This Affair

by June Gadsby

  “I expect Madame Sabatier has got some provisions in for us, but I’ll say bonjour to the locals anyway and buy a couple of items. They always appreciate that, and I like to think that I’m doing my bit to keep the old village emporium going. It’s vital for the old folk who can no longer get into town to shop. Coming?”

  I went with him into the tiny shop where the shelves were stocked to bulging with a variety of products. In the back, I noticed, there was a bar and several Frenchmen were already gathered, elbows leaning on the counter, glasses in their hands. There were one or two beer glasses, but mostly they were drinking red wine.

  I followed Callum through into the bar and a great shout went up as Callum was recognised. They crowded around, shaking hands, slapping backs and shoulders. I hung back self-consciously until Callum turned and beckoned to me. His French was good, though a little hesitant, as he introduced me as a friend of the family. One by one, the men smiled their welcome and firmly shook my hand. The conversation continued for some minutes at a rapid pace and I noticed curious eyes being turned on me.

  The dialect was difficult to follow, being a mixture of Gascon French and Basque, but I could make out the odd word or phrase. They wanted to know where Madame Andrews was, showed polite disappointment in being told that she was not with Callum on this trip. Then they studied me more closely muttering sly asides until I blushed, and Callum bade them au revoir and à bientôt!

  They came with us back into the shop and waited as Callum bought some matches and a box of candles and a piece of hard cheese that looked like Cheddar, but was a pure brebis from the Pyrénées, the local sheep’s cheese which Callum assured me was delicious. The plump young woman who served him eyed me shyly and exchanged a few incomprehensible remarks with the barman, who was her husband.

  The group of Frenchmen came out into the street with us, waved and called out jovially until we turned the corner and were out of sight.

  “You seem to be very popular with the locals,” I said, for want of something to say.

  “They’re good people. Simple but sincere. To them, I’m just ‘the Englishman’ who has the odd drink with them, plays petanque like a madman, and beats them at belote. They don’t even know, most of them, that I can play the piano.”

  “So, what do they think you do for a living?” I wanted to know.

  “Good question. I don’t know. They’re very discreet, these people, Megan. They believe in the privacy of the individual.”

  I started to ask another question but pulled up short as I realised we had turned into a long, winding drive edged with Oriental Plane trees, their patterned bark etched sharply in the mellow sun. At the top of the rise there was a magnificent manor house, a mini-chateau almost, with two round towers and white shutters.

  “Welcome to Le Manoir.” Callum said as he drove up to the front entrance and switched off the engine. Then he turned to me with his characteristically enigmatic smile and said softly: “Bienvenue chez moi¸ Megan.”

  I noticed that he didn’t refer to the place as chez nous, ‘our place’, but then it was really his house, as Hilary had told me on more than one occasion.

  We were off-loading the luggage when the door opened and a thin, sprightly woman in her sixties came running down the short flight of marble steps, arms flung in the air.

  “Monsieur Andrews,” she cried his name over and over until she reached him and flung her arms about his neck and kissed him on both cheeks with motherly fervour. “Eh bien, it has been too long! I thought you were not coming back ever.”

  “Madame Sabatier.” I saw Callum colour slightly, which surprised me. “It’s so good to be back.”

  “How long you stay?”

  “Good heavens, woman, I’ve only just arrived, and you want to know when I’m leaving! Do you want to get rid of me already?”

  “Oh, you Englishman. You pull the leg of an old lady. I want you stay long time. It is good you are here. And…Oh, la.” She saw me for the first time and her flow of words stopped as she stared at me with more than just a little interest. “You have brought a pretty lady with you…Not Madame Andrews? Where your wife, Monsieur Andrews? Your Hilary? Is her name, non?”

  “Is her name, oui.” Callum mimicked her bad English and laughed softly, his eyes twinkling in my direction. “This is a friend of ours. Megan Peters. She’s an excellent artist and if you’re very good, Madame Sabatier, she may even do a portrait of you while she’s here.”

  “Ah bon?” The woman grew coy and patted a few strands of grey whispy hair back into place. “Is very interesting, but I no think I good subject for portrait. Alors…on verra, hein? We see.”

  She came forward and shook my hand, nodding, her mouth smiling genially, her eyes suspicious and thoughtful. “You are friend of the monsieur and his woman. You are welcome. You want, you ask Madame Sabatier.”

  “Madame Sabatier, there is something you could do for us,” Callum stepped in sharply as if just remembering something that had slipped to the back of his mind.

  “Oui?”

  “Would it be possible for you to…er…to stay…you know, sleep at Le Manoir during our visit?”

  The Frenchwoman’s face creased into a thousand lines. She looked at him, then transferred her dark gaze to me. “Eh bien…Is possible, oui. When? Now? You want me stay this night?”

  “Yes…and…well, could you stay two weeks…deux semaines peut-etre?”

  Madame Sabatier shrugged her bony shoulders and spread her hands. “I no husband. What do I do with my night? Oui, bien sûr. I stay. Okay. I go now search my affairs.”

  “Therese Sabatier is a treasure,” Callum explained to me as we watched the old woman climb onto her bicycle and wobble down the drive shouting over her shoulder that she would be back tout de suite! “Well, come on in and I’ll show you around.”

  It was a big house, sparsely furnished. Our footsteps echoed loudly, as did our voices. The floors were tiled with old stone and terracotta tiles and waxed to a high sheen. The staircase was heavy and ornately carved in solid oak. The main rooms and windows looked out onto a chocolate box picture of the Pyrénées.

  “Like it?” Callum asked and looked at me anxiously.

  I smiled and nodded. “It’s lovely.”

  “The bedrooms are fully independent suites,” he said, marching before me along a great wide corridor hung with ancient portraits and tapestries. “We had it done this way for privacy. There are four wings to the house, as well as the towers. I use one of the towers as a study. It’s quite soundproof so nobody can hear me when I pound away at my old piano.” He flung open a huge door and indicated for me to go in. “This is yours. I’m at the opposite end…just in case you get scared in the night.”

  He laughed then when I did a sort of double-take and I realised that he was joking.

  “I don’t scare easily,” I assured him and proceeded him into the suite of rooms that I had been expected to share with Greg. It was decorated in pastel shades of cream and dusky rose pink and the palest of olive green. I loved it and told him so, not able to keep the pleasure from shining in my eyes.

  “You can swop it if you wish. We keep the yellow wing for Stuart and Pamela. It’s bigger and is more ideal to house the children. But there’s a smaller blue suite that looks out onto the pond and the rose garden.”

  “No, this one is perfect.”

  “Good. I thought you’d like it. Well, I’ll leave you to do whatever you want to do before dinner. Perhaps you’d like to join me in an apéritif? Shall we say eight-thirty? I doubt if Madame Sabatier could arrange a meal before nine this evening. Is that all right?”

  “Yes…fine…. eight-thirty, then.”

  He hesitated, started to say something, and then changed his mind. I hovered by the open door, waiting, anticipating…what? I didn’t know.

  “Megan, I…”

  “Yes, Callum?”

  “Oh, nothing.” There was that note of irritability in his voice again. “Just that…well, I’m gl
ad you came. I’m sure everything will work out just fine.”

  “Yes…I’m sure it will.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  I enjoyed, albeit tentatively and a little shyly, twenty minutes alone with Callum before dinner. He introduced me to the local alcoholic specialty, Floc de Gascogne, which was a sherry-type, fortified wine. It was sweet and strong, but I liked it fine.

  Our conversation was a little stilted until Madame Sabatier appeared to announce that dinner was served in the kitchen. Callum laughed at her scowl and explained to me that although the French usually preferred to eat in the kitchen, she expected her Englishman and his guests to eat in his smart dining room.

  “Since there’s only the two of us I didn’t think it was worth doing things in style,” he said. “It’s much cosier in the kitchen and Madame Sabatier doesn’t have to walk so far to bring food to the table.”

  And we won’t be left alone. I could imagine the way his mind was working. He was just as terrified as I was, or just as reluctant, to cope with the temptations of the flesh. Or was I just telling myself this to counteract the thought that perhaps he had forgotten or dismissed the incident at New Year? There had been no mention, nor any hint of this episode all the way down to south-west France.

  The meal was delicious. Garbure, a meaty broth that was a meal in itself, followed by côtelettes d’agneau, lamb chops with a tarragon sauce, flageolet beans and garlic flavoured sautéed potatoes. We then sampled the cheese Callum had bought in the village and he was immensely pleased when I declared it to be the best cheese I had ever tasted. Madame Sabatier served it on a bed of lettuce with vinaigrette dressing. Callum insisted on opening a second bottle of red wine and chose a full-bodied, fifteen-year-old Madiran. The dessert when it came was equally as delicious. A rich and creamy Gateau Basque floating on a sea of fruity coulis with the taste of blackcurrant.

  “We’ll have coffee in the salon, Madame Sabatier, if you please.”

  Callum was being expansive and jovial. He had drunk rather a lot of wine and it was having its effect. I was also feeling a little, shall we say, detached from my inhibitions. It’s wonderful the way alcohol can relax you and chase away your demons, but too much can be dangerous too, as I well knew.

  I needn’t have worried. Callum had no intention of ever being other than the perfect, old-fashioned gentleman. This, I found out to my relief and not without some secret disappointment, when we had finished our coffee, strong and black and treacly, in tiny porcelain cups.

  “Well, it’s been quite a day all in all,” he yawned and stretched his long frame. The flickering flames of the open wood fire reflected rosily on his face. It wasn’t cold, but he had lit the fire anyway to lend ambiance to the meal, as well as the tall, twisted candle in the middle of the table. “I think I’ll go to bed, if you’ll excuse me, Megan?”

  “Yes, of course. I’m feeling sleepy myself, especially after that wonderful meal and…and I don’t usually drink so much.”

  “Me neither,” he admitted, smiling at me across the fire’s glow. “Well, off you go then. I want to discuss a few things with Madame Sabatier about the next two weeks.”

  “Perhaps I should stay and lend a hand with the washing up,” I offered, but he shook his head decisively. “That would offend her pride. The guests do not work in the kitchen. Go on, Megan. Off to bed with you. You must be dead on your feet. I’ll see you in the morning. Breakfast is a casual affair but seeing as it’ll be your first at Le Manoir might I suggest we meet at nine here in the kitchen, then I’ll show you the grounds. It looks like I’ll have my work cut out to get the garden back under control while we’re here. That lazy son of Madame’s doesn’t like cutting grass.”

  Madame Sabatier turned from the deep kitchen sink where she was washing dishes and pulled a sour face at Callum to let him know that she had overheard and understood every word.

  “My boy not lazy, monsieur! He work very hard as bricoleur. He no cut grass good because machine no work for him.”

  “What did he cut it with then? The kitchen scissors?” Callum taunted, a twinkle in his eye.

  “No, with…” She made a sweeping movement of both arms and shoulders.

  “A scythe. My God. Here we are in the twenty-first century and the French are still using scythes to cut the grass.”

  “C’est ça, monsieur. C’est la vie, non?”

  “C’est la vie, si.” He turned to me and rested a hand on my shoulder, making my skin tingle so that I had to swallow hard to clear my throat. “Goodnight, Megan.”

  “Goodnight, Callum. Goodnight, Madame Sabatier.”

  The old woman looked over her shoulder and nodded: Bonne nuit, madame. You want something, I sleep in little room en face…opposite, hein?”

  “Yes, thank you…goodnight.”

  I listened to the murmur of their conversation as I mounted the long, wide staircase to the first floor and found my suite. It seemed so empty and lonely up there, but I assured myself that all would seem better in the morning. And once Stuart and Pamela arrived with the children there probably wouldn’t be time for me to brood over the bizarre situation I now found myself in.

  It was after midnight when I heard a footstep on the stairs, echoing eerily in the silent house. The only other sound was the ticking of the old grandfather clock in the hall below and the loud chirring of the frogs and crickets outside, punctuated by a screech that I took to be a barn owl on the hunt.

  The footsteps came down the corridor and stopped outside my door. I sat in bed trying to get interested in one of the paperbacks I had brought with me. My heart was thudding as I imagined a light tap on the door and the door slowly opening to reveal Callum standing there. But, of course, it didn’t happen. There was a poignant silence, then I heard the same footsteps retreating and after a moment the soft click of a door being opened and closed. I gave up trying to read and threw the book to one side. It was a long time before welcome sleep claimed me.

  ***

  It was nearer half past nine when I finally went down for breakfast, having slept soundly once I got used to the unfamiliar sounds of the big old house and the countryside that surrounded it. I found Callum sitting at the table in the kitchen. As I walked in he quickly folded the newspaper he was reading and threw it to one side.

  “Good morning, Megan.” He got to his feet and pulled out a chair in such old-worldly fashion it made me smile. It wasn’t the kind of thing Greg would ever have thought of. “Did you sleep well?”

  “A little too well, I’m afraid,” I apologised. “Sorry I’m late, but the bed is so comfortable and the room so dark and silent, I just didn’t realise what the time was.”

  “Nonsense. You’re on holiday. You can get up any time you like. Hilary quite often hides in bed until lunchtime when she’s over here. We hardly see each other.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t do that. I would feel as if I were wasting my life away.”

  “That’s a good, healthy attitude anyway. Madame Sabatier. Madame Peters has arrived at last. More coffee please.”

  The Frenchwoman appeared as if by magic through a narrow door at the end of the kitchen. She was carrying a pot of steaming coffee in one hand and a plate of hot, buttery croissants in the other.

  “Bonjour, madame.” She gave me an odd look, not the first by any means, then addressed herself to Callum. “Monsieur, I have to see my daughter today. She is…how you say…with baby.”

  “Sevrine is expecting? Good Lord, when did she grow up?” Callum was obviously astounded at the news. He shook his head and laughed. “It seems no time since she was a schoolgirl in pigtails and I sat her on my knee and tried to teach her English.”

  “She big girl now. She speak good English.”

  “She’s married?”

  Madame Sabatier looked shocked at the question. “Mais oui, monsieur, bien sûr! She marry a good man. A professeur. He teach English at the grand college in Lourdes. Is good, non?” She rubbed the middle finger of one hand with her thumb,
indicating that money was involved.

  “Is good, yes.” Callum laughed.

  “I no be back for midi. I leave you something in frigo. Okay?”

  “Okay. And…Madame Sabatier, tell Sevrine that her ‘old’ professeur is jealous of the ‘new’ professeur. I hope all goes well with the baby.”

  “On verra. We shall see, monsieur. Au revoir…au revoir, madame.” Again, that odd look in my direction. It wasn’t so much a look of dislike. More one of curiosity.

  After breakfast, Callum gave me a quick tour of the grounds, which were vast, well planted with old established trees, and sadly overgrown with a jungle of weeds.

  “One day I plan to retire here. I can think of nothing better than spending my days working with the land.”

  “But what about Hilary?”

  He didn’t say anything. Just looked into the middle distance and sighed loudly. Then we were back again at the garden, which encircled the house, and he gave a small, good-natured groan.

  “Oh, dear. Eugene must have been in a hurry. He’s made a pig’s ear out of this lawn. Well, there’s no time like the present. What are you going to do with your time, Megan? Laze about and sunbathe? Or have you brought your sketchpad with you?”

  I did, of course, have my sketchpad and a box of pastels buried somewhere in my yet unpacked travel bag. But I didn’t think I could settle down to anything artistic just yet.

  “Could I help you in the garden?” I asked on impulse, feeling that at least we would be doing something together.

  He looked at me, tilted his head to one side and smiled. “Yes, all right, if that’s what you would like. But promise you won’t scream and run a mile if a lizard pops up from behind a stone or a snake slithers off into the undergrowth.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of it,” I grinned and felt pleased with myself for being able to act more relaxed and nonchalant than I felt. “No, honestly. The wildlife doesn’t bother me. I find it all too fascinating.”

  “I thought all women were squeamish when it came down to slugs and snails and…”