Page 23 of The Resistance Book Club

Lucy felt stunned as she went to stand behind the counter again. It was unreal that Mémé wasn’t behind the till with her, and that Papi wasn’t upstairs cooking his special stew of mussels and cider for lunch.

And her life was back in London, her friends and everything she’d built. She polished the dust off the till with a cloth from under the desk, but she still felt like a fraud.

‘What am I doing?’ she sighed.

There was plenty to sort out, though, for now. For a start, there was all the clutter under the desk, along with the old book that had never been unwrapped. Lucy knelt down to take a closer look.

She took the wrapped book carefully and turned it over, wondering if she should remove the cover after all. There could be a photograph or a letter slipped between the pages.

Lucy was so tempted that she almost started to peel off the paper, but something stopped her. The book had been there unopened for so long and it felt like she was trespassing.

She put it on the counter instead, then went back to rummaging through the bits and bobs that Mémé had left behind.

She pulled out a stapler, a box of replacement staples, which proved to be empty, several notepads that had been started but never finished, biros without lids, lids without biros, a flier for a D-Day commemoration ceremony that had taken place only a few weeks ago, in June, a pencil stub with a worn-down rubber on the end. Behind them all, right at the back of the shelf, she found a newspaper.

Lucy had to dislodge a mug that had lost its handle and a pencil printed with Babar the Elephant to free the newspaper. And as she brought it out into the light, she realised it was yellowed, and as old as the one that had been used to wrap Esther’s book.

It was so thin, just a sheet of paper folded in two, and in the top right-hand corner of the closely printed front page, she saw:CORDEVAL: feu des livres interdit!

A fire of banned books.

Anger coursed through Lucy as she read the short article, which was full of invective about banned books. First the Germans had to burn them in Clarenville, and then they’d had to move on to Cordeval, moving from one place to another to purge words and stories wherever banned books were found.

No wonder her great-grandmother had kept the newspaper, and no wonder Mémé hadn’t thrown such a compelling piece of history away. The thought of burning books sickened her. Needing some fresh air, she slipped on her Celine sunglasses again and went the other way this time, heading towards the beach. She passed a greengrocer’s, which would’ve looked like a fancy food boutique in London, with its frilly cabbages, frothy carrot tops, and plaited garlic and onion strands hanging by the door.

At the corner of the street, she stopped at a shop that soldlavender- and vetiver-scented soap from Provence. She’d come back to buy some presents for Hannah and Natalie here before she left.

The street opened out onto a promenade, where a few hardy beach huts stared across the Channel to England, and a young man in a striped T-shirt was opening an ice-cream booth. It wasn’t grand, like Clarenville’s promenade, but Lucy liked it. She remembered coming down here with her grandparents when she was small. She remembered how the sand had kicked up around her small feet as she’d hurtled across the broad beach.

There was a part of the sand where the tide never reached. For as long as Lucy could remember, it’d been home to the rusting tank. Each time she’d seen it another hole had appeared, as the salty air from the sea worked its way through the metal. Even though time had wrought its damage, the rusted shell still showed the force of the blast that had stopped the tank, freezing it in time on the beach. The metal panels had been torn apart, and whoever had been inside it couldn’t possibly have survived.

Lucy felt as if she could hear the echo of that blast rolling across the beach even now. The rust had got the better of the paint, which had peeled away, so that any insignia had disappeared. It must’ve been from the D-Day landings, Lucy had always thought, perhaps a tank that had been brought across the Channel to France, only to be destroyed moments after reaching the coast. Or it could’ve been part of the Nazi’s armoury, and had received a direct hit before it could take out any of the men wading through bullets and sea to dry land. Whatever its story, it’d become a permanent feature of Cordeval.

Lucy took in a deep breath of the sea air, then tucked an escaped length of hair behind her ear and looked out across the beach. She saw a huge, dark, shaggy dog running through thefoam as the waves rolled onto the sand, while a dark-haired man strolled along, watching the gleeful dog’s progress.

Then she lifted her sunglasses and realised that it was Galette, and the wind-tousled man was Sébastien. She waved hello, wondering if he’d see her.

Sébastien pushed his sunglasses up into his hair and waved one hand above his head.

Galette dashed across the sand towards her, ignoring Sébastien’s calls for him to stop. Instead he launched himself at Lucy in a cloud of wet fur and sand. Lucy flinched: she was used to the little dogs her friends in London had, and the chihuahuas in handbags that celebrities brought to their interviews. Galette was like an enormous shaggy walrus in comparison, and Lucy didn’t want to get covered in all that wet sand in his fur.

Her heart melted at the innocent canine affection in Galette’s dark eyes, and she stroked his soft ears.

‘Sorry!’ Sébastien shouted as he jogged towards them. ‘He never listens to me.’ He patted Galette’s back. ‘Unless I’m asking him if he wants food.’

‘He’s a big country dog!’ Lucy said fondly. ‘In London, not many people have dogs that look like they can pull the fishing boats in.’

‘He’s from a long line of local lads who should know better.’ Sébastien laughed. ‘Just like me.’

Yes, Sébastien definitely looked as though he had a mischievous streak in him. She could see it dancing in his dark gaze.

‘You’ve always lived in Cordeval, haven’t you?’ Lucy asked him. ‘I came over as often as I could to see Mémé and Papi, and I remember seeing you about.’

He’d be coming and going, helping his parents unload the van with crates spilling over with leafy carrot tops and lettuce leaves, and manoeuvring heavy barrels of beer and cider through the door. She’d be lying if she pretended she hadn’tnoticed how the muscles of his tanned, bare arms had tensed as he’d carried the crates.

‘I remember seeing you as well. You and your mates always looked like you’d fallen out ofVogue. I nearly asked you out once, but I wasn’t as brave then as I am now,’ Sébastien said with a smile. He rubbed one hand against the back of his neck and shrugged. ‘I’ve been here most of my life. Spent a few years working in Paris, but…I like it here. I’m not made for cities.’

‘You nearly asked me out? I’m flattered!’ Lucy replied, trying to hide a nervous giggle in her voice. It must have been years ago, but back then she might just’ve saidyes. She moved swiftly on. ‘Were you working as a chef when you were in Paris?’ she asked him.