Twenty-five
A rielle stood under the shower, trying to wake herself up properly. She hadn’t slept at all well, taking ages to drop off with her mind buzzing so much with everything that had been going on, and sleeping only fitfully afterwards. What on earth had possessed her to suggest last night that they get to the Luxembourg early, when the gates opened at 7.30? She could have done with a much slower start. But there was no way now she could change the schedule. The twins were too excited, chattering about the day’s activities, and Pauline, bright-eyed and brisk, had already packed everything they needed.
It wasn’t only thoughts of the Grandiers and Vella that had kept her awake last night. She had to give Daniel an answer about the trip to the bee farm. She’d wanted so much to say yes when he’d asked her. But something had held her back. Was it really because of the children? Or because she was afraid of taking the next step with him? She’d never been able to think of sex as something simple, something that you could take lightly and class with the ordinary things of life, and now it was even more so …
She’d come out of the shower and was getting dressed when her phone pinged. Glancing at the screen, she stiffened. It was a text from Thierry Grandier. Heart thumping, she fumbled the message open and stared at the words. In Ludo’s memory, please consider .
No greeting, no sign-off, just those enigmatic words. She couldn’t decide if they were conciliatory, menacing, or plain sad. He knew, of course, that it was Ludo’s birthday, and that they’d be marking it with a special outing. The Grandiers had never come with them; in their view, the decent place to remember someone was by their graveside. Virginie especially had made no secret of the fact that she thought the memorial outings were strange. Grotesque, actually, she’d called it.
But they’d never contacted her before, on one of those days. And she knew what Pauline would say, if she told her—that it was meant as a threat and that she must on no account reply; that she should take up Daniel’s offer and have him call his lawyer mother. Perhaps she should. But she didn’t know what to think. She looked down at the message, rereading it carefully, but still came to no conclusion. Maybe she would, later … In the meantime, she’d keep quiet about it.
‘Maman!’ The twins were banging on the door. ‘Breakfast is ready! We have to go soon!’
‘Coming!’ she called, putting away the phone and hurrying out of the room.
Forty minutes later, the four of them were standing at the gilded gates of the Luxembourg. There was already a small group of people waiting, but as the gates opened, the twins were the first to race in. They were on a mission: spotting as many statues as they could in five minutes. As the Luxembourg is home to more than a hundred statues, there were plenty around to choose from!
‘Remember the rules. No running, only walking,’ said Arielle, mock-sternly.
‘And no cheating,’ said Pauline, in the same fake-grave tone. ‘No counting statues twice!’
Arielle and Pauline set the timers on their phones, the two teams—Arielle with Alice, Pauline with Louis—took off in opposite directions, and the race was on.
Alice had just counted the first four statues in their tally when Arielle’s phone rang. Thierry , she thought, at once, her heart clenching. The text hadn’t been enough, now he was calling. She took her phone out and checked it. The number pulsating wasn’t Thierry’s. It was Romaine. She frowned. Because a clashing commitment meant Coralie couldn’t cover Arielle’s shift today, Monsieur Renan asked Romaine to step in, and she’d agreed. They both knew how much these annual outings meant to Arielle and her family. So why was Romaine calling? Surely she hadn’t changed her mind …
‘Maman, they’re going to beat us if we don’t hurry!’ Alice’s reproachful voice called her back to the task at hand. Shoving the phone back in her pocket, she smiled and said, ‘Sorry. Let’s go!’
Minutes later, the timer announced the end of the race, and they hurried back to the start, where Pauline and Louis were waiting for them. ‘We found ten statues!’ Alice announced, proudly. ‘Well, we found eleven, so we won!’ Louis retorted, and Alice instantly said, ‘That’s not fair!’
‘It is so,’ said Louis. ‘We got one more than you!’
‘We would have got more than you,’ Alice shouted, ‘only Maman had to stop!’ And she glared at her mother, who snapped, ‘That’s enough, Alice! Someone’s got to win and it doesn’t always have to be you.’
Pauline raised an eyebrow. Normally it was her who said tough things like that. ‘Never mind,’ she soothed, as the little girl’s lower lip trembled, ‘both you and Louis did very well. Now, how about we go and have our second breakfast, and you two can tell Maman and me which were your favourite statues.’
‘Oh yes, let’s do that,’ said Arielle, ashamed of her outburst. It was the second time in as many days that she had lashed out at those close to her. ‘Alice found so many interesting statues, didn’t you, darling?’ she went on, putting a gentle hand on her shoulder. The child didn’t answer, but at least she didn’t flinch.
They made their way to a patch of grass, sat down, and spread out their feast—fresh brioche and pain au chocolat from the local boulangerie , and hot chocolate and coffee from thermoses. With the help of the double chocolate hit, Alice recovered very quickly, and she was soon chatting away about her favourite statues, while Louis, still glowing from his unexpected win, but thoughtfully not rubbing it in, was just as talkative. But Arielle still felt bad, and the coffee and brioche didn’t give her the same pleasure as usual.
They had finished when Arielle’s phone buzzed once more. She glanced at the screen. ‘Sorry,’ she said, ‘but I’m going to have to take this. It’s Romaine, and she’s already rung once.’
‘Dear God, can’t the woman do one shift without bothering you on your day off?’ Pauline grumbled. Arielle shrugged, walked a short distance away, and swiped up to reply. ‘Hello, Romaine. What’s up?’
As she listened to the panicky blurting on the other end, her stomach dropped. ‘He’s lying,’ she said, tightly, when Romaine drew to a halt, ‘but don’t worry, give me fifteen minutes and I’ll be there, okay?’
Going back to Pauline, she said, in an undertone, ‘I’m going to have to go to the stand for a little while, there’s a bit of a situation,’ and quickly recounted what Romaine had told her. Pauline’s eyes widened, but all she said was, ‘Go, don’t worry about us, we’ll be fine, and we’ll see you when you get back.’
Hurrying out of the park towards the Metro station, Arielle called Daniel. ‘Listen, I know it’s a lot to ask, but this is what’s happened …’ She filled him in rapidly, and after she’d finished, he simply said, ‘I’m on my way.’
She reached the flower market in the promised fifteen minutes. It was just before opening time. Arielle approached Monsieur Renan’s stand from the far end of the pavilion, so she’d not have to run the gauntlet past Vella’s stand, where a small knot of people had gathered.
Romaine was hovering anxiously at the back of the stand, out of sight behind some tall plants, but when she saw Arielle, her face brightened. ‘Thank God you’re here. He says he’s going to call the police. Oh my God, when Papa finds out …’ She’d told Arielle that she hadn’t said anything to her father yet, not wanting to worry him. Arielle thought Monsieur Renan would have coped better than his daughter, but she didn’t say that.
‘It’s okay,’ she soothed. ‘We’ll sort this out in no time. Besides, I’m sure the police have better things to do than investigate a few broken pots and a rude note. Now tell me again exactly what happened.’
‘I got here early, at about quarter past seven,’ Romaine said, ‘because I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to get everything ready before opening time, despite those very helpful instructions you left. There was hardly anyone else here when I arrived and I had been here about twenty minutes when Monsieur Vella arrived, opened up his shutters and yelled very loudly. Like others, I ran over to see what had happened and that’s when we saw that his stand had been vandalised, there were broken pots and dirt and crushed plants everywhere. And on top of the mess was a sheet of paper, with words computer-printed in bold: Casse-toi, con .’ Break yourself, dickhead, literally; idiomatically, Piss off, dickhead.
How many times have I longed to say that to him , Arielle thought, and I’m not the only one . Vella was not a popular man. Aloud, she said, ‘And that’s when he accused me and Daniel of doing it?’
Romaine nodded, miserably. ‘He was very angry, wanted to know where you were, and when I said you had the day off, he said, How very convenient! Then he claimed that you’d had a heated argument with him yesterday, that you threatened him and that it wasn’t the first time you’d threatened people, there was some situation the other day with some other people, Daniel was involved in that too, Vella seems to think it’s part of a pattern of aggression …’
Fury rose in Arielle. He had not only accused her, but he was also dragging Daniel into it, and trying to make Romaine suspect there was something to what he’d said. ‘He’s twisted everything, Romaine,’ she snapped. ‘I’m going to talk to that bastard, right now.’
‘But he’ll only say that you are trying to intimidate him again …’
Arielle didn’t answer. Turning on her heel, she headed to Vella’s stand. The people had dispersed now, apart from a man Arielle knew vaguely, a fellow market trader called Olivier, who was trying to coax Vella up from the chair where he sat slumped, looking the very picture of misery, Arielle thought, sarcastically.
When Olivier saw her, he shook his head, slightly, in a gesture that cheered Arielle, for though it was advising her to keep away, there was no condemnation in his eyes. He was a decent man, she knew that. Then Vella looked up and saw her and immediately jumped up, shrieking, ‘Keep her away from me!’ And he actually stood behind Olivier’s broad back, as if seeking protection. Well, overacting was clearly one of his skills.
It didn’t play well with Olivier, who looked uncomfortable. ‘For God’s sake, Jacques,’ he said, ‘she’s half your size. What do you think she’s going to do to you?’
‘You saw what she did!’ Vella wailed, throwing his arms around in a dramatic gesture. ‘Hundreds of euros worth of damage! And what about the note? It’s not simply telling me to get lost, I think it’s threatening to break my limbs, just like the pots!’
The renewed commotion was attracting attention, not only from other market traders now, but from the first customers of the day, who had started trickling in. Arielle knew that although most of the other stallholders would be on her side, a few would only see the possible damage to their trade. And with the ubiquity of mobile phones, the fracas could quickly find its way onto social media via tourists’ posts, attracting scandal and speculation as well as the ire of market authorities. She had to stop this in its tracks, right now. Forcing herself to speak calmly, she said, ‘May I enquire why you think it was me, Monsieur Vella?’
‘Who else could it be?’ he sneered.
‘How could I have got into your stand, Monsieur Vella, when it was locked?’
‘Well—you see, I was so shaken yesterday after she threatened me—’ and he looked piteously at Olivier—‘that I forgot to lock up, and that’s how she managed to …’
Arielle remembered how she’d noticed Vella’s stand had closed earlier than usual yesterday afternoon. She had a sudden vision of him crouching in his stand, behind the closed shutters, waiting till everyone had gone and he could go about the business of breaking pots and leaving stupid notes. It seemed utterly crazy. But the alternative, that he really had left his stand unlocked and an opportunistic vandal had taken the chance to wreak havoc, with a taunting note as a bonus, was, to say the least, very unlikely. ‘What do the cameras show?’ she asked Olivier.
He shrugged. ‘Jacques hasn’t had time to ask.’
‘He does now,’ said Daniel, appearing at that moment, followed by Romaine. ‘Monsieur Vella, shall we accompany you and this other gentleman to the market office and ask to see the footage from last night? I am sure that in the circumstances they would agree.’ His tone was polite but steely, and Vella blinked.
‘I know what I know,’ he snapped, ‘I don’t need cameras to prove it. She threatened me and you know it.’ He gave Daniel a hard stare. ‘And if it wasn’t her, it was you.’
‘Jacques,’ Olivier protested, ‘come on, that’s enough. You know vandals have caused problems here before and you certainly can’t accuse people, let alone fellow traders, without proof. What this gentleman says is perfectly reasonable. Let’s go together to check the cameras …’
‘Oh, casse-toi, pauvre con ,’ spat Vella.
The moment he said it, he must have realised what he’d done, but too late. Olivier gave him a look of utter contempt, then turned to Arielle, saying, ‘I’ll leave him to you. But no one believes him. We all know what he’s like.’ And he walked away.
Vella stared defiantly at Arielle and Daniel. ‘Whatever that fool says, I know what I know, and I’m going to report you for this.’
‘That’s your choice, Monsieur Vella,’ said Arielle, grimly, ‘but I really wouldn’t advise it.’
‘Legal action is very expensive,’ Daniel chimed in, ‘and I think there will be no shortage of witnesses to your unacceptable behaviour not only recently but over time.’
‘Including my father and myself,’ Romaine added, unexpectedly. ‘And you know how well regarded my father is here, Monsieur Vella.’
‘He’s an old has-been,’ growled Vella, ‘who cares what he says?’
‘I think you’ll find the Mairie de Paris cares, Monsieur Vella,’ she retorted, head high, eyes cold as ice. ‘And that’s where I work. Reviewing market trading permits, as it happens.’
Arielle smiled inwardly. Romaine really was her father’s daughter!
Vella had gone chalky white. ‘I’m sorry, Madame Vinier, I didn’t mean to—you understand—it’s simply that I’ve been shaken by—’
‘Yes,’ said Romaine, still in that coldly confident tone, ‘I do understand. And I’m sure this has all been a misunderstanding. If you apologise for your intemperate accusations at a time of stress, perhaps Madame Lunel and Monsieur Auban will accept that and it will go no further.’
Vella glanced at them. In a choked voice, he said, ‘I was only—it was just such a shock—I am sure you can understand—but if I have caused offence, I regret it.’
Arielle felt like throwing the so-called apology back in his lying face, but galling as it was, she knew she had to accept it. Insisting on an investigation would take time and cause too much trouble. Besides, gossip about what had happened would fly around the market like lightning and Vella’s reputation, such as it was, would be shot for good. It wouldn’t merely be contempt he’d meet with; it would be ridicule, and for a man like him, that was worse. To cap it all off he could hardly dare to claim for the damage on his insurance or risk facing questions about the supposed vandals. So he’d have to cover the costs himself.
Yes, he’d be punished enough, she decided. And fittingly, it would be by his own stupidly malicious hand.
‘Very well, Monsieur Vella,’ she said, coolly, ‘we will speak no more of it,’
‘Indeed,’ Daniel agreed, adding silkily, ‘for I am sure you deeply regret your actions.’
You could almost hear Vella grinding his teeth as he muttered something in agreement. And so they left him there, looking at the mess he’d have to clear up on his own now, for no one would be willing to help him.