by Peter Mayle
“Good for him.” Max poured the wine, releasing its delicate, slightly toasty bouquet. Charlie inhaled deeply, with closed eyes, then held the glass up to his ear. “It’s the only wine in the world you can hear,” he said. “The music of the grape. Cheers.”
They sipped for a moment in silence, the rush of bubbles prickling their tongues. “Seriously,” said Charlie, “you think the shirt’s OK? Nonchalant but not too loud-that’s what we’re after. Casual elegance, Cary Grant on his day off, that sort of thing.”
Max nodded toward the front door. “Here’s your date. Ask her.”
Christie was wearing the same black dress-pressed to perfection by Madame Passepartout-that she had worn to the Roussel dinner, and the same exhilarating scarlet high heels, this time with matching scarlet toenails peeping through the cutout at the front of each shoe. Charlie let out a long, appreciative whistle.
Christie bobbed her head in acknowledgment. “Like the shirt, Charlie,” she said. “Very cool.”
Max handed her a glass of champagne. “A toast,” he said. “Here’s to the man who made this possible: Uncle Henry, God bless him.” Their glasses raised, the three of them looked at one other-smiling, each with private and delightful expectations of the evening to come.
The level in the bottle and the setting sun dropped at an approximately equal pace, and it was dusk-a soft and rosy dusk-by the time the three of them reached the village. The square was crowded, a cheerful hum of greeting and conversation mingling with the music coming from the loudspeakers. Extra tables had been set out on the café terrace, and the accordion band, four impressively mustached gentlemen in their best black trousers, embroidered waistcoats, and white shirts, were drinking a pre-performance pastis. Children chased each other around, and sometimes through, the forest of adult legs. Dogs loitered, more in hope than expectation, beside the long open barbecue where a méchoui of spit-roasted lamb and merguez sausages the color of dried blood were sizzling above the coals, watched over by the chef from Chez Fanny.
Max made his way through the crowd to the makeshift bar where Fanny herself, protected from collarbone to knee by a demure apron, was pouring glasses of the vin d’honneur with a liberal hand. “This is a bit of a change for you,” he said, pointing to the apron.
Without speaking, Fanny performed a slow turn and looked at him over one shoulder, her eyebrows raised. Beneath the apron was an almost backless wisp of lavender-colored silk, with little more than a suggestion of a skirt below. “Better?” she said.
Max swallowed hard and ordered three glasses of wine. “I hope you’re not going to be stuck behind the bar all evening,” he said. “A girl’s got to eat. Can I save you a place?”
“Eh, Fanny! The drinks are flowing like glue.” Guichard the postman and his wife, both heavily scented, had pushed up to the bar and were panting for refreshment. “Bonsoir, Monsieur Skinner. Are we going to see an Englishman dance tonight?”
Max picked up the glasses and went off, encouraged by a parting wink from Fanny, to find Christie and Charlie, who had been watching him from a table in front of the café.
“What’s so funny?” Max said, looking from one smirking face to the other.
“Nothing,” said Charlie. “Nothing at all.”
“They’ve been circling each other for days,” said Christie. “You should watch out, Max. I think she’s decided to go for it tonight.”
“You two,” said Max, shaking his head. “Vulgar speculation. I was merely being polite to a charming young lady who, I might say…”
“… is wearing a dress the size of a handkerchief,” Charlie added. “I think Christie’s right.”
They sipped their wine-which Charlie pronounced to be young and playful, but essentially good-hearted-while they watched the parade passing in front of them. The evening had attracted people from surrounding villages as well as some other, more distant foreigners: Germans the color of polished mahogany, their speech sounding harsh and guttural against the background of softer, more mellifluous French; the American cyclists they had seen in the market, now dressed like wealthy teenagers in that particular kind of cotton that never seems to wrinkle, with silver-tipped belts, pristine pneumatic sneakers, and, of course, baseball caps with sporting or military motifs; a group of Gypsies, lean and swarthy and all in black, slithering through the crowd like sharks among a shoal of tropical fish; a sprinkling of Parisians, pastel cashmere sweaters draped over their shoulders to ward off the eighty-degree evening chill. But, as Christie remarked, there didn’t seem to be any English.
“Ah,” said Max, with the knowledgeable air of an old local inhabitant of ten days’ standing, “they’re mostly on the other side of the Luberon-Gordes, Ménerbes, Bonnieux, the golden triangle. I’m told it’s a lot more social over there than it is here, soirées every soir. Right up your street actually, Charlie. Apparently they love talking about property prices.”
A few tables away, the accordion band, fortified by a final pastis, had gathered up their instruments and were now filing onto the stage. The rap singer being broadcast over the loudspeakers was cut off in mid-expletive, and the space in front of the stage began to clear. Over behind the bar, Fanny had removed her apron and was slipping it over the head of the relief bartender, an ancient, diminutive man who stood motionless, hypnotized by the proximity of the décolleté being presented to him at nose level.
Charlie gave Max a nudge. “Better get in quick before young Lochinvar over there asks her to dance,” he said as he and Christie stood up. “We’ll go and find a table.”
But getting Fanny to the table was a slow, convivial process, marked by frequent stops while she embraced friends and clients of the restaurant, watched by wary and sometimes not wholly approving wifely eyes. Fanny in the restaurant, taken up with all her duties, was somehow safe-charming and highly decorative, but safe. Fanny freed from her professional responsibilities, in a dress that could make even the best behaved husband think of a weekend in Paris, was not a sight any wife would welcome, especially during an evening of wine, music, and dancing. Max felt he had done well to cover the distance between bar and table-no more than fifty yards-in ten minutes.
Christie and Charlie had secured four places and a liter jug of wine at one end of a long table facing the stage. Charlie was at his most gallant when introduced to Fanny, springing to his feet, bowing over her hand, and murmuring enchanto, enchanto, with even more than usual enthusiasm. But this was unfortunately lost beneath the riffs and flourishes of the accordion band tuning up, and it wasn’t until she asked how long he was staying in Saint-Pons that his language problem became evident.
Fanny turned to Max. “He has no French, your friend?”
“About four words. I’m the official interpreter for this evening.”
And interpret he did, passing on Fanny’s comments about the villagers taking their places at nearby tables, a kind of informal who’s who of Saint-Pons. “Over there is Borel, the mayor since twenty years, a sweet man, a widower. He has ambitions toward the widow Gonnet-there she is at the next table-who works at the Bureau de Poste, but he is très timide, a man of great shyness. Perhaps the music will encourage him. Now, at the far end of our table is Arlette from the épicerie, and her husband. As you can see, she is very large, and he is very small. It is said that she beats him.” Fanny giggled, and paused to sip her wine. Max inhaled her scent, and controlled an impulse to brush back her hair and kiss the nape of her neck.
“Those two don’t look like locals,” he said, nodding toward an expensively dressed couple who were standing off to one side, heads tilted back, looking down their noses at the crowd.
Fanny sniffed. “The Villeneuve-Loubets, very prétentieux. They have a house in the 16th in Paris and an estate not far from Aix. She says she is descended in a direct line from Louis XIV, which I can believe. She looks exactly like him.” Another giggle. “They’re friends of Nathalie Auzet. They deserve each other.”
“I take it you’re not too fon
d of Nathalie.”
Fanny looked at Max and tilted a bare brown shoulder toward him in a half shrug. “Let’s just say we have different interests.”
Max was wondering if Nathalie would put in an appearance when a heavy hand clapped him on the shoulder. He turned to see Roussel in his Yves Montand outfit, and Ludivine, resplendent in deep purple. Fanny clearly liked both of them, and when they moved on to find their places, she said to Max, “There is a good man. He was very kind to me when I was starting the restaurant, and he did his best to take care of your uncle… oh merde. Here comes the octopus.”
Max looked up to see a thickset man in early middle age bearing down on the table, the beginnings of a leer on his florid face. “That’s Gaston-he supplies meat to the restaurant,” said Fanny. “A beast, but his meat is always good. I’m going to have to dance with him.”
“Bonsoir ma jolie!” The man stopped in front of the table, ignoring Max, twirling one finger in a circle and swaying his ample hips. “They’re playing a paso doble just for us.”
With a transparently false smile and an apologetic squeeze of Max’s shoulder, Fanny allowed herself to be led onto the floor, with some quite unnecessary assistance from Gaston’s hand in the small of her bare back.
Christie noticed Max’s disconsolate face. “If that’s the competition,” she said, patting his arm, “I don’t think you have much to worry about. Listen, is it OK if we leave you? Charlie says he’s the Nureyev of the paso doble.”
Max was doing his best not to watch Gaston’s wandering hands when he heard a familiar screech, and Madame Passepartout, spectacular in a dress of lemon yellow with peppermint-green feather earrings, appeared at his side. “You cannot sit alone, Monsieur Max. You must dance. We must dance.” Max glanced around in desperation, but there was no escape. And so, feeling some of the reluctance that Fanny must have felt, he took to the floor with his bird of paradise.
Reluctance was soon forgotten. She danced wonderfully well, light and precise in her steps, adapting herself to his mistakes, leading when he lost his way, whirling him around when whirling was called for, and generally making him feel like a much better dancer than he actually was. After the first few minutes, he was sufficiently as one with Madame Passepartout to relax and take some interest in the other dancers on the floor. And here, a wide and not always orthodox selection of styles could be seen.
The youngest dancer of all, a little girl of perhaps seven with coal-black ringlets, was learning the steps the old-fashioned way, by standing on the feet of her grandfather and clutching him round one thigh to avoid falling off in mid-paso. As the old man shuffled, he kept one hand on her shoulder while the other held a glass of wine. Beyond him, Max could see Fanny, her body arched backward in an effort to keep Gaston at bay. When she saw Max, she rolled her eyes to heaven, and gritted her teeth. Gaston took this as a smile of pleasure; his leer broadened.
The Roussels, in complete contrast, were showing the village how the paso doble should be danced: bodies close, backs straight, shoulders square, little fingers cocked. At each change of direction, both heads would snap around at precisely the same instant, as though they were being jerked by an invisible cord, and Ludivine would mark the turn with a backward flick of her heel. Max pointed them out to Madame Passepartout, no mean flicker of a heel herself, and she nodded. “In their youth they won medals,” she said. “Pay attention to your feet, Monsieur Max-on the balls, on the balls.”
On the balls he continued, guided by gentle pressures from his partner, who was now steering him around the perimeter of the floor. And it was at the far edge, where the shadows were at their thickest, that he caught sight of Christie and Charlie: entwined, almost motionless, lost to the world. Madame Passepartout gave a small “aah” of satisfaction, and swept Max back into the light, a feathered earring brushing his chin as she turned.
He delivered Madame Passepartout to the friends at her table, thanking her for the lesson, and saw that Fanny had escaped to the barbecue and was filling two plates. He came up behind her, and felt her flinch as he touched her arm. When she saw it was Max, she smiled. “Sorry,” she said. “I thought he was coming back for more. What an emmerdeur. The only way I could get rid of him was to tell him I had to feed you.” She passed him a plate, the slices of lamb black and pink, the crust on the potato gratin golden brown. “Although,” she said with an exaggerated pout, “you seemed to be having a good time with Mimi. Do you dance like that with all the girls?”
“Is that her name, Mimi? I didn’t know.” It was, he thought, the perfect name for someone who danced like she did.
Getting back to their table, they found that Christie and Charlie were still off in the shadows; at last, Max felt he had Fanny to himself. “You know,” he said, “this is the first time since we’ve met that we’ve been alone-well, if you don’t count the other hundred and fifty people.”
Fanny looked into his face, her dark eyes open wide. “What other people?”
Max touched her cheek gently with the back of his hand, all thoughts of food forgotten. “Do you know something, I think…”
“There is nothing, absolutely nothing, like a brisk paso doble to give you an appetite.” Charlie had returned, looking rumpled, slightly dazed, and extremely happy. “You should give it a try.” He took his head out of the clouds for long enough to notice Max’s expression. “Oh. Damn. Sorry-I’m interrupting. Bugger.” He stood there, awkward and rueful, his whole body writhing in apology.
Fanny laughed, and Max felt her thigh press gently against his under the table. “What does he say?”
“I think he’s worried our dinner’s getting cold.” Max looked at the almost comical concern on his friend’s face. “Come on, Charlie, sit down. What have you done with Christie?”
The happiness returned to Charlie’s face. “She’s getting us some food. Lovely girl. What a great evening.” He beamed at Fanny. “ Bello fiesta-ah, here she comes now.”
Christie put the plates on the table and sat down, shaking her head. “That lawyer woman is here, in case you’re interested. I thought she was going to ask me to dance.” Charlie looked puzzled. “Max, you tell him.”
While they ate, Max explained-in both languages, for Fanny’s benefit-and they looked around to see where Nathalie Auzet was sitting. Fanny saw her first, at a table with the Villeneuve-Loubets and a slim, fashionably dressed middle-aged man whom she described with a sniff as Nathalie’s accessoire. In fact, Max was pleased to see her. It was unlikely that she would have come if Roussel had said anything to her about the wine. But the wine could wait until tomorrow.
The accordion band had finished their first set-and a rousing set it was-and were back at the café laying into the pastis while the disc jockey tweaked the sound system. A moment of static, and then the tempo changed abruptly. All at once, the square was filled with the sound of Diana Krall’s slow, smoky, infinitely seductive voice. The language was English, the message universal, more like a murmured mating call than a song:
There may be trouble ahead,
But while there’s moonlight and music
And love and romance,
Let’s face the music and dance.
Max stood up and took Fanny gently by the wrist, feeling the throb of her pulse against his fingertips.
Christie grinned up at them, and winked. “Dance like there’s nobody watching.”
And this they did, under the mostly approving eyes-Gaston being an exception-of le tout village.
Eighteen
The arrival of Madame Passepartout at the house the following morning was unusually late and unusually muted; even stealthy. One dance too many, one glass too many the night before had led to an overall feeling of fragility, and this led in turn to a more tentative approach to the chores of the day. Shutters were eased open rather than flung wide, and the vacuum cleaner, that splitter of tender heads, was left for the time being in the scullery closet.
The house was still, and apart from an occasional di
stant groan from the plumbing, silent. Had it been audible, a louder sound by far would have been the furious working of Madame Passepartout’s curiosity. She and her friends, like the rest of the village, had observed with close attention the dancing of Christie and Charlie, of Fanny and Max. Certain conclusions had been reached. Madame Passepartout, in view of the privileged position that gave her access to every corner of the house, had been delegated by her friends to confirm those conclusions-purely out of benevolent interest, naturally.
She stood in the center of the kitchen, thoughtful but irresolute, seeking inspiration. What reason-what plausible reason-could she find for opening bedroom doors and counting heads? She glanced at the kitchen clock and saw that it was nearly ten-thirty. And then the perfect course of action occurred to her, prompted by the memory of an article she had once read in Télérama magazine. It was an interview with a well-known English film actor, described as un vrai Cockney. According to him, every Englishman’s favorite way to start the day was early-morning tea in bed-proper tea, so strong you could stand a spoon up in it.
Madame Passepartout filled the kettle and prepared a tray: teapot, cups and saucers, bowl of sugar, small jug of milk (a bizarre addition, but apparently loved by the English). She found a packet of Earl Grey teabags that probably dated from the days of Uncle Henry, and brewed tea in what she hoped was the English fashion, leaving two bags to steep until the liquid in the pot attained the color of creosote.
Climbing the stairs, she hesitated for a moment on the landing before turning left, toward the bedroom that had been prepared for Charlie. She knocked on the door, her head cocked. There was no sound, no response of any kind. She knocked again, then pushed the door open.
She saw the usual bachelor’s muddle of discarded clothes tossed onto an armchair in the corner. But of Charlie himself, not a sign. The bed had not been slept in, the cognac left untouched. The queen smiled her royal smile from the framed photograph, and Madame Passepartout found herself smiling back. The young couple were doubtless elsewhere. It is as I thought, she said to herself.
