The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year. Jenny Oliver
As far as Rachel was concerned no man had ever been quite so gentlemanly with her before. Certainly not Ben and his four a.m. visits and no sleeping over. ‘Honestly, it’s fine. We were both at fault,’ she said.
Rachel watched as he ran a hand over his bottom lip, once more staring straight ahead. She took the moment to study his profile, his wide broad shoulders that seemed to pull on the fabric of his coat, the neat line of his hair at the back of his neck and the smattering of stubble on his jaw. She liked sitting next to him. Liked the feeling of being in the park in the snow with this man on the bench next to her.
‘I have a problem,’ he said after a second.
‘Really?’ she asked, intrigued. ‘What kind of problem?’
He laughed. ‘Nothing serious. I must buy a gift.’
‘Ah, I see. What kind of gift?’
‘I’m not sure yet. That’s my problem. I feel I will only know when I see it.’
‘A tricky gift.’ She laughed.
‘Mais oui.’ He sat back, stretching one leg across the other, raking a hand through his neatly cropped hair. ‘I am on my way to look now. I see you and I think maybe you would like to come? Your taste so far has been … impeccable.’ He smiled.
‘Oh, no, I can’t.’
He nodded and looked forward again, unmoving. ‘That is a great shame.’
‘I have to go back to class soon. I don’t have time.’
‘How long do you have?’ He checked his watch.
She looked guilty. ‘Forty-five minutes.’
He smiled again. ‘I understand.’
‘No, no, you don’t, it’s just I feel I need some time. Something happened in class. I just—’
‘Come anyway.’ He cut her off. ‘Come anyway, just because. Maybe just because I really do need some help.’
Rachel fiddled with her gloves, picking a hole in the wool. The snow had started to get heavier, dusting the pavements like icing sugar.
‘OK,’ she said after a pause. ‘OK, why not?’
‘Bon.’ Philippe stood up and held out his hand to help her up; she took it for a second but let it drop as soon as she was standing. As soon as she did she wished that she hadn’t.
He put his hands deep in the pockets of his overcoat and they walked together to the row of little shops in the Marais.
‘Wait a second—what is this?’ Philippe stopped her halfway down the road and then peeled something off the back of her coat. ‘It is a new look, yes?’
She blushed as she looked at the tatty, wet napkin he was holding that she’d used to sit on. ‘It was to protect my coat,’ she said, grabbing it from his hand and scrunching it up in the bin. ‘How embarrassing. I walked the whole way from the park with it hanging off me.’
He blew out a breath. ‘No one will care. They will think it is fashion.’
She raised a brow as if that would never be the case and he laughed as if he completely agreed.
They walked on in the direction of the Marais, their feet leaving a trail of footprints in the light coating of snow as Philippe pointed out landmarks and places she might want to visit some time.
Approaching the network of narrow streets, she saw all the gift shops were bustling, looking warm and inviting, playing classical carols and serving glasses of vin chaud.
‘So what does your friend like?’ Rachel asked.
‘I’m not so sure.’
‘Great start. Male or female?’
‘Female.’
She felt a bolt of jealousy that took her by surprise. Who would be buying her presents this year? Not Ben. She always insisted he shouldn’t bother and he never did. Jackie always gave her a bottle of champagne that they drank on Boxing Day. Her dad usually posted her a paperback. And her gran would declare that she was sending a donation to the RSPB or something similar in Rachel’s name—Birds, darling, I much prefer birds to humans. Then there was little Tommy from her class; he always gave her something. It was a tradition. She tried not to have favourites but he was so sweet and ever since she’d found him standing alone in the playground complaining of a tummy ache, which after floods of tears he’d said was caused by no one wanting to play with him, she had made it her mission to make sure he wasn’t left out again.
She’d put a cushion in the corner of her classroom with a stack of books next to it and a secret packet of chocolate digestives and said if he ever felt lonely he could go and sit there at lunch break. She’d kept an eye on him, encouraging him to pluck up the courage to ask if he could join in with the games the other kids played and finally knew he was OK when she caught them all tucking into the digestives, Tommy beaming that he’d been the one to show them the stash. Since then he’d always made her presents—for her birthday, for end of term and for Christmas. Last year it was a Santa made out of a loo roll, painted red with a cotton-wool beard. She’d left it up all year round.
Philippe paused next to a stall selling herbs and baskets of lavender and she watched as he scooped some dried oregano up and smelt it.
‘This is my favourite. I adore it. Here, smell.’ He held the little silver scoop out for her to have a sniff.
‘No.’
‘No?’
‘No, it’s his stall.’ Rachel looked around, embarrassed. ‘You can’t just smell things.’
‘Why, of course you can. It is what it is here for. I think you worry too much about what all these people you don’t know think. You are a chef? Why do you not smell?’
Rachel caught the eye of the stall-holder, who nodded as if he couldn’t care less what she smelt, and leant forward for a quick sniff. ‘Very nice.’
‘Ah, oui. And this.’ He picked up another, crushed rosemary.
‘Again very nice.’ She did a quick embarrassed smell as he went on to sniff the lavender and the nutmeg and the big bags of ground cinnamon. ‘Do you smell everything?’
‘Everything,’ he said, very seriously, and asked the stall-holder to bag up some cinnamon for him. ‘For the vin chaud,’ he said to Rachel.
After paying they strolled on and Philippe turned to her and said, ‘Do you smell nothing?’
‘Well, yeah, I smell some stuff but not in the street.’
‘I think you are mad. The smell, it is the most sensual of all the senses. Here …’ They paused at a fruit and veg shop. ‘What about this?’ He picked up a fig and held it to his nose. ‘It is divine. It is much better than the taste.’
She peered forward, checked the shopkeeper wasn’t looking and had a smell of the fig. ‘It is very lovely. It reminds me of my holidays in Greece when I was little.’
‘Pas oui, of course, it is the best memory of them all. It reminds me of the tree we had in our garden. Henri would make me climb up it to get the biggest figs at the top. One day the branch break and I fall to the floor. And Henri he laugh and that makes me laugh, not cry. I was only six. All that from a fig.’
Rachel thought of her dough and her soft, sweet-smelling Mighty White loaf. She was about to say something about how it could sometimes be too powerful, the memory too overwhelming, but she stopped herself and laughed instead, saying, ‘You’re a crazy smeller.’
‘Yes, that is the case. I am. Look at my nose—it is built for the smelling.’
‘Mine too.’ She laughed, pointing at her own long straight nose that