A French Wedding Read Online Free PDF

drawers in one corner with an oval mirror on the top and a shell-covered treasure box containing badges and earrings and hair ties.
    Juliette had collected the shells and made the box with her father. They had gone together to the secret beaches, the ones that pirates had berthed in centuries before, burying their gold and jewels, tyrannising the locals. They had walked the lengths of those coves many times to find the loveliest shells in browns and pinks, colours of sunrises and skin and hens’ eggs. They had chosen shells that were unbroken and strong, with lovely thick ridges to run fingers across. They hunted, too, for coins that pirates may have left behind, upturning rocks, flipping over clumps of seaweed and sliding fingers into crevices. Juliette’s father told her of the legend of Ys, the most beautiful city in Europe, before it was destroyed by storm and sea, vanishing somewhere in the Douarnenez Bay, and though it was probably just a myth Juliette had been convinced she’d find evidence of it, too. A hairbrush of Dahut’s or Gradlon’s stolen key, some gem or rubble. On the way home they’d stop in at a bakery and pick up a still-warm wedge of kouign-amann or a generous square of gâteau Breton filled with a dark, sticky, sweet prune paste. Juliette’s mother would be waiting for them at the kitchen window with one finger stuck in the pages of a book and the other hand waving furiously. She’d lean out and call to them too brightly as neighbours in dark dresses glanced up at her and Juliette felt heat come to her cheeks.
    Juliette stands, glancing down for a moment at the old t-shirt and leggings she had pulled on in the dark in lieu of nightwear.
    â€˜Dad?’
    There is no reply. Juliette knocks gently on the door to his room. The door is unlatched and swings gently open. The bed is unmade. Juliette steps inside. The bed is covered with a nubbly, dark pink bedspread, not a duvet. The bedside cabinets, which were wedding presents, have one drawer each and gold feet. On her father’s side there is a glass for water and a handkerchief. Juliette goes to her mother’s side and sits on the bed. She opens the tiny drawer in the cabinet. It used to be filled with photographs and Juliette’s school newspapers. Now it is cluttered with bottles of pills. She slides it shut again. There are two books on the top of the cabinet – the bible and a copy of ‘Tristan and Iseult’. Juliette picks up the latter and runs her fingers over the cover. It’s dark green with gold embossing, dust gathered in the dips and ripples. A man and woman embrace in the illustration, the gold of the woman’s silhouette worn thin, probably from Juliette’s fingers as a girl. Tristan and Iseult is the tale that led her mother, enchanted, to France, to this village, with a young husband in tow. Juliette lifts the book to her nose and breathes in, hoping to find a scent that reminds her of her mother, but the smell of the pages, though comforting, are not her. They are not cold cream and laundry powder and perfume scented like violets. If Juliette looked in the ensuite bathroom, she could probably find a bottle of her mother’s perfume; she always bought it in threes. One for now, one for later, one for just in case. It was in a mauve-coloured glass bottle with a green lid.
    Lavender’s green, dilly dilly …
    Juliette replaces Tristan and Iseult and picks up the bible. It is old, too, with a maroon leather slipcover declaring ‘Family Bible’. It didn’t used to be in here. It used to be in the kitchen underneath the telephone book, brought out for the occasional quiz question or prayer, thumbed through on nights when Juliette’s father had waited for Juliette to come home from a party or date.
    â€˜Dad?’ Juliette calls out again, bible in her lap. She wonders if her father has gone to church, to see Pere Michel. Or perhaps to the market to get