Page 8 of The Resistance Book Club

Everyone from Cordeval seemed to be at Jojo’s, ranging in age from a toddler in a frilly dress brandishing a teddy bear to a grand, white-haired lady with a walking stick. They were laughing and topping up their glasses; some of them were dancing. A huge black, shaggy dog, which looked more like a bear, wagged its tail as it wandered from group to group to be fussed.

Just as she was wondering where to start, a woman with silver streaks in her blonde hair caught Lucy’s arm and pulled her into the middle of the party.

She had no idea who these people were, but they were greeting her warmly with theirbonjours, and suddenly there was a glass of wine in her hand.

‘Whose birthday is it?’ she asked in French, turning to the man at the piano. He was good-looking in that easy French way, with stubble on his chin and unruly dark hair that looked as if it’d been perfectly ruffled by a stylist.

‘Birthday?’ His fingers still moved across the keys and, though she couldn’t see his eyes behind the lenses of the sunglasses he was wearing, Lucy got the feeling that he was looking at her. ‘It’s not a birthday; we’re celebrating a true local legend.’ Then he reached out to pick up a glass of red wine that rested at the far end of the piano keyboard and lifted it high into the air. ‘To Madame Arielle!’

‘Madame Arielle!’ everyone around them chorused, smiling broadly and raising their glasses too.

Lucy stared in astonishment.

‘Arielle Pascal?’ she asked the pianist as the cheers died down. She spoke in French, with a slight Normandy accent that she’d picked up from her grandparents on her visits as a child. ‘But that’s…she was my grandma.’

The man at the piano put down his glass and sprang to hisfeet as he called, ‘Everyone, Arielle’s granddaughter’s here!’ He pushed his sunglasses up into his hair. ‘We didn’t expect any family!’

Lucy smiled as the revellers cheered again. She realised she’d seen the man around Cordeval before, on her visits to her grandparents, coming and going from Jojo’s. She’d thought back then that he was attractive, and he still was. And now she remembered that he’d been at Mémé’s funeral, but his was one face among what felt like the whole village.

‘I wasn’t expecting a party,’ she replied. ‘Mémé would’ve loved this!’

She wished shehadknown; she would’ve tried to get Dad to come. They’d been across to Cordeval only a couple of weeks before, for Mémé’s funeral. Lucy’s Uncle Michel had come up from Nantes with his wife, and her cousins had come too. And there were all her other cousins, the children and grandchildren of Arielle’s brother, Etienne, who had arrived from Lyon.

Lucy loved their family get-togethers, and usually came to Cordeval once or twice a year, or more often if she could, but until yesterday she’d been busy preparing to get married. There’d been so much to sort out for the wedding, on top of work, that she’d only come for the funeral and had headed back to London before the end of the wake.

She could feel a tight knot in her chest made of threads of anger and despair. She’d given up so much for the wedding. To think that the man she was supposed to marry, Andrew, had— Lucy forced the thought away.

‘I had no idea. I needed to come here…on business,’ she said. She glanced across the road to the bookshop and instantly felt hot with guilt. She quickly looked away.

‘This was Arielle’s birthday,’ an old lady said. She was tiny, with a sharply cut crop of white hair and blue eyes that sparkled with merriment. With a smile for the man who had played thepiano, she laid one hand gently on Lucy’s arm. ‘She and I always got royally drunk on her birthday; it’s a best friend’s job to keep up the tradition.’ The lady held out her hand. ‘I’m Beatrice. And this is my grandbaby, Sébastien.’

Lucy put her glass down on the top of the piano and took Beatrice’s hand. She had seen her at the funeral too.

She felt a pang that she hadn’t remembered Mémé’s birthday, but her brain had been filled with wedding plans. Now it was just filled with the thoughts of the wreckage of her future. There would be no wedding and she would miss the Paris fashion preview she should’ve been attending that afternoon; that would take some explaining.

‘Beatrice, it’s great to meet you.’ She smiled at Sébastien. ‘And you, too, Sébastien! I’m sorry we didn’t get to talk at the funeral. I…had to leave early. Funnily enough, I’ve actually booked a room here!’

‘Miss Pascal!’ Sébastien exclaimed. ‘Late-notice booking all the way from London!’

‘That’s me,’ Lucy replied, smiling even though she didn’t want to dwell on why she was suddenly in Cordeval. She felt something wet against her hand and looked down to see the dog’s questing nose brushing her fingers. Lucy fussed the dog as she went on, ‘You can call me Lucy, though. It’s all a bit unexpected, but I’m so pleased I found your place, and right opposite the bookshop, too.’

‘Thebest spot in town,’ Sébastien assured her. ‘Best booze, best food, comfiest beds.’

Beatrice chuckled. ‘And the most handsome host.’ She laughed. ‘Come and meet everybody!’

Suddenly, Lucy’s arm was looped through Beatrice’s, and they threaded through the party. She introduced her to everyone, even Galette, the huge dog, because everyone there had a connection in some way to Mémé. She’d let them spend wholeafternoons in the bookshop without expecting them to buy anything. She’d patched up their clothes and cooked them their favourite meal, and had never expected anything in return.

Mémé’s life had been completely different from Lucy’s. There were no flights to Paris for fashion shows, no celebrity champagne receptions, no fiancé who lived in an expensive townhouse. But everyone who met her seemed to be staring into her, as if they were looking for a piece of Arielle inside her.

Lucy wondered if anyone at the party knew Mémé’s secret. Surely no one was still alive who had been in the secret book club they’d held during the occupation? But maybe some of them had been told stories about it.

Something squeezed Lucy’s heart and she felt as though an enormous wave was crashing over her head, like the ones that ran along the wide beach at Clarenville. There was so much she didn’t know about Mémé, and now it was too late.

Lucy’s gaze wandered through the open door of Jojo’s, over the wooden tables with their checked cloths, over the polished zinc bar, until it caught on a wall of photographs at the back. Old sepia photos of Cordeval, she supposed, the village that her grandma had known ever since she was a little girl. Perhaps she’d be in one of the photos?

Lucy drifted away from the party into the bar. There were a couple of older men at a table, wearing berets and drinking beer. But Lucy didn’t really see them. As she went to look up at the wall of photos, at first she saw nothing but a blur of grey as her tears threatened to fall. She drew them back and then ran her gaze across the images.

Some of the photos were so old that the women were in skirts that touched the ground, and Lucy had trouble trying to find people and places she’d recognise. She spotted the harbour, with men in oilskins and thick jumpers, sitting along the wall fixing their nets. Then she saw a side streetwith a row of shops, and she peered close, hoping she’d see the bookshop. But instead she saw the bakery, with two little boys standing outside in shorts, one of them armed with a baguette. She remembered going to the same bakery to fetch baguettes for Mémé and Papi when she’d stayed with them.