Jenny Oliver - The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year

She realised then why she rarely allowed such reminiscences. The thought of them compared to the stark new reality made her eyes well up. She groped in her bag for a tissue; when she couldn’t find one she had to ask the woman next to her.

‘Of course. I always have a pack. Wet-wipe or Kleenex?’

‘Kleenex, please,’ Rachel said, trying to cover her face so she couldn’t see the tears. ‘Winter cold,’ she added, while surreptitiously giving her eyes a quick wipe.

The train pulled into Gare du Nord under grey gloomy skies. Paris was freezing. Much colder than England. People blew into their gloved hands as they queued for a taxi. Rachel wheeled her bag over to the back of the line, rain pouring down in sheets. Her boots were soaked through. People kept cutting into the front of the queue as she was hustled forward, her coat and bag dripping wet. As she waited, rain catching on the hood of her coat and dripping down onto her nose, she clutched the scrap of paper with the road name in her hand, wondering what the place she was staying in would be like.

Jackie had booked her into an Airbnb rental in the centre of Paris. She could have killed her for doing this, Rachel mused as she finally got into a taxi just as the rain fell heavier, like a bucket tipped from the sky. She could actually kill her, she thought while gazing out at a dark, soaked Paris as the taxi whizzed through the streets, horn honking at anything that got in its way. Stab her maybe with her new Sabatier kitchen knives that Henri Salernes had demanded each contestant buy pre-course, plus slip-on Crocs and a white apron with her name stitched on the front. Rachel had failed the sewing part of Home Ec at school so she’d got her gran to do the embroidery this time. Julie had added a flower on either side of her name, for good luck, she’d said.

The taxi pulled up at the end of the road after clearly driving her all the way round the city unnecessarily.

‘One way,’ he said. ‘Your house, at the other end. You walk.’

The rain was unceasing. Rachel, imagining crisp snow-white streets, hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella.

The driver dumped her bag in a puddle and drove away leaving her alone at the end of the darkened road, the streetlight above her fizzing and flickering in the rain.

She hauled her bag behind her down the street, wiping rain drops from her nose and eyelashes with sodden gloves, stopping finally at number 117—a thick wooden door studded with big black nails and a brass knocker shaped like a lion’s head.

Someone buzzed her in with a string of French she didn’t understand. The piece of paper said Flat C. Rachel climbed the stairs, bumping her bag up behind her, holding onto the wooden banister. As she passed the ground floor the steps turned from plain concrete to white and blue tiles and wooden panels became richly wallpapered walls in cream, gold and burgundy. The huge double doors of Flat C were freshly painted glossy magnolia.

A woman opened the door almost as soon as Rachel knocked and immediately warm smells of herbs and cooking enveloped her. Looking into the flat, she saw glistening chandeliers, expensive chintz curtains draped over large French windows, soft cream furniture and paintings of fruits brimming over in their bowls. Wow. It was like looking into the pages of House & Garden magazine. She took a step forward. Maybe she wouldn’t kill Jackie just yet.

‘ Je suis Rachel Smithson,’ she said to the woman in the grey uniform and apron. ‘ Je reste ici. Airbnb.’

‘Wait,’ the housekeeper said. ‘I get Madame Charles.’

As Rachel waited she saw in the corner of the living room a Christmas tree that wasn’t a real tree but a metal sprig twinkling with white fairy lights and the branches tied with silver ribbons. It was the type of decoration that could be up all year round. Nothing, not even the garlands hanging from the mantelpiece, was too overpoweringly Christmas. Rachel was impressed.

On the sofa, two Siamese cats had wound themselves over the arms like matching cushions. Rachel was staring at one of them, trying to ignore the growing chill from her sopping socks and imagining what it was like to live in such luxury, when a tall immaculate woman, who must have been Madame Charles, appeared in the doorway.

‘Eer been bee,’ said the housekeeper. Madame Charles looked puzzled, as if she had no idea what she was talking about, and tapped ash from her cigarette in its gold holder into the tray by the door.

The woman was a vision in beige: floor-length oatmeal cashmere cardigan, white hair impeccably styled, wide cream trousers and beige turtleneck with a gold Chanel necklace. She was someone who might adopt Rachel and put her to bed in crisp Egyptian cotton sheets with a decaf espresso and a brioche. Someone, Rachel thought, who she might ignore Christmas with and eat oysters with and drink champagne.

‘Airbnb,’ repeated Rachel. ‘ Dans le Internet. From England. Je loue the chambre. For a week. Pour une semaine .’ Christ, her French was bad. ‘Till Christmas,’ she added, pointing to the silver branch in the background.

‘Ah. Airbnb.’ As it finally dawned on Madame Charles what was going on she disappeared back into the apartment saying, ‘Un moment.’ One of the Siamese jumped off the sofa after her.

Rachel hopped from one damp foot to the other waiting to be led inside. But, appearing again with jewelled slippers on, Madame Charles said instead, ‘Follow me.’ And as she swept past her, closing the door, all three of them headed upstairs.

Rachel wondered if there was a separate entrance up there. Perhaps the bedrooms were accessed this way. Up they went, spiralling into what felt like the turret of a tower. The dark wood walls began to narrow and the tiles on the stairs were replaced by rough wooden floorboards.

‘Ah, ici.’ Madame Charles unlocked one of four doors at the top of the stairs with a big old dungeon key. Rachel took a breath.

Inside was a small room, separated into two by an alcove. It was grey, bleak and stuffy—as if no one had been in for a century. The housekeeper next to her shivered. Rachel felt her ‘oysters and champagne under the silver sprig’ dream dribble away as the bare light bulb swayed in front of her.

Madame Charles was unperturbed, her cigarette smoke trailing in wisps behind her. ‘This is the kitchen.’ A white rusty gas oven and hob with a grill pan at the top, the type her gran swore by. A mini fridge, two cups, two plates, one glass. ‘The TV.’ Certainly not a flat-screen; Rachel wondered if it even had a remote. ‘The sofa.’ Dark blue, no cushions. ‘And here—’ they walked through the alcove ‘—is the bed.’ A metal frame with a grey blanket folded at the end and pale pink sheets. A threadbare mat on the floor and a faded Monet print on the wall. The metal shutter on the only window was pulled closed.

‘Ça va, oui?’ said Madame Charles, breezing through the tiny space. ‘This was, how do you say? For the help. The servant. Oui? ’

Rachel tried to make her mouth move into a smile. Her soaking feet and clothes suddenly freezing cold. ‘ Merci beaucoup. It is très bon. ’

‘ De rien. It is nothing.’ Madame Charles smiled. ‘There is one petite problem. The bathroom, it is outside. In the corridor.’

After checking out the sad-looking shower and toilet in a shared room off the hallway, Rachel let herself back into her flat, sat down on the bed and found she was too tired to cry. Instead she just stared around the grey room, at her coat hanging on a chair dripping onto the floor, the bare walls with cracks up to the ceiling, a fly buzzing round the empty light bulb. What was she doing here? Why had she even considered coming? She didn’t really bake any more; she didn’t want to be someone’s apprentice. She wanted to be at home, enclosed by the safe walls of her flat and surrounded by her stuff and, at the very least, central heating.