Читать книгу The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year - Jenny Oliver - Страница 16

That night Rachel got so drunk out of relief that she was still in the competition, terror at having been yelled at, and shock at the haunted look in Chef’s eyes. Her stupor meant that she didn’t pull her foot away from Marcel’s when he pushed his against hers under the table. Nor did she look away when he smirked at her across the table, his flirtatious eyes glinting beautifully. He had that familiar predatory nature of Ben that was surprisingly comforting.

When she’d walked into the bar Marcel had singled her out, got up to give her his seat, poured her a glass of wine, complimented her on her bake. He had made it more than clear that he was interested and the attention was intoxicating.

‘I think you are the best cook here. Without doubt. Chef, I think he is jealous,’ he’d whispered. ‘And—’ he’d paused ‘—you’re the most beautiful.’

She’d glanced away, blushing, but the words had hit their mark. He was pumping up her deflated ego, as if he knew exactly where her weaknesses lay, and she was lapping it up. Anything to take the attention away from her run-in with Chef.

Women were looking at Marcel from the bar, glancing round to see if he might be interested in them but he wasn’t; he was looking at Rachel.

‘So what did Chef say, Rachel?’ Abby leant forward, her eyes darting to Marcel as if trying to attract his attention, swirling her wine round in her glass.

‘Nothing. Just a reminder to work on my presentation.’

‘Ooh, special treatment for Rachel.’ She whistled, supposedly joking, but Rachel caught a weird look in her eye. ‘You and George had it nailed today,’ she said, taking a great gulp of red wine and pouring some more.

The air between them all was definitely changing. It was as if this really was a competition and for the first time in Rachel’s life she was near the top—not just hovering over average but up there in sight of the prize—and that clearly made enemies.

‘Don’t be daft.’ She laughed, brushing the comment away and reaching for a glass and the carafe to pour herself some wine. ‘He just loathes my mess.’

Abby raised a brow, disbelieving, clearly still smarting from her failure, and seemingly pissed off that Marcel wasn’t paying her the attention he was Rachel, and downed her drink before holding her glass out for Rachel to top her up.

‘A dark horse in the race, Flower Girl,’ drawled Marcel and, under the table, she felt his hand scrape her thigh. He had perfect hands, neat blunt nails and a dirty tan as if he’d spent the summer on a yacht in St Tropez and skied all winter. She decided that, in his black cashmere jumper, he actually looked fresh from the slopes of Val d’Isère. Close up she could even make out the remains of sunburn on the tips of his cheekbones.

‘Is there something on my face?’ he asked and she realised she’d been staring.

‘No, no. I was just wondering if you skied. You know, why you had a tan in December …’ She cringed at the embarrassment of being caught.

‘Mais oui, I spend every weekend in the Alps. It is my passion.’ He examined his hand to check out his own tan. ‘Do you ski?’

Rachel thought about the time when the hill on the edge of Nettleton had been caked in snow and Jackie had strapped her into her snowboard. You’ll be fine, just point it downhill and sit down if it goes too fast.

It had been a disaster not to be repeated. Rachel had sat down almost straight away and shot down the incline head first, one foot flailing about having popped from the binding and the other dragging the snowboard along with it. She’d waved her arms about in the air with the aim of getting someone to help her; instead the whole village had stopped what they were doing to watch. A photo of her at the bottom of the slope, caked in white like the abominable snowman, legs skew-whiff in the carved-up muddy slush, had appeared on the front page of the Nettleton News.

‘I snowboard.’ She shrugged, as if it were nothing. ‘Sometimes.’

A forgotten memory popped up of her and some of her class piled into an old canoe later that same day, winning a downhill race against Jackie and most of 3F on garden sacks, which was much more pleasing and obviously gave her a look of casual confidence that appealed to Marcel.

‘We should go together some time. Maybe.’

‘Maybe.’ She smiled, high on the attention, flirtily trying to tousle her hair.

‘Ooh, I’ll come,’ said Abby. ‘I’ve never been skiing. We could all go—it could be our reunion.’

‘Pas oui, definitely. The more the merrier. That is the phrase, oui?’

When Rachel nodded, Marcel squeezed her leg under the table and whispered, ‘I would prefer just the two of us.’

‘Me too,’ she whispered back, catching her smile with her teeth, relishing the attention, enjoying the haze of the wine and their intimate secret little club of two that was pulling back all the confidence she’d earlier let slip away.

‘Would you come, George?’ Abby leant forward, her boobs pushing together between her upper arms and, while not having the desired effect on Marcel, working well to get George’s attention.

‘Where?’

‘Skiing.’

George snorted into his beer. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘Oh, come on, it’d be fun. We’d all have to go.’

‘I think I’m a bit old to be throwing myself down ski slopes.’

Abby stuck her bottom lip out as if he’d ruined everything and George laughed. ‘I’m here, in Paris, isn’t that enough?’

She tipped her head from side to side. ‘I suppose.’ Then took a great gulp of wine and said, ‘Where did you learn to bake?’

‘Baker’s boy in the sixties,’ he said, stretching his shoulders back and taking off his glasses. ‘Sexual revolution passed me by. I had my head in a bloody oven the whole decade. Pay packet taken by me mum, bugger all I got. Everyone else is having sex left right and centre and I’m shovelling loaves.’

Abby laughed. ‘Surely, then, this should be the last thing you want?’

He tapped his nose. ‘You may think so, but what we forget is as we get older we find most comfort in the familiar. My wife died ten years ago, my kids have gone—all grown-up. All doctors—the lot of them. And I found myself alone, baking again. Then I had so much I took it round the neighbours and they passed it onto friends and then I had a little business. I made a cart out of builders’ crates that I take round offices. Who’d have thought? My neighbour, Jayne, painted it blue with lettering and that’s my job. Forty years an accountant, now a baker, just like I was as a boy.’ He put his glasses back on and shrugged, took a sip of his half-pint. ‘It’s a way of making friends. Keeping busier.’

Rachel listened through her wine haze. Comfort in the familiar. She looked at Marcel and he winked at her.

She smiled and kicked his foot under the table. ‘And what about you?’ she asked.

‘Lovely Marcel does it for the women,’ Abby slurred.

‘Touché.’ He smirked, tapping a cigarette from the pack in his pocket. ‘I do it because I can. Because it is something I am good at. It has been in my family for generations, from my great-grandfather grinding the wheat. One side of my family, they make the alcohol, the other side the bread. The two staples of life. So this for me is in my blood. I understand it,’ he said, tucking the fag behind his ear. ‘Like the women.’ He grinned, pushing himself from his seat and sloping outside into the falling snow.

Rachel watched the smoke of his cigarette curl up into the overhead light, twining round the glistening flakes.

‘He’s just so good-looking. It’s almost unfair.’ Abby had her chin in her hand and was looking out to where Rachel was staring, Marcel’s profile just visible through the half-open door.

They turned back to the table when someone else went outside and pushed the door shut behind them, partially blocking off the view.

‘It’s a shame Cheryl’s gone, isn’t it? I liked her. Unassuming,’ said George.

‘I know.’ Abby swept her hair back from her face. ‘Did you see her crying? It was terrible. I hope it doesn’t push her back into eating.’

Rachel bashed her on the shoulder. ‘It’s not going to do that.’

‘Well, you never know,’ she said into her wine glass and Rachel rolled her eyes.

There was a pause as Abby tried to formulate her point but had had too much to drink and Rachel went back to watching Marcel. The barman reached up to flick on the stereo and gypsy jazz started to play softly in the background.

‘It’s a shame someone has to win,’ said George into the silence.

Abby snorted.

Surprised, Rachel looked away from the smoke outside and back at George, a man with a bushy white moustache whom she had barely noticed that week, and smiled.

‘Yes.’ She nodded. ‘It is a shame.’

***

Marcel offered to walk her home and, about to say no, Rachel found herself agreeing. The idea of no-strings company in her lonely flat, especially such goddamn good-looking company, seemed like the perfect rebellion from the strictures of the competition. It was like giving into pure, unadulterated temptation. Standing there in his battered leather jacket that shone in the moonlight, his arm draped casually over her shoulder, Marcel made her feel like the centre of the moment. It wasn’t buying a present for someone else with Philippe or begging Chef to keep her on or wishing Ben would sleep the whole night in her flat. It was her, singled out and centre of his attention and the feeling was addictive.

When she nodded Abby gave an unsubtle thumbs up that made Marcel smirk.

‘It’s a long walk,’ she warned him.

‘I like the challenge.’ Marcel shrugged, a cigarette clamped between his teeth.

She unlocked her bike and he took it from her, pushing it along beside them, leaving snake tracks in the snow.

‘This is a child’s bike.’

‘No, it’s small because it folds up.’ She laughed.

He held it at arm’s length, studying the rust. ‘Non. It is for the child,’ he said, then clambered on, cycling in wavy lines along the snowy pavement. ‘Get on.’

‘No way. You’ll kill me.’

‘Get on, Flower Girl, live a little.’ He circled her on the bike, his knees practically up to his ears as he pedalled.

‘OK but—’ As he slowed Rachel jumped onto the handlebars at the front and yelped as he rode them away along the cobbled backstreets, slipping through piles of grey slush and midway through taking one hand off to light another cigarette.

‘Are you smoking as well?’ She could barely turn her head, terrified that any minute they would crash into a wall.

‘Mais oui. It is fun, yes? You are having the fun?’ Plumes of smoke mingled with the falling snowflakes as he talked.

Squeezing her eyes tight when he veered from a lamppost, she opened them again to feel the snow dusting her face and her freezing hands clutching tight to the metal handlebars. ‘Oui. I am having the fun.’

‘Bon.’ He laughed and pedalled faster, but then slipped on a muddy puddle of slush and they fell off into a great mountain of snow that had been shovelled to the side of the road.

Rachel was on top of him, the bike halfway across the pavement; she was brushing snow from her mouth while he was leaning back laughing up at the clouds.

‘C’est fun, n’est-ce pas?’ He smiled, snow all in his hair, and then tightened his arms around her and rolled them over so he was on top of her and she could feel the freezing snow down her back.

‘I am going to kiss you, Flower Girl,’ he said, and she looked up into his ice-blue eyes and his perfect features and nodded.

His kiss tasted exactly of Ben. Of alcohol and cigarettes and arrogance. She let her head be pressed back into the snow and wrapped her arms tight around his back, her head swimming from all the red wine and the thrill of doing something she knew was bad for her.

Marcel only pulled back when they heard the siren of a police car in the background. ‘We go, yes? I do not want to be arrested for what I might do next.’

She laughed, pulling her coat tight around her as he stood up and then reached a hand down to help her up.

They walked on a little closer, their shoulders brushing with each step, glancing over at each other and then, as quickly, glancing away. When they saw a pharmacy green cross flash minus four degrees he put his arm around her and pulled her close, rubbing his hand down her arm as if trying to warm her up.

It was late when they got back to her apartment, maybe one o’clock. When she asked, ‘Do you want to come up, for coffee?’ he didn’t answer, just took the key from her gloved hand and unlocked the door, pushing it open for her, and followed her up the stairs.

Rachel felt a pang of guilt to see that Chantal had been there; a bunch of lilies on the turn were lying on the bench by the door next to a jar of strawberry jam. Marcel picked it up quizzically.

‘My friend,’ she said. ‘She gives me things.’

‘I thought you said you had no friends?’

‘Well, I—’ Rachel started, but he wasn’t listening. He pushed the door open and pulled her inside, kicking it shut on the wilting lilies.

As he unbuttoned and pushed off her coat she put her hands on his chest to slow him down, her mind swirling with alcohol. ‘Do you want some tea?’ she asked, moving towards the kettle.

‘Tea?’ He looked puzzled. ‘Why would I want the tea?’

‘To sober up?’ She shrugged.

He hung his jacket up and kicked off his boots, then rummaged in his rucksack and pulled out a litre bottle of Armagnac. ‘The last thing I want to do, Rachel, is sober up.’ He smirked, grabbing a glass and a chipped teacup from the shelf and sloshing them full of booze.

When he handed her the glass he chinked the edge with his cup and said, ‘To baking.’

‘To baking.’ She smiled, taking a tentative sip while he downed his in one and poured them both another slosh.

‘To winning,’ he said, holding his cup up high like a trophy.

‘To winning.’ She clinked his in the air and screwed up her face as she drank it down.

He laughed as he poured some more, spilling it over the floor as he trailed between his cup and her glass.

‘To the making love,’ he said next, blue eyes twinkling in the dim yellow light of the napkin-covered sidelight.

Rachel snorted into her Armagnac and had to wipe it off her face. Marcel was watching her over the rim of his teacup, waiting for her answer before he drank.

She swallowed. Tried not to laugh again and raised the glass in the air. ‘To the making love.’ She giggled.

‘Bon,’ said Marcel, draining his cup and ambling over to watch as she gulped hers down before sweeping her off her feet and carrying her through the alcove to the hard metal bed.

Next morning she woke when the garbage truck hissed to a halt in the street below. Stretching languidly, she reached across to find an empty bed.

‘Marcel?’ she said, sitting up and glancing around the flat.

Sensing something wasn’t quite right, she looked around for her phone but it wasn’t by the bed. Finally she found it still in her bag, alarm unset.

‘Shit.’ It was eight-thirty. She had thirty minutes to get across Paris to her class. Marcel was nowhere to be seen.

Yanking on her clothes, she glanced outside to see a thick carpet of snow, the heaviest it had been since she’d arrived. People were pushing through it, heads down. Cars were stuck, kids were sliding up the pavements on invisible skateboards.

‘Shit.’ She pulled on her boots, hopping around on the floor, while trying to look in the mirror. Staring back at her was a white hung-over face, dishevelled hair she had no time to fix and eyes puffy from lack of sleep.

It was only as she was flying down the stairs that it dawned on her Marcel had left her on purpose. That this was game-playing.

What a fool! Hadn’t Lacey warned her on the first day?

Clearly Marcel was trying to eliminate the competition by any means possible.

‘The little bastard.’ She paused, hand on the banister. She wouldn’t be surprised if he’d swapped Abby’s sugar for salt as well.

Outside the freezing air hit her like cold water and her feet disappeared into the snow. Hauling her bike into the partially gritted road, swerving on the death-trap black ice, she cycled as fast as her frozen legs would pedal her. Wiping the snowy ice from her face as it fell, she pleaded with whoever was listening for her not to be late. She realised how much she not only wanted this, but now wanted to win.

‘Mum, if you’re listening,’ she said up to the foggy white sky, ‘help me. Please.’

Chantal’s lilies were flopping around in her basket as she pedalled faster. She hadn’t wanted to leave them on the step and had been in too much of a hurry to unlock the door and put them inside, but now they were losing petals all over the place. She skidded on the ice and swerved in the thicker snow but as the time ticked away she seemed to be moving slower than ever. The weather was getting worse, the snow falling in heavier flakes so she couldn’t see, her tyres sliding in the slush.

‘Damn him,’ she said out loud. ‘Damn him.’ Exhausted, angry with Marcel but more so with herself for believing he thought her irresistible, she finally stopped when her tyre caught in a snowdrift. Hanging her head over the handlebars, she exhaled with great gulps of despair. Flashing images hit her of her mum serving warm pain au chocolat that oozed on the plate when torn open before church on Christmas Day. Of the queues outside the bakery on Christmas Eve. Of what she thought her mum’s face might have looked like had she made it through another round, even to the final, maybe—just to beat Marcel! To know that she threw it all away for drunken sex that, from what she could remember, hadn’t even been that good.

‘Fuck it.’ Rachel yanked the bike free but like a stubborn donkey it wasn’t going anywhere. She was kicking it out of pure frustration when a car drew up next to her and the window slowly slid down.

‘The bicycle, it not your friend?’ Philippe leaned over to look out of the passenger window.

Rachel stood back, pushing her hat out of her eyes and patting the bike on the handlebars. ‘We’re having a slight disagreement.’

He laughed. ‘You want a lift?’

‘I would love a lift.’ She smiled. Locking the bike to the nearest railing, she ran to get in the nicely heated car. ‘You’ve saved my life. I could kiss you.’

As she said it he made a face, bemused, and the air suddenly seemed a little warmer.

‘Not actually kiss you, you know, it’s just—you know—an expression … of gratitude …’

He kept his face forward, a smile now teasing the corners of his lips.

‘Oh, God.’ She ran a hand over her face and looked out of the window. ‘I’ll just shut up.’

‘You’re late today, no?’

‘Yes, I’m really late. Stupidly late.’

‘I’m having dinner with him tonight. I’ll put in a good word.’

‘I fear it might be too late by then.’ She checked her watch and sighed. Five minutes—there was no way they’d make it. Then she caught her reflection in the visor mirror and almost shocked herself with her dark puffy circles and glowing white face. She pulled her bobble hat lower.

Philippe wove through the slow-moving traffic as she tapped her fingers on her knees, watching the minute hand tick by.

‘I know a short cut, don’t worry,’ he said, and then, yanking the wheel round, proceeded to drive the wrong way down two one-way streets, up a bus lane and down a cobbled path that she wasn’t convinced was made for cars.

When they pulled up to the pâtisserie she was sitting rigid, clinging to her seat.

‘Et voilà, we are here.’

She looked over at him in his clean-cut smart suit. ‘I’m not sure that could legally be called a short cut.’

He laughed. ‘You’d better go. You’re ten minutes late.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, and reached over to give him a peck on the cheek. But just as she did he moved his head to look at her and she ended up awkwardly kissing him on the nose.

‘Oh.’ He pulled back.

‘Thanks,’ she said again, putting her head down to hide her blushing cheeks and, grabbing her bag, fled from the car.