Chapter 14
14
August arrives, the last of the summer months. Part of me pines for autumn. I love the cooler weather, the crunch of fallen leaves and the cosiness reading a good book in front of the fire. I briskly walk to Saint Ouen Flea Market, having overstayed feeding the cats at the cemetery on my way to work. Blame Marmalade, who curled up on my lap like a baby. I didn’t have the heart to move her as she primped and preened.
I avert my gaze as I pass the flower stall, but Coraline clocks me. She never misses a thing, that woman, and she practically chases me as I dash past her with a look on my face that implies I’ve got places to be. Her footsteps quicken and she yells for me to stop.
Honestly, she’s a menace to society. There’s no getting away from her. ‘Are you actually chasing me, Coraline?’
‘What? No!’ Spots of pink appear on her cheeks.
‘What is it? I have to open Ephemera.’
‘Emmanuel has left Paris, gone to an ashram in India. I’m guessing whoever this new fiancée is, she’s really bad news. What do you say to that?’
‘Namaste?’ While I’m teasing Coraline, my mind is reeling. émilienne regularly goes on retreats to India and takes them very seriously. There’s no way she’d invite Emmanuel if he wasn’t the genuine article. The retreats are a religious experience for her. Even his celebrity status might have given her pause as she wouldn’t want to create any fuss at an ashram.
‘Very funny, Lilou.’
‘How did you find out?’
‘The tabloids – how else? He did another interview about finding enlightenment. Do you think they’re paying him for the interviews and that’s why he’s doing so many?’
‘Probably.’ How can émilienne be buying this? The woman I know would recoil at her significant other sharing to the world their every movement. Just what is going on? And why haven’t they completed their feedback survey? Perhaps there’s no internet at the ashram, and she usually switches off, unplugs from society for a while. But wait… How is he still doing interviews then? Her brief text about switching off for a bit was a week ago, so they must have left then. The frustration of not knowing how émilienne really feels builds. ‘Why do you care?’
Coraline’s face falls. ‘You think I’m an overzealous fan, and maybe I am, it’s just that Emmanuel Roux has been on my TV screen for the last fifteen years. How strange it will be coming home and not seeing his face. It’s a comfort to watch him being flirtatious, charming, using all those funny one-liners only he could get away with.’ There’s a sag to her shoulders as if her body has deflated alongside her mood. ‘It’s like losing a best friend, a friend you can never ever speak to again. I feel a sense of abandonment…’ At that confession, she flushes deep scarlet.
It all clicks into place. This is a clear case of an imaginationship: a crush that develops in your mind and builds up over a long period. Ah, how I’ve misjudged Coraline’s motivations. Emmanuel’s character on TV is the Emmanuel she adores from afar, a fictional man who she has grown to love. But haven’t we all done that? I’ve fallen for many an author of letters from the past because of the way they wrote about love and desire. I’m annoyed at myself for not seeing it sooner – Coraline is lonely, just like the rest of us.
I give her arm a useless pat. ‘Oh, I get it now. It makes sense you feel the way you do, and honestly, I think we’ve all been there.’
She gives me a wobbly smile. ‘Now he’s chanting “om” instead of learning his lines. I’ll miss him. Miss him more than is probably healthy.’
I don’t dare say, but it won’t be long before they’re back in Paris, eating buttery creamy foods and drinking carafes of wine. My friend ém is happy to escape every now and then for healthier pursuits but it’s more of a circuit breaker, a detox from life for a bit. I toy with an idea, not sure if I should suggest it or not. After all, Coraline is still a gossip aficionado, and I’m opening myself up to all sorts of issues if she finds out about my alter ego. As I survey the sadness in her eyes, and can almost hear the breaking of her heart, the choice is made for me. Everyone deserves love, and this type of bruised heart is exactly what Paris Cupid caters to. We’ve shared a confidence, a secret of hers that has changed my opinion of her in some significant way.
‘Have you ever thought about signing up to this Paris Cupid? Perhaps getting to know someone else in a slow, gradual way might be a nice distraction?’
‘Replacing him with a pen pal? Not my style.’ Her words are heavy with sarcasm. Why do they always fight it?
‘It’s not for everyone, I guess.’
‘Have you thought about joining?’
I give a loose shrug. ‘Why not? What’s not to love about getting to know a stranger in a slower way? Remember when you’d tell each customer of yours that each flower tells a story, to be careful what they bunched together because they all have meanings? You could write about what they mean to you, and how you came to be a florist.’
She folds her arms. ‘Floriography, the language of flowers. It used to fascinate me what each bloom meant and that you could send a message in the most secretive of ways. And then I just lost interest… after my worst break-up to date.’
‘What happened?’ I can’t recall ever seeing her with a significant other.
Coraline gives me a sad smile. ‘I helped him when he needed it and once he was back on his feet, he left – just like that.’ Her lip quivers as if she’s battling to rein in her emotions. ‘It feels like an abandonment each time, like I’ve served my purpose and whatever we had together had no real depth, for them at least. It’s a bit of a pattern in my love life.’
‘Maybe joining Paris Cupid might help change that pattern?’
She takes a moment to contemplate it. ‘Why am I holding on to the past so hard? I need to get back out there and find love, rediscover the hidden language of flowers again.’
I give her an encouraging smile. ‘So you’ll join Paris Cupid?’
The light in her eyes dims. ‘Paris Cupid is closed for new members. Maybe it’s closed for good? That would be just my luck – to get excited about something and have it taken away from me.’
‘Why don’t you email them about your passion for floriography? They might make an exception? After all, that’s a truly romantic topic to be able to share with a potential match. It’s worth a shot.’
‘Oui. It’s worth a shot. I’m not saying I can’t find love myself. But I do like the idea of changing the pattern.’
‘Makes total sense to me.’
‘Oh… I forgot. Guillaume is waiting for you at the patisserie, Maison du Croquembouche. He said it was urgent.’
‘Coraline!’ Just when I think we’ve mended bridges, she spends ages chatting to me while Guillaume is tapping his foot waiting impatiently for me. We never meet outside of Ephemera or Montmartre cemetery for business meetings, so this is strange. I hurry along, hoping it’s nothing serious.
The display window of Maison du Croquembouche is full of colourful macarons and mouthwatering gateaux. In pride of place is a breathtaking croquembouche tower, made up of profiteroles laced together with gossamer-thin strings of spun toffee.
Peering in, I see Guillaume chatting to Désirée. Guillaume’s other great love is canelés and while Maison du Croquembouche is famous for its profiterole towers, it’s also known for making the best syrupy rum-infused caramelised crusted canelés.
‘Ah, Lilou!’ Guillaume calls, and I enter the shop, assailed with the sweet scent of cakes. I search his face for clues for this out-of-the-blue meeting but find his features amiable.
‘Bonjour. Is everything OK?’ Guillaume appears healthy and happy. I relax my shoulders and say, ‘Coraline said it was urgent.’
He frowns. ‘Lilou, don’t you ever answer your phone? Really, you’re impossible to do business with.’
I grin at his usual gruffness. It’s just his way. He likes order in a disorderly world and unfortunately, I’m a shambles in that regard. ‘I didn’t hear it ring.’ I search my handbag and come up empty, remembering too late that I put my phone on charge before I took a shower this morning, and there it’s stayed. ‘Désolé, I forgot my phone. But here I am, in the flesh.’
‘Late as usual.’
‘Well, we didn’t have an appointment for a business meeting, and if we did we always meet at Montmartre cemetery, and then I take your deliveries on Fridays, so you’ll have to give me some leeway, non?’
‘Oui, oui. You’re probably right, but still, I haven’t got all day. And I did call you many times, and you didn’t answer…’
I cut him off before he continues highlighting all my foibles, of which there are many according to him. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense. What did you call me for?’
Désirée interrupts, order pad in hand. ‘Bonjour, Lilou. How are you?’
I’ve always liked Désirée. She’s the one person who never sticks her nose in anyone’s business and always has a smile on her face. I put this breeziness down to the fact she’s surrounded by sugary sweet treats. Who wouldn’t be joyful surrounded by the art of patisserie all day long? It’s the perfect type of workplace where you can eat your feelings if you’re down. And from the range of gateaux on offer, you wouldn’t be down long. There are rows of éclair au chocolat, tarte au fraises with ruby red berries, millefeuille, which means ‘a thousand sheets’ in French, alluding to the delicate layers that make up the pastry, and crème patissière. Patisserie is an art form and one that is highly regarded in France.
‘I’m well, thanks, Désirée.’ I get lost for a moment, starting at the delights in the display fridge. ‘What’s good today?’
She lifts a thick and lustrous brow. ‘May I recommend the chocolate ganache cake with Amarena cherries? It’s a new menu item and proving very popular.’
‘Oui.’ My stomach rumbles, drawing a frown from my conservative dining companion. ‘And I’ll have a café crème, please.’
‘Won’t be long.’
‘Merci.’ I face Guillaume. ‘She’s always so jovial. It’s like she absorbs the sweetness in the air.’
As usual, he disrupts my musings with an impatient sigh. ‘Honestly, Lilou, if you poured half the effort you use to wonder about people into your business, you could expand your shop and get into the antique furniture trade.’
I reel back. ‘I couldn’t think of anything worse. Why would I take on all that work? Not to mention selling antique furniture doesn’t interest me in the slightest.’ Did Pascale’s throwaway comment about there being more value in other antiques get to Guillaume? The profit margins on the ephemera I sell may be markedly less, but it’s more valuable in so many other ways.
Guillaume does the obligatory head shake, making his disappointment known. Sure, there’s a lot more money in other avenues of antiques, but if they don’t inspire me, what’s the point? There’s no need for expansion. I’m happy in my little stall at the Marché Dauphine. Like most people, Guillaume presumes I have a lot of downtime as we’re only open three days a week in the market, but clearly that isn’t the case when I spend the other days hunting for stock and spending my nights working as Paris Cupid.
Désirée appears with my coffee and cake and my stomach rumbles its thanks. ‘Magnifique!’
‘Merci. Guillaume, your crêpe au jambon will be along shortly.’
He lets out a weary sigh. ‘The bane of my life, always waiting, waiting, waiting.’
Désirée shakes her head and doesn’t play into his grumbling. ‘You’ll survive, Guillaume,’ she says as she walks away with a laugh.
He clears his throat and says, ‘You’re curious as to this unexpected visit.’ He has a faraway look in his eyes. It’s almost as if he’s talking to himself.
‘Oui.’ While I’m eager to know, Guillaume is not the type to do business over crepes and café crème, so I presume it’s a personal matter. I don’t rush him; I let the silence sit between us until he’s ready to share.
I’m halfway through my café crème when he speaks. ‘I wrote a letter. But I can’t send it.’ He casts his gaze to the table. Gone is the amiable fa?ade of the Frenchman enjoying café life. This is a worried man who can’t meet my eye.
A wave of guilt washes over me because my urging him to join Paris Cupid is making him doubt himself like this. His melancholy is almost palpable, and I struggle with how best to support him in this moment. I pat the top of his hand while he gathers his thoughts.
I truly believe female companionship is what he needs most. A friend to dine with, attend the theatre with. All he does is work, and that’s not the French way. The workaholic ideal is abhorred here. There’s no balance, and Parisians enjoy après work more than anything.
‘So you wrote the letter but you couldn’t send it because…?’ He nods and averts his gaze once more. I take a moment to decipher why he can’t look me in the eye. Ah. ‘You’re feeling guilty about Mathilde?’
‘Oui,’ he says, his voice cracking on the shortest of words.
I swallow a lump in my throat. It’s difficult to see the sadness return to his eyes as if it were just yesterday Mathilde left. This new situation has clearly reawakened a lot of memories of his beloved and reopened wounds that were once closed. What can I say to appease his guilt? When the end neared for Mathilde, she and I had many a chat about what would come next for Guillaume, and she did suggest he find a companion when he was ready. But will he believe me? She couldn’t tell him herself. She tried, but he wouldn’t listen. Talk of her impending death he outlawed completely. The head-in-sand approach was his way of dealing with it. And I understood. Death is so final, it was easier for him to pretend it wasn’t drawing near.
I take his hand across the table. ‘I don’t have to say it, do I? You already know.’
Slowly, he lifts his glassy eyes and meets mine. ‘What if she didn’t mean it?’
Is there anything more beautiful than a man who wants to keep his promise about loving her eternally for both their lifetimes? I fight back my own tears, as his fall. For a moment, we sit in these roiled-up feelings. Love and death. The cornerstones of life. I don’t want to dole out platitudes because they just don’t land in situations like this. Mathilde was a rare gem and he will always love her, but that doesn’t mean he can’t hold another in his heart too.
‘You know, Guillaume, that you can’t keep living life this way. You’re only half here. You subsist on work, and that’s no way to be. When you’re not working, or travelling for work, you hide away in your apartment. You don’t ever dine out in the evenings any more, you don’t go to the opera, the theatre, and you loved doing those things.’ I’ve invited him often enough, but he always refuses.
It strikes me, I’ve been doing the same thing. Sure, I can use the excuse that Paris Cupid is stealing my nights away, but if I’m honest, I was hiding out in my apartment before then too. Le scandale made me feel that a bit of hibernation was in order and then I just stopped going out in the evenings altogether. Eating out alone gets a little tedious and while I have plenty of friends, I tend to catch up with them during the day when I’m crisscrossing Paris meeting suppliers.
Guillaume’s lip wobbles as he recognises the truth in what I say.
‘Hiding away is not honouring Mathilde.’ He tries to compose himself, so I continue. ‘We get one life, a short time on this merry-go-round. You’ve been incredibly lucky in love until Mathilde was called away, but that doesn’t mean that you have to stop living too.’
He nods. ‘She wrote me a letter, you know, and left it inside my pillowcase.’
I smile. That’s so Mathilde. ‘And?’
‘She said I was a stubborn old man.’
We share a burst of laughter. Mathilde was not one to pull punches, especially when it came to her husband. ‘She got that right.’
‘She said there’d come a time when I was ready to find love again. I’d feel it. But how do I know that this is the time? What if I’m wrong?’
‘What if you’re not?’
‘I’m too old for this caper.’
‘Just think of this like having a pen pal. A friend to correspond with. I’m sure Clementine has all the same reservations as you. There’s nothing here suggesting there’s any expectation except friendship to begin with.’
‘Can I write that in my letter, do you think?’
‘Why not? Honesty is the best policy.’
‘Thank you, Lilou. A new friend wouldn’t be so bad. Forgive an old man his tears.’ He takes a handkerchief from his top pocket and scrubs his face, while I send Mathilde my thanks. I bet she’s orchestrated this from wherever she is. She was the type of woman not to let death stand in her way.