He straightened up. His face looked nervous and exhilarated at once.
“What do you mean? They’re hating it?”
“Nooo,” I said. “They’re loving it.”
“Really?”
“Of course really! Come on, my love, you know you can cook.”
“But in my father’s kitchen…” he muttered, pushing his hair out of his eyes.
“Yes,” I said. “In your father’s kitchen. You are also wonderful.”
He smiled, and I felt in that instant both immense love for him and a sudden immense rush of love for my own lovely father, who would love me no matter what, whatever I did and how. He wasn’t famous or a brilliant genius or world-renowned. Except to me.
“Now, get on with it,” I said, but Laurent couldn’t; he had to come and see for himself. The crowd was standing around in the shop, unable to disperse, telling each other how amazing it was. And of course because there were lots of people, other people had come up behind to see what was going on and were watching and adding themselves to the queue, and the entire stock had nearly sold out.
M. Beausier, who had known Thierry a long time, gasped when he saw Laurent. But everyone else’s attention was diverted by a long car pulling up outside.
- - -
Thierry seemed stronger already than when she saw him yesterday, Claire thought, as she said “come in” to the soft knock at the door. He was very smartly dressed and carrying a large bunch of flowers. This would be how it would be, she supposed. He would get better and better and recover as she got worse and worse. She had had a very bad coughing fit in the bathroom that morning that, she knew, would have made her oncologist order her straight back to the hospital. For a moment, she nearly weakened, thinking suddenly how nice it would be to call an ambulance and let the professionals take over, slip into a drugged sleep, and let them clear her lungs and drain what they needed to drain to make her more comfortable…
But she knew, more than anything, that the next time she went into the hospital, she wasn’t sure whether she would be coming out again. She had one chance, only one chance, to do this. Plucking up all her courage, her hand shaking, she managed to insert the tiny chips of emerald in her ears.
She didn’t want to take too much morphine either; it helped, but it blurred the edges, made her feel as if she was walking through a cotton-wool dream, where nothing really mattered. This did matter; it mattered to her a lot. And it was only one more day. So she wanted to stay clear for it, even if she felt at any moment that her bones might shatter or her whole body might simply curl up and immolate, like a film she had once seen about nuclear war.
She had drunk some more water and did her best with her face. She could not, she found, walk across the bathroom to get back to the bedroom.
Cursing roundly in a way that would have surprised many of her ex-pupils, Claire crawled, very slowly, across the floor.
“How are you?” Thierry asked emphatically, covering her with kisses. “I have been ordered to walk about and take exercise so I walked to the lift to see you.”
Claire smiled.
“Can you take a walk with me?”
“No,” said Claire. “Not today.”
“Well, that is a shame,” said Thierry. “I always enjoyed our walks.”
“So did I,” said Claire. “But I have ordered tea. Now tell me everything.”
“And you too,” insisted Thierry. “Then I shall take you to the shop.”
“I would like that,” said Claire. “I would like that very much.”
- - -
I realized later that the taxi hadn’t had space for a wheelchair, and the hotel had had to order a bigger car. But it did look a bit like a limo had drawn up, as Thierry stepped out of the big black car.
The crowd instantly burst into applause. Thierry looked incredibly jolly and better already than he had the day before, never mind those awful days in the hospital, and acknowledged their applause with his hand. Someone started taking photographs.
Then father and son saw each other. Thierry stood stock-still for an instant. I saw a look of fear and nerves and defiant pride pass over Laurent’s features as clear as day; I could already read him so well. Someone handed Thierry a piece of the chocolate. Slowly, very slowly, Thierry placed it on his tongue and held it there, closing his mouth. There was absolute silence on the rue Chanoinesse. All the other shopkeepers had come out to see what was going on.
Thierry chewed, meditatively and carefully. Then he stopped and gave a short sharp nod.
“Mon fils,” said Thierry simply, and he opened his arms. Laurent ran into them like a little boy.
- - -
I helped Claire out of the car and into the chair, which barely fit in the narrow shop, and through into the greenhouse beyond. Laurent went back to making his new chocolate and another batch of the lemon. Thierry kept a beady eye on him and remarked, as Laurent wielded the pepper grinder, that he was going to give him another heart attack, but mostly stayed out of the way. Claire sat comfortably by the plants and I took a couple of photos. It was funny to think she’d been here before. Had it changed?
“Not at all,” she said. “Benoît, I knew you here as a boy.”
Benoît merely grunted.
“That’s what he was like as a boy,” she confided. Thierry went over to the sink and washed his hands.
“I am going to make you some medicine,” he said to Claire, who smiled.
“I would like that very much.”
I watched, fascinated, as he picked up a tiny whisk, which looked absurdly small in his huge hands, and a little metal pole and started working in his own way over a low heat, adding brandy and vanilla in tiny drops, tasting too as he went. I spotted Laurent watching him while pretending not to.
Eventually it was made and warmed and poured into a huge clay cup, slightly chipped. Thierry took a tiny knife and carved tiny, perfect scrolls of chocolate from a large plain bar to decorate the froth at the top. Then it was taken over to be presented to Claire as if it was on a silver salver.
“It’s the same cup,” she exclaimed with pleasure.
“I kept everything that reminded me of you,” said Thierry simply. “When I returned from the fighting…ah, I had changed. Life had changed. It made everything more complicated and less free and…well. I liked to keep some things to remember.”