The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris Read online

  “So,” she said when I was back. The lady had agreed to bring over the tray, thank goodness. We shared a look.

  “We’re like the old nag’s corner,” I said, and Claire smiled. The lady didn’t. I think she was very concerned that we were about to throw up or fall over in her lovely café. The chocolate brownie cake was exceptionally good, though, and worth all the weird looks we were getting.

  “So…” Claire suddenly flushed a little and looked excited. “I got a letter.”

  “An actual letter?” I said, impressed. I never got letters, just instant messages from Cath telling me some bloke was either totally fit or a right turd or both.

  She nodded.

  “Well, more of a postcard…regardless. He said he does need a new factory worker, yes. And I know of an apartment where you could stay.”

  I looked at her, totally taken aback.

  “What?”

  “Well, I didn’t…I didn’t think you’d actually do it,” I said, stunned and touched. “I mean, go to all that trouble.”

  “It was two letters,” said Claire. “I hope that’s not your idea of hard work. I’ve talked you up quite dramatically.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  She smiled. “It was…it was nice to hear back after all this time.”

  “This was definitely a romance,” I said.

  “It was definitely a long time ago,” she said crisply in her teacher’s voice again.

  “Don’t you want to go?” I said.

  “Oh no,” she said quickly. “That time of my life is well over with, quite done and dusted. And I have quite enough on my plate. But you’re still young…”

  “I’m thirty,” I said, moaning.

  “That’s young,” she said very sharply. “That’s very young.”

  “So, what’s it like, this factory?” I said, changing the subject. Her own kids weren’t much older than me and all married and settled with good jobs, and I didn’t think I could handle the comparison.

  “Oh, it’s probably changed a bit,” she said, looking a bit dreamy. Then she came back to herself. “Anyway, it’s not a factory, more an atelier—a workshop. Le Chapeau Chocolat.”

  “The Chocolate Hat?” I said. “That sounds…I mean, do they actually make hats out of chocolate?”

  Claire ignored me.

  “They’ll take you on as a general factotum, normal hours, and they normally use a room nearby, apparently, that you can stay in. It’s extremely expensive in that area of Paris, incredibly, so it’s very helpful. He says they’re busy till about October, so you could stay that long then come back. By then, the UK shops will be gearing up for Christmas, so I’m sure you’ll get a job then.”

  “Don’t they have Christmas in France?”

  Claire smiled at me. “Yes, but it isn’t the crazy obsession it is here. A few oysters and some time with your family; that’s about the size of it.”

  “That sounds rubbish,” I said, suddenly a bit cross at how much this had been sorted out. I still felt as if I were being railroaded a bit, rather than being worried about and cosseted. Everyone was saying things like how I should stand on my own two feet, which I found particularly annoying as I didn’t really have two feet anymore.

  “It’s lovely,” said Claire, her thin face going a bit dreamy. “The rain hits the pavement and the lights go all misty over the bridges, and you huddle up in front of the fire…”

  “And eat oysters,” I said. “Bleurgh.”

  Claire took her glasses off and rubbed her sore-looking eyes. “Well,” she said hopefully. “I think it’s a very generous offer, considering he’s never met you.”

  “What about speaking French?” I said, sounding slightly panicky. “I won’t be able to speak all the French.”

  “Don’t be silly, you’re coming along brilliantly.”

  “Yes, but that’s talking to you. Real French people will talk like this…zubba zubba zubba zubba zuBBAH, at, like, one hundred miles an hour. One hundred kilometers an hour,” I said gloomily.

  Claire laughed. “The trick is not to panic. Trust your brain to know what people are saying. Also, people talk just as much rubbish in French as they do in English. They repeat themselves all the time, just like real people do. Don’t worry about it.”

  I blinked.

  “Does he speak English?”

  Claire smiled shyly.

  “Not a word, as far as I remember.”

  - - -

  1972

  His mustache had been the first thing she’d noticed about him—not because it was a mustache, because lots of men had them at that time, along with long unruly sideburns, which he also had, but because it had chocolate on the ends. She had blinked at it.

  “What?” he had said instantly, waggling his eyebrows at her. “What? Tell me—you cannot believe such a devastatingly handsome man has just walked through the door?”

  She had smiled involuntarily—with his thick mop of dark brown curly hair, mischievous brown eyes, and burly, large body, he was undeniably attractive, but handsome, no. Especially not in the traditional French style, where the men were neat and well-groomed, slim and rather refined. There was nothing refined about this man; he looked a bit like a lost bear.

  “You are laughing? It’s funny that I am not handsome? Hmm? How is that funny?”

  He then mimed a position of extreme woundedness.

  Claire had been wallflowering near the elaborately corniced door, waiting for Mme. LeGuarde to want to go, for nearly an hour.

  Her hosts were terribly polite and not the terrible tyrants she had been dreading and her father had been hoping for, but they also thought it was quite the privilege to be allowed to take part in their social lives.

  Claire, though, found it incomprehensibly sophisticated and suffered from terrible nerves, not knowing what to say. There were young men in berets arguing furiously about communism, stunning slender women smoking and occasionally raising an eyebrow at the men or mentioning how boring such and such an exhibition was. She wasn’t a party person, even among people she knew. Paris itself was knocking her out daily with its astonishing beauty. But the people absolutely terrified her.

  She treated it as an extension of her language classes and tried to listen in as much as she could, but in her mind these people were undoubtedly grown-ups. And she, equally undoubtedly, was not. She felt neither one thing nor the other, and the fun and glamour made her feel more and more like an uneducated country hick. She found it hard enough to follow what people were saying, they spoke so fast. She was constantly dazzled by how beautifully everybody dressed, so different from her mother’s homely style, and on top of that, everyone talked about exhibitions they’d seen and writers they’d met, and everyone talked about food absolutely without stopping. It was exhausting. People took an interest in the LeGuardes’ English girl—she was pretty and endearing-looking—but she found herself clamming up, like the worst kind of wallflower. She could see Mme. LeGuarde, who was extremely beautiful and well-groomed, wasn’t particularly impressed by this, but after Kidinsborough and the rectory, Paris was completely overwhelming.

  This chap, on the other hand, was different. He had a spark of mischief in his eyes that he couldn’t hide.

  “I didn’t mean it,” she said, hiding her mouth with her hand so he wouldn’t see her smirking.

  “OH! An English woman!” he said immediately, standing back as if in amazement. “Enchanté, mademoiselle! Thank you so much for bestowing a visit on our little backwater town here.”

  “You are teasing me,” said Claire, trying to match his humorous tone.

  “That is not possible, mademoiselle! I am French and therefore of course have no sense of humor.”

  “What have you got on your mustache?” she said, noticing a smudge.

  He made a comical face trying to see it.
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br />   “I don’t know. Is it a sense of humor?”

  “It’s brown.”

  “Ah, well, of course…that is my job.”

  This made no sense to Claire, just as the host of the party turned around and noticed him standing there. Delighted, he marched up and bustled him away, introducing him to everyone, who were, it seemed, far more delighted to make his acquaintance than they had been when introduced to the LeGuardes’ new au pair.

  “Who is that?” she asked Mme. LeGuarde in a whisper.

  “Oh, the talk of the town, Thierry Girard,” said Mme. LeGuarde, eyeing him affectionately. “They say he is the most gifted chocolatier since Persion.”

  Claire was amazed that this was news of any kind or that that was so important. On the other hand, it explained what was on his mustache, which was a good thing at least.

  “Is he going to be a big success?” she asked casually.

  Mme. LeGuarde watched him talk to a top food critic, charming him effortlessly by insisting on drawing out his latest recipe.

  “Oh, I think so,” she said. “He studied in Switzerland and Bruges. I think he’s going to be really terribly good.”

  After touring the room and accepting a second glass of the delicious, icy champagne, Claire, back in observational mode, realized he was the focus of attention and laughter in the room. People just seemed to flock to him. As someone who people tended to simply not notice—the curse of being quiet—Claire was transfixed. His big, shaggy bear face was not at all handsome, but it was so cheerful and animated, it was hard not to enjoy looking at it or wish that its sunshiny beam of attention might come near you. She spotted several of the beautiful women, who had been so sulky and superior before, suddenly start laughing and fluttering about in front of him. Claire bit her lip. She would have liked another glass of the amazing, freezing cold champagne—she’d never had it before—but suspected, rightly, that Mme. LeGuarde would disapprove. In fact, even now they looked like they were getting ready to leave. She glanced around for her coat before remembering that it had been taken by a maid at the door.

  “You are not leaving,” came a growly voice. She turned around, her heart suddenly jumping. Thierry was standing there, his face crestfallen. “Where are you going?”

  “I have to work tomorrow,” she stuttered. “And Mme. LeGuarde…she is taking me home. I have to go with her.”

  He waggled his eyebrows. “Ah, mam’zelle, I did not realize you were a child.”

  “I’m not a child,” she said emphatically, realizing immediately as she did so what a child she sounded.

  “Alors, then I will take you home.”

  “You shall not,” said Mme. LeGuarde, who had suddenly materialized out of nowhere and was giving him a freezing stare.

  “Enchanté,” said Thierry, not in the least perturbed. He bent and kissed her hand.

  “This is your sister?”

  Mme. LeGuarde rolled her eyes.

  “This is my au pair, and while she is here, my ward,” she said crisply. “Claire, it is time to go.”

  “Claire,” said Thierry, rolling the name around his mouth as if he were savoring it. “Of course, you will visit my new shop?”

  Claire realized immediately that was difficult for Madame. Obviously all of Paris would have to try the new shop, otherwise how to admit it at the next soirée? She cut a sideways glimpse at Claire. Claire thought, and always would, that she was trying to think of ways to keep her apart from this fascinating person.

  In fact, she couldn’t have been further from the truth.

  Marie-Noelle LeGuarde was a woman of the world and thought Claire had been ridiculously protected and cosseted at home, completely stifled in the English bourgeois fashion. If she didn’t open her eyes soon, she’d end up buried in some ghastly English tomb like her mother and never have a day’s proper fun and experience in her life. She had just rather hoped it would be one of the charming, well-educated sons of her friends who would take her in hand, let her live a little, and send her home with wonderful memories of Paris and a horizon broader than her local church flower-arranging society. Not this hoofing peasant from Lot-et-Garonne. She sensed a hidden spirit in the young girl and felt it her responsibility, as a woman of the world, to give it wings, both for her and for her wonderful spirited mother, who had married the charismatic up-and-coming young churchman and lived to rue the day. But with someone suitable, and careful. She didn’t want to send her back knocked up by a fat cook.

  “Bien sûr, of course,” she said swiftly to Thierry, simultaneously signaling to the maid to bring their coats. Extinguishing a cigarette, they left into the still-crisp spring evening. Claire, looking behind from the back window of the taxi cab, glimpsed the huge French windows of the apartment, flung open to the night, exuding a glow and the noise of music and chatter and cigar smoke drifting upward into the hazy night.

  Dad never came up to my room, not since I was about twelve or so. It was my sanctum, my escape from the boys. Also, he just isn’t the kind of dad that goes in for long chats. He’s the kind of dad that makes really awful jokes to your friends and makes sure your bike chain is oiled up and gets a bit pink in the face at Christmas and doesn’t remove his party hat all day. I doubt he’s said “I love you” in his entire life, not even to Mum. I know he does, though, so it totally doesn’t matter. He also spends his life calling the boys buggers, but I knew he was proud of me when I got promoted at Braders.

  Anyway, my mum had been rabbiting on about what I was going to do and what I was up to and what my future was going to be, and even hearing it was so exhausting—I’d lost two toes. I wasn’t paralyzed or in a wheelchair; I didn’t even qualify for a blue parking badge for my dad’s car (much to Mum’s evident disappointment, seriously).

  Then Mum read something in one of her magazines and decided I was “depressed” and started muttering about seeing someone and that was annoying too, because depression is a horrid illness that people get and not a way to describe feeling a bit sad when you’ve lost a bit of you off the end, which, in my opinion, is a totally natural way of thinking and doesn’t need to be talked through: “I’m sad because I’ve had my toes chopped off.” “Oh yes, quite right, that’ll be sixty pounds please.” Or, heaven forbid, put me on drugs or something. But then again, I couldn’t deny that I didn’t really feel myself. Have you ever had a really bad hangover that’s gone into a second day? Well, it was like that second day. I just couldn’t summon up the energy to do the million and one things I knew I needed to do. There were just so many things.

  Dad knocked quietly, which was interesting, as Mum never knocks and the boys never drop by, just holler from the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hello, love,” he said, proffering me a cup of tea. I wouldn’t say we were a really old-fashioned family, but one thing was for sure: Dad never made the tea.

  “Did you make this?” I said, eyeing it suspiciously.

  “Yes,” said my dad quickly. “Two sugars?”

  He must have asked Mum.

  “Can I come in?”

  “It’s your house,” I said, surprised. He looked nervous. Worse than that, before he sat down, he carefully removed two wrapped chocolate cookies from his pocket. I looked up at him.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing’s wrong.”

  “Something’s wrong, if it needs a chocolate cookie. Tell me, quickly.”

  My dad shook his head. “I just thought you’d like a chocolate cookie.”

  I just stared at him, unconvinced.

  “Listen,” he said. “I got a call from your teacher friend…”

  “She’s not my teacher anymore,” I said.

  “Sounds like she’s been teaching you a few things,” he said, sitting at my white vanity unit. He looked strange there. The back of his head reflected in the mirror; he was getting really bald back there.

>   I shrugged.

  “Just something to do, you know.”

  He glanced on my bed, where there were several French books Claire had lent me that I’d been puzzling through with the help of a massive dictionary. It was a slow, boring business, but light was beginning to dawn.

  “Well,” he said, “she says she’s offered you a job.”

  I shook my head. “She hasn’t really. She just knows someone…or she used to know him. It was ages ago. She reckons I might be able to help out in the summer.”

  “She says it’s in your line of work.”

  “Yes—in another country. Sweeping up floors probably.”

  Dad shrugged. “What’s wrong with working in another country?”

  “What, you want me out of the house now?”

  “No,” he said carefully. “All I mean is, you’re thirty, you’ve got no ties, you’re still young…don’t you want to travel a bit? See the world?”

  I shrugged. I hadn’t really thought of it like that. In fact, I’d only really thought about what a gigantic pain in the arse this was for me and how people should be feeling more sorry for me, not what I was going to do next. I’d lost two bits of myself. That was enough for one year, surely.

  When Dad was saying it, though, I did think, for a second, that it would be quite nice to go somewhere where nobody knew what had happened to me and didn’t eye me up with looks of concern and slightly prurient interest. The kids on the estate definitely talked about me when I went by. The one time I’d gone out with Cath so far, Mark Farmer had cornered me, drunk, at about 1:00 a.m. and begged to take a look at it. I hadn’t much fancied going out again after that. I didn’t want to be the local freak show. And I knew what it was like here in Kidinsborough. Sandy Verden had pooed her pants once in year four, and no one had let her forget it yet.

  Dad looked at me kindly.

  “Love, you know, I don’t like to give advice.”

  “I know,” I said. “And I appreciate it. Mum gives me LOTS.”

  He smiled, a little sadly.

  “Honestly, love. At your age. The chance to go see somewhere new, live somewhere different, even if it’s just for a little while…I’d jump at it. I think you’d be mad not to.”