A French Wedding (7 page)

The places that sold quickly and appealed to out-of-towners were in the village, not out here like this cottage. They were the small places like her parents' home. In town, sandwiched between others, nestled in the heart of Douarnenez. Her parents told her they paid too much for it back in the late sixties, but it was worth ten times that price now. Juliette had begun working for Max when he was just finishing the renovation, directing it himself, right down to the inset brass door handles, all-white bed linen and jute floor rugs. The kitchen, apart from the addition of commercial appliances, was relatively untouched and missing kitchenware and crockery.

‘You do it,' Max had urged her, which Juliette understood to be a compliment. Max had eaten at
Delphine
; he trusted her. ‘Choose whatever you like and use this for the bills.' He had flicked her a silver-coloured credit card.

A flash of light reflects off something in Sophie's lap and Sophie tips her head up quickly.

‘I …' she mumbles. Juliette peers over. Sophie's lap is full of empty oyster shells, some of them broken.

‘Do you mind if I have …?' Sophie asks.

‘No. I mean, of course. I don't mind,' Juliette replies. She studies Sophie's face. The teenager's cheeks are pink and her eyes are glazed. A tired and hungry face, Juliette knows it well.

‘Did you want to try some oysters?' she asks carefully.

‘Oh. No. I don't eat them,' Sophie says, and then pauses. ‘I'm collecting the shells. It's a … hobby … or I don't know … something, of mine.'

Juliette places her empty plate down beside her. She moves closer in order to see. Sophie turns her body ever so slightly towards Juliette, presenting the collection of shells in her lap. Juliette notices other things then. A broken eggshell, a wild bird's, not a hen's, it is tiny and pale green and has spots the colour of coffee grinds. Two feathers. Then something shining – a bent fork.

‘I didn't get that from here,' Sophie says hurriedly. ‘It was on the side of the road, when we pulled over for … a bathroom break.' She meets Juliette's eyes. ‘I don't steal.'

Juliette nods.

‘Cool collection,' she says.

‘I guess it's just rubbish.'

Juliette frowns. ‘Not if you don't think so.'

Sophie's cheeks flush a darker pink. Her voice drifts off and when silence falls between them again she doesn't fill it. Juliette considers a strategy.

‘Hey … do you think your parents would mind …' Juliette whispers, leaning nearer, ‘if you have a tiny bit of alcohol?'

Sophie blinks and lifts her chin. ‘I'm
fifteen
,' she says, as though it were fifty.

Sophie's face reminds Juliette of the photographs in her parents' home. The girl so restless in her own skin. Sullen and confronting; challenging and hoping, wishing to be somewhere else. Fears simmering, just below the surface, making her stomach churn.

‘I'm making sorbet with cider brandy tonight,' Juliette replies. ‘I mean, I didn't think it would be a problem, but I thought I'd better ask.'

Juliette stands up and brushes the front of her pants, picking up her empty dinner plate in her other hand.

‘It's quite a bit of cider brandy, actually. Don't tell?'

Sophie nods.

‘
Bon
. I'll bring you some better cutlery.'

She directs her gaze at the bent fork in Sophie's lap and then watches as a tiny smile graces the girl's face. Juliette quickly feels guilty for telling Sophie not to tell her parents. Secret keeping should be her business, not Sophie's.

*

It is midnight before everyone returns to their rooms. They have eaten their desserts, Sophie included, then another cheese platter of washed-rind Port Salut, creamy St Paulin and soft Mingaux, served with fruit. They'd groaned from fullness and Eddie joked that Juliette was part of an underground group that fattened up British people, like
foie gras
geese, to serve their body parts to diners in Paris. Nina and Rosie were tipsy and Hugo asked Lars to stop topping up their drinks. That had all three of them, Nina, Rosie and Lars, telling Hugo to stop being so boring and then roaring with laughter until Hugo said he was retiring to bed. Beth fell asleep on Eddie's arm, right at the table, then Sophie left too, her odd, broken collection tucked into her sweatshirt. The remaining few got along even better with the exclusion of Hugo, Beth and Sophie. Nina, Lars, Rosie and Eddie sang to the music Lars chose and leaned against one another and clinked their glasses together in toasts to various things that became more and more idiotic.

From Rosie: ‘To Brittany!'

From Eddie: ‘To Max's big, fuck-off house!'

From Lars, drumming on the table: ‘To The Jacks!'

Then, another, before Rosie punched his upper arm and they all looked at Beth, still sleeping: ‘To topless birds!'

From Nina: ‘To Juliette! For feeding us like kings!'

They were as drunk and stupid as teenagers.

*

With them all now finally in their rooms, full and happy, Juliette gives the table a final wipe-down and stacks the chairs in three piles in case a late wind comes through. Then she stands on the deck and listens to the sound of the waves.
Roar
,
shhh
shh
,
roar
,
shh shh
. A breeze rocks her on her heels. She can feel breezes better now that her hair is short. She wonders why she didn't cut it earlier. People say it suits her, even older women in the village who still wear their hair long, often plaited and tied up. Juliette feels more like herself with it short, but then some things you learn about yourself later than you expect. Juliette had cut it herself one night, thinking about how her father clipped the dogs after their lavender oil baths. Juliette's mother hated him washing the cocker spaniels in the bathtub but her father wouldn't wash them outdoors, he was too besotted with them. Juliette had snipped her hair using a small pair of silver scissors she'd found in her mother's sewing kit after her father had died. Her mother must have had them sharpened regularly, because they made quick work of it. Juliette's father had not lasted long without her mother. Juliette often imagined an invisible thread that bound them both to each other and the earth. Once her mother's bonds were severed her father's started to fray. It was only a matter of months before they were both gone.

Closing her eyes to the breeze, Juliette remembers them before either were ill. Sitting up in bed together, sharing a newspaper and drinking tea. Walking the dogs, one each. At the dining table listening, enthralled, to Juliette's stories of life in Paris.

Juliette pictures her mother's face. Her funny, crescent-shaped eyes, her wide forehead and pointing chin. Laughing at some joke Juliette has made. Skin covered in freckles, as it had always been, for as long as Juliette could remember. Even her hands had always been freckled. But warm when her fingers laced with her daughter's, soft when pressed against Juliette's cheeks, comforting against her back.

Lavender's blue, dilly dilly …

Juliette blinks and straightens. She is tired. She walks back to the kitchen, thinking about tomorrow's preparations. When she opens the kitchen door there is a woman seated at the bench. Her back is to Juliette and she has a bottle at her elbow. She is dressed in black cropped trousers, with a light jersey, maybe cashmere, and patent leather ballet slippers on her feet, which are crossed at the ankles. Juliette clears her throat. The woman's dark hair, cut in a shoulder-length bob, swings as her head turns. Juliette glances at her right hand, there is a ring much like Rosie's on it, but with a dark stone, and a cigarette between her fingers.

‘Shit. Sorry. I'm smoking.'

Juliette looks at the bottle. Tequila with a gold label and a pale, bloated worm in the bottom.

The woman smiles guiltily. ‘I gave this to Max a year or so ago so I'm just reclaiming what was once mine.'

Her eyes are as dark as her clothes, her lips bare, a pink-grey. Before Juliette can speak she does.

‘I don't suppose you usually let people smoke in the kitchen. Max told me you're a proper, wonderful chef.'

‘Max is kind,' Juliette answers, rinsing the cloth and then laying it over the tap by the sink.

‘I'll only smoke this one, I promise. I just didn't know my way around and didn't want to wake anyone up.'

Juliette nods. She thinks of Henri, the baker, of their conversations on the plastic crates in the early morning, as the rest of Paris was just waking. Lamenting the loss of cigarettes, reluctantly acknowledging the sensitivity it brought to their tastebuds, commiserating over strong coffee and croissants still so hot they flaked and fell apart in their fingers. Helen pushes the bottle towards Juliette.

‘I got it from a small town in Jalisco. It's supposed to be famous. Will you share it with me? I think it's called something stupid like “Big Cock Tequila”.'

The two women stare at the label on the bottle. It has a picture of a rooster on it. Juliette considers. She is probably too tired to start more preparation work now.

‘Max got a kick out of that,' the woman says, grinning and then blowing smoke towards the floor, away from Juliette.

‘I bet he would have,' Juliette says. ‘
D'accord
.' She lifts the bottle to her lips. It is dry and sour and hot going down her throat. She coughs and laughs, the woman laughing back. One of her front teeth slightly crosses over the other.

‘I don't drink much tequila,' Juliette says, wiping her lips with the back of her hand. Lately she has been drinking a local
chouchenn
, a honey wine, in the evenings, made by the beekeepers who have a stall at the market.

‘Probably a good idea.' The woman nods. ‘Some of the people I met could have done with drinking a little less tequila.'

‘What took you to Mexico?'

‘Work. An artist. I have a gallery,' she says, tapping cigarette ash into a saucer. ‘He does very large-scale sculptures.' She looks into the distance. ‘They're beautiful pieces. He uses a lot of collected material and the colours are very vivid. His village is so small it's barely there. They make tequila, that's about it. Now, though, a lot of them are helping him with his art. It's changed the place. I've only been twice, but the difference …' She breaks out of her stare to glance at Juliette. Her voice is soft and deep, affected by the smoking, but not raspy. Buried in her accent, something about the way she makes vowel sounds, reminds Juliette a little of her mother's voice. Her mother, who had laughed so easily and charmed everyone in Douarnenez despite her dreadful French.

‘It's really quiet here. New York is never like this. There's always noise.'

‘Paris is like that too. I'm from here but I lived in Paris,' Juliette says. Juliette thinks of the apartment near Rue de Mouffetard with windows that open out to the street and the constant noise – day and night. Pigeons arguing, lovers drunk and shouting, motorbikes, laughter, high-heeled footfalls, delicate autumn rain. Someone else lives there now.

The woman is still. ‘Did it take you a while to get used to …'

Juliette notices the tinge of fear in her voice. ‘It can feel lonely at first,' she replies. The woman nods slowly. She is not just a beautiful woman, she is a girl too. With fears barely below the surface. Juliette understands why Max is in love with her.

‘I'm Juliette. I work for Max.'

‘I'm Helen.'

Juliette takes the hand Helen extends, as she is now used to doing, and finds it to be cold and smooth, not unlike the satin of an oyster shell, not unlike Jean-Paul's skin had been, in his softest places.

‘Juliette,' Helen says, softly. ‘Max has told me all about you … Was I the last to arrive?'

‘Yes. I can make you something to eat, if you like. You've come from New York?'

Helen straightens and stretches. ‘Yes, I hired a car at Charles de Gaulle. But no, don't make me anything, I'm not hungry. I ate on the plane.' She picks up the tequila and drinks from the neck, not spluttering as Juliette had.

‘Did the rest of them treat you well?'

‘Oh, yes –'

‘Even Hugo?' Helen raises one eyebrow.

‘Yes,' Juliette says, politely. ‘Everyone is very nice.'

Helen grins, crossover teeth showing. ‘They are, aren't they? I wish I'd got here earlier. We haven't been together like this for a long time. Maybe Rosie and Hugo's wedding … No, it can't be that long. Max got most of us to Paris for the
Disque d'or
award but I think Rosie was pregnant with Patrick …'

Helen's soft, rolling voice is soothing. Juliette stifles a yawn.

‘Sorry, I …'

‘No, I should go to bed too. I've got to pick up my sister tomorrow morning. And you must be exhausted.'

‘It has been a long day,' Juliette admits.

‘Where am I sleeping?'

‘Bedroom right at the end of the hallway upstairs, past the bathrooms. Sophie is down that end too, in the studio.'

‘Oh, dear little Sophie, how old is she now?'

‘Fifteen, I believe.'

‘Fifteen …' Helen says, drawing breath. ‘How did that happen?' She stands up. ‘Thanks for letting me have my smoke. Outside from now on, scout's honour.' She makes a gesture with her fingers against her chest. Then laughs loudly. ‘I don't know what that was, I'm no scout. But I'm honest, you can trust me.'

‘Okay, I trust you,' Juliette replies.

‘See you in the morning?' Helen asks.