Chapter 3
THREE
LUCY
Lucy was still holding Esther’s book. It felt like a museum piece and she couldn’t bring herself to unwrap it yet, even though Mémé’s letter had suggested it was the first piece in the puzzle. She carefully returned it to its home under the counter.
She needed to reconnect with the bookshop and then maybe she’d know what to do.
She wandered the bookshop from shelf to shelf. Mémé hadn’t changed the layout since she’d inherited it from her mother.
The length of the shop seemed to go on for ever.
Wherever there were gaps between the books, Mémé had placed ornaments picked up at flea markets: china figurines, and strange brass cogs, a carved wooden elephant and a Pierrot puppet.
Lucy stopped each time she found an ornament, and turned it over in her hand.
She smiled, remembering their trip to the flea market in Caen, where piles of random junk seemed to reach for the sky. Mémé had always found gems.
On the shelves, she saw brand new novels by French writers, and others in translation, as well as classics reissued in colourful new bindings.
Books of Normandy views, from wide beaches on the coast to farms and orchards inland.
History books, some with portraits on the cover of men and women wearing powdered wigs, others with black-and-white photographs of de Gaulle.
A shelf devoted to books about the Normandy landings for battlefield tourists.
Lucy picked out one of the gardening books: a guide for growing vegetables in window boxes, complete with miniature gnomes. Perhaps she could take a copy back to London, as she’d have to find somewhere else to live now that— no, no. She pushed the thought away.
Large volumes of photography and art stood with their covers facing outwards from the shelf. Beside them were books on French architects, but Lucy moved swiftly on. She didn’t want to be reminded of him, not here, in such a special place that had nothing to do with him at all.
She slid the wooden ladder along its rails so that she could reach the fashion books on their high shelf that she couldn’t reach even in her heels. If there was a secret in the shop, it could be on one of the highest shelves, but there was nothing there except hardback books with glamorous covers.
Lucy tugged free a book about Pierre Balmain and rested it on the top step of the ladder, and flicked through.
She transported her mind away from thoughts of him by gazing at black-and-white photographs of elegant 1950s evening gowns embellished with diamanté and even with feathers.
Feeling calmer now, she returned the heavy book to its shelf and came back down the ladder.
Towards the back of the shop was the children’s section.
Beanbags and cushions were laid out in a circle, some still with dents where the last child had sat to listen to a story.
Lucy swallowed, remembering sitting here when she was little, among the local children, captivated as Mémé had read them a story.
The multicoloured story-chair – an ordinary wooden kitchen chair that Papi, her grandad, had painted – was still in exactly the same place.
Someone had left a picture book on its seat: Petit Chaperon Rouge.
Lucy dropped into a nearby book-nook, a cushioned bench in an alcove between bookcases. She flipped through the pages, following Little Red Riding Hood’s journey through the forest to visit her grandmother.
But suddenly, she couldn’t see the pictures any more. Her eyes were filled with tears; grief kept taking her by surprise.
‘Oh, Mémé…’ she whispered. ‘I should’ve come to see you…’
Reverentially, she placed the book back on the story-chair, as if Mémé would come in again and expect to find it there.
An image swam into her mind: the sepia photo she’d seen of Mémé as a little girl, with her own parents, Margot and Emil. They’d called her Arielle.
It had been taken after the war in the sunny back garden behind the shop. Arielle was in a gingham dress, leaning against Margot. Margot’s head was lying on Emil’s shoulder as he cradled Arielle’s baby brother, Etienne, on his lap.
The photo was natural and unposed, and full of affection. Lucy had met Emil and Margot, and there was a photo of her as a baby in their arms to prove it. But she had no memory of them as she’d been so young when they’d passed away.
She’d grown up hearing her father’s stories about the bookshop; the book clubs that they’d run, the reading groups for local children.
There’d also been relaxed classes in the evening where adults who’d never been confident readers could come along and learn to love books too.
But she’d never heard about the wartime book club that had met at midnight.
What a gift this bookshop was, so entwined with her family’s history.
But Lucy didn’t belong in Cordeval. Her father had left the village for his place at the Sorbonne in Paris and had soon met Lucy’s mother.
They’d worked as corporate lawyers and had travelled the world, living a life of achievement and success.
Then, after Lucy’s mother had died when she was only small, she and her father had become a tight unit.
The high-flying lawyer with his little girl, still travelling the world.
He taught Lucy the importance of ambition.
They’d eventually settled in London when Lucy was a teenager, and they’d come to visit Mémé and Papi when they could.
Lucy’s life had been full of big cities, where there was always something happening and she felt as if she was at the centre of everything.
It didn’t matter where she’d lived, whether New York, Hong Kong or Tokyo.
High-fashion boutiques had always been there and had given a glittering continuity to the nomadic life she and her father had led.
She admired the breathtaking shapes and colours of couture designs, the way the fabrics draped just right.
For all that high fashion was exclusive and expensive, it was an art form too, an extraordinary expression of creativity.
With Lucy’s love of reading and writing, too, it was no wonder that she’d eventually ended up working at Glitz magazine.
There was an irresistible glamour to busy city life; the bright lights, the shop windows, the restaurants and theatres, the thousands of people who were always going somewhere.
Once her father had decided to settle in London, Lucy had found her home there too.
She had her job, she had her friends, she had her routines; the park she liked to jog round, the cafés she liked to have lunch at, the art galleries she loved to visit.
She simply couldn’t give up everything she’d built up in London, and turn down an amazing promotion, to live in a small fishing village on the Normandy coast.
Trailing her hand along the shelves, she made her way back to the front of the shop, feeling the spines of the books under her fingertips. The sensation made her feel close to Mémé. Touching something that she had once held.
Then, she heard music.
Lucy blinked, as if she was waking up. She’d been in a dream in the shop, and now, as she looked out through the window, she saw that evening was falling. A party was in full swing at Jojo’s, the bar across the road.
She needed to discover Mémé’s secret from the past, and she had to do it quickly, before she sold the bookshop.
Now, it looked as if half the village was at Jojo’s; there had to be at least a couple of people there who might know something that would help her.
Lucy grabbed the handle of her suitcase and headed out into the street.