by Ali McNamara
“Ah good,” Sean said. “We are looking for a lady called Rosemary. Do you have anyone who works here called that?”
“Or it could be Rosie?” I added helpfully.
“Non, we have no one here of that name, I am sorry.”
“Have you worked here long…Chantal?” Sean asked, looking at the assistant’s name badge. “I mean, is there a member of staff that’s been here a longer time than you?”
Chantal looked puzzled.
“Someone older?” I tried.
“Ah yes, older, now I understand. There is Marie, she has been ’ere for er…long time.”
“Could we speak to her?” I asked.
“Oui, she is out in the back just now. One moment, I shall return.”
While we waited, I glanced at some of the bags beautifully displayed on the glass podiums and shelves. I didn’t bother glancing at the price tags, though. No point.
Presently, Chantal returned with an elderly woman dressed entirely in black. She was holding on tightly to Chantal’s arm for support; and was almost bent double as she hobbled across the shop.
“This is Marie,” Chantal said. “She is the grandmother of our manageress. She likes to come and sit in the shop with us for company since her husband died, but they do not let her sit out front.” Chantal put her hand to the side of her mouth and whispered to us. “They say it will…’ow you say…er…put the customers off?” She found Marie a seat and helped her into it. “She does not speak any English, but I shall try and ask her what you ask me.”
I nodded and smiled at Marie. She stared hard at me over her tiny pince-nez glasses.
Chantal then presumably asked Marie the same questions we had asked her. But it was hard to tell—I could only really pick out the word Rosemary.
Marie shook her head vehemently.
“She says no,” Chantal translated unnecessarily.
“Or Rosie?” I asked, looking at Marie.
Again she shook her head.
I turned to Sean. “We may as well just go; this is getting us nowhere.”
“English,” Marie said.
We all turned to look at her.
“English,” she said, pointing her bony finger at me.
“Yes, that’s right, I am.”
“Vivien,” she said, nodding.
“No, my name is Scarlett.”
She nodded again. “Oui…Scarlett…Vivien. Da, daa, da, daa. Da, daa, da, daaa,” she hummed.
“Come on,” Sean said. “Let’s go, we’ve still got one more shop to try yet. Plus,” he whispered, “I don’t think this old bird is all there.”
“No, wait,” I said, listening to Marie hum. “Can’t you hear what she’s singing? I think it’s the theme tune to Gone with the Wind.”
We all stood and listened to Marie humming. She stopped and smiled a toothy grin at us.
“Vivien,” she said again, pointing at me. Then she spoke to Chantal in French.
“What’s she saying?” I asked.
“She says you look like Vivien.”
“Who, Vivien Leigh?”
Chantal asked Marie.
“No,” Chantal explained. “A woman that used to work here. Marie says she very much loved the cinema, and her favorite film, she remembers, was Gone with the Wind. So the staff, they called her Vivien, as it sounded more French.”
“More French than…?” I asked hopefully. “What was her real name?”
Again Chantal spoke quickly to Marie.
“She does not remember her true name, I’m afraid.”
I was just about to give up when I remembered the photo. “Is this her?” I asked, producing the photo from my bag. I pointed to my mother in the picture. “Vivien?” I asked Marie, kneeling down beside her.
Marie peered closely at the photo and then she looked at me.
“Oui.” She nodded, looking down at the photo again. “Vivien.” Then she smiled at me. “Vivien,” she repeated as she took my hand in hers.
“Bingo,” Sean said, grinning.
***
With Chantal translating in between customers, I asked Marie as much as she could remember about my mother.
She described her to Chantal as being full of spirit and life, and with a passion for the cinema, which Marie also shared. She had not worked in the shop for long before she had once again moved on. But this time Marie seemed sure she had not stayed within Louis Vuitton but had gone to work elsewhere. “Mysterious circumstances,” Chantal translated it as.
The shop was starting to get busy now, so we decided we should leave. It was obvious to me Marie had indeed known, and liked, my mother very much, but yet again we had reached a dead end. We thanked Chantal and Marie profusely for all their help, then bade them farewell.
“So there you go,” I said to Sean as we stood outside on the pavement again. “That’s that.”
Sean fixed me with one of his disapproving looks. “Scarlett, you have to stop saying that every time we come up against a small hurdle. You can’t just give up so easily all the time.”
“What else are we supposed to do? We have no other leads. My mother worked here for a while, and that’s all we know. Marie has no idea where she went after she left. She could be anywhere, Sean.”
“But we were so close,” Sean said in frustration.
“I know, but at least I can take something away from all this—I’ve found out the kind of person my mother was. Everyone we’ve met has had good memories of her. She left her mark on people’s lives, Sean, and she’s obviously lived her life to the full.”
Just as I’m going to from now on, I vowed to myself.
“But we’re giving up, admitting defeat, Scarlett. You can’t want that.”
“No, Sean, you don’t want that. I’ve found out so much more in the last week than I ever dreamed I’d find out about my mother, and I’m happy with that. Meeting her again just obviously wasn’t meant to be.”
Sean looked like he didn’t agree.
“Look, I know this isn’t how you would usually go about things, Sean—you’re the type of person that never gives up until he’s won—but on this occasion we can’t win, we can’t be the best, and we have to admit defeat.”
Sean still didn’t look convinced. “Are you sure that’s what you want, Scarlett? I mean it isn’t just because of what David said, is it?”
“No—no, it’s not.”
Sean raised an eyebrow.
“Honestly,” I insisted. “This is what I want. Besides,” I said, trying to sound cheerful as I changed the subject, “this means we now have the rest of our time free to see Paris properly. That’s if you’d like to spend the day with me, of course?”
Sean smiled. “You know I would.”
“Right then, let’s go somewhere now. And, if you promise to be good, I’ll try really hard not to find any movie moments while we’re here—how about that? Come on, Sean,” I urged, taking hold of his hand. “It’ll be fun.”
Sean’s face fell. “Oh, Scarlett, I’d love to—really I would. But I’m afraid I’ve got some business to attend to this afternoon.”
“Oh…oh right.” I tried not to sound too disappointed as I felt his hand fall away from mine. “Well, no matter. I’m sure I’ll be fine on my own. I bet you’ve seen most of it before anyway. You’d probably have been bored.”
“No, of course I wouldn’t. I would have loved showing you around Paris.” He glanced at his watch apprehensively. “What about if you wait for me back at the hotel? I could call you after my meeting and we can go somewhere then. It shouldn’t take too long.”
“Don’t be silly. I’ll be fine on my own. I’m a big girl. I can cope.” I was joking to try and lighten the moment, but Sean didn’t smile. “I’ll just meet you for dinner tonight back at the hotel, shall I? Then neither of us will feel the need to rush around this afternoon.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes, perfectly.”
“Well, all right,” Sean said, still looking uncertai
n. “You’d better take this, though.” He held out the map. “You won’t get lost, will you?”
“Sean, I said I’ll be fine. Now just go, please,” I said, taking the map from him.
“Right, I guess I’ll see you later.”
I nodded and watched him while he walked back toward the Metro. It seemed odd to be on my own again. Sean and I had spent so much time together recently that not having him by my side now suddenly felt very strange indeed.
***
Before I descended to the Metro myself, I couldn’t help but pause outside one of the inviting chocolate shops that lined the Champs-Elysées.
They were like nothing I’d ever seen before. The window displays showed chocolate in every flavor and form you could think of, from truffles to marzipan flowers, pralines to ganaches and chocolate sculptures. It was a chocoholic’s paradise.
I allowed my gaze to wander from the window display to the inside of the shop, and it was there that my eyes stopped dead in their tracks and remained on something more gorgeous and more delicious than any Parisian chocolate shop could ever hope to contain: a certain Mr. Johnny Depp buying an expensive-looking box of chocolates.
As I stood staring at him through the window I knew I was probably drooling, but I couldn’t help it—it was Johnny Depp in there, just a few meters away from me, and if that wasn’t enough, he was buying chocolate! I watched while he paid for his purchase and then to my horror I realized he was now walking in my direction as he made his way toward the exit of the shop.
“Ahoy there!” I called as he stepped out onto the pavement.
Oh my God, what the hell was I saying?
He turned around.
He was just as gorgeous in real life as on the screen. I could feel my knees begin to buckle as his dark-chocolate eyes looked around him.
“Just kids having a joke, I think.” I looked over my shoulder, pretending to spot someone who might be responsible for that ridiculous outburst. I smiled and to my surprise he gave me a half-smile back.
“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he said, his voice sounding as sweet to my ears as all the chocolate in the shop would have been to my tongue. “But it’s usually in French over here.”
“So…you’re buying chocolate,” I said as he turned away from me, apparently about to continue down the road.
He paused and turned back. “Er, yes. I do that sometimes. You should go in—he’s one of the best chocolatiers in Paris.” I think he thought perhaps he’d get rid of me that way, but still I didn’t take the hint.
“It’s just it seems funny seeing you buying chocolate in a chocolate shop, with you being in that film—you know the one…Chocolat?”
Quizzically, Johnny raised one eyebrow at me, and I nearly passed out right there on the Champs-Elysées. “Er, yes, I do remember it.”
“And…and then of course you were also Willy Wonka so there’s a chocolate link there too.”
Oh my God, shut up, Scarlett. What on earth are you saying now?
Johnny smiled at me again.
Well, it was more like a grin this time.
OK, he was laughing at me.
“Yes, indeed there is,” he said, his face becoming serious now. “I’d never really thought about it like that. But the thing is I’ve also played the creator of Peter Pan and I can’t really fly. An astronaut but I’ve never been into space. A man with scissors for hands and a murdering barber, yet I can’t cut hair and I’ve never killed anyone. Oh, and as you so kindly pointed out a few minutes ago, a pirate, but do you know something?”
He walked back along the pavement, then, standing right next to me, he leaned in, his face close to mine.
“You’ve never been to sea?” I whispered, almost unable to speak. He was so close I could smell the aftershave delicately wafting from his oh-so-perfect skin. David is so getting some of that for Valentine’s Day, I thought, wondering if it would be rude of me to ask what brand it was.
“You got it. However,” he said, now whispering into my ear, “when I played Don Juan, the greatest lover in the world…”
He stood up in front of me now and winked. And while he’d managed to render me speechless for a few seconds, he took his chance and bounded off down the Champs-Elysées as fast as his seafaring legs would carry him.
***
When I finally got over first the shock and then the embarrassment of my encounter with Johnny Depp—I mean, what were the chances of that happening? I knew he had a home in Paris and a French girlfriend, but still—I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to calm myself down by doing the tourist thing of seeing as much of a city as I could in one day. I hadn’t been to Paris since I was fifteen on a school trip. Back then I was wandering around with about twenty other teenagers. But this time I was on my own.
I visited the Musée d’Orsay art gallery, staring up in amazement at the huge Monet canvases that adorned the walls of what was once a central Paris railway station. I went to Notre Dame and again gazed in wonderment at the inside of the vast Gothic cathedral, understanding now how it had been the inspiration for Victor Hugo’s novel and so many of the film adaptations that featured its infamous inhabitant the hunchback. In Montmartre, I wandered among the artists painting portraits of the tourists that flocked around them. Briefly I thought about Sean and wondered if he had any artistic leanings. Maybe he’d like to sketch me like Leo had Kate in Titanic—which would give me another movie to add to my ever-lengthening dossier of proof. Then I remembered what had happened after they had done that in the movie, and I thought better of it. I was already in enough trouble with David as it was. But maybe Sean and I could visit the Moulin Rouge while we were here to catch a show. I’m sure we wouldn’t have to sing or swing from a trapeze or anything to find something from the movie there…
Finally, I ended up visiting that tourist haven—the Eiffel Tower.
As I stood underneath the enormous iron structure and looked around me, I saw that even though it was now a very late afternoon in February, there were still people everywhere, mainly tourist groups and families…and couples, lots and lots of couples.
Ah, of course, it’s Valentine’s Day. Well, I suppose you can’t get much more romantic than Paris on Valentine’s Day.
I tried hard to think about David. He would probably have arrived back home by now and would be happily pottering away with his latest DIY project. But my thoughts kept disobeying me and returning to Sean.
Even though I’d enjoyed myself this afternoon, I knew I’d have enjoyed it even more if Sean had been with me. I’d had that familiar feeling that something was missing, but this time that something was him.
I watched the people rising to the top of the tower in the lifts, and climbing the long staircases together. I couldn’t go all the way up there on my own; what would be the point of getting to the top and then not having anyone to share the wonderful views with?
So I turned away and began to make my way back to the Metro. Then I stopped and smiled, as an idea began to blossom in my mind.
An idea that could help me make a decision, one way or another…
Twenty-Two
At the hotel, I asked the receptionist for some writing paper before heading upstairs. I knocked on Sean’s door as I passed to see if he was back yet. There was no answer.
Once inside my room, I found a pen and sat down and thought for a moment, trying to compose a note.
I screwed up three pieces of paper before I got the wording just right.
Meet me at the top of the Eiffel Tower tonight—Valentine’s Day.
Scarlett x
I thought I’d better put my name—after all, this wasn’t a real movie, and with my luck someone else would pick up the note and I’d be stuck up the Eiffel Tower all evening with a night porter called Pierre.
I quickly freshened up and changed my clothes to something warmer, but also more romantic-looking—which is a difficult combination to get right.
I tried to remember the type of clothe
s Meg Ryan had worn in Sleepless in Seattle but I could only remember the teddy bear bit at the end, and anyway that was on top of the Empire State Building. And in An Affair to Remember Deborah Kerr had never even made it as far as that. So in the end I chose smart black trousers, a pale pink sweater, and my long black coat. I finished off the look by tying my hair back in a loose ponytail and arranging a brightly colored scarf that I’d bought from one of the market stalls in Montmartre casually around my neck. I say casually: it took me at least eight attempts to get it just right.
When I was finally ready, I crept out of my room—in case Sean had returned in the meantime—and as quietly as I could slipped the note under his door. Then I walked quickly to the nearest Metro station and made my way back to the Eiffel Tower.
By the time I arrived it was fully dark, and I stood in awe looking at just how beautiful the tower was, lit up against the night sky.
There were still queues to ride up in the lifts—even at this time of night. So I joined one, hoping it would be a while before Sean found my note.
When I reached the front of the queue, I paid for my ticket and rode up in the lift with the other tourists to the first, then the second, and finally to the very top floor—where we all climbed out. I wandered over to one of the barriers that surrounded the upper viewing deck to look out at the city and to wait for Sean. I glanced at my watch—it said 6:45 p.m.
By 7:50 p.m. I’d walked the perimeter of the platform five times. The views of Paris at night were indeed breathtaking, I couldn’t deny that—they almost surpassed the beauty of the illuminated tower—but it was starting to become embarrassing being up there all on my own.
Earlier today, the crowds riding up in the lifts and climbing the stairs had been a mix of families and large tourist groups. Now the majority of visitors were couples—they were holding hands and giving each other tender looks and loving kisses. I couldn’t blame them; after all, it was Valentine’s Day. But I felt like a big French gooseberry waiting up there all on my own.