The Confectioner's Tale (15 page)

He was checking the napkin for fallen crumbs when Maurice and the other apprentices reappeared. The cocoa and sugar had filled up his body; he could feel them shooting through his veins. Bewildering though the day had been, it was growing brighter, clearer, and he felt his curiosity flare once again.

‘On your feet,’ Maurice told him, stretching. ‘It’s back to the grind until ten.’

They set off for the kitchen, smoothing hair under caps, retying aprons.

‘What’s your story anyway?’ the older chef questioned. ‘Most apprentices start in the autumn. You are either late or incredibly early.’

‘I’m not exactly an apprentice.’

‘What then?’ Maurice was checking his apron, but Gui could feel the man’s attention on him.

‘Do you know where I can find a place to stay?’ he asked quickly, changing the subject. ‘I had to move out of my previous lodgings and was hoping they might know of somewhere here.’

‘You are a puzzle, aren’t you? Late, out of nowhere, unprepared. Try to ask Josef, after shift finishes. He might know of somewhere. Otherwise, there are boarding houses on the Boulevard Saint-Martin. I know some of the younger men room together there.’

Gui was put on washing duty in the tiny scullery where he had once stood with Mademoiselle Clermont. He had not given a thought to the rack upon rack of pans at the time. All of them were covered in greasy remnants of butter, egg yolks, crusted with sugar, inches thick. There was a terrifying copper cylinder in the corner, all valves and pipes and spurts of steam. The hot water it provided would have scalded Gui’s hands, were they not so toughened from the railway’s furnaces. Because of this, he worked faster than the other two apprentices, a fact that earned their dislike.

The place was deserted by the time he completed his task. He knocked on the office door but it was dark and he received no answer. Thankfully, the café had yet to be locked up. An old man was pushing a mop around behind the counter. Gui’s suitcase was in the cloakroom where the waiter had left it so many hours before, shoved into a corner.

Back in the staff cloakroom, the two remaining workers were changing into street clothes, dropping their uniforms into the laundry hamper. They were the same pair from the sinks, and Gui tried to introduce himself, to ask them about lodgings, but they only shrugged and took their leave without a word.

He had no choice but to follow Maurice’s suggestion and head for the Boulevard Saint-Martin. Outside, he asked the driver of a horse-drawn cab for directions.

‘Follow your nose,’ was the only answer he received.

He found it easily enough. Saint-Martin was busier than the surrounding streets, yet the evening was growing later by the minute. In a bar that remained open, he asked the proprietor for any recommendations. There was a pause in the man’s voice as he surveyed Gui’s ill-fitting clothes, the battered suitcase.

‘Try 106. Madame Pelle. She may have rooms.’

Number 106 was a tall, narrow house sandwiched between two grander buildings. The doors and windows were covered with wrought-iron bars, tightly locked and bolted. Steeling himself, he rang the bell. After an age, light glimmered underneath the door.

‘Who’s there?’

The voice was shrill and plummy at once.

‘I’m looking for Madame Pelle,’ Gui called. ‘Someone said I might find a room here.’

The door opened an inch. A plump, middle-aged woman in a sleeping cap and shawl blinked out at him, unable to see past her own gas lamp. She reminded Gui of a toy vole he had once seen in a shop window, dressed as a washerwoman in skirts and a headscarf. He suppressed a laugh.

‘Have you any notion of what time it is, young man?’ she spluttered.

‘I am sorry. I only recently finished working and—’

‘I regret to disappoint you, but you won’t find the type of rooms you require here.’

‘Pardon?’

‘I cater for respectable clientele. Clerks and secretaries. Not manual labourers who come and go at all hours.’

‘I’m not a labourer. I’m an apprentice chef,’ Gui declared proudly.

‘There are no rooms here, try up in Belleville. No doubt you know of it already.’

‘Wait!’

The woman slammed the door on his outstretched foot. Yelling in pain and frustration, Gui staggered back.

On the pavement, a passing man put a protective arm around his lady, hurrying her along. Fuming, Gui seized his suitcase and stalked up the road, quickening his steps as if he knew where he was going. As he walked, the streets became darker and quieter. He turned a corner and realized with a start that he was in Place de la République, where he used to meet Luc and Yves and the delivery carts every week.

Out of the darkness came the clacking of wood, the syncopated noise of hooves. An omnibus, all but empty, was making its way home for the night.

‘Are you going near Belleville?’ he called up to the driver as it drew near. Weak gas lanterns did nothing to illuminate the man’s face, but the lit end of a cigarette dipped in assent. With relief, Gui hopped onto the back step and perched there, watching the streets sway into shadow.

They were climbing steadily. Lights began to pepper the buildings and Gui heard music, the hum of voices. A group of children streaked past, ragtag creatures in third-hand coats that flapped behind them like broken wings.

‘Where’s this?’ he shouted to them.

‘Belleville,’ answered one, running alongside. He cannot have been more than nine years old, but he stared with a prospector’s eye. ‘Sir,’ he added with a dip of his floppy cap. ‘Looking for something, sir?’

‘Somewhere to stay.’ Gui leaped off the omnibus. It picked up pace, trundling away up the street. ‘Clean and cheap enough. Do you know of anywhere?’

‘But I do, sir, fine lodgings here, sir.’

The boy had a peculiar accent. He beckoned, so Gui began to follow him. Several bars were still vivid with light. A woman with curves that threatened to split her satin dress eyed him from a doorway and giggled throatily.

‘Like what you see?’ the boy asked. ‘They call her La Balourde, the Turkey, sir, on account of that noise she makes.’

Visions of Ebersole’s pink religieuse assailed Gui as he stared at the woman’s quivering décolletage.

‘I just want a room,’ he said, blushing.

‘Of course, of course, we are nearly at a most respectable place.’

The boy stopped, indicating an alleyway about as wide as a coal pit. The stench told Gui that it was a popular place for dumping waste, human or otherwise. He raised an eyebrow, fishing in his jacket for coins.

‘Look,’ he sighed, ‘I shall give you a sou,’ the boy’s eyes widened, ‘but only if you take me to a decent boarding house. I’ll give you another if you and your friends promise not to rob me.’

The boy considered the proposition, then grinned, offering his hand.

‘I shall treat you as an investment, then, sir. I’m Puce,
homme du monde
.’

‘Guillaume du Frère. Puce? You’re named after a flea?’

‘For my acrobatic talents.’ The boy sniffed.

They walked at a slower pace. Further up the road, it was quieter. There were fewer bars and cafés, but more lamps, burning in windows, doorways. Puce stopped at one of these and pointed up a steep wooden staircase.

‘You promised not to rob me,’ Gui reminded.

‘I know for a fact that Madame has a room spare,’ the boy said indignantly. ‘It’s a mouse hole but they’re decent sorts, you won’t be bothered by
putains
like Balourde.’

Keeping half an eye over his shoulder, Gui risked the stairs. Through a door and a worn curtain he emerged into a small sitting-room. Several women were reclining, reading books, sewing by the warm fireplace. It would be a genteel scene, were it not for the fact that the women wore very few clothes. Gui tried not to blush but he couldn’t stop his eyes from settling where they should not. Eventually, he addressed the coal scuttle.

‘Excuse me,’ he mumbled as loudly as he could, ‘I heard you had a room available but I see I must be mistaken.’

‘Where did you find this one, Puce?’ one of the women laughed. She smiled at Gui, half-mocking and tired.

‘Fresh off the omnibus. Madame, you still got Avril’s old room?’

He addressed the eldest of the four women. She sat at a desk, writing a letter. She was fully clothed, a gown hugging her figure like a second skin, right down to the ends of her wrists.

‘I do, Puce,’ she said evenly. ‘She only left two days ago. You are …?’

The attention was turned to Gui. He felt like an exhibit, on a plinth to be examined.

‘Guillaume du Frère, apprentice chef,’ he blurted out.

‘You are looking for accommodation?’

‘I am, but …’ His eyes found flesh again and he transferred his gaze to the rug. ‘But I am not sure whether we have understood each other.’

‘I understood you were looking for a room?’ said the woman.

‘I am.’

‘Well, would you like to see the one I have spare?’

An oil lamp threw shadows onto the wooden stairs as they climbed, making the walls full of impossible angles. They circled one landing and then another before the steps ran out. Here, the ceiling was low. Gui imagined that if he punched upward, his fist would emerge through the roof into the cold night air.

‘There are three rooms on this floor,’ Madame said, searching through a ring of keys. ‘The one at the end is occupied by a clerk, the other by Isabelle, one of the ladies you met downstairs.’

The door swung open. A shaft of light from the moon slanted through a narrow window. It looked out onto a vast mess of rooftops, chimneys and walls jutting into the sky. At one end of the room, the ceiling sagged, the wall bulging out to meet it. A metal-framed bed was wedged next to the chimney, the fireplace taken up by a tiny potbellied stove. There was a nightstand with a faded bowl and space for little else.

Madame was telling him about the rent, how much per month, how much in advance, where he could find the water closet. The price would swallow up more than half of his pay, and there was still his mother to think of, but all Gui could see was the bed in the corner. He imagined how warm it would be with the stove lit, how quiet; a place where he could close the door and be alone.

‘I will take it,’ he announced.

Later, he lay wrapped in his blanket on the bare mattress, listening to the wind as it threaded its way through the window in gusts, until he was almost convinced that he could hear the sea.

Chapter Twenty-Three

May 1988

I wait nervously outside the university library. I wish Cass hadn’t wanted to meet here, when there are certain supervisors I’m trying to avoid. Exams have begun, and the faculties, the libraries are all too quiet, undergraduates shut up for hours on end in the examination halls throughout town.

In the distance I see Cass approaching, pushing her bicycle and looking elegant in a red sundress. I sigh inwardly at my scruffy top and jeans, but beckon her over to where I’m lurking behind the steps.

‘You’re acting like a fugitive,’ she laughs, shifting her books. ‘I come bearing gifts.’

We settle on a bench and Cass brandishes a piece of paper in my direction.

‘Here. Evan dug this up. He’s had it for a week or two, but I didn’t see him in the faculty until this morning.’

It’s a copy of a photograph. A group of people, dressed in smartly buttoned white. They are arranged in lines outside a shop front, with grand arched windows and ornate stonework. Two darker-clothed figures stand in the middle. One is a tall man in early middle age, the other a young woman. Her face is pale beneath a slanted hat, cold and distant. It is the same girl, once again, and above her, curling letters form a sign.

‘Pâtisserie Clermont!’ I burst. ‘Where did you get this?’

‘Evan has a friend at the British Library who works in the photography archive,’ Cass tells me. ‘He called him, asked a few questions and
voil
à! Apparently the photographic record hadn’t been labelled correctly, but his friend remembered seeing it. Explains why your favourite biographer has never come across it.’

‘Cass, it’s her.’

‘The girl from your grandpa’s photograph?’ she asks, leaning in.

‘Yes, and the painting.’

We hunch over the picture, heads touching.

‘I knew she was connected with it,’ I say. ‘Do you think that’s her husband, next to her?’

‘Too old, her father more like. Look, at the bottom, someone’s labelled it,’ Cass squints. ‘Monsieur J. P. Clermont.’

‘Which would make her—’

‘
Mademoiselle
Clermont.’

We sit back in silence.

‘When do you think this was?’ I ask.

‘No idea. Judging by the clothes, 1910–1911, perhaps?’

‘It must be 1910 or earlier. From Allincourt’s letter, it seems that the place closed later that year.’

‘You’d have to check with the archive to be sure, only be careful who you ask. This copy didn’t exactly come through the usual channels.’

I try to thank her, but she brushes it aside.

‘Thank Evan. I think he’s rather taken with your mystery.’

‘I think he’s more taken with you.’

Cass rolls her eyes.

‘What about your “friend” Alex?’ she says, with a devious smile. ‘I hear he stopped you from running off before the end of term last night. Anything you want to tell me?’

‘No!’ I laugh. ‘We’re just friends.’

‘Oh yes, that’s definitely all there is to it.’

‘Nothing’s ever happened,’ I tell her, though I can’t help but remember the way I hugged him last night, the way he almost said something but didn’t.

‘Not
yet
.’ She smiles slyly. ‘Look, I have to go in a minute, but there’s another thing. I asked a few of the French History professors if any of them had heard of Stephen Lefevre, the man who wrote that book about the letters. Turns out he gave a talk here, a few years ago. He’s very old now, retired apparently, somewhere down south.’

I let out a long breath, taking in the information. I thought I was at a dead end, but now, new roads are opening, stretching off into the distance.

‘So?’ prompts Cass. ‘What’re you going to do?’