Chapter 29
29
‘Gabriel!’ I call. ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ I’m hurrying up the stairs and flinging myself into the workshop, my cheeks still red and stinging from the cold of the snowplough. The old Clara Mackenzie would never have agreed to that without a full risk assessment! Maybe it wasn’t meeting Daniel or the twelve dates that made me leave the old Clara behind: maybe the chocolate school taught me to take a chance on life.
‘Is it Lorelei? Or what? What’s happened? Sébastien and Fleur said it was important. It must be for them to come and find me. Just tell me, please, what’s happened?’
‘You came!’ He smiles widely.
‘I couldn’t not. But what’s going on?’
His hair is pushed back off his face with a black bandanna, his face alive and excited.
He stares at me and a shiver runs up and down my spine. I’m not sure if it’s excitement, anticipation or dread.
‘What did Daniel have to say?’
‘That I was to be back by midnight or we were over. Now, please, just tell me what’s going on!’
‘Shut the door.’ He juts his chin towards it.
I do so and turn quickly back to him, pulling off my hat, coat and scarf. ‘I’m not supposed to be here, remember. If Madame Pichon finds me, it’s your career that could be on the line. I told you I don’t want to cause any more trouble for you.’
‘I’m leaving. There’s nothing she can do. I’ve told her so. None of this is down to you. It was me who needed you in my workshop, not the other way around. And after tomorrow I’ll be gone.’
The lighting is low in the workshop. Downstairs in and around the reception area, there is a hubbub of activity. The rest of the students are preparing for the presentation, and the school, it seems, is getting ready for Christmas.
‘Gabriel, tell me, what’s going on? Is it to do with Jacques?’
‘Partly. As you know, Jacques is aware that I’ve lost my sense of taste and is keen to tell people about my “condition”. He wants to bring me down. He has always been jealous of me and now he wants revenge.’
‘Revenge? But for what?’
‘For being the chocolatier he wanted to be, but mostly for Noeletta. He has always loved her, in a way I never have. Noeletta and I have been friends, good friends, but I don’t love her like he does.’
He’s quiet for a moment, then continues: ‘I understand how Jacques feels. I have watched you and Daniel restart your journey together. A little like Noeletta and me becoming friends again after all this time, like when we were students here. But I have decided to end that friendship. This evening is the time for new beginnings.’
‘You and Noeletta?’ My heart is racing. ‘You’re no longer …?’
He shakes his head.
‘So you’re leaving here?’
‘Yes,’ he says.
‘When?’
‘Tomorrow. My time here is done.’
I drop my head.
‘Jacques plans to reveal my situation, just before I sign with Jacobsen chocolate in the New Year.’
‘How do you know?’
‘It pays to have eyes and ears in this place.’
‘Patrice? I knew it was him!’
He shakes his head. ‘Alain. He suggested getting you here this evening.’
‘But why?’
‘Oh, plus a little advice from daughter to father.’
‘You mean she hasn’t gone?’
We allow ourselves a little smile.
‘She’s up at the farm now. She also agreed I needed to find a way to get you back. The snowplough was her idea!’ He grins. ‘It took you being here to make me see where I’ve been going wrong. She wants time here with, surprisingly, her dad. She’s even been in the workshop helping me today, like when she was a little girl. I wanted to thank you for getting her to come here. For everything – for making me believe in myself again. For giving me back my love and passion for chocolate. And for making me realize it was possible to love again.’ His voice cracks and he brushes away what I think may be tears with the back of his hand.
And something falls on my cheek, too, then my hands and I know it’s not snowflakes. This hasn’t happened for a long time. I brush away the tears, tasting the salt as they continue to fall. He’s done all this and is about to leave, to go to Japan or wherever the new job will take him … And me? Well, it looks like I’m heading home after all.
‘Turns out my leap of faith was a leap into a damp ditch!’ I say, with a crack in my voice.
He raises an eyebrow, just below his bandanna. ‘You – you and Daniel?’
I shake my head. ‘It wasn’t going anywhere. He couldn’t work out what kind of chocolate he’d be.’
Now we manage a laugh.
‘It wasn’t going to work,’ I carry on. ‘He couldn’t understand how I’ve fallen in love – with chocolate,’ I add hastily, and wonder whether to tell him I’m in love with him too. But I can’t. Not now he’s going to be leaving. I can’t stay here without a job, and I think we can safely say I blew that at the drinks party.
‘So the midnight curfew?’
‘I won’t be going back. Not to Daniel or the apartment.’ I just have to accept I’m returning to the UK, to Thursday-night pizza and prosecco. I’m going back to where I started, where my friends thought I was mad to take this leap into the unknown.
‘What if there was a way you could stay?’
‘I’ll never win the residency. You said so yourself. It’s all sewn up. Poor Sébastien is bound to get it.’
‘Not necessarily. Call it my parting gift to Sébastien.’
‘Well, it won’t be me. I didn’t finish the course. I didn’t make the final chocolate. And I left my cocoa grinder running when I left!’
‘There’s still time. Why not finish what you started?’
‘Like you’re doing?’
‘Like I’m doing. Here,’ he says, ‘take this.’ He hands me a box of chocolates, the new signature collection. ‘Ask me to take one.’
‘Er …okay, take one. But these are your chocolates. You know them. Why are you asking me to tell you to take one?’
‘I want you choose one for me, but first …’ He reaches up to his forehead and pulls the black bandanna over his eyes.
He stands in front of me, in the orange glow from the lamps over the workstation, but that’s all. Outside there’s just the glow from the streetlights and the snow building up on the window frames.
‘Take one, any of them, and pass it to me.’
I look at the chocolates. I know every flavour by its look, its smell. But blindfold, would I be able to identify them?
I go for my favourite, but change my mind at the last second, knowing he’d expect me to choose that one. I go for Moroccan Nights. Delicate and soft, with just a hint of rose, like a bridal bower in Morocco, against a backdrop of subtle spices.
‘Chosen?’ he asks.
‘ Oui .’ I’m wondering what on earth we’re doing here. Everyone is finishing their pieces for tomorrow night’s judging and I want to be long gone before I have to face Jacques and be reminded of the problems I’ve caused for Gabriel.
‘Okay, pass it to me,’ he says, and slowly opens his mouth. I reach forward and slowly, staring at his soft lips, his teeth and tongue, put the chocolate into his mouth. He takes it between his teeth, then holds it with one hand and slowly bites. It cracks, crisp and clean, in half. He bites down, lets it sit on his tongue, like a crescent moon, and says nothing. Then, he chews. I watch his jaw move up and down, his mouth closed. Finally he swallows.
Without a word, he lifts the bandanna and pushes it back onto his forehead. ‘Moroccan Nights, cardamom, ginger and a high note of rose.’
‘How did you know? Did you smell it? Do you think we can get away with this? Pretend to Jacques it’s not true, that we were just messing around? Do you think you can recognize them through texture alone?’
He starts to smile, slowly at first and then it spreads across his whole face. ‘You want me to do another? Pick something else, not from my range, anything, a spice, or flavouring.’
‘A flavouring?’ I say, surprised.
He pulls down the bandanna, opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue.
I pick up a small bottle from the selection at the back of the workshop and fill the pipette, confused as to how this will work but thrilled that we may be able to put Jacques off the scent. I walk back to Gabriel, sitting on a stool at the end of the workstation, his wide shoulders under his black chef’s shirt.
‘Ready?’ I ask.
‘Ready,’ he replies.
I let two drops fall onto his tongue.
‘Lavender,’ he says, without hesitation.
‘But how?’ I’m amazed. ‘Do you think we can we get away with this?’
He rips off the bandanna. ‘One more!’ he says.
And I put another chocolate into his mouth.
‘Wait, don’t tell me!’ He holds up his hand and my heart starts to race. ‘It tastes of happiness! Christmas! Cinnamon and red berries.’
Warmth floods over me as if I’ve slid into a bath of warm hot chocolate.
‘Clara! I can taste!’ He beams. ‘I can taste the lavender!’
‘ What? ’
‘It’s true! Floral and sweet but with a slight bitterness. Overpowering if you use too much!’ His cheeks crease with his huge smile. ‘And the cinnamon and red berries. I was working on the final chocolate. It’s … how I imagined you to be, in a chocolate, with hidden depths, and it just happened. I could taste it!’
‘You can taste it?’
His eyes are dancing like the snowflakes in the sky. ‘I can! I can taste it! And it tastes of pure joy! I want to taste some more!’ He’s laughing.
‘What? Wahhhhh!’ I say. Without thinking, I throw my arms around his neck and hug him tightly.
‘You can taste!’ I pull back and look into his face.
‘It’s all because of you,’ he says.
And there in his arms I could explode with excitement. ‘You did it!’
‘You did it!’ he says.
I have no idea which of us moves in first, but his lips are on mine and mine on his, and he tastes just as I wanted him to if he were a chocolate. This is it! This is the kiss I want never to end. I know exactly how it tastes and how I want my last chocolate to make me feel.
Finally we pull apart. I stare at him, and he at me, his arms around me, and suddenly I have an overwhelming urge to leave.
‘Excuse me,’ I say.
‘Sorry?’ He looks confused.
‘It’s all just as I was hoping. It was perfect. There’s just something I have to – somewhere I have to be.’ I can’t let myself go there. I can’t take that leap of faith and fall flat on my face again. I’m just too scared.
He’s leaving. He told me so. I can’t let myself think about what might have been. The only thing I can do right now is chocolate.
‘Clara?’
‘You’re leaving here, Gabriel. You have your taste back. You’ll finish your signature box and sign away your name to Jacobsen, then tour the world for them. Japan, wherever. Just not here. I have to go.’ I run out of the workshop and down the stairs, the clock ticking in my head.