The Little Provence Book Shop

Prologue

PROLOGUE

It was the same every morning, even Sundays in the high season. At seven o’clock the bell tower opposite would ring out, rousing Monique from her bed, and she’d wash, dress and make her way to the apartment’s small cuisine, fill the copper kettle and switch on the gas.

She always took her coffee the same: two teaspoons of ground beans, brewed in a pot, poured into a porcelain cup with gold-embossed edges, with two cubes of sugar from the tin. As the heat forced flavour from the grounds, she’d breathe deeply, the smell of the coffee awaking her senses before even touching her lips.

Once her espresso was made, she’d sit by the window and watch the courtyard, the movement of the morning as familiar to her as the lines in her palm. There was André opening the door of the patisserie and brushing flour from his apron; Theo with his two baguettes in brown paper, walking quickly back home for breakfast; Madame Lenore wheeling her bicycle across the cobbles rather than risk riding. By a quarter to eight, the older children would pass, their backs weighed down by enormous bags stuffed with books, their gait loping and reluctant as they made their way to the bus stop.

She loved this morning tableau, seeing the people who’d become friends and perhaps even family over the years. Seeing them evolve and change, encounter adversity and learn how to rise above it, or at least bear it. Growing up in Paris, she’d never imagined that small town life could be as rich; Maman, with her scarlet lips and tailored clothing, had scorned what she called the ‘dying countryside’, and preferred to be where there was life.

Only there was a difference between being amongst life and living. In Paris they had been surrounded by people but had remained lonely. Here, she had been able to make a difference; to use her talent to change lives – and what else was it for? She longed to tell her mother she was wrong.

But she had not spoken to Maman for more than thirty years; perhaps she was already dead? The flash of pain was soon subdued by the memory of what her mother had done to her. Some things could be forgiven; others left deep wounds that never quite closed.

Monique stood and brushed her skirt into place, straightened her blouse, walked to the mirror and adjusted her chignon then tried a smile. Her mother’s face – perhaps also her daughter’s face? – smiled back at her. She was a single entity but carried with her the women who had gone before and those who had come after.

As she placed her cup in the sink and made her way to the wooden staircase that snaked down onto the shop floor, she reminded herself that this was the day when Adeline would come. Monique could feel things beginning to shift, as if what had once seemed a complete puzzle had moved to make room for a final piece; the air was different and her life was in flux.

She glanced, in passing, at the small jar of earth on the windowsill; soon perhaps she’d untie the knot, remove the cloth from where she’d buried it a few weeks ago. Perhaps.

She breathed in the scent of the books as she made her way down – the smell of ink and fresh paper, dust and older volumes. The mingling of past and present. She felt it healing her, knew the books were there as they always had been, waiting to excite, terrify, enlighten or restore whoever would be next to turn their pages.

As she crossed the shadowed floor of the bookshop, her skirt brushed softly against her calves. She knew the layout of the shelves, the stands, the tables with their high-stacked popular volumes. That knowledge and the tiny amount of light allowed by breaches in the wooden shutters meant there was no need for the electric light. She reached up for the window catch and opened the wooden frame, unfastening the shutters and at last folding them back.

The April sunlight fell into the room, alighting on her face like a theatre spotlight, illuminating her nut-brown skin, her eyes that sparkled like jewels. Her dress turned from grey to a vibrant yellow, her gold hoop earrings shone like stars. Her crystal – a moonstone – glowed against the soft skin at her throat. She fingered it briefly.

Then she continued to work her way around the windows, as if she were Mother Nature herself, calling time on the drawn-out night and allowing the spring day to finally burst into being.