A Perfect Paris Christmas

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘I…’

  ‘Do you…’

  Keeley’s cheeks flamed as they both started talking at exactly the same time. She closed her lips.

  ‘Keeley, I need to say something to you,’ Ethan began. ‘Actually, I need to say a great many things to you.’

  Keeley shook her head. ‘Can I say something first?’

  He nodded. ‘Of course.’

  She had always hoped she would see Ethan again. As soon as she had talked about staying in Paris longer than she and Rach had originally planned on, she knew it was because she wanted this chance to speak to him. But now, when he was stood right here, so close that even her defective smell receptors were definitely detecting a hint of musky pine, the words were threatening to come out in a different order than she wanted.

  ‘I was going to tell you,’ Keeley said. ‘I would have told you. About… what happened to me. And about… Ferne. But I didn’t know… until I knew for sure and…’ She really was having trouble and her feelings were threatening to get the better of her.

  ‘It is OK,’ Ethan breathed.

  ‘Is it?’ she asked. She knew her expression was hopeful, but she couldn’t help herself. She wanted to feel hope. She wanted to believe that two people who had become so connected could find a way through anything.

  The canvas of the yurt was parted and Keeley took a step back from him, conscious that they were being interrupted.

  ‘Monsieur, Madame.’ It was a waiter wheeling in a trolley bearing rustic wooden domes.

  ‘Shall we?’ Ethan asked, indicating the beautifully set table in the middle of the room.

  Keeley nodded. ‘Yes.’

  Sixty-Seven

  The food was exquisite, but not in a scientific, planned feast for all senses kind of way. It was much more in a very humble, flavoursome, simply evocative kind of way. The starter had been wedges of fresh white bread accompanied by individual pots of a rich duck terrine. It was hearty, ideal winter food and a bottle of red wine had complemented it perfectly. Next was succulent chicken in a sauce that Ethan could taste each and every individual flavour of – onion, mushroom, garlic, a touch of bay leaf, the flavoursome stock holding it all together. It took him right back to one of the first meals he had shared with the Durand family.

  ‘Silvie made this dish for us once, but with rabbit,’ Ethan told Keeley as he paused in his eating. ‘Silvie is a terrible cook by the way and she will be the first to admit it.’

  Keeley smiled, nodding as she wiped her mouth with her napkin. ‘The recipe is supposed to be with rabbit but, with the petting zoo barn, we didn’t think it was appropriate.’

  ‘We,’ Ethan said. ‘You are sounding like someone who is invested in the future of the hotels.’

  ‘Oh,’ Keeley said. ‘Well, I really meant Silvie and Louis. They have been making all the decisions. She asked me… Silvie asked me to continue with what you started and…’

  ‘Keeley,’ Ethan whispered. ‘Why are you seeming to censor everything you say?’

  ‘I’m not. I…’ She paused and took a sip of her red wine before her eyes met his again. ‘Tell me what you were going to say before the food arrived.’

  Ethan put down his knife and fork and wiped his lips with his napkin. He sighed, holding her gaze and drinking her in. She was so beautiful, so gentle, just the thought of her made him smile a hundred times a day…

  ‘I want to say that I am sorry,’ Ethan finally said. ‘I was a coward. A complete coward. I should have come to meet you at Passage Jouffroy. I should have kept my head and faced you but…’

  ‘But?’ Keeley asked.

  ‘But… the noise was too loud.’ He swallowed.

  Why had he said that? It straightaway brought back every bad experience he had ever had. All the darkest memories from the orphanage and the loss he felt after Ferne.

  ‘It means, in my head, everything was suddenly too much all at once. It was a cymbal… and a bass drum and… a high-pitched trumpet playing complicated jazz. And I did not know how to make it stop. Not at first.’

  ‘I understand,’ Keeley responded.

  ‘No,’ Ethan said. ‘Do not understand. Do not be nice to me. I do not deserve it. I was stupid to hide away. I mean… I am twenty-eight years old. There is only so much hiding away from life you can do before it becomes more about how long you have before you die rather than embracing the living part.’

  *

  Keeley empathised absolutely. ‘I know.’

  She completely knew in relation to how her own life had been going and because of Bea and Erica.

  ‘My friend Erica… the one we took a photo for…’ Keeley started.

  ‘I remember,’ Ethan said. ‘We got my best side.’

  She forced a smile. ‘Well… she passed away.’ A knot of despair caught in her throat and it was taking everything not to let the tears drop.

  ‘Oh, Keeley.’

  She picked up her napkin at the very same moment he reached for her hand. She dabbed at her eyes and he retracted.

  ‘We… knew it was going to happen. We met in the hospital during her treatment after all, but it just brings it home that… no one knows what’s around the corner. Erica didn’t. I didn’t with my accident and losing Bea.’ She took another breath. ‘And neither did Ferne.’

  Keeley watched Ethan look to the wood-burning stove then get to his feet. ‘I think the fire requires another log.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ Keeley told him. ‘Not yet.’

  He stopped still, right by her chair now.

  ‘Ethan, I’m only alive now because of Ferne and I can’t apologise for that.’

  ‘I know,’ he answered. ‘And, of course, why should you? As I have said, it is I who should be apologising.’

  ‘I have to take tablets every day for the rest of my life,’ Keeley continued. ‘I have to check in with doctors all the time. I have to watch what I eat and drink and I should be exercising far more than I am. There is no guarantee that Ferne’s kidney is going to be with me forever.’ She sighed. ‘There is going to come a time when I am going to need another transplant, maybe two. And each one is going to come at an enormous risk. Close matches aren’t easy to find. My mum can’t donate and my dad wasn’t the best match so, if things got bad… the outcome might be quite different a second time around.’

  ‘What are you trying to tell me?’ Ethan asked, his eyes meeting hers.

  ‘I’m trying to say that my life isn’t as straightforward as it could be for you… with someone else.’

  ‘Keeley,’ he whispered. ‘I—’

  ‘No, don’t say anything else yet. Let me finish.’ She got to her feet too, moving over the matting to the gorgeous, thick and fluffy rug she had sourced for the room. Slipping off her shoes, she buried her stockinged feet into its depth, the heat from the stove warming right the way through her body. ‘I have been tip-toeing though. Partly because my mother worries I am going to teleport to heaven if I eat more than the recommended daily fat intake of… I don’t know… Bo-Bo.’ She sighed. ‘And also because I’ve been cautious. Too cautious. I’ve been the one marking time instead of making time. I don’t want to do that anymore, Ethan. I want to live my life. Really live it.’

  Her heart was thudding now. He was so close to her that if she reached out she could touch him. And she so wanted to touch him, more than anything else. But he had to want it too. He had to be sure. Because he knew everything now. Who she was. What her life had been like. Hopefully, what it could be.

  ‘You think my life is straightforward?’ Ethan asked, stepping away from her and heading to the basket of logs.

  ‘No, of course not,’ she answered. ‘I didn’t say it was.’

  ‘I have a child living with me, Keeley. Me! Ethan Bouchard… has a child!’ He quickly opened up the stove and threw another log into the flames. ‘You know, people, they have sex without contraception and they ask themselves what happened when pregnancy occurs. Me, I find a girl taking chocolate from a Christmas tre
e and she moves in… with her dog! I do not even know her real name or how old she is! Am I completely mad?’

  ‘Yes,’ Keeley answered. ‘But not when it comes to Jeanne.’

  ‘Am I even the right person to be guiding her?’

  ‘Ethan, she has been living on the streets for a reason. I suspect not just because there is no one else, but because she has never met anyone else who immediately cared like you did.’

  Ethan turned around to face her, brushing his hands together. ‘I barely know how to look after myself. Two days ago I ate something from the back of the fridge I could not even distinguish.’

  ‘But you’ve been making meals for Jeanne and leaving them in boxes with her name on,’ Keeley replied.

  Ethan sighed. ‘She told you that?’

  ‘She has been worried about you. She cares about you almost as much as she cares for Bo-Bo.’

  ‘I am surprised she has any care left the amount she gives to that chien.’ He shook his head. ‘I do not know what the future holds. I have never really known. Some of the very first things I do remember involve not knowing if I was going to survive the day. When you have felt like that it is hard to start doing any kind of planning but…’

  ‘But?’

  He sighed. ‘Ma crevette.’

  It was that name again. The name of the person Ethan had talked about before. Who was she?

  ‘Ferne,’ he said. ‘I called her “my shrimp”. I have never known anyone be able to eat shrimp like she did.’

  Keeley closed her eyes and shook her head. So much misunderstanding had gone on from the very beginning. But there was one thing she really needed to know if they were going to try to resolve things.

  ‘I… care about you, Ethan,’ she admitted. ‘I haven’t ever felt for anyone what I feel for you.’ She swallowed, feeling exposed by that admission. ‘But I know how my connection with Ferne might have made you feel.’

  ‘Keeley…’

  ‘No, I know it feels weird and it is weird I suppose. But I need to know that, when you look at me now, you still see the woman you met outside the hotel who chased a penguin down the street with you. That I’m still to you the woman who went running in her dad’s darts jumper and whispered to an almost-dying dog, who somehow rose again, and laughed at the clowns at the circus and played very bad petanque and—’

  The rest of her words never made it past her lips as her mouth was captured by Ethan’s in a kiss that pulled her off her feet and into his embrace. It was as passionate as it was magical and it left her in no doubt that he had listened to every word she’d said. When Ethan broke off Keeley was out of breath and he was looking at her, gazing in wonder as if she were something precious that might evaporate if he took his eyes away.

  ‘I only see you, Keeley,’ he told her. ‘I promise, I will always only see you.’ He ran a thumb gently down her cheek to the curve of her lips. ‘You are my “comfortable”.’

  This time it was Keeley who joined their lips together again. And as they kissed, she knew, whatever life had in store for them, she was going to be all in. Every time.

  Sixty-Eight

  L’Hotel Paris Parfait, Tour Eiffel, Paris

  Christmas Day

  ‘The children are touching everything!’

  ‘Antoine, the children are meant to be touching everything. The touching is making their experience,’ Rach said. She nudged him with her elbow. ‘Touching always makes my experience.’ She kissed the concierge in the kind of way that wasn’t necessarily appropriate for a dining room full of street children.

  ‘Rach, could you hand out some more crackers?’ Keeley asked, presenting her friend with another box full. ‘If you can leave Antoine alone for five minutes?’

  ‘Just five minutes,’ Rach said pinching Antoine’s bum. ‘No longer.’ She took the box, turning around to blow her boyfriend a kiss on the way to the main table.

  Keeley watched the children eating for all they were worth, some blowing up long sausage-shaped balloons and watching them fly around this dining area in the lobby she had constructed and decorated. There were fifty children, maybe more, the invitation to attend Perfect Paris on Christmas Day to be given a hot festive meal and a room for the night being passed by word of mouth, starting with Jeanne and the places she used to hang out. This year and every year after, it was going to be Christmas Day for everyone that needed it, as well as everyone who had paid for it. Seeing the delight in the children’s faces now, Keeley could tell one meal, one day and night out of their normal lives, was going to mean everything.

  ‘Juice, Keeley. They are going through juice like oranges are about to become a rarity. And one of them called Michael Bublé, Michael Booby! Sacrilege.’

  Keeley smiled at her mum. Yes, Lizzie and Duncan were here for Christmas. A few FaceTime calls, an introduction to Silvie, Louis and Ethan and the Andrews had decided if Keeley was going to be staying in France for the festive season then they were going to make the journey too. And, Silvie and Lizzie had quite the sisterhood going, brought on by a conversation about all the recipes they had tried to make that hadn’t quite gone to plan. Louis was still trying to beat Duncan at darts… What happened when the New Year arrived hadn’t been decided yet, but Keeley had a feeling Rach might be more than open to looking for an apartment to share in Paris as opposed to London. In fact, Rach had already ‘popped in to’ a few Parisian estate agents to ‘get a feel for the market’. Plus she had already mooted the idea of starting up a bespoke property search service with the help of the connections of the Bradburys she might be able to run alongside any other job with the hope it would take off.

  And, as for Keeley, she had a position here if she wanted it, making over all the Perfect Paris hotels. It would be helping Ethan, putting money in the bank and it would also be excellent for her interior design portfolio whether her business ended up being based in England or France.

  ‘I’ll get some more,’ Keeley said, taking the jug from Lizzie’s hands.

  ‘Well,’ Lizzie whispered, ‘don’t you have… you know… staff to do that for you?’ She sniffed. ‘I’ve never been to a hotel where the interior designer had to fetch drinks for guests.’

  ‘The staff are all in the main restaurant serving the paying customers,’ Keeley reminded her mum. ‘This is for the children and… I want to do it.’ She smiled at her mum. ‘Ethan was one of these children once. And it was only through the kindness of others that his life changed. Maybe what we’re doing today will change someone’s life.’

  ‘Oh, Keeley,’ Lizzie said, her voice sounding a little teary. ‘Bea would have loved this, wouldn’t she?’

  Keeley nodded. ‘Bea would have been modelling those balloons and playing hide and seek and probably constructing a bridge made out of straws.’

  ‘Ferne would have loved it also,’ Silvie remarked, arriving next to the women. ‘Particularly the Jeanne and Bo-Bo Puppet Show.’

  Jeanne was in her element, showing the children around the new improved areas of the hotel and Ethan had fashioned her a puppet theatre style booth from which she was delivering timed performances of magic, plus dancing from Ferne’s old puppet, Augusto. There were even doggy-tricks Bo-Bo was exceedingly bad at but no one seemed to mind. The girl was in trousers today, smart and black with a white shirt and bow tie, her hair slicked back from her face in a boyish avant-garde fashion that suited her so well.

  Since their talk in the boutique boudoir, Keeley had spent nights at Ethan’s apartment, curled up on the sofa between both him and Jeanne – plus Bo-Bo – toasting marshmallows, and for all intents and purposes being a family. It was all the proof anyone needed that family could come along when you least expected it and very rarely these days fitted with convention.

  ‘Keeley!’

  She turned to the sound of Ethan’s voice and there he was, beckoning her to the outside, dressed in his three-piece suit looking as always, halfway between travelling conjuror and entrepreneur.

  ‘I’ll be back,’
Keeley said to the two women. ‘I’ll come back with the juice.’

  Silvie took the jug from Keeley’s hands. ‘I will get some more juice. Come, Lizzie, while we refill this, let us see if we can find a little adult juice in the kitchens.’

  *

  Ethan was nervous but his heart lifted as he saw Keeley walking towards him across the snow-covered garden. There were children all around, being taken into the barn to pet the animals by newly appointed Perfect Paris staff in charge of looking after the pets’ welfare. It all really felt like a new dawn for the hotel brand. Welcome Paris would be ready to be everyone’s home from home in 2021.

  ‘What are you doing out here?’ Keeley asked. ‘We’ve got children to feed.’

  ‘I know,’ Ethan answered. ‘Antoine says the hotel will never be the same.’

  ‘Comfort, remember?’ Keeley teased. ‘Memories to treasure.’

  ‘I remember,’ Ethan breathed. ‘And, trust me, I like it.’ He kissed her lips. ‘I really really like it.’ He drew a wrapped gift from out of his pocket and held it out to her.

  ‘Ethan, we said no gifts.’

  ‘It was a stupid idea.’

  ‘But I haven’t got you anything.’

  ‘Open it,’ Ethan urged her.

  Keeley smiled and began loosening the bow, before she tore at the edge of the paper, revealing a box beneath.

  ‘Open it,’ he urged her again.

  He watched as she lifted the hinged lid then he smiled as she exhaled in delight.

  ‘Oh, Ethan! I love it! It’s so perfect!’ She took the golden necklace out of its casing and held it out to him. ‘Would you put it on for me?’

  ‘Absolument.’

  With trembling hands, he took the fine chain between his fingers and levelled it around her neck. ‘Sorry,’ he whispered as it took a few attempts to get the catch to fasten. ‘There.’

  Keeley turned around and put her fingers to the shiny penguin suspended from the necklace. ‘It’s… the best gift,’ she said. ‘Ever.’