The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris (32 page)

A
t first, Claire thought with a terrible start that Thierry was standing right in front of her. He was exactly the same; the thick curly hair, the twinkling eyes. No mustache though, but…

Then she realized that this must be Laurent, whom Anna had told her about. He was incredibly attractive. She wanted to look at Anna and see her face, but she knew, she knew…she must look at the person sitting straight opposite her. She focused.

She tried not to wince. It was Thierry, of course it was, but he looked…he looked so unwell. She knew this was ironic under the circumstances, but even so. His face was gray. He had an oxygen cylinder set up nearby. His skin looked rumpled and ill-fitting, a result of massive recent weight loss.

But the mustache was still there, and under the heavy brows, his black eyes were the same…

He gazed and gazed at her for a long time, equally, Claire realized with a sinking heart, horrified at what they had both become. Was forty years really so much? Reaching out, she clasped Anna's hand, hard.

All of a sudden, Thierry burst out laughing. In that instant, Claire saw immediately the flashing eyes, the infectious noise of it, and smiled too. It was impossible not to.

“Look at us!” he shouted. “Look at us! We are the very last donkeys in the knacker yard, Claire! The worst!”

With great difficulty, and his son giving him his arm with a dubious-looking expression, he stood up on slightly wobbly legs. He was wearing, Claire noticed, smart pale linen trousers and a light pink shirt. Always stylish.

Not to be outdone, she gave Anna her arm and wobbled to her feet. She went to him, and he took her in his arms.

“My little bird,” he exclaimed, “you are even smaller than you were!”

“You aren't,” said Claire, her voice muffled in his shirt. He started to feel a bit wobbly so they drew back a little. Suddenly Claire felt the pressure on her arm relieved a little. She turned to see Anna rush toward Laurent, throw her arms around his neck, and kiss him.

Thierry looked at her, raising the eyebrow she knew so well.

“Aha, life goes on,” he said in his booming voice, and Claire was so startled and pleased she laughed and sat down in her chair with a thump.

- - -

I couldn't help it. Not when I saw him. I thought he was being petulant with his father, difficult. I had underestimated him, not understanding that of course he would do it, could change and shift all his plans, deal with Alice—God, Alice, I would worry about her later—and the fearsome French doctors. And his father. It was basically a kidnap. I was truly overwhelmed. And emotional too, I told myself afterward. I couldn't even believe Richard and Claire had bothered getting divorced. If I had a nice-looking decent man who looked after me like that…well, I didn't, so there was no point in thinking like that.

Apart from that, Laurent's handsome face, that full, biteable mouth, that mop of curly hair; I had to own up to myself. He wasn't Sami's little concept of a fling. He wasn't a holiday romance, a story to laugh about with Cath down at Faces. He gave me a look, a half-smile that said, as clear as a letter would have done, that he was sorry, and that this was his make-up offering…and in that instant, in the sunshine, I forgot all about Claire and Thierry, forgot all about anything except how much I wanted to kiss him.

When I finally came to my senses and stood back, pink and a little breathless, he gave me that broad smile.

“Well,” he said, “I am pleased to see you too.”

Then I cuddled Thierry and told him to cover his neck in the sun and asked him how it was to see Claire again, and he beamed and said she is still beautiful. Claire blushed like a girl and said no, she wasn't, and Thierry said well, she was doing better than him, and Claire laughed and said, yes, yes she was. I asked Thierry if Laurent had kidnapped him, and he sniffed and said yes and that we must stay out of the way of the police, and Laurent looked a bit awkward.

Then I suggested if we were going to get back to Paris tonight, we would probably have to get a move on—the sun was setting—but Thierry pshawed that idea and said, well of course, we had to eat first, and he knew just the place, and I laughed that both Thierry and Laurent were utterly horrified at the idea of missing dinner.

Calais wasn't very glamorous, full of hypermarkets selling cheap cigarettes and booze and travelers' hotels that offered cheap weekly rates, but Laurent took over the wheel of the white Le Chapeau Chocolat van and put Thierry and Claire carefully on the front bench seat (I rode perched in the back) and spun us off the autoroute and into a network of country roads and flat green fields till we arrived at a tiny farmhouse that barely seemed to be a restaurant at all.

Laurent marched in confidently and a fat man came out, muttering, with a harsh northern accent I found difficult to understand, but I quickly realized that Laurent had basically pulled a “don't you know who I am” on him and was insisting that they feed the famous chocolatier, the way they might have behaved for a footballer or a rock star in England. When Laurent lifted Claire down, she made a little “oh” sound, as if she recognized it.

The man fussed and worried around his elderly visitors. I was worried about Claire; she seemed so frail and she'd hardly eaten all day. But in the tiny restaurant, which was absolutely full—the waiter had pulled up and washed down fresh tables and chairs himself and put us outside under a shady chestnut tree—I ordered her a beautiful lobster bisque and took off her shoes so she could let her bare feet touch the grass. The meadow nearest us had cows wandering back from pasture, the grass full of the poppies unavoidable in northern France and Belgium, bees humming wistfully around us, reminding us that autumn was just around the corner. Thierry ordered snails and seemed on the point of ordering a second starter, but Laurent gave him a very sharp look, and he didn't and had the fish instead. Everyone had one small medicinal glass of red wine, and at first conversation was difficult…where did you begin after forty years? But Claire did her best with her soup—I had it too, utterly sensational, followed by a side of bream I would never have dared order just a few months ago, with locally harvested mushrooms. I wasn't surprised this place was so busy.

“So,” said Claire, finally putting down her spoon. “Where did you go? You must have realized I wasn't getting your letters.”

Thierry stopped mopping up the garlicky butter of his snails. Alice was going to have her work cut out with this one.

“
Algerie
,” he said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Algeria? What happened? Did you get called up?”

“Of course I got called up,” said Thierry crossly. “Everyone got called up.”

Claire's hand went to her mouth. “Military service?”

“But of course.”

“But I thought military service was just marching up and down and having fun.”

“There was an insurgency,” said Thierry. “Didn't they report it in your papers?”

Claire had spent that entire year mooning about and focusing entirely on herself. Of course she hadn't read the papers. “I didn't realize,” she said.

“I had the papers in my pocket when I waved you off,” said Thierry.

“We came here on the way,” said Claire faintly, playing with the grass with her toes.

“Yes, we did.”

“You made me try the hake.”

“I'll make you try it again in a minute.”

She smiled, weakly. “But…letters…”

“Mme. LeGuarde took in my post. She did not forward me to you?”

Claire's hand flew to her mouth. She remembered the elegant woman again.
“I hope you will take your good memories, Claire.”

“I thought it was my
dad
,” she said.

“I thought you had gone back to England…got married…had children.”

Suddenly everyone looked at Laurent, furiously doing arithmetic. Laurent muttered under his breath and excused himself from the table.

I was worried about Claire getting overtired and agitated. I'd much rather she was asleep in bed right now, but she was a determined so-and-so.

“Oh,” said Claire quietly.

“
Oui
,” said Thierry.

I nearly swore out loud. No wonder Laurent was so cross with his father…and his skin so olive.

“I did…I could not stay,” said Thierry. “I was a soldier. Then I was not a soldier. And I was so young, and I had a business to run.”

We were both looking at him. I felt for both of them, so young, and a local girl, pregnant and shamed…

“But I sent for him,” said Thierry quickly.

“You did not send for me,” said Claire, softly and sadly, nodding to herself.

“Has he forgiven you for that?” I added.

“I don't think so,” said Thierry.

Thierry was suddenly interrupted. The proprietor had come over. The second course plates had been cleared away and coffee and eau de vie had appeared from nowhere. I tried to explain that we hadn't ordered them when the little man put down a plate, full of Chapeau chocolates.

We all gasped, amazed.

“Where did you get these?” said Thierry. The cost of sending away for them was astronomical, Alice saw to that, and Thierry hated fulfilling private orders. He preferred everything to get chomped on the day. To keep longer, they needed less cream and a touch of preservative, which he hated using.

“I keep them,” said the man, “for my most special customers. Which you undoubtedly are.”

And then he insisted on getting his photograph taken with Thierry, and then some other customers came to have a look at what was going on and, when they realized who it was, were also effusive in his compliments until the proprietor had to open the entire box and Thierry had to promise to send him another one and sign the photograph.

When the hubbub finally died down, Thierry turned his kind, ruined face to Claire.

“
Chocolat
,” he said. “It's all I'm good for, really. You see what I am saying?”

Claire nodded and moved a hand to his arm.

“You,” she said softly. “It's you I was only ever good for. It didn't do me a lot of favors either.”

Thierry put his huge hand on her tiny bruised one and held it there, as the crickets started to make noise into the night and the huge bright stars overhead popped out, one by one.

- - -

I crept off to find Laurent. He was finishing up a slim black cigarillo by the trees. They were loud with insects.

“Sorry,” he said when he saw me. “Filthy habit. Very rare.”

“I don't mind,” I said, and I didn't really. The smoke smelled exotic on the warm summer evening. “I quite like it.”

There was a silence.

“So now you know,” he said.

“He was very young,” I said.

“So was my mother,” said Laurent. He glanced back toward the table. “Claire,” he said. “She is very, very sick.”

I jumped, guilty at being away.

“She is,” I said. “I'd better go check on her.”

Gently Laurent ran his hand down my face. “You like to fix things?” he said softly. “Can you fix me, AnNA Tron?”

I
would have put us up for the night, but Thierry had promised to come home, and Laurent was anxious to be off. I was more concerned about Claire. Her breath sounded thready and ragged, and she had had a very long day. Thierry was exhausted too. Laurent and I exchanged worried glances as we got into the van, propping them up as best we could against each other. Claire helped herself to another dose of the morphine, which I watched surreptitiously, trying to figure out how much was too much, before shaking my head at the craziness of it all. As Laurent barreled down the road at top speed, Thierry and Claire leaned against one another, lolling against their seat belts, her head nestling under his arm as if they'd slept that way every night for forty years.

We didn't speak. I felt as if anything I might say would be wrong. Laurent drove furiously fast, all his concentration on the road. I looked at him, wondering why he still couldn't talk to his father. But I put that out of my head.

Instead, I would just try to enjoy the very fact that they came for us; Claire's look on the dockside; the kiss we had shared once more. I touched my mouth briefly. He was a very good kisser. Those lips. But why hadn't I noticed…he probably, I realized, had a strange accent I simply hadn't picked up on because my French wasn't good enough, like Americans being completely unable to distinguish between Scottish people and Irish people. Sami, now I came to think of it, probably spoke very differently too. How odd I had simply never noticed, lumping everything I had come across in Paris as simply terribly foreign, without considering how foreign, exactly.

I watched his head of shining black curls in the dim light from the dashboard as we sped along the dark motorway, incredibly fast. He was focusing entirely on driving and I felt myself in such safe hands that I, too, must have drifted off to sleep.

The suburban lights of Paris woke me up as they flitted against the windscreen and I stretched uncomfortably. I had put Claire up in a very nice hotel not far from the apartment, and we practically lifted her into it. I made sure she was settled and breathing but she barely stirred. I would have to stay. The room was small, and I sat down on a chair by her side. She tilted her head.

“It's all right,” she breathed.

I patted her hand. “It is,” I said. “Everything's going to be all right.”

With difficulty, she shook her head. “No,” she said, “you don't have to stay. You've done enough. Go get some sleep.”

“No chance,” I said.

She smiled. “Oh, for goodness' sake, Anna. I promise not to die tonight. Is that enough? Now do what your teacher says and go and get some rest. I have a lot I want to do in the next few days, and it won't help if you're buzzing over me like an annoying bee.”

“I'm not an annoying bee,” I said.

“Shoo!”

I stood, hovering, not quite sure what to do, until I heard her breathing slow into sleep, and it sounded better, like normal sleep. I looked at her for a while until I heard the faintest of voices say, “Stop staring at me,” and then I backed out of the room. I'd come back first thing.

- - -

Outside the shop, in the middle of the road, Alice was waiting, looking absolutely and completely furious, and Laurent and I hopped out of the van, both bone-tired, and she strode in without a word to either of us, fired up the engine, and disappeared.

“She'll get over it,” muttered Laurent.

“Did you
steal
the van?”

“I sent her a text.”

“Hmm.”

I wandered over the deserted cobbles around the corner. Up in our tiny apartment, I could see lights flashing. Oh God, Sami must be having a party. Of all the things I didn't feel like, that was definitely right at the top of my list. My face fell.

“Well, good night then,” I said to Laurent, wondering if I might manage to sleep through it anyway.

“Good night,” he said, made to walk away, then suddenly stopped himself. The street was in total silence, apart from some calypso music I guessed was coming from the flat.

“No,” he said, almost to himself, then strode back toward me. “No, no, no, no, no.” He took me in his arms and kissed me again, deeply and thoroughly, until I felt, like magic, my tiredness evaporate and a heady, sensual longing overtake my limbs.

“Come back with me,” he said. “Please. I don't want to be alone tonight. Come with me.”

“I have to be back,” I said, half laughing. It was stupidly late. “I have to check on Claire, and I have to open up tomorrow.”

“Well, there's no point sleeping now,” he teased in a challenging tone. This was more like the Laurent I knew. I found myself blushing.

- - -

I couldn't help thinking the last people to see me naked had been about one hundred and fifty student doctors, a score of agency nurses, my mum and, on one awkward occasion during my convalescence, my dad. But it had been a long time for me.

“Hop on,” said Laurent, firing up the scooter.

- - -

This journey felt different from the first time he had taken me home, when I had been so lost and confused. It went quickly, as we flashed past the holidaymakers drinking in the Place des Vosges, the lights of the great hotels on the Place de la Concorde making them as brilliant as ocean liners in the night, snatches of orchestral music issuing from their windows open against the warmth of an evening. I snuggled in close to him and smelled him through his heavy shirt, the warm heavy scent of him. It was better than any perfume I'd ever known. We headed north, once more, back to Montmartre where we'd first met, the great thoroughfares thinning out as the road became quieter and narrower until finally the scooter was bumping over cobbles and I had to hold on just to avoid losing my balance on the corners I now knew to lean over for.

My heart now was thumping hard, and the feel of him filled all my senses as we charged on through the night. Occasionally he would take his hands off the handlebars to caress my knee in a reassuring way, and each time he did so, I felt a thrill go through me. I tried not to panic. It was only sex. I used to do it all the time. Okay, I used to do it after I'd drunk a few shandies and pulled Darr again, but that was different. Now, although we'd had a couple of glasses of wine, I was stone-cold sober, certainly more sober than I'd ever wanted to be before I slept with someone for the first time, especially someone I fancied as much as Laurent. My brain was in a turmoil; I barely saw the fun fair we passed, lit up still, and the rows of hanging lights between the old-fashioned lampposts.

If Laurent knew what was going through my mind, he didn't mention it. We drew up in a tiny little back street that wasn't a thoroughfare at all, but rather a little three-sided place situated around a little bench. The buildings weren't the traditionally grand arrondissement apartments; they were older and made of gray stones, which matched the color of the cobbles beneath them. They looked like they had been transplanted from some other part of France altogether. Many of the buildings had ivy growing up them, with balconies only on the top floor. He led me to one of these, a large door, painted bright red, slap bang in the middle of it.

“This isn't an apartment,” I said, suspicious. “Where are we?”

He looked a bit awkward and pulled out a large set of old keys.

“I never have anyone here,” he said. “Well, welcome, I suppose, my shy English
mademoiselle
.”

Then he winked at me to show me he wasn't really that nervous, turned the old-fashioned door handle, and waved me inside.

- - -

I gasped when I stepped inside, into a formal hallway opening into a huge reception room with paneling that wouldn't have looked out of place at Hampton Court. A large, abstract candelabra with random candles dotted in it added to the illusion. The room was at the back of the house, away from the little square, and the entire back of the wall was glass. Outside was a spot-lit garden on several different levels, immaculately raked in squares and rows of herbs and vegetables, with gravel paths running between them. Looking through the glass, I could see to the right another glass wall which obviously housed the kitchen, a shining stainless steel affair, very professional-looking.

“
Wow
!” I said, unable to say anything else. From the hallway back, there were floating steps leading upstairs, presumably to the other levels. Bookshelves lined one side of the huge paneled room, and on another was an enormous fireplace, currently with a large glass bowl of limes sitting in the unused hearth.

“Why do you never come here?” I said, my voice echoing in the room. “If I lived here, I would never ever leave it, ever.”

Laurent looked a bit shame-faced. “Mm-hmm,” he said. “It's…it's my thing.”

“What do you mean? You drive a really rackety old scooter.”

“I know…I don't spend much money really. So it all goes on the house.”

I glanced at him, a half-smile playing on my lips. “Your dad didn't buy it for you?”

He looked fierce. “As if I'd take a penny.”

“Well, it's lovely.”

“Would you take a house from your parents?”

I thought about it. “I can't imagine anything making my dad happier than being able to buy me a house.”

Laurent winced. “He did offer…”

“Aha!” I said in triumph. “So he's not totally evil?”

“I was so proud,” he said, miles away, staring out at the little garden. “I wanted to show him I could do it as well…do it better.”

I patted him on the shoulder. “You're going to hate me for saying this,” I said. “Are you quite alike?”

Laurent half-smiled and shook off my hand as we headed into the kitchen. Unusually in my experience for a man's fridge, it was full of butter and cheese and eggs and vegetables. I was impressed and made a mental note never to invite him around to dinner at Sami's. He pulled out a bottle of champagne. I perked up immediately. I
knew
we hadn't had enough to drink to do any shagging yet.

“When my dad moved to Paris from Lot-et-Garonne, he lived in a single room in an attic with no hot water or heating,” said Laurent. “He slept in every item of clothing he had in the wintertime. And he worked his way up. I've heard the story a million times…normally from Alice.” He snorted.

“So of course, you had to do the same?”

He nodded. Then he grinned. “Do I sound like an idiot?”

I shrugged. “It is,” I said, “a very nice house.”

His face lit up. “Thank you!”

Standing there, lit by the fridge, which was still open, and the spotlights in the garden highlighting the curls in his hair and the shadow of his long eyelashes against his cheeks, I thought he was the most gorgeous thing I'd ever seen in my life.

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.”