The Confectioner's Tale Part 7

'I have to get past,' Gui said, pulling free. 'I have to go and help.'

'It's that place, isn't it? Don't go, Gui, they'll deserve what they get. Let them know what it's like to feel cold and scared for once.'

'You heard them back there, Nicolas, the whole district's in trouble! I can help.'

'You think they'll want you to stay,' his said incredulously, seizing Gui's waterlogged sleeve again. 'That's it, isn't it? You think if you act the hero they'll forgive you for being poor and keep you around.'

'You don't know them,' Gui protested. 'I have friends there.'

'What, that girl?' Nicolas shook him. 'Talk sense, Gui, she's one of them, she'll use you and throw you back here when she's done.'

Gui tore himself away and dashed for the barricade. This time, Nicolas didn't follow.

On the right bank, the flooding was worse. Water bubbled from the ground in a noxious spew, widening through the streets until it was knee deep. The city was deserted. Those who did venture forth were drenched and desperate, carrying sandbags and bundles of planks. Roads that were ordinarily packed with carriages and motor cars were empty. In a street lined with shops, looters had taken advantage of the chaos; almost every window had been smashed. Gui waded past the destruction.

The way was endless. In one alley he encountered a woman and a child, clinging to a set of metal stairs. Their bas.e.m.e.nt home was underwater. Soon afterward, he met a small team of volunteers in a boat and directed them back, hoping that the woman would still be there.

By the time he neared the Boulevard des Italiens, the s.h.i.+vering in his muscles had become a deep, constant shudder. The walk had taken hours. His trousers were sodden, the water in the streets sometimes reaching his thigh. He was exhausted from wading, tripping and wading again, but he pushed on. Nicolas's words plagued him at first, but soon he found that it was easier to forget reasons and just keep moving. A few streets away from the ptisserie he heard a commotion, sounds of a struggle: breaking wood, a woman's scream. He quickened his pace as best he could.

Ahead was a walkway, hastily constructed between buildings like a bridge. A figure in black, a girl, was half in the water where the planks had collapsed. Around her were three men. Two grappled with her arms, a third ripped something from her hand.

'Hey!' Gui yelled, ploughing forward. 'Let her go!'

He launched himself at one of the a.s.sailants, grasping a handful of threadbare s.h.i.+rt. The thief writhed free like a cat to wallow after his companions into the shadows. The fading light showed their faces: they were boys, thin and hungry, none of them more than fourteen.

The woman clung to the planks, spluttering out the filthy water.

'Guillaume,' coughed Mademoiselle Clermont. He could not explain how, but he had known it would be her.

'What happened here? Are you all right?' he asked, trying to help her onto the walkway.

'We are flooded.' She scrabbled for purchase on the sodden wood. 'The whole ground floor, the kitchens. If the water rises any higher the damage will be dreadful. I came out to find the task force, but then I fell and they-'

She yelped in pain as he tried to lift her from the water, and clutched at his shoulders.

'The boards collapsed,' she said, teeth clenched. 'I believe my leg is stuck, but I cannot feel, everything is numb.'

He glanced down into the murky liquid, boiling up from the sewers.

'Can you wiggle it free?'

She tried and shook her head. He could see the panic in her eyes, already bright with tears. Gently he took her hands from his shoulders and placed them on the walkway before her.

'Don't let go of this plank,' he said. 'I'll have to go under.'

The cold air was nothing compared to the freezing water that closed around his scalp. Clumsily, he groped out for her legs. At any other time his heart would have raced as he brushed her calf through the floating petticoat, but all he wanted to do was get her free.

He reached towards her ankle and found leather. Her boot was wedged tightly between two broken planks. His numb fingers felt like sausages as he tried to loosen the laces. It took a second breath of air and a third before they finally gave. Her foot squirmed free like a fish between his hands.

On the surface, he coughed muck from his nose and mouth.

'Do you think you can walk at all?' he croaked.

She leaned on her foot experimentally and her face flashed white with pain. Her lips had started to turn blue as she shook her head. He attempted to lift her, but they both nearly collapsed. Her waterlogged clothes almost trebled her weight.

'You will have to take off your coat,' he said over the increasing rain. 'It's too heavy.'

Without hesitation she struggled out of the long garment. Gui winced to see the costly velvet and lace brocade bundled up and muddy on the walkway. Her hat, too, was ruined; she threw it aside, wrapped her shawl quickly about her head and neck. There was something strange about the way she did it, almost furtive, but he was too tired to wonder.

The weeks of hard work paid off, for although his muscles leaped under her weight, they held firm. More than once his numb fingers began to slip and he tightened his grasp. If it hurt her, she did not complain.

By the time they reached the back door of the ptisserie he could feel her shaking violently. Unable to let go, he kicked at the door and shouted, hoping there was someone to hear.

Light poured upon him, reflected blindingly on the water. Astonished faces met his. Someone pulled Mademoiselle Clermont away; his hands held on, stiffened into claws around her.

Monsieur Clermont was barging through the onlookers towards his daughter. Gui tried to stand, to gasp out some explanation, but his head was roaring, his knees buckling. Dry floorboards rose up to meet his cheek like a blessing.

Chapter Thirteen.

April 1988 The next morning my temples are pounding with a headache. I had one drink too many in the pub with Alex. When I finally got home, I couldn't sleep. Instead, I stared at the photograph of my grandfather. I searched for the person I knew in the young man of the picture, wondering if he had already made the decision that would haunt him so.

I walk across college, wincing in the bright spring sunlight. All around me are undergraduates, feverishly preparing for their finals in a few weeks' time.

In the porters' lodge I collect my mail. I've been ignoring it, and over the last few days my pigeonhole has filled up with paper. I stand by the bin, ripping up junk and photocopied flyers. I almost miss a thin letter hidden among the others. Wearily, I shake it open.

Miss Stevenson, It has come to the faculty's attention that you may not be progressing satisfactorily with your thesis. In order to ensure that your work does not fail when presented to the review board later this term, your teaching has been transferred to me. You may continue to meet with Professor Whyke once a fortnight, if you wish, but I will now conduct the majority of your supervisions, effective immediately. I expect your current draft to be in my pigeonhole by the end of the day.

Dr Elizabeth Kaufmann I stare at the letter in horror. Has Whyke reported me? He's been as distracted as ever in our supervisions. Dr Kaufmann, on the other hand, is a terrifying prospect. She is a tyrant for detail and will not like my thesis one bit, even if I do manage to pull a draft together.

At my desk I arrange and rearrange the pages, trying to make sense of them. The Ptisserie Clermont evidence is scattered across my works.p.a.ce. Frustrated, I gather it all up. I am about to shove the bundle into a drawer when a phrase catches my eye. It is in the Allincourt letter: shaking the young Bordelais the way one would a pup.

For a second, I sit motionless. Then I'm racing for the stairs, the letter clutched in my hand, thesis already forgotten. I dash through college and across the road towards the History faculty. It is lunchtime, and I push impatiently through cyclists and groups of students pouring from lecture theatres.

I had thought that the only way to discover what had happened in Paris would be to track down grandfather's article, written over seventy years before, but I was wrong. There is something else, something that no one not even Hall could have discovered without first knowing about the painting.

I race up the stairs into the reference section, ignoring the librarian's glare, and s.n.a.t.c.h up the first dictionary I find. I flick through its onionskin pages to the letter 'B'.

Bordelais: of or pertaining to Bordeaux, in France, an inhabitant of the city of Bordeaux, or the surrounding area ...

I stuff the dictionary back on the shelf. The note from the gallery comes instantly to mind, the name of the man who bought the painting and his address: Monsieur G. du Frere, Bordeaux.

It's a long shot, but there is no harm in looking. My heart is thumping as I reach one of the reference terminals. I wait impatiently for it to warm up. The screen flickers into life. I punch in a keyword search on 'du Frere' and 'Bordeaux'. The green cursor falters before flas.h.i.+ng up a single entry: Lefevre, Stephen C., Poste Restante: The Dead Letters of Europe / by Stephen C. Lefevre London. 2nd ed. Paris: Kingsley Press, 1972.

Index: p.89: Bordeaux: J.S. to G. du Frere

Chapter Fourteen.

January 1910 He dreamed that he was carrying Mademoiselle Clermont through the streets. The water he waded through was no longer icy, but hot and fragrant. The girl in his arms was incredibly light; he glanced down only for a sudden deluge to soak him from above.

He opened his eyes, spluttering out bitter, scented liquid. He was warm, blissfully warm, sitting in a metal tub with water up to his chest. He was also completely naked.

A hand appeared holding a bronze jug. Once again, hot water was poured over Gui's head. This time he held his breath under the stream until he was able to slick the hair back off his face and open his eyes. A stranger in black trousers and a pristine white s.h.i.+rt was wiping his hands on a cloth. He raised an eyebrow when he saw Gui looking and indicated the end of the tub with his chin. A dish had been balanced there, containing a sponge, a cloth and a round bar of soap.

'You can wash yourself, now that you're awake,' the stranger said brusquely. 'It took me half an hour to scrub away the top layer. Not an experience I relished.'

Face colouring, Gui picked up the soap. It had the same woody, spicy smell as the water and was soft, rather than the coa.r.s.e, stinging blocks he was used to. He rubbed it tentatively over the sponge.

'I should start with the nails first, if I were you,' the other man sniffed, folding the hand towel. 'Unless you require a pick and hammer to clean them.'

For the first time, Gui peered around. He was in a kitchen, small but spotlessly clean. There were carved wood cabinets and a floor tiled in a complicated pattern. The tub had been set in front of a huge black stove.

On the floor was a newspaper-wrapped bundle. Gui recognized the corner of his jacket and lurched upright, slopping bathwater.

'What happened?' he demanded. 'Where's Mademoiselle Clermont?'

'Easy does it,' the stranger drawled, mopping at the puddle. 'The doctor has seen her, and says there's no real harm done. A hot bath and rest and she will be right as rain in a week or two.'

Gui sank back into the water, shaken. The stranger smirked slightly, but took pity on his confusion.

'You caused quite the stir, turning up at the tradesman's entrance like that,' he said, 'with Mademoiselle in your arms like a sack of potatoes. Naturally we all wondered what had happened, but you were insensible, so Monsieur ordered you to be generally cleansed and vivified. Which honour fell to me.'

'Who are you?' Gui's head had started to spin.

'Monsieur Clermont's valet.' The man raised an eyebrow. 'Do you intend to hold court in the bath all night, like Marat?'

'Like who?'

'Never mind.' He sighed. 'Unless you get down to it, that water will turn cold, and apparently you must be kept warm. Doctor's orders. He saw to you briefly, said that you were frozen through, but looked tough enough. A meal and a hot bath were prescribed, although perhaps that was only an excuse to combat your extreme lack of hygiene ...'

Gui's glare was wasted. His muscles felt as useless as string as he soaped the sponge and began was.h.i.+ng. His efforts were accompanied by a commentary from Clermont's valet.

'My G.o.d, you do have a neck. I thought you had started a market garden in your collar. Try not to rub your head so hard, though, you'll frighten the lice.'

'I do not have lice!' Gui burst finally, throwing down the sponge in the cooling bath, which, admittedly, had taken on a grey hue. 'And I'd like to see you get clean with a bucket of frozen water after eight hours at a furnace.'

'A furnace?' The valet produced what looked like a tiny scrubbing brush. 'I see. Here, this will help.'

'What is it?' Gui balked.

'This is a nail brush, and from the state of yours, it does not surprise me that its existence has. .h.i.therto been a mystery.'

The man started to scrub at Gui's nails with great zeal, but his tone softened.

'The railway, is it? You look young for such hard work.'

'I'm not so young.' Gui winced at the coa.r.s.e bristles. 'I'll be nineteen in spring.'

'A ripe age. That must be why all of your clothes fit so badly. Speaking of which, I have been instructed to find you some.'

'My own are on the floor there.'

'I have not spent the past hour cleaning you for my work to be ruined by those sodden rags,' the man said sternly. 'They will be laundered, or burned if they are beyond salvation. I shall find some old spares of mine, unless you would enjoy wandering around the Clermonts' apartment in a bath sheet?'

The man bustled off, leaving Gui to haul himself regretfully out of the tub. It would be a long time before he had the chance to bathe in such luxury again. The bath towel was huge and warm and went on for ever. Safely wrapped, he paced the tiles as far as the door, but didn't dare to open it.

Here in the kitchen he was safe. He had the chance to be cleaner and better fed than he had been in months, and intended to make the most of it. Even though his legs shook with fatigue, he peered into every drawer and cupboard, dizzy with hunger. Finding nothing, he seated himself by the stove. The coppers threw back his reflection, pink and tousle-haired.

Waiting for the valet's return, he drifted into a doze. His eyes were so heavy that he barely noticed the noise of the door. Dressing seemed like a strenuous activity best avoided for as long as possible. It was only when the silence lengthened that he opened his eyes.

Monsieur Clermont stood there, one hand on the wall. He was dressed in a dark waistcoat and trousers, tailored perfectly to his slim frame. The sleeves of his pristine s.h.i.+rt were carefully folded back and pinned.

They surveyed each other in silence. Gui's heart thudded to his throat.

'Who are you?' the older man demanded eventually.

Gui struggled to his feet, his mouth dry.

'My name's Guillaume, sir. Guillaume du Frere.'

Clermont's eyes remained fixed. They were the same blue as his daughter's, but narrower, deep lines stretching from the corners. They examined him, coldly.

'How is it that you come to be here?' he asked. 'My daughter tells me that you have worked in my ptisserie, but I do not recall ever seeing you.'

Gui hitched the bath sheet a little tighter.

'I helped with the deliveries, at Christmas, sir,' he stammered. 'Mademoiselle Clermont offered me the work.'

Clermont's face tightened.

'I see. But helping with deliveries is not your major occupation?'

'No, monsieur, I work for the railway.'