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PROVENCE, 1937–38
Jacques stayed with her, looking after her and making sure she remembered to eat. Everything tasted like ashes, though.
Freddie arrived for the funeral and it was the first time in days that she was able to even partly smile at something. He wore a beret, out of respect, and his dark blue eyes shimmered with tears.
He bit his lip as hugged her a little awkwardly. ‘I know she wasn’t truly mine,’ he said. ‘But for a little while I did feel like I had a grandmother too.’
‘Oh Freddie,’ she whispered, eyes brimming over. ‘She adored you and I think she would be so honoured by that.’
They buried Grand-mère in the abbey graveyard, and Elodie and Sister Augustine planted lavender and roses on her grave.
After the funeral, her many customers came to pay their respects, each one leaving behind a little something.
Through the filter of tears, and the grey haze of clouds that seemed to have descended over her, Elodie leaned against Jacques and whispered, ‘What are they doing?’
It was Monsieur Blanchet who answered, mopping his eyes with his red-and-white handkerchief. ‘They are leaving her tokens, little items to show what she meant to them.’
There were sprigs of herbs, spices and even the odd slice of cake.
‘The priest is turning puce,’ whispered Freddie. Elodie looked up and saw the priest who had conducted the ceremony looking appalled.
‘He thinks it’s blasphemous,’ said Sister Augustine, putting a plate of strawberries on the graveside herself.
‘Sister?’ said Elodie in shock, watching her.
‘I’ll say my Hail Marys. Because lord knows, Marguerite enjoyed a good laugh.’
And to her shock Elodie found herself laughing even as she was crying on her grandmother’s funeral, mostly because she would have absolutely loved that.
Afterwards Elodie climbed into her grandmother’s bed, wearing one of her large cardigans. There were tissues in the pockets and tissues everywhere from Elodie’s tears. Jacques came to cuddle her, and Freddie joined in lying at the foot of the bed and not saying a word.
Somehow it felt as if that was all Elodie needed.
Jacques didn’t object when Elodie chose to stay in the farmhouse; he just took her cue and started to move some of their things out of their little cottage. Right then the only place she wanted to be was around Marguerite’s things.
It was both joyful and painful.
She found her grief, though, was different to the loss of her babies, which had been all pain. ‘When you lose someone that you’ve known your whole life, pretty much, it’s like you don’t just mourn the person you lost at the end, you mourn everything that happened before. All those memories wash over you, like a tide, and it’s so easy to get cast adrift,’ she said.
‘I can understand that,’ said Jacques. ‘But remember your memories will always be there, they won’t get taken too.’
He was right, and in time, she began to take comfort in that.
Soon, there was something else to help distract her too. One day when she was undressing he gasped as he stared.
‘Elodie!’ he cried.
She looked down at her swollen naked stomach and then back at him, bit her lip and nodded, tears leaking down her cheeks, as he raced towards her and gently touched her belly. ‘But you never said anything,’ he whispered, in wonder. ‘You’re huge.’
She smiled at him through her tears.
‘I know.’
She was further along than she’d ever been. ‘I feel like maybe Grand-mère had a word with the man upstairs when she got there,’ she murmured. ‘Because,’ and her lips wobbled, ‘I’m starting to think maybe this one will get to stay.’
Jacques cried great sobbing tears, as he held on to them both. ‘I think she must have,’ he agreed.
By the time Jacques was ready to return to the island, they were ringing in the new year, 1938.
