A Perfect Paris Christmas

by Mandy Baggot

  ‘And then you will hear what I have to say?’ Ethan asked. He was getting frustrated and he knew he had to try and hold it in. No one listened intently to someone who was raging.

  ‘You don’t get a say anymore,’ Louis told him. ‘In fact you should never have had a say in the first place.’

  ‘Louis!’ Silvie exclaimed.

  Ethan was biting down on his tongue now, focusing on that feeling rather than the fact he wanted to climb across the table and punch Louis in the face. The only thing that gave Louis the right to be here was the fact he was Ferne’s brother. He hadn’t ever been involved with the hotel business. He had shown no interest in the building up of it over the past five years. And now all Louis wanted to do was get rid of it.

  ‘If I may continue—’ Bernard tried to break in.

  ‘It is true, Mother,’ Louis carried on. ‘And I do not know why we have put up with this for so long. For years. I have no idea why you would allow Ferne to form a company and give so much of it to someone who brought nothing to the table.’ He threw his hands up. ‘I never understood why you and Father would let a ten-year-old girl become friends with someone you knew nothing about. Someone who knows nothing about himself!’

  Here it was. Still, after all these years, everything came back to where Ethan had started from. Ethan couldn’t deny it. He didn’t know who his parents were or where he had come from. But Ferne had not cared. And because Ferne had loved him so much, his arrival in the Durand family – starting with the odd meal and ending with his spending significant time in their home on the outskirts of the city – had been accepted by Silvie and even Pierre to a lesser extent, but not ever by Louis. And here that resentment still was.

  ‘Why do you think I had to leave Paris, Mother?’ Louis asked her.

  ‘You left to move on with your career,’ Silvie answered. ‘To climb the ladder and become the success that you are.’

  ‘No,’ Louis said. ‘I left because someone had taken my place!’

  Ethan felt the look Louis had thrown his way like it was a hot poker in the heart. There was real poison in his expression and Ethan was a little bit taken aback. He had always known Louis was not his biggest fan, that perhaps they would never have the kind of friendship he shared with Ferne, but Ethan hadn’t realised it was quite this way. He hadn’t taken anyone’s place. He wasn’t even sure he had made his own place in a way that positions in a family were earned by biology or signing official papers. But Louis obviously felt differently about it.

  ‘Well, that is simply ridiculous!’ Silvie exclaimed, staring long and hard at her son. ‘You sound like a spoilt prince who has had his polo pony taken away.’

  Her comment caused an involuntary smirk and Ethan quickly swallowed it away and attempted to focus not on Silvie’s comment but on the fact that Silvie was sticking up for him.

  ‘Could I—’ Bernard tried again.

  ‘Mother, come on. We are trying to make a decision for the good of the family and we have someone involved who really should not be. Owning a large percentage of a company that—’

  Silvie jumped in. ‘A company that Ethan helped to create with your sister. You weren’t there when they worked long into the night to make the hotel chain a reality.’

  Silvie remembers. She was underpinning his contribution here and now. It might not have been monetary, but he had given everything. And that was why he didn’t want to give up now, even if giving up might be easier. He couldn’t live with it if he forced himself to forgot the toil he and Ferne had put in. The sweat and the tears and the shrimp dinners. Ma crevette.

  ‘My sister didn’t have many faults, but her biggest mistake was him!’ Louis blasted.

  ‘I will not have you say that, Louis!’ Silvie exploded, getting to her feet, hands on the table, gripping the edge of it while her temper got the better of her.

  Ethan stood then, quickly moving around the table to go to Silvie’s side of it. She looked quite overcome and he felt the need to console her somehow, whether it was his place to or not.

  ‘Silvie,’ Ethan said, putting a hand on her shoulder. ‘Please, do not get upset.’

  ‘This whole situation is upsetting,’ Silvie said, sounding even more exasperated now. ‘How did we end up here? Fighting in front of Bernard! We were all so close once. We were. Ferne would not stand for it.’

  Silvie’s whimper at the end of the sentence made the atmosphere still a little. Ethan looked to Louis and Louis met his gaze, finally seeming a touch more in control of his emotions. Why had they never warmed to each other? Why had it always felt like a competition? Had they both not loved Ferne in their own way?

  ‘I am sorry, Mother,’ Louis finally responded, reaching out for Silvie’s other shoulder. ‘You are right.’ He looked again at Ethan. ‘We should not be fighting…’ He looked away. ‘In front of Bernard.’

  Ethan adjusted Silvie’s chair a little as she eased herself back down into it and then he sat too, deciding not to return to his own seat, but to drop down here, all three of them now on the same side, Bernard at the head of the table.

  ‘Am I permitted to continue now?’ Bernard asked, brushing crumbs from his chin having obviously devoured another coconut biscuit while the argument was ensuing.

  ‘Yes,’ Silvie said, reaching into her handbag and drawing out a handkerchief. ‘Please, Bernard, tell us what is happening with the conclusion of Ferne’s estate.’

  Bernard cleared his throat and glanced at the open folio again. ‘As you are aware, Silvie, you currently own twenty-five per cent of the hotel chain and Ethan, you also own twenty-five per cent. And, Ferne, she owned the other fifty per cent.’

  ‘Cut to the chase, Bernard,’ Louis interrupted. ‘We know this. We also know that Ferne’s fifty per cent was then to be split, thirty per cent to my mother and twenty per cent to Ethan on her death, therefore making my mother the majority shareholder.’

  Bernard seemed to hesitate. ‘That was how the will was required to be read from the outset, yes.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Louis asked.

  ‘I am afraid that when Ferne drafted this document with me she foresaw the division that might take place if she was no longer here. She did not want to be unfair to anyone and… as much as she loved you all, she was also uncomfortable with what this change in circumstance might lead to.’

  ‘Again, what does that mean?’ Louis asked.

  Ethan looked at Silvie. She was holding the handkerchief between her thumb and forefinger, moving the material slowly this way and that. He wasn’t sure she was tuned in to what Bernard was saying. He wasn’t sure she was connected at all.

  ‘There is a proviso in Ferne’s will. A clause that she and I specifically designed to come into being if there was to be any mixed direction over the future of Perfect Paris,’ Bernard told them.

  A proviso? Were you able to do that in a will? Make a clause of a clause with intricate meanings and consequences if one thing was achieved and not another? Ethan didn’t know. He didn’t have a will. When Ferne had made hers, back when they had formed the company, she had told him life could be unexpected, that they needed to make sure what they built together went to the right people after they passed. And Ethan had laughed. He was sober now, remembering that he had told his friend he had never had anything and as she was the one who had given him the something he did now have, he was only going to give it back to her. He’d promised to get one done. He hadn’t. Stupide.

  ‘I’ll get straight to the point,’ Bernard told them.

  ‘I very much wish you would,’ Louis said, still agitated.

  Bernard cleared his throat, checking the document in front of him again. ‘You knew that you were not allowed to seek a sale of the hotels until twelve months after the death, and that no sale would be able to be finalised until after the completion of probate.’ He smiled. ‘It was Ferne’s wish for there to be a period of grace where things could settle and the hotels could carry on being managed exactly as they had been�
��’

  ‘Yes, but it is past twelve months now,’ Louis reminded.

  ‘And after twelve months… this next clause takes effect.’ Bernard began to read from the text. ‘After the twelve-month period following my death, this clause shall take the place of clause 8.1.2 in relation to my interest in Perfect Paris. My shares will revert to being held as follows…’ Bernard took a breath. ‘Twenty per cent to my mother, Silvie Durand, twenty per cent to my best friend, Ethan Bouchard and…’ Bernard raised his eyes from the paperwork and Ethan knew this was the moment the game was going to change…

  ‘Ten per cent to the animal shelter in Rue Mallard.’

  ‘What?!’ Louis blasted jumping to his feet in a fit of rage. ‘That is… insane. What was she thinking?! She has given ten per cent of her share in the hotel to… animals.’ Louis pointed at Bernard. ‘Animals!’ he screamed. ‘This is unacceptable! It was a fucking cat that caused her accident and now she wants to give them everything else she had too?!’ He glared at Bernard. ‘Why didn’t you stop her?! She cannot have been of sound mind! Who would make a will leaving shares one way and then create a clause doing something else straight afterwards? It makes no sense!’

  ‘It makes perfect sense.’

  These words came from Silvie. She was still rubbing her fingers against the cotton of the handkerchief, her eyes seeking the mid-distance. ‘It is perhaps the only thing in all this that does make sense.’

  ‘Silvie,’ Ethan said, putting a hand on her arm, sensing her distress about this whole situation.

  ‘We all of us knew Ferne. Who she was. What she loved. She loved all of us.’

  ‘But apparently not me,’ Louis snapped, pacing his way to the window then stopping, looking out at the street, putting his hands to the back of his head.

  ‘Louis,’ Silvie said. ‘How can you say that? Ferne left you her apartment!’

  ‘And what good is that to me?’

  ‘That is enough!’ Ethan roared.

  He got to his feet then, incensed by Louis’s behaviour. Louis was talking about Ferne and her estate as if they were all meaningless items on a shopping list, not the hard work of someone he cared about. Someone who had worked hard for everything she was leaving them now. Yes, Ferne had had the best start – a good home, wanting for nothing – but that hadn’t made her entitled. She had never been complacent. She’d liked the good things in life, but she had achieved them all through dogged determination and taking risks. She had always taken risks and she had always looked out for the underdog. Or, in the case of her bicycle crash in London, the undercat. So determined to save the life of a furry friend, she hadn’t seen the bus coming and had ended up sacrificing her own.

  Ethan walked towards Louis now. ‘You will not talk about Ferne’s decisions on death like that.’ He got closer, wanting the man to turn away from the window and face him. ‘And we will not fight about this. Because where will that get us?’

  Louis turned around then, his eyes filled with tears, his blotchy face looking red again. ‘You have won,’ he breathed.

  ‘Won?’ Ethan queried. ‘What have I won?’

  ‘You will have the hotels. We cannot sell them now. Not without your say so or the say so of the animal shelter.’ Louis shook his head. ‘My crazy, crazy little sister.’

  Ethan’s phone ringing broke into the room and he patted himself down, forgetting where he had placed it. It was Antoine at the Tour Eiffel hotel. He looked to Silvie. ‘It is Antoine. It might be a problem with the hotel. I should…’

  ‘Take it,’ Silvie told him. She was getting up from her seat now and, as Ethan headed to the door of the boardroom, he vowed to make the call short and get back to her. He turned back for a moment, watching Silvie go towards Louis and begin a conversation.

  ‘Hello, Antoine,’ he answered, turning his concentration back to the phone.

  ‘Monsieur Bouchard,’ the man replied, sounding out of breath. Ethan’s stomach tightened. This did sound like an emergency. He hoped there was not a burst water main or, heaven forbid, a fire.

  ‘What is it, Antoine. What has happened?’

  ‘The dog you brought to me,’ Antoine said, still breathless. ‘The one who was unconscious from medication. The one with the foot that does not work.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well… it is rampaging… completely out of control.’

  Ethan took a second to think about what exactly his concierge had just said. ‘What?’

  ‘The dog in the box,’ Antoine repeated. ‘It is awake and it is causing chaos.’

  Thirty-Five

  Alsatian Christmas Market, Gare de l’Est, Paris

  ‘Erica still not answering?’

  Keeley shook her head, looking at another timed-out call on her phone. They were at the most amazing Christmas market, stalls set up outside the beautiful Paris train station that was something to Instagram all on its own. Deciding they needed to up their gift-buying game while they were in one of the meccas of shopping, Rach had found the market online and they had taken a thirty-minute stroll to get here. And it was living up to all the Time Out article expectations so far. Beautiful rounds of Munster and Gerome cheeses were piled high, together with hams, jams and lots of gingerbread. It was a foodie’s nirvana with every kind of gastronomic delight you could imagine. They had already sampled wines, liqueurs and eau-de-vie – the latter, they were told, was a colourless fruit brandy using double distillation. Whatever it was it was very pleasant on the taste buds. But, experiencing the shopping revelry, Keeley had the urge to FaceTime Erica, particular when they had come across Christmas cookies Keeley knew her friend would have enjoyed seeing even if she couldn’t taste them.

  ‘She’s probably, you know, resting,’ Rach said softly.

  ‘Or she’s too ill to answer the phone. Or…’ She was already thinking it. Not there at all.

  ‘She’ll be fine,’ Rach said, sounding a little too upbeat. Keeley knew this was because she was worrying.

  ‘She won’t though, will she?’ Keeley swallowed, feeling a little guilty about the bright lights and the warmth beneath the marquee filled with goodies. ‘That’s the only certainty.’

  Suddenly Keeley’s phone trilled in her hand and it made Keeley jump, almost knocking into a display of charcuterie items including some rather delicious-looking smoked sausages.

  ‘It’s Erica,’ Keeley breathed, her heart doing a happy bounce at this revelation.

  ‘Well,’ Rach said, ‘don’t just look at her name on the screen! Answer it!’

  Keeley did just that, but turned the screen so it was facing the sausage display in all its glory. She knew her friend would appreciate it.

  ‘Hello?’ a voice said down the line. ‘Who is this?’

  Keeley gulped. It wasn’t Erica. It was someone else. Now Keeley was back to being concerned about her friend’s health. She quickly switched the screen back around and looked at the caller on screen. It was a nurse.

  ‘Hello?’ the woman said again.

  ‘Hello… I’m Keeley… Keeley Andrews. I volunteer there, at the hospice and I’m Erica’s friend and…’

  ‘I’m Nurse Walters.’

  ‘And you’re answering someone else’s phone because?’ Rach questioned.

  ‘Rach,’ Keeley said, trying desperately to keep composed. ‘Nurse Walters, is Erica not… there?’ There were so many eventualities that could be associated with the word ‘there’. She could hardly breathe. She was seeing the looks on her parents faces when they told her Bea was gone. The first thought that had gone through her mind then was she would never hear Bea’s annoying humming along to the radio as she made coffee in the morning…

  ‘No,’ Nurse Walters replied, the phone screen wobbling as her face moved in and out of shot. She appeared to be dipping in and out of sight busying herself with something. It was hard to see in what looked like a darkened hospital room.

  ‘Well, where is she?’ Keeley was internally bracing herself for bad news. She didn’t
know this nurse, but her matter-of-fact attitude was obvious. Was she about to brazenly impart tragic information over FaceTime? Surely a carer wouldn’t do that…

  ‘We’re moving her,’ she informed, again no-nonsense. ‘To another room.’

  ‘What other room?’ Her relief that Erica was still alive would only be absolute if this room was one of the ones further up the corridor rather than down it.

  ‘Room nine,’ the nurse said, finally stopping with her business and connecting with Keeley’s eyes.

  ‘Room nine,’ Keeley mouthed.

  ‘Room nine?’ Rach asked, none the wiser.

  There was only one reason people got moved into room nine.

  ‘You understand?’ the nurse asked.

  ‘I don’t bloody understand!’ Rach exclaimed.

  ‘It’s…’ Keeley couldn’t bring herself to say the words. ‘It’s…’

  ‘Listen,’ the nurse interrupted. ‘She’s not too bad today, but she’s showing signs that things are taking a turn. We thought the view might be appropriate now.’

  Tears were leaking out of Keeley’s eyes before she even knew about it. They were streaking her face and dropping onto her red coat, Rach still looking oblivious. She attempted to gather herself together and cleared her throat. ‘Could you take the awful painting?’

  ‘What?’ Nurse Walters asked.

  ‘The painting. In the room there. The poodles. She’s called the big one Henry.’

  ‘I will see what I can do.’

  ‘Please,’ Keeley begged. ‘And… make sure she has Nick Jonas with her.’

  ‘She can still talk at the moment,’ Nurse Walters said, her stern demeanour slackening a little. ‘She told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to touch that particular photograph. She actually clung on to it like it was a rock face she was climbing and it was the only handhold.’

  Erica was still here in spirit. That was some good news. And the thought of her grabbing onto her favourite Jonas brother and being bolshy was comforting. Keeley opened her mouth to say something else but the nurse beat her to it.