Now that things have quietened down in the office after the flurry of activity that followed in the wake of Fashion Week, which has kept everyone at Agence Guillemet busy through the autumn months, I decide to treat myself to lunch at the Café de Flore. I know it’s one of the stops on the tourist trail and, inevitably, the prices are beyond my normal budget which doesn’t usually stretch to much more than a coffee and a croissant for a Saturday morning treat from a patisserie in one of the quieter side streets off the Boulevard Saint-Germain. But ever since Simone described how Mireille met Monsieur Leroux there, I’ve promised myself I would make a point of going one day. I ask Simone if she’d like to come with me, but she shakes her head, curls dancing, and says she’s been asked to help one of the account managers prepare a tender for a new client.
I shrug on my coat and leave the office, walking up the street towards the Boulevard Saint-Germain. After a moment’s hesitation, I send Thierry a text, asking him if he’d like to join me for lunch.
I enjoyed the concert he’d invited me to the other night and was impressed watching him at work, seeing him in a new light. He was calm and capable, seated behind a bewildering array of technology, his fingertips carefully balancing the sound levels over the course of the performance. A gaggle of his friends came along for burgers afterwards and it was a relaxed evening, although we still talked a lot about the Bataclan victims, whose memory will be ever-present. We’ve met up a few times since, with the same crowd. I’ve noticed that Simone hasn’t joined the group, though, always making an excuse to be elsewhere. The slight coolness that crept into our relationship since Thierry and I first met is still there, I think, but it’s obvious that she’s making an effort not to let it get in the way of her friendship with either of us. I’m relieved that, with a bit of encouragement, she’s agreed to join the group at the bar next Friday night.
When we’ve been out together, Thierry always pulls his chair up beside mine and we talk for hours, mostly about work but sometimes about the latest news of police raids and arrests as the threat of terrorism bubbles away just beneath the surface of city life. I’ve told him, too, about the photograph that brought me to Paris, and have recounted some of Claire’s and Mireille’s stories. So I think he might enjoy accompanying me to the Café de Flore, just around the corner from the Rue Cardinale, where Mireille’s meeting with Monsieur Leroux took place. But my phone buzzes with his reply – sorry, but he’s loading in kit for a gig on the other side of town and can’t make it. Another time, he promises.
At the café on a corner of the busy Boulevard Saint-Germain, I find a seat at a table for two, squeezed between two larger tables, and place my order. As the waiter bustles away to fetch bread and a carafe of water, I take a good look around. The café can’t have changed much since the war years. The dark wood panelling and white columns are still in place and the bar’s brass fittings gleam amongst the bottles of Aperol and Saint-Raphaël. I can imagine Mireille coming here for the first time, and how her heart would have been thumping as she wove her way between tables filled with German officers to meet her contact at the back of the noisy room. I suppose sometimes the best camouflage is to hide in plain sight. But what guts that must have taken.
My disappointment at Claire’s less active role has been tempered a little by the facts about her home life that I’ve started to glean. I relate strongly to her desire to leave home, where she felt there was nothing for her, and to try to find another place for herself in the world. Like her, I’m drawn to the excitement and creativity of the fashion world. And, like her, I know how it feels to lose your mother. She must have loathed her life in the little Breton fishing village, the same life that had worn her mother – my great-grandmother – to a shadow before overwhelming her completely.
As I’m thinking about Claire’s loss – of how she must have felt following her mother’s