The Paris Secret Read online

  Valerie didn’t know now if it was a memory, or if her brain had simply invented it after Amélie had told her, but it felt real.

  She headed down Rue des Arbres, past buildings with statues cut into the facades, past cafes with tables that, even in the cold autumn sun, with its unseasonal snap of snow forecast, spilled onto the pavements, bringing with them the scent of freshly made café noir and baguettes, and the sound of people.

  She headed for the area of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, the playground of artists and vagabonds, which had in recent years been reclaimed by writers and feminists, revolutionary thinkers, jazz hands and the melting pot of cultures.

  Despite her map, all too soon she found herself lost, walking along the serpentine slither of the Seine, marvelling at all that she saw, despite the fact that she had no idea where she was. Forty-five minutes later she found the bookstore, tucked between a bistro and a flower shop, on the Rue des Oiseaux. It was called ‘Gribouiller’: scribble. A touch of whimsy that she would later find improbable at best or derisive at worst.

  She hesitated at the thick wooden door, the colour of a duck’s egg, peering in through the small window where the gold letters of the shop’s name were etched, yet faded by time. She turned the brass knob, and the bell above the door tinkled.

  Inside, a ribbon of light filtered from the window and fell on an old man with cotton wool for hair, who sat in the corner at a large mahogany desk crammed with books and letters and overflowing ashtrays. He was smoking a cigarette and didn’t look up, just waved a thin hand, the middle fingers stained brown from his cigarettes. ‘A franc for the new books, fifty centimes for the old. Take your time,’ he said in a croaky voice.

  Valerie hesitated, aware of the heavy sound her clunky brogues were making on the dusty wooden floor. She stopped as close to his desk as she dared, her eyes taking in the rows of custom white bookshelves and the helter-skelter piles of paperback towers that jockeyed for position over every available inch of the shop, her heart pounding now that she was here. Now that there was no turning back. ‘Bonjour, M’sieur. I am here about the position.’

  ‘Position?’ he said with a frown, as he continued to stare at the ledger before him. Blinking his blue, rheumy eyes, he removed a pair of wire spectacles from his nose, placing them on top of the desk with a small, audible sigh, reluctant to be parted from his work.

  ‘For the bookseller.’

  The man looked up at last and leant back into his brown armchair. There was a rip on the side, exposing a bellyful of stuffing. He paused mid-drag on his cigarette, and peered at her through the blue-grey swirl of smoke with a frown, as if what he saw didn’t seem to provide much clarity either.

  ‘You are English,’ he said after some time. Not a question but a mere statement of fact.

  ‘Yes,’ she answered. It couldn’t be helped; her voice going slightly higher than she’d intended. She cleared her throat. ‘I wrote to you a little while ago,’ she said, attempting to prod his memory, her stomach plummeting with an unwelcome thought – had he forgotten? Taking out the letter from her coat pocket with shaking fingers, she was about to hand it over. It wasn’t older than a week but it had been twisted and bent and read so many times, it felt like a part of her.

  The old man frowned, and put back on the pair of wire-rimmed spectacles he’d abandoned earlier. Then he got out of his seat with a grunt, and shuffled forward to look at Valerie properly. What he saw didn’t seem to impress; she’d taken off her coat, displaying two jumpers and a long brown velvet skirt, and by her thick-soled shoes sat her much-battered suitcase.

  The old man seemed to frown deeper at her long golden-blonde hair and green eyes for a moment more, then at last he gave the slightest hint of a nod, though he made no move to take the letter.

  ‘You’re the girl, the scholar,’ he said with a sniff, though his blue eyes seemed slightly less cool than before, Valerie thought. But this may well have been a trick of the light. He clicked his cigarette-stained fingers, as if to jolt his mind into remembrance and a small mountain of ash hit the floor by her shoes, leaving a peppery sprinkle on their polished surface. ‘The – the one with that – that paper.’

  ‘“The challenges of bookselling during the war: a study of two cities during the Blitz and the Occupation”,’ Valerie quoted. ‘Yes. I am Val—’ She paused, then quickly corrected herself, speaking louder: ‘Isabelle Henry.’ She gave the false name, hoping he hadn’t noticed the error. They spoke in French; she knew that he wouldn’t have it any other way. She had been warned by Amélie.

  ‘Vincent Dupont,’ he said, looking at her extended hand briefly with a raised grey brow, his lips emitting a small ‘pfft’ sound. She removed her hand quickly and smiled awkwardly.

  She stared at him, taking in everything from his white hair to his long nose, which bulged slightly at the tip, to his sharp, impossibly pale blue eyes, his stooped back, tan slacks and loafers, and the emerald cardigan with leather patches on the elbows, where a book with a pale yellow dog-eared cover sat against his hip, half buried in the left pocket.

  He gave a small nod. ‘I will show you to your room – it’s nothing much,’ he warned, leading her to a flight of stairs behind his desk, which led to the upstairs apartment and the small room she would be using, which, according to the advertisement, had a single bed, a sink and a kettle. The latter, she was to assume, was the pièce de résistance in the pursuit of luxury accommodation. Tea and sugar were not included. Monsieur Dupont was not running a charity. She didn’t mind. She was here at last, that was all that mattered.

  Her heart skipped for a moment as she followed him. The stairs were tiled in black and white, and spiralled like a turret shell, and she found to her surprise that she recognised them, could picture herself in a pair of red shoes that sparkled in the sun, playing a hopping game on them as a little girl. She let out a low gasp at the sudden, forgotten memory.

  A memory of here. She held out a hand to the wall to steady herself, noting as she did that the walls had changed – they used to be white, but were grey now and peeling, in need of fresh paint. There used to be a brass railing but that was gone now too, replaced with a cheap plastic barrier.

  Not understanding her moment of shock and surprise, the dawning realisation that she had been here before, Monsieur Dupont swivelled around to look at her, his vivid blue eyes, which were rimmed red all around, narrowing. ‘You’re not going to change your mind now, are you? I had it cleaned. I explained that you’ll have a small room in the apartment above the shop – I never made it sound like the George Cinq in that letter, I’m sure,’ he said, his tone weary, impatient.

  She shook her head fast, and clutched her suitcase with white knuckles, giving him what Freddy called her megawatt smile. ‘Oh no, it’s perfectly fine, thank you, it’s wonderful.’

  He looked at her a little oddly for her overzealous enthusiasm. ‘You haven’t seen it yet.’

  She coloured slightly.

  He turned the brass knob and let her into a small apartment, which was flooded with light that fell onto a polished wood floor in a herringbone pattern. There were wide windows that looked towards the streets of Paris, with the Eiffel Tower in the far distance. Opposite the living room was a kitchen, with a round table and a small shelf housing a thin stack of ageing cookbooks.

  He showed her the bathroom, then led the way to a tiny room on the opposite end of the apartment. He unlocked the door, and pushed it open with a bit of force. Inside the air smelt musty and disused. There was a single bed covered in a patchwork quilt, a child’s wardrobe, a tiny sink in the corner which was slightly rusted, and on a low stool at the end of the bed, by a sliver of a window, sat the infamous kettle, with a mug and a teaspoon. She could touch both sides of the walls if she held her arms out. ‘It’s good, merci,’ she told him.

  He made a noise of assent. ‘I’ll let you unpack before we start work. The shop is open six days a week, with a break for lunch from two, then back at work at from five till nine
. Will that be a problem?’

  She shook her head.

  He nodded and turned to leave, then cocked his head, staring at her with a frown, and she wondered if perhaps for a moment he recognised her at last. But then he said, ‘Fish?’

  ‘Fish?’

  ‘You eat it?’

  She nodded. And he left, saying, ‘Bon, dinner.’

  She sat on the bed after he had gone, trying to slow her heart rate as she unwound her thick woollen scarf from her neck, looking around at the little room.

  He hadn’t recognised her. There had been a moment when she’d held her breath, thought that he would have realised who she was, seen something familiar in her eyes, her smile. But he hadn’t.

  She took a deep breath, berating herself for her romantic notions. He hadn’t seen her in seventeen years, and it wasn’t as if she’d given him her real name. She suspected now that if she had, there was every chance that Aunt Amélie was right: that he would have thrown her out.

  Chapter Three

  Three weeks earlier

  London

  The advertisement for the post of bookseller at the Gribouiller was a tiny sliver of a thing, wedged in next to an ad for a position at a jam factory in Lyon, and another for a couturier in Montmartre, and measured just three lines. But to Valerie, it may as well have been written in block capitals on the front page; the name of the bookstore had leapt out at her and stopped her heart.

  Freddy had taken it from her, placing the paper on the somewhat sticky wooden table inside their favourite corner pub that always smelt like stale cider and Scotch eggs. ‘Don’t,’ he’d warned.

  She’d looked up, her green eyes meeting his dark brown ones. Hers had that look. A look he recognised, and he groaned. ‘I knew I should have kept this to myself.’

  He’d found the advertisement by accident in a week-old copy of Le Monde. He wished now that he hadn’t shown it to her.

  She’d given a reluctant grin, despite the fact that everything seemed to be falling off its axis as a result of seeing the ad. ‘You wouldn’t have dared.’

  He’d put his head in his hands, making his wild brown hair even more dishevelled than usual. Freddy had the sort of boyish looks that would follow him till the end of his days. It was what made him such a good journalist: no one took him seriously until it was too late. ‘No,’ he admitted. Freddy was the first to admit that where Valerie was concerned, getting perspective was an unachievable goal.

  She’d downed the rest of his warm beer, pulled a face, then stood up, giving him a salute as she made to leave the warmth of the pub. ‘I’ve got to get some air, think about this,’ she’d said, barely ten minutes after they’d sat down.

  Freddy had stared after her in confusion. ‘Well, I’ll see you later then, yeah?’

  She’d nodded absently. All she could think of was the words from the advertisement, which reverberated in her skull like the beating of a drum: bookshop assistant required, must love reading, no experience necessary, room available with kettle.

  It had seemed like a sign. A way in.

  She’d left the pub in a daze, and walked the streets of north London in the rain. She spent that evening drafting the letter, telling her grandfather everything but the truth – her interest in French literature, her love of reading, her longing to spend a year abroad, the opportunity such a post would give her for completing her education, and the fictional paper she was writing about bookselling during the Second World War. Appealing to his French pride, by stating that she was sure that it had been more difficult during the Blitz than the Occupation… something told her, from what Aunt Amélie had explained of his temperament, that this might help ensure that she at least got a reply, even if it was simply a scathing one. She’d decide what to do if he said no later.

  She’d be asking a lot, she’d written, if he could take her on without interviewing her first, as the trip to Paris would be such a high cost for her on her assistant’s salary from the British Library. She suggested that she could work for free the first week as a trial, offering to do the cooking in exchange for the room and information about the shop during the war, and the return fare home if the arrangement didn’t work out.

  She’d waited impatiently for a week and half for a reply, haunting the letterbox every evening as soon as she was home from work, but every day there was nothing and she’d begun to lose all hope.

  Freddy had turned his big, brown eyes on her incredulously when she’d told him what she’d done. ‘Oh, Val, you silly sod,’ he’d said, giving her a hug. ‘A trial? Did you honestly think he would have gone for that?’

  She’d closed her eyes and leant into his tweed-covered arm, feeling like an idiot. Freddy always told her she was living in a dream world. It was what he liked most about her, though – her eternal optimism, the way she saw the world as it could be, and never how it truly was at times. It often meant, though, that the fallout was that much worse. He’d been around enough times in the past to pick up the pieces, as her best friend and next-door neighbour.

  She’d been in love with Freddy Lea-Sparrow since she could remember, from the first day her Aunt Amélie had introduced her to her neighbour, with his unruly mop of brown hair, tanned face and laughing brown eyes, and it was a habit that she’d never quite broken, even though being several years older than her she’d had to watch broken-hearted every time he had some new girl on the scene, which had been often enough growing up.

  There hadn’t been many of those recently, not since his job as a journalist for The Times had become so demanding – there wasn’t much time for a love life when you were out chasing a story.

  Now, though, at his words, Valerie had felt as if a stone were descending in her stomach. Wryly, she’d wondered if it were the weight of her own stupidity, sinking in.

  Of course her grandfather wouldn’t give some unknown English bookseller a trial, and let her move into his apartment: who would? Why go to all that effort when he could simply hire someone who lived in the city, someone he could simply kick out that day if it didn’t work out? Someone who wasn’t asking so much of him.

  Which was why she couldn’t believe it when she opened the door to the flat that evening and saw the letter waiting for her in the letter cage. She snatched it up and opened it fast.

  23 September 1962

  Mlle Isabelle,

  With some trepidation, I agree to your terms. I would like to say that it is a suitable arrangement but I have learnt that one should never state things one might regret in writing. If nothing else I look forward, in the way one does encountering a rabid dog, to meeting the sort of mind that imagines bookselling during a few bombings would be less congenial than during the Nazi Occupation of Paris. Consider my offer of temporary employment, then, a patriotic duty.

  I must warn you, however: as to the position in question, my standards are exacting. They are French standards, which you will not be used to – coming from a nation with so few standards to set any stock by. As a result, I do not foresee that you will last long. However, I have been persuaded to be magnanimous as I have yet to find suitable staff in the city, so it is possible that a miracle could occur and we could be agreeable to one another, but I have as much faith in miracles as I do in English cuisine. I must warn you, also: the hours are long and the pay is below minimum wage. If this is acceptable I am pleased to provide a room (with a kettle). I must stress that I cannot allow you to do, as you suggest, ‘the cooking’. I am an old man, who has endured enough in his life, and will not risk English ‘cuisine’ in the winter of my years; I am certain my constitution could not bear it. If this is agreeable, I will see you next week at your convenience. I have enclosed a map.

  Sincerely,

  Vincent Dupont

  Which was how, on a cold Tuesday, Valerie had handed in her notice at the British Library, and went home to tell her aunt and uncle that she was moving to Paris the following week, to find her grandfather – to their shock and dismay. Valerie knew that if she sho
wed them the letter or told them about her plan to work for him in secret this would only have made them worry more. But it was Freddy, really, who had the most objections.

  ‘You can’t just go.’

  ‘Why not?’

  His eyes widened. ‘What if he’s crazy? He sounds crazy. And arrogant, and a bit mean, Val. What if he throws you out when he finds out who you are? You won’t have any money to your name and you’ll be stranded in Paris. I just don’t think it’s a good idea.’

  She stared at him, the brown eyes she’d loved for most of her life, his unruly mop of hair. She’d do anything for Freddy, but not this. She couldn’t stay, not now that she had the chance to finally meet her grandfather! To find out about her mother, her parents. ‘I have to go – don’t you see? It was a sign.’

  ‘It was just an advertisement.’

  ‘That you found, Freddy.’

  He pulled a face. ‘Don’t remind me.’

  She touched his arm. ‘I’ll be all right.’

  He sighed. ‘I can see that you see it that way – as a sign – but why don’t you do this sensibly? You can’t just run over there by yourself…’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it could all backfire. He gave you away for a reason, Val. I know that you want this fairy-tale reunion but I’m just not sure you’re going to get it.’

  His words were harsh – they were similar to the same objections Amélie had given her the day before – and Valerie’s eyes smarted when he said them. It was more important than some imagined fairy tale. Why couldn’t they understand that?