A Secret Garden in Paris
One
T he dawn light was only just filtering through the curtains, but Emma Taylor was already wide awake. She had been lying sleepless for at least an hour, determinedly keeping her eyes closed, trying to ensure her mind remained empty, and failing. Now, giving up all pretence that she was going to go back to sleep, she got up, shrugged on the retro velvet dressing-gown Mattie had lent her, padded over to the window and drew back the curtains.
The bedroom looked out over the garden at the back of the house, and in the gold and pink of early morning, its overgrown vegetation assumed a fleetingly magical quality. The garden wasn’t large, but it had once packed a great deal of beauty into not much more than a hundred square metres. There had been soft grass to sit on, a big wisteria against one wall—you could still see it, even now—rosebushes and hydrangeas, and carefully tended beds bright with flowers from spring to autumn, as well as a few edibles such as tomatoes and herbs. The garden had been her grandfather Alain’s pride and joy, but since his death two and a half years ago, it had been slowly neglected to the point where now, overtaken by weeds and rank long grass, it would take quite a lot of work to get right again. Her grandmother Mattie simply hadn’t had the heart to tackle it.
Emma opened the window, breathing in the fresh morning air. The sounds of Paris waking up came floating above the high wall of the garden. Sounds that she’d already become accustomed to, even though she’d arrived jet-lagged from the other side of the world only a week ago. It was a cocktail of mechanical noises: the hum of early-morning traffic on the boulevards, the underground rumble of trains in a nearby Metro station, the swish of street-sweeping machines, the muffled thump of van doors as shop deliveries were made, and the distant sirens of police and ambulances. But interwoven with that was a glittering thread of birdsong: blackbirds, warblers, robins, thrushes and wrens, taking part in the dawn chorus. Emma could hear them but couldn’t see them, for they were hidden in the garden below and the surrounding trees.
As she stood there, an image came into her mind of her mother as a girl, standing at this very window, listening to the birds. A lump formed in her throat, and she was about to turn away when her attention was caught by a flash of red in the garden below. ‘Monsieur Leroux took up residence here last autumn,’ Mattie had told her on her first day, ‘but he doesn’t keep regular hours, so you can never be sure when he might appear.’ This was the first time Emma had seen him since she’d arrived.
‘Bonjour, Monsieur Leroux,’ Emma whispered as the red squirrel scampered lightly across the grass before vanishing into the undergrowth. Monsieur Leroux—Mr Redhead. It was typical of her grandmother to have given the little creature a name. There was something childlike about Mattie, something sweet yet clear-eyed.
Emma didn’t remember the first time she’d met her grandmother because she’d been three years old when her French grandparents had come to Australia. It was their sole visit. And Emma had only been twice to her grandparents’ lovely old house tucked away in a quiet street of the 7th arrondissement of Paris. The first time, she was seven years old and her stepfather, Paddy, had persuaded her mother, Corinne, to visit. What Emma most remembered from those three dreamlike weeks were impressions: a cosy house with lots of stairs, her grandfather’s slow smile and slow speech, her grandmother’s sparkly manner and eccentric way of dressing, so different from her mother’s understated chic. There were memories of riding ponies and sailing toy wooden yachts in the nearby Jardin du Luxembourg and listening in delight to her grandmother’s story of the dancing faun statue there. She remembered eating divine cakes from the local patisserie—such as the best chocolate éclairs she’d ever eaten—and riding on the Metro, visiting the little zoo in the Jardin des Plantes and playing in the garden while her grandfather weeded around her.
Then they’d gone home to Australia, time had passed and passed. Somehow, her childhood went by and they didn’t return to France. Mattie had a heart condition that made flying difficult, so her grandparents didn’t come back to Australia either. There were letters exchanged—Emma always wrote a special one at Christmas—and phone calls for birthdays, but that was it. As a child, Emma didn’t wonder about her mother’s attitude, and if, as a teenager, she occasionally asked herself questions about her mother’s past in France, she didn’t voice them. And so her grandparents remained as vague, kindly presences in her memories of that first time in Paris. There seemed to be no particular urgency for Emma to see them again, or perhaps it was just that her mother’s detached attitude towards them had affected her more than she had realised.
In any case, it wasn’t until two and a half years ago that Emma had finally come back to Paris. And that was for her grandfather Alain’s funeral. She’d come with her mother and they’d stayed ten days. It had been hard, and not only because of the sad occasion. Paddy couldn’t come because of work and Corinne hadn’t wanted Emma to come, but for once Emma put her foot down. Emma wasn’t sure if her mother had agreed because her daughter’s unusual firmness had taken her by surprise, or because she was more vulnerable than she cared to admit. It was a big thing to lose your father, no matter how strained the relationship had been, and Corinne did seem to be genuinely affected. Emma had thought that might trigger a proper reconnection between her mother and grandmother, but unfortunately, once they were in France, the old barriers seemed to go up. Although Corinne tried to provide comfort to her mother, it was clear that it was an effort, and Mattie must have seen that, though she never reproached her.
Sometimes it felt as though her mother’s life had only really started when she’d set foot in Australia thirty-two years ago as a pregnant twenty-year-old; or perhaps when she’d met Paddy, several months later. Corinne talked readily enough about her life in Australia, before and after Emma was born. But although she had spoken a bit about her childhood, the years of her adolescence and the period just before she left France were a closed book, which she passed over in silence. She’d never spoken about Emma’s father, other than to say that it hadn’t worked out with him.
Emma had always thought of Paddy as her real father. He’d been there from her earliest babyhood, steady, kind, funny, and full of love. For her, and for her mother. And that was all that mattered. But now …
She turned from the window, her gaze falling on the photograph propped up on the mantelpiece. It was a black-and-white shot of her mother as a very young woman, late teens maybe, lying in long grass, laughing, chin propped up on her elbows, a crooked chain of daisies on her head. It was a beautiful picture but it made Emma’s eyes prickle with tears.
‘Emma?’ Her grandmother’s voice, surprisingly deep for such a small woman, came suddenly through the door. ‘You’re awake, ma chérie ? I thought I would make some hot chocolate to warm us, it’s such a chilly morning.’
Emma blinked away the tears. ‘That sounds perfect, Mattie,’ she said. It was, in fact, not particularly chilly for a May morning, but she’d learned that her grandmother was frileuse , a succinct but untranslatable French term for someone who easily felt the cold. Emma would have preferred coffee, but she could have that later, and she’d got used to the morning ritual of watching Mattie in the kitchen downstairs, fiddling about with the little saucepan she kept specifically for hot chocolate, and chatting about this and that, letting Emma enter the flow of talk when she felt ready. During such moments, Emma knew how much she’d missed. But also how right she had been to come at last.
Across the river, Charlotte Marigny jogged through quiet leafy streets, earbuds pouring in a stream of her special Paris running playlist. It was an eclectic mix of classic Parisian songs—Piaf and Brel and a smidgen of old-school French rock, like Johnny Hallyday and Michel Polnareff and, just for a bit of fun, ‘ ?a plane pour moi ’, Plastic Bertrand’s bizarre earworm of a punk song. She remembered hopping up and down to that as a little kid, delighted at being invited into the world of her teenage brother, Nicolas. The one-hit wonder still had cult status in France, but Nicolas had long outgrown it and the quiff of dyed blond hair that he’d affected at the time, in homage to the singer. Now he had an important job somewhere in the corridors of the European Parliament in Brussels that he could be a little pompous about explaining, so she didn’t ask. She was staying at their aunt Juliette’s place in the 16th while Juliette was off on some jaunt in Prague with an old friend who Charlotte suspected had once been a lover. Her aunt obviously knew something was up because she had told her to stay for as long as she needed, but she hadn’t probed at why her niece felt she needed to get away so precipitously.
The sun had fully risen by now, and the city was really coming to life. Boulangeries were already busy, disgorging puffs of warm, appetising smells every time their doors opened and the breakfast customers emerged, fresh baguettes under arms and bags of croissants in hand; early-shift workers lined up at café counters to throw down thimblefuls of black coffee before hurrying on; stalls and shops were being readied to open. Turning down the next street, Charlotte found herself by the river, where dogwalkers and the occasional fellow runner passed by, as the silver-grey water lapped softly against the quays and the odd boat chugged slowly on its way to somewhere. She stopped for a moment to catch her breath and take a swig of water from the bottle at her waist. She gazed across the river and for a moment she was entranced all over again by the sheer enchantment of this city that had once been her city, the place where she’d been born and brought up. Her home was in London now, had been for many years. She’d married there, brought up a family, founded a very successful garden design business, and over time had grown to love London, in a different way from how she loved Paris, but almost as much. Her Paris playlist was all about nostalgia, she thought as she took a final swig and put the bottle away, but her London playlists were an embodiment of a busy life and her confidence in her work, marriage, children …
A face flashed into her mind, and she almost groaned as the all-too-familiar pain and confusion struck her hard. Pushing the earbuds further in and turning up the volume, she set off again, running faster than before, trying to outpace her thoughts. For the first time in a very long time, Charlotte Marigny had no idea what to do.
Several Metro stops away, Arielle Lunel rushed down the stairs to the platform just as a train drew in. It was already crowded, and she hoped she didn’t smell too much of the sweat she could feel trickling down the back of her neck. Ouf , well at least she wouldn’t be late for work, and Pauline, who worked from home as a translator, would make sure the children got to school as usual. Normally Arielle wasn’t in such a rush, but for some reason the alarm hadn’t sounded this morning and that had thrown everything out of kilter. It was hard enough as a single working mother trying to organise everyday life around two lively children while living in a space that wasn’t really their own. Her sister never said anything about the invasion of her previously quiet and ordered apartment, but occasionally Arielle caught an expression of exasperation on Pauline’s face which made her feel a pang of guilt.
She was so grateful to Pauline, who once again had put her life on hold for her. When their parents had died, Pauline had been only twenty but she had thrown herself into parenting her thirteen-year-old sister in the best way she could. Twenty-five years later, she had offered to let Arielle and the then three-year-old twins move in with her, after the trauma of Ludovic’s death in a car accident was followed by the shocking revelation of a mountain of debts he’d incurred, unbeknownst to her. Arielle had been forced to sell pretty much everything of value to pay off the debts, including, most painfully, her beloved flower shop, which she’d owned from well before she’d married Ludo. And she’d also had to give up the grand apartment in the 4th that they’d previously rented.
Pauline’s apartment in the 18th was a long way from where Arielle worked now, managing a stall in the flower market on the ?le de la Cité, but she could at least contribute to the rent and household expenses, with some money left over for treats. And the apartment was a reasonable size, with two bedrooms plus a small study that had been converted into Arielle’s bedroom. The twins had to share a room, but they preferred that even though they had very different personalities—Alice was outspoken and impulsive, Louis quieter and gentler.
Slowly, as first one year passed, then two, their lives had settled into a new pattern. Three years since Ludo’s death, Arielle still missed him, but the grief was softer now, a dull ache rather than a sharp pain. The children they had made together were the light of her life. And her job managing Monsieur Renan’s beautiful stall in the flower market, which had started off as a temporary position on fairly basic wages, had become not only permanent but also better paid, and satisfying in a way Arielle hadn’t expected.
It wasn’t the same as running her own flower shop, but it had its own distinctive pleasures—and, she had to admit, it was less stressful than owning your own business, especially as Monsieur Renan gave her free rein when it came to the day-to-day running of the stall. There was just one problem—not something to do with the stall itself, but …
The train doors opened and people spilled out onto the platform. But the carriages didn’t move on, seemingly delayed by something. It was the stop before Arielle’s and she decided to get off. She’d still be there before opening time if she walked really quickly.
Unfortunately, the crowds were thicker than she’d thought, and as she finally made her way over the bridge onto the island and hurried into the flower market, she saw that Jacques Vella was already there, fussing unnecessarily around his display. He raised his eyebrows as she approached and tapped his watch significantly. She ignored that and gave him a cursory nod before hurrying on to her stall, her pleasure at opening marred by irritation. Why couldn’t that man ever let up?