‘Good answer! OK, your turn.’
He rubs the back of his neck while conjuring a question. ‘What’s the best night for Christmas feasting?’ Traditionally in France the Christmas feast is calledLe Réveillonand is held after returning from Mass on Christmas Eve; however, there are plenty who prefer celebrating on Christmas Day itself so there’s more time to prepare and enjoy the food and festivities.
‘Why not both?’ Noah says, grinning as he hangs a candy cane on the tree.
‘Oui!’ Manon laughs. ‘All that effort should last a few days at least.’
I take a step back and survey the trio of happy, smiling faces. How did we get here? We feel like a little found family. It wasn’t what I expected to find when I stood out the front of the desolate grimy hotel all that time ago when my interfering neighbour waltzed over to complain about the mess. Now Noah is part of our everyday lives and that brings its own little thrill, but I keep that secret close to my chest. It’s too soon to contemplate another relationship… but it’s nice to know that my heart hasn’t shrivelled and withered away completely. There’s hope for me yet.
Like Manon, have I found the place I’m meant to be? Perhaps my life needed a shake up too. While I had success with my writing, what else did I have? A marriage based on nothing but hot air, a sterile apartment that didn’t bring any joy and a sort of emptiness that I’d put down to worry over money, fatigue from writing so much. But was it more than that? Was it that my life had become so bland and insular that I didn’t even recognise how bad it was until Francois-Xavier exploded our marriage?All the hurt and pain I’ve held fast to evaporates as I suddenly understand he did me a favour. Without him, my life is so much better. I’m surrounded by people who irk me, make me laugh, give me hope and at times make me want to throttle them – the whole gamut of emotions; the very antithesis of bland.
It’s a revelation, as if I’ve been sleepwalking the last couple of years and have woken up to this explosion of colour. If I sell the hotel, if I take this away from Manon, will I go back to that humdrum life?
32
10 DECEMBER
Noah and I are meeting at Bibliothèque Mazarine, the oldest public library in Paris, on the left bank of the Seine. Somewhere in the cavernous library there is a vault that holds a thirteenth-century Gutenberg Bible, a treasured artefact that will never see the light of day – although the library does have a replica of it on display. That’s part of the magic of libraries – what secrets do they house? There are so many historical documents and scrolls, and this library is known for being the keeper of a range of rare medieval manuscripts that were seized from noble families after the French revolution.
I quicken my pace and enter the library, to be greeted by the regular sour-faced librarian. ‘What’s the purpose of your visit today?’ she asks in a shrill tone. I’ve written here for years, but she asks me every single visit. I suspect it’s because my British-accented French makes her suspicious of me, as if I’m here to discover the vault and steal the Gutenberg Bible itself. There are several librarians working here but this one, who I privately call ‘The Gatekeeper’, always leaves her place at the reception desk to follow me around as if waiting for me to commit a cardinal library sin like talking above a whisper or taking too many booksto my table. I could easily write in any of the other beautiful libraries around Paris, but that would mean she’s won and I don’t want to give her the satisfaction. I can be petty.
‘I’m here to work, Madame,’ I say with a bright smile, just like always.
With a distrustful frown, she waves me inside.
Does Noah get the third degree when he visits? I make my way around the library and find him sitting at a table in the back.
‘Bonjour.’ We kiss cheeks in the French custom and I get a little zap from the smell of his cologne. Huh. I push it from my mind. We’ve got serious business to attend to and I need to focus. Why does he smell so good? A spicy evocative scent that distracts me from my purpose here today.
I take a seat opposite him and shake the fog from my mind. ‘Bonjour. Did the librarian ask you what the purpose of your visit is?’ I ask as I unwind my scarf and sit opposite.
‘Non?’
‘That’s grossly unfair!’
‘Isn’t she a darling little thing?’
I cock my head. Is he toying with me? ‘Are you joking?’
A grin splits his face. ‘She told me I reminded her of Hemingway, and that if only I was him, despite her advanced age, she’d court me, no two ways about it.’
Muted laughter spills from me and I turn to find her behind me, finger to her lips to shush. I do the adult thing and point to Noah, blaming him. Her harsh expression softens when she locks eyes with him, and she gives him a fluttery little wave before she flounces off to berate another library member who has the audacity to take a selfie. There are no photos allowed in these hallowed halls!
‘I have no words. OK,oui, I do! The woman is a tyrant. She’s sweet on you because you remind her of Hemingway and I face her wrath if I happen to breathe too loud? It’s a disgrace!’
He shrugs. ‘Hemingway survived two plane crashes. She mentions it every time I visit, as if she thinks I might be him reincarnated or something. If he can survive that maybe he can survive death – who knows?’
‘Oui. That would explain it.’ Hemingway really is alive and well in the hearts of Parisians, even after all this time. It makes me think of our secret author, and whether she is too. Could she still be celebrated here and we just don’t know because we don’t know her identity?
Noah must read my mind because he says, ‘Sorry to say though that Adeleine Deschampsisnotour author. After reading her novel, I did some research and found that she died a few years after publication. I found an article from her publisher who shared the news.’
I am instantly deflated. ‘She died?’ I’d also done some investigating and hadn’t found much on Adeleine Deschampsat all. Obviously we’re going back a hundred years, but the history books made little mention of her.
He shakes his head. ‘Oui.From smallpox. She was only thirty.’
‘It’s always sad when a literary light goes out so young.’
‘I looked into the other two women from our list, Thérèse Fournier and Clothilde Labelle, and they’re accounted for too. Thérèse gave up writing when she married into a wealthy family, and Clothilde swapped writing for nursing and later published a memoir under her real name, her married name, about her time nursing on the battlefield.’
