A French Wedding (3 page)

‘It looks like a bomb went off.'

Juliette's father looks confused. ‘It's not that bad.'

Juliette shakes her head. ‘Are you hungry? I'll make dinner.'

‘You aren't going back to Paris tonight?'

Juliette's heart sinks. She had switched her phone to silent but had still heard the vibrations of calls and messages, her phone buzzing like an angry insect in her handbag. She'd ignored every buzzing. On the long drive, during the hospital visit.

‘Not tonight, Dad.' She sighs.

Her father's face breaks into a tired smile. ‘Yes, I could eat. That would be lovely.'

*

The fridge in the kitchen is bare and the shops will now be closed. Juliette goes out to ask a neighbour if she has anything spare. In the house there is cheap wine, bottled clam juice, old onions and potatoes, not ideal, but Madame Reynaud pushes parcels of fish and octopus and mussels into her hands, gives her fresh heavy cream and a handful of eggs that will make up for the things she has to mix them with.

Capucine Reynaud's home is homage to all things Breton with large chestnut wood armoires and a grandfather clock that is far too tall and grand for the hall. On her bedroom door hangs her grandmother's Sunday dress, traditional black with blue and red birds and flowers painstakingly, perfectly stitched, the threads thick and unfaded. Juliette glances at the line of family photos, most black and white, with faces which have noses and lips and eyes that are so familiar. Juliette shifts her gaze from them quickly.

Juliette's mother had taught Capucine Reynaud English for many years. Not that her English became any better for it, but she adored Juliette's mother. As did so many in the village. She urges Juliette out into the garden and tells her to take whatever she likes, plucking dark spinach leaves for her as Juliette takes some chervil and breaks off some sorrel. The green and tangy scent of the sorrel fragrances Juliette's palm, helping her forget the dreadful hospital smells.

‘Is your mother still unwell, Juliette?' Madame Reynaud asks at the gate. Juliette wishes to be somewhere else.

‘Unfortunately, yes.'

‘Is it getting worse? The cancer?'

‘No, it's pneumonia now. But she'll be okay.'

Capucine Reynaud knows death; her husband, her nephew. She can tell that Juliette is not telling the truth and gives her the look Juliette dreads. Pity. Sincere, heartfelt pity; which is somehow worse than disregard.

‘Thank you so much for the food. The fish and mussels …'

Capucine's youngest son Paol is a fisherman. He probably caught the fish that morning. Madame Reynaud waves away the thanks.

‘She's so young …' she murmurs, tutting. Maman isn't, of course, she is in her early eighties now but Madame Reynaud, perhaps only five or ten years her junior, is a picture of health. She still gardens, walks swiftly and easily, helps to sew the costumes for her granddaughter's ballet concerts.

‘I should go. Papa …' Juliette says quickly, kissing Madame Reynaud on her soft brown cheeks, not wanting to talk any more about her mother.

Juliette's father sits at the dining table while Juliette prepares dinner, keeping out of her way, as she prefers. Juliette gently cooks the seafood in wine and clam juice, letting the sweet steam bloom in her face before setting it aside. She takes the salted butter from the pottery dish her mother keeps it in and makes a roux in a big pot with which to cook the onions and sauté the greens. She glances at her father doing a crossword puzzle with glasses at the end of his nose, sounding out words and counting letters to himself. He looks years older like that – body curved over the table, face pinched in concentration. Juliette cannot think of him ageing so fast, she turns back to her soup instead, adding the herbs, more butter and egg yolks mixed together with cream. Stirring, tasting, breathing it in as though it might clear out all her other thoughts. Thoughts of
Delphine
and Dusollier, her father's face old and creased like a walnut shell over his paper, her mother slipping, slipping from life's grip.

By the time they are eating the sky is properly dark. Juliette is suddenly starving, realising just how little she has eaten all day. They eat in silence, spoons clinking the sides of the bowls. Juliette's father pours her a glass of wine.

‘
Merci
.'

‘Are you alright, sweetheart?'

‘It's been a big day.'

‘You missed the interview because of us.'

Juliette shrugs, feeling both guilty and bitter. What kind of daughter begrudges a mother her illness, her cancer? ‘I'm sure it can be rescheduled,' she says, knowing it cannot be.

‘You work too hard,' her father says, sadly; making her think of the moment on the train with Leon.

‘You always say that,' she says wearily.

‘You do.'

Juliette tries not to be irritated.

‘It's my life, Dad.'

‘Well …'

She looks up from her bowl. ‘Well, what?'

‘Nothing.' Her father seems to shrink a little.

‘What were you going to say?'

‘You said “it's my life”. I was just going to say that, you know, it's not your
life
. It's your job. It's your work.'

Juliette lays down her spoon. ‘It's not just a job.
Delphine
is my passion. My dream. It's what I want to do.'

Juliette's father nods. ‘I know, darling. It's just you said “your life”. You know we worry about you. Your mother and me.' He tips his head as though she were right beside him, agreeing.

‘You don't need to worry about me. I'm a big girl.'

‘Yes, but you're our girl.'

‘Dad. Please.'

‘We love you.'

‘I know, Dad, I know.' The exasperation is clear in Juliette's voice. She regrets it but she resents them both for it, too. She wouldn't have to be so cagey if they weren't so loving, so smothering. She wishes they didn't need her so much. She pulls at the neckline of her dress. Sometimes she feels as though she cannot breathe in Douarnenez; in this house. They sit and eat, pulling the tiny mussels from their black shells and scooping mouthfuls of the salty, creamy soup, flecked green with sorrel, into their mouths. Juliette's father changes the subject.

‘If you are staying a couple of days, I am sure Pere Michel would love to see you.'

‘Pere Michel?' Juliette frowns. She remembers the balding old man in his vestments that had placed the sacred host on her tongue, his liver-spotted hand wobbling and shaking.

Juliette's father gives a little laugh as though reading her mind. ‘Not the old Pere Michel. The young one. His nephew actually, we've spoken of him.'

‘I can't remember,' Juliette mutters, still feeling hot and uncomfortable.

‘He's a lovely man. Quite young. In his late forties, I think. Maybe fifties.'

‘I don't think –'

‘He'd love to meet you. Your mother and I talk about you all the time. He knows all about you.'

‘I'm not sure I can stay that long, Dad,' Juliette says, not meeting her father's gaze.

‘He has been
a great support to us. Your mother has been going
to church every day or two. It gives her great comfort
.'

‘Uh huh.'

‘Pere Michel would be thrilled to meet you.'

Juliette stands from her chair. ‘Are you finished?'

‘Not quite.'

Juliette takes her bowl to the sink, her skin warm and prickling. She does not want to meet a priest. She has missed her interview, for which there will be consequences. She is worried about
Delphine
. Worried about the messages, unchecked, on her phone. She wants to be in Paris, away from here. Anywhere but here.

‘It reminds us that there is life, you know, after,' Juliette's father continues. Juliette wants to cover her ears. She turns on the tap too quick, so the water gushes out noisily. Still she hears her father say, ‘It's so easy to get caught up in things. To lose sight of the big picture.'

She turns it hard the other way.

‘Christ, Dad!'

He looks up at her, alarmed.

‘It's not just a job, okay?'

‘I wasn't –'

‘
Delphine
means something to me. I've built my life around it.'

‘Juliette –'

‘It's doing well. It's doing really well. It's mine. My sweat and tears, Dad. There's no shame in that!'

‘Of course not.'

‘I'm proud of it,' Juliette says, her voice trembling.

‘We are very, very proud of you, darling,' he says. ‘We always have been, we always will be.'

‘I know.' Juliette feels suddenly deflated. She holds on to the edge of the sink. ‘Sorry.'

Her father brings his bowl to the sink and pats her back. They aren't a very demonstrative family.

‘We love you.'

‘Thanks, Dad.'

‘But sweetheart …'

Juliette's father bites his lip and frowns.

‘There's only one thing you should build your life around,' he says softly.

*

Juliette sends her father to bed and does the dishes. He doesn't protest, simply kisses her on the forehead and shuffles to his room. The washing up is soothing and distracts Juliette from looking at her phone which has continued to vibrate. She cannot bear to listen to the messages and hear the panic, the thought of which makes her stomach drop. When the dishes are finished she wipes her hands and stands with her back leaning against the sink, taking in the dining room. How has it become so untidy so fast? Juliette tries to remember the last time she was in Douarnenez and is sure, for a brief, convinced moment, it was only a couple of weeks ago. But then she counts back weekends, the busy times for
Delphine
, that she can recall by the guests who had come in, by the ways she had found herself in the mornings – often fully dressed and asleep on top of her sheets, on her sofa, once on the bathroom floor. She counts back eight weekends and then stops counting. It cannot possibly have been that long.

The last time Juliette visited her mother had been in the house, wiping and sorting and dusting. Maybe there had been too many things then, memorabilia and photos and those porcelain statuettes her mother loved. But during that visit the cottage seemed more ordered. Now it feels sad and old; like it is ready to give up. Juliette rubs her eyes. She cannot remember if it truly had been any different that last visit or whether it was her mother's presence that had made it seem so. Juliette's mother's presence is always so bright. People assume she is in her sixties, which hasn't been true for two decades. She goes to the library on Mondays and community yoga on Thursdays and bridge, she is acutely proficient at bridge, on Saturday mornings. Without her mother Juliette notices her father is doddery. The mumbling over the crossword, the way he shuffles when he walks. Juliette wonders when he last saw a doctor himself.

She goes to the dining table and picks up the paper her father left on the top of the pile.
For Sale. Bakery.
She tries not to scoff. It is cruel to scoff. Stephanie Jeunet worked day in, day out, in that place and there is no shame in work like that. Baking had been Juliette's first curiosity and introduction to cooking. The experience of making
kouign-amann
, of cooking the breads and cakes for the Saints Days, birthdays and Christmas. At fifteen Juliette took orders for her
Bûche de Noël
, Yule log, and large gingerbreads made with honey and delivered them to neighbours' houses on Christmas Day, wrapped in cellophane with big, red bows. But now Juliette has
Delphine
.
Delphine
is hers. She is
Delphine
. Juliette glances at her bag, left by the top of the stairs. Inside her phone is filled with messages. She still owes the bank a lot of money,
Delphine
isn't really all hers yet, and a good
Gault et Millau
review is critical to the restaurant's ongoing success. Juliette looks back at the paper in her hand. There is only one page for job vacancies and businesses for sale in Douarnenez. Juliette scans the listings again – Bakery, Mechanic Shop, Children's Clothing Store. Waitress, apprentice plumber, the cook/housekeeper position she'd noticed earlier. She screws the paper up in her hand, balling it, making the words inside disappear, before dropping it to the floor. Stupid tiny town. She hates it. There are no jobs, no growth, everything and everyone is in a state of disrepair and deterioration. It makes her feel unsteady. It makes her feel as though it might be contagious, that she needs to get out, fast, or she'll succumb to it, too. She'll slow down, she'll start decaying, her life tipping rapidly towards death.

Juliette moves quickly to the sink and reaches for the roll of grey rubbish bags her mother keeps on the shelf beneath. She takes one to the dining table and sweeps papers into it. Then steps back. On the table is a bare patch, free from dust, where the papers were piled. She grabs a stack of letters and bills by the phone and thrusts them into the bag too. A line of photographs, mainly of Juliette as a teenager – sullen and unsmiling – go in. Magazines, old newspapers, plastic lids, a blurry photograph of their cocker spaniels both long-dead, loose coins, a pair of broken scissors, trousers with a tear in the pocket and a needle waiting in the fabric. Juliette fetches another rubbish sack. And on and on and in it all goes till the space looks five times bigger and clear and Juliette can breathe better. The clock on the wall ticks audibly, it is now close to midnight. Juliette is panting a little. Finally she sees the paper she screwed into a ball on the floor and she pushes that in and ties the top of the sack. It takes all her strength to drag the bags down the stairs, nearly hooking her handbag up with one of them, and out the front door. She can feel the soft weight of the magazines and the glass-and-wood clatters of the photo frames as she bumps them along to the edge of the kerb. When she straightens, the cool, night air fills her lungs. Above her hundreds of stars glitter in the black palm of the sky. Juliette stares. The night sky never looks that way in Paris.