Chapter Thirty-Four
Monday 16th December
Olivier – Inclusions Chocolate Shop, the Lanes, Brighton
Olivier stood up straight after sliding the last mould of miniature chocolate people into the fridge and he stretched. His back was aching, and his feet were throbbing. This would teach him for leaving it all to the last minute. He’d become soft in the last few weeks, having all this time off from the restaurant.
He only had one more set of decorating to do and then he could leave it all, ready to be assembled the next day. He set about cleaning down his workstation and checked the clock. Ashleigh was coming to meet him soon and Celeste was shutting up the shop from its late-night Christmas closing hours.
As he started wiping down the stainless-steel counter, his phone rang. He dropped his cloth and went to fetch it from the coat hooks by the back door. It was his papa. He stifled a groan but answered it anyway.
‘Olivier. I’m honoured you didn’t send me to voicemail.’ Auguste’s loud voice sounded particularly gruff and grim, and Olivier knew it didn’t bode well. ‘I need you to come home.’
And there it was. No beating around the bush and teasing now. His papa’s patience had officially been worn out. Olivier swallowed and told himself to try and keep a clear head. His hand tightened on the phone. ‘Why?’
‘Pierre has had an accident. I’m another hand down in the restaurant.’
‘What happened? Not the motorbike?’
‘Yes, the motorbike. He has broken his leg, the imbecile.’ Auguste sighed. ‘He’ll be fine. Don’t worry about him. Worry about the restaurant. I need you back.’
Olivier put his hand on his hip and looked around the kitchen. ‘Can’t you get someone else in?’
‘Who else? Someone completely new? I don’t have time to teach them the menu. And why would I when my own son is one of my chefs and surely can be relied upon.’
Olivier took a deep breath, trying to ease the tightness creeping across it. Was his papa being unreasonable? Not really. You were supposed to be able to call on your family in times of need weren’t you? But if Auguste wasn’t his papa, could he have asked a member of staff to travel back from his holiday to help out?
Well, knowing Auguste, yes, he would’ve asked – but he wouldn’t have been able to enforce it or guilt-trip a member of staff into leaving the whole other country they were in.
‘You can’t cope for a couple more days? I need to finish the display for Maman.’
‘She can finish it. Your maman is the chocolatier after all – you are a chef. Come and be where you’re needed.’
He knew that his papa wasn’t wrong. His maman could finish the display on her own. He could leave all the instructions and all she had to do was the final decorations and assembling.
But hewantedto do it.
‘I’ll talk to her,’ he said.
‘You don’t need to talk to her. She will agree with me—’
Or you’ll make her agree,Olivier thought grimly. He didn’t want his maman being put under pressure by Auguste anymore. Olivier had inadvertently put her in that position for years and it really wasn’t necessary anymore.
‘It isn’t for you to discuss with her,’ he said, shocking himself as much as Auguste with his interruption. ‘I’lltalk to her about it. It’s not just about the display and it’s the decent thing to do. I haven’t spent Christmas in England for years and you’re asking me to bail on her. I’ll call you afterwards.’
‘Oli—’
Olivier hung up on him and then stared at his phone as though the piece of technology had done it, rather than him. But that wasn’t true. He’d just hung up on his papa.
He put the phone back in his pocket and went over to the counter. He wiped at it until he could see his reflection, but it was warped and blurry.
‘That was Auguste?’ Sylvia came over to stand opposite him. ‘He wants you to go back?’
‘Oui. One of the chefs has had an accident.’
‘Then I suppose you are going to go?’ she said, her voice maddeningly neutral.
‘I said I would speak to you about finishing the display.’
