The Confectioner's Tale (17 page)

He shoved the other young man, hard. The apprentice stumbled and fell. Gui heard a tide of chatter coming towards them from the kitchen and took his chance to escape.

He kept his head down as the other chefs passed, arms crossed, and no one noticed the state of his uniform. In the scullery, he threw one of the washing tunics over his ruined jacket. His nose was dripping; he swiped it with the back of his hand and saw blood. He blotted it with one of the rags and prayed that it wasn’t broken.

He was shaking, he felt sick and hollow from the fight. It would only be a matter of time before his presence was missed at the ovens. He could not afford to have his pay docked for the damage to his uniform; it was barely enough to cover the rent at Madame’s as it was. As for brawling on duty …

He plunged his arms into a sink full of water and tried to hide his bloodied nose when two chefs entered, laden with dirty mixing bowls.

‘Well, he’d been fighting with
someone
,’ one of them said.

‘Still, I can’t believe that Josef sent him packing without a word,’ snorted the other.

‘I can. He was on his last warning.’

‘Who else was involved, do you reckon?’

‘We’ll find out when someone gets back from break looking a mess, won’t we?’

They dumped the stack of bowls in the deep sink, splashing Gui with suds. He stared down into the water. He couldn’t believe that he had been so stupid; his one chance at a future, at something better. He was not going to lose it because of a skinny tell-tale.

He waited until the corridor outside the scullery was empty, then ran down its length to a door at the other end. If anyone saw him walking through it, he would be dismissed for sure.

Thankfully, it was the middle of the day, a quiet time. He encountered no one as he crept up the polished stairs towards the Clermonts’ apartment. He knocked, heart thundering down to his stomach, arms clenched tight behind his back to hide their shaking.

The door opened with a gust of warm air. It smelled like flowers and tea.

‘Guillaume!’

Mademoiselle Clermont stood there, her eyes widening at the state of him. She wore dark pink today, a lace collar tight and high on her neck. An ornate hairpiece of silk flowers was twined about her head.

‘I’m looking for Patrice,’ he stuttered.

She seized him by the arm, pulled him inside. Their feet were muffled by thick carpet.

‘Who’s there, Jeanne?’

Gui froze. There was someone else in the apartment.

‘A mistaken caller, Aunt,’ said Mademoiselle Clermont loudly. ‘They were looking for Madame Bescanon along the hall.’ Her voice was cool and even, but Gui could hear the breathlessness below the surface. ‘I must just take a moment for myself, if you don’t mind.’

‘Are you feeling unwell, Jeanne?’ the older woman’s voice called.

‘No, no, I won’t be long.’

She dragged him along the hallway to a second door, pushed him inside and followed him in, locking it as quietly as possible. When she turned, her cheeks were burning red.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded in a whisper.

The room was high and airy. Heavy curtains framed the windows, as well as a four-poster bed with an ornately carved headboard. A smooth satin eiderdown covered crisp sheets. With a jolt, Gui realized that he must be in Mademoiselle Clermont’s bedroom.

‘I am sorry,’ he stammered, shrugging off the washing tunic to reveal the blood-spattered, burned uniform. ‘I needed help and I thought of Patrice … I didn’t know who else to ask.’

‘What on earth happened?’

‘Another boy saw me burn my jacket. He was going to tell Josef, and I tried to stop him, but then he hit me.’ Gui sniffed and tasted blood at the back of his throat. ‘I didn’t want to start a fight, but I can’t afford to lose any pay.’

Mademoiselle Clermont had drawn back from the ruined garment, turning towards the door. ‘Guillaume, I’m sure that if we explained to Josef—’

Gui snatched at her arm before she could reach for the handle.

‘No! If I’m seen with you, I’ll be fired on the spot.’

She stared at his fingers, burned and scarred, closed around the fine lace of her sleeve.

‘What happened to your hands?’ she murmured.

Abruptly, he recalled the feel of her in his arms, her hands locked around his neck as he battled through the floodwater, the warmth he had felt between them in the corridor. He let go. A strange expression flickered across her face. Then she seemed to make up her mind, and pushed him towards a dressing table that was tucked into an alcove.

‘Sit down,’ she ordered, and opened a drawer.

Gui caught a waft of lavender. She drew out a handkerchief, embroidered with leaves and flowers and the word ‘Jeanne’. She shook it free of its folds and wet it with some lotion from a bottle.

‘Here,’ she handed it to him, ‘we should clean up your face, for a start.’

Gui stared in horror at the fine linen.

‘I can’t use this,’ he told her quietly, ‘I’ll ruin it.’

‘No matter,’ she said carelessly, searching through a forest of bottles and jars. ‘I have hundreds.’

Gingerly, Gui dabbed at his nose, wincing at the rust-coloured smears that came away on the clean, white surface.

‘Here.’ Mademoiselle Clermont was opening a blue tin, with English writing upon it. ‘This will help your hands. It’s for treating burns, from America.’ She scooped out a small palmful of what looked like lard.

He was not sure whether he should protest or whether it would be rude to interrupt when she took his hand and began to dot the substance over the worst scalds.

‘When I saw you the other day,’ he began clumsily, to cover his embarrassment, ‘you looked upset. Is everything all right?’

She pulled a face, smoothing the balm into his skin. ‘I am sorry about that. Father and I disagreed again. He believes that I have forgotten how to behave.’

‘Have you?’ he could not help but ask.

Her fingers were soft, and he had the uncontrollable urge to touch her, to pull her closer. Something must have betrayed his thoughts, for she looked once into his face, before letting go.

‘Here.’ She held out the remaining balm. ‘What can we do about your uniform? I do not have much time. My aunt and I are expecting guests.’

‘I need a clean jacket, or they’ll know it was me in the fight,’ he said hurriedly, grateful to talk about something practical. ‘I thought Patrice might have one.’

‘He may, I saw him mending one yesterday. Wait here, we shall have to be fast.’

Swiftly, she tugged a bell pull that hung beside the door.

‘If it’s anyone else but Patrice, you will have to hide,’ she whispered over her shoulder.

Gui shifted towards the edge of the seat, ready to bolt into the shadow of a huge wardrobe. A minute later there was a knock at the door.

‘Mademoiselle?’ It was the valet’s voice, muffled through the wood. ‘Is everything all right? Your aunt is concerned and your guests are due any minute.’

She opened the door an inch. Gui caught a snatch of frantic whispering, before the door was shut and locked again.

‘Quickly,’ Mademoiselle Clermont told him. ‘Take off the old one.’

‘It …’ Gui stuttered, mouth dry. ‘It wouldn’t be proper, I’ve no undershirt.’

The girl made an exasperated noise and crossed her arms.

‘I shall look away, if it troubles you.’

Flushing from neck to forehead, Gui fought his way out of the jacket, fingers slipping on the gilded buttons. He gripped the ruined garment, and stood, chest bare. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in the dressing-table mirror, of the muscles in his back and waist above the white trousers, and realized that Mademoiselle Clermont was staring.

A discreet knock on the door interrupted his embarrassment and Patrice was admitted. His eyes flared at the sight of Gui, standing there shirtless, but he thrust a white garment forward.

‘Never a dull day when you are around, du Frère,’ he said, mouth twitching with amusement. ‘My nailbrush sends its regards. Mademoiselle,’ he directed reprovingly at the staring girl, though half a smile still lingered, ‘the Burnetts’ motor car has arrived outside and they will be coming upstairs imminently. If you have finished your examination of young Monsieur du Frère, I suggest you rejoin your aunt in the drawing-room.’

Blanching slightly, she hurried to obey.

‘The Burnetts?’ Gui whispered, struggling thankfully into the new jacket. ‘Do you mean Monsieur Burnett?’

‘Yes, his wife and son, they are friends of the family.’ Patrice bundled up the old garment. ‘Hurry lad, if you leave now you might avoid them.’

Gui grinned and clasped the valet’s hand in thanks. Patrice winked and hustled him out into the corridor. As they reached the front door, Gui snuck a look over his shoulder. He was rewarded. Mademoiselle Clermont was looking back from the opposite end. She smiled and they were complicit, until someone called her name.

‘Go!’ she mouthed with a laugh.

Gui allowed Patrice’s nudge to take him onto the landing, where he hurtled down the stairs, ecstatic as a schoolboy.

Chapter Twenty-Five

May 1988

London Paddington: I arrive just in time to catch the afternoon train to Penzance. The price of the ticket makes me blanch. At this rate, I’ll have to swallow my pride and ask my mum for a loan.

I feel a jolt of anxiety as I board. I’m travelling to the other end of the country on scant information, with little money and no plan, but the train is about to leave and it’s too late to worry. I settle back and take out one of my notebooks.

Grandpa Jim was always writing; far more than he ever published. Towards the end, I would sometimes help him make sense of his notes, type them up into articles, but amongst his papers I found whole working journals filled with his untidy scrawl. There were endless lines of musings and ideas, folders full of long rambling pages, hacked out letter by letter upon his old black typewriter.

Slowly, I turn to a new page in my own journal and as the brakes release, I start to write.

Two hours have passed and we’re already a long way west of London before I stop. Outside, the suburbs have given way to fields, a thin canal snaking alongside the track. The wind rattles the window in the corridor, clouds race across the sky, making the carriage light and dark with their passing.

My stomach growls; I haven’t eaten all day. I wobble through the train to find the buffet car, and wolf down a greasy bacon sandwich and a cup of tea. When I return, the woman in the opposite seat offers me a newspaper. I read it cover to cover, then doze for a while, until I am woken by a poke in the arm.

‘You’re missing the best part, dear,’ my fellow passenger tells me, indicating outside.

Beyond the glass, barely ten feet away, the sea is battering the rail track. The blustery day has whipped the waves into crashing foam, coating the windows with salt. I can almost taste it in the air. Early-evening light streams in, throwing the train’s silhouette upon the water. It illuminates every detail: the glass in the windows, the head of an oblivious passenger further down the carriage. I raise my hand to see whether a shadow figure will do the same, but the track curves, flashing through a tiny station and the magic is lost.

Some time later, the woman with the newspaper nods goodbye as she alights at Bodmin. Her seat remains vacant. The train is emptying as we travel further and further south. The ticket inspector gives me a friendly smile when he comes round.

‘Penzance,’ he tells me, ‘end of the line. Heading home, young lady?’

I shake my head. ‘Just visiting.’

Finally, the high blue of the sky splits open. A vast sunset spreads from the horizon as we slide into the terminal shed at Penzance.

I am one of a handful of people who step yawning from the train. Those in working clothes head briskly for the car park; others drag suitcases to be greeted by loved ones. Disorientated, I pull the napkin from my pocket and read the address again. In the ticket office, I ask how to get to a village called Mousehole, hoping that they won’t laugh.

‘Mauzel,’ the man corrects me gruffly. ‘Blue bus, every half-hour or so, can’t miss it.’

The timings sound a bit dubious, but before long a bus does turn up, blue and white with a scrolling panel. It wends its way around the coast road before wedging itself into a tiny fishing village. A harbour forms a protective curve, with rows of grey cottages lining the sea wall.

It is dusk now and gone nine o’clock. Lights are beginning to reflect in the water. It is too late to go calling on elderly academics. Instead, I scrawl out a note. There’s a sharp breeze that snatches at the paper and smells of open sea. I lick my lips and taste salt.

The house is easy enough to find. The row of cottages is made from granite, running into each other at odd angles, windows barely four steps from the water’s edge. Lefevre’s house is at the end, a shabby boat pulled up before it. There are lights on. Before I lose my nerve, I push the note through the letterbox.

The wind has a cold edge in the growing darkness, so I hunch my bag higher and head along the town’s one main street in search of somewhere to stay. Heads turn as I let a gust of air into the local pub. The landlady looks mildly surprised when I ask for a room.

‘I’ll put you in Room Seven,’ she tells me with a smile. ‘It’s cosier for one person.’ She hands over a key. ‘We close down here at eleven, and breakfast starts at seven. Will you be wanting kippers?’

At least five pairs of eyes follow my progress away from the bar. The room is under the eaves of the building and smells of must. I shove the flaking window frame open and the sea air blasts in, filling the space with coolness. I had every intention of trying out the huge old bath down the hall and going to bed with my notes, but am drawn reluctantly back to the bar by the growling in my stomach. The landlady looks mortified when I ask if there is anywhere to get some food.

‘There’s not a shop before the next town and we stopped serving at nine, my dear, but if you wait, I’ll see what we’ve left.’

Obediently, I squash into a corner with a glass of cider. A chalkboard menu declares that the special of the day is stargazy pie. I gulp my drink, envisaging withered fish heads gazing plaintively at the ceiling. In the end, I’m presented with a cheese and pickle sandwich the size of my head and a pile of crisps.