A French Wedding (18 page)

She looks to the ceiling. ‘I think the eldest son helps Paol with the boats, in the school holidays. I can't remember his name …' She lies, testing.

‘Etienne,' Sophie whispers.

Juliette smiles. ‘Right. Etienne.'

Sophie's cheeks burn red.

So that is why the girl is drenched, Juliette muses, pretending to concentrate on putting the huge piece of lamb in the oven. Juliette remembers the sensations she must be feeling. The quickened breath, the thumping heart, the feeling that you might float away. In fact, those sensations are quite familiar at the moment. Juliette has a wave of affection for the thin, awkward girl standing in her kitchen, getting in her way.

‘It's nice … Douarnenez. Even though it's small. The beach is cool.'

Juliette nods. ‘It's rugged but it's pretty. To me.'

‘Yeah. Rugged.'

‘Do your parents always take you on holiday with them?'

‘I guess. We don't go on many holidays.'

‘You're close with your parents?' Juliette asks, gently.

‘My dad, I suppose. Less my mum.'

‘Your mum works?'

‘Yeah, but it's not that. It's … I don't know. Maybe I am more like my dad. Or maybe my dad kind of trusts me more. He knows what I can do. He knows I am not a kid.'

‘I'm not a kid,' Sophie repeats, a little too assertively.

Juliette nods, understanding. This is the burden of being an only child or a late child. Juliette had been so hoped for that her parents treated her with kid gloves. Juliette knew they adored her, but it often made it worse, made it harder, to be a grown-up and make her own choices. Juliette knew, acutely, that her decisions might disappoint them. She had loved them and they loved her, but it had felt complicated. Now that they were both gone, it suddenly seemed very simple.

‘Do you want help to set the table?' Sophie asks, her voice now soft.

‘I'd love that,' Juliette replies. She picks up a seafood platter and watches as Sophie picks up another. As they leave the kitchen, Sophie mumbles, ‘I'm really sorry about your parents, Juliette.'

Juliette turns, smiling gently. ‘Me too.'

*

Max's dining room, like most of the new rooms in the house, has a huge floor-to-ceiling window along one wall. The rain has left long satiny lines that reflect on the wineglasses that Juliette and Sophie place at each setting. It's warm enough, though the curtains aren't drawn. On the opposite wall is a massive black and white photograph of a woman. Her head is tipped forwards, her long, curling hair blowing across her face and up above her as though she could be falling. Behind her the sky is brooding, rain clouds gathering. She stands amongst tawny grasses, wearing a thin white dress.

With the place settings complete and the seafood laid out, Juliette lights candles in small brass bowls and places them down the centre of the table and along the buffet. She watches Sophie skimming her fingertips over the grain of the wood of the table and pressing down into the knots. Max always prefers the table without a cloth. She has watched Max do exactly the same thing and Juliette too has imagined the dips and crevices as rivers, thought of finding tiny shells and stones she could press into the cracks. The silk of the wood has made her think of the silk of a river, her hand in the green water, a weeping willow swaying overhead. Sunshine against her legs, the sound of the water running over stones. Someone beside her. Someone stroking her hair.

‘Ready for us?'

Max is holding his glass and swaying a little. Helen is on his arm. She is still wearing the long dress but is now shoeless. She smiles at Juliette.

‘Ready. Sit wherever you like.'

Max takes a seat at the centre of the table and draws out a chair for Helen. Sophie is still standing.

‘Sit with us, Sophie?' Helen asks.

‘Oh, thanks, but I should probably get changed,' Sophie says, glancing down at her wet clothes. The others start piling in as she leaves. Eddie and Beth, Nina and Lars (he is holding the hand that is not bandaged), Rosie, Soleil, and last of all Hugo. They settle into their seats and Juliette pours wine. More local Muscadet to complement the seafood.

Once the wine is poured, Juliette places extra bottles into ice buckets on the buffet and instructs everyone to help themselves. She goes back and forth from the kitchen to check on dinner and the large
kouign-amann
pastry she has been preparing. She is going to stud it with birthday candles for dessert.

Max has put a pot plant on the buffet. Juliette shifts it to accommodate the dishes she will need to place there. The pot is made from half a coconut and the base is some kind of wire, covered in threads of different-coloured wool. Juliette runs her finger along the fuzzy stripes, just as Sophie had done with the grain of the table. She senses someone standing beside her and turns to see Helen, arm across her front, left hand holding a wineglass.

‘I know. It doesn't really go with anything.'

‘You made it?'

‘Yes.' Helen laughs, her mouth wide open.

‘It's really beautiful.'

‘That's very generous of you. And completely untrue.'

‘No, really,' Juliette insists. ‘There's not much … colour …'

They both glance around the room. The huge photograph, the pale walls, the soft grey curtains, the large blackness of the window.

‘I live in a pigsty,' Helen mumbles. Juliette wonders if she is drunk. Probably a little.

‘Not
literally
,' Helen adds. ‘I mean, my apartment is a complete mess. I'm not much of a housekeeper. I'm not good at housework. I'm not tidy.'

Juliette blinks. ‘I'm not that tidy either, I mean in my own house. It's actually my parents' … Clean, yes, but tidy, no.'

‘You're not one of those really organised people? You know, a place for everything and everything in its place.'

‘What gave you that idea?'

‘I don't know. You seem like you have it all together.'

Juliette laughs. It is so far from the truth. ‘Coming from the woman who looks like that.' She gestures to the smooth bob, the elegant dress. Even Helen's toenails are painted, a light tea-rose colour. Juliette doesn't have the time or inclination to paint her toenails. Helen's feet are small, slender and pale.

‘Oh, no,' Helen replies. ‘This is all I manage. I get a good haircut and wear black. Dressing myself is about all I can do. I'm basically a five-year-old.'

‘Well,
I
don't have it all together,' Juliette replies firmly.

Helen smiles. ‘That makes me feel better.'

‘I'm sure your place is not a pigsty.'

‘It is,' Helen assures her. ‘But I quite like it that way. I think I might have gotten too old to change my ways.'

‘That does happen,' Juliette agrees, thinking of the apartment, still cluttered with her parents' things. She should have moved on by now, from the things and from Douarnenez.

‘I want to go with you next time you go into the village,' Helen says. ‘I want to see it. Douarnenez reminds me so much of England. The coast …'

‘We call it
Cornouaille
, like Cornwall. We have strong ties with that part.'

‘Hugo was saying something about that.'

They both look over towards Hugo. He's slumped in his chair, tapping the edge of his glass.

‘He's not really part of the … friends with you all?' Juliette asks, delicately.

‘You could say that.'

‘He's –'

‘He's pompous. Is that the word you were looking for?'

Juliette presses her lips together.

‘It's okay, I've always been the blunt one.'

Helen glances at Soleil, who is tackling a crab leg with a silver crab fork and serious resolve. ‘It seems to run in the family. Anyway, yes, Hugo is … different.'

Again Juliette says nothing.

‘We could be nicer,' Helen says, her smile fading. ‘It's just that we love Rosie so much. Too much, probably. She's a grown woman; she can make her own choices. But she's the youngest of us all. Only by a bit, but it seems like more. She had a good childhood.' Helen hesitates. ‘She still believes in happily ever after.'

Juliette takes a bottle from the ice bucket, opens it and tops up Helen's glass.

‘You don't?'

Helen shrugs. ‘I'd like to. I want to. I've just never seen it. Have you?'

Juliette envisions her mother reaching out for her father, her father wrapping her mother's tiny hand in his. Both of them turning to her. Eyes wide, hopeful, wanting only the best. Juliette feels the familiar stab of guilt.

‘Once,' Juliette answers. ‘Well, no, more than once probably, but once for sure.'

‘You're lucky.'

‘I guess so.' Juliette nestles the bottle back into the ice. ‘Though sometimes I wonder if it makes it harder. I believe in happily ever after; I'm just not sure I believe it is possible for me. Not sure I …' She pauses.
Deserve it
, she almost says. It rests at the front of her mouth. The way the truth does. Like a menthol pastille. Slick and hard, the vapours filling your mouth and whooshing up your nose with spine-tingling clarity.

‘I'd like to believe in it,' Helen says again.

Juliette half expects to see Helen staring at Max. Juliette has been watching them together. Helen lies against Max on the couch, reaches for him when he is within reaching distance. Max stares at Helen the way a child stares at someone dressed in one of those animal costumes at a fair. Entranced, baffled, enamoured, trying to find the person inside.

But Helen is gazing at the photograph on the wall. She gestures to it with her wineglass. ‘Hey. You can see that woman's nipples.'

‘
Oui
,' Juliette replies, smiling.

‘I just noticed,' Helen says. ‘Ha! It's brilliant.'

‘
Oui
,' Juliette says again. They both laugh.

*

Juliette places down the main meal. Lamb. Artichokes. Beans. Lars helps her pass around plates. Chatter and the clattering of plates and tongs and cutlery syncopate each another.

‘Sophie?' Juliette hears Nina ask.

She has returned dressed in another large sweater and narrow jeans. There is a piece of bread on her plate she has picked to pieces, pinching and rubbing it between thumb and forefinger into crumbs. She eyes stare, her cheeks are pink. Juliette knows the name that is at her lips.

‘Sorry?' Sophie replies.

‘Lamb?'

‘No.'

‘But you haven't eaten …' Nina insists.

‘I ate in the kitchen.' Juliette hears Sophie lie. She avoids looking at either of them.

Nina lowers her voice. ‘Darling, you've barely eaten all weekend –'

‘I ate in the kitchen,' Sophie says again, challenge in her voice.

Juliette wonders if Sophie is not eating for the reasons she didn't eat much last night or for breakfast or for new reasons. Reasons that involve a boy who is crowding out all other thoughts. Making her feel giddy and happy, making her feel as if her stomach is full of bees. Nina glances over to Juliette, but Max calls out to her first.

‘What is this lamb called again, Juliette?'

‘
Pré-salé
. Salt-marsh lamb.'

‘That's right. What does it do? Drink saltwater?'

Hugo raises his voice. ‘Feeds on marsh grass that grows in seawater.'

‘Marsh grass?' Rosie asks.

‘Hugo is right,' Juliette replies. ‘It's a special kind of lamb you can only get from this part of France. The regulations are very strict. The lamb has to feed on this grass for at least seventy days. Otherwise they cannot call it
pré-salé
.'

Sophie stares at Juliette and then reaches out for a small sliver for her plate.

‘It's the best lamb I have ever tasted,' Helen says.

Lars nods. ‘Hear, hear.'

Juliette watches Max look at Helen and then back to her.

‘Thanks Juliette, great job. As always.'

‘
Sans probl
è
me
.'

‘What did she say?' Beth asks Eddie.

‘It means no problem,' Hugo translates with a sigh, pushing a bean around his plate with his fork.

‘Happy Birthday.' She murmurs discreetly, to which Max flashes a smile. Max shifts his gaze from Juliette to Beth. Tonight she has put on a pretty necklace with a horseshoe pendant and her shining red hair hangs in gentle waves. ‘So, Beth,' Max says, his voice slightly slurred. ‘You're the new girl. You'll have to tell us all more about you.'

Beth smiles carefully. ‘What do you want to know?'

‘What's a pretty girl like you doing with an ugly thug like Eddie?' Max tips his head back and laughs.

‘Hey!' Eddie cries.

‘Just ignore him,' Nina advises Beth. ‘Max is a rude bastard.'

‘It's true though. Look at her. She's bloody gorgeous.'

‘You're drunk,' Rosie says wearily.

Max stares at Beth and takes a big gulp of wine. He gestures at her with his wineglass. ‘Batting above your average there, mate.'

‘Ouch,' Eddie says, still smiling. ‘Because she's so lovely or because I'm so unlovely?'

‘Both,' Max replies.

‘Charming,' Nina says, shaking her head. ‘Juliette, don't give him any more wine.'

‘It's my wine,' Max challenges.

‘How did you two meet?' Rosie asks.

‘Oh, it's not a very interesting story …' Beth replies.