The Confectioner's Tale Part 28

'Who?'

'A writer I met, at La Rotonde ...' Words were still a struggle. 'I tried to tell him the truth, but he didn't believe me.'

'Well, someone told tales to Papa Clermont,' the boy sniffed. 'I'll bet it was him what hired those men. They knew they had to drag you off smartish when Mademoiselle appeared.'

'Jeanne was there?' Gui shoved the food away. 'What did she do? Where is she?'

'Puce tailed the men who took you, he followed them all the way,' said Isabelle quickly. 'Then he came and got me. We never would have found you otherwise. They dumped you miles away, in the middle of the slums-'

'I asked about Jeanne.'

'You should rest now.' Isabelle unstopped a blue gla.s.s bottle, poured a measure into a gla.s.s with some water. 'The doctor said very clearly, you are to do nothing strenuous. He will be here later to check on you.'

She gave him the gla.s.s.

'What is this?' he asked.

'It's medicine, to help you rest.'

Silently, Puce took the bottle from Isabelle and handed it over.

'Morphine,' Gui read. The bottle was almost empty. 'How long have you been giving me this?'

Isabelle looked uncomfortable. 'The doctor said-'

'How long?'

A newspaper lay on the floor. Slithering awkwardly from the blankets, Gui made a grab for it.

'Ten days?' he whispered in horror, staring at the date on the top line. 'You've kept me here for ten days and didn't tell me? What about Jeanne? Where is she?' There came no answer. He tried to get up, but only succeeded in knocking the bottle to the floor, where it smashed. 'Where is she?' he yelled, half sobbing.

Pain a.s.sailed him out of nowhere, blue and yellow snow fizzing over his vision. By the time he looked up again, the room was empty. Milky liquid pooled on the floor, dripping into the cracks between the boards.

He pushed aside the covers and rose to his feet, only for his knees to give way. He dragged himself back onto the bed, horrified by his own frailty. For the first time in many days, he didn't sleep, but stared instead at the rooftops outside the rotting window frame. When it grew dark he heard someone tramping up the stairs.

'Gui?'

It was Nicolas, still in his work clothes, coal dust clinging to his hair. He closed the door carefully behind him. From his pocket he drew out a dark bottle of beer and opened it.

'Isabelle told me what you said earlier.' Moving slowly, he poured half into a cup for Gui. 'You shouldn't be angry with her, or the boy, whoever you want to blame. They're good people.'

Gui took the cup, staring down into the amber liquid. 'You know them so well?'

Nicolas gave a half-smile. 'Had the chance to get acquainted, while you were out. The kid, Puce, he's a smart one. He came to the depot, kept asking for Nicolas until he found me. He said you'd been hurt, brought me here. Isabelle explained what was what.'

Gui took a sip of beer and was powerfully reminded of nights in the dormitory, of oil lamps and cards and the bodies of others. He and Nicolas had promised to stick together.

His eyes p.r.i.c.kled, he rubbed at them. 'Nicolas, I'm sorry,' he started awkwardly.

His friend held up a hand, halting, accepting.

'I'm sorry.' He traced his thumb over the letters on the beer bottle. 'I always hoped that you were doing well, even if it meant you didn't have time for your friends on the tracks.'

Gui closed his eyes at the reminder of his selfishness, but Nicolas ploughed on, taking a deep swig, down to the lees.

'I never wanted to be right,' he murmured. He was unfolding something from his pocket. 'There was this English guy, kept coming around here.'

'Jim?' asked Gui. 'What did he want?'

Nicolas's face darkened.

'Reckon he was the one gave you away,' he said disgustedly. 'Reckon he thought you were only out to cause trouble, so he ran to the girl's father. He came poking about, while you were out cold. Bold as bra.s.s, saying someone at Clermont's had told him about the blackmail and that he knew you'd pull a vanis.h.i.+ng act on Mademoiselle as soon as things got tough. He'd written about you in the paper, came here to see if anyone had news of you.

'I read it, what he wrote. Load of filth and lies. Soon as I finished reading, I broke his nose for him. Then Puce and I brought him up here to look at you.'

Nicolas's laugh was hollow. 'You think you're a mess now, should've seen what you looked like then. We didn't know whether you were even going to wake up.'

For the first time, Gui realized the fear and uncertainty his friends must have been through, while he slept. He reached for Nicolas's hand, but was waved off.

'Anyway, this Jim guy went white all over when he saw you, beaten almost to death. He thought you'd run off, see, but we set him straight, showed him what he'd done by ratting on you. He tried to come back a couple times. Isabelle sent him away, said he'd done more than enough to hurt you.'

'Nicolas,' Gui said seriously. A terrible fear had been uncoiling in his stomach while he listened. 'I have to see Jeanne. I have to explain to her.'

His friend straightened out the piece of newspaper from his pocket. Carefully, he laid it on the blanket.

'He brought this along, that Jim fellow. Kept saying he knew you wouldn't forgive him, but that you deserved to know.'

The newspaper was a cutting, with dense columns and oval pictures. Gui picked it up limply, looking for the date. It was three days old, printed a week after his attack. He was about to throw it down, when one of the photographs caught his eye. A slim, pale face, dark hair hidden in a ma.s.s of flowers; wide, blue eyes that even monochrome print could not subdue.

Mademoiselle Jeanne Clermont, the announcement read, today married Mr Leonard E. Burnett in a small ceremony at eglise de la Sainte-Trinite. The new Monsieur and Madame Burnett depart for their honeymoon this evening from Boulogne-Sur-Mer on the TSS Ryndam. They will spend a month touring the east coast of the United States of America, before Monsieur Burnett takes up a post as Managing Director of the new Burnett & Sons office in Montreal, Canada.

Chapter Forty-Four.

May 1988 The man opposite me pours a gla.s.s of wine from the bottle he ordered, presses me to drink.

'You look so pale I'm scared you will fall over,' he says in English.

'I'm sorry.' I laugh nervously, taking a sip. 'It's strange to be talking to you, that's all.'

'Well, you certainly have me intrigued.'

We are sitting in a bra.s.serie around the corner from the hotel. After I explained my reasons for being there, Guillaume suggested it was best discussed over dinner. I think he guessed I hadn't eaten since the morning.

He has changed out of his suit and looks relaxed in trousers and a grey jumper. He peruses the menu, giving me a chance to study his features. He is well built, has the easy charm of a man in his thirties who has grown into himself, but his eyes are blue and shrewd.

He orders the chef's special. I ask for the same, knowing that I won't be able to concentrate on the food, no matter what I eat. The restaurant's doors and windows have been thrown open, letting in the noise of the street and the warm evening.

'So,' Guillaume pours himself a gla.s.s. 'Are you going to tell me how you know so much about my family?'

I push a breadcrumb around the tablecloth, trying to find the right words.

'It all started with my grandfather, after he died,' I say slowly. 'I found a photograph of him with two other people I had never seen before. It had a name written on the back: Clermont, Paris.'

The man glances up at me sharply, but does not interrupt.

'My grandfather,' I clear my dry throat, 'was a journalist here, in nineteen ten. He revealed an affair between two people at Ptisserie Clermont: the daughter of the owner, Jeanne, and an apprentice named Guillaume du Frere. Whether he did it rightly or wrongly, it destroyed them, and haunted him for the rest of his life.'

For a long while Guillaume is silent, digesting my words. I take a large gulp of wine.

'I wonder,' he asks carefully, 'if you could start from the beginning.'

He listens patiently, and soon I forget my apprehension. He only interrupts twice, once to examine the address given to me by the gallery manager, another time to read my grandfather's undelivered letter. He laughs when I tell him about my mad ruse to retrieve the evidence from Hall's apartment, my escape from Cambridge on the back of a motorbike to cross the Channel.

'So that was you,' he says slyly, cutting into his steak when it arrives, 'on the telephone? You hung up.'

My face, already flushed from the wine, reddens further. I focus on my food, grateful for the excuse to look away.

'I suppose I should have asked you about all of this then,' I admit, 'but I was scared. It was just too strange. I'd been chasing down Guillaume du Frere for months, and when you answered the phone ...'

'You thought you had gone back in time?'

I smile wryly. 'Something like that, yes.'

'I am not surprised.' He laughs. 'Guillaume du Frere, your Guillaume, is my grandfather.'

'Is?'

My food is forgotten. I never imagined that the young man in the photograph could still be alive. Guillaume chuckles again, devouring a potato.

'Old goat's hanging on still. He's nearly ninety-six. Lives in a nursing home just outside the city. Bordeaux, that is.' He points to the piece of paper from the gallery. 'I bought that painting for his ninetieth birthday. It wasn't easy to track it down. Grandpa Gui told me once that he remembered seeing it being sketched out. He knew that the artist's name started with an "A", so I did a bit of digging and found the thing. The family clubbed together to buy it. It's hanging in his room.'

'That's what I don't understand. Why buy him something that could only cause him grief?'

'Grief?' Guillaume is thoughtful, playing with his cutlery. 'I suppose we think of the past in different ways as we grow old. I don't think it causes him grief. Rather comfort.'

'But he lost her to another man, where's the comfort in that?'

'Lost who?'

'Jeanne, Mademoiselle Clermont.'

I can feel myself getting emotional and push away the rest of my uneaten food. The photograph of my grandfather with du Frere and Mademoiselle Clermont lies on the table between us. I shove it towards him.

'My Grandpa Jim kept this picture as a reminder. You've seen the letter. He wrote dozens like it, for years. He never forgot what he did to them.'

'What did he do?' Guillaume asks, bewildered.

'He revealed their affair to the whole of society,' I say hotly. It's as if he hasn't been listening at all. 'It must have prompted Jeanne's decision to marry Burnett instead of your grandfather.'

The man is looking at me strangely.

'But this woman was my grandmother,' he says. 'Grand-mere Jeanne. I must admit, though, I've never seen a picture of her this young.'

'She married Leonard Burnett,' I splutter.

'Yes, she did,' interrupts Guillaume, 'in nineteen ten, like you said. I don't know many of the details. I only know that in nineteen eighteen, at the end of the war, she came back to France. I'm not sure her and grandfather were ever officially married, you know. They pretended they were, but to be honest, I don't think either of them cared. They started the shop together, and when she died, he pa.s.sed it on to me. We share a pa.s.sion, you see.'

He fishes a business card from his wallet: du Frere & Sons, Bordeaux, I read. Master Ptissiers, est. 1920.

By the time we step outside, the effects of the wine, the story and the warm summer air all conspire to make my head spin. The secret that haunted my grandfather, that he lived with for over sixty years, was nothing more than a bad decision, made in the heat of youth. His had not been the last word in the story.

'So,' nudges Guillaume, pulling me out of my reverie, 'you have your answers and I know a little more about my family than when I woke up this morning. What happens next?'

'The first train back to Calais, I suppose. I still have a review to attend.'

We walk along in silence for a while. The city smells of petrol and food, of cigarette smoke and possibility. Outside the hotel, we come to a mutual halt.

'That's where it was.' I point across the road. 'Ptisserie Clermont. I wish I could have seen it.'

'So do I,' he says quietly, staring with me from under the trees. 'Why do you think I always stay in this hotel?'

'Come back with me,' he asks after a moment. 'Come to Bordeaux. You can see the shop, and I can take you to meet Grandfather. He'd like that.'

'I'd like that too. Another time, perhaps.'

At home, my own mistakes are waiting, to be faced and seen through. I feel a smile creeping onto my face. 'Besides, I think we Stevensons have meddled with your family quite enough.'

Guillaume offers a wry smile of his own. 'Can I at least persuade you to stay with me tonight? No disrespect, but hotels are expensive at this time of year.'

'Guillaume-'

'Nothing like that! I'm a married man. There's a sofa in the room. I'll sleep there and you can have the bed. You look like you could use the rest.'

Dawn wakes me with a stuffy head, tangled in a duvet. I flail at my watch to stop it beeping and peer around. The hotel room is dark, but a strip of light is sliding under the curtain. Two feet poke out from a blanket over the arm of the sofa and I laugh to myself. Quickly, I haul on yesterday's clothes, cram my bag under my arm and let myself out.

It is not even six o'clock. The morning is chilly and perfect. I feel like an unexpected visitor, surprising the city without its make-up. A road-sweeper trundles past on his machine, brushes revolving in the gutter. Almost everything is closed, but down a side street I find a newsagent that is just rattling open the shutters. I ask if he has a photocopier. He nods vaguely, gestures towards the back.

There, below the packets of rice and tea, I copy everything that I've collected, the photographs, the newspaper articles, the letters and my own journal, the discoveries unfolding sheet by carbon sheet into the plastic tray. Halfway through, the shopkeeper brings me over a tiny cup of coffee, so strong and sweet that it sticks to the roof of my mouth. I nod my thanks. Slowly, he returns the gesture. When I pay at the counter, he digs around and produces a brown paper bag to protect the pages.

The sun is fully up when I emerge, the city awake, though a little bleary still.