The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris (33 page)

“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.

C
laire 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. She 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.

B
y 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?”

I nodded again, not trusting myself to speak.

“Oh
God
,” he said. “I am the worst, most selfish man in the world. I don't want to be like him, Anna.”

He grabbed me onto his lap and held me, close and tight, my head burrowed in his shoulder.

“I never want to make you cry again,” he whispered in my ear. “Never again.”

“Too late,” I said, making a funny snortling noise and holding on to him like I would never let him go till he was kissing me again. There was a stern knock on the window. Frédéric was looking anxious. Benoît, I was amazed to notice, appeared to be smiling.

“CUSTOMERS!” Frédéric was saying.

“YES!” said Laurent, leaping to his feet. “Let us cook!”

“Hang on,” I said. “Just…your mum.”

“Brain tumor,” said Laurent shortly. “When I was fifteen. Dad paid all the hospital bills. Wanted her to come to Paris, but she didn't want to intrude. Then he brought me here, got me into an apprenticeship, set me cooking. It's been all I wanted to do ever since.”

“But not in the way he wanted?”

“No,” said Laurent. “He felt guilty, and I was fifteen and needed someone to blame. He offered to set me up in a house; he never did for Mum. She lived in that crappy apartment block all her life.”

“That's why you wouldn't take his money?”

There was a long pause.

“You know,” I said, “I bet you didn't ruin her life. I bet you made her very happy.”

“That's what she said,” said Laurent. “Doesn't stop me hating fucking hospitals though. But I think I've just about forgiven Dad.”

He held me by my hips and looked straight at me.

“I don't know what it is about you, Anna Tron,” he said. “You seem to make me calm and happy when you're about and miserable when you're not. I don't know what that is.”

I fumbled. I was thirty years old and I had said the words, but never in a way that I meant as truly and as sincerely as I did now; not to Darr, God bless his spotty soul.

“It's because I love you,” I said. I wouldn't have, normally, said it first, but oh, I was so exhausted, punch-drunk, emotional. And, I realized, I loved him so very terribly much, even when he was petulant, even when he was grumpy, even when he was teasing me. I thought I might very much have been in love with him from the second he'd given me a lift on his scooter.

“Oh,” said Laurent, his mouth opening. “Yes. Yes, that must be it. I must love you. We must be in love. Of course. Of COURSE!” He comically banged his hand on his head. “I can't believe I didn't think of it.”

And he gathered me up into himself as Frédéric banged “CUSTOMERS!!!” repeatedly on the windows of the greenhouse, and Laurent only stopped kissing me for long enough to shout, “But we are IN LOVE!” back at him.

And then I realized something else. It was like someone turning off a radio I hadn't even realized was still playing. Suddenly, the itching, the fuss, the pain, the twinges, all the sense in my missing toes that weren't really there simply vanished. And I felt completely whole.

- - -

Thierry was fastening his tie in the mirror. For the first time in a very long time, he seemed to have space in the collar. Alice came up behind him and smoothed down the shoulders.

“Ah, don't fuss me.”

“No,” she said and looked away. “I shan't fuss you.”

He looked at her. He had slept so well and woken up feeling better than he had in years. He found it annoying on a very deep level that less wine and pastis was making him feel this much better.

“Alice,” he said, his voice softening. “You know in my life I have loved three women. One of them is dead, one of them is dying, and one of them is you. So please, do not be cross with me today.”

Alice came back up behind him and ran her hands through his still thick hair. She burrowed her face in it.

“I can't lose you,” she said.

“You won't,” said Thierry. “You won't. I promise.”

He twisted himself around, carefully, to face her. She could see the scar, still angry-looking, through his unbuttoned shirt.

“I have done so many…well, no. I have not done many things in my life. I have made chocolate and thought that that was enough.”

Alice blinked hard.

“I have not looked after my toys like a good boy,” he said, smiling ruefully. “Can I make it up to you now?”

Alice thought of the years she had spent loving him, even when he was old and fat, even when she had shelved her plans for children, knowing they were too busy, seeing how he was with his own little boy, who hero-worshipped him so painfully. Some people always sacrificed more, she knew.

“Yes,” she said, kissing his head.

“But I must also…”

“Do this. Yes. I know.”

She drove him to the hotel as he requested, to see the woman he had never forgotten, the slender Englishwoman who had shaped his taste so very much…but she did not stay.

- - -

I had seen him in the kitchens at his hotel, but not here. I knew my place; I sat at the back out of the way, my arms around myself, as if I was hugging a secret too good to hold. He knew his way around it, though; of course he did, probably better than anywhere—he'd played beneath it as a boy. He looked at the plants along the back walls as he set the vats churning in motion, husked faster than anyone I'd ever seen, doing the conch like an artist, his arms moving with the same graceful flow as his father's, taking yesterday's batch, adding cream and testing, taking it away. Then he went up to a high store cupboard and found what he was looking for: a large pepper grinder Benoît used sometimes to season his lunch when he brought it in. He seized it in triumph and bounded back down the stepladder, winking at me as he did so. Then he went to the lemon tree and stripped it completely of all its lemons. We'd never used them; Frédéric said they were only for nougatine. Laurent chopped them roughly, then stood over the churn, squeezing and tasting again.

“This is the only way,” he said to me. Well, I suppose it was for him. I wouldn't know what I was tasting for. Until I learned, I supposed. He added more, then lifted the pepper grinder.

“M'sieur!” protested Benoît, but it was too late. He unleashed the ground black pepper directly into the chocolate mix.

“That,” I stated, “looks like it's going to be disgusting.”

“We will make a gourmet of you yet,” said Laurent, grinning. He tasted a little more and made a face.

“Yes, you're right. It is disgusting. You have to balance. Without balance, it is just horrible. With balance, you can do anything.”

He looked at me.

“When you lost your toes, could you balance?”