Page 106 of Where Do We Go From Here?
‘I just…’ Wendy says, pulling a face. ‘What can I say? You’ve saved me from myself.’
‘Est-ce que…’Celine starts, but Manon raises one finger like a stop sign.‘Un moment,’she says. ‘If you want to drink, Wendy, it’s OK. I just?—’
‘No,’ Wendy says. ‘No, this is perfect. Because I don’t. Really. I don’t.’
‘Est-ce que j’ouvre le gâteau ?’Celine asks, once Manon’sfinger has been lowered.
‘Ah, yes,’ Manon says, lifting a box from the carrier bag her girlfriend is holding and handing it to Wendy. ‘We bring cake.’
‘I hope you like,’ Celine says. ‘We don’t know, so…’
Wendy takes the box and places it on the kitchen counter so she can cut the sellotape and peer inside.
‘It is nice here,’ Celine comments.
‘Thanks, yes,’ Wendy replies distractedly, then, ‘Oh, croquembouche! I love that.’
‘Croque-en-bouche?’Manon repeats, sounding surprised, now moving to stand beside her and peer in. ‘You call thiscroque-en-bouche?’
Wendy nods. ‘Um, yes. Something like that. But surely that’s French, isn’t it?’
‘It is,’ Manon says, laughing. ‘But they call it like this in your country?’
‘Yes, we call it by the French name. Is that funny? Or did I pronounce it?—’
‘It is French,’ Manon confirms. ‘Croque-en-boucheis French for, um, “bite in the mouth”. But we do not call it this, so yes, this is funny for me. We call thisune pièce montée.’
‘Une pièce montée,’Wendy repeats. ‘I’m not sure what that means.’
Manon shrugs. ‘It means, er, like a construction.’ She turns to Celine and adds,‘Les Anglais appellent ça croque-en-bouche ! T’imagines ?’
‘I heard this before, I think,’ Celine says. ‘In France, too. But now it is late.’
‘Ooh, ooh!’ Manon says, checking her phone. ‘Wendy, you must be quick. We have one minute fifty seconds. One minute forty-nine. Forty-eigh… seven, six…’
‘Gosh, OK,’ Wendy says. ‘Um… Glasses!’
‘Yes, Wendy,’ Manon says. ‘Glasses, quick! Go!’
By twelve thirty the girls have already left, but their brief presence has transformed Wendy’s New Year’s Eve from something so terrifying she wasn’t quite sure how she was going to get through it to a beautiful memory she doubts she will ever forget.What a wonderful, generous girl she is, Wendy thinks.I am so lucky to have met her.
She sips her fizzy apple juice and tries to remember the brand her mother used to give them as children. Appletise, that was the one. They’d felt so grown up sipping it and eating Wotsits.
She thinks of midnight and how the girls had counted down in French – thinks how sweet they had been – sweet and somehow a bit… what’s the word? Unpretentious? Childlike? Na?ve? Unembarrassed, certainly.
Fiona and Todd would pull faces about having to count down. They would both consider it the height of uncool. Well, unless they were drunk, that is. Perhaps that’s why the English have to drink so much: to escape the clutches of being cool.
She pops the final half a croquembouche into her mouth.My God, fresh choux pastry tastes amazing, doesn’t it?Her mother had been a dab hand at profiteroles, and they’d tasted exactly like this. Maybe she should learn to make them herself when she gets home.
Home!
Just after midnight, Celine had initiated a round robin of who wanted what in the new year.
Manon had said the only thing she wanted was for her brother to stay ‘clean’, while Celine hoped to pass her driving test. As for Wendy, she’d surprised herself by saying she wanted to go home.
‘You mean now?’ Manon had asked. ‘You wish to go home early?’
‘Yes, I think I do,’ Wendy had told her, considering it as she spoke. ‘I think I need to go home and sort my life out.’
