Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Nothing was really working out as it was supposed to.
I lay in bed that night, thinking of all the expectations I’d had when setting off on that flight from Dublin to Paris.
I had well and truly lost my way in life and that was long before my mother’s passing.
Although I was too ashamed to admit it to myself, I had used her illness as an excuse to avoid my own life.
Every time someone suggested that I try something different or go somewhere new, I always had the excuse of caring for my mother.
Not that I regretted that time, but I could have been there for her and lived my life at the same time.
Cystic fibrosis had forced my mother to see life as one big opportunity that has to be grabbed and enjoyed before it’s too late.
I admired her for her courage and wanted so much to be like her. But life doesn’t work that way.
Maybe Hugo was right. Maybe it was time I faced reality and took some responsibility for my role in how things had turned out.
If my purpose in life was to look after my mother, then I didn’t have to explain to anyone why my own life was so empty.
Looking back, I could see that I never gave myself time to grieve, or acknowledge what was really going on.
I distracted myself and everyone else with endless tasks and things to be done.
The reality was just too difficult to accept.
‘What will we do without her? How will we keep on living?’ They were the kind of questions I couldn’t ask my father at the time, and so instead, I either buried myself in the practicalities or escaped into a marathon of black-and-white films. The well of grief is deep, and I was afraid I would drown in sorrow if I ever acknowledged its presence.
But just before her death, my mother sat me down and made me face the inevitable.
‘I don’t want to leave you and your father, Edie, we’ve had such a happy life together.
But that’s what I want you to focus on; how lucky we were to have had this wonderful time as a family.
We’ve got to be grateful for that. Otherwise, you’ll spend the rest of your life full of bitterness and resentment and I don’t want that for you.
’ She smiled, brushing my hair from my face with her soft, porcelain-delicate hands.
‘But I am bitter!’ I said. ‘It’s not fair…
’ I said, then buried my head in her lap, crying all of the unshed tears that had stored up over the years.
She had soothed me, then, like she had countless times before, saying that no, it wasn’t fair, in a voice that made resignation seem like the right thing to do.
‘I can’t lose you,’ I said finally.
‘You’ll never lose me, Edie,’ she said, smiling. ‘I’m in here,’ she said, tapping my chest.
Her words gave me courage to carry on, but it didn’t stop me missing her. I still wished I could be back there now, watching an old film with her and rhyming off the lines we knew by heart.
I needed a friend. Picking up my phone I texted Nicole and asked her if she had ever seen The Wizard of Oz. It was a bit late for such random questions, but she said she hadn’t, so I suggested a DVD with Max the following evening and she enthusiastically agreed.
* * *
The next morning, I began baking macarons and frosting my cupcakes as usual and placed them on a tiered stand on the counter.
They looked so bright and cheery and to my delight, sold out rather quickly.
One remained when Manu came back from school for his lunch and he happily gobbled it down in three large bites.
‘Is going well, no?’ he asked, pointing to the empty cake stand.
‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘but it’s still not enough to help our business proposal. I’m going to meet Geoff now and see if he can bring some tourists our way.’ No sooner had I said the words when Geoff and Ruby arrived.
‘Hello, cutie!’ I greeted, fussing over Ruby, who rewarded my efforts with sloppy wet kisses on my cheek.
‘For a moment there, I thought you were talking to me!’ Geoff joked, and I laughed despite myself. ‘Right, Johnny tells me you’ve got a business proposal,’ he said.
I brought them inside and turned the ‘closed’ sign on the door for lunch. I made us all some coffee and served warm croissants with butter and jam.
‘Only thing is,’ Geoff mused after I’d suggested the bakery as a stop on his tour, ‘a lot of those history buffs might not be that interested in coming back into the town for coffee. Most of them just hop back on the motorway or the train and back to Paris.’
‘Yes, but what if they were coming to visit the house where Django Reinhardt played during the war? The bakery where his cousin now lives and works?’ I held my breath, hoping he would be interested.
‘You don’t mean here?’
‘I do, indeed,’ I said, rather smug.
Just then Madame Moreau appeared, as if on cue, and Ruby rushed to greet her.
‘Oh, bonjour, ma petite,’ she cooed, obviously a dog lover.
‘Madame Moreau, you remember Geoff Harding?’
‘Ah, oui, Monsieur éclair!’ she joked affably and shook his hands.
‘Well, Geoff runs a tour-guide business,’ I continued, ‘and he might be interested in bringing his tours here.’ I beamed with pride.
They embraced warmly and Madame Moreau sat down to discuss the details with him.
She still wasn’t comfortable talking about the loss of her parents to the camps in Germany, but Geoff was so experienced in the area that he made it a little easier for her.
However, she became highly animated when talking about Django and his visit to the boulangerie that night.
‘It was wartime and of course with the curfew, it was quite dangerous, so Monsieur Moreau was worried for our safety.
But Django ‘ad that charming way about him that seemed to make everyone forget about ‘ze war, just for that night.
Word spread quickly of our little soirée until all of the locals knew.
‘Zey quickly shuffled through the side door that led down stairs and into our candlelit basement, where no light or sound could be seen or heard from ‘ze street. I ‘elped my mother set up some chairs and tables – old crates and flour sacks for tablecloths. I remember it so well, for it was the last time I saw my mother dance. I can hear it even now: her heels click-clacking on the flagstones, the laughter of our voisins, all enjoying themselves for that one, joyeux moment. Even Monsieur Moreau clapped along to the playful plucking of Django’s guitar. Being young, I grew tired quickly, but I would not let myself fall asleep – even when my mother sat me on her lap. I let my head loll on her shoulder as we swayed along to the “Minor Swing”.’
Geoff was enthralled. Ruby had lapsed into something of a coma at our feet and before I realised it, it was almost time to open up again and I had a batch of cake pops to prepare.
‘So, what do you think?’ I asked, abruptly breaking the spell Madame Moreau’s story had cast. ‘I’ve got some flyers printed up here that you could hand out to people.’ I passed them to Geoff.
‘What a story, eh?’ he remarked, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth. ‘I thought I knew all there was to know about this place in the Second World War, but this is a really interesting snapshot.’
I was delighted by Geoff’s willingness to make the boulangerie one of his tour destinations.
He reckoned Madame Moreau’s story had something for everyone, although I couldn’t help but think how he would react if I told him about Pierre Moreau’s nightly presence in the basement.
No matter how well-intentioned these people were, we couldn’t risk telling anyone about the ghost in the basement.
The only possible outcome of such a revelation would be mockery or worse, a downpour of ghost hunters landing on the doorstep, none of which would help Madame Moreau.
* * *
That evening I cycled over to Nicole’s house with a copy of The Wizard of Oz I’d found on a market stall.
I was glad to get away from the bakery for a while.
I realised that I was doing the same thing I always did, burying my head in plans and schemes to avoid my true feelings, so I knew I needed time off to get some perspective.
It was clear I had made the right call, when, snuggling up on the couch with an overexcited Max gnawing on my white-chocolate cake pops, my heart soared with joy.
Seeing him experience the magic of the Emerald City, Dorothy and her faithful friends for the first time was extremely special.
He didn’t make it to the end of the film, which was just as well because I’d never liked the flying monkeys when I was a child and I wasn’t sure how he would react.
His heavy head slung over Johnny’s shoulder as he put him to bed, no doubt dreaming of tin men and scarecrows and Toto the dog.
Nicole opened a bottle of wine and I let her pour me a very large glass.
‘Now I know who you remind me of,’ she said, out of the blue.
‘Who?’
‘Emma, from le roman by Jane Austen.’
I shook my head, mystified.
‘Johnny is doing so well on the history tours, Maman has not stopped talking about Monsieur Legrand. It seems someone mixed their order up at the bakery the other day and he came to the salon to exchange pastries … would you know anything about that?’
‘Just serendipity, I guess,’ I replied, refusing to meet her gaze.
‘Then there is les Moreau, they are happier than they have been in a long time. If it was not for your, how you say, meddling? None of this would’ve happened.’
‘Oh, yes, I suppose,’ I said, munching some pistachios she had placed in a bowl.
‘Well, you are not excited,’ she said, looking at me strangely.
‘Sorry, Nicole. No, that’s great, really. I just… Can I be honest?’
‘I would be offended if you were not,’ she said frankly.
‘I just hadn’t planned on taking on a cause, you know? That’s not why I came here.’
‘You’re afraid of ending up like Jeanne d’Arc?’
‘Joan of Arc? Hardly. Although remind me, what happened to her in the end?’ I asked, slightly embarrassed at my lack of knowledge when it came to French history.
‘She was captured in this very town.’
‘You’re kidding! Joan of Arc was in Compiègne? Is there anyone who hasn’t been to this place?’ I joked.
‘You must have seen her statue in the main square?’ She shook her head.
‘Oh, that’s who that is,’ I said, sounding like the worst tourist in the world.
‘Yes, she totally kicked ass and led France to victory in many battles. However, she was captured by the Duke of Burgundy and the English army, right here, while she was attempting to save Compiègne from invasion. They burned her at the stake for heresy, but later she was made a martyr. Now she is a patron saint of France.’
‘A martyr and a saint? Yeah, no. That’s not exactly what I had in mind when I came here,’ I replied.
‘Do you mind me asking, why did you come here, Edie? I don’t want to be nosy, but I didn’t understand your story really,’ she said in her candid way.
I took a large gulp of wine and tried to be brave enough to share my real story with Nicole.
‘My mother died a year and a half ago, and after years of putting my own life on hold, I wanted to honour her memory by living the life she gave me.’ Saying it quickly kept the tears at bay.
‘Oh, Edie, I am so sorry – you poor thing,’ she said, embracing me warmly.
‘It’s OK, we always knew her time was limited, so we just got on with it.
But, ever since she … passed away, I’ve just been sort of lost …
and drifting. So I did something completely out of character and I thought that by coming here, I would just shock myself into waking up and finding out who I am or what I want to do, I suppose.
I think I used her illness as an excuse to avoid my own life.
But now she’s gone, and I don’t know who I’m supposed to be.
’ I was slightly embarrassed at baring my soul like this, but the wine helped and there was something about Nicole that made it seem OK to not have things worked out.
‘So now you find yourself trying to save a bakery and take on a French bank, when all you wanted was a change of scenery?’ she summed up.
‘Yes, something like that. I mean, I really like Madame Moreau and I’d love to be able to help, but it’s all starting to overwhelm me.’
‘Hmm,’ she nodded, pouring more wine. ‘What about Hugo, have you heard from him?’
‘I met him for coffee. He said he wanted to explain but…’ The memory of it made me feel physically ill. ‘We just ended up saying horrible things to each other.’
Nicole put her arm around me and gave me a squeeze.
‘I thought I’d met my soulmate, but it turns out he doesn’t even have a soul.’
‘Quelle pagaille,’ she said. ‘What a mess. I thought you two were so good together.’
I shook my head. How had it all gone so wrong?
‘I was sure I could convince him somehow; get him to see how important the bakery is to Madame Moreau, to the community.’
‘Attend, attend. Forget about the damn bakery for a minute – what about you and him?’ she questioned, putting her two forefingers together.
‘There is no me and him, not now,’ I said, feeling pretty glum. ‘He crossed a line.’
‘Ah, now I see why your spirits are so low.’
‘He said some really nasty things; like how my life is just so boring that I had to come over here to try and “find myself”, as he put it.’ I was still fuming at the memory.
I noticed Nicole quietly smirking to herself, and, despite my reservations about her sometimes brutal honesty, I asked her why.
‘This is just what you said to me, about why you came here. It sounds as if he read you like a book and you’re upset because he said it.’
‘That’s not the point,’ I argued, despite the fact that her argument made perfect sense. ‘It’s the way he said it.’
I was a little surprised; I just assumed that she would take my side, but as I was coming to learn, French people speak their minds no matter what. She was still smiling.
‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter. His company is still going to go ahead with the purchase, unless I can convince the bank not to foreclose,’ I said.
‘Maybe, but it’s not over till la grosse dame chante, right?’
‘Right,’ I said, knocking back the rest of my wine.
‘And remember, ma belle, you are not on your own. Just as Jeanne d’Arc had her army, you have friends here and we’re going to fight with you to the end. Jusqu’au bout!’ she shouted, raising her glass.
‘Jusqu’au bout!’ I echoed, as we clinked our glasses together.