A French Wedding (17 page)

‘But it's fun, you know. Seeing the world …'

This is something Max learned after dozens, hundreds of interviews. Never complain too much. His life is more blessed than most. You have to be grateful. And he was. Is.

Soleil nods. ‘I listened to them, The Jacks. I mean, I looked them up.'

‘Yeah?' If it weren't for politeness and the rhythm required for pleasant conversation Max probably wouldn't ask, ‘What did you think?'

‘They're okay.'

‘Don't kill yourself with enthusiasm,' Max mutters, shaking his head.

‘I'm just not sure they're my kind of thing.'

‘Which is?'

‘I don't know. I listen to a range of music,' Soleil says.

‘But not The Jacks and not The Cure.'

‘It's just a little … obvious? For me.'

Max turns to face her fully.

‘Especially the newer stuff,' she adds.

‘You know I wrote most of those songs?'

‘Some of them were good.'

‘Which ones?'

‘The one about the stars and the girl.'

‘“It Takes a Tiny Light”.'

‘Yeah.'

It was one of Max's ballads. Frank hadn't wanted it on the album.

‘And the turtle one.'

Both songs were far from being The Jacks' top hits. They were too dark and too blunt.
They weren't commercial.

‘Do you have favourites?'

‘I'm proud of all our work,' Max says defensively.

‘I just didn't like some of the newer tracks,' Soleil says.

‘You said that already.'

Max empties the glass. He looks around for Juliette but she must be in the kitchen. He feels the familiar, internal itch for something stronger than alcohol. Max isn't unused to criticism. The Jacks have had plenty of bad reviews, that's just part of it. But he is unused to criticism sitting in his lounge. He glances at the stairs, looking for Helen. When he doesn't see her, he turns back to Soleil. The booze gives Max's throat a pleasant buzz and warms his chest.

‘You can be pretty rude, you know.'

Soleil blinks at him.

‘This is my house. These are my friends. This is
my
birthday.'

Her gaze hardens. ‘I was just being honest.'

‘I never asked you to be honest.'

‘Yes, you did. You asked me what I thought.'

‘I didn't expect you to be so bloody critical.'

‘Honest,' she insists.

Max rubs his face. ‘Jesus Christ.'

‘Maybe I was a bit harsh about your house.'

‘Yeah, you were.' Max waits. ‘Is that it?'

‘What else should there be?'

‘Thank you for having me? Sorry I was rude about your music? Sorry I'm such a pain in the arse?'

‘I was being honest,' Soleil says again. ‘Why do people have such a problem with honesty?'

If Soleil were a guy Max probably would have punched her by now. He could have blamed it on the tequila.

‘There's honesty and then there's fucking rudeness,' he repeats.

‘You're saying I should never say what I really think? I should only say what is polite?'

Helen appears beside Max. ‘Hey, you two.'

They both look up at her.

‘Getting along?' she asks.

Max gives a dishonest smile and Soleil says nothing.

*

Juliette refills his glass and Max looks up at her gratefully. Juliette is a wonder. She arrives from nowhere and knows exactly what he needs and when. If Max mentions a cheese or a dish he likes, then it is served next time he comes. Eddie teased him that he should make Juliette his wife, she looks after him so well. Max had laughed but he should probably give her a pay rise. Come to think of it, Max isn't a hundred per cent sure what he does pay Juliette.

‘Thanks, Juliette.'

‘
De rien
. I'll serve dinner in an hour. I need to pick up more seafood. Does that suit?'

‘Cracker,' Max replies, giving her a thumbs-up.

Helen giggles at him.

‘What?'

‘You're drunk.'

‘Is that so bad?'

Maybe he should ease up. Max always drinks more when he's not taking coke. He is dying to do some coke. He glances at Eddie. Eddie would do coke with him.

Helen leans back and drops her feet in his lap.

‘So.' She passes him a box.

‘So. For me?'

It's about the size of a shoebox, but upright.

‘It's nothing you need.'

Max puts down his tequila. The box is wrapped in black paper with a pattern of creamy-white staring skulls. He passes his thumb over one; it's raised and velvety. He peels off the red satin ribbon.

‘Careful. Don't tip it,' Helen warns.

He opens the lid.

Inside is a pot plant. Except the pot is half a coconut and the stand is a colourful coil. A bedspring covered in different pieces of tightly wound wool.

‘It's Baby Tears. The plant, I mean.'

Max lifts it out of the box. Tiny leaves dot falling green tendrils, hanging over the edge of the coconut shell. Max feels someone behind him.

‘What is that?' Eddie leans on the back of the couch.

‘Baby Tears,' Max repeats, still staring at it.

‘That'll definitely go with the decor,' Eddie jokes. Helen reaches out and gives him a light smack. Max wishes he wasn't there. He wishes it were just him and Helen, somewhere dark and silent. Max runs his finger over a piece of wool, mustard yellow coloured. Next to it soft mint green. Then red, then brown, then pink. The rainbow journeys up the coil and then runs around and back down again.

Helen pushes at him with her toe. ‘You remember?'

He looks over to her. ‘Of course I remember.'

‘Remember what?' Eddie asks.

Go away, Eddie.

‘Max made me a pot plant just like that one when we were at college.'

‘Yeah? Didn't know you were such a crafter, mate.'

‘You know me. Multi-talented.'

‘I'd failed an illustration paper. Remember?' Helen asks.

Max nods.

‘And my father was being a shit.' Helen turns to Eddie. ‘Max made me a pot plant and brought over a bottle of vodka. Made it all better.'

‘Aw,' Eddie says, shoving Max's shoulder.

Fuck off, Eddie.

Helen leans towards Max. ‘'Cause that's what he always did. Made it all better. Eh, Max?' She reaches out and takes his hand, their fingers weaving together easily. He wishes Helen could read his mind.

I love you. I need you. It's you; you are it. It's always been you. Be mine.

Eddie hangs over the couch and stares at them both with a goofy, drunken smile on his face.

‘I love it,' Max says softly.

Chapter 11

Juliette

T
he rain is coming down in sheets now
.
Juliette expertly sidesteps newly formed puddles, unflinching at the spray against her face. She folds up her umbrella and knocks on her neighbour's door. There is a Gwenn-ha-du hanging in the front window. Paol and Mari's eldest opens the door and it takes a moment for Juliette to find her voice. This always happens when she sees Gaela. She looks exactly as Mari did at high
school. Her hair dark red and shining, her eyes black and darting. Her mother, Mari, had been outgoing and well-liked, the lead in school drama productions, the girl dating the boy two years her senior.

‘
Bonjour
, Juliette.'

Gaela beckons her inside, out of the rain, while Juliette wipes her shoes on the doormat.

‘
Bonjour
, Gaela. Are your parents in?' Juliette can smell hot butter.

‘Who is it?' A voice calls from the kitchen.

‘Just me, Mari! Juliette, from next door. I'm picking up seafood from Paol.'

‘Ah,
oui
. Come in, come in. I'm in here, trying not to burn this crepe. Gaela, bring her in.'

Gaela points towards the kitchen but Juliette already knows the way, following the narrow hallway down towards the right. Gaela heads towards another door, her bedroom presumably, with a silent wave. The kitchen is homely and cluttered with piles of papers and children's drawings on walls that are so old the tape and the paper have yellowed. Mari's face, above the frying pan, is frowning as she gently pokes the galette with a long, narrow spatula. Her skin is covered in freckles, her forehead wrinkled, auburn and grey curling hair piled on the top of her head.

‘Gaela looks just like you did,' Juliette says, taking a seat at a bar stool behind the counter.

‘Hmmm,' Mari replies, concentrating.

‘Do you want me to do it?' Juliette asks.

‘No,' Mari murmurs, still staring at her crepe. ‘I'm going to get it right.'

‘That one looks okay.'

‘It's my fifth,' Mari says, flicking her head towards a plate covered in pieces of
crêpe de blé noir,
buckwheat pancake
–
some soft and undercooked, some much too dark, all misshapen. Juliette resists the urge to stand and nudge her aside, take the wooden paddle in her own hands. She peers at the bowl of mixture at Mari's elbow.

‘The mixture is good. Not too thick.'

‘I told the children I wasn't giving up till I got it right. They've all gone to their rooms. Or somewhere.' Mari looks up at Juliette, grinning. ‘They're scared of me when I am like this. When I've made up my mind about something.'

‘Ah well, you're Breton, we're all stubborn.'

Mari clicks her tongue. ‘Breton enough for stubbornness but not Breton enough to have mastered making
crepes de ble noir
. Do you think it will be ready now?'

Juliette leans over and peels back the edge of the crepe. ‘Ready,' she replies.

Mari folds it into a triangle, slides the spatula underneath and lifts it onto a fresh plate. She turns it over to survey the underside and sighs. ‘Not great, but it will do.'

‘It looks good,' Juliette protests.

‘Good enough,' Mari says. ‘I'm quitting while I am ahead. I need a drink.'

‘With just one galette?'

‘I already told you, it's my fifth.'

Juliette laughs and stands. ‘Get out of the way, I'll do the rest.' Mari lifts her palms in mock surrender and goes to the fridge while Juliette stirs the crepe mixture and checks the temperature of the pan by lowering her wrist to just above the surface. It is too hot, as she had suspected. She reduces the heat on the gas element as Mari pops open a cider bottle.

‘Can I get you some?' she offers, pouring some into a small glass.

‘No, thank you, I'm still working. Where is your butter?'

Mari passes a small dish with butter in a thick yellow cube. ‘How many do you have staying at the house?' she asks.

‘Ten. Eleven including me.'

‘What are they like?' They have now switched places completely, Mari sitting on the bar stool, leaning her head into her hands. She has a piece of crepe stuck to the back of one of them. Juliette reaches out to peel it off before applying butter to the saucepan and pouring mixture. She uses the wooden paddle to guide the mixture in smooth circles till it fills most of the pan. Thin but whole. It soon starts to bubble and lift away from the hot, black surface.

‘The guests? They are nice,' Juliette replies.

‘English?'

‘One American.'

Mari lifts the cider glass to her lips ‘I am no good at cooking for so many.'

‘You cook for your family. And you teach. Thirty children in one class?'

Mari smiles. ‘Teaching I can do.'

‘Well, I couldn't,' Juliette murmurs, getting ready to remove the crepe.

‘Cooking you can do.'

‘And that's about it,' Juliette mumbles, folding the crepe with fingers that no longer recoil with the heat of a hot pan. Mari sips her cider and then turns the glass in her fingers.

‘Paol said you learned from Jean-Paul.'

Juliette looks up sharply. ‘How did he know that?'

Mari shrugs. ‘Jean-Paul told him. He was his mother's nephew.'

Juliette nods but doesn't make eye contact. Mari continues, breezily, ‘They fished on the boats together and they're long days out there. But Jean-Paul wasn't exactly a modest person.'

‘No, I suppose not.' Juliette has to concentrate on lifting the crepe and then pouring out the mixture for the next one. She has not spoken of Jean-Paul to Mari before. Past and present clang together like cymbals. ‘How many of these do you need?' she asks.

‘I don't know. Enough for us.'

‘No cheese? No ham? Filling?'

‘Oh, I'll make something else to go with them, or use some crab, some fish, don't worry. I just got it into my head to make them. Something the kids said, they were teasing me. I was being bloody-minded.'

‘So five of you
, oui
?'

‘
Oui
. Use up as much of the batter as you can. The boys eat a lot these days. You should see them. I can't keep them in trousers.' Mari laughs. ‘I mean, they grow out of them too quick.'

‘I saw Etienne the other day. I almost didn't recognise him.'

‘He's grown so much these past few months. His voice is changing.'

‘He's not a boy anymore.'

‘No. And he doesn't like to be thought of as one.'

Juliette recollects that he used to be quite a good violinist when he was still small. ‘Does he still play the violin?'

‘Yes.' Mari nods. ‘He gets his love of music from me. He's still pretty dedicated to the violin. I thought it might keep him from the sea but he's been out on the boats with Paol lately. Of course Paol doesn't mind, Etienne is a help to him. But I hate it.'

‘Because of …' Juliette starts. Thoughts of Jean-Paul drowning fill in her mind, Juliette has to pause to push them aside. Pale skin in dark water, open mouth filling with foam and fish. She has to take a deep breath. ‘The accident?' she says softly. ‘Jean-Paul and Thanh?'

Mari shakes her head. ‘No. Though that didn't help.' She meets Juliette's gaze. ‘You know I am scared of boats, don't you?'

Juliette shakes her head.

‘Well, there you go. Now you know. I am petrified of boats. See, I'm not Breton at all. I'm getting cassis for this cider. Want some?'

‘No, thank you.'

Mari fetches the liquor and tips a little into her cider, the colour in the glass darkening. She drinks while Juliette cooks, both of them in a comfortable silence. Juliette should be getting back to the house, but Mari's home is so comforting she doesn't want to leave. A bit scruffy, imperfect, but filled with love. The kind of place that makes you feel like you have permission to be yourself. Plus, it's nice to be thinking and speaking in French again.

‘I can't imagine you are scared of anything,' Mari says.

‘Me?' Juliette looks up from the pan and laughs at the absurdity of it. She feels scared of so many things. ‘Why would you say that?'

Mari shrugs. ‘You never seem scared of anything. You went to Paris –'

‘It's hardly New York,' Juliette interrupts, thinking of Helen.

‘But it's not here. I didn't even leave Douarnenez. I married a man from here. My children go to the same schools I went to.'

Juliette tips her head. ‘Paris might have been running away.'

‘Still, it's brave. You always were. Even as a teenager.'

‘Oh, I don't know …' Juliette turns off the gas element and wipes down the cast iron pan. She counts the crepes on the plate. ‘Eleven crepes will feed you?'

Mari ignores her. ‘You know, when you left, nobody knew where you'd gone for a while. Then Paol told me you had gone to England. I thought that was the bravest thing I had ever heard of. I still remember it.'

Juliette cannot meet Mari's eyes. ‘I didn't have much choice,' she mumbles.

‘You did it though.'

Juliette continues tidying up, wiping down the bench, covering the hot galettes with a linen tea towel on the bench top. She washes her hands and then shakes them over the sink, feeling Mari watching her.

‘Maybe you think we're all the same here. That we have the same views about things. But we don't, Juliette.' Mari reaches out for Juliette's shoulder. Juliette steels herself to look into her face. Her eyes are soft, her smile kind. ‘You're welcome here, you know. You don't have to hide.' Juliette reaches up to place her hand upon Mari's, swallowing down the emotion welling up inside her.

‘
Trugarez,
Mari,' she whispers, gratefully, the Breton odd but sweet on her tongue.

‘
Da netra,
' Mari replies, nodding.

*

It is eight-thirty when Juliette plates up Paol's catch. It fills three large platters piled with ice chips. Small bright red crustaceans, the new-shell spider crabs called
moussettes
, the thin black
bigourneau
, everything with claws and barnacles like little prehistoric monsters. A bounty.
Fruits de mer
– fruits of the sea.
Tresors
– treasures, more like. From sweet fresh oysters to fat crab claws and everything in between – scarlet, black and grey. Sophie comes into the kitchen as Juliette is preparing the garnishes – bouquets of garden herbs and juicy, fragrant lemon cheeks. Her hair is still wet and her lips are as pale and grey as the oysters Juliette has just shucked.

The music from the lounge can just be heard through the thick stone walls that cocoon the kitchen. Juliette smiles at Sophie. ‘Do you like this music?'

Sophie rolls her eyes in reply.

‘My parents liked Burt Bacharach,' Juliette says.

‘I don't know who that is.'

‘You are lucky.'

Having plated up the seafood, Juliette moves on to preparing the other dishes. She deftly removes the outer leaves of an artichoke.

‘Do your parents live here? In Douarnenez?' Sophie asks.

Juliette nods. ‘They used to. My parents passed away.'

Sophie frowns. ‘So you were born here?' she says, as if that's what she meant all along.

‘Yes. I grew up here and afterwards I went to Paris. I moved back to take care of my father.' Juliette places another prepared artichoke on a tray. ‘I never thought I'd live here again.'

‘It's a small place.'

‘You live in London?' Juliette asks.

‘Yes.'

‘Douarnenez is very small compared to London. Almost everywhere is though, no? Compared.'

‘Do you … kind of … know everyone here?' she asks.

Juliette turns to meet Sophie's gaze. Sophie quickly glances down at a platter. ‘Not everyone. But quite a few,' says Juliette.

Sophie pushes some ice chips around with the tip of her finger. She clearly doesn't want to be with her parents and her parents' friends. Juliette remembers that feeling. Fifteen is an uncomfortable age. Decade, even. Sometimes Juliette still feels uncomfortable in adult company – the burly, opinionated men lined up on stools in the local bars, the women who gather in the hair salons, gossiping about neighbours who have left husbands and celebrities whose children have unusual names. Though Douarnenez is Juliette's birthplace, the people often feel foreign to her. Juliette remembers Mari's comment and feels a pang of discord inside.

Finished with the artichokes, Juliette places a huge piece of buttered and garlic-studded lamb atop a bed of celadon-coloured beans. The pungent smell of raw garlic and softened, salted butter makes Juliette hungry.

‘Who lives next door to here?' Sophie asks, thumbing casually across the garden.

Juliette's gaze follows her gesture. ‘I mean, just generally,' Sophie says, as nonchalantly as possible, her voice catching and betraying her.

Juliette washes her hands. ‘Paol and Mari Reynauld and their children are in the house right next to this one. They have two boys and a girl. Paol is a fisherman – one of the few local fishermen left – and Mari is a schoolteacher. They're good people. I get all my seafood from Paol.'

‘Oh, okay,' Sophie replies.

Juliette glances at the girl, wet and reed-like. She remembers Etienne in the tree at the front of the house. A boy outgrowing his boy-skin. The flash of his teeth, the muscles knotting under his skin.