Chapter 8
8
The next morning dawned bright – the darkness and cloudy skies of yesterday seemed like a distant memory as Adeline threw open the shutters and found light flooding in. Lili was up, playing in her room with her stuffed rabbit; Adeline could hear her prattling away in French and smiled to herself that the language came so naturally to her young child. She thought of her own struggle with the language: the verbs, the conjugations, the grammatical errors, and felt proud that she’d given her daughter the opportunity to acquire the cadences and rhythms of another language at a time when it came so easily.
The tree just outside their house had begun to flower, its pink blooms promising cherries later in the season. And the birds, delighted too at the sunny morning, chirped enthusiastically from their various perches in its branches, on the roofs of the buildings opposite, on windowsills, and flew rapidly through the clear morning air.
‘Hope is the thing with feathers,’ Adeline thought to herself, remembering a line from an Emily Dickinson poem she’d read last night. She thought of how birdsong had always lifted her – the promise of spring in its melody – and felt new meaning in the centuries-old words. She smiled, then wandered to the bathroom to get ready for another day.
This morning, she’d gone to the patisserie to buy breakfast, hoping to see André and apologise for her rudeness last night. But he hadn’t been there. A woman had served her instead, with a cheery grin and a Bonne journée! as she left. Part of her was relieved that she didn’t have to stumble out an explanation in the busy queue, part of her wished she’d been able to get it out of the way. She wondered what André made of it all.
Just over an hour later, with Lili despatched happily to school, she was in the bookshop, a pile of orders in front of her and her mind elsewhere. Monique was across the shop floor, in the middle of rearranging the vintage novels, dusting each shelf with a rather extravagant-looking feather duster and talking softly to each book as if they were old friends. Adeline watched with a combination of amusement and fascination. ‘What are you saying to them?’ she asked from where she was arranging an order for a new customer.
‘To the books? Ah, nothing much,’ Monique laughed. ‘I am so used to being here alone, I have started to talk a little out loud. You must think I am crazy.’
‘Not at all,’ Adeline said, thinking of how only last night she’d told the wine bottle that she’d better just stick to one, as she had work the next day. ‘I think we all do that sometimes.’
‘Anyway, it is not as if I am talking to just anything ,’ Monique said, her expression light. ‘I am talking to my friends. These books, these older books, they have seen some history. They have stories inside, yes, but I wish they could tell me their own story too. Sometimes, I think of all the people who have read this one book,’ she said, brandishing a green, leather-bound volume with embossed gold lettering, ‘and how perhaps they have never met, but have this connection. And I think of the next person the book will go to and wonder about their story too.’
‘I like that,’ Adeline said. ‘The idea of books having stories of their own.’
Monique nodded. ‘Perhaps that is why I am always recommending the older books,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘They carry so many spirits with them.’ She smoothed her skirt – today a vibrant blue – and reached up to return the book to its rightful place.
Adeline wasn’t sure she liked the idea of spirits. But perhaps Monique was being metaphorical. She smiled and turned back to her work.
She’d begun to admire Monique’s style – although the woman was much older than her, she always dressed in vibrant colours, patterns, silk scarves, swishing skirts. She always wore lipstick and earrings and necklaces which sparkled with colour and caught the light. Often, she’d wear a crystal around her neck – usually the moonstone, but sometimes another, a pink stone that radiated a kind of gentle warmth.
Over the years, since becoming Lili’s mum, Adeline had faded. She’d adopted a style that was unconfrontational, dull. Jeans and T-shirts and the occasional summer dress in a non-descript fabric. Modest. Boring. She saw how Monique’s clothes, worn with confidence, added to her boss’s vibrancy and wondered which came first. Did you have to be confident, assured, to wear bright colours and ambitious styles, or did the clothes themselves imbue you with the confidence once you slipped them on?
Just as she was considering whether a trip to the larger town of Avignon was needed to freshen up her wardrobe, the bell made its habitual clinking and the main door of the shop slowly opened. For a moment she wondered if it was Michel, whom she’d learned had an apartment at the end of the high street. Monique had filled in the details of her nephew – he was a professor in Avignon and rented a room in an apartment there during term time. But at weekends and holidays he’d be back in the space he owned, popping in to see his aunt and catching up with local friends. ‘He likes to look out for me, I think,’ Monique had said.
‘That’s lovely of him,’ Adeline had replied.
‘Yes,’ Monique had said fondly. ‘I suppose he is my only family,’ her expression had darkened briefly, ‘or the only family that I see. He feels responsible for me, I think.’
‘I’m sure he enjoys seeing you though,’ Adeline had said quickly.
‘ Mais oui , he is a good boy. A little lonely too, I think.’ Adeline hadn’t been sure whether the look Monique gave her after she’d said those words was pointed, but she’d looked away, studiously not noticing if there was any hint being dropped.
But this wasn’t Michel, it was an older man. One she recognised from her first day in the shop. She reached for his name in her memory and it came to her once he closed the door behind him and stood in the entrance, his gait a slight stoop, as if he were carrying a heavy burden. ‘ Bonjour, Claude,’ she said, smiling.
His eyes met hers. ‘ Bonjour ,’ he replied with a smile that carried with it more sadness than a frown might have.
‘Ah, Claude!’ Monique said, putting down the book she was dusting and straightening her skirts as she stood up. ‘You have come.’
‘ Oui , you have a book for me?’ he said, his voice hopeful.
Monique nodded and lifted out a box from behind the counter. In it there were several books they’d ordered in. She picked out one with a burgundy cover and handed it to him.
He took it gratefully, turning it over in his hand. ‘ Merci . Thank you for not giving up on me.’
Monique walked closer to him, put her hand on his shoulder. ‘But Claude, we will never do that. You know this.’
He smiled. ‘How much…’
‘It’s nothing. A gift.’
‘Thank you.’ He slipped the book into the pocket of his large overcoat – surely too warm a thing to be wearing on this clement spring day – and nodded. ‘I am sorry to be such a difficulty for you,’ he said.
Monique laughed. ‘It is not a difficulty. It is a challenge perhaps. But it is also a pleasure. I am happy to do it. And it is certainly what Violet would have wanted.’
He nodded, a brief shadow flicking over his features. ‘ Oui, I hope so.’
Moments later he shuffled off, his hand hovering over the pocket containing the slim volume. Once the door was closed, Adeline turned to Monique, her head full of questions.
‘He seems so sad,’ she said.
Monique nodded, a wry smile on her lips. ‘Yes, he lost his wife two years ago. They had fifty years together. And he is lost,’ she said, shaking her head sadly.
‘Oh, poor man.’
‘ Oui . And he says he is too old to start again, to find a new purpose in life. But he is too young to give up too. And I promised him that I would help him to find a way.’
Adeline was silent for a moment, wondering how to phrase the question. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘How exactly?’
Monique laughed. ‘With books of course. We find the right book for him, and it will give him hope. Maybe ideas or a purpose.’
‘Like a self-help book?’
‘ Non ,’ Monique shook her head. ‘He does not need instructions. He knows how to look after his health. But he needs to find a way to bring his heart back to life. The book I gave him is about another who lost their love – it will call to him. His spirit.’
There it was again. Spirit.
Adeline continued typing the ISBNs from Monique’s list into the machine, but she found she couldn’t quite let the subject go. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said. ‘But I don’t… I know having a good book can be a distraction. Can be good for our mental health. But I don’t quite understand what you are doing for Claude. He seems so very sad, so hopeless. Do you really think that the right book will help him enough? The right story?’
Monique turned, her skirt moving softly around her calves. ‘But of course. That is what I do. I find a book that speaks to their situation, their soul.’
Suddenly something struck Adeline: ‘“He ate and drank the precious words; His spirit grew robust” ,’ she murmured softly to herself, remembering the lines from her Emily Dickinson volume.
‘ Exactement ,’ Monique said with a nod.
Perhaps she had been going to say more, but they were interrupted by the bell ringing loudly as the door was pushed open with more force than Claude had mustered earlier. And there he was, Michel, smiling, tousled, somehow bringing with him a sense of lightness – flooding the room with optimism.
Adeline shook her head. She was thinking lyrically now. She had to get her head out of the clouds. He’d let in a little more sunlight, was all; he was wearing a light yellow shirt. He wasn’t bloody Apollo .
‘ Bonjour, ladies!’ he said, stepping fully into the shop.
Monique turned, lining the last volume on the shelf she was working on. ‘ Bonjour, Michel. I am surprised you are so happy this morning after so much wine last night.’
He smiled mischievously. ‘Perhaps I am still young enough to get away with it.’
‘Ah, you are not so very young. He is thirty-five,’ she said, turning to Adeline. ‘But he still thinks he is a boy.’
‘A boy with great taste in wine,’ he reminded her.
‘Ha! Not as good as perhaps he thinks,’ she said, and he laughed delightedly.
‘My aunt likes to make sure I know my place.’
Adeline smiled. ‘I can see that.’
‘Anyway, it is a glorious day, but I am alone, and Monique said I must come to take her for coffee.’
‘Ah, I am sorry,’ Monique said. ‘I am so busy now! Perhaps you could take Adeline – it would be nice for you to get to know each other?’
Adeline shot a look at Monique who seemed once again preoccupied with her shelves. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘But no. I think I’d better get on.’
‘Ah, is my aunt such a hard taskmaster?’
‘It’s not that,’ she said hurriedly, feeling her face get hot. ‘It’s just…’
He nodded, his smile remaining but perhaps not quite as brightly as before. ‘Monique has told me a lot about you. I am keen to learn a bit more about England,’ he said hopefully.
‘Perhaps another time?’
He nodded. ‘As you wish.’ He glanced over at Monique. ‘And I suppose I can’t tempt you, Monique, for a coffee either?’
Monique shook her head. ‘Sorry. But I have to go soon. To see the bank.’ She shrugged. ‘But you know, someone will talk to you in the cafe. You will not be alone.’
He smiled. ‘ C’est vrai. And you have my books?’
‘Soon. And take this.’ She rummaged momentarily in a drawer and extracted a purple stone, walking forward and pushing it into his hand. ‘It will help with your hangover.’
Michel looked at the stone doubtfully. ‘I don’t have to eat it, do I?’ he asked teasingly.
‘Ha. Not if you want to keep your teeth. Just slip it into your pocket, you will see.’
‘OK, well, I will go and enjoy the morning alone with only my little rock for company,’ he said with mock sadness. ‘And I will see you both soon.’
‘Sorry,’ Adeline found herself saying guiltily.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. Then, moving towards her, he added under his breath, ‘Don’t tell my aunt, but my head is quite sore this morning. So perhaps it’s better for me to be quiet.’
She laughed softly. ‘Good idea.’
Then he was gone and the shop seemed slightly duller without his presence.
‘He is a nice boy,’ Monique said to her.
‘Yes, he seems lovely.’
‘And his aura – it is so yellow, n’est-ce pas ?’
‘His… aura?’
‘Yes. We all have one. A colour that surrounds us. And his is bright. Perhaps you noticed.’
‘No. Not really,’ Adeline said, trying not to think of the way the light had changed when he’d entered.
Monique smiled, her gaze resting on Adeline’s face for a moment. ‘You do not like when I talk of auras?’
Adeline grimaced slightly. ‘It’s just not my thing,’ she said apologetically. ‘It’s fine though. Interesting even. ’
‘OK,’ Monique said thoughtfully.
‘And the stone you gave him – the crystal?’
‘An amethyst – for healing.’ Monique smiled. ‘But I expect you do not believe in this either?’ She seemed amused rather than insulted.
Adeline shrugged. ‘I know people use them. But I’ve never…’ She let her words drift off, not wanting to offend her boss.
‘Don’t worry. We are all different. And some can see, and some cannot. And others, they sense, but cannot let themselves see,’ she said, almost to herself. ‘Ourself behind ourself concealed.’
The words seemed familiar, but Adeline couldn’t place them. Luckily at that moment, a woman she hadn’t seen before walked in and asked whether they had the latest Stephen King.
That, at least, Adeline knew how to deal with.