by Mandy Baggot
A tear began to slide down Keeley’s face, and she looked to Silvie, finding the woman was getting emotional also.
‘I can relate to those feelings.’ Silvie sniffed. ‘That is why I keep the room exactly how it is. The maid is not even allowed in here. To clean it would be to disturb the last traces of my daughter.’
Keeley swallowed, wondering if she should reach out to her. They did have so much in common when it came to loss. Keeley put a hand on Silvie’s shoulder and gently squeezed. ‘Thank you for showing me Ferne’s room.’
Silvie sniffed again, recomposing herself. ‘You think we are finished?’
‘Well, I… didn’t want to pry.’
‘Nonsense,’ Silvie said quickly. ‘Come, help me up onto the bed.’
Keeley smiled as the woman headed towards the extremely high mattress and attempted to get on. Giggling, Silvie beached a little on the edge and Keeley had to hurry to her side and aid her in getting on top of it.
‘Honestly,’ Silvie exclaimed, straightening her form. ‘I never could understand why Ferne wanted a bed so high.’ She smiled. ‘Come up here with me.’ Silvie patted the space next to her.
‘Are you sure?’ Keeley asked.
‘But of course!’ Silvie patted the bed again. ‘Come!’
With quite substantial effort and a little help with balance from Silvie, Keeley managed to finally get on top of the bed. She stuck her legs out in mid-air and wiggled her feet. ‘Maybe that’s why the bed is high,’ Keeley mused. ‘It feels a little bit like you’re flying up here.’
‘Ferne never stayed still,’ Silvie mused. ‘Staying still for a moment bored her.’ She sighed. ‘My daughter was always about the “doing”. I do not remember the times when she stood still. Perhaps only in the shower.’
Keeley took a deep breath. There was something, one question, she had been wanting to ask Silvie from the moment they had met. ‘Silvie, do you think, if Ferne had been given the choice, she would have donated her kidney to someone like me?’
‘Someone like you?’ Silvie asked, her brow furrowed.
‘Someone ordinary,’ Keeley answered. She felt immediately scrutinised and realised she should probably elaborate a bit more. ‘Being here in Ferne’s space, I can start to see what a full life she led and I don’t know if I can… do her justice.’
‘Oh, my dear,’ Silvie said so gently. ‘Ferne and I discussed donation when our country changed its law. Neither of us could see any reason why we would opt out of giving someone the gift of life if ours was not going to go on.’
Keeley nodded. ‘Thank you.’
‘And as for being ordinary… bof! You, Keeley, are exactly the kind of person Ferne would want to carry on living for her. From what I know, and I do wish to know a lot more before it is time for you to leave, you are warm… and kind… and generous with your time for others. You have a soft heart and a keen mind. I think you and Ferne would have been great friends.’ Silvie put her hand over Keeley’s. ‘I think you could be great friends with Louis too.’ She looked a little forlorn again. ‘I do worry about him. Alone in America, working all the time. I worry that perhaps he made choices he thought his father would have wanted him to make.’
‘I really am sorry about the ballet. I…’
‘It is no matter,’ Silvie said, shifting her weight across the mattress a little. ‘But I do hope there will be a little time for you to get to know Louis better while you are here in Paris.’
Suddenly a loud clanging filled the entire room and Keeley clutched at her chest.
Silvie fell about laughing. ‘The way we announce the next course here in the House of Durand is surprising, yes?’ She shifted forward a little, teetering on the edge of the mattress again. ‘That is a reminder of my Pierre. He always liked the ceremony.’ With a bit of a bounce, Silvie sprung down off the bed and Keeley panicked as the woman listed a little to the left, heading towards a collision with the nightstand.
‘Oh!’ Silvie cried out.
Keeley managed to take hold of the woman’s arm and steady her landing a little while trying to manoeuvre herself off the giant mattress. A few things fell from the bedside cabinet then – a photo frame, a couple of books, thankfully not the lamp…
‘Are you alright?’ Keeley asked, her feet finally finding the carpet as Silvie straightened up.
‘Yes, yes,’ Silvie said quickly, her voice light. In fact, she sounded very much like she was laughing. ‘How did my daughter get in and out of this bed every day?’
Keeley smiled. ‘I don’t know… but it was probably a lot of fun.’
‘I have made a mess,’ Silvie said, bending a little stiffly to gather the items that were on the floor.
‘Let me help,’ Keeley said, picking up the photo frame. Inside was a picture of Ferne, her blonde hair poker-straight, her face made up like she might be about to attend a party. ‘This is a lovely photo.’ Keeley put it back on the nightstand.
‘That was taken at a Christmas party. Our party nights at the hotels at Christmas time are very popular.’ Silvie sighed, looking at Ferne’s image. ‘Ferne loved those parties. She was in her element, working the room, making sure everyone was having the best of times.’
The gong sounded again, this time somehow, even louder and they both laughed together.
‘I think they are getting restless and want our presence,’ Silvie said. ‘I believe the dessert is something with chocolate tonight.’
Another food sin that Keeley should probably not be so fond of. She gathered up the last books from the floor and went to put them on the bedside table. But, as she did so, something fluttered out from between one of the pages and sank to the carpet. While Silvie headed for the door out, Keeley picked up the piece of paper and couldn’t help but look at it. It was a photograph. A Polaroid. A little faded, obviously well-worn through time and touch. But the image looking back at Keeley stole her breath. Those grey eyes. No, it couldn’t be. She shook her head. She was being ridiculous now, seeing him everywhere.
‘Keeley,’ Silvie called from the threshold to the room.
She swallowed, feeling somehow guilty. And then she put the photograph back between the pages of the notebook. ‘Coming.’
Forty-Eight
L’Hotel Paris Parfait, Opera District, Paris
‘This is one of your other little hotels, is it?’ Jeanne asked, swinging her legs so they continually knocked against the leg of the dining table they were seated at. Ethan had managed to get Bo-Bo – with Jeanne’s disgruntled approval – to accept being stationed in the garage while they dined in the hotel’s restaurant. Silvie had sent him a second text reiterating her invitation to dinner earlier. She had sounded like she might really want him to come, like it really might not have been another kind of business ambush. Except that person would be there. The girl. What was he going to say to her? How could he even look at her knowing that she was there because Ferne was not? He considered ignoring the second text just like he had ignored the first but, in the end, he had sent a polite decline with no emotion attached to it. If he gave no energy to it, it would go away. She would go away. He was busy. He was focused. He didn’t have time for his thoughts to stray beyond improving the hotels. He already had a child and a dog he hadn’t planned for…
‘Why do I sense that you do not like it?’ Ethan asked her.
‘It looks like a courtroom,’ Jeanne said with a sniff. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. ‘A courtroom with too much blue and silver glitter. It looks like a troupe of can-can dancers high-kicked through here on their way to jail.’
A courtroom. Ethan studied the dark wood he had always thought looked regal and majestic. Perhaps Jeanne was on to something. Except the changes he had in mind for the hotels didn’t incorporate a full re-fit – that might go some way to bankrupting them. He would have to do the best he could to soften hard edges and introduce warmth in other ways. He would begin with some of the items he had purchased from Les Puces.
‘If you wer
e not my boss I would hate you,’ Noel greeted, his hands holding a tray.
‘I am sure hating your boss is a prerequisite in most businesses,’ Ethan answered, deftly spreading his napkin over his lap. ‘I can deal with a little hate today, as long as I am going to love the food.’ Ethan leaned forward in his seat and sniffed the air. The most fragrant scent was rising with the steam from two rustic bowls on the tray Noel was balancing. The bowls belonged to a large set he had found hidden away in a suitcase under a table in the large market. They looked like something Jesus and his disciples might have used during The Last Supper. Thick, unrefined and slightly uneven rims in sturdy pottery with a deep bowl. They were exactly the right style to serve the spin on paupers’ food he hoped his chef had perfected in double quick time. He was going to see where he could source similar tableware for all the hotels if this new avenue proved as popular as he hoped it would.
Ethan breathed in the aroma of chicken, sausage, thyme, red wine and garlic and, if his stomach had hands, it would be applauding. He looked at Jeanne then and watched as she took the bowl from the tray before Noel had a chance to set it down. Grabbing a spoon, the girl attacked the food like she attacked any food put in front of her. But then, as the first mouthful must have hit her taste buds, she paused, closing her eyes and loudly snorting air through her nose in a show of nothing short of exaltation.
‘This is… so good,’ Jeanne announced, a cannellini bean falling from her lips.
Noel placed a bowl in front of Ethan and shook his head. ‘I have seen better bowls put in front of dogs.’
‘But feel it,’ Ethan said, his hand wrapping around the pottery, the warmth from the meal seeping through it, its solidity somehow strong and comforting. ‘This is… hunkering down during a snowstorm… or having a flu and being given that first taste of food you have not been able to smell or stomach for a week or—’
‘Knowing this might be the only meal you get for a week and it makes you remember someone you lost.’
This last thought came from Jeanne, but the girl wasn’t truly engaging with him and Noel. Ethan wasn’t sure she even knew that she had spoken at all. She was eating more slowly, carefully scooping up the cassoulet with her fork and looking like she was being completely present in her own moment with every portion she took. It was as if she was finally giving something, including herself, space and time to breathe.
‘Has anyone else ordered this dish tonight?’ Ethan wanted to know.
This was the most mini of trials, but he needed to get some feedback if he wanted to go all out for Christmas. He was hoping that reviews would be positive. He wasn’t sure what he would do if they weren’t positive.
‘Eighty per cent of diners have ordered it so far,’ Noel said with a sigh of disapproval. ‘Chef tells me he has not made this since he lived with his grandmother. Before cooking school. When he was around twelve.’
Ethan couldn’t halt his smile. He had been right to go with back to basics. He had felt it. And Keeley, she had made him feel it.
‘One moment and I will bring you some more water,’ Noel said, picking up the jug from the table.
As his assistant departed, Ethan lifted his fork, preparing to eat. And then he stopped.
‘Are you not going to eat it?’ Jeanne asked.
‘Food can talk to us, can it not?’ Ethan asked her.
‘You are mad.’
‘I see it talking to you.’
‘You do not see talking. You hear it.’ Jeanne wiped sauce from her mouth with her sleeve.
‘How does the food make you feel, Jeanne?’
‘A lot less hungry than I was before I ate it.’
‘Well, I feel rich,’ Ethan proclaimed, the idea really hitting him in the soul. ‘I am sitting here with this cassoulet and I feel like the richest man on Earth.’
‘You are rich,’ Jeanne reminded. ‘You own five hotels.’
‘It has nothing to do with the hotels. It has to do with… food on the table and… a fire in the grate and… the Christmas music in the air.’
‘And your heart filled with love? Blah blah blah.’
Ethan still hadn’t eaten a mouthful, although the aroma was continuing to wind its way through him, as were Jeanne’s words. Was his heart filled with love? He was too scared to think to those depths, but what he did know was that his heart was here, beating, awake and more alive than it had been in the past year. And his mind, well his mind was full of Keeley plus this strange little girl he seemed to have given a home to…
‘Do you make Christmas dinner at your hotels?’ Jeanne asked suddenly.
‘Of course!’
‘On Christmas Day?’
‘Yes, of course. We have many guests who stay here all over the festive period.’
‘But can anyone come here, on Christmas Day, and eat the food?’
‘Yes, of course,’ Ethan started. ‘But ordinarily we are fully booked a long time in advance.’
‘Oh,’ Jeanne said, shoulders sagging a little. ‘Not everyone then.’
Not everyone. Those two words hung in the air, somehow contrasting firmly with the delicious fragrant food, the air of joy to the world coming from the light conversation around them and the festive music being played by the pianist near the bar. Not everyone. How many times had Ethan been excluded in his lifetime? You never forgot how that felt.
‘I can change that,’ Ethan whispered.
‘What?’ Jeanne almost missed her mouth with the fork.
‘This year,’ Ethan continued. ‘We can make Christmas for everyone.’
He didn’t wait any longer. Digging his fork into the meal, he heaped up chicken, sausage and all the other flavours and brought it to his mouth. Closing his eyes, as well as his lips, he experienced all the textures and tastes, the nuances of herbs on his tongue, mixing so perfectly with the thick yet tender chunks of meat. It might have been based on a poor man’s meal, but it really did taste like it was fit for a king.
This was going to work. He was going to make it work.
Fifty-Nine
L’Hotel Paris Parfait, Tour Eiffel, Paris
‘The bread’s got better. Have you noticed? All the time we’ve been here it’s been fine, you know, white thin sliced and a few rustic baguettes, but now it’s like they went out and bought a bakery,’ Rach remarked the next morning as they sat eating breakfast.
‘Mmm,’ Keeley answered. She had been saying ‘mmm’ quite a lot in response to Rach’s questions since last night. Last night, when she had returned to the dining room at the Durands and a chocolate bombe, she just kept seeing that photo in her mind’s eye. Those grey soulful eyes. Did someone else have that same intense look? Or was it… could it really be… Ethan? And then Keeley’s mind started galloping away with that idea. If it was Ethan, why would Ferne have a photo of him? Inside a book. At the side of her bed. The obvious explanation was that they had been together. Ethan and Ferne. Ferne her kidney donor. Together. A couple. Ferne in a relationship with the only man ever to bring her out in goose bumps just from thinking about him… but that was crazy! Until, that was, you started thinking about the ‘hotel’ connection. Ethan said he part-owned hotels. The Durands owned the Perfect Paris chain. What if the two things were connected? That would make the photo fall into perfect place. And why, oh why, hadn’t Keeley asked Silvie any of this last night? One question, one answer, would have provided her with clarity. She could have thought about the ‘what then?’ afterwards.
‘Do you think Antonie looks hot today?’
‘Mmm.’
‘That’s it. You really aren’t listening, are you?’ Rach exclaimed, pouring herself a glass of orange juice.
‘Mmm.’
‘Keeley!’ Rach shouted.
The bellow had Keeley jumping in her chair and connecting her elbow with her bowl of healthy fruit she had known she wasn’t going to eat from the moment she ladeled it in there. ‘What?’ She took a breath. ‘Sorry. What did you say?’
‘I said Antonie
looked hot and you said “mmm” which means you weren’t listening to me.’ Rach explained. ‘You haven’t been listening to me since last night. What happened upstairs with Silvie? Did it get a bit creepy being in Ferne’s bedroom?’ Rach gasped. ‘She didn’t get out that puppet, did she?’
Keeley shook her head. ‘No.’
Should she ask Rach’s opinion? Tell her about the photograph? How sure was she that it could have been a picture of Ethan?
‘Louis asked me out again last night,’ Rach announced, sipping at her juice.
‘Oh,’ Keeley answered. ‘And what did you say?’
Rach took a breath. ‘I said no.’
‘You did?’
Rach nodded firmly with a big smile on her face. ‘Well, it would have been easy to say yes, wouldn’t it? He’s cute now the allergy’s worn off a bit. I’m hot. But… he would have been another “for now” not a “forever”.’ Rach sighed. ‘And, you know, I might not exactly be looking for my “forever” yet, but I am, I think, looking for my “for more than a fortnight”.’