‘Well, I wouldn’t say I’m an expert.’ Harriet blushes at the compliment. ‘I’ve still a lot to learn.’
‘Yes, but you’d be able to spot something like a Picasso, wouldn’t you?’
Now she’s the one to laugh. ‘A Picasso? Golly yes, I would hope so!’ she snorts, looking completely amused.
‘Right yes, I thought so . . .’
Her smile turns to a frown. ‘Ruby, what’s all this about? Why are we talking about priceless antiques and Picassos all of a sudden?’
I hesitate, then come straight to the point. ‘Well, the thing is yesterday, Trixie, Felix’s wife, mentioned something about a Picasso. Apparently she’d heard a rumour there was one in Madame Dumont’s apartment and it’s worth a fortune.’
‘I see.’ Harriet’s expression turns grave. ‘That would explain why she’s been calling constantly about the cataloguing—’ She breaks off, then heaves a sigh. ‘Believe me, I would have loved to have been the one to discover a forgotten masterpiece, but I’m afraid in this instance it was indeed just a rumour.’
I smile ruefully. ‘Oh well, never mind,’ I say, but inside I feel a sense of vindication. I knew Emmanuelle hadn’t paid rent on that apartment for all those years just because of some painting. I knew it had to be much more than that.
‘But that still doesn’t explain how you hurt your leg.’
I snap back to see Harriet still staring at me.
‘Oh, it was just a silly accident.’ I quickly bat her concerns away. ‘Luckily I met a girl who works at the estate who knew first aid—’
Reminded of Gigi and her mother, I unfasten my pocket.
‘I nearly forgot, she gave me this.’ I pull out the necklace. ‘She thought I worked in antiques and wanted to know if it was worth anything.’ I hold it out in the palm of my hand. ‘Of course I didn’t have a clue, but I promised I’d bring it back to Paris and ask my friend, the antiques expert.’
Harriet smiles again at the compliment and takes it from me.
She turns it over carefully in her fingers, her professional eye flicking over it. Almost immediately, she shakes her head. ‘It’s just a trinket. It’s not even real gold; most of it is brass. These lovehearts were very common between sweethearts during the First and Second World Wars. I’d say this was more around the time of the Second.’
It hadn’t looked valuable, even to my amateur eyes, but even so I feel a crushing sense of disappointment. So Jean-Paul won’t be going to college after all. And just like that his dreams and those of Gigi and her mother disappear. Their family could really have done with a windfall, and not just for college fees but because it was pretty obvious Gigi was struggling financially to support everyone.
‘I’m afraid it doesn’t have any value.’
‘Perhaps not in monetary terms,’ I say. But as the only possession left with a baby from its mother, it’s invaluable, I think sadly.
‘It’s not something we’d ever sell at auction, though I have seen them at flea markets.’
Still, at least this means the grandmother gets to keep it now, I console myself, and yet somehow, it doesn’t make me feel much better. I’m going to have to call Gigi and let her know. She’ll be pleased that her mother won’t have to sell it, though I know despite all her protestations, deep down there was a part of her as a mother that was hoping it might be worth something so she could afford to send her beloved son to college. What a shame. There are people like Felix and Trixie with all this money and then there are people like Gigi and her mum. It just doesn’t seem fair.
‘Thanks anyway,’ I say, holding my hand to take it back from Harriet. ‘I’ll let her know.’
‘Sorry,’ she says apologetically, ‘but it is very pretty regardless. I mean, look at how fine this chain is, and there’s a concealed catch.’ Running her thumb along the edge of the loveheart, she carefully presses it . . .
‘I didn’t realise it opened,’ I say, as it releases into two halves.
‘Yes, the heart is actually a sort of secret locket.’ She eases it slowly open, then frowns. ‘That’s strange, there are no pictures. It’s empty.’
‘It is?’ I say, but I’m not surprised. After all, Gigi’s mum never knew her mother, so it’s unlikely there would be any photographs inside. As Harriet peers closely at the inside of the locket, I take a sip of coffee and mull over what I’m going to say to Gigi. I wish I could give her some different news.
‘Though there is an inscription.’
‘Oh, really,’ I say absently.
‘Gosh, it’s so tiny it’s hard to read, and it’s in cursive . . .’ She frowns, angling it to the light.
‘Do you want me to try?’ I offer. ‘My eyesight’s probably better.’
‘I’ll have you know these are very good contacts,’ she replies sharply. ‘My eyesight is perfect.’
‘OK,’ I smile, turning back to my coffee.
‘Wait a minute – I’ve got part of it . . .’ she murmurs, squinting hard.
I watch, amused. Harriet will never accept defeat.
‘J’attendrai.’
I suddenly get goose bumps.
‘It means “I will always wait” in French,’ she translates helpfully.
‘Yes, I know,’ I manage, trying to keep my voice casual. ‘What does the rest say?’
‘Hmm – hang on . . . it’s to someone, but I can’t quite make out the name.’
My heartbeat quickens.
‘Ah yes, got it,’ she says triumphantly.
It can’t be. It’s impossible.
‘Darling Manu, J’attendrai, your beloved H’.
And it’s like someone just dropped a tonne weight on my chest.
28
It’s a coincidence. It has to be.
Having said goodbye to Harriet, I’m walking down the street in no particular direction, my thoughts whirring. Why would Gigi’s mother have Emmanuelle’s necklace? It’s impossible.
Unless—
The answer thrusts itself at me. Unless of course, Gigi’s mother is Emmanuelle’s daughter.
It’s like flinging open a door. No sooner is the thought out there than a rush of others follow.
Did she have a baby and give her up? Henry wrote about them spending the night together. Did Emmanuelle find herself pregnant afterwards? My mind flicks back to the very first letter I found in her apartment, the only one I’ve ever found written by Emmanuelle to Henry. Was this her big secret? The one she needed to share with him?
It would make sense, and yet, she never finished the letter, she never got to send it. What happened? Did she get to see Henry again? And if so, why did she give their child away? Did he reject her? Or did she flee Paris without telling him? And if that’s what happened, why didn’t she look for Henry after the war? Why did she still go on to marry Monsieur Dumont after saying she wouldn’t?
There are so many unanswered questions, but there are no answers. The clues are in the letters, but there’s more to discover. There has to be. Because one thing is for certain – their story didn’t end with Henry’s last letter.
Far from it. It only really began.
I think about Gigi and her mother, I need to call them about the locket, I could ask them—
Ask them what, Ruby?
A voice of reason stops me in my tracks.
I have no proof. No hard facts. It’s all surmise and conjecture. I can’t start throwing around wild stories about Madame Dumont. Revealing her love affair with Henry would be one thing, but telling Gigi’s mother, Grace, that she’s their child would be quite another. I can’t just drop a bombshell like that and play havoc with an entire family’s emotions. On the basis of what? A trinket and some old love letters?
After all, who’s to say the old lady’s story is true? I’ve read that children who grow up without ever knowing their birth parents often invent stories about them, and over the years they come to believe them to be true. What if, in fact, the locket came into her possession some other way? It could h
ave got lost during the war and turned up at some flea market, for example.
And even if it is true, even if Grace is Emmanuelle’s daughter, it wouldn’t change the family’s finances. The fact that she was adopted would prevent her from being Emmanuelle’s heir. She would still inherit nothing.
I pause by a small park on the corner, set back from the street. I say a park, but it’s more a small square of grass, a few shady trees and a wooden bench tucked away behind some iron railings. I step inside and sit down on the bench, relishing the coolness of the shadows and the quietness. Taking a few deep breaths, I try to collect my thoughts. I have to call Gigi, but first I need to be able to think straight.
Or at least, not sound like a totally mad, crazy woman.
Pulling out my phone, I dial her number and after a few seconds she answers.
‘’Allo?’
‘Hi, Gigi, it’s Ruby – the girl on the bike,’ I add for clarification, just in case.
‘Ah, Ruby, how are you?’ she says warmly.
‘Much better, thanks.’
‘How are the bruises?’
‘Big and purple.’
She laughs. ‘I’m glad to hear it, it means you’re healing.’
I smile, her relaxed manner instantly putting me at ease, then pause. I’m not sure how to break it to her about the necklace, so I dive straight in. ‘I asked my friend about your mother’s locket . . .’
‘Yes?’
‘I’m afraid it’s not an antique,’ I say simply.
There’s a moment’s pause, then, ‘Bien,’ she says firmly. ‘I didn’t want Maman to sell it.’
‘Yes, I know,’ I reply, softly.
‘It is the only thing her mother gave her when she was born. How can you put a price on this?’
I pause, my mind doing calculations, but they have nothing to do with money. ‘When was your mother born, Gigi?’ I blurt, finally. Because I have to ask. I have to be sure. If Emmanuelle did fall pregnant in that spring of 1940, then the baby would have been born—
‘The nuns said it was Christmas time, 1940.’
I feel a shiver of excitement. The timing couldn’t be more perfect. I think about Grace’s face, those dark eyes, the cheekbones, the regality. She’s Emmanuelle and Henry’s daughter, she has to be!
‘But it’s so long ago now, most of the nuns have since died and there is no birth certificate, or record of adoption—’
Wait a minute. ‘She was never adopted?’ I say in surprise.
‘One of the nuns, Sister Edith, had a cousin who was married to the local doctor in Fayence, a small village a couple of hundred kilometres from here, and she was taken in by them, but no, it was never a legal adoption. Maman says when she was a child she overheard a nun say her real mother had refused to give her permission.’
‘Refused? But why, if she had given her daughter away?’
‘I don’t know how much of that is true or just hearsay. It is many years ago now and time has a habit of changing the past,’ she says, and I can imagine her shrugging her tanned shoulders.
‘So your mother was never able to find out anything about her real parents?’ My mind has started to race. If Gigi’s mother was never legally adopted, and it could be proven that she was Emmanuelle’s daughter, she could inherit everything.
Everything.
‘She never tried. She didn’t want to hurt the feelings of the kind couple who looked after her . . .’
There’s a pause.
‘And you?’ Something tells me Gigi didn’t share the same sense of loyalty.
‘Apparently the convent kept files of information on all the children they took in during that time. Sister Edith believed in meticulous record-keeping. However my enquiries were met with a wall of silence. It would seem Sister Edith also believed in absolute secrecy . . .’ Gigi pauses. ‘I did consider taking it further, asking a lawyer perhaps, but lawyers are expensive – and anyway, what does it matter? Maman had a happy childhood, that’s all that is important.’
‘Yes,’ I murmur in agreement, but my mind is working overtime. Something tells me it’s neither hearsay nor rumour that Gigi’s mother wasn’t officially adopted, but an important piece of this jigsaw.
‘Are you still there?’ Gigi’s voice snaps me back.
‘Yes, I’m here,’ I say, flustered.
‘My boss is calling me, I am afraid I have to go back to work, but if I give you my son’s telephone number, would you mind calling him?’
‘No, of course not.’
‘Jean-Paul is working in Paris now, so he can come and collect the necklace from you—’
‘If you want, I can drop it off,’ I offer, out of both kindness and curiosity. If I’m right about this, Jean-Paul is the great-grandson of Henry and Emmanuelle. My stomach flutters with excitement. I’m dying to meet him.
‘Would you? That would be so kind. But can I ask you a favour? Could you say you just had it fixed for Maman, I don’t want him to know—’
‘I understand,’ I reassure her quickly.
‘Thank you.’ There’s a sound of relief at the other end of the line. ‘He works in a bookshop, it’s on the Left Bank, I can’t quite remember the name, I think it’s Shakespeare and—’
‘Company,’ I finish, my mind flashing back to the bookstore I visited, only a couple of days ago. What a coincidence.
‘Yes that’s it,’ she says. ‘Are you sure you don’t mind?’
You can call it coincidence, but you can also call it destiny.
Without further ado, I stand up and, stuffing my phone back in my pocket, set off towards rue de la Bûcherie. My chance encounter with Gigi, finding the inscription in the locket, Jean-Paul working at the same bookshop where Henry lived and worked over seventy years ago – the sensible, rational, level-headed part of me tells me this is all just an incredible string of coincidences.
But the Ruby who sat in the desert in Rajasthan and gazed up at the stars, and who in that glittery darkness experienced something so much bigger than herself, can’t help feeling there’s some greater power at play. That all these seemingly random things are actually part of some grand design. And like the music she heard playing in Madame Dumont’s apartment, this isn’t just her imagination.
It sounds crazy and preposterous, the stuff of superstition and magic, but what if it’s not? There’s a school of thought that believes everything happens for a reason. In which case it wasn’t merely chance that I walked into Madame Dumont’s apartment that evening and discovered her letters. Or that Harriet twisted her ankle and I travelled to the south of France in her place, to pick up the rest of Emmanuelle’s story.
Call it destiny, or Fate, or whatever the hell you want to call it, but it’s like it was meant to happen. As if that apartment remained a secret until it could be found by someone like me. Someone who has spent their whole life being fascinated by the mysteries of love and romance and is forever looking for answers. Someone who, the moment they stepped into that apartment and back in time, knew that love was the answer to unravel this mystery.
Someone, I guess, who you’d call a bit of a love detective.
After ten minutes of walking I turn the corner and see the bookshop ahead of me. It’s a hot sunny day but I’m shivery with anticipation. Now I’m here I feel slightly giddy, and a little bit nervous. I slow my pace. My mind is churning and I try to wade through my thoughts. I need to figure out what I’m going to say before I enter. I can’t just charge inside declaring, ‘Hey, guess what? You’re the long-lost great-grandson of Madame Dumont!’
OK, on the plus side it’s to the point, and cuts out all the waffle, but it’s hardly tactful is it? When it comes to stuff like this, you can’t just blurt it out, you need to be sensitive. In fact, now I’m actually thinking this through, something like this should probably involve professionals and counselling and people who actually know what they’re doing.
Unlike me, who doesn’t really have a clue what they’re doing.
Shit
.
I slow down until I come to a standstill.
Plus, on the very big downside, who’s to say it’s true? Maybe I’ve got a bit carried away. Maybe all the adrenalin and excitement has clouded my judgement. Standing outside the entrance, I feel my confidence take a huge wobble. Maybe I just wanted it to be true so much, I’ve almost convinced myself it is.
Standing at the doorway, I falter. Nevertheless, regardless of whether I’m right or wrong, I can’t stand out here all day. I still have to return the locket. Feeling it in my pocket, I wrap my fingers round it tightly. At the very least I’ll just give it back and be on my way.
With renewed confidence, I push open the door and walk inside.
Then freeze.
Because there, standing right in front of me, is Henry.
29
‘Ça ne va pas? T’as vu un fantôme?’
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ I stammer, taking a sip of water.
‘Ah, of course.’ He smiles apologetically. ‘I asked if you are OK? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’
I stare at him from above the rim of my glass.
‘Yes, I’m fine – thanks . . .’ I fib, ‘I think maybe it was just the heat.’
I can’t take my eyes off him. Ever since I walked in the shop and saw him standing behind the counter.
Only this isn’t Henry. It’s Jean-Paul.
We’re sitting in a little cubbyhole at the back of the shop. I must have looked as white as a sheet when I walked in, because as soon as he saw me he ushered me into the back and immediately fetched me the water. The resemblance between him and Henry is uncanny.
But there’s something else. Now I’ve been staring at him for the last few minutes it’s dawned on me that this is the same assistant I met the last time I was here, only now he looks completely different. Gone is the beanie hat and the beard, and without either he looks so much younger. And so much more like his great-grandfather. They have the same curly dark hair, the same strong jawline, the same almond-shaped eyes.
Now I realise why the photo of Henry looked so familiar. It’s because I’d already met his great-grandson. I just didn’t know it.
Love From Paris Page 25
