The Chateau of Happily-Ever-Afters

by Jaimie Admans

  Somehow the thought of him being here and me not being here is worse than us both being here together. I feel like Eulalie entrusted me with her beloved château and it’s my responsibility to protect it from everything, and that includes him. How am I supposed to do that when he can come and go as he pleases? He could knock the whole place down in his hunt for the treasure and I wouldn’t be able to stop him.

  All plant-loving, non-treasure-hunting softness I was feeling towards him disappears instantly. ‘You’re a git, has anyone ever told you that?’

  ‘Probably about as many people who have said the same to you.’ He grins with pride at the snarky comeback.

  ‘No wonder you prefer plants. That bramble bush is nicer than you and it’s scratched me twice today. I prefer something that’s drawn blood to you.’

  ‘I’m wounded by your dislike of me.’ He puts his hand on his heart and bows his head. ‘Wounded, I tell you.’

  He couldn’t be more annoying if he tried. It’s been a long time since I shared a house with anyone, and my roommates back then were annoying enough to make me want to move back in with my mum…

  I wonder how annoying I’d have to be to drive him away. If he won’t leave out of choice, he’s giving me no option. I can’t spend my holiday with him, even if he is nice to insects and plants. The only thing I can do is make him leave. I’ve spent my life repelling men. It shouldn’t be too difficult.

  He seems to know what I’m thinking because he’s looking at me with that bloody eyebrow raised again.

  ‘Apparently, I’m a terrible housemate,’ I start. ‘It would be a shame if you—’

  ‘Got so annoyed I decided to leave?’

  I shrug.

  He smirks. ‘When I was younger, I had a revolving door of roommates. I learnt every trick in the book. If you think you can outdo me in the annoying-housemate ranks, bring it on.’

  For the first time since I saw his car pull in, I feel a genuine smile break across my face. I suddenly have a purpose in life again. I will get this man out of my château. ‘Bring it on.’

  Chapter Six

  Julian’s still oohing and ahhing around the orchard when I hear a voice coming from out front. ‘Hello? Anyone home?’

  A woman! An English accent! I zoom back through the bramble pathway so fast that I snag my clothes and nearly fall over myself in my rush to see who’s there.

  There’s a woman with short blonde hair standing in the courtyard.

  ‘’Ello, lovely,’ she says, smiling when she sees me. ‘Hope you didn’t mind me popping me head in. I saw the car in the driveway with the British number plate and thought I’d say hello.’

  I take in her spiky blonde hair with blue and green tips, her matching eyeshadow, which would’ve made anyone else look like an eighties escapee but somehow works for her, and, more importantly, I take in the fact she’s standing next to a cart full of French baguettes. I run at her so fast that she takes an involuntary step backwards.

  ‘Oh my God, you’re English and you have food. I think I might love you. Are you selling these?’ I’ve grabbed one and ripped the top off with my teeth before she’s had a chance to answer. ‘Oh my God, this is the best thing I’ve ever tasted.’ I don’t know why I’m bothering. My words are so muffled around the huge mouthful of bread that she’d have an easier time understanding Cousin Itt.

  The woman watches me with a look somewhere between fear and amusement.

  I make indeterminable noises and flap my hand in front of my face, trying to tell her I’m not a hyperactive giraffe, I don’t usually behave this way, and I’ve bitten off far too much bread and am struggling to chew it up.

  I’m actually out of breath by the time I swallow, swiping the back of my hand across my face as I’m no doubt covered in crumbs. I’m desperate to take another bite, but force myself to manage a conversation with the poor woman I’ve just attacked and stolen a loaf of bread from.

  ‘Sorry,’ I say, blushing at how much of a mess I’ve made. ‘It’s been a long night and I’m so hungry I was just wondering what the grass might taste like. You turned up at exactly the right time.’

  She laughs, bright and jingly. ‘I’m a mobile baker. My career revolves around turning up at the right time.’

  ‘A mobile baker? I’ve never heard of that.’

  ‘Yep. I get up at the crack of dawn every day, bake everything in my kitchen at home, load it all into my cart, and do my rounds. Only around my local streets and to the village. There’s a boulangerie there but it doesn’t open until lunchtime and when it does there’s a queue for miles. This way, I catch people as they’re looking for breakfast, just at the right time.’

  I blush again at how rabid I was. Instead of shoving the whole baguette in my mouth, I snap the gorgeously crusty crust and pull pieces off, trying to remember how civilised people act.

  ‘I’m Kat.’

  ‘Wendy,’ I say, my words muffled around yet another mouthful of the best bread I’ve ever tasted. ‘And you’re English. I didn’t expect to find any English people out here.’

  ‘There are a lot of expats around these parts. Land is cheap, the commute back home isn’t too bad, and everything’s just that bit nicer over here. Well, you must know that already if you’re moving in.’ She nods towards the château, her long earrings jangling with the movement.

  ‘I haven’t moved in,’ I say, trying not to choke on the baguette I’m making short work of. So much for being civilised. ‘I’m just here on holiday for a few weeks. After that, it’s back to the grindstone in the UK.’

  ‘Where are you…’ She stops mid-sentence with her mouth hanging open. I follow her line of sight towards the château. Julian has chosen that moment to appear from the gardens and is walking up the steps to the open door.

  ‘Oh. My. God,’ Kat says, doing an unintentional impression of Janice from Friends. ‘Look at that fine specimen of manhood. That is a god carved out of pure marble, that is.’ She grabs my wrist. ‘Is he yours?’

  ‘No!’ I say in horror. ‘Ick!’

  At the top of the steps, Julian turns and gives us a wave.

  Kat is practically swooning on the spot as he disappears into the depths of the château. Her grip on my wrist tightens. ‘Why on earth is he not yours? He’s gorgeous.’

  ‘Ew! I would never…’ I stutter, struggling to find the words for just how hideous a thought that is.

  She looks at me and then back at the house. ‘There’s something wrong with you. As they would say around here, that is un homme magnifique.’

  She may as well be drooling.

  ‘Yeah, from a distance. Once you meet him, his attractiveness drops so far below zero that we need a bigger numeric table.’

  ‘I don’t believe that for a second.’ She finally lets go of my wrist, but if she was a cartoon character, there would be hearts in her eyes.

  ‘He’s a Scottish knobkettle who thinks he’s far better looking than he actually is.’

  ‘Ooh, he’s Scottish too?’ She fans a hand in front of her face. ‘Don’t make it worse! Scottish men are so sexy. Does he have a kilt?’

  ‘I sincerely hope never to find out.’

  The look she gives me would be less incredulous if I’d told her there was a flock of pterodactyls swooping overhead. ‘Why is he shirtless?’

  ‘Because he’s an idiot.’

  ‘I didn’t know idiocy caused men to spontaneously remove their shirts. If that was true, there’d be a lot more shirtless men in my life.’

  I smile as I look over at her. She’s got friendly blue eyes that are accentuated by her short haircut, and her bright green top is colour-coordinated to perfectly match the green bits of her hair, her eyeshadow, and the bracelets around her wrists. Everything about her screams of someone who’s supremely comfortable in their own skin.

  ‘I could introduce you, if you want,’ I say against my better judgement. She seems like a nice person. She deserves better tha
n Julian.

  ‘Nah. I’ll trust your judgement. Besides, I’ve got my eye on someone. He hasn’t got the body of that glorious creature, but he’s got a smile that makes me go weak at the knees every time I see it. Of course, he’s only in town twice a week for the market and he doesn’t speak a word of English, but I think we have some kind of lost-in-translation connection.’

  ‘In all fairness, most men don’t understand English. Communicating with them is hard enough in the same language, so maybe non-verbal relationships are the way to go.’

  She laughs. ‘I hear you on that one, lovely. I also sometimes think pushing them out of a window might be the way to go.’

  ‘If you want to test the window theory, please come in and try it from the fifth floor…’

  It makes her laugh again and nod towards the château. ‘So what about him? Is he a workman or something?’

  ‘No, unfortunately. If he was, he’d be leaving soon.’ I sigh, unsure of how to explain sharing this place with Julian in a way that makes sense. ‘We’ve inherited half the château each. We’ve both turned up at the same time and there’s nothing either of us can do about it.’

  ‘Oooh, forced to share a house with him. I wouldn’t complain about having to look at that body! It’s a shame it’s such a big house really. You’ll probably never even see him.’

  ‘I live in hope.’ I go to tell her about my plan to drive him out, but I stop myself. It seems just as childish as everything else I’ve done since I’ve been here, and I get the feeling she’d tell me I’m being unreasonable, and I don’t want to have to admit that I am being a teensy bit unreasonable. Like, the teensiest, tiniest bit.

  ‘Well, I must be getting on, lovely, but I’ll come back tomorrow. If you could arrange for that gorgeous Scottish thing to be shirtless again, I’ll feed you for free.’

  ‘What if I could arrange for him to be upside down in the moat? Would that work?’

  ‘Aww, I’m sure he’s not that bad. Do you want anything else before I go?’ She pulls back the cover of her cart to reveal a selection of goodies I hadn’t even seen until now. ‘I’ve got croissants, pains aux raisins, cinnamon twists, brioche, and white crusty loaves that’ll still be fresh by lunchtime.’

  Everything’s set out on her cart in individual clear plastic boxes and, even with the lids shut, the smell is divine. The bakery at work never smells like this. It always smells of the chemical preservatives the company pumps into their dough to keep it looking fresher than it is.

  This is proper baking, proper fresh, proper food. The noise I let out sounds positively orgasmic. ‘Oh God, one of everything, please. Two of that iced twisty thing.’

  ‘And for your gorgeous housemate?’

  ‘Ha. He can feed his bloody self. After all that taunting last night, I wouldn’t get food for him if you paid me in fresh baguettes and gold bars.’

  She gives me a curious look, obviously having no idea what happened last night, and I blush. ‘I’ll just run in and get my purse.’

  When I get back, Kat’s still standing in the courtyard, looking around at the surrounding land, and I’m feeling sheepish.

  She’s bagged everything up into brown paper bags, and I tip my empty purse upside down as I walk towards her. ‘What do I owe you? Because I’m fairly sure it’s more than the three euros I’ve got left.’

  ‘Six euros.’

  I hand her my last three coins. ‘I used the last of my cash to pay the taxi driver yesterday. Can I cancel—’

  ‘You know what, don’t worry about it,’ she says with a smile.

  ‘No, I can’t do—’

  ‘Seriously. Coming here and seeing the, ahem, sights has really perked up my morning. It’s the least I can do for a fellow Brit.’

  ‘I can owe it to you. If you’re coming back tomorrow, I’ll have it by then.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ she says with a shrug.

  ‘Speaking of, where is this village you mentioned earlier? Is there a shop there? Because I need to get cash out and I really need to get some food in, and some teabags. I haven’t had a cup of tea in over twenty-four hours. I’m failing as a Brit.’

  She starts laughing. ‘If you think you’re going to get a cup of tea around here, you’re sorely mistaken.’

  ‘What?’ My stomach plunges in unease. ‘No PG Tips?’

  ‘Not a chance. The French don’t do tea. Not in the way you mean, anyway. In cafés, you might find teapots full of some pseudo tea liquid too weak to drown a gnat, but you won’t find proper tea here. You’ll be hard pushed to find a kettle in the shops.’

  ‘We’ve probably got a kettle,’ I say, glancing back at the château. I still haven’t had a chance to look around properly and haven’t found the kitchen yet. Even as I say it, realisation sets in that anything here has been unused for twenty-odd years. If there is a kettle, I can’t imagine it still working. ‘They must sell teabags somewhere.’

  ‘Yep. Back in Britain. Next time you come out, stock up and fetch them with you. The French are wine and coffee people.’

  ‘Great,’ I mutter. While wine and coffee have their place in the world, the day just got infinitely worse. This is why people have comfort zones. Never mind poisonous snakes and plants with homicidal tendencies – it’s because there’s never a shortage of PG Tips in London.

  ‘I’m going there now if you want to tag along.’

  ‘Hmm?’

  ‘To the village,’ Kat says. ‘It’s about a forty-minute walk, but I’ve got to make some stops on the way, obviously. You’re welcome to come with me, if you want. It’s best to get there early. It gets busy at lunchtime.’

  ‘Oh yeah, that would be great,’ I say, even though it makes me nervous too. I’m not good at new places, and I’d be guaranteed to get lost trying to find this village on my own, but I’m equally not good at new people, and I envision forty minutes of awkward silence as Kat and I run out of things to say to each other before we’ve got to the end of the driveway.

  I gather up my baked goods, leaving a croissant to eat on the way, and run back inside. I dump them on a table near the door, make sure to slip my key into my pocket, just in case Julian gets any ideas about locking me out, and run back out to the courtyard.

  ‘It’s so beautiful here,’ Kat says as we walk along the little lane outside the château grounds. There are no pavements and it’s barely wide enough for a car. If one comes by, we could be in trouble. ‘You’re so lucky to own such an amazing house.’

  I haven’t felt very lucky so far. I still miss Eulalie like I’m walking around with a hole in my stomach, and no château can change that. In fact, everything about the château makes the need to talk to her claw even deeper. I want to tell her that I’m here, that I’m seeing the things she saw, that all her stuff is still here, and I’ll look after it somehow.

  And then there’s Julian. I want to tell Eulalie that she had a nephew and he’s here too. I want to ask her if she’d want him here or if I should protect her beloved château from him somehow, even though annoying him to the point of making him leave seems like an even more stupid plan the further I get from the house. We’re adults. What am I going to do to him? Clingfilm the toilet seat?

  Kat’s first stop is a farmhouse twenty minutes down the road from us.

  ‘This is Wendy,’ she says to the old man who comes out to greet us. ‘She’s moved into Le Château de Châtaignier.’

  The man suddenly looks excited. ‘Oh, avec Julian!’ he shouts, before spouting off a mouthful of French. The only word I can understand is Julian’s name. He makes the motion of turning a key in a lock.

  ‘I only understand basic French,’ Kat says to me. ‘Something about someone locking someone out?’ She shrugs like she hasn’t got a clue what he’s going on about.

  Oh great. This must be Julian’s new friend, the one who gave him the key.

  ‘Un homme bon,’ he cries, shaking his fist at me. ‘Charmant!’

>   I look at Kat helplessly.

  ‘A good man,’ she translates. ‘Charming.’

  I roll my eyes. ‘Said by someone who must’ve spent all of twenty seconds with him. Any longer than that and I’m sure his opinion will change.’

  The man starts babbling in French, looking annoyed with me.

  ‘He’s saying he loved your great-aunt,’ Kat says. ‘Something about her being proud of Julian having the chestnuts.’

  ‘She wasn’t my great-aunt, she’s was Julian’s, which just proves that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And I don’t know about chestnuts but there’s definitely something nuts about Julian.’

  ‘What’s he done to you?’ Kat says as we walk away. ‘Old Mr Adelais seemed very fond of him.’

  ‘Old Mr Adelais doesn’t have to live with him,’ I mutter. ‘It’s complicated. The château was supposed to be mine, but he’s muscled in with this bloody loophole and he thinks he owns the place. Which he kind of half does.’

  ‘I don’t know why you’re letting it bother you. Surely there’s enough space in that huge house for both of you? Personally, I’d be very happy to share a house with him for nothing but the view alone.’

  Maybe she’s right. Forty rooms and fifteen acres. You could easily lose someone in all that space. I won’t even know he’s there. It’ll be fine. Even if I don’t manage to drive him out, he’s not going to spoil my time here. The place is so big you could have a family of sixteen in it and still need smoke signals to find each other.

  The walk is slow because we constantly stop off at Kat’s morning regulars, always being met at the gate by eager villagers, waving money at Kat in exchange for the goodies on her cart. I watch her have stilted conversations with people in French, which mainly involve miming and some species of sign language. She introduces me each time, but I haven’t the foggiest idea what’s being said to me, so I just nod and smile, and say ‘oui’ a lot, even though I have no idea what they’re asking me, and Kat loses the conversations when they start speaking too fast. I could have told everyone that I enjoy grating cheese and wearing an alien cow on my head for all I know.