Chapter Three
Thank goodness, Sophie said yes. Ben texted Juliette with the news first thing the next morning and the two of them called in at La Page Cachée early that evening, just as Juliette was closing up the store. Sophie looked radiant, her eyes sparkling and her cheeks flushed with joy.
‘Welcome to the family,’ Juliette said, hugging her as tightly as she had Ben. ‘Nico and I finished off the champagne last night so let’s have a drink in the café while you tell me all your plans. I want to know everything.’
‘Who could ask for a better mother-in-law?’ Sophie said, smiling as she put her arm through Juliette’s.
Their happiness was so obvious that Pascal, who ran the café, asked the reason and opened a bottle of champagne on the house, and then Nico came over, bringing along his pal Arnaud and Arnaud’s wife, Thérèse, who’d become one of Juliette’s closest Parisian friends.
Sophie texted her best friend, Florence, who dropped by with her partner, Félix, and what was meant to have been a quiet chat turned into an impromptu party.
The ring looked beautiful on Sophie’s slim young finger and Juliette thought how delighted Mémé would have been to know that her American great-grandson had fallen in love with a French girl.
Nico was clearly thinking along the same lines. ‘Here’s to love, not trade wars,’ he said, raising his glass in yet another toast.
Sophie had spoken to her parents on the phone and she and Ben were heading south to visit them in Arles that weekend so the celebrations could continue and wedding preparations begin in earnest. They were hoping to get married there in September with a civil ceremony at the town hall, followed the next day by a service in the church where Sophie had been baptised, and a reception at her parents’ farmhouse.
‘But that’s only six months away,’ Juliette exclaimed, images flashing through her head of the engagement parties, dress fittings, bachelorette weekends and bridal showers that every prospective bride seemed to post on social media.
‘I’m planning to wear my mother’s gown, if it fits, and the wedding will be very simple,’ Sophie told her. ‘We don’t want to wait until next year, and Provence is perfect in September – not too hot, and everyone busy with the wine harvest. You’ll love it.’
They would be eager to start their new lives as soon as possible. ‘And afterwards?’ Juliette asked, trying not to sound pushy. ‘Have you decided where you’ll live?’
‘We’ll set up home in New York,’ Sophie replied, her eyes fixed on Ben. ‘Maybe not for ever, but a few years to start off with at least.’
‘I guess that makes sense.’ Juliette swallowed her disappointment.
It had been crazy to hope they’d settle in France but she couldn’t help having dreamed they might, so she could be on hand to help if babies came along.
This is not about you, she reminded herself sternly.
And how lucky was she, to share this moment with dear friends and people she loved?
She remembered those bleak early days in Paris when she had been so lonely and sad, grieving the end of her marriage and wondering if her life would ever get back on track. Well, just look at her now.
‘Have you spoken to Dad?’ she asked, turning to Ben.
He nodded. ‘He sounded pleased. Says he can’t wait to know Sophie better and meet her family.’
‘Great,’ Juliette said carefully. There were bound to be complications in the planning of any wedding, and Kevin was one of them.
She and her ex-husband managed to be civil with each other but they were far from being friends, and she wasn’t sure they ever would be.
How Kevin would behave when he saw her with Nico was anyone’s guess.
He was quick- tempered and had made his jealousy clear when meeting Nico in the past.
‘You know he has a new girlfriend?’ Ben asked.
‘He dropped that into the conversation,’ Juliette replied. ‘This one must be serious. Have you met her?’
‘She’s OK, actually,’ Ben said. ‘I guess we’ll have to invite her to the wedding.’
Another complication. ‘If they’re still together by then. He doesn’t have a great track record.’
‘Now then, Mom. Don’t be petty,’ Ben told her. ‘I think she’ll be good for Dad. Coral’s . . . Let’s just say, if she comes over in September, you’ll see.’
Juliette’s curiosity was piqued but now Sophie was tugging Ben’s arm with a question about the guest list, so she couldn’t find out more. He was right: she could afford to be generous.
Nico dropped his arm around her shoulder and drew her close.
‘Happy?’ he murmured in her ear and she nodded, though she had to force herself to relax.
She still wasn’t entirely at ease with public displays of affection, especially in front of Ben; unlike Nico, who was supremely comfortable in his own skin.
‘Zizi will be pleased, don’t you think?’ she asked him. ‘I’ll tell her when I visit on Sunday.’ Nico’s grandmother had met Sophie and thoroughly approved of her; she would think Ben had done very well to find himself a French wife.
‘Sure you’re OK?’ Nico asked, squeezing her shoulder.
‘I’m fine.’ She smiled, though her eyes were misty. ‘I just wish my mom was here to celebrate with us. She adored Ben.’
‘I know how you feel.’ He’d also lost his mother, at an even earlier age than Juliette. ‘But she’s in your heart – and Ben’s too. You can still talk to her, and sometimes she might even reply.’
‘Ah, you again.’ Zizi greeted Juliette in her customary fashion, and Juliette replied, as usual, ‘Comme un vrai pot de colle’ – like a real pot of glue. She’d become used to Zizi’s abrasive humour by now, and the care-home staff had told her how much the old lady looked forward to her visits.
Formalities over, Zizi accepted a honey madeleine from the box Juliette had brought and they sipped their tea in companionable silence.
Juliette usually saw Zizi alone: Nico loved his grandmother but he liked to be active and found the atmosphere in her residential home depressing.
He preferred to take her out for meals or excursions, although recently Zizi had lost her appetite for outings.
It took her too much effort to transfer from the wheelchair to the car and then repeat the same process in reverse, and she hated to be seen as incapable.
She was undisputed queen of the residents’ lounge, the oldest but – when she concentrated – still the sharpest knife in that particular cutlery drawer.
Her white hair was cut in a stylish bob and she was always immaculately dressed.
Although she might not have been able to remember what happened yesterday, she could tell you the name of her best friend from childhood, and which of her neighbours had fraternised with Nazis during the war in exchange for their patronage or maybe a travel pass.
Most of those neighbours had died years ago but Zizi had still not forgiven them.
‘So, what news from the outside world?’ Zizi asked eventually, and Juliette was able to tell her about Ben and Sophie’s engagement.
‘Ben has done well,’ Zizi remarked, helping herself to another cake.
‘He’s a sweet boy but a little soft. He needs someone like Sophie beside him – she has enough ambition for the two of them.
’ A confident opinion, given she’d met Ben only once, a couple of years before, and Sophie a handful of times.
‘They’re getting married in Provence,’ Juliette offered, ‘in Sophie’s home town.’
Zizi nodded her approval. ‘But they will live in Paris, I expect. Provence would not suit Ben – he would become lazy and fat.’
Really, she was impossible. Visiting Zizi was not for the faint-hearted; Juliette wondered fleetingly why she put herself through the weekly ordeal. ‘They’re going to live in New York,’ she told Zizi, bracing herself for the reaction. ‘To start off with, at least.’
Zizi waved a regal hand. ‘Oh, that won’t last. When they realise what a terrible place it is, they will soon come back to France.’
‘Have you ever visited America?’ Juliette asked.
Zizi laughed. ‘Of course not. But I have seen films.’
Juliette poured them both some more tea. ‘Sophie’s going to wear her mother’s wedding dress,’ she said, steering the conversation into safer waters. ‘Isn’t that lovely?’
‘You know my mother was a dressmaker, don’t you?’ Zizi replied. ‘She made your grandmother’s wedding outfit.’
Juliette hugged her knees. ‘Tell me the story again. Everything you can remember.’
‘Oh, I remember plenty,’ Zizi said mysteriously.
‘I can still see them both clearly, standing on the church steps with all the bells ringing: Jacques so handsome in his best suit and Mathilde a picture in that pale-blue dress and coat. You call her Marie but she went by the name of Mathilde then, and that’s how I shall always think of her.
They were married the day war broke out, 3 September 1939, so the bells were quiet for years afterwards.
There’s no denying she was a good-looking woman, your grandmother, with eyes that drew you in and beautiful dark hair.
She had a temper, though I suppose you know that already. ’
‘Not at all.’ Juliette cast her mind back. ‘I can’t recall Mémé ever getting angry. She always seemed so reserved.’
Zizi shrugged. ‘Then she must have changed her ways. Yet we were all different by the end of the war, those of us who were left.’
‘And you don’t know what happened to her during those years?’
‘She disappeared.’ Zizi snapped her fingers. ‘Pouf! Into thin air. One minute she was here, the next she had gone, and Jacques had to make his way without her.’
The ghost of Marie/Mathilde Garnier hovered tantalisingly, just out of reach. ‘So if you had to describe her in three words,’ Juliette asked, ‘what would they be?’
Zizi shot her a suspicious glance. ‘She was attractive – I’ve told you that already.’
‘Yes, but what else?’ Juliette persisted.