The Confectioner's Tale (31 page)

At home, my own mistakes are waiting, to be faced and seen through. I feel a smile creeping onto my face. ‘Besides, I think we Stevensons have meddled with your family quite enough.’

Guillaume offers a wry smile of his own. ‘Can I at least persuade you to stay with me tonight? No disrespect, but hotels are expensive at this time of year.’

‘Guillaume—’

‘Nothing like that! I’m a married man. There’s a sofa in the room. I’ll sleep there and you can have the bed. You look like you could use the rest.’

Dawn wakes me with a stuffy head, tangled in a duvet. I flail at my watch to stop it beeping and peer around. The hotel room is dark, but a strip of light is sliding under the curtain. Two feet poke out from a blanket over the arm of the sofa and I laugh to myself. Quickly, I haul on yesterday’s clothes, cram my bag under my arm and let myself out.

It is not even six o’clock. The morning is chilly and perfect. I feel like an unexpected visitor, surprising the city without its make-up. A road-sweeper trundles past on his machine, brushes revolving in the gutter. Almost everything is closed, but down a side street I find a newsagent that is just rattling open the shutters. I ask if he has a photocopier. He nods vaguely, gestures towards the back.

There, below the packets of rice and tea, I copy everything that I’ve collected, the photographs, the newspaper articles, the letters and my own journal, the discoveries unfolding sheet by carbon sheet into the plastic tray. Halfway through, the shopkeeper brings me over a tiny cup of coffee, so strong and sweet that it sticks to the roof of my mouth. I nod my thanks. Slowly, he returns the gesture. When I pay at the counter, he digs around and produces a brown paper bag to protect the pages.

The sun is fully up when I emerge, the city awake, though a little bleary still.

‘Guillaume?’ I call into the warm room when I return to the hotel. The bundle of blankets on the sofa is empty but a shower is hissing in the bathroom, along with the bass timbre of somebody humming. Scrawling a note, I place it carefully on top of the photocopied pages. After that, it’s a matter of seconds to stow my remaining things, shoulder my bag.

‘Petra?’ Guillaume’s head sticks out of the bathroom, soapy and dripping. ‘You’re leaving already?’

‘A train to catch. Thank you, for everything.’ I point to the coffee table. ‘That’s a package for your grandfather. All of my research. I don’t know what he’ll think, but I’d like him to have it.’

‘Of course, as soon as I get home.’

I grin and hurry towards the door.

‘Wait!’ His voice stops me in the corridor. I look back from the stairwell to see him leaning out, a towel wrapped around his waist. ‘Where do I find you? If the need should arise?’

‘Poste restante to Cambridge University,’ I call back. ‘Address it to P. Stevenson.’

Chapter Forty-Five

June 1988

‘That’s the last one.’

Whyke dusts off his hands and slams the boot of the car. It is crammed with boxes of books, listing like a galleon with one wheel on the kerb.

‘Sure I can’t tempt you with any of the periodicals?’ he offers.

I laugh from the pavement, brush a strand of hair from my face.

‘No thanks, I’ve got my own stuff to move in a few days.’ I can’t help but eye the car appraisingly, wondering how many miles it will manage. ‘Where did you decide to go in the end?’

‘Belgium.’ Whyke brings out a pair of sunglasses with clip-on lenses. He puts them on only for one of the lenses to fall off instantly. ‘There’s someone there who I liked very much at one time. The University of Leuven has an opening. I might go and surprise him.’

He gives up with the lens, puts it back into his pocket.

‘I’m sorry about everything,’ he tells me, for the third time. ‘
I
think it would have made a fascinating thesis. It’s certainly the most excited I’ve been about one in a long while. But then, the examiners were never going to listen to me.’

I shrug calmly. ‘It doesn’t matter now.’

‘Speaking of which,’ Whyke continues, pulling a piece of paper from his inside pocket, ‘I had a chat with an acquaintance of mine, an editor who works in literary biographies. Told her a bit about your research. She said to give her a call, especially if you can deliver a work to rival that of a certain biographer we know.’

I fold the paper with a smile.

‘Thanks. I’ll see what I can do.’

‘Well, good luck.’ He offers a dusty hand and I clasp it warmly. ‘I’ll be keeping an eye out.’ He peers at me, taking in my outfit, my attempt at dressing up. ‘You look very nice.’

‘I’m going on a date.’ I can feel the colour spreading towards my ears.

‘Well, I’d better let you get on then, Petra. Cheerio.’

The car wheezes into life behind me. Cutting through a dark archway crammed with bicycles, I emerge out onto King’s Parade. The early-evening sun catches in the windows of the chapel, throwing light onto glass and stone, dust and pollution. The frenzy of the previous few weeks is forgotten.

It all seems rather theatrical, especially now that the city is quiet, released from the final goodbyes of another generation. Those who remain are in it for the long run, but my time here is over.

The memory of the review still makes me wince; how I tumbled into the room exhausted and dishevelled. How the panel remained stony-faced as I confessed that I had no thesis, and instead told them the truth.

When I finally made it back to my room, I found a dozen angry answerphone messages from Hall, threatening me with legal action. I erased the lot. Let him write what he likes. Even if he blows the scandal out of all proportion to sell his book, I know the truth.

I know that J. G. Stevenson was a man with a past; I know he was a man who made mistakes. And I know that J. G. Stevenson was my grandfather, who I loved, and who loved me. Nothing that Hall writes will be able to change that.

The official university letter – revoking my place to study – brought with it a sense of excitement, of freedom rather than disappointment. I’m departing the city for new streets, for a different chapter.

Somewhere behind me, the chapel bells toll six. Alex is late. The thought of him, panicking about which awful T-shirt to wear, makes me smile. I sit on the wall to wait.

There is a second letter in my pocket. I didn’t tell Whyke, but it is the real reason for my calm in the face of what, for most people, would be deemed dismal failure. It was passed on to me this morning, a French stamp on the envelope and a return address for somewhere near Bordeaux.

Dear Miss Stevenson,

We have never spoken, and I do not know if we shall ever meet, so you must forgive me for writing to you so informally. My health is bad and I prefer to put pen to paper in my own time, than struggle with a telephone.

My grandson came to visit recently and brought me a packet of papers, the contents of which surprised me more than I can say. They told a tale I never thought to hear again, since I believed there were only two people who ever knew it in its entirety, and that was my Jeanne and me.

The story you sent brings joy and sorrow in equal measure to my heart, for it gives life to a time I tried very, very hard to forget.

My grandson worries that he proved to be a poor historian, for he only remembered a few details of my early life. I will be happy to fill the remaining gaps for you here, provided that you excuse my occasional brevity; I am no longer young and even writing tires me greatly.

Those days, working at the pâtisserie, falling in love with Jeanne … We could not have known, but the age was like a dying creature, one glistening with its last breath. I remember now, we thought the world would open its arms to us, would welcome a pair of fleeing young lovers.

We were to do just that, run away together after we were discovered. I can look at your grandfather’s article now with even a little humour, but at the time it was a red cross upon our door.

I was young and naïve, determined that nothing should stop us from being together. I had reckoned without the interference of those with higher powers.

Our rendezvous was never made.

Dark days. I hounded myself, trying to find a reason for Jeanne’s betrayal. My own hurt prevented me from seeing the truth: she assumed I was the one who had broken my word, had lost courage and fled the city. Your grandfather’s article compelled matters to be resolved. Ashamed and abandoned, she agreed to the marriage in order to salvage her family’s reputation and dismiss the rumours as idle gossip. She was not to know that the damage was already done, and so she was wed and left the country, never knowing that I lay only a short walk from her doorstep. It causes me pain to think of it, even now.

I returned to Bordeaux, and when war was declared, I joined the army at the first call with nothing to lose. It was by grace and luck alone that I survived. I lost my best friend Nicolas at the Western Front in 1916. Wounded, I returned home to my mother, yet lost her to influenza two years later.

Jeanne told me in later years that her time in Montreal, her marriage to Leonard, was little more than business. Though it may surprise you to hear me say so, he was not a cruel man. When the war ended and the time came for Jeanne to leave, he did not prevent her.

By the time she found me, I was a shell of my former self. She could have given up on me then, but she stayed, brought me back to the world. Eventually, I recovered, and this time, there was no one to interfere.

She had enough money to rent a little shop, and we did what we knew best: we started a pâtisserie. It was hard, but we – who had known true sadness – were never unhappy. After many years of hoping, we had a son, Patrice, and in time, he gave us three grandchildren – young Guillaume among them. I am thankful that Jeanne lived to meet them all, if not to see them grow.

I read your grandfather’s letter again, after all these years. I have to admit, I knew that he wrote, but ignored the letters in my anger. I read too of your concern for how he may have hurt us. I ask you to put it out of your mind. Jeanne and I had nearly fifty years together to make up for the eight we lost. I am sad he died with such a burden of guilt upon him.

For a time, it is true, I cursed him more than anyone, but if I met him now I would shake his hand and say, ‘Jim, your granddaughter has given me more than anyone else could; she has given an old man back his memories and reminded him of the people he loved, at the end of his days.’

Yours, for as long as I remain,

Guillaume du Frère

About the Author

After a childhood spent acting professionally and training at a theatre school, Laura Madeleine changed her mind and went to study English Literature at Newnham College, Cambridge. She now writes fiction, as well as recipes, and was formerly the resident cake baker for Domestic Sluttery. She lives in Bristol, but can often be found visiting her family in Devon, eating cheese and getting up to mischief with her sister, fantasy author Lucy Hounsom.

You can find her on Twitter
@esthercrumpet

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First published in Great Britain by Bantam Press
an imprint of Transworld Publishers
Copyright © Laura Hounsom 2015

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