The Confectioner's Tale Part 6

Gui sat quietly and listened. He had never paid much attention to his prayers as a child, but the presence of others was comforting; murmuring in unison with them made him feel less alone.

Soon, the service drew to a close and he found himself in a crush of people eager to leave, to return to their hearths and Christmas toasts. He stepped into the aisle only to be shoved aside by a wealthy man in leather gloves. He swore and turned angrily to confront the man, only to come face to face with familiar blue eyes.

Gui dropped his gaze and stepped back, shame flooding his stomach. Mademoiselle Clermont was staring at him. An older woman took her arm and hurried her away. Gui kept his head lowered until they were gone, then inched his way along with the rest.

Outside, the congregation evaporated onto the streets. An enormous fir tree stood solitary in the square, its little tin ornaments clinking in the rain. He stood under its branches to look up. Water dripped through the thick needles, and he closed his eyes, breathing in the scent of greenery.

'Guillaume?'

Mademoiselle Clermont was standing a few feet away, blinking at him through the rain.

'What are you doing here?' he asked without thinking.

She hurried under the shelter of the branches and raised her face veil.

'I should ask you the same.' She gazed at the sheet of water on the stones. 'I a.s.sumed you would have gone home for Christmas. Bordeaux, did you say?'

He jammed his hands in his pockets, for warmth, he told himself.

'Yes, Bordeaux.' He paused. 'It is a long way.'

'What of your family? Won't they miss you?'

'There's only my mother now. I sent her my wages. It will mean that she's comfortable, I hope.'

The rain continued to fall on the square, reaching them in fat droplets that smelled improbably of deep forest.

'I am sorry,' he said awkwardly after a while, 'about earlier in the church.'

'No, I am to blame.' She sighed, voice fading. 'I forget ...'

Her skin was pale, almost translucent against the heavy fabric of her high collar. It reminded him of tempered gla.s.s. Impulsively, he wanted to take her hand, to run with her from the rain into a crowded bar, see her laugh again. He would order a jug of wine and they would sit close together, watching the pa.s.sers-by, growing warmer as they drank.

'Would you ...?' he began.

Her eyes were fixed ahead; he followed her gaze. A carriage stood at the edge of the pavement. A man was lingering on the step, waiting for her to board.

'I must go,' she stammered, 'but I hate the thought of you having a gloomy Christmas. Please, take this.'

From a tiny bag on her wrist she produced a coin. It shone against the suede of her glove and told Gui how she saw him: poor and dirty, with ill-fitting clothes, coal dust ingrained beneath his fingernails. To his anger and shame he felt hot tears gathering in his eyes as she placed the coin in his hand.

He stared at it, knowing that she was doing the same. He knew he should thank her, tried to say the words, but could not. Then he was running, out into the freezing downpour, back towards the grey side of the river, where coins were scarce and where a woman like Mademoiselle Clermont would never care to venture.

Chapter Eleven.

April 1988 I board the train feeling glum. I've come away from my visit home empty-handed, or as near as. Mum caught me, when I was halfway through packing up Grandpa's papers. I tried to explain about Hall, about the photograph, but she told me that I was being ridiculous, that they weren't mine to take.

Technically she's right; they're part of Grandpa Jim's estate, of which my dad is the executor. Grandpa never got round to changing his Will before he died, and so my father has full control, even though they barely spoke. Apparently, he has given Hall permission to read and use whatever he wants. I argued with my mum about it, but in the end I could see she was getting upset, so I backed down, had no choice but to leave them where they were on the table.

Of course, she didn't know about the letter that was already in my notebook. I pull it out, excitement overcoming my guilt, and start to read: Jim, I was sorry to miss you last week in Paris. I was in town for all too short a time, and my business did not permit me to linger.

I did, however, have the good fortune to acquire a copy of The Word, and your article, before departing the city of light for the dull landschaft.

What a scandal! You must have had your nose to the ground, or were you lurking in the corner, scribbling away under cover of rum baba? I cannot believe you did not witness the event first-hand, so vivid were your descriptions, especially of the ill.u.s.trious M. Clermont and his sorry apprentice: 'shaking the young Bordelais the way one would a pup'. Marvellous.

I need not tell you that you will go far, dear boy, for I know you harbour ambitions above and beyond the penny sheets. If ever you need introductions in London, do not hesitate to use my name. I will take the liberty of making a few enquiries among the literati; your observations on the social quagmire that is Paris would make for fascinating reading in a more robust form than the dailies.

I shall be sure to notify you by telegram when I am expected to return to France, so as not to miss another meeting, although thanks to your most thorough coverage I hear that P. Clermont is closing its doors. I shall have to find another place to indulge my sweet tooth! Rest in peace, Clermont's!

Until then, I am yours, &c, L. Allincourt I nearly spit the c.o.ke that I'm drinking all over the letter and have to apologize to the man sitting next to me as I recover from a coughing fit. Eyes streaming, I peer at the name again. L. Allincourt.

Lionel Allincourt was arrested in 1915 for high treason. He had been pa.s.sing information to Germany for years, a huge blow for the Foreign Office, where he held an influential position. It's something every history student reads about. He killed himself in prison, or was killed, before a trial could take place. I search for the date on the letter: June 1910. Less than five years earlier.

I start to feel a bit sick. An original letter, from L. Allincourt, and I've been toting it around in my bag with the rest of my notes. The c.o.ke roils uncomfortably in my stomach. Hall will definitely notice that it's missing.

Caught between horror and exhilaration I stand in the middle of Charing Cross, staring at it. Grandpa Jim knew Allincourt knew him well, from the sound of the letter. My grandfather must have moved amongst high society then, in Paris, one way or another. The scandal certainly seems to have taken place amongst the upper cla.s.ses; it must be the same one that Hall is investigating. No wonder he couldn't resist.

An odd chill p.r.i.c.kles the back of my neck. It's clear that whatever happened, it happened at Ptisserie Clermont. The photograph of the girl comes instantly to mind, the painting, and the thing that scares me most, my grandfather's handwritten plea: Forgive me.

By the time I unlock the door to my room, a plan has formed. All I need to do is find a copy of the newspaper mentioned in Allincourt's letter, The Word, and read the article for myself. In my preoccupation, I almost miss a note, scrawled on the pad that hangs next to my door.

Hi P, it says in a messy, spiky hand. Came round this morning but you're not in. Sorry haven't caught up for a bit lab's been crazy. Pub tonight? Al x The pub is quiet on a Sunday evening. I lurk in an alcove near the open fire, flick through the newspaper someone has left on the table. It isn't long before I push it aside in disgust. My dad's name glares at me from the byline of an article about a famous actress's drug addiction.

A gust of cold air ushers Alex in. I wave him over, pointing to a second pint next to my own. He grins back, unwinding a scarf as he heads across the sticky carpet. It's a tradition of ours to hide out in one of the locals, rather than braving the chaos of the college bar.

Ca.s.s teases me mercilessly about Alex, no matter how many times I tell her that we're just friends. We met when his housemate dated one of mine for a while. I think they were trying to set us up. Nothing ever happened, but I can't help but smile whenever I see him, with his permanently untidy brown hair and his terrible taste in T-s.h.i.+rts. He's in the second year of a Physics Ph.D. Neither of us have a clue what the other one is saying when we complain about our research, but we always end up laughing.

'Got you a lager,' I say as he sits down. 'If you're quick, it might still be cold.'

'Thanks.' He sinks into the chair with a mock groan and takes a sip. 'And where have you been? I came by but you were out. On a Sunday! I was going to buy you a bun.'

I make a face. 'Sorry, I was visiting my mum.'

'Thesis progress on a scale of one to dismal?' he asks, eyeing me shrewdly.

I run my hand through my hair. I haven't brushed it today and must look a state, but with Alex, it doesn't matter.

'Dismal. You?'

'Scientific breakthroughs take time,' he says airily. 'Why is yours so bad?'

I start to explain about Hall, about my grandfather, why I've been neglecting my work. He listens patiently, and I find myself telling him everything: the girl, the painting, the letter, and then, hesitantly, about Grandpa Jim asking for forgiveness.

He taps his chin when I'm done, mulling over my words. I'd forgotten what a good listener he is.

'This whole scandal, it has to be something to do with her then,' he says, 'the girl.'

'I think so too, but there's nothing to prove it.'

'Except for those words, "forgive me".' I wait for him to continue, but instead he stares intently at a beer mat, shoving it around the table. When he next speaks his voice is uncharacteristically serious. 'Do you think your grandfather was, you know ...?'

'What?'

'Do you think he was, maybe, in love with her?'

Alex is flus.h.i.+ng pink, right to the tips of his ears.

'No,' I say, too quickly. 'Something like that, he would've told me. We talked about how he met my grandma often enough.'

'It's not exactly the kind of thing he would confess to his granddaughter, P. Perhaps there were things he didn't want you to know.'

'Why does everyone think that?' I try to swallow back the lump that has risen in my throat. 'If that's true, then it means he lied to me ...'

'I'm not saying that he lied.' Alex's voice is soft. His hand hovers at the edge of the table, as if he doesn't know what to do with it. 'Even if he did keep things from you, maybe he did it out of love ...'

I take a large gulp of my drink.

'Well, anyway,' I try for a smile, 'I have to find out before Hall.'

'Is this really about Hall?' Alex is looking me in the eye.

'Of course.' Quickly, I finish my drink, and reach for my bag. 'Look, I've got to go-'

Alex grabs my hand. I stop, astonished. His cheeks couldn't get any redder.

'Let me know,' he says, 'if there's anything I can do to help?'

I nod, and squeeze his hand in return. Alex lets go and reaches for his pint, nearly knocking it over in the process. Suppressing a laugh, I relax, and drop my bag to the floor.

'Next round's on me,' he says and grins.

Chapter Twelve.

January 1910 Gui did not go back to the ptisserie the next Sat.u.r.day, nor the one after that. He told himself that it was for the best. Besides, work on the tracks had resumed quickly after Christmas and was harder than ever. Every morning, a layer of snow coated the yard, turning first to slush, then to dense, pitted ice.

Their was.h.i.+ng water froze in its bowl and had to be broken with the handle of a razor. Gui's hands seized up around tools, screaming back into life when he took his turn working the furnace. Chilblains made the tips of his fingers swell and itch.

Some nights, he found himself reaching beneath his pillow, silently drawing Monsieur Carme out into the dark dormitory. In the weak moonlight, he turned the pages, and the voice of that architect filled his head once more. Before his eyes, the sketches and diagrams came to life. Sugar work spooled out like silk thread, crystallized into soaring towers and spires.

He imagined the ghosts of impossible scents, trapped and infused, just as he'd seen in the kitchens of the ptisserie. Monsieur Carme summoned the essences of the world to his fingertips. Roses and violets from summer gardens, sun-drenched Sicilian lemons squeezed of their juice and mingled with juniper from the frozen north. Saffron threads and gold leaf from the Indies waited to be turned into something magical. And contained deep within all of this was a smile that flooded him with warmth, a pair of blue eyes, and the scent of chocolate ...

A guttural snore from one of the men would break the spell and he would remember that he was cold, that the air around him was stale and damp, that Monsieur Carme would have sneered, had he been there in person.

So he hid the book at the bottom of his trunk and tried not to think about it, or about Mademoiselle Clermont every time the sky showed a patch of chill blue.

Instead, he threw himself into the life of a railwayman. He worked harder than any of the others; at night he fell onto his pallet bed and straight into a dreamless sleep. His arms grew stronger, his hands rougher, until he could put up a decent fight even to Leon, the largest man in the dormitory. Nicolas, for one, was delighted to hear that he had put a stop to his weekly sojourns across the river.

'Dangerous, is what it was,' his friend told him, as they planed down railway sleepers. 'When you stayed for Christmas, I thought I'd come back to find you drowned in the Seine, a love letter to your bourgeois princess tied to your jacket.'

'Who said anything about love letters?' Gui protested.

'You did, the way you'd try to comb your hair flat every Sat.u.r.day without anyone noticing.'

'I did not!'

'As you like.' Nicolas winked. 'I'm just glad you've come to your senses. Men like us have no business with sugar plums.'

Gui laughed then and felt better, as he always did with Nicolas. His friend was right. The longer he stayed away from the ptisserie, the more foolish it seemed. It was a child's fantasy, no place for him. He put it to the back of his mind, and tried to keep it there.

Perhaps he would have succeeded; perhaps he would have gone on to work the tracks, watched the years sweep across Paris from between two iron rails and never spoken the name 'Clermont' again, had it not been for the rain. The rain changed everything.

It came first as snow, then as sleet, and finally as a deluge that knew no end. Gui grew accustomed to the feeling of being damp, but nothing prepared him for the morning when he awoke to find his boots floating away. The water in the dormitory was ankle-deep and rising.

's.h.i.+t,' said Nicolas over and over, staring at the churning brown river that had once been the yard. They could not stay. Men hurriedly wrapped photographs and letters in oilcloth, hid them deep in their clothes. Just in time, Gui remembered Monsieur Carme at the bottom of his trunk. The water had seeped through and wrinkled the pages, but he swaddled the book tightly in a handkerchief, shoved it into the crack where the roof met the wall and where it might be safe.

The sewers had burst and the Gare d'Austerlitz was in chaos. Tracks were filling up into ca.n.a.ls, water lapping at the platforms like an incoming tide. There were shouts and shrieks as people slipped, struggling to drag handcarts out of the flood.

A stationmaster recognized them as belonging to the railway and set them to work bailing out the tracks. Gui spent an unpleasant hour soaked to the waist, pa.s.sing buckets hand to hand, but it made little impact. When they were s.h.i.+vering too much to continue, they hauled each other out and squelched up the stairs to the mezzanine, where a coffee vendor and roast-chestnut seller had set up business.

Gui inched as close to one of the burning braziers as he could, until steam began to rise from his clothes. The stationmaster handed him a mug of treacle-thick coffee laced with brandy. He gulped it gratefully. A man he knew to be the owner of the tabac booth was sharing rumours from other parts of the city, trying to stay dry by busily stuffing his clothes with yesterday's newspapers.

'Never seen anything like it,' he announced as he crammed a copy of L'Aurore down the front of his s.h.i.+rt. 'Looks like Venice out there, or a giant boating lake. I was born in this city and I wouldn't know it to look at. Salptriere's turned into a swimming bath and the Opera district looks grim. Hear it crept up on them in the night from below. Stores, cellars, all underwater, and now the streets-'

'What did you say, about Opera?' asked Gui, grabbing the vendor's arm. The man ignored him, shaking him off.

Gui did not wait to hear any more. He pulled his sodden jacket tight about himself and set off down the steps, skidding in pools of mud. He heard his name being called but didn't stop.

Outside, the water was s.h.i.+n-high, full of silt and debris. He waded along the embankment, stumbling on submerged objects. The water rose even as it sluiced into the river; the Seine hadn't yet broached its banks but licked at them, like a great tongue thras.h.i.+ng.

The bridge had been barricaded with sandbags and old pallets. A hastily a.s.sembled task force stood guard, staring miserably into the rising river. Before he could cross, someone grabbed his arm.

'What are you doing?' panted Nicolas furiously. 'Didn't you hear me calling?'