The Oddest Little Chocolate Shop in London (6 page)

  
He
eyed her, not unsympathetically, over the rim of his reading glasses. ‘I’m
sorry, Clementine. Your lateness is bordering on the epic, your inefficiency is
legendary, your appearance is quite bizarre at the moment – no, I don’t
want to hear your explanation, though I’m willing to bet it would sound
perfectly reasonable.’

  
‘You’d
lose your money,’ she muttered, sotto voce.

  
He
continued gamely, ignoring her interruption, ‘And you appear to break
everything you lay your hands on, an unfortunate trait which has proved rather
expensive for the business since you arrived. On the upside, I know you mean
well, even if you don’t do well. But the downside is, I can’t afford to employ
someone who’s as much of a nuisance as you are and who doesn’t even have a
proper job description.’

  
General
dogsbody and cleaner, she thought wearily, remembering how he had described her
job on her first day. But something told her Uncle Geoffrey would not be amused
if she reminded him of that.

  
‘Now,
Clementine, I know you’re my niece, and your aunt is not going to be happy
about this,’ he told her, reaching into his drawer for some pills – high
blood pressure, probably – and swallowing them hurriedly with a gulp of
cold tea, ‘but things can’t go on like this.’

  
‘I
know they can’t. You’re quite right. I’m really very sorry that I’ve
disappointed you, Uncle Geoffrey.’

  
‘Mr
Carruthers,’ he corrected her gruffly.

  
‘Sorry,
yes, I keep forgetting to call you that.’

  
‘We
did agree.’

  
‘Yes,
we did,’ she agreed. ‘And I keep forgetting. I’m sorry for all the trouble I’ve
caused, Uncle Geoffrey.’

  
‘Oh,
Clementine,’ he sighed, and cleaned his glasses before putting them back on to
glare at her, shaking his unkempt head. ‘Clementine.’

  
Oh,
Mr Carruthers, she thought grimly, Mr Carruthers.

  
Then
the crunch came.

  
‘Can
you give me one good reason why I should keep you on?’ her uncle asked fatally.

  
Clementine
drew a deep breath and looked at her uncle, head tilted to one side, thinking
hard.

CHAPTER FOUR

In Which Clementine Is Mistaken For A Working Girl
(Which She Emphatically Is Not, Despite Being Hard-Up)

Her uncle had suggested she leave straight
away, so Clementine trailed back along the high street in a daze with nothing particular
to do. She could stop and have a coffee, she thought. Or pop into one of these
shops and buy a better outfit. She could hardly walk home like this, she must
look utterly ridiculous in polka dots in this chilly weather. Then she reminded
herself that she would need to economise now. And it was all her own fault for
behaving so stupidly. Uncle Geoffrey had given her that job out of a sense of
obligation because she was his niece. But she had not deserved his generosity
and she knew it.

  
Now
she was unemployed yet again. Yes, the work had been dull. But at least it had
been paid employment.

  
She
was cross with herself. If only she had turned up on time and worked harder for
her uncle – and not broken quite so many things in his office – she
might still have a job.

  
Her
attention was caught by a funeral procession passing by. The sun had finally come
out; the day was cold and bright, the sombre black hearse glinting in the
sunlight. A name wreath of beautiful white and red flowers inside, nestled
against the coffin, said simply ERNIE.

  
Must
have been a pensioner, she thought automatically. Nobody under sixty could have
a name like Ernie, surely?

  
Funerals
always made her feel low. She stopped to watch the modest cortege move slowly
along the street to the traffic lights, which were on green, then curve around the
corner and disappear. The deceased’s procession had been comprised of the
hearse and only one other car bearing black-clad relatives, all in wide-brimmed
hats, a few elderly ladies clutching white hankies to their faces.

  
Not
much of a turn-out, she thought sadly. Poor Ernie.

  
A
middle-aged man in a business suit had stopped too, but not to watch the
funeral procession. He was standing rather close, looking her up and down.

  
Blankly,
Clementine glanced at his face. He was a stranger. Was she supposed to know
him? Perhaps he was one of her uncle’s recent clients and had recognized her.
If so, she hoped he would not be offended that she had no memory of meeting
him.

  
The
man looked like he was about to say something, so she waited, surprised.

  
‘Erm,’
he began, looking shifty. ‘Are you … erm … a working girl?’

  
'A
working girl?' she repeated blankly.

  
His
eyes widened and he backed away. 'Sorry, my mistake.'

  
A working girl.
The euphemism suddenly
hit her. Belatedly she realised this skimpy polka dot dress must make her look
a little bit … available.

  
Crossly,
she glared at the man and he muttered another apology, then hurried past with
his head down.

  
Carrying
on along the street, she wondered what on earth she was going to do now. Her
uncle had agreed to continue paying her weekly until the end of that month, which
was more than generous under the circumstances, but after that she would have
to find money for food and rent, plus her other bills.

  
It
was cold out of the sunlight. She drew her pashmina close against the wind, suddenly
feeling rather like a Victorian waif on her way to the workhouse. She had a
whole depressing scenario worked out where she would collapse in the snow and
die of exposure, clutching some pathetic love token – an empty box of
Monsieur Ravel’s chocolates, perhaps – to her chest.

  
Then
she remembered her sister and felt sick for real.

  
Florrie was going to be furious.

  
Her
footsteps slowed, and she lowered her head, tears pricking at her eyes. This
was all her fault. What an idiot she had been.

  
Still,
Clementine thought, trying to brighten up, at least she could offer to help out
in the chocolate shop now. Just for a few days or a week, until he was back on
his feet or she found another job. A job which did not involve any machines she
could break, like photocopiers or hoovers. Always assuming Dominic would want
her working in his shop, she reminded herself before her euphoria could take
off.

  
After
that morning's fiasco with the coffee, she was not so sure.


  
Clementine sighed, stuck on a
narrow part of the pavement behind a lumbering woman with shopping bags and two
small children who kept shrieking and dragging on her arms. No wonder the poor
woman was stooped. It was a miracle her arms were not stretched out of shape
too.

  
She
did not know how she felt about Dominic Ravel. On the one hand he was
incredibly attractive. But on the other hand, he struck her as a difficult man
to know. And he had shown little interest in her romantically, apart from that
one accidental kiss after dinner.

  
Face
it, Clem, she told herself angrily. He asked you round to his place because he
needed free advice on his accounts, that was all. Not because he’s in the
market for a girlfriend.

  
And
yet, she could not stop thinking about Dominic Ravel. Replaying everything he
had said to her, and how she had replied. Allowing herself to get interested in
him.

  
There
was a depth and a vulnerability about Dominic that she knew she ought to shy
away from, especially after what had happened with Simon. Not all men were
honest about themselves, after all. In fact, some men were very good at playing
the 'poor-me' card in order to get attention, she reminded herself sternly. To
get sex too, sometimes. She had been fooled before by a man, and horribly used,
and did not think she would cope well if Dominic turned out to be a liar too.

  
The
problem was, she was not as good a judge of character as she had once believed.
She liked Dominic and instinctively trusted him. But what if his cute hesitancy
and frustrated manner over his business worries were being put on in order to
lure her into a dangerous and short-lived relationship?

  
Simon
had seemed plausible too when she first met him: a man with a dark past, a pitiful
history of abuse which had left him depressed and suicidal. Or so he had told
her. And maybe all that had been true, whatever Florrie believed. But it had
not stopped Simon using his suicidal and depressive tendencies against her
whenever they argued or she disagreed with him.

  
At
first it had been serious stuff that had kicked off one of his terrible rants,
like whether or not she should move in with him after finishing her studies.

  
But
later, once he had her installed in his flat, forced to stay with him
twenty-four seven, it had been tiny stuff that would set him off. Like her not
enjoying his favourite telly programmes as much as he wanted, or not making him
a cup of tea as soon as he snapped his fingers.

  
'Do
you want to send me back into that dark place?' Simon used to rage at her whenever
she went out with Florrie or her other girlfriends for the evening, to the
cinema or a restaurant, and came back even fifteen minutes later than she had
agreed. 'Who were you with? Another man? If you leave me, I'll kill myself and
it will be all your fault!'

  
No,
she could not cope with another man like Simon. It might seem mean, but she
rather wished he had gone back into that ‘dark place’ and stayed there. She
suspected Simon had secretly only been happy when he was miserable. If that
made sense.

  
Passing
Ravel’s Chocolaterie de Londres
,
Clementine saw that the door was open and a delivery van was parked in front of
the shop.

  
Excitement
flooded her. So Dominic had taken her advice and really was reopening the shop
instead of returning to France.

  
In
fact, much to her delight, Dominic was standing in the doorway. A black apron was
tied about his waist, his shirt sleeves rolled up, and he was signing the
driver’s handheld device.

  
She
hesitated, suddenly a little shy. Which was not like her at all. If this was
what getting the sack did for her, she was not sure she liked it.

  
But
she need not have worried. Looking up, the chocolatier smiled warmly when he
saw her. ‘Clementine,’ he said, crossing the pavement to greet her, then kissed
her on each cheek in the French way. She was taken aback, then managed to get
her reaction under control. It had been the tiniest of pecks on the cheek, that
was all. ‘I was just thinking of you. But why are you back so soon? Not at work
today?’

  
‘I
… erm … ’ she began, but he was already turning away to thank the driver. She
looked at the unmarked van; it was not obvious what he had been delivering.
When Dominic came back to the shop doorway, she smiled at him, not sure she
wanted to admit yet that she had been sacked. ‘Planning on making some
chocolates today?’

  
He
shrugged. ‘Alors, that is what I do.’

  
‘Yes,
it is.’

  
‘So
after you had gone this morning, I said to myself, what are you waiting for?
You can pack up and go home to France like a defeated dog – or ring up
the suppliers and get some fresh deliveries as soon as possible, then get back
to mixing les chocolats.’

  
She
followed him into the shop without asking permission as the van pulled away,
her mind already working at top speed.

  
‘And
Rachel? Has she come back to work?’

  
‘Ah,
I don’t need Rachel today. Besides, I think she is having … boyfriend
problems.’

  
She
frowned. ‘I thought she was engaged?’

  
He
looked vague. ‘The engagement is off, it would seem.’

  
‘Oh
no, poor Rachel!’

  
‘Well,
I could be wrong,’ he mused, looking distractedly at a clipboard. He flipped
over a page, scanning down the columns. ‘She sounded a little tearful on the
phone earlier, that’s all.’

  
She
looked at the chocolatier and raised her eyebrows. ‘Sorry, I’m not sure I got
that properly. Rachel sounded tearful and you didn’t ask why?’

  
He
shrugged. ‘I don’t like to interfere with my employees’ personal lives.’

  
‘Of
course,’ she said, staring.

  
But
her heavy emphasis was lost on him.

  
‘Anyway,
tomorrow we will reopen the shop, probably late morning, with a limited range
of chocolates on sale. A selection of the old favourites, and some new recipes
I have been working on since you left. Luckily I had not sold all my old stock.
Some of it is still boxed up in the back.’ He tossed the clipboard into a box,
frowning slightly. ‘If Rachel cannot come into work tomorrow, then I shall set everything
out on the shelves last thing tonight, and serve in the shop myself.’

  
Pushing
through the bead curtain into the kitchen area, which already smelt of heavenly
freshly-made chocolate, Dominic glanced back at her.

  
He
must have caught her unguarded expression of horror because he grinned. ‘It’s
no problem, Clementine. I know how to serve the customers. I am not just a
chocolatier. I have served in the shop many times.’

  
‘And
I bet the ladies love to see you behind the counter,’ she countered smartly,
then paused, suddenly unsure of herself. ‘Though if Rachel can’t come in to
work tomorrow, maybe you could ask me instead,’ she finished daringly.

  
Dominic
turned, surprised, and stared at her. ‘You?’

  
‘Why
not?’

  
‘Do
you have any experience of serving in a shop?’

  
‘Not
… much.’ She smiled at him winningly. ‘But how hard can it be to sell a few
boxes of chocolates, right?’

  
Now
it was his turn to look horrified. ‘Ma chère Clementine,’ he began, but she
interrupted him.

  
‘Only
kidding! I do know what I’m doing, honestly, and I’d love to help out if Rachel
can’t come into work. Or even if she can.’ She looked about at the kitchen,
strewn with chocolate-making implements and boxes of ingredients, some opened,
others still sealed. ‘I have a feeling you could do with an extra pair of hands
for the next week, at least.’

  
He
could not deny it, nodding wryly. ‘It would be good to see you more often, I
have to admit. You have a certain ... je ne sais quoi. But what about your own
job? I would not want you to get the boot.’