by Jenny Colgan
I moved forward and kissed him, and he kissed me back, with none of the amused nonchalance he’d shown before, but with a total, committed fervor. It was fierce and it was fantastic.
“Now can we stop talking about your dad?” I said, when we finally came up for air.
He put the champagne bottle down on the side of the counter. “I will sweep you upstairs,” he said, grabbing me under the arms.
My eyes strayed to the bottle he’d put down.
“Oh, my little English girl,” he laughed. “Do you think you need to get drunk to enjoy yourself with me?”
I wriggled, red in the face. “Not drunk exactly,” I muttered. “But a bit of Dutch courage wouldn’t go amiss.”
Laurent took my hands in his strong grip and stared into my eyes intently.
“You, my gorgeous Anna, are going to come upstairs with me. And we are going to make love, if that is what you want, and you will be perfectly sober, and you will enjoy every second. Oui ou non?”
Oh Lord.
- - -
The sun was coming up. It shone through the pale gauzy curtains where I lay trapped in Laurent’s arms. He was asleep, but I was not and felt that light, dreamy way when you’re not sure what is real and what’s a dream. I turned and kissed his hair. He had, in the end, lightly caressed my toes. He had lightly caressed every bit of me. Then we had become less gentle. A lot less gentle.
“Oh, Anna,” he said from his snoozing form.
“I have to go,” I whispered.
“Don’t.” A huge hairy arm came and trapped me.
“I have to,” I said. “I have to work.”
“Oh Christ,” he said, shooting bolt upright and searching for his watch.
“So do I. I said I’d take the early shift.”
“Surely not this early?”
“You’ve never worked in a hotel, have you?”
“No,” I admitted. He smiled at me and kissed me.
“You are even more luscious in the morning,” he said. “Oh, my love. Stay a while.”
“I thought you were going to work?” I said. “Anyway, no. I’m worried about Claire. I shouldn’t even have left last night.”
“She was happy and sleeping,” argued Laurent. “Anyway,” he smiled, “didn’t you enjoy what we did instead?”
I smiled back, feeling myself flush again. He cupped his hand to my cheek. “I like it when you turn red,” he said.
“Shut up,” I said.
I grabbed my clothes—it felt odd to think I had put them on in Kidinsborough; I desperately needed a bath—and went to leave. I didn’t want to. I felt like I was coasting along on a sea of happiness.
“Oh God, I don’t know how I’m going to open the shop today,” I giggled. “It’ll be worse than normal.”
“Just concentrate. You’ll be fine.”
“Okay,” I said. I looked at him. “One thing you haven’t told me about,” I said.
“There are a million things I haven’t told you about,” he said, smiling. “Now I think we will have the time to get to know each other.”
I smiled. “Yes, please. But Laurent, what about your mum? Wouldn’t she like to know about Thierry? Wouldn’t she like to see him?”
I knew the second it came out of my mouth what a dreadful mistake I had made; the shutters dropped down almost immediately.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “Another time?”
“This is…”
I thought of the Laurent I’d seen around town, handsome, charming, keeping everything light.
“Am I moving too fast?” I said. He said immediately non, non, non, but I left anyway. After I let myself out, when I passed his scooter, I wanted to kick it.
Claire was dreaming. She was dreaming she was in Paris and the light reflecting off the rocks onto her face was the one that only came when she was there. She felt lighter than air; in her dreams, she could move as freely as she liked. Why had she thought she was sick? She wasn’t sick at all, she was fine; the doctors had gotten it all wrong. Silly doctors, she was so fine she could fly, look.
Suddenly, even in her dream, she realized that of course, she couldn’t fly, and little by little she started to float, her disappointment as bitter as ashes in her mouth, to the surface, still caught, still trapped in her body riddled with blackness, useless and shaming. All her mornings felt like this; beached from morning dreams into the harshness of another daily struggle through reality.
She blinked twice. One thing was different though. It was that rock. It was that light. With a burst of pure happiness, she remembered. She was in Paris. They had made it. She was here.
There was a knock at the door, and Anna entered, carrying two small cups of coffee she’d brought up from the lobby and a bag of fresh, flaky, still-warm croissants between her teeth. She did a smiling grimace—she looked exhausted, Claire noted, but rather well—and went over to the window where she pulled open the thick curtain to reveal a window box filled with white roses and a view all the way to the Eiffel Tower. It was enchanting.
“Not bad, eh?” said Anna, putting the coffee down and kissing her on the cheek. “Good morning. How are you feeling?”
Claire shrugged.
“Actually,” she said, sounding surprised, “I didn’t have a bad night.”
Normally she woke three or four times, often feeling as if she would choke.
Anna helped her to the toilet and to get dressed, then apologized for the hour and disappeared to open up the shop. Claire watched her go with a smile on her face. She was dedicated that girl. She’d been right about her. She’d do well.
Then she sat back with the complimentary copy of Paris Match by the window Anna had opened and listened, for the first time in forty years, to the noises of Paris waking itself up, as she sipped the strong sweet coffee and nibbled at the croissant and felt the sun warm her aching bones.
- - -
I was earlier than Frédéric or Benoît this morning, which was a first. Mind you, they’d probably gotten some sleep, which was better going than me. I hovered around on my own—Frédéric had the keys—wishing I had something to do with my hands, like smoke.
The van pulled up first. My heart sank and I cursed. Now I was going to have to deal with Alice all by myself.
She was alone and almost fell out of the driver’s seat. For once, her face wasn’t immaculately painted. She was wearing yesterday’s clothes, and her hair was scraped back in a ponytail. She looked nothing like herself at all. I barely recognized her.
“Alice?” I said.
She looked up at me. Yesterday’s mascara was running down her face. She was in a terrible state.
“Are you all right?” I asked in alarm.
“No-o-o,” she said in a long shudder, launching herself across the cobbles and sitting down on the step. Then she burst into huge sobs.
“What’s the matter?” I said, fear gripping me. “Is Thierry all right? Was the trip too much for him?”
Unable to speak, she shook her head.
“No, it’s not that…he’s better,” she said bitterly, almost spitting the words out. She looked up at me in undisguised hatred.
“How can you…how can you take him away from me?” she said, then burst into fresh floods of tears.
“What do you mean?” I said, genuinely confused. She couldn’t be talking about Laurent, could she? No, surely not. No, that would be absurd. Nonetheless, I found a blush covering my face. My face. Oh God, that stupid arsehole, I hated the effect he had on me.
“My Thierry,” she said, as if I was a total idiot. “You take my man, my partner, and you behave as if I don’t even bloody exist, and you set him up with some fantasy from his past…I mean, how the fuck am I supposed to compete with that?”
She sounded funny in English, not nearly so posh, more Essex if anything. Sh
e rubbed fiercely at her eyes.
“Well, thanks very fucking much. I’m only the one that’s kept everything going, kept the books, kept the suppliers happy, kept everyone away from him so he could concentrate on doing what he does best…and this is the thanks I get.”
I blinked several times. It was true; she was completely right. I hadn’t given her feelings a second thought, except to try to stay out of her way. But of course I wasn’t trying to usurp her. I was trying to help someone else. I didn’t know how to explain it.
“I’m sorry,” I said, unsure whether this would work or not. “That’s not what I meant…” I knelt down. “You know how ill she is?”
She glanced up. “Thierry said she was sick, but he’s so happy to see her, he’s like a little boy. He’s spent the last week doing his physiotherapy exercises, after he’d told his doctor he absolutely wouldn’t do them. He’s been eating veg and making plans and…I haven’t seen him so alive in a long time.” She looked up at me. “He’s going to leave me.”
“Of course he’s not going to leave you,” I said, thinking privately that if he ever was, her genuine bad temper would have driven him away a long time ago.
“Listen to me,” I said, sitting down next to her on the curb. “You know and I know that Thierry is an optimist, yes?”
She laughed a tiny bit. “You could say that.”
“Doesn’t really like facing life’s difficulties.”
“He does not,” she said. “Like his own blasted belly.”
I smiled at that too. “You have to know,” I said, “Claire is really sick. Really, really sick. She shouldn’t be here. She should be in a hospital.”
The reality hit me.
“No,” I said slowly. Claire hadn’t said anything; the true state of her health was between her and her doctor. But gradually I realized what I was saying was true, took in the full enormity of it.
“No,” I repeated. “She shouldn’t be in a hospital. She should be in a hospice.”
I looked at Alice to make sure she realized the importance of what I was saying, although it was for myself as much as her. “Alice, coming here…this is the last thing Claire is ever going to do. Do you realize that? She’s going to go back to the UK, and then…”
I hated to say it and bit my lip.
“And then she is going to die,” I said.
Alice’s eyes went wide.
“Really?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh God,” said Alice. “Oh God.”
She fell silent, obviously thinking about how recently she had nearly lost Thierry.
“He never told me,” she said.
“He may not know. She’s keeping it quiet,” I said.
“Even if he did, he would pretend it wasn’t happening,” said Alice and we both smiled.
We sat a while longer, watching Benoît lump up over the arch of the street.
“So,” I said eventually.
“So just let them get on with it,” she said ungracefully. “Is that what you want me to say? Butt out, Alice?”
I thought about it. “Yes,” I said. “But not for long. He is yours, I think. Don’t you?”
She half-smiled. “I doubt anyone else would put up with him.”
I smiled at that as she headed back to the van.
“That goes double for his son by the way,” she shouted, but I pretended not to hear her.
Frédéric arrived too, kicking away his cigarette and petting Nelson Eddy the dog.
“Good day,” he said. “Ready for a full day’s work?”
I watched as the grille rattled up. “Sure,” I said.
By 8:00 a.m., I was completely hazy with tiredness, and we’d already had to throw away two full trays of milk chocolate oranges because I’d overcreamed them and they tasted like chocolate yogurt. Benoît was muttering, and Frédéric was looking very agitated and asking me what Alice had said, which of course I didn’t repeat. For some reason, I had promised to gen up on hazelnuts over the holiday. Of course I’d done nothing of the sort, but with le tout Paris aware that we were reopening today, it was a bit too late to start. I halfheartedly started roasting the nuts, Frédéric coming fussily over my shoulder to pull out the green ones. Then I turned around too quickly when he startled me and knocked the second copper vat so it sputtered and started spitting out chocolate all over the floor, which I then skidded in and got a flashback so quickly I burst into tears. Frédéric did his best to be sympathetic, but I could tell it was only making him more agitated, and Benoît muttered something to himself along the lines of how he’d never had a woman in the kitchen before and this was absolutely why, when suddenly I heard a noise on the roof of the greenhouse.
Nobody could get back there without going through the shop. All three of us jumped. Someone was crouching on the roof! The shadow was plain above us, an ominous mass above our heads.
“Merde,” said Frédéric, jumping back to the sink and grabbing the huge knife we used to chop melon and pineapple.
“Who’s there?” I shouted, my voice quivering. There was no response. I was glad the boys were there. We moved toward the window. A large dark shape hung there, ominously, then it moved. Suddenly, with a slump and an enormous noise, it jumped down into the courtyard beyond. In a second, Benoît had opened the back door and we’d all piled out on top of the crouching figure.
“AARGH! ARGH! STOP IT! GERROF!” it shouted, and I realized it was Laurent.
“Stop it, stop it, everyone,” I said, standing back.
“I can’t believe you’re attacking me again,” said Laurent, shaking himself off.
“Try not breaking and entering into our workshop then,” I said, breathless and annoyed. “What the hell were you doing up there?”
“Nobody would answer the front door. What the hell were you doing in here?”
Nobody grassed me up for my noisy boo-hooing, fortunately. Laurent looked at me, then glanced at the floor.
“Uhm,” he said, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, after last night. I clammed up. It was rude.”
“I’m used to you being weird,” I said unhappily.
“I know,” he said. He sighed, then suddenly switched to English. “This is hard…I am trying, Anna.”
“I’m trying to get done for assault and battery,” I said, but the joke was lost on him.
“Frédéric, can you get us two coffees?” he said. Frédéric, amazingly, went and did it without complaining. Benoît, muttering, went back to mop up the workshop. I shivered a little; it was chilly out here in the little courtyard that got no sun. We accepted Frédéric’s coffee with thanks. I glanced at the clock, a little worried.
“I grew up in Beirut,” Laurent said slowly.
“Ooh no,” I said sympathetically.
“Actually,” he said, rather snippily, “Beirut is a beautiful place. Beaches, skiing, the food…oh, the food.”
I stared ahead and decided to let him do all the talking.
“Dad was stationed there during the conflict. It…life there was very hard.” He lost his thread.
“Your mother?”
He shook his head. “Can you imagine how she was treated when her family found out she was pregnant by a French soldier?”
I shook my head. “No,” I said.
“My grandmother used to steal around. In the middle of the night, you understand? In case anyone saw her? To bring us food.”
“So they didn’t…”
“Did he offer to marry her, you mean?” He shook his head. “Oh no, he had different ideas about this. He even told her about Claire.”
I bit my lip. That seemed so thoughtless, even for him.
“What about when you came along?”
“He sent money,” allowed Laurent. “And when I was seven, he brought us over. He’d met Alice by then.”
/> “Was she kind to you?”
He snorted. “My mother was far more beautiful than she was. She was insecure from the get-go. Pretended I was some little slum boy who didn’t exist.”
“Why didn’t they have children?” I wondered.
Laurent shrugged. “Because she’s a witch?”
“She’s all right,” I said. I was learning more and more about how difficult it must have been to hold on to this strong-willed, selfish man.
“What was it like?” I asked.
“Paris? Amazing,” said Laurent. “Oh my goodness, it was so clean and airy and cool! The huge houses and the streets…and no one looked twice at my mother, once she took her headscarf off! It was like she was free again, not like Dahiyeh, when everyone knew about her shame.”
“She sounds amazing,” I said.
He nodded sharply. “She was. She did a fucking good job on her own.”
“Did you want to stay?”
“Mum couldn’t. They weren’t married. She couldn’t just settle here. Anyway, even though being at home was pretty horrible, it was still home. Her mum was there.”
“What did you think of Thierry?”
“When he was interested in me, it was great. To be the focus of his attention, you just felt you lit up his world. And he showed me all about his work and I was interested…very interested, you know.”
I nodded.
“So he liked that, so I was his little funny dolly for a while. Then, you know, we’d go back and it was as if he’d forgotten all about us again.”
“He’s not a great letter writer,” I said.
“Men like Thierry…” Laurent said. “They are the sun, yes? Everyone else just has to orbit behind. It is the same with any great chef, with conductors, with great tennis players. They are the light.”
There wasn’t, I thought, any bitterness in his voice. I looked up at him. It was as if he’d seen his father for what he was and accepted it. He caught sight of me.
“Have you been crying?”
I nodded.
“Did I make you cry?”