Chapter 15
‘What do you mean, you need a turkey urgently?’ Lucien’s voice sounded bemused.
‘Yes. I’m sorry to call you. I know you’re busy. But I went to the supermarket and they didn’t have any turkeys – am I too late? What am I going to do?’
She’d woken up this morning feeling blissfully happy. She’d slept well and was still uplifted by the news that her family would soon be on their way. And she was looking forward to going to the carol concert tonight and hopefully seeing Chloé.
The only thing she needed to do was to pick up a turkey and a few essentials from the local supermarket. As she’d driven to the shop, she’d tuned the radio into a local station which blasted out a mixture of carols in French and well-known pop songs in English.
It was only when she was inspecting the small meat selection that she realised she might be in for a challenging time.
There were a couple of turkey breasts, but otherwise the store was filled with other meats – fresh beef, sides of salmon, chickens and something called ‘capons’ which she’d hoped might be smallish turkeys, but which Google Translate informed her were castrated cockerels.
A woman she’d asked pointed her in the direction of a freezer where there might be some turkey meat, but when she reached it, there was just a tiny gap in the shelf and nothing to buy.
‘For a turkey?’
Mum would be happy to bring Christmas pudding and cake with her, but she could hardly lug a 20kg dead bird across the Channel and keep it fresh on a ten-hour drive. Nic was in trouble.
On arriving home, she’d scanned local selling sites and forums to see if she could find anything.
The butcher in the high street had just shrugged when she’d asked; he rarely stocked turkey.
Perhaps they were sold freshly from a farm somewhere, or there was a specialist butcher packed to the rafters for the festive season.
But no.
‘Yes. My parents are coming, my sister. They’ll be here in a few days! I have to buy a turkey now and I can’t find one!’
‘So have salmon perhaps? Or beef?’ Lucien’s voice sounded amused.
‘What? On Christmas?’
There was a silence. ‘They don’t like any other meats?’
‘They do, of course. Actually Harriet doesn’t even like turkey. Or Brussels sprouts. But it’s Christmas! I mean, obviously.’
Lucien’s gave an incredulous laugh. ‘You are telling me that in England you have to all sit down and have the same meal on Christmas Day?’
‘Well, yes.’
‘Even if you don’t like it?’
‘I mean, yeah. You have to have a bit.’
‘Even if the Brussels sprouts taste horrible to you?’
‘It’s tradition! Don’t you do the same here?’ She frowned. Of course they didn’t. French people probably had their own traditional meal. ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to assume. It’s just so… embedded somehow. Christmas equals turkey.’
‘But turkey is very dry.’
‘Yeah, we know. That’s why we only eat it once a year, probably.’
Lucien laughed. ‘So you save the worst meat of all for Christmas Day.’
When he put it like that… ‘OK, then what’s your traditional Christmas meal?
’ she asked, feeling a little affronted, but also a little embarrassed.
It did seem odd, now that she thought about it, that families up and down the country would tuck in to the same meal, whether they liked it or not, come Christmas lunchtime.
‘We don’t have one.’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Oh, we have a special meal of course. But we choose what we like. There are favourite things of course. Many people have salmon. We might have a b?che de Noel at some point. But here we are free to eat the things we like, not forced to eat vegetables that taste like feet.’
‘I actually love Brussels sprouts… but yeah, I guess they’re not everyone’s cup of tea.’
‘I’m confused. You put sprouts in your tea also?’
‘No! No. We’re not that awful.’
‘OK,’ he said. ‘Well, I will ask around. See if I can help you.’
Moments later, she received a text message:
There are turkeys in Super U
The supermarket was situated on the edge of Chateauneuf-la-Forêt, just ten kilometres or so outside of Eymoutiers. It was only ten o’clock, she could easily buy the turkey, do some work on the website she’d started to build for her painting retreats and get to the carol concert.
Grabbing her keys, she raced to the car and began the drive.
It had snowed lightly in the night, but she was no longer worried about slippery roads. The minute snow hit the tarmac, tractors seemed to appear en masse to keep things moving. Still, she drove carefully, mindful that there might be patches of ice or other hazards.
The fields alongside the road retained their dusting.
And this, teamed with the Christmas songs playing on her radio, gave the journey an almost magical feel.
She thanked her lucky stars that Lucien was taking lessons with her – it was nice to have someone to call who’d be willing to help her out in an emergency, whether poultry-related or otherwise.
Ten minutes later she parked outside the glass-fronted supermarket and made her way inside. The tills were busy, but still not a patch on those at her local Tesco back in Cambridge; customers chatted with cashiers as they went through, and nobody seemed to be in a hurry.
A woman standing behind a desk marked ‘Accueil’ smiled at her and said a friendly ‘bonjour.’ Nicola stopped her trolley. ‘Do you have any turkeys here?’ she asked.
The woman frowned, as if thinking deeply. Which didn’t exactly bode well. ‘I think we had some,’ she said. ‘Over in the far corner. You are English, I assume?’
Nicola longed to say something self-deprecating such as ‘guilty as charged’ or ‘afraid so’ but wasn’t sure how it would translate. Instead, she smiled and, heart in her mouth, made her way past the shelves to the area the woman had pointed to.
As she rounded a corner by the confectionary aisle she saw it – a square, glass free-standing fridge unit with the word ‘Dinde’ written on a yellow label which hovered above. Inside, she could see a single turkey – rather smaller than she’d like, but still. Jackpot!
She began to push her trolley quickly in the right direction. And it was only then that she realised another woman was doing exactly the same thing, from the opposite way. They locked eyes and the woman, who looked to be about fifty years old with highlighted hair and blue jeans, narrowed hers.
Surely not?
They both made a mad dash, and the woman managed to get her hands on the remaining turkey just seconds before Nic. But she reached out anyway, grabbing the turkey’s rear end.
‘Excusez-moi!’ the woman barked, but with such a clear English accent that she may as well have said ‘Oi, hands off.’
‘I saw it first! I was just coming to get this. I’ve driven from Eymoutiers,’ Nicola retorted in English.
The woman tugged at the turkey, nearly wresting it from Nic’s grasp. ‘Well, it’s mine. Sorry, love. But if I don’t get a turkey, the family will probably riot.’
‘So will mine!’ Nicola found herself tugging the poor bird back towards herself.
‘But I picked it up!’
‘But I need it!’
‘I got to it first!’
‘I saw it first!’
By now several shoppers had stopped their trolleys and were watching them with amusement. A young man wearing a name badge on his blue shirt walked up. ‘Can I help, mesdames?’
‘Yes! She’s stolen my turkey!’ the woman said hotly.
‘It’s my turkey!’
‘I need it for my family!’
‘It’s Christmas!’
He looked from one of them to the other, bemused. ‘Well, I am afraid it is the last one. But we do not encourage fighting in this store. Please, will one of you give it up.’
The pair of them stared at each other for a moment.
Then Nicola suddenly felt the energy drain out of her.
What on earth was she doing? Seemingly the other woman had similar thoughts.
They both let go at the same time and the poor bird – who had surely suffered enough – hit the floor with a soft plop.
They looked at it, then at each other. Then, realising they were on the same ridiculous page, both started to laugh. ‘You have it, honestly,’ Nicola said, picking it up and offering it to the woman. ‘I’ll go into Limoges or something, they’re bound to have some there.’
‘It’s fine. I shouldn’t have— I’m just so wrapped up in making a perfect Christmas,’ the woman replied.
The supermarket worker, realising the danger had passed, backed away and disappeared down one of the freezer aisles.
They looked at each other for a moment, then at the turkey. Then: ‘You said Eymoutiers?’ the woman said. ‘I’m only in Sainte Anne. How about I cook it, then drop some of it off to you for your family. It’s more than we need, honestly.’
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘Come on. I do. You can’t go traipsing around Limoges so close to Christmas on a wild goose chase.’
The humour was not lost on either of them. ‘Turkey chase,’ they said in unison. As they laughed, Nicola realised she’d missed this. Her French had progressed in leaps and bounds, but the humour between their cultures didn’t always translate.
‘I’m Brenda.’
‘Nic.’
They shook hands and Brenda put the turkey in her trolley. ‘Been here long?’
‘Just a few months.’
Brenda nodded. ‘Well, look.’ She fished around in her bag and pulled out a business card.
Brenda Baker, it read. Poterie. ‘I make pots and that sort of thing for the market. But there’s my address’ – she pointed to a small, printed location and postcode – ‘and my number. You know. Call if you need any help with anything.’
‘Do you do classes?’ Nicola asked.
‘Not usually. Why?’
‘Ah, just got the urge to relearn. I studied a bit at university, specialised in painting though. And I thought…’
Brenda nodded. ‘Sure. Pop in. I’ve got tons of clay if you want to have a go.’
‘Thank you.’
On the way back home, Nicola sang along with Slade, then Elton John.
She felt something like cheerfulness bubble inside of her.
Yes, her mission to get a turkey had failed.
But she’d made another contact and that felt even more important.
And this time, she’d been brave, had stepped forward rather than holding back.
She was so focused on singing one of the high notes that when she turned into her drive she almost didn’t see Monsieur Rémi walking towards her. Her high last ‘woah-wo’ became a small yelp, and she slammed on the brakes almost too forcefully, making the car lurch and the engine cut out.
Monsieur Rémi shuffled forward, leaning on a stick. He was wearing a rather grubby grey woollen coat, with a badge on the lapel, but just underneath she could see a colourful pop of a knitted scarf in a vibrant blue.
She climbed out of the car and shut the door, wondering what he was going to say. His brow was furrowed, his mouth set. But then it was freezing cold and a light, icy wind was blowing directly towards him.
‘Are you OK?’ she asked when he was close enough to hear her. He nodded. ‘I just wanted to call on you. Explain. My daughter, she thinks I am a sad old man, that I never talk. She does not understand how difficult I find it.’
It was the most she’d heard him say in the months since she’d arrived. ‘It’s OK,’ she said, then, ‘Was it you who left the present? The little reindeer.’
He nodded. ‘It was nothing. I just… The slippers are beautiful and I was so rude to shut the door on you. Mari, my wife. She would have been furious with me! And when I told my daughter, she was horrified!’ He gave a small smile but it was filled with such sadness that Nicola almost wanted to look away for a second.
‘It’s just you surprised me. With the gift.
Because we have not spoken much. And because…
’ He took in a breath that seemed to straighten his whole body for a second.
He gestured and for a moment Nicola thought he was going to blame something about her appearance.
But: ‘Mari, she bought me the slippers I usually wear,’ he finished.
‘Oh God. I’m so sorry!’
‘No. Please. Do not be. They are worn. They are terrible. Yours, I have worn them, they are so much more comfortable. It was kind of you.’ He took a big, shuddering breath. ‘It just made me realise. Mari has been gone for a long time now. The slippers have quite worn out.’
Nicola stepped forward and nearly thought twice about it, but put her hand on the old man’s arm, giving it a squeeze. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss. My grandmother, she was devastated when my grandfather died. It’s a whole lifetime with a person. I can’t imagine.’
Monsieur Rémi looked up at her with watery eyes. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘You are very kind.’ He turned to go and the sight of him continuing to hobble so painfully away from her made her heart ache.
‘Monsieur Rémi!’ she called.
He turned.
‘I’m going to a carol concert tonight, in Saint-Léonard. Would you like to come with me?’
For a moment, it looked like he might say yes. But then he shook his head, raising a hand in a thank you. Then turned and continued to move slowly back to his own driveway, his own front door.