Chapter Two #2
‘Not at all. How could it have been, when you and Emily were the result?’ She pushed back her chair and came around to give Ben another hug. ‘Honey, we shouldn’t be fighting. I’m thrilled – truly, I am. And I’m sure your sister will be too. Have you told her?’
He allowed himself to be embraced. ‘Yeah, a couple of days ago. She’s pretty excited.’
‘And what about Dad?’
‘Not yet. I mean, Sophie might say no, which would be embarrassing.’ Now he wore that secret smile Juliette remembered from his childhood and she found tears springing to her eyes. Darling Ben; she hoped life would be kind to him.
‘Have you got a ring?’ she asked, blinking them quickly away.
He shook his head. ‘If she says yes, I thought we could choose one together.’
‘Wait! I’ve just had the most brilliant idea. Stay right there.’ Juliette hurried into her bedroom and came back with a small velvet box. She opened it to show a single diamond with a sapphire on either side, set in white gold. ‘Do you like this one?’
‘It’s beautiful.’ Ben took out the ring and held it up to the light, turning it to look at it from each angle. ‘What’s the story?’
‘It was Mémé’s,’ Juliette told him. ‘Apparently my grandfather proposed to her in Paris on a bridge over the Seine, just after the war. They’d only known each other for two weeks but she married him and went to America, and the rest is history.’
‘Oh my God, which bridge?’ Ben asked, his eyes wide.
Juliette laughed. ‘I don’t know. I guess any one would do. It’s romantic, though, isn’t it? See, you’re continuing the family tradition. And by all accounts, they were very happy.’
Of course, it had been Mémé’s second marriage. Juliette found herself wondering what had happened to the first engagement and wedding rings her grandmother would have been given, and how she’d felt about embarking on a new life with another man, so far from home.
‘So how is this going to work, Ben?’ she asked, trying to think about something else. ‘Could you find a job in France, or will Sophie be prepared to move to the US?’
‘I’m hoping so,’ he replied. ‘Her English is way better than my French and her business skills are pretty transferable – she’s doing a lot of work with American companies already.
But we’ll have to talk it over. She might not want to leave her family and I’d accept that.
If I have to retrain and go on an intensive language course, I will.
As long as we’re together, nothing else matters.
She’s the one for me, Mom – I’ve never been more sure of anything. ’
‘Oh, Ben,’ was all Juliette could say, her heart full.
Her son had grown into a man and from now on, another woman would always come first for him.
She’d known that fact for some time, and she couldn’t have wished for a kinder, more loving daughter-in-law than Sophie, but all the same, her joy was sharpened by a sense of time passing. Her role as a mother was over.
By the evening, however, Juliette felt nothing but pure, uncomplicated joy.
Cooking always soothed her and she’d found some early tender spears of white asparagus in the market, which she was going to poach and serve rolled in ham, with hollandaise sauce and a crusty baguette.
Shopping each morning for what she wanted to eat that day still filled her with pleasure and she was humming as she moved around her cramped galley kitchen.
There wasn’t even room for a dishwasher, let alone a food processor or a microwave, but she’d discovered it was possible to survive and even eat well without gadgets.
‘Someone’s in a good mood,’ Nico said, throwing his arms around her waist and lifting her up for a kiss. ‘I take it Ben’s arrived?’
‘And he’s going to ask Sophie to marry him,’ she said. ‘Isn’t that wonderful? They’re going for a romantic dinner tonight and he has my grandmother’s engagement ring in his pocket.’
‘This calls for champagne,’ Nico said, setting her down. ‘Do you have any, or shall I go to the café and buy some from Pascal?’
‘There’s a bottle in the fridge,’ Juliette replied, tipping salted almonds into a bowl. ‘Will you pour us a couple of glasses while I finish off here?’
His sleeves were pushed up, as usual, and the sight of his strong, competent arms as he eased the cork out of the bottle made her skin tingle.
They had been together for two years now and he’d said he loved her from the beginning, but she often had to pinch herself when she looked at him.
Of course, appearances shouldn’t matter so much, but she couldn’t help noticing the reaction he got from women – even some her daughter’s age.
He was lean, with a thick head of hair that was turning attractively grey and a full, sculpted mouth.
And his ex-girlfriend was a typically chic Parisienne, slim as a reed with razor-sharp cheekbones and innate style.
No matter how many times Nico told Juliette that Delphine was a mess underneath, self-centred and manipulative, she still felt awkward and fat on the rare occasions they met.
Delphine would occasionally come into the bookstore and prowl the shelves like a tiger, taking out a book, leafing through the pages and then replacing it with a sigh.
Nico, who knew about property, had supervised the renovation of her apartment and she frequently contacted him about some problem with the plumbing or electrics.
She was still a presence in their lives.
Now was not the time to think about Delphine, though. ‘To the happy couple,’ Nico said as they chinked glasses.
Juliette was seized by a sudden doubt. ‘Maybe we should wait until we know for sure Sophie’s said yes before we celebrate. I mean, it’s a lot to ask, if they end up living in America and she has to leave her family and friends behind.’
‘Just like you did,’ Nico said. ‘What an adventure. And you don’t regret it, do you?’
She rested her head on his chest as they sat together on the chaise longue, his arm around her shoulder. ‘How could I?’
And yet her life felt so precariously balanced; it wouldn’t take much to derail her.
Being with Nico was endlessly exciting, but they were still learning about each other, and although he spoke English fluently, sometimes the language barrier led to misunderstandings; trivial, mostly, but she also found it difficult to explain to him the moods that came over her.
She might wake in the night with a sudden sense of dread, or be overtaken by a sad nostalgia that left her teary for days.
Nothing in life is perfect, she told herself; maybe these highs and lows are the price one has to pay for being so deeply in love.
Or maybe she was anticipating the day Nico would come to his senses and break up with her, as if she could soften the blow by rehearsing it.
Or maybe, even, these emotions belonged to another couple altogether.
Juliette had been lost in wonder one early morning, sitting in front of the extraordinary stained-glass windows of the Sainte-Chapelle church on the ?le de la Cité, when the idea came to her that buildings might absorb feelings, soak them up as if they were beams of sunshine warming the stone.
Jacques and her grandmother would have been so frightened when they lived in this very apartment during the Nazi occupation of Paris.
She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have your country taken over by hostile forces, to feel unsafe even in your own home, to part from your loved ones not knowing whether you’d ever see them again.
And Jacques must have known he was risking his life by helping Jewish refugees. Did he send Mémé away to keep her safe?
Nico kissed the top of her head, interrupting her train of thought. ‘You know, we could get married now your divorce has come through.’
She drew back to stare at him, momentarily lost for words. He laughed. ‘That’s not such a crazy idea, is it?’
‘No, of course not. It’s just—’ She wasn’t sure how to continue. ‘Do you want to get married?’ He’d been engaged once – she knew that – to a woman from California who’d broken his heart, but that was as far as he’d got in terms of commitment.
Nico shrugged. ‘If you do. I’m happy to carry on as we are, but I thought it might make you feel more secure, that’s all. Doesn’t have to be a big deal: we could go down to the town hall one day, just the two of us.’
Juliette sat up, setting her glass on the coffee table.
They’d been speaking in French but now she switched to English, wanting to express herself clearly for her own sake as much as his.
‘Nico, the fact you could ask me this means more than you could ever know. I love you with all my heart but I’m not ready for marriage and maybe I never will be.
I need to find my feet, build some secure foundations on my own. Is that OK?’
He smiled, although his eyes were serious.
‘Of course, chérie. But the offer’s there if you change your mind.
Anyway, the first step is to have you move in with me and I still haven’t won that battle.
’ They spent most nights together, either here or at Nico’s apartment a few blocks away, but he’d been suggesting for some time they should set up home together.
Juliette sighed. ‘I’m sorry – what an unsatisfactory girlfriend I am. I just need my . . . bolthole. How do you say that in French?’
‘Cachette,’ he replied, ‘or refuge. Well, at the very least you should stop paying me rent.’ Nico was technically her landlord, having bought the apartment from his grandmother, Zizi, so she could move into residential care.
‘And have my shower broken for ever?’ Juliette asked with a grin. ‘I need to have something to hold over you.’
That night she lay awake for a long time after Nico had fallen asleep, wondering whether she could ever leave a home that meant so much to her.
After Zizi had married Jacques’ best friend, Henri, they had moved into this apartment when it looked like neither Jacques nor his wife would be coming back to claim it.
Zizi had lived here until a couple of years ago and now Juliette was custodian of this special place, alive with memories.
With Zizi’s help, she and Nico had uncovered Jacques’ heroism, but she still knew virtually nothing about her grandmother’s life during the war.
Perhaps Mémé was telling her that the time had come for those secrets to be shared.