Fran!’ Mathieu and Hugo exclaim in unison.
‘Bastard.’ Hugo brushes himself off. ‘You total and utter bastard.’
‘What he said,’ Mathieu says, eyeing his brother. ‘Anyway, what are you up to?’
‘What on earth do you mean?’ François says, looking down on them.
‘Oh, I know you, big brother,’ Mathieu says. ‘You’ve got an agenda. What is it?’
‘I have not.’
‘Out with it.’
‘Alright, alright!’ François throws up his hands. ‘Enough interrogation. I was only thinking we might get our fresh air by walking over to this little cafe I rather like. They do the best chocolate madeleines this side of the Seine.’
‘Hmm, let me hazard a guess …’ Mathieu says, raising an eyebrow. ‘Are we going for the madeleines, or for the girl who serves them?’
‘Bloody hell, you never let up, do you?’ François snaps. ‘OK, OK, so there might be a waitress there I like. But that’s by the by.’
Mathieu stands. ‘I knew it. Right then, Hugo. Let’s do our good deed for the year and give your uncle his Christmas present.’
Chapter Fifty-Eight
‘How was Beth?’
Gertie shrugs. ‘Boring. All she talks about is Barbie dolls.’
‘Really?’ Jude asks. ‘I thought you loved Beth. I thought she was your best friend.’
‘That was last week. Today she’s not.’
‘Oh,’ Jude says, since she doesn’t know what else to say. It’s been a year and she’s still getting used to the immediacy of children, their lack of past and future, their absolute attention to the present moment.
‘Anyway,’ Gertie says, trailing her finger along the counter, peering down into the exotic and mysterious contents beneath the glass. ‘I don’t want to play with other kids. I want to work here, with you.’
Jude smiles. ‘I want that too, Gert. But you can’t just do that every day.’
‘Why not?’
Jude considers this since, in all honesty, she doesn’t see why not either. Still, she’s been reading plenty of parenting books that advise her on topics such as schooling and extra extra-curricular activities and themes such as obsession and moderation. ‘Well,’ Jude ventures, trying to recall the salient points of one such book she’d read just last night. ‘I don’t know. But, it’s not … healthy. You’re a child. You need to spend time with other kids, not all the time with me.’
Gertie shrugs. ‘I see enough of other kids at school. It’s the holidays, why would I want to see even more of them now? I want to spend the holidays with you.’
‘That’s sweet,’ Jude says, touched. ‘And I want the same. I just don’t want you to feel …’ She pauses, remembering moments from her own childhood. ‘Lonely, excluded … I want you to fit in.’
Gertie laughs. ‘How could I ever feel lonely in here?’ She starts to spin, around and around, in the little shop. ‘It’s magic! How could anyone ever feel anything but happy in here?’
‘Oh, it’s possible,’ Jude says.
But Gertie, still spinning, doesn’t hear. ‘And, anyway,’ she says, still giggling as she comes to a stop, collapsing against the counter. ‘I don’t know why I even need to go to school, since I’m going to work here when I grow up. I don’t need any qualify-tations to work here, do I?’
Now Jude laughs. ‘Oh, sweetheart, no you don’t, but you still need to go to school.’
‘Why?’
Jude tries to think of a good reason but fails. ‘Because … because it’s the law.’
‘Humph,’ Gertie huffs, gazing into the counter again. ‘Is that new?’ She points at a silver locket engraved with a border of roses encircling a tiny picture of a man holding a baby and a flower.
‘Nothing gets past you, does it?’
Gertie grins. ‘Not much. Can I see it?’
Jude turns the key in the lock and opens the glass doors behind the counter. She reaches in, removes the locket and hands it over to Gertie, placing it in the girl’s open palms. She never has to tell her niece to be careful with their treasures since she knows it instinctively. Although Gertie has the immediacy of a child, she’s never been careless or frivolous.
Gertie turns the locket over, lightly rubbing the raised surface of the engraving. ‘Who’s the man?’
‘I’m not sure,’ Jude says. ‘I’m still researching … Who do you think he is?’
Gertie contemplates the figure. ‘I think he’s an angel,’ she says, finally, looking up. ‘Maybe he’s a Christmas angel.’
Jude smiles. ‘Maybe he is.’
‘I wonder who he belongs to,’ Gertie says.
‘I wonder that too.’
‘Whoever it is, they’re lucky,’ Gertie says. ‘It’s really beautiful.’
‘Do you want it?’ Jude says. ‘You can have it if you like. It’s yours.’
For a moment, Gertie’s eyes widen and her fist tightens around the silver locket. She smiles, delight and surprise lighting her face in equal measure. ‘Really?’ she asks. ‘Really?’
‘Of course,’ Jude says,
thrilled to be able to make her niece so suddenly happy. ‘You can have anything you want in the shop, you know that.’
Gertie grins, looking up at Jude then back to the locket again. And then, a serious expression passes over her face and she shakes her head.
‘No, I can’t have it,’ she says.
Jude frowns. ‘Why not?’
‘Because it’s not mine.’
‘What? But, I just said it was,’ Jude says. ‘If you want it, it’s yours.’
‘I know,’ Gertie says. ‘But it doesn’t belong to me, does it? It hasn’t chosen me. It’s not my talisman. And, if you give it to me, that’s not the same, is it?’
‘I suppose not,’ Jude says. ‘But—’
‘And if I take it,’ Gertie continues, ‘then that means someone else, the person it really belongs to, they won’t have it. And that’ – she gives Jude a stern look– ‘that will be a very dreadful thing indeed.’
Jude nods. ‘You’re quite right,’ she says, then smiles. ‘You know, sometimes I wonder which one of us is the adult and which one the child.’
Gertie regards her aunt as if she’s just said something very silly indeed. Then Gertie shakes her head and turns away towards the shelves of the little shop, ready to take a fresh inventory of everything she knows and anything that might have appeared since she last checked.
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Viola sits at the kitchen table of Henri’s garret flat above the restaurant. It’s quaint and cramped full of unread culinary books and unused culinary equipment since Henri has no time to engage in anything outside work. Viola works equally hard, so they sleep in the flat, occasionally finding the energy and inclination for more than that, but usually both are too exhausted for much else than slumber. This, Viola sometimes considers, might bother someone else, someone actually wanting a relationship, intimacy and connection. But since that isn’t what Viola wants, it suits her fine. All she needs is the approximation of a relationship – a place to go when she’s not in the restaurant, a bed to sleep, a person with whom to share the odd thought, someone with whom to spend the holidays: Easter weekend, Christmas Day and the clutch of other religious holidays when the restaurant is closed. If she took the time to work it out, Viola might calculate that she’s spent a total of perhaps seventy-two waking hours with Henri outside the restaurant. She’s spent approximately eight thousand six hundred and forty hours with Henri inside the restaurant, but there they are surrounded by a team of other chefs, there they only talk about food and menus and customers and staff. They no longer have sex in the booths after hours, they stumble upstairs instead and pass out.
‘That was delicious,’ Viola says. ‘Thank you.’
‘Pretty good, wasn’t it?’ Henri smiles. ‘I think I’ll add it to the menu tonight – a Boxing Day special. In your honour. An English fry-up with French ingredients.’
‘Great idea,’ Viola says. ‘Though I might not mention the British inspiration. It might not appeal to your fellow countrymen, given their – how shall I put this? – slight superiority complex when it comes to all things on the island.’
‘Superiority “complex”?’ Henri retorts. ‘It’s not a complex, we are superior. I believe even the British are not so stupid that they don’t see that.’
Viola smiles. ‘Your butter, yes. Your croissants, ditto. Perhaps your bread too, I’ll give you that. And possibly, OK, definitely, your cheese. But that’s where I draw the line.’
Henri laughs. ‘Oh, you poor deluded little Brit,’ he says, kissing her forehead as he clears away their plates. ‘I’m going downstairs. I can’t trust Phillipe alone for more than an hour, even just for a lunch shift. You coming?’
Viola nods. ‘I’ll follow you down.’
‘D’accord,’ Henri says. ‘Don’t be long.’
‘I won’t. Five minutes max.’
She sits at the table after he’s gone, absently circling her finger along the stems of embroidered lilies in the tablecloth. She tries to think of nothing, to make her mind blank, at peace. But he always comes to her in these silent times. He rises up like a spirit and lingers like a fog. She watches him then, the lines of his face, the light in his eyes, the enticing curl of his smile. She closes her eyes, puts her palm to her cheek and pretends that he’s touching her. She traces her finger along her lips and pretends that it’s his lips, just as she did after their first kiss. It’s a relief not to live in the same city any more, not to fear bumping into him around every corner, not to wish for it. So, Viola allows herself these moments to dwell on him. And the rest of the time she hurls herself into work, head down over the pans, relishing the relentless nature of the work, the constant demands, the plates upon plates of delectable cuisine she’s required to make that don’t allow her a second to think, let alone think of him. Thank God.
‘How far away is this place?’ Mathieu moans. ‘We’ve been walking for hours. You said it was just around the corner.’
‘Man up.’ François retorts. ‘It’s been five minutes. And, anyway, it’s just around the next corner.’
‘You said that twenty minutes ago,’ Mathieu says. ‘I’m starting to get suspicious.’
‘I’m hungry,’ Hugo complains. ‘When are we going to eat?’
Mathieu smiles to himself.
‘Patience, patience,’ François says. ‘We’re nearly there. It’ll be worth the wait, trust me.’
‘Yeah, for you,’ Mathieu says, as they turn the corner and, suddenly, they are beside the Seine. ‘I don’t think there’s much in it for us.’
François stops and grins. ‘Here we are,’ he says, holding his arms up in front of a little restaurant: La Boulangerie des Roses. ‘The best madeleines in Paris, along with rather delectable if exorbitantly priced dinners, and the prettiest waitresses for ten kilometres, perhaps twenty.’
‘Oh, well, if they’re that pretty, then price be damned,’ Mathieu says. ‘Right?’
‘Exactly, brother,’ François says. ‘At last you’re starting to sound like a normal man again, thank God.’ He pats his trouser pockets. ‘Speaking of which, I seem to have forgotten my wallet. I wonder if you might …’
Mathieu holds up his hand. ‘Oh, no, dear brother, please don’t trouble yourself,’ he says. ‘It’s on me. So, why not have the most expensive thing on the menu?’
Hugo’s eye light up. ‘Really?’ He steps forward. ‘Fantastic!’
‘Of course not really,’ Mathieu snaps. ‘I was being sarcastic. You can get whatever you want, so long as it costs less than six euros.’
Hugo studies the menu. ‘Six euros? I can’t get a coffee for less than that.’
‘Good,’ Mathieu says. ‘You shouldn’t be drinking coffee anyway, no wonder you’re up till midnight.’ He looks to François. ‘I told you he wasn’t allowed coffee. You’re the worst uncle imaginable.’
Ignoring him, François strides into the restaurant. Hugo scurries after him and Mathieu follows reluctantly.
‘May we just have drinks and some of your delectable madeleines?’ François asks the waitress at the door who, Mathieu observes, does not seem to be the prettiest woman within twenty kilometres.
‘Mais, bien sûr,’ she says, smiling. ‘Sit wherever you like, we’re empty.’
‘Why, thank you.’ François flashes her a charming smile. ‘We will.’
He walks to a table close to the open kitchen and sits, picking up a menu as Hugo and Mathieu join him.
‘Remember,’ Mathieu warns. ‘Nothing above six euros.’
‘Yeah, good luck with that Papa,’ Hugo says. ‘I’m having a croque-monsieur plus a chocolate gateau and some of those madeleines Uncle Fran keeps banging on about.’
‘You are not,’ Mathieu says. ‘I’ll have to remortgage the house to pay for all that.’
‘Oh, stop being such a spoilsport,’ François says. ‘Live a little.’
‘You wouldn’t be saying that if you were paying,’ Mathieu says. ‘And why are we sitting so close to the kitchen? What,
there wasn’t a table next to the toilets?’
‘God, you’re so boring,’ François says. ‘It’s fun here, you get to watch the chefs perform their magic and—’
‘—oh, don’t tell me, you fancy one of the chefs as well.’ Mathieu sighs. ‘So, basically, I’m paying a fortune so that you can get—’ It’s then that he looks up into the kitchen, and sees her.
Without thinking, Mathieu stands and walks to the low counter that separates the kitchen from the restaurant. He’s standing there for only a moment before Viola suddenly stops slicing carrots and looks up, as if he’d just called out to her, though he’s silent. She puts down the knife and walks, a little dazed, over to him. They stand, separated by the counter, staring at each other.
‘Hello,’ she says.
‘Hello,’ he says.
They fall into silence then, just looking at each other.
‘Why – how are you here?’ Viola asks, at last.
‘We’re spending Christmas with my brother,’ Mathieu says. ‘We’re not …’
‘But … I meant, here. How – did you know I worked here?’
‘No, no,’ Mathieu says quickly. ‘I had no idea. François fancies one of the waitresses, he insisted.’
‘Oh, yes,’ Viola says. ‘I saw him last week. He comes in quite often, actually, always with a different woman.’
‘Sounds like Fran.’
‘So … How have you been?’
‘Fine, good.’ Mathieu shrugs.
‘And Hugo? How’s Hugo?’
‘A constant headache, but in a good way. I mean, he’s just like any other teenage boy,’ Mathieu says. ‘We’re ticking along.’
‘You sound thoroughly British.’ Viola smiles. ‘So you must be acclimatising well.’
‘I suppose we are.’
‘It’s strange, isn’t it, you in England, me in Paris?’ Viola says. ‘Funny how life turns out.’
‘Yeah,’ Mathieu says, glancing behind her into the kitchen. ‘Funny.’
The Patron Saint of Lost Souls Page 20