by Faith Wolf
“Everything's closed.”
“Of course,” the man said. “It is Monday.” He said something to the women behind the counter, probably translating, and they laughed. Charlotte's not-feeling-stupid didn't last very long. “We do not work on Monday in the village,” he said.
“Well how come this place is open?” she asked.
“The mairie in Lillac is an exceptional place for exceptional people,” he said and winked at the women behind the counter. Though they didn't seem to follow what he was saying, they visibly preened themselves. The first woman with the stake in her hair went red. “Is there anything else I can help you with?” he asked Charlotte.
“No,” she said. “Thank you.” She wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.
As she reached the door, however, three tie-less men in black suits entered the reception, filling the space with the odour of cigarettes and aftershave. The women behind the counter practically stood to attention while they said their 'bonjour's, but the man in the cowboy hat only acknowledged them with a grimace. The three of them looked at him and grinned. Their smiles were not friendly.
“You've been very kind,” Charlotte said to the man in the hat and slipped out of the door.
Before she left, however, he said something in French. She understood enough to make out that he'd said something about 'foreigners' and 'stupid'. The three men laughed, eyeing her as she hurried down the steps and then extended their hands so the man in the hat could shake them. It was horrible.
All in all, it was a terrible morning, and it was only going to get worse, because the road home was uphill.
In the space of thirty minutes, only three cars passed by. They slowed to see if she was okay and then drove on with puffs of smoke.
The internet site had said that this village was 'sleepy', but this was quieter than anything she had imagined.
After a further ten minutes, she decided that the next time she saw a car, she'd put out her thumb in an attempt to hitch a lift. She tried to remember if this was the country where sticking out a thumb was actually incredibly rude. She made a guess as to what it might symbolise and cracked up laughing. She needed to laugh. It was either that or cry again.
The next car to show up was a battered, dirt-encrusted 4x4. She heard it long before she saw it climbing a bend beneath her. She sat down for a moment and waited for it to catch her up.
She was pleased that it wasn't a sports car. She'd come here to get away from all that. An English-speaking tourist might have been useful, but a friendly, French farmer-type would suit her just as well.
As the vehicle neared, she stood, brushed the dust from her bum and put out a thumb. The driver indicated to pull over and stopped a few feet from her. It seemed simple, until she saw the man's cowboy hat through the windscreen. She turned on her heel and started back up the hill. He pulled out and kept pace beside her.
“Get in,” he called.
“No,” she said, considering that he was lucky she had even replied.
“You extended your thumb,” he said.
“I didn't know it was you,” she told him.
“Come on.”
“No.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Yes, that's right,” Charlotte said, stopping again in a growing fury. “I'm a ridiculous foreigner. That's what you think. So I don't want your help. Goodbye.”
“You're going the wrong way,” he said, rolling the 4x4 again to match her footsteps. “If you get lost in this heat, you could die.” He took off his hat and fanned himself for effect.
“I'll take my chances,” she said.
“And there are wild boar,” he said. “You know wild boar? They are hairy pigs.”
He was the wild boar and any insult she threw back at him after a comment like that would be too easy. She smiled to herself, but was quickly irritated again when the 4x4 continued to crawl beside her. In the UK, he might have been arrested by now.
“Your car stinks,” Charlotte said. “I think the engine might be on fire.”
“Smells fine in here,” he said. “I have air-conditioning. You know, everybody in this village has a car. Even me, and I hate them. Let me help you.”
The soles of her feet were aching and she thought that she might collapse at any moment, but she was over being helpless. She'd left all that behind. Still, she was able to take a moment to imagine how she must look to the guy in the car, drenched in sweat and stumbling in fancy trainers that were up to the task of running on a treadmill but not walking up a hill. He must have pitied her.
“My name's Gilou,” the man said and extended a hand. She ignored it, but it was at that moment that she realised he was driving on the wrong side of the road in order to be close to her. “You're Charlotte,” he said.
“How do you know my name?”
“This is Lillac. You can't take a pee without somebody hearing you.”
“Nice.”
“Now that we're not strangers any more, you can get in. Yes?”
A sports car roared up the hill then and overtook them. Inside: Americans. She didn't know how she knew. She had a feeling. A feeling not dissimilar to Gilou's hunch, she supposed, because he seemed to have her all figured out too. He seemed sure that she would get into the 4x4 sooner or later.
Well, he obviously didn't have her figured out all that well.
If she had known that Gilou was going to be coming up the hill next, she would have hid in the bushes and waited for a ride with the tourists.
This was embarrassing though and, although she was desperate not to give in, after two or three more minutes she sensed that she was about to crack. If she didn't get into the 4x4 soon, she'd have to sit down, because she was exhausted, and then he'd only stop the 4x4 and get out. If he was going to persist with talking to her, they may as well have been moving towards the cottage.
“A pretty girl like you shouldn't have to walk alone,” he said. “Please come. I will feel bad if you don't.”
Charlotte stopped finally and Gilou stopped the 4x4 beside her.
“I'll get in,” she said. “On one condition.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me exactly what you said about me as I was leaving earlier.”
Gilou bowed his head.
“Okay,” he said.
By the time Charlotte had walked around to the passenger side, Gilou had popped the door open for her and was reaching out a hand to pull her up. She rejected it in favour of hauling herself up using a handle above her head. It came off in her hand.
“Sorry,” she said, avoiding his eyes.
“Whatever,” Gilou said, finally getting the 4x4 out of first gear.
She didn't think that she'd ever been in a vehicle like this before. The noise was incredible and the floor vibrated beneath her feet to such an extent that she had visions of them having to brake like Fred Flintstone, shoving their feet through the floor and skidding to a stop. The gear stick and the windows rattled wildly as the 4x4 growled up the hill.
The floor was bare, red metal. The seats were threadbare and hard. The back of the 4x4 had been filled with building materials: timber, metallic joints, sand. The only hint of domesticity was a pair of blue, fluffy dice hanging incongruously from the rear-view mirror.
“Nice dice,” she mocked.
“They were a gift,” he said.
“They had to be,” she said, and when he didn't rise to the bait, she added: “So what did you say to your friends that I wasn't supposed to hear?”
“They are not my friends,” he said sternly.
“Whatever. What did you say?”
“I told them that you were a stupid foreigner,” he said, “and that you were attempting to buy bread at the mairie. Then we laughed. Very much. Happy now?”
“Stop the car!” said Charlotte.
“No,” Gilou said. “You knew I said something unpleasant, but you still entered the car. What I said is no surprise to you. I think the lady doth protest too much. I
will not stop now.”
The bluntness of his admission felt like a club across the back of her head. He wasn't even sorry. He was right, of course, on all counts, but that only made her more furious. She ground her fists into her thighs until she was sure that they would be bruised when she showered later.
“Are all the French this arrogant?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said.
“Then I'll go home. I shan't be giving this country any more of my money.”
“I'll drive you to the airport,” he said. “But first, I take you home and we'll pick up your things.”
She decided to say nothing else for the rest of the journey. He had a way of twisting everything she said. Someone had once told her that people do not remember what other people did, only how they were made to feel. Perhaps someone should have communicated this to Gilou, her not so gallant driver.
She found herself thinking of Mark again. He'd made her feel almost non-existent, subservient to his work, his family, his friends, his computer. Depressingly, the list went on. Perhaps it was for the best that she'd been unable to check her email today; she would only have been disappointed. Even this hairy pig in the car next to her had said that she was pretty. Even he saw her in a way that Mark had not.
As she calmed herself, she realised that she didn't recognise the road. She recalled that they had turned a sharp left and descended another hill, while her cottage was at the top of a hill. Confused, she looked for a landmark, but all the trees looked the same to her and the few cottages and houses they passed looked unfamiliar. She began to panic, but she was still too angry with Gilou to say anything for a long time, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing that she was lost.
“Okay?” he asked her after a few minutes. They should have been at Le Pech Noir by now, but they were driving around a roundabout instead. There had been no roundabouts on the way down!
“Tell me where we are going,” she demanded.
Gilou pointed across the road and she saw a small supermarket with a flashing neon sign.
“I shop in the village; Tuesday to Saturday,” he said. “But for you, I make an exception.”
He pulled up in the carpark as close to the store as possible. Outside, men and women were pushing trolleys through the automated, double doors. A boy was helping her mother unload shopping into her car.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said.
He smiled at her and for once she didn't see any trace of irony. His eyes held her captivated for a few seconds longer than they should have done. He looked to be about forty, with strong features, thick eyebrows and crow’s feet when he smiled. His was the opposite of Mark's baby face. She hadn't thought that she'd find such a face so attractive, but he seemed comfortable in his skin. He wasn't ever going to pretend to be something he was not to make somebody else happy or unhappy. And those eyes. So dark! Again, she was startled.
“Can I get you anything?” she said before getting quickly out of the car.
“Nothing,” he said, serious suddenly. “I want nothing.”
“Okay,” she said and decided that she would shop quickly and get this strange ordeal over with as soon as possible. “Okay.”
Chapter 3
“Do you know the guy who is renting me Le Pech Noir?” Charlotte asked.
“What?”
“Whenever I mention that I'm staying at Le Pech Noir, there's a lot of murmuring and raised eyebrows. And I don't think it's down to my pronunciation this time. Who was he? Whys it such a big deal that I'm there? Who died?”
“Not who,” Gilou said. “What.”
“Did you know Jean? Who is he?”
“Jean is a woman,” Gilou said.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Oh?” she said, dominoes toppling in her mind. “There was no way of knowing that from the emails.”
“Jean decided to let the cottage. You decided to rent it. There's no mystery.”
“At the mairie, those women seemed to think it was a big deal. I couldn't understand what they were saying, but they were getting quite heated about it.”
“Jean was a very well-respected woman,” he said. “Everybody around here knew her and you rented her cottage. In a small village like this, everyone knows everyone's business. There are no secrets. That's all.”
“And she was English, like me?”
“She was English, yes.”
He turned his 4x4 roughly into her driveway and rolled down the long path to the cottage. She felt sad, knowing that she would be all alone once more. She had the birds for company, but that was all. She couldn't even text a friend without wobbling around at the end of the drive and then it cost her a fortune.
“You like the cottage?” Gilou asked. “Any problems?”
“It's great,” she said. “Although ...”
“What?”
“Well, it isn't very feminine. The rooms are sparse. Cold. I thought that it needed a woman's touch, but now you're telling me that it did have a woman's touch and I'm wondering what she was really like. I'm not complaining. She gave me a good deal and I couldn't have been here without her, but, you know ...”
“The woman who lived here was a very beautiful woman,” he said in the manner of a reproach. “If the room's are not to your liking, you should let her know.”
“... Oka-ay,” she said and slipped out the car.
He didn't offer to help her with her bags and she certainly wasn't going to ask him. She opened up the boot herself, pushed aside a stray log and hauled two shopping bags to the front step.
Although the sun was bright and warm, the main room looked dark through the front door.
“Er. Would you like a coffee?” she suggested.
He put the 4x4 into reverse, performing a neat turn at the bottom of the drive, and wheel-spinning up the path with a spray of dirt and stones.
“Fine!” she yelled.
She sat at the kitchen table and unpacked two items: a bottle of wine and a slice of gateaux. She took a 'beautiful' silver fork and a 'beautiful' wine opener from the drawer, then set about stabbing forkfuls of cream into her mouth.
Well, he had said that she was pretty, which was pleasant enough – it was the first time anyone had remarked positively on her looks in months – but then he had gone and said that the woman who lived here before was beautiful. He may have dressed like a yokel, but she could tell that he was smart. He wouldn't have said that without knowing that he had drawn a comparison.
Despite herself, she wished that she was beautiful too. She wished that he had left her with something positive to think about.
“This,” she said, forking cream into her mouth, “is beautiful,” but when it was gone, washed down with a glass of wine, she felt fat, bloated and awful.
From her emails with the landlady, Charlotte had reason to believe that she was the first person to ever rent the place and so she began searching the house for signs of the landlady herself. There were paintings on the walls - pastoral scenes and birds - but no photographs of people. She went through drawers and cabinets. She even looked under the beds for plastic storage boxes. She wanted to see her. Who was this woman that Gilou thought was so beautiful.
It was an hour before she gave up the search, having found not a single photo, nor a letter, nor a receipt, only an envelope containing tips on how to enjoy living at the cottage, including a note to say that everything but the mairie would be shut all day every Monday.
~~~
“So how is everything going?” Charlotte's mother asked.
Charlotte glanced at the unmade bed, the unwashed plates and her unkempt appearance in the reflection of the kitchen cabinet.
“Great,” she said. “Perfect. Couldn't be better.”
“Well, I'm glad you're having a nice break,” she said, “but don't forget that you have responsibilities here.”
“Like what?”
“Well … Your savings aren't going to last forever. You need to start loo
king for a job. Go back to that temping agency and get yourself a little desk job to tide you over.”
“I hate that temping agency,” Charlotte said. She almost performed her trick of pretending that it was a bad line, but if she did it too often her mother would start to see through it. Instead, she added: “And you don't need to worry about my money. I am already looking for work.”
