Jacques, the depressed farmer, is the last to arrive. He is very short (like most men in the Poitou-Charentes, it seems to me) with cheeks as pink as pomegranate pips. Miranda greets him enthusiastically, flinging her arms around him, and introducing him as ‘my very good friend Jacques’. She says this in a very meaningful way. He hands her a bunch of flowers and looks embarrassed.
‘So you’re a farmer, are you?’ says Desmond in English.
‘Yes.’
‘Agriculture or livestock?’
‘Livestock,’ says Miranda.
‘What kind?’
‘Cows.’
‘For beef?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ah,’ says Desmond.
‘Oh let’s not go there,’ says Miranda. ‘We know you’re a vegetarian, Desmond. But no need to force it down everyone’s throats. Yes, Jacques slaughters cattle for a living. This is the countryside, you know, and that’s what people do here. Aren’t these flowers lovely? Thank you so much, Jacques.’
‘What about CAP?’ says Desmond.
‘Comment?’ asks Jacques.
‘The Common Agricultural Policy,’ Desmond continues in English. ‘I must say you chaps get rather a good deal out of the rest of Europe. All those brand new combine harvesters.’
‘Oh do shut up, darling,’ says Elinor.
‘Generous subsidies, interest-free loans to buy hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of farm machinery… No benefits like that for English farmers, you know…’
Fortunately, Jacques doesn’t seem to understand.
‘And what really makes me mad,’ continues Desmond, ‘is the way the French turn their noses up at British beef. Not that I eat the stuff, you understand, but we weren’t the only ones to have mad cow disease you know…’
‘Darling,’ says Elinor. ‘That’s enough.’
Personally, I can think of nothing nicer than tucking into a big juicy steak right now, with or without mad cow disease. But there is still no sign of any food, not even nibbles, and I am beginning to think that I misinterpreted Miranda’s invitation to ‘come over for a bite to eat’. The conversation limps painfully on, until eventually Miranda announces that dinner is about to be served. I am intrigued, as there are no delicious food aromas and no sign of any cooking activity. Not even the ping of a microwave.
‘I’ll lay the table, shall I?’ says Desmond, opening a drawer and producing cutlery.
‘I’ll help you, darling,’ says Elinor, moving towards her husband and placing her arm around his waist, the metal bangles on her wrist jangling as she does so. They make a striking couple. Elinor, in a pea-green cashmere sweater and tight jeans tucked into knee boots, dresses more youthfully than most ex-pats I have seen – shapeless jeans and fleeces in washed-out colours being the uniform of l’Anglais abroad.
‘Oh, please! No public displays of affection, thank you!’ says Miranda, swaying towards the fridge with her glass of champagne and producing a glass bowl covered in cling film.
‘What is that?’ asks Jacques.
‘Chilled strawberry soup,’ says Miranda, placing it down on the table, a little clumsily, so that some of the pink liquid slops over the side.
The strawberry soup is not unpleasant – rather like eating melted strawberry sorbet – but as a starter for a chilly autumn evening, it takes everyone by surprise. Jacques is unimpressed. ‘Miranda [he pronounces it Meeranda], I cannot eat this,’ he says with startling honesty after one spoonful. ‘It will give me indigestion.’
Desmond fixes him with a cold, hard look. ‘This is delicious,’ he says, loudly and rather too enthusiastically. ‘Absolutely delicious. Isn’t it Elinor?’
Elinor nods her head in agreement. ‘Absolutely,’ she says. ‘Well done, darling.’
‘Honestly?’ Miranda’s face lights up. ‘You’re not just saying that? I thought I would try something a little different. And it’s got hardly any calories in it. I used a low-cal sugar substitute. I’ve never tried it before but I saw the recipe in a Californian diet book and thought it sounded quite interesting.’
‘Yes,’ says Victor. ‘It’s interesting.’
We eat the soup in silence. Miranda, I notice, does not eat, but refills her champagne glass several times, which is worrying – not least because I am relying on her to give me a lift back to the campsite. The main course is vegetarian couscous dotted with sultanas and served cold with a sweet, caramel-coloured sauce. No one bothers to ask what it is. Jacques, I notice, rummages in his jacket pocket for a bottle of pills and swallows several between courses. For pudding, Miranda serves cucumber sorbet, which Jacques declines, saying that he has sensitive teeth. By now, the two bottles of champagne have been drunk, mostly by Miranda, who has steered the conversation around to whether French or English men make the better lovers. Victor and Jacques both look uncomfortable, as does Elinor. Only Desmond seems at ease, leaning back in his chair and laughing. ‘Well, perhaps you can tell us what you think?’
‘How should I know?’ says Miranda. ‘I’ve been on my own for nearly thirty years.’
Desmond sits back in his chair and laughs. ‘Is that so?’ he says.
‘Yes it is, thank you very much,’ says Miranda. ‘As you well know, after my ex-husband I need another man in my life like I need a railway line in my back garden.’
‘I must be going soon,’ says Jacques in French. ‘I am hunting tomorrow morning.’
‘Oh, you can’t leave yet,’ says Miranda, looking hurt.
‘What did he say?’ asks Desmond.
‘He says he must go soon as he is hunting tomorrow.’
‘Oh you hunt, do you?’ says Desmond, bristling, his lips pursed in disapproval. ‘What exactly do you hunt?’
‘Tomorrow, wild boar,’ replies Jacques in French. ‘But deer, rabbits, hares – in fact, everything that the forest offers, when it is the right season.’
‘What is he saying?’ asks Desmond, and I sense we are heading into dodgy territory.
‘I know!’ says Miranda, suddenly. ‘Let’s dance!’
She puts on a Johnny Cash CD and starts to dance to ‘Ring of Fire’, pulling Jacques up to join her. ‘Come on, my old firework, I know how you love to dance.’
‘No,’ says Jacques. ‘It is time for me to go.’
‘I’ll dance with you,’ says Desmond gallantly getting up from the table.
Victor picks up the bottle of wine and tries to refill Elinor’s wine glass, but she extends her hand to stop him. ‘No thank you, darling,’ she says, softly. ‘I’m driving.’
To my relief, Elinor and Desmond offer to drop me off at the campsite on their way home.
‘I didn’t like that farmer chap,’ says Desmond, as we pull away.
‘Oh, I thought he seemed rather nice,’ says Elinor.
‘He was a jerk,’ says Desmond. ‘No manners whatsoever. Did you hear what he said about the soup?’
‘Darling, you don’t like him because he kills animals.’
‘It’s not just that. I’m worried he might try and take advantage of Miranda. You know how vulnerable she is.’
‘Yes, darling, but Jacques didn’t strike me as that sort of man. Now, Karen, I’m a little worried about you staying at this campsite tonight. Are you sure you won’t come and spend the night in our gîte?’
‘It’s kind of you,’ I say. ‘But I’ve put up my tent and now I’m going to lie in it.’
‘You know there is a storm forecast for tonight?’ says Desmond.
‘No, I didn’t, but I’ll be fine,’ I say.
‘Well what about all those noisy athletes that you told us about?’ says Elinor.
‘Maybe they’ll be too exhausted to make any noise tonight,’ I say.
‘Well, I insist that you take our telephone number just in case you change your mind,’ says Elinor.
The barbecue is in full swing when Desmond and Elinor deposit me in darkness outside my tent. But at least the action is taking place on the other side of the campsite. The distant hum of people enjoying themselves is actually quite comforting as I try to make myself comfortable on the cold, hard ground. I’ve been trying to go to sleep for about ten minutes when suddenly the air is rent by a very loud noise and I sit bolt upright in my sleeping bag as the sound of ‘Ra-Ra-Rasputin’ by Boney M thunders over the loudspeakers. (DJs in the French countryside, I’ve noticed, are very fond of Boney M.) Then, just to compound my misery, it starts to rain. And rain. Water pours down from the sky, rebounding off the top of my tent while, inside, condensation drips off the inner lining. How, I wonder, did my life come to this – lying in a tent in the middle of nowhere, cold and alone and being rained on?
Surprisingly, I manage to fall asleep – to the sound of Phil Collins singing ‘I can feel it coming in the air tonight…’ But this happy oblivion does not last long. At around 3.00 a.m. I am woken by a terrifying bang. I sit bolt upright in my sleeping bag for a second time. Bright white light flashes around me and for a moment I think my tent has somehow relocated itself to the dance floor. But then there is another loud crash, followed a few seconds later by rain hammering down. This is the storm that Desmond predicted. The bangs become louder and louder, interspersed by flashes of lightning at ever-quickening intervals. It is unlike any storm I have ever experienced in the UK. I think of Desmond and Elinor lying in bed in their safe farmhouse. I think of Miranda, probably bedded down with a bottle of wine; of the Libertys, cosy under their thick (ethically produced) Mongolian wool blankets; and of my neighbour Claudette and her husband, safe from the storm behind closed shutters. I also think of Dave and his flowery guest room, in which I could now be safely tucked up if we hadn’t fallen out.
And I decide that rather than lie here waiting to be struck by lightning, I will go and sit in the car. Condensation dripping from the roof of the tent, I grope around in the dark for my glasses, pull on my clothes and bolt towards the car. In the few seconds that it takes to unlock the door, I am completely soaked. It’s like standing in a freezing cold power shower with your clothes on. I hurl myself inside and sit, hair dripping, glasses steamed up, wondering what to do with myself until dawn.
The storm rages for over three hours. I sit in the darkness in my sopping wet cocktail dress and ruined Prada shoes and watch, terrified, wondering if it is possible to be struck by lightning while sitting in a car. This is so not a situation that a woman my age should find herself in. When morning finally comes, and as soon as there is a gap in the rain, I take down my soggy, muddy tent, chuck it in the back of the car, drive back to Villiers and book into Le Vieux Chateau.
Chapter 7
Moving In
Le Vieux Chateau costs €50 a night, which seems extravagant when I am not earning, but if it means that I don’t have to fall asleep listening to Phil Collins, it’s worth it. The room itself is very basic but there is a bathtub and a hot meal to look forward to at the end of the day, since I manage to persuade the staff of the attached restaurant to deliver steak frites or le plat du jour and a glass of red wine to my room in the evening. It seems like utter luxury (a concept that has been radically redefined for me since moving to France: where once it was a hot new handbag, now it is hot water and a bed).
I stay at Le Vieux Chateau for a week, since, with the synchronicity of swallows arriving in their winter grounds, the artisans have suddenly turned up en masse: Monsieur Joffré the plumber, Monsieur Picherou the carpenter and a team of Gitane-smoking electricians from Gattelier et Fils all arrive within days of each other. I pop in occasionally to make sure they are still there and I haven’t imagined it, but mostly I keep a low profile. I can’t see much through the fug of cigarette smoke anyway.
Late on Friday afternoon, after a pleasant day spent in Poitiers looking at large electrical appliances, I go over to check on the house. It is clear that the curtain has dropped on summer. The days have started to shorten now and the tables and chairs outside the Café du Commerce have been put away until next year. As always, Marie-Claude’s beauty salon is busy with a constant stream of well-groomed French women coming and going, while the Liberty Bookshop looks warm and inviting, lit up like a cruise ship in the autumn gloom. I am tempted to pop in for coffee and a chat with Dylan but I know that if I do I will bump into someone I know and end up staying for over an hour. (Though if it’s one of the villagers, I can always justify it on the grounds that I am improving my French.)
I turn into Rue St Benoit feeling nervous. After the episode with the white gloss paint, I am always wary as to what I might find. Most of my neighbours have already closed their shutters for the evening – in very cold or very hot weather, some of them don’t open their shutters at all – and I see Claudette, in her floral apron, coming out to perform the nightly ritual of closing hers. ‘Ça va?’ she shouts, looking very excited to see me. ‘Ecoute!’ she says, kissing me on both cheeks. ‘Have you seen the new baker?’
Have I seen the new baker? I have been going in there every day since he arrived and have even started putting my contact lenses in especially.
‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘I went in this morning to buy a baguette. His bread is very good.’
‘Oh, his bread is magnifique,’ agrees Claudette, kissing her hand for emphasis. ‘And his pastries. He only uses pure butter, you know. Mais, écoute! What I wanted to tell you is this: the new baker, he is single! He does not have a wife.’ She nudges me and gives me a wink. ‘It could be good to have a pâtissier for a husband, no?’
I agree. A pastry chef – and surtout a French one – would make an excellent boyfriend. But I have seen the new baker, who is a big, handsome bear of a man with a dark, stubbly chin. I cannot believe that he is single. Claudette must have made a mistake.
‘Are you sure he is single?’ I say. ‘I cannot believe that a man as handsome as him and so good at making cakes is not already taken.’
‘I am certain that he is not married,’ says Claudette, ‘because I asked him.’
‘Well, that’s very exciting.’
‘Yes, and he is already very popular. Everyone is queuing to get his bread.’
‘What happened to the other baker and his wife?’ I ask, because the change of ownership at the boulangerie was all very sudden.
‘They have gone back to Paris,’ says Claudette, performing an exaggerated sniff and flicking her hair back. ‘They felt they were too grand for our little village.’
This explains a lot. I had started to take their dour demeanour and constant look of disapproval personally until I discovered that they were equally unfriendly to everyone in the village. And now I know why: after the bright lights of the city, they had felt Villiers was beneath them. We were country bumpkins in comparison to the beau monde of Paris.
‘Et voilà,’ says Claudette. ‘So, everyone has been very busy at your house this week.’
‘Come and have a look,’ I say, turning the key in the lock.
Claudette follows me into the dusty sitting room, and we pick our way through the various cardboard boxes, cans of paint and other decorating equipment. ‘Oh, il est beau!’ she says, on seeing the new oak kitchen floor. It is not quite what I expected; the oak is pale and untreated and looks anaemic – not the rich chestnut colour I envisaged. Still, it represents a real advancement on the health and safety front – no more having to jump across a cavernous hole to reach the staircase – and the first step towards a proper, fully functioning kitchen.
‘Oh he has worked very well, Monsieur Picherou,’ says Claudette. ‘With a little wood stain and some wax to protect it, this floor will be perfect.’
Monsieur Joffré, meanwhile, has installed a toilet and wash basin in the bathroom, as well as a new boiler in the garage adjoining the house and an enormous white plastic 1,000 litre oil tank. As soon as I can arrange an oil d
elivery, I will have hot water. A real breakthrough! The electrical works also seem to be progressing; there are new sockets and power points in all the places that I marked with pink Post-it stickers although, rather disconcertingly, there are wires hanging down from the ceiling where the light pendants and light bulbs should be. Claudette and I make a tour of the house, my neighbour scrutinising everything much more closely than me. She is a little disapproving of the electrical works. ‘This could be better,’ she says, pointing to plastic casing that covers the wires. ‘Monsieur Gattelier’s apprentices would be better to work more slowly and with more care. They are very young and lack concentration.’ But I am overjoyed at the progress that has been made. If I set my mind to it – and with a final push on the bedroom over the weekend – I could move in by Monday.
‘Oof! I had better go as my husband is waiting for his dinner,’ says Claudette, when we have finished our inspection. ‘But don’t forget what I told you about the boulanger!’
Feeling energised, I call Alain and offer him a fixed sum to get the bedroom floor sanded and varnished by Sunday evening. ‘I will help you myself,’ I say, and there is silence at the other end of the phone. But this doesn’t deter him. He arrives early on Saturday morning and starts to sand the bedroom floor with enthusiasm, while I play around with wood tints in the garage. By lunchtime, the floorboards have been sanded back to a pale, nude state. The next step, according to the enormous DIY tome that I brought over from the UK, is to clean the boards with a cloth soaked in methylated spirits. While Alain is at lunch, eager to press on, I get to work with the meths. It’s a deeply unpleasant job and the fumes make me feel light-headed and nauseous, like I’m suffering from a hangover but without any of the fun beforehand. By the time Alain returns there is a cloud of concentrated alcohol lingering in the air – I warn him not to light a cigarette as we could both go up in flames – but he seems impressed by my efforts and we are ready to move to the next stage.
I’ve narrowed down the choice of wood tints (having bought at least a dozen different colours from pale oak to dark walnut) and decided on a rich chestnut brown. Alain and I set to work in companionable silence, starting at opposite ends of the room and painting the colour onto the boards as evenly as possible with a wide brush. It takes an hour for the tint to dry and with almost perfect timing Claudette arrives at the front door, bearing a tray with two cups of coffee and two slices of home-made apple tart. We eat it perched on crates in the petit salon, and it tastes, at that moment in time, as good as a lunch in an Alain Ducasse restaurant.
Tout Sweet Page 11
