Isobel

by A J Griffiths-Jones

  ‘Yes, that’s right. It smells delicious,’ Isobel enthused, leaning closer to breathe in the heady aroma. ‘I’m looking forward to trying your cooking, Maurice.’

  ‘Maurice is a most excellent chef,’ Simone trilled, eyeing them both amusedly over the top of her glass as she gently sipped, ‘but very modest.’

  ‘We eat simply but healthily here, Izzy,’ the baker explained, adding a handful of parsley to the pan, ‘and I’m looking forward to trying your cooking, too.’

  Simone looked at her watch and checked the time against the wall clock. ‘I really should be going, I have such a lot to do.’

  ‘Oh, aren’t you staying for dinner?’ Isobel asked, silently glad at the news that she might have the pleasure of Maurice’s company alone tonight.

  ‘Non, I am too busy, sadly. Perhaps we shall chat another time, Isobel.’

  Izzy stepped back, expecting Simone to leave, but the woman continued to finish her wine, lips pursed like a contented cat.

  ‘Can I do anything to help?’ Izzy offered, feeling the need to busy her hands.

  Maurice turned, smiling broadly. ‘Perhaps if I show you to the dining room, you could help to carry a few things in for me, such as the bread-basket?’

  Isobel took the handbag off her shoulder and tucked it onto the windowsill, before moving the bread knife from the board and adding the freshly sliced loaf to a wicker basket. It was still warm and smelled absolutely delicious.

  ‘Lead the way,’ she said, grinning.

  Monsieur Fabron’s dining room was no less grand than the rest of his home, the dark walnut furniture having been highly polished, and the table set with antique silverware. The linen was white and crisp, while the dinner plates were etched with navy and gold around the rim. None of these touches, and their obvious value, were lost on Isobel Gilyard as she took in her surroundings, curious as to how the village boulangerie owner came to live amongst such riches. Was there more to the handsome Maurice than met the eye, she pondered.

  A painting of a handsome gentleman in riding attire caught Isobel’s eye and she couldn’t help commenting on the man’s likeness to her host.

  ‘A relative, Maurice?’

  ‘Non.’ The Frenchman smiled proudly, straightening up and looking at the canvas intently. ‘My wife’s great-grandfather. A wonderful man, so I’m told.’

  ‘Did he also live here?’ Izzy ventured. ‘In this house?’

  Maurice nodded. ‘Absolutely. Seven generations of her family. One day, I will tell you the story of Valerie’s ancestors, but now we must eat.’

  Back in the kitchen, Simone was picking up her little bolero jacket and matching bag in preparation to leave.

  ‘See you soon.’ She waved to Izzy, before leaning forward to embrace Maurice. ‘Have a lovely evening.’ The words were smooth and silky but sounded slightly insincere.

  ‘Back in a second,’ the baker told Isobel, swiftly escorting Simone to the front door.

  It was at that precise moment that Izzy felt a pang of jealousy and wondered if there was a physical relationship between her employer and the exotic woman. She imagined them lingering over a kiss in the hallway but in reality Maurice had returned far too soon for it to have been more than a peck on the cheek.

  It wasn’t long before dinner was served.

  ‘Telo, Telo,’ the baker called cheerily through the open door, ‘le dîner.’

  Isobel tensed, very slightly, on hearing the young man’s name. She noticed that her employer had directed her to a seat on the left-hand side, now taking up the head of the table himself, which meant that she would be facing Telo for the duration of the meal. The cause for Isobel’s unfamiliar feeling of hostility was as yet unapparent, for the young man had done no more to insult her then a few sidelong glares and mumbled words, yet her skin prickled uncomfortably as he slid into his seat and glanced upwards. Telo had long, dark eyelashes, like those of his father, and they fluttered softly as he flicked his gaze towards their guest.

  ‘A quick prayer of thankfulness,’ Maurice was saying, pressing his palms together, but still his son looked upon the newcomer with intrigue, almost as though she were the main course in tonight’s supper.

  As soon as they began eating, Izzy mustered up the courage to test Telo’s conversational skills, although she doubted if more than a few sentences would be forthcoming.

  ‘Parlez-vous Anglais, Telo?’ she ventured, hoping that the young man would answer in the affirmative, making the conversation easier, at least for the sake of their new working relationship.

  Wild eyes shone as a knife and fork clattered onto the expensive china plate and Telo licked his lips in an exaggerated manner to remove the remnants of creamy sauce before spitting out the word, ‘Non.’

  Isobel nodded, accepting the abrupt response with polite dignity before turning to Maurice and saying, ‘I shall have to try very hard to improve my French then, won’t I?’

  The baker raised his perfectly tamed eyebrows, seemingly unaware of the tense atmosphere that his son had caused, and gave a slight shrug. ‘I think it will come quite naturally, my dear. In time, you will speak like a native.’

  Isobel sincerely hoped that time in Saint Margaux would be something that she would have in abundance and smiled contentedly at the thought of this beautiful place becoming her permanent home. A safe haven away from all that had happened at home, she mused.

  ‘You haven’t eaten very much, Maurice,’ she commented, trying to lighten the mood. ‘I’m afraid that Telo and I have eaten far more.’

  ‘I dined with Cecile and Hubert at the vineyard earlier,’ he replied, pushing the dinner-plate to one side. ‘We had a little business matter to conclude and they were preparing lunch, so…’

  As the man’s deep voice trailed off, Izzy wondered what business it had been.

  ‘Are you close?’ she heard herself asking.

  ‘Cecile is my sister-in-law. She is Valerie’s younger sister. Together with her husband, Hubert, the vineyard produces some of the best wine in France. In fact, we are drinking one of their finest Chenin Blancs right now.’

  Isobel joined the dots in her head. It made perfect sense that Maurice was still close to his dead wife’s sibling. She also noted that he had used the present tense when talking about Valerie, something that a person might do when the loss is still hard to bear.

  ‘You saw Cecile yesterday,’ Maurice continued. ‘She was taking afternoon tea with Simone. A tiny woman with beautiful natural blonde hair.’

  Izzy instinctively touched her peroxide locks and blushed, as the comment reminded her that she really must buy some dye soon to cover up her dark roots.

  ‘Ah, yes, I remember. There was another lady there, too, auburn hair, a little bit plumper.’

  ‘Plumper?’ Her host laughed, ‘Don’t let Dominique hear you say that! Although, in truth, she is very fond of chocolate cake.’

  Maurice winked, allowing Izzy to breathe out after her obvious faux pas.

  ‘Great, I make a mean chocolate fudge cake.’

  ‘Talking of “les desserts”,’ Maurice announced, after asking his son to lend a hand with the dirty plates, ‘Tarte au Citron.’

  Izzy’s mouth watered at the thought of lemon tart and all previous thoughts disintegrated like fragments of dust.

  ‘Now I will truly be able to test your baking skills,’ she giggled, as the baker flitted out of the room. ‘How delightful.’

  Telo shot a backwards glance as he followed his father to the kitchen, his face a deeply lined scowl, portraying the knowledge that he had fully understood the Englishwoman’s words and distrusted her every sentence.

  Sitting outside, sipping at their wine in the magnificent walled garden, Maurice and Isobel chatted about how they would set about beginning their work together. Monsieur Fabron was open to new ideas and relished the thought of Izzy’s younger, much more creative mind bringing elegant bakes to his very traditional boulangerie. Isobel fought the urge to light a post-dinner cig
arette and chattered to keep her mind occupied and away from the craving.

  Telo had asked to be excused and his father had hugged the young man tightly, saying to Isobel, ‘His favourite television show is on, Telo never misses it.’

  ‘Do you think Telo will come around?’ she asked tentatively when the lad was out of earshot, setting down her glass for Maurice to refill.

  ‘Come around? I’m sorry, how do you mean?’

  ‘Well, it’s just that he doesn’t really seem to… approve of me being here.’

  Maurice waved a dismissive hand, shaking his head in disagreement. ‘Telo will be fine, it’s just his way with strangers. Once you know each other better, all will be well. Trust me.’

  Isobel wanted to agree, but there was still a nagging doubt warning her to tread cautiously around the baker’s son, just in case. She changed the subject.

  ‘Simone didn’t leave on my account, did she?’

  Maurice took a gulp of wine and shook his head. ‘No, Simone and I are very old friends, she quite often pops in for a drink. I think secretly she worries that two men are not capable of running such a large house.’

  Izzy smiled. ‘Well, she’d be wrong. Your home is fabulous, as was dinner.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Maurice’s tired eyes lingered for a few seconds more than intended. He liked the fire inside his new employee, she seemed fun, forthright and honest.

  ‘To new beginnings!’ He smiled, evenly distributing the last of the white wine.

  The pair clinked glasses and enjoyed the final moments of evening sun as it slid down behind the garden wall.

  That night, as Telo sat up in bed reading aloud, Maurice patiently listened to his boy’s narration. At the end of the chapter, he praised Telo and patted the bedcovers, signalling that it was time for sleep.

  ‘Très bien. Lait froid?’ he asked, offering to fetch the ritualistic glass of ice-cold milk that Telo enjoyed every night before going to sleep.

  ‘Merci, Papa,’ and then, ‘Je n’aime pas Mademoiselle Gilyard.’

  Maurice sighed, placing both hands on his knees before rising. ‘Telo, Telo, Telo.’

  The man carefully navigated the steep curving staircase on his quest to fetch the drink, fretting about Telo’s comment. He’d known all along that this new phase wasn’t going to be easy for his son, but he hadn’t anticipated quite so much negativity. Isobel hadn’t even begun her duties in the boulangerie yet, in fact little more than twenty-four hours had passed since her arrival. Telo was unusually sensitive to strangers, normally prone to quite accurate estimations of a person’s nature, but in Miss Gilyard’s case he must be mistaken. Or so Maurice hoped.

  Across the street, Izzy had tipped the entire contents of her handbag onto the bedroom rug, trying in vain to locate her cigarette lighter. She knew she’d had it earlier, having smoked just before brushing her teeth. She could have sworn she’d put it into the bag with her fags. And that was the strange thing; the cigarette packet was there, but no lighter. It must have dropped out, she cursed. She lay on top of the bed as it was too warm to slide under the covers yet, her eyes fixed upon the white-washed ceiling above. She felt that the evening had gone amazingly well considering, despite Telo’s attempt at animosity. He reminded her of a boy that she’d known at school, the outsider, always on the edge of her group’s conversations but never willing to join them. Or was it that they hadn’t asked him? She couldn’t remember now, it was so long ago, a lifetime of experiences had happened to her since then.

  Despite the iciness between them, Isobel resolved to make an extra effort with Telo, for his father’s sake and for her own peace of mind. It wouldn’t bode well for her future here if there was continual tension, she told herself. Perhaps it would be prudent to enquire of Maurice the exact nature of his son’s learning difficulties. After all, there had been more than a fragment of intellect in Telo’s face as he had listened to her speak over dinner. Could it be that the young man had understood her? He had a distinct intellectual quality bubbling below the surface.

  Unable to stave off her nicotine urge any longer, Izzy padded into the kitchen and lit a cigarette from the gas stove. She took the smoke deep into her lungs, savouring the taste; after all, it had been almost six hours since her last one. Moving over to the living room window in order to exhale into the night air, the young woman’s thoughts turned this time not to Telo, but his kind, talented and handsome father. Isobel surveyed the grand house across the street, thinking of all the objects d’art inside, the sheer opulence of everything she’d seen. Maurice was undoubtedly a good catch, a wealthy widower who could cook, clean and hold an intelligent conversation. She calculated the age gap between them. It was surely no more than ten years. A decade was nothing if the right couple were attracted to each other, you only had to look at some A-list actors to figure that out.

  Isobel wondered whether Maurice was ready for a new relationship yet. And where did Simone Dupuis fit into the picture? Were they on the verge of becoming lovers? Taking the last drag, Izzy stubbed out the cigarette end in an ashtray and glanced at herself in the mirror. She wasn’t bad for thirty-five, although the bleached blonde cut had been a little drastic, a nod towards leaving her old life behind. Her figure was trim, perhaps too boyish for most men, and when she made an effort with make-up she could definitely be considered pretty. Tomorrow was the start of her new job and, perhaps, getting to know Maurice Fabron would be like a garden coming into bloom.

  Telo Fabron switched off the Tiffany lamp at the side of his bed, pulling the sheets up over his shoulders more from customary habit than chilly air, and sighed deeply. He didn’t know what it was about Isobel Gilyard that troubled him, and his brain would have certain difficulty in finding the right expressions to explain it to his father, but there was something weirdly uncomfortable about her presence. No matter now, though; the decision to employ her had been made by his Papa and he hoped that the Englishwoman would take up her new position without troubling herself to try and befriend him. If Isobel knows what is good for her, she will keep out of my way, he thought, with a grimace.

  Maurice lay awake in the master bedroom, mulling over his son’s words yet unsure of how to put the boy’s mind at rest. He needed to know that Isobel wasn’t the enemy. In fact, anything but. She would be an asset to the boulangerie, enticing new customers with her baking skills. It had been a bold move to employ an English cook, for that’s how he saw her, rather than a qualified pastry chef who might demand a more considerable salary, but Maurice was confident in his choice. It would work out in the end.

  ‘Ma chérie,’ the baker whispered, kissing a silver-framed photograph of his wife and gently rubbing fingers over her smiling face, ‘what would you do? Would you approve of Isobel?’

  A faint breeze ruffled the chintz curtains, icy cold as it traversed gently across the room and came into contact with Maurice’s exposed skin, causing him to look up.

  ‘Valerie?’ he whispered softly, yearning for a response yet knowing too that it would not come, not tonight, not ever.

  One of the heavy wooden shutters banged loudly against its hinges, the rising night breeze causing it to pull free from the grasp of its hooks and Maurice heaved himself up to securely close them and, in doing so, shut himself away from the outside world in order to continue grieving.

  ‘Just the wind,’ he muttered, disappointed that there could be no supernatural cause for the cold air that had penetrated the bedroom. It was certainly not the spirit of his dead wife.

  Settling back against the pillows and switching off the nightlight, Maurice Fabron struggled to bring the image of Valerie’s beautiful young face to mind. Such an attractive woman, glamorous in the succinctly natural way that he believed only French women could be, Valerie had been the epitome of chic. Yet tonight, all alone here in the bed that they had shared for nearly twenty-five years, all the man could recall was the lank, thinning hair that had hung limply around his dying wife’s shoulders, a mere sha
dow of herself, cheeks hollowed, skin ravaged by the terrible illness that had finally taken her. The boulangerie owner would fail to sleep well that night, tormented by the image of the shell that had become his darling Valerie.

  CHAPTER FOUR – AN INTRUDER

  As Jack Hobbs raced up the wide police station staircase, gloomily aware that he was already later to arrive than the rest of the team, Inspector Max Mallery came clattering down in the opposite direction, shoes polished to a high sheen.

  ‘Don’t bother going up,’ he ordered, hardly stopping for breath, ‘you’re coming with me, Jacques.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And you can drive,’ the senior officer added, striding out into the car park. ‘Which one is yours?’

  Jack pointed to a dark blue Ford Mondeo with British number-plates, looking decidedly forlorn amongst the array of newer, sportier cars in the parking lot, and flushed slightly. His boss wasn’t going to be impressed with the ride.

  ‘Let’s get going,’ Max sighed, shaking his head at the nodding dog ornament in the back window. ‘God help us.’

  The main route out of Bordeaux was fairly quiet for the time of day, as most of the traffic was headed in towards the town, buzzing along like a marching army of insects as commuters reluctantly drove to their offices, each and every one feeling the Monday morning blues. Jack considered himself a safe and cautious driver and navigated the unfamiliar roundabouts and turnings confidently, while his supervisor sat back and signalled to the westbound carriageway. It wasn’t long before the sprawling town stood behind them and the surrounding countryside opened up to small hamlets interspersed with rural farmland.

  ‘We’re heading for Saint Margaux Vineyard,’ Mallery revealed, desperately trying to mask his discomfort at sitting in a right-hand drive car. ‘There’s been a burglary, apparently, although nothing was taken. Might be a waste of time but it’s a pleasant drive and gets us out of the office.’