CHAPTER 14
My hair was in disarray, but that was to be expected, as I had slept dreadfully. Serge would not have had the problem, his hair being shorter, but a girl must proclaim her femininity to all the world, and I needed no equivalent of skinned rabbits for my head; a hairpiece, taken from another’s head, no.

My shoes! I heard myself thundering down to the lower floor, and tried to contain my excitement, for it was but seven o’clock. The tree was there, lights glowing as I threw the switch, gifts wrapped beneath it, and my old shoes…

A moment of joy came to me, just then, with the understanding that I was not only living the life I had once been too frightened to dream of, but that I was already growing too large for some of my clothes. The shoes, though, they were still pretty, but alas no longer fit for my feet. They were fit, however, for some small packages , and I wrapped my robe about me for warmth. There was fruit, and chocolates, and a small box, square within its wrapping paper.

Earrings. Perfect, crystal roses to brighten my ears and peep through my hair. There was no note beyond my name, though that was in Rollo’s hand. I wondered: who had done the choosing of them? To the kitchen, though, and the thing Maman had objected to, but on which I had insisted. This was a day without bakers, and yet a day I wanted the breakfast to be as good as I could make it. In the supermarket I had found what my mother declared to be an abomination, a half-cooked bread, and I left the oven to warm as I slipped the jewellery into its place and began the preparation of the coffee and the chocolate. In but half an hour I was inhaling the delightful perfume of fresh bread, and I spread the table with the jam and the other things.

Rollo was down first, drawn by the aroma, and properly appreciative, followed by Maman, who made some cutting remark about cheating. My brother just laughed, happily.

“It is as they say! One kitchen, two women, not a happy place”

I grinned happily, for that was my true gift that year, and Maman saw, and kissed me, and her smile was back.

“Darling daughter of mine, the smell is eroding my resistance, so we shall have a breakfast, and I shall not complain, no?”

Rollo made a face, and tapped at the breast pocket of his pyjamas as if checking some machine.

“For the benefit of the tape…”

My best Christmas morning, ever, was that one. The gifts were of no relevance compared to the mere fact of my existence, right there and at that time, with my family.

“Away with you and dress, children, we must begin the day’s work”

“What about our gifts, Maman?”

“Child, we have your friend and her father today, and he has agreed to transport their own gifts, intact, and we shall open all as friends and family should, no?”

I suddenly realised she had tears in her eyes, about to fall, and I took her in my arms and asked “Why, Maman? Why sad, now?”

She sniffed, and wiped her eyes against the sleeve of her robe. “It is just…it is just so many years we have wasted, so long we stayed in that place, and now we have at last a chance to be who we are, be a family…”

She sniffed again. “Yes, my sweet one, I am happy, I am very happy, but still, I mourn the years we have lost. I am but a foolish old woman, I know”

Rollo enveloped us both in his strong arms. “No foolishness, never, not in this woman, have I ever seen. There is love, and charm, and strength, more than her son will ever have”

He kissed her cheek. “And far more cunning, of course. Come, sister dear, before this foolish old woman gets so maudlin that she admits you were right about the bread”

He was almost quick enough to escape the slap she gave to his bottom.

Two women in the kitchen became one chief of said kitchen and her apprentice, and slowly the meal took shape. We had the goose liver, and Maman had a goose to roast as well, and she had also prepared a sorbet of rosemary for a cleanser. She showed me how to prepare a clear soup, and I started to giggle.

“What is amusing?”

“I was just remembering The Little Nicolas, Maman, and his teacher, Le Bouillon. ‘Look me in the eye!’ “

She laughed with me, and then shook a finger as if angry. “You should be paying more attention, my girl, these are lessons you will need to remember when you…”

She stopped, all of a sudden, as if her voice had left her, and the tears were back, just as quickly.

“My little sweet one, I forget, sometimes, and I must hurt you when I do. I was going to say ‘when you take a husband’ but then…”

She looked so guilty at that statement I had to hold her once more. She spoke into my neck, for I was already taller than her.

“I assume, I err, because this is so right for you, and yet, you are but newly a girl, and I do not even know if…if you are of the inclination”

“Maman, I am not newly a girl, I have always been a girl, and…and yes, I talk with Elle, and Margot, and yes I am a girl, and I am not one of THOSE types of girl, and maybe, I dream, maybe there is somewhere a boy, a man, who can come to love me…so wake up, foolish old person, and teach me what a girl must know! We have guests we must please, and they will be here all too soon”

She held me just a little longer, at the length of her arms. “You are right, my darling. Where is it you find such strength?”

I gave her my own sigh. “From necessity, Maman, from necessity. Come, I have something in the larder to show you”

“Not more bread?”

“Yes indeed. English bread. If you are happy for a dessert from the wrong season it would be new for Margot and her father. Rollo knows a man on the ferry, and he did some shopping in Portsmouth for him, and so we have the ingredients. They are not fresh, but then neither was this morning’s breakfast. Sometimes we women must adapt, yes?”

We returned to our preparations, and she was shedding tears as if in the deepest sorrow, but her face was all one smile.

The food cooked, and Roland prepared the room, including a carousel he had placed in Maman’s shoes. It had actually sat on them, because it was too large to fit inside, but it was there for the table, so it had had to be opened. It was a machine, where the heat of a burning candle sent warm air upwards through vanes that turned a miniature collection of mounted figures, tinkling a little bell as they span. Once more, my brother had found a way to make our little house even more our home, and it bought him kisses from both women in his life, just as the bell rang to announce the arrival of a woman who wished to enter it.

I was in my best dress, a dark blue sheath, and new earrings, of course, with my bigger shoes on my feet. Margot was an astonishment for me, sweetly elegant in a small black thing that would have graced the racks of Chanel, and her father was in a complete suit of clothing, a dark grey with small bird’s-eyes all over, both of them so clean and neat they looked as if pinned out. Margot spoiled the image just a little bit by squealing and rushing to me, while everyone shook hands and gave the kisses. M Boucher was already sniffing.

“Something smells delightful, Julienne”

“We have been working hard, Guillaume. It is the lot of a woman, alas, at Christmas”

“Indeed it is, so perhaps that other one can go and empty our car”

“Indeed, and perhaps my lazy son could stir from his repose to help her”

Start as you mean to continue, Maman, I thought. I remembered an old saying I had heard in the English class: let the dog see the rabbit. When they returned, all was smiling. Rollo had some large packages balanced on his arms, Margot a small sack of little ones, and as he entered the room, she had her hand on his arm to guide him, and a wink for me as she passed. It was later, though, that I heard.

The dinner was as good as anything my mother had ever offered to us, and the odd sorbet perfection in its role, but pride of place in my memories of that day will always go to my own offering, for that was what it had become in the end. I had obtained the ingredients so that Maman might prepare her special dish, but to my initial horror she had simply smiled and said “But it is not too difficult to prepare…”

Margot’s papa had looked at the odd domed confection doubtfully, but Rollo’s broad smile on its arrival disarmed the Bouchers’ suspicions. In the end, they were converted, and as we settled down with some small dishes of nuts and sheep droppings, and a large serving of a good coffee brought by M Boucher, Margot was seated within range of my brother, and it was he who raised the issue of gifts.

“Surely, now, it is the time?”

Maman nodded, and so I went to the floor and started passing out the packages that had been placed by our little tree.

“Rollo, for you, from me”

A pair of small binoculars. “For watching the seas, brother, not the arrival of the airline girls”

Margot frowned. “And you do this?”

My brother blushed. My brother! Things had happened, clearly. He coughed. “Once, perhaps, a long time ago”

We worked on, through the pile and the paper, and I had new shoes, and cosmetics, and a pretty little watch from my brother, and…no, that is not the important part of such a day. As a child, that was always the heart of the festival, what was within the wrappings. It was still important then, especially as it was all addressed to Sophie, and the contents were of a type that matched my soul, but the only things that truly mattered were the people around me. They were happy, they were smiling, even Margot’s father seemed to have lost the weariness that had marked his face.

“Sophie?”

“Yes, Maman?”

“The water closet, can you show your friend?”

I led her up the stairs, and to my surprise she insisted I accompany her inside.

“We are both girls, no, and girls who like men?”

I looked away as she did what she needed to, but I still had to ask. “Margot…Roland? What have you worked?”

She grinned, her joy evident. “So I walk with him to the car, and I have the key, and I pretend that I cannot work the electronic thing, and so he must show me. But I do not let go, and so then he must press my own thumb onto the switch, and push the button just so, and I must, you know how it is in these shoes made for Elle, I must keep my balance, so that is with my arm on his hip, no? So then…”

She was leaning forward, and I looked, and it was stockings that she was wearing, and not the tights I had.

“Françoise? She has dressed you today?”

Another radiant smile of warmth and delight. “Yes, she has, and it feels wonderful! So then, I have the car unlocked, so I just tug, just a little, and I give him the kiss on the cheek, for thank you, and he turns to smile and oh, Sophie, it is a beautiful smile…and so I kiss him again, on the mouth, yes, and he is surprised, and the smile is still there, and then he kisses me, and….”

She hugged herself, and it was all so very odd a picture, a tall blonde in stockings and heels, elegant despite the skirt around her waist and her location in THAT room, and still the teenaged girl shone through the carefully-arranged façade of the lady I saw before me. She looked me fully in the eyes, then, back from her dream.

“Sophie, I must find out some things, we must find them out”

“What things, my little friend?”

“Well, must I be married to your brother before Papa marries your mother?”