by Daisy Waugh
‘Apart from which, she’d liven up the programme.’
‘That’s not our problem.’
‘Yes it is. The more we can distract attention from ourselves the better, Maude. That’s the whole bloody point. And frankly, I for one would be hard-pushed to come up with a more effective distraction than Emma Rankin. She’s a natural performer. Which isn’t to say –’ He glanced at Maude, knife frozen mid-chop, eyes glaring at him dangerously: ‘…Oh fuck!’ He straightened up abruptly, and bumped his head as he did so, once again on the corner of the wretched extractor fan. ‘Fuck, Fuck, Fuck,’ he snarled, rubbing his skull. ‘We’ve got to get that fucking thing removed!’ And without another word, he very quickly left the room.
DIFFERENT KINDS OF FRIENDSHIP
But by the time Murray calls in from La Rochelle airport, Maude has long since agreed, in the name of Haunt family preservation, that Emma Rankin must come to the party. Because it’s no good denying she has an elegance and grace which draws all eyes towards her, and because it’s true that the only reason the Haunts have agreed to the programme is, however confusingly, to distract attention from themselves. ‘But I need you to promise not to speak to her. Not once. Beyond hello and goodbye. I mean the very basics. If I find you alone in some room with her, or even alone in the corner of the room…’
Murray and Len arrive at La Grande Forge at around nine o’clock that night, having somehow spent seven hours making the ninety-minute journey from La Rochelle. They stay for as long as it takes to finish one bottle of wine and for it to be obvious that their hosts don’t intend to open another. Besides which, Murray, the director/cameraman, pleasantly surprised by the level of the Haunts’ preparation, discovers there isn’t an enormous amount to discuss. He would prefer to retire to the bar in the village, where he’ll be able to drink as much as he likes without talking business, and still claim it back on expenses.
‘So in summary,’ declares Murray seriously, as if he’s been considering it for months, ‘my feeling is we should make the Melon Festival the focus of the story. And we can sort of make everything lead up to that. You know – all the tension of the melon harvest. Is it/Isn’t it going to be a good harvest this year? That sort of thing. And then it is a good harvest. Sort of stuff. Fab-fab-fab. All the fun of a party. Lots of expat action there. Throw in a bit with the kids. Mucking around with their mates and stuff. Picking melons with the family, gabbling away in French, obviously. Really cute. Then we’ve got the Mayor doing his thing in the village. His little dinner thing in the square to celebrate – whatever it is he’s celebrating. I forget.’
‘Becoming Mayor,’ Maude nods encouragingly.
‘Exactly.’ Murray begins to tick off the scenes on his fingers. ‘So we’ve got the fruit harvesting. That’ll be nice…Loading the stuff into crates, ready for market. With the kids gabbling away in French and all that. Din-dins with the Mayor. Nice family lunch…And, er, yeah. The Melon Festival. All the preparation going into that. A great big fuck-off party at the end. Fabuloso! Bob’s your uncle, Ethel’s your auntie. And we’ll be out of your hair in no time! If we can get this party in the can asap – I’m thinking end/middle of next week, sort of thing. Five or six days enough for you?’
‘Absolutely,’ Maude says. ‘The sooner we do it –’
‘– the sooner we can be out of your hair.’ Murray stands up. ‘Great,’ he says. ‘See you tomorrow at ten.’
And so Murray and Len climb back into their car and drive the 300 yards from La Grande Forge to the Marronnier, and climb out of the car, thoroughly pleased with their evening’s work. They make their way straight to the bar, where they find Skid alone in a corner, hunched silently over a bottle of pineau, and Daffy standing alone behind the bar in a freshly ironed, pistachio silk, sleeveless shirt. Her hair is neatly coifed, like a helmet on her head. She looks staggeringly miserable.
‘Hello again!’ Len says to her loudly.
She glances at them, jolted out of her private, unhappy reverie. She managed to speak to James on the telephone this evening. He’d been in floods of tears at the prospect of the long summer holidays without her. Listening to him, she’d found it hard not to cry herself, but she’d made him a promise that they’d be together before the holidays were through. Now, thinking about it, she has no idea how she’s going to keep to it. Timothy, needless to say, in spite of everything, all that Daffy said and did for him that night, left for London without surrendering her passport.
‘HELLO THERE!’ bellows Len again. Hurriedly, Daffy puts on a smile, wrenches herself back to the present. ‘Ooh, goodness. Bonjour!’ she twitters. ‘Welcome back! Maude Haunt popped down earlier and warned me to expect you, so I’ve made up the beds. I’m afraid we’ve still only got the one toilet working upstairs. I’m ever so sorry. But – you might find a few changes. Yesterday I painted this entire room – by myself! Can you tell?’
Murray glances around him. Now that she mentions it, the place does look nice. A lot smarter than before, with the pictures and flowers and the fresh white paint. It looks clean and welcoming. ‘Looks fab, Daffy,’ he says. ‘Well done.’
She nods. ‘Yes. It’s almost ready now. For my little boy. He’s going to love it here…don’t you think? We’re planning quite a renovation, my husband and I. My husband’s not actually here at the moment of course. He tends to come and go.’ She laughs, a bitter little laugh. ‘You never know when he’s going to turn up next. That’s the thing…I’m ever so sorry about the lack of toilets…’ She falls silent.
Murray frowns. ‘You all right, darling?’
She jumps again, nervous as a cat. ‘What? Gosh. Yes. Sorry – I’m fine. I’m just sorry…about the toilet. We’ll have a new bathroom and an extra toilet by the end of the month.’
‘Crikey! Never mind the toilets,’ Len declares happily. ‘Right now I’m more interested in what goes in than where it comes out the other end! Seriously. I’m parched.’
‘Charming, isn’t he?’ snorts Murray, plonking his equipment onto the bar stool beside him. He looks across at Daffy, grins at her. ‘Len’s mum brought him up in a farmyard, didn’t she, Len? You’re actually a jersey cow from County Wicklow, isn’t that right?’
For some reason Len finds that very funny. He creases into helpless laughter.
‘Or was it Lincolnshire?’ grins Murray.
At which point Len almost topples to the ground. Daffy looks from one to the other in polite bewilderment and waits until Len finally straightens up. He looks at Daffy, wiping tears from his cheeks. ‘He’s terrible,’ Len says. ‘Terrible. But you get used to him…’
‘I do hope not,’ comes a sour, sozzled voice from the corner. Skid again, making his presence felt. The two men turn towards him. Neither recognises him at once.
‘Hello, dears,’ drawls Skid, raising a glass toward them. ‘Back, are you? Jolly good.’
They hesitate, not certain how to react to an unknown man calling them ‘dears’. Until Skid raises a side of his mouth into a half-smile. ‘Come and have a drink,’ he commands them. ‘Come on. I’ll be glad of the company.’
Murray glances at Daffy. He thinks she seems lonely. Not so bad-looking, either, in her own way. ‘Will you join us?’ he asks kindly.
And so great is Daffy’s need for company that, despite Skid’s glowering discouragement, she finds herself nodding. ‘Well, all right then,’ she says, laughing self-consciously. ‘Thanks! What are you all drinking? Shall we say this one’s on the house?’
‘Let’s,’ drawls Skid – who, with the exception of that one €5 note, has enjoyed every single drink on the house since the night he arrived.
‘– Apart from yours, Skid,’ she says suddenly, astonishing herself. But she’s been standing there behind the bar for three nights now, utterly wretched since Timothy returned to London. And he’s seen what’s gone on: that Sara has had to be sacked; that the dark-skinned regulars have been encouraged to drink elsewhere; that the stray dogs and cats have all been moved
into the yard; worst of all, that Jean Baptiste doesn’t come round any more. Skid has sat at the corner of her bar, drinking her pineau, watching her repaint the entire room around him, and not offering a word of help or solace. She hates him. And the presence of these two other men has given her the strength to say something. ‘You can break a rule of a lifetime, Skid, and pay for your own pineau tonight.’
‘Ahhh…’ murmurs Skid, without altering his position. Without even bothering to look at her. ‘The mouse that roared…’ He takes a glug from his drink. ‘Rather adorable, in a way.’ And then knocks back the rest of his glass. ‘But I’m afraid I’m a bit skint at the moment, so unless my nice new friends…’ He dredges his memory for their names but fails to come up with either of them.
‘Murray. I’m Murray. He’s Len.’
‘Unless my excellent new friends, Murray and Len, are willing to stand me a drink or two, I shall have to retire to my bed.’
They hesitate, his excellent new friends, calculating whether pineau for Skid might be slipped through on their expenses. Possibly not. Except –
‘Oh my goodness,’ Len cries out. ‘Murray – you know who this guy is, don’t you? He’s the guy from the Haunts. He was sitting, remember? When Maudie-Waudie was fucking up her screen-test for the forty-ninth time in a row. Do you remember –?’
‘Watch your language, Len. There’s a lady present.’
‘Oh, I shouldn’t worry about protecting her,’ says Skid spitefully. ‘I imagine that after enduring conjugal bliss with that disgusting Duff Fielding for the past however many years, a couple of swear words would be water off a duck’s back. Mmm, Daffy? I’ll bet he’s a repulsive little pervert…Does he ask you to do appalling things?’ He doesn’t even pause to enjoy her confusion, the flush spreading across her face. ‘You might be pleased to know, Daffy, that an old school friend and I once forced your repulsive husband into a school trunk. Stark naked, he was. Trussed up like a little turkey with his own dressing-gown cord. And then we pushed the trunk all the way downstairs…Bump, bump, bump…Three flights of hard cement stairs,’ he remembers with pleasure. ‘You should have heard him screaming. Really, it’s lucky he’s still alive.’ He looks again at Daffy. At the misery drawn on her face. ‘Or perhaps not,’ he adds. And for a moment – just one small moment – he feels pity for her. ‘…Not to worry, Daffy,’ he mumbles suddenly. ‘…he was always a nasty piece of work. He was crying out to be bullied.’
‘Yes, well,’ Daffy says. ‘I suppose it takes one to know one.’
Skid doesn’t bother to argue. He only shrugs. And for once in her life, Daffy Duff Fielding gets the final word.
‘Er. Sorry to interrupt,’ Murray says, who’s been listening to the previous exchange with only low-level interest, since it doesn’t directly concern him, ‘but me and Len – we’re dying of thirst here! Any chance of that drink?’
‘So,’ Skid says, as the four of them finally settle themselves round a table. ‘I could tell you a few things about your new friends Mr and Mrs Haunt that would make your hair stand on end. Would you like to hear?’
‘…Depends,’ snorts Len. ‘Is it saucy?’
‘Saucy…’ Skid considers the word. ‘…Yes. I think so. If you consider illegal activities saucy, per se. Then yes. Very saucy…’
‘Yeah, well,’ Murray says quickly. ‘It doesn’t really matter, anyway. We’re only here to do the Easy Life thing. In. Out. Shake-it-all-about. No complications. They could be hand-building fucking nuclear bombs for Osama bin Laden for all I care – excuse the language, Daffy – we have our job to do, and it’s very simple. Expats in the sun. That’s pretty much it. Expats and the frigging melons. That’s right, isn’t it, Len?’
Nevertheless, feeling instinctively that here, in the peculiarly moronic shapes of Murray and Len, is a source of drinks for the coming week or fortnight, Skid feels compelled to share with them at least a fraction of his intimate knowledge. Scavenger that he is, Skid knows how to make himself appear useful with minimum personal exertion. So he tells them, for example, about Horatio and Emma’s short-lived smooch at the Montmaur fête this summer, and the public row which followed.
‘Poor Maude!’ exclaims Daffy, but nobody listens. Skid has moved seamlessly on and is now delighting the men with a meticulous, clinical description of Emma Rankin’s new, gravity-defying bosoms.
‘Amazing!’ drools Murray. ‘If you don’t mind me saying, Skid, you seem to have a very intimate knowledge of this particular lady’s…personal attributes.’ He chortles. ‘So how’s that then?’
‘How the hell do you suppose?’ drawls Skid. ‘Emma Rankin – Lady Emma Rankin, incidentally – is better known to everyone in this part of France – except of course her ghastly husband – as the village rodeo.’ He hears Daffy’s little gasp of shock. He turns to her. ‘Isn’t that right, Daffy?’
‘No! I shouldn’t imagine it is, Skid. Honestly. I don’t think you should say that about someone when they’re not there to defend themselves. Emma Rankin seems like a lovely person. Anyway, I thought you and she were friends.’
‘And so we are,’ he says, though currently banished from her bountiful company as a punishment to his prick for failing to perform. Skid’s called her a couple of times but she hasn’t called back. He imagines she’ll summon him eventually. Out of sheer boredom if nothing else, or as soon as she gets hold of some more E.
He hopes it happens soon. He’s broke. In fact, as he sits there now, spreading evil gossip, he’s eyeing up his excellent new friends’ pockets, wondering whether – if he can get his fingers on their wallets now, before they head to bed – they will assume there was a pickpocket at the airport. ‘And so we are, Daffy,’ he says again. ‘Tremendous friends. But not all friendships are always exactly the same…For example,’ he adds, with a new glint of malice, ‘your excellent friendship with the little French builder –’
‘He’s not little,’ she corrects him, pointlessly.
He shrugs. ‘Your friendship with the very large French builder…isn’t exactly the same kind of friendship – although I’m sure he’d like it to be – as his friendship with our mutual friend, the Village Bike.’
‘How do you know?’ she says. ‘You don’t even know what you’re talking about.’
‘Well if it were I don’t imagine you’d be looking quite so bloody miserable all the time.’
But that’s not what she meant. She meant to ask, how does Skid know for sure that Jean Baptiste and Emma Rankin were – are –
‘Anyway, I don’t believe you,’ she says.
Skid smiles at her. ‘Believe me or not. It won’t alter the facts. Your French builder clearly has a taste for middle-aged English matrons. With money. He’s been screwing Maude Haunt most of the summer. Or so I hear…’
‘Crikey O’Reilly,’ mutters Len. ‘It’s quite the happy valley we’ve got going down here. Is there anyone around here not shagging everyone else?’
Skid considers the question a moment. ‘I don’t think anyone’s particularly shagging the Mayor,’ he says. ‘At least I hope not.’
Murray and Len honk with laughter but Daffy decides she has listened to enough. The thought – or the confirmation at least – that Jean Baptiste, all this time, has been arriving for breakfast each morning fresh from another woman’s bed – another two women’s beds – makes her breathless with shock; with jealousy; with anger, she realises. And for one of them to be Maude, whom she thought was her friend – who even, the night of the opening party, encouraged her to believe that Jean Baptiste had feelings for her – Maude, who comes to her each week with her muddy vegetables and sits at her kitchen table drinking coffee, who is lucky enough to be married to the only decent Englishman Daffy has ever met – Maude…
Daffy stands up.
‘What’s the matter, Daffy?’ asks Skid. ‘Has something upset you?’
‘No. Of course not. I just – It’s such a lovely evening. I think I might go for a quick stroll in the square. Is that al
l right? Help yourselves to drinks if you need them. I won’t be long.’
She hears Len and Murray’s simultaneous machine-gun cackles as she crosses the room towards the place. Hears one of them say something about making the most of the free-for-all, and there not being any alcohol left behind the bar when she gets back – but she doesn’t bother to respond. They can take what they like. She needs some air.
As she steps out onto the moonlit square, hears the crickets singing and looks up at the vast star-lit sky, she feels, in spite of everything, if not a sense of peace then of relief, at least. So she walks – puts one foot in front of the other, with no particular destination in mind. She walks around the square at first, and then ventures further – up and around the ancient church and behind the curate’s house. She glances at her watch. It’s only ten o’clock. Not so late. Before she knows it her feet are making their way out of the village, past La Grande Forge and on, towards Saujon, towards Jean Baptiste’s unfinished bungalow. She’s never been there before – Jean Baptiste has never asked her.
But I can’t wait for ever, thinks Daffy suddenly. It’s an unprecedented moment of clarity. Perhaps she’s drunk more pineau than she realises. For once in my life, I have to act, she thinks. I’ve waited three days for Jean Baptiste to come back to me. I’ve waited, and he hasn’t come, and I can’t wait for ever. I won’t wait for ever. I’m going to walk out there to his bungalow and talk to him…
TOWN SHOES
He comes to the door barefoot, in jeans and, in the evening warmth, with his shirt unbuttoned to his navel. He has a dark unshaven shadow on his chin and jaw, dark rings around his eyes, and a bottle of beer in one hand. He looks tired. He looks dumbfoundingly sexy, Daffy thinks. Literally. As he opens his door to her she catches the smell of him – warm and masculine. She can’t entirely remember what she came to say.
But she notices the look of astonishment – and pleasure – which flashes over his face. She thinks she does. But a moment later he’s not smiling at all. He’s not standing back and inviting her in.
