The Loveliest Chocolate Shop in Paris Read Online Free PDF Page A

her on as a Saturday girl. She was desperate to do it, but it wasn’t worth the grief. So she remained in her role of working hard at school—they had mentioned university, but the Reverend wasn’t a huge fan of education for women and wanted to keep her closer to home than York or Liverpool. Claire didn’t really think it could happen. Sometimes, late at night after her parents had gone to bed, she’d stay up late watching the movie on BBC2 and feeling a tiny clutch of panic around her heart that she would stay in Kidinsborough forever, watching her parents get older and older.
    Two months later, in early March, her mother came to breakfast with a sly expression on her face and an envelope with a stripe of red and blue airmail around the corner of the pale blue paper and looping, exotic-looking handwriting.
    â€œWell, it’s all decided,” she said, as the Reverend looked up from his grapefruit half.
    â€œWhat?” he growled.
    â€œFor the summer. Claire has been invited to go and au pair .”
    Claire had never even heard the expression.
    â€œYou’re going to nanny. For my pen pal.”
    â€œThat French woman?” said the Reverend, folding his Daily Telegraph . “I thought you’d never met.”
    â€œWe haven’t,” said Claire’s mother proudly.
    Claire looked from one to the other. She didn’t know anything about this. “Who is it?”
    â€œWell, I have a pen pal,” said her mother, and Claire suddenly remembered the Christmas cards that arrived with Meilleurs Voeux written on them. “From school. When I was eleven, we all got pen pals. Like you, remember?”
    Claire remembered, guiltily, that she had stopped writing to Jerome in Rouen before she had turned fifteen.
    â€œOh, yes,” she said.
    â€œWell, Marie-Noelle and I have kept it up…here and there of course, not very often. But I know she has two children now, and I wrote to her and asked if she would like to take you for the summer. And she said yes! You will look after the children; she has a cleaner she says here…goodness.”
    Her mother’s face went a little strained.
    â€œI hope they’re not terribly posh,” she said, looking around at the very nice but plainly furnished vicarage. A churchman’s stipend didn’t go terribly far, and Claire had always known better than to expect new things. It wasn’t until much later in her life that Claire reflected as to whether her bright, spirited mother had ever regretted falling in love with the committed, passionate young reverend, and the life that followed it. But Claire lost her beloved mum far too young, a victim of the cancer that had already set itself ticking in her own DNA.
    â€œI don’t care if they’re posh. Are they decent people?” asked the Reverend.
    â€œOh yes,” said her mother cheerfully. “There’s a little boy and a little girl, Arnaud and Claudette. Aren’t those the loveliest names?”
    Claire’s heart was starting to race.
    â€œWhere…whereabouts in France?”
    â€œOh, sorry, where’s my head?” said her mother. “Paris, of course.”

T he settlement from the chocolate factory was not at all life-changing. It was barely anything-changing once I’d paid off my credit card. I wondered if maybe we should have gotten more, seeing as I now walked with a pronounced limp and had nearly died and everything, but they said that bit was the hospital’s fault. The hospital said I was getting better now and getting me better was technically all they had to do really, and I did mention to Dr. Ed that actually if the hospital hadn’t let me get so sick, they would have been able to reattach my toes. He had smiled and patted my hand in the manner of doctors he’d seen on television and told me if I ever had any questions, just to go right ahead, which completely bamboozled me as I thought I’d