Chapter 9
NINE
LUCY
Lucy realised she should’ve gone to Clarenville straight away so that she could get a decent signal and talk to Andrew, and to start the job of sorting through the wreckage of their lives. It was exactly what she would’ve done in the past.
Even so, for the first time, Lucy felt as if she wasn’t entirely herself any more. Being organised and ambitious had earned her a cheating fiancé and a shattered heart.
She’d been so intent on organising the wedding that she hadn’t had time to stop and properly grieve for Mémé.
Her death had begun to stir up memories of the mother Lucy had lost when she was a child.
She’d fought with the sensation that everyone she loved slid from her grasp, papering over the cracks with wedding dress fittings and menu-tasting.
Andrew had been too busy – but now she knew what he’d been doing, and it hurt her even more. He should’ve been supporting her, letting her mourn, but he hadn’t been there for her because he’d been in another woman’s arms.
Lucy needed to clear her head. She set off from Jojo’s, planning to take a walk around the village before returning to the bookshop. The summer sun was shining without a cloud in the sky, and the day promised to be warm again.
The street was dusty and shopkeepers had opened canopies outside their shops, or had drawn down blinds to keep the sun from beating in at their windows.
Lucy was wearing a large pair of Jackie Onassis–style Celine sunglasses, and had swapped her heels for a pair of white Jimmy Choo trainers so that she could better negotiate the cobblestones.
As soon as she reached the top of the street, she could see the square leading off ahead of her.
Under the shade of the linden trees, a group of white-haired men were sharing their gossip.
Some of them had been Papi’s friends, who she’d met before on her visits to Cordeval, and she waved to them.
They smiled back at her and returned to their news.
It looked inviting in the shade, but Lucy turned to the right and headed along the cobbled road that led to the shore.
Seagulls were calling as she reached the bottom of the street, where it opened out into the harbour. The thick, ancient stone wall curved gently with the coastline, protecting the fishing boats that were drawn up and moored behind it.
A couple of fishermen had pulled off their waterproof jackets and were sitting in their T-shirts on the low wall as they chatted and fixed their nets.
It was funny to think how many generations of fishermen, over how many centuries, had sat in exactly the same place.
Lucy waved over to them and called, ‘Bonjour!’ and they nodded back and waved.
That was Cordeval – everyone was so friendly, even if they didn’t really know who you were.
Lucy perched on the edge of the wall, turning her head to look up at the row of houses that ran along the harbour.
Some were small, almost like farm cottages, whereas others were much taller, with a dormer window in the roof and fancy wire-work balconies.
Their ground floors were mostly occupied by small shops.
Some catered to the fishermen, with boat parts and rope; others served the tourists, with postcard racks and beach balls hanging outside.
Signs advertised ice cream and boat trips.
Lucy remembered the photo that Mémé had shown her of the same view, taken not long after D-Day. So many of the buildings had been caught in the crossfire, but the people of Cordeval had rebuilt them just as they’d used to be.
Thinking of the war reminded her of the book wrapped in newspaper.
She wondered what she could do to find out who Esther was.
She couldn’t remember Mémé ever mentioning anyone by that name, but she supposed that Esther had been part of the book club.
Why, though, had her book been left for her for decades under the counter at Les Pages d’Espoir?
She sighed as she looked out to sea. England was there, somewhere, in the heat haze over the edge of the horizon. As a fishing boat slowly chugged out of the harbour, Lucy hopped down from the wall and walked back through the streets to the bookshop.
Just as she was almost at the shop, Jojo’s shaky Wifi reconnected and her phone jingled with notifications. Almost at once, a call started to come through.
‘Dad!’ Lucy stopped under the shady awning outside Jojo’s to speak to him. It was strange being in Cordeval with him just a distant voice on the phone. She wanted to curl up in his arms like she had when she was little, where she would feel safe. ‘Hello again!’
‘Lucy, how are you?’ he asked gently. ‘I’ve spoken to Hannah about getting everything sorted out at this end and I’ve left a message for Andrew. I’ve a few things to say to that young man.’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ Lucy said. She knew her father would never forgive her ex-fiancé and perhaps hated him even more than Lucy did herself. He’d been so welcoming to Andrew, bringing him into their tight family circle. ‘It’s weird being in Cordeval without you!’
The little village of her father’s birth felt suddenly empty without him.
They’d been beside each other for all those years as they travelled from Paris to New York, Berlin to London, following his career from one glittering achievement to the next.
There had been no boarding school for Lucy; she had been too busy seeing the world even as her dad had been climbing the corporate ladder ever higher.
‘And it’s horrible being apart from you when you’re going through this.
But we can get it all sorted out, Lulu,’ he soothed.
‘I’ve got a man in Paris who can oversee the legal stuff and get the bookshop on the market, so don’t worry about that.
As for the other headache, that’s one for time to deal with.
Have a chat to Hannah and the girls and I’ll send you all for a couple of weeks in the sun before you get back in the saddle at work.
I’ll have a chat to Polly, square things away with the magazine. ’
He always knew what to do and faced everything with a cool business head. But her dad never ignored his heart; he always looked after Lucy, even though she sometimes felt as if he’d forgotten she wasn’t a little girl any more.
‘You’re great, Dad,’ Lucy told him. ‘But don’t worry about talking to Polly – I’ve already talked to her.’ She wondered if there was a flight back to London that evening. If not, she could fly back tomorrow.
But then, she thought of Mémé’s letter again, and decided she’d stay a little bit longer.
She’d booked leave from work, after all.
She just couldn’t stay too long, because she had to give Polly her decision.
When she did go back to London, at least her dad and her stepmum wouldn’t mind her taking over her childhood bedroom for a while.
‘Dad, I didn’t have time to tell you before,’ Lucy said, ‘but I’ve got some brilliant news. Polly’s offered me a promotion – editor in chief at Glitz!’
‘Congratulations!’ he cheered. ‘Absolutely smashing it as ever. That’s my girl!’
‘Thanks, Dad,’ Lucy replied, beaming. She knew it was what he’d wanted for her, and what she had worked so hard for.
All the smiling she had done in the face of spoilt and difficult celebrities; all the time she’d spent tiredly waiting in airport lounges for delayed flights.
‘I haven’t said yes yet… It’s going to be a huge amount of work, even more than I have now.
All those long hours and loads of responsibility.
But what an opportunity – I’m seriously thinking about it. ’
‘It’s what you’ve always wanted.’
‘Yeah, it is.’ Lucy replied. ‘But…’
She wanted to tell her dad about the letter, but her voice was sounding metallic and echoing back to her. ‘Thanks for sorting things out. I’ll be back when I can – and I hope you don’t mind having a guest when I do?’
‘We never mind spending time with you,’ he assured her warmly. ‘Get yourself on a plane and get yourself home, leave the old shop to me. You don’t need that headache as well.’
He’d wanted to get away from Cordeval as soon as he could, Lucy knew, and a place at the Sorbonne had been the answer to his prayers.
Lucy looked across at the bookshop, the gold lettering that picked out the name catching in the sun.
The broad windows still held the last display Mémé had ever created.
Something gripped inside her; she thought of the edge of the counter, worn smooth by Mémé’s hands.
They said goodbye. Lucy crossed the cobbled street and turned the large, brass key in the lock of the old door. She went into the cool of the bookshop, her footsteps echoing against the polished wooden floor. She needed to say goodbye.
But, although she knew she had to sell it, she felt safe here, cocooned by the shelves and the books and her memories of her grandparents. And then there was Mémé’s letter; a secret hidden in the bookshop somewhere.
She wandered from shelf to shelf again, picturing Mémé finding a book for a customer. She imagined her at the till, ringing through a sale and putting the book in a paper bag.
Right at the back of the shop was a storeroom, and Lucy hadn’t ventured there yet.
She went past the colourful children’s section, and through the door at the back of the shop.
As soon as she flicked on the light switch, she saw Mémé’s neat, white-painted shelves, where books waited to go into the shop.
A cupboard, one door slightly open, was full of box files bursting with invoices and receipts.
Some cardboard boxes of books that Mémé had never unpacked were piled on the floor.
Perhaps that was something Lucy could do: tidy up the storeroom, replenish the shelves and get the shop going again, just for a few final days.
She knelt down to look more closely at the boxes and saw a wooden crate in the corner under a shelf. It was out of place among the cardboard boxes, and it had savon printed down one side: soap. Lucy grimaced as she pulled it across the floor towards her. It was heavy with books; old books.
Had they been cleared from the shelves because they’d never sold?
But they looked older than that. Much older.
Some had yellow canvas covers, others were blue.
Some had cream-coloured covers with the titles printed on, while a few had illustrations where men had oiled-back hair and women wore little hats.
Lucy lifted the books from the box, one by one.
How long had they been here for? She flipped open the covers to see the publication dates, and stared in surprise.
They’d all been published in the 1930s. And one of them even contained some pressed flowers with frilly purple petals, which were now brittle and dry. Lucy carefully closed the cover.
She kept looking through the crate. Her fingers met newspaper and she lifted out a package. It was just like the parcel for Esther that she’d found under the till, wrapped in an old page from Le Figaro. Only this time, no name was written on it.
She rocked back on her heels. A memory was stirring. Something Mémé had told her. Something that’d happened during the war.
That was it. The Nazis had banned books after they’d invaded France. It must’ve been so hard for her great-grandmother, Margot, to run the bookshop when the shelves would’ve been checked for anything on the list.
A giddy sensation stirred inside her, a feeling as if time had shrunk and those dreadful days under the German occupation were suddenly close by.
Her father was right, she had to leave soon. The bookshop would be sold. But first she had to find out what secret it had kept hidden all these years. One Mémé had found too painful to tell, but one she was desperate for Lucy to write.