The Confectioner's Tale Part 15

'Here.' Mademoiselle Clermont was opening a blue tin, with English writing upon it. 'This will help your hands. It's for treating burns, from America.' She scooped out a small palmful of what looked like lard.

He was not sure whether he should protest or whether it would be rude to interrupt when she took his hand and began to dot the substance over the worst scalds.

'When I saw you the other day,' he began clumsily, to cover his embarra.s.sment, 'you looked upset. Is everything all right?'

She pulled a face, smoothing the balm into his skin. 'I am sorry about that. Father and I disagreed again. He believes that I have forgotten how to behave.'

'Have you?' he could not help but ask.

Her fingers were soft, and he had the uncontrollable urge to touch her, to pull her closer. Something must have betrayed his thoughts, for she looked once into his face, before letting go.

'Here.' She held out the remaining balm. 'What can we do about your uniform? I do not have much time. My aunt and I are expecting guests.'

'I need a clean jacket, or they'll know it was me in the fight,' he said hurriedly, grateful to talk about something practical. 'I thought Patrice might have one.'

'He may, I saw him mending one yesterday. Wait here, we shall have to be fast.'

Swiftly, she tugged a bell pull that hung beside the door.

'If it's anyone else but Patrice, you will have to hide,' she whispered over her shoulder.

Gui s.h.i.+fted towards the edge of the seat, ready to bolt into the shadow of a huge wardrobe. A minute later there was a knock at the door.

'Mademoiselle?' It was the valet's voice, m.u.f.fled through the wood. 'Is everything all right? Your aunt is concerned and your guests are due any minute.'

She opened the door an inch. Gui caught a s.n.a.t.c.h of frantic whispering, before the door was shut and locked again.

'Quickly,' Mademoiselle Clermont told him. 'Take off the old one.'

'It ...' Gui stuttered, mouth dry. 'It wouldn't be proper, I've no unders.h.i.+rt.'

The girl made an exasperated noise and crossed her arms.

'I shall look away, if it troubles you.'

Flus.h.i.+ng from neck to forehead, Gui fought his way out of the jacket, fingers slipping on the gilded b.u.t.tons. He gripped the ruined garment, and stood, chest bare. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the dressing-table mirror, of the muscles in his back and waist above the white trousers, and realized that Mademoiselle Clermont was staring.

A discreet knock on the door interrupted his embarra.s.sment and Patrice was admitted. His eyes flared at the sight of Gui, standing there s.h.i.+rtless, but he thrust a white garment forward.

'Never a dull day when you are around, du Frere,' he said, mouth twitching with amus.e.m.e.nt. 'My nailbrush sends its regards. Mademoiselle,' he directed reprovingly at the staring girl, though half a smile still lingered, 'the Burnetts' motor car has arrived outside and they will be coming upstairs imminently. If you have finished your examination of young Monsieur du Frere, I suggest you rejoin your aunt in the drawing-room.'

Blanching slightly, she hurried to obey.

'The Burnetts?' Gui whispered, struggling thankfully into the new jacket. 'Do you mean Monsieur Burnett?'

'Yes, his wife and son, they are friends of the family.' Patrice bundled up the old garment. 'Hurry lad, if you leave now you might avoid them.'

Gui grinned and clasped the valet's hand in thanks. Patrice winked and hustled him out into the corridor. As they reached the front door, Gui snuck a look over his shoulder. He was rewarded. Mademoiselle Clermont was looking back from the opposite end. She smiled and they were complicit, until someone called her name.

'Go!' she mouthed with a laugh.

Gui allowed Patrice's nudge to take him onto the landing, where he hurtled down the stairs, ecstatic as a schoolboy.

Chapter Twenty-Five.

May 1988 London Paddington: I arrive just in time to catch the afternoon train to Penzance. The price of the ticket makes me blanch. At this rate, I'll have to swallow my pride and ask my mum for a loan.

I feel a jolt of anxiety as I board. I'm travelling to the other end of the country on scant information, with little money and no plan, but the train is about to leave and it's too late to worry. I settle back and take out one of my notebooks.

Grandpa Jim was always writing; far more than he ever published. Towards the end, I would sometimes help him make sense of his notes, type them up into articles, but amongst his papers I found whole working journals filled with his untidy scrawl. There were endless lines of musings and ideas, folders full of long rambling pages, hacked out letter by letter upon his old black typewriter.

Slowly, I turn to a new page in my own journal and as the brakes release, I start to write.

Two hours have pa.s.sed and we're already a long way west of London before I stop. Outside, the suburbs have given way to fields, a thin ca.n.a.l snaking alongside the track. The wind rattles the window in the corridor, clouds race across the sky, making the carriage light and dark with their pa.s.sing.

My stomach growls; I haven't eaten all day. I wobble through the train to find the buffet car, and wolf down a greasy bacon sandwich and a cup of tea. When I return, the woman in the opposite seat offers me a newspaper. I read it cover to cover, then doze for a while, until I am woken by a poke in the arm.

'You're missing the best part, dear,' my fellow pa.s.senger tells me, indicating outside.

Beyond the gla.s.s, barely ten feet away, the sea is battering the rail track. The bl.u.s.tery day has whipped the waves into cras.h.i.+ng foam, coating the windows with salt. I can almost taste it in the air. Early-evening light streams in, throwing the train's silhouette upon the water. It illuminates every detail: the gla.s.s in the windows, the head of an oblivious pa.s.senger further down the carriage. I raise my hand to see whether a shadow figure will do the same, but the track curves, flas.h.i.+ng through a tiny station and the magic is lost.

Some time later, the woman with the newspaper nods goodbye as she alights at Bodmin. Her seat remains vacant. The train is emptying as we travel further and further south. The ticket inspector gives me a friendly smile when he comes round.

'Penzance,' he tells me, 'end of the line. Heading home, young lady?'

I shake my head. 'Just visiting.'

Finally, the high blue of the sky splits open. A vast sunset spreads from the horizon as we slide into the terminal shed at Penzance.

I am one of a handful of people who step yawning from the train. Those in working clothes head briskly for the car park; others drag suitcases to be greeted by loved ones. Disorientated, I pull the napkin from my pocket and read the address again. In the ticket office, I ask how to get to a village called Mousehole, hoping that they won't laugh.

'Mauzel,' the man corrects me gruffly. 'Blue bus, every half-hour or so, can't miss it.'

The timings sound a bit dubious, but before long a bus does turn up, blue and white with a scrolling panel. It wends its way around the coast road before wedging itself into a tiny fis.h.i.+ng village. A harbour forms a protective curve, with rows of grey cottages lining the sea wall.

It is dusk now and gone nine o'clock. Lights are beginning to reflect in the water. It is too late to go calling on elderly academics. Instead, I scrawl out a note. There's a sharp breeze that s.n.a.t.c.hes at the paper and smells of open sea. I lick my lips and taste salt.

The house is easy enough to find. The row of cottages is made from granite, running into each other at odd angles, windows barely four steps from the water's edge. Lefevre's house is at the end, a shabby boat pulled up before it. There are lights on. Before I lose my nerve, I push the note through the letterbox.

The wind has a cold edge in the growing darkness, so I hunch my bag higher and head along the town's one main street in search of somewhere to stay. Heads turn as I let a gust of air into the local pub. The landlady looks mildly surprised when I ask for a room.

'I'll put you in Room Seven,' she tells me with a smile. 'It's cosier for one person.' She hands over a key. 'We close down here at eleven, and breakfast starts at seven. Will you be wanting kippers?'

At least five pairs of eyes follow my progress away from the bar. The room is under the eaves of the building and smells of must. I shove the flaking window frame open and the sea air blasts in, filling the s.p.a.ce with coolness. I had every intention of trying out the huge old bath down the hall and going to bed with my notes, but am drawn reluctantly back to the bar by the growling in my stomach. The landlady looks mortified when I ask if there is anywhere to get some food.

'There's not a shop before the next town and we stopped serving at nine, my dear, but if you wait, I'll see what we've left.'

Obediently, I squash into a corner with a gla.s.s of cider. A chalkboard menu declares that the special of the day is stargazy pie. I gulp my drink, envisaging withered fish heads gazing plaintively at the ceiling. In the end, I'm presented with a cheese and pickle sandwich the size of my head and a pile of crisps.

I fall asleep in a strange place, with the sea wind whistling through the window, lulling my thoughts until they are as quiet as sand.

Chapter Twenty-Six.

March 1910 Sundays were slower at the ptisserie, and Gui came to love their atmosphere, their calm after the frenzy of the week. They ran only one sitting to fit around church-going, so the kitchen operated on half-staff, producing more humble offerings. The towering stacks of profiteroles, the mille-feuille and champagne creams were banished in favour of the sweet and the simple; pans of clafoutis with preserved cherries, slices of tarte tatin and cups of hot chocolate.

Gui put himself forward for all the Sunday s.h.i.+fts available, even the earliest, which meant arriving at the ptisserie before it was light. It was his job to light the ovens and get them up to temperature, whilst two other chefs proved the dough for that day's baking. One morning, he walked yawning to the back door to see a cart standing empty in the alleyway. A figure was tugging on a rope to secure it.

'Luc!'

The large man turned in surprise.

'Gui?'

Seizing Luc's hand, he shook it warmly, surprised by his own enthusiasm.

'Calm down, lad,' the big man laughed. 'I've had a long night, as you know.'

He greeted Marc and Yves, then stood against the cart, exchanging news with his former colleagues. He accepted a share of a cigarette, to ward away the morning chill.

'We wondered what had happened, after Christmas,' Yves said pointedly. 'First you disappeared, then Mademoiselle at the end of the month. Thought there might have been something in it.'

'Monsieur Clermont offered me a job here, so I took it,' said Gui, careful not to drop ash onto his uniform. 'It's a long story. What did you mean about Mademoiselle disappearing? I saw her last week.'

'From duties, is what he means,' interrupted Luc. 'End of January, after all the flooding, we brought the delivery as usual, but no Mam'selle. They got another chap now.' He indicated inside, where an old man was staring into the delivery ledger as though it held an almighty puzzle. Gui recognized him as the cleaner. 'Hopeless he is, but we know where to go all right, so we're muddling through.'

Gui remembered Mademoiselle Clermont's words about her father and their disagreement. He wanted to tell the men what had happened during the flood, but he had promised to stay silent. Yves eyed him with interest as he bade them farewell and climbed the back step.

He felt a strange sadness as he watched the cart trundle away, but it was soon eclipsed by the smell of dough in the kitchens. He tended to the ovens, but was allowed to help the other chefs for a few hours, warming b.u.t.ter and measuring out orange blossom water to create trays of rich, b.u.t.tery brioche.

Monsieur Clermont or Josef were rarely present on Sundays, preferring the company of family and a leisurely breakfast on the day of rest. Usually, the kitchen was run by one of the senior chefs, like Ebersole or Melio, but it was best when Maurice was in charge.

'Let us give thanks to our patron, Saint Honore!' he yelled across the echoing room. 'We'll need a dozen cakes by the time church slams its doors and ejects those hungry sinners. How long for the creme Chiboust, Gui?'

'Five minutes, Chef!' Gui called back, furiously whisking the egg whites that would be added to another apprentice's pastry cream.

'That should be sufficient, my son. Fetch the caramel, quick, before they finish ma.s.s!'

No one in the kitchen could match Maurice with a knife. He sent pieces of sugared almond and dried fruit flying into a tidy pile quicker than Gui could get them out of the jar. Every so often, the older chef would pretend to slip, sending pieces of nut or chocolate skidding down the counter. Gui and the other apprentices fell upon these, grinning, whilst Maurice turned a blind eye.

Gui was learning, slowly, the language of the kitchen. Every night, even when he was exhausted, he read Monsieur Carme's book by the light of his tiny stove, and soon, he could recite it inside out. Proudly, he realized he could nod whenever a silk sieve was mentioned; he had made countless bain-maries, he could whisk egg whites into spires in his sleep.

What was more, he found that he was a natural with pastry dough. Where the other apprentices swore and struggled, Gui's callused hands made deft work of the temperamental substance. One day, Maurice had grabbed his sleeve, pressed his wrist to Gui's palm.

'That explains it,' he declared, testing the other one. 'Your hands are like ice. Warm hands will never make a pastry chef. Did you know that?'

Gui shook his head, inspecting his pale blue fingernails. Perhaps being too poor to afford coal had its advantages. He remained at the bottom of the long ladder of apprentices, but his steps quickened, he laughed more, exchanged jokes with the others.

That Sunday, business in the ptisserie was slow due to a spring rainstorm and, for the first time, Maurice allowed Gui to leave early.

'Go ahead,' he told him, taking a stack of trays from Gui's arms and depositing them in the scullery sink. 'I'll bet the others have conveniently forgotten to tell you that you're due one day off per week.'

Gui tried to smile gratefully. He knew about the days off, but did not take them. He would rather be at the ptisserie where it was warm and he was fed, than in his freezing room on the Rue de Belleville.

'Why don't you slip away now?' Maurice insisted. 'It's only a few hours until we close and there are plenty of hands here. Take some time for yourself, go and have fun. Young men should enjoy themselves.'

It would be rude to turn down the offer, so he moved quietly to the cloakroom to dress in his street clothes. It was strange, to leave when there was work still to be done, but as he b.u.t.toned his jacket, the excitement of liberation crept upon him. He rarely had the chance to see Paris with its eyes open to the daylight.

In the jumble of the lost-property box he found a rickety umbrella. Several of its spokes had snapped, and it looked more like an ancient crow than a device to keep him dry, but he took it anyway. He sheltered under the ptisserie's sign, struggling to wedge it open.

There was a commotion in the street before him. A s.h.i.+ny blue motor car stood steaming by the kerb, a man in a chauffeur's uniform poking around beneath its bonnet, water cascading from the brim of his cap.

'Need a hand?' Gui yelled over the rain.

'No, lad.' The chauffeur shook droplets out of his eyes. 'This'll be a night's work to repair.'

'Good afternoon!' a second voice called.

Mademoiselle Clermont was peering at him from inside the vehicle.

'Good afternoon.' He held the umbrella close to the window. 'What's happening?'

'Oh, something has broken,' she said. 'It's a nuisance, I was on my way to visit a good friend, but now I shall have to stay at home.'

She did not look overly upset, smiling through the rain-spattered gla.s.s. Gui hesitated, but the feeling of liberty was stronger than his caution.

'How far is it? Perhaps I could escort you, then there would be no need to miss your appointment?'

He wished he could take back the words almost as soon as they were out of his mouth, but it was no use now, they had been said. He steeled himself for her polite reb.u.t.tal.

'It ... it is a very kind offer, Guillaume, but my friend lives near the Musee des Arts. I fear it would be too far to walk in such weather.'

The look of embarra.s.sment on her face was unmistakable. He heard himself speaking again.