by Julia Stuart
When she asked where he was from, the baker replied: ‘Amour-sur-Belle,’ and pointed out that its ugliness worked to its advantage in that no English lived there. And he added that while, despite its name, there wasn’t much love there either, the village matchmaker was doing his best. But when Vivienne Chaume asked whether Guillaume Ladoucette had had any successes yet, Stéphane Jollis had to admit that he hadn’t.
After finding a spot on the grass in the shade of a large magnolia tree, they sat down to watch the contestants ride round in a circle in homemade chariots pulled by their pet donkeys, while the commentator admired the beauty of the beasts’ legs, the sturdiness of their necks and the angle at which their colossal ears hung.
The cashier and baker chatted while they waited for the obstacle course to be set up, and clapped with glee with the rest of the crowd when the commentator announced that the competition was about to begin. They watched as the first contestant, wearing a black felt hat and waistcoat, walked his donkey, without its chariot, in and out of a line of barrels. But when man and beast approached a green plastic sheet stretched across the grass, instead of walking over it, the animal dug in its front legs and refused to budge. And no amount of tugging on its reins would shift it, because by now it had lowered its shaggy bottom to increase its resistance. After having to walk round the sheet, the pair then proceeded between the planks of wood without any trouble. Nor did the animal make a fuss when it was walked to the centre of the ring for each of its feet to be lifted. It was when they reached the low wooden seesaw that it revealed the true depth of its delinquency. After refusing to walk over it, the donkey marked its objection further by raising its tail and releasing a volley of undigested hay that tumbled down to the grass in unsightly chunks.
When the commentator announced the beginning of the final round, during which the contestants had to drive their homemade chariots around the obstacle course, Stéphane Jollis and Vivienne Chaume, who were thoroughly enjoying themselves, shuffled forward on the grass to make sure of an uninterrupted view. They watched in admiration as a woman in a floor-length skirt made her way round with only minor glitches, and then nudged each other when it was the turn of the man with the black felt hat and waistcoat. They clapped as he wound in and out of the barrels, despite his being docked a point for missing one out. They clapped as he drove his pet over the green plastic sheet of which it now showed not the slightest hint of fear. They clapped as the man tried to perform a particularly difficult turn during which he was rebuked by the commentator for looking at a woman in the audience instead of his beast. And they cheered when instead of reversing for five paces before crossing the finishing line the donkey bolted over it as if in a corrida, much to the terror of its white-eyed owner rattling in the homemade chariot behind.
While the prizes were being given out, Stéphane Jollis suggested to Vivienne Chaume that they went to look around the cheese and wine fair that was also taking place in the park. When they approached the first stand, the young viticulturist from Domaine Rivaton, whose vines grew all the way down in Languedoc-Roussillon, offered them a dégustation, which Stéphane Jollis readily accepted. The baker was so thrilled by the man’s Rosée des Prés that he bought four bottles. They then visited the stand of the woman from Berry who was selling pieces of casse-museau, a non-sweetened cake made with goat fromage frais according to an ancient recipe, which was eaten either as an hors d’oeuvre or with salad. Stéphane Jollis was so intrigued he immediately bought a whole one for each of them to take home. While passing the stand of Château Haut Jean Redon, the young viticulturist from Bordeaux also offered them a dégustation, which Stéphane Jollis thought a splendid idea. The baker was so struck by the quality of his 2003 vintage, which had just won a bronze medal in the International Wine Challenge, that he bought four bottles. They then crossed to the stand of the cheesemaker from Broc, where the baker so admired the dégustation of Monsieur Baechler’s Fleuron, which had been maturing in his cellars for twelve months, that he bought an entire round of it. And when they reached Michel Fallet’s champagne stall, the baker could see no reason why not to buy a bottle and drink it right there and then with the delectable Vivienne Chaume, who not only appreciated a good-looking donkey when she saw one, but was splendid company.
As he handed his match a glass, the baker was in such a state of delight that he invited her to come to the bakery one day the following week for a dégustation of his little cakes. Vivienne Chaume then horrified Stéphane Jollis by thanking him, but refusing all the same on the grounds that she was on a diet. The baker, who could see no possible future with a woman who would wilfully deny herself the exquisite pleasure of choux pastry filled with crème pâtissière by his award-winning fingers, felt instantly that it was time to go home.
Guillaume Ladoucette sat at the desk with the ink stain, his bare feet hunting for cool patches on the floor as he dreaded the door opening. Whilst he knew he would be in serious trouble with the baker, his was the only arrival he didn’t fear as he was one of the few people who couldn’t have received his love letter intended for Émilie Fraisse. Having omitted to write her name at the top of it in case it stalled his outpourings, there was no doubt that its recipient would naturally assume that they were the subject of his amorous declaration. As a result, he had risen early in an attempt to avoid bumping into anyone at the municipal shower, but had been caught out by Gilbert Dubuisson who landed a series of vexed knocks on the door when the matchmaker didn’t dare come out, having heard someone waiting outside. Debating whether to make a run for it, Guillaume Ladoucette slowly opened the door. But the postman immediately blocked his path and asked whether there was anything the matchmaker could do to make Émilie Fraisse change her mind and see him again. Guillaume Ladoucette assured him that as far as he knew he had acted like a perfect gentleman throughout, but that she had made up her mind. He then added that there were several women on his books who would find his company nothing short of a delight, and that he should come by when he had a moment and he would sort something out. After the postman had thanked him, Guillaume Ladoucette set off home, hoping he wouldn’t take it as an open invitation to install himself on the bench for the afternoon and bore him to frustration with unfounded gossip while spraying the room with Petit Beurre Lu biscuit crumbs.
The matchmaker had just retreated to the back of the shop, where he hoped he would be less conspicuous, when the door opened. It was Lisette Robert.
‘Are you all right?’ she immediately asked, sitting down on the cushion with the hand-embroidered radish.
‘Fine, thanks. Why?’ he replied, approaching the desk and trying not to show the least flicker of emotion, let alone twenty-six years of unremitting love.
‘You’re looking at me in a funny way.’
‘Funny how?’
‘Just funny.’
‘You didn’t happen to see Émilie Fraisse yesterday, by any chance?’ he asked.
‘Yes, I did, actually.’
‘At the château?’
‘Yes, why?’
‘Just wondered. She didn’t give you any little cakes, did she?’
‘Well, yes, that’s what I went up there for. Apparently you sold her the lot and she called me to see if I wanted any. I got a boxful.’
Guillaume Ladoucette paused, stalled by panic. ‘There didn’t happen to be any mille-feuilles in there, did there?’ he asked.
‘Two custard tartlets and two choux Chantilly. Why?’
‘Just wondered! Now, Lisette, glass of red?’
After offering her a walnut, which was refused as she had her own to get through, Guillaume Ladoucette had the unfortunate task of breaking the news to Lisette Robert that, as incomprehensible as it may seem, the man from the council wasn’t interested. The matchmaker told her about their long talk at the washing place and that while he hadn’t revealed who she was, he had gone to great lengths detailing her considerable charms. He had even tried a couple more times since, he added, but Jean-François Lafforest
was having none of it.
Lisette Robert listened carefully, blinked several times and then asked dolefully: ‘Is there nothing more you can do?’
‘I’m afraid not, Lisette. There are only so many times I can ask. The man is resolute. I’ve never seen anything like it.’
The midwife looked at the floor, and the matchmaker looked at the pen next to the blank piece of paper in front of him. After a moment deep in thought, he raised his eyes and said: ‘While there is nothing more I can do in my professional capacity, let me ask you this, Lisette: What would any right-minded person do if they went to the woods to pick mushrooms and came across one of those signs which say The Picking of Mushrooms is Forbidden?’
‘Carry on regardless,’ she replied without hesitation.
‘Exactly!’ he said.
Guillaume Ladoucette was correct in his suspicion that Lisette Robert was responsible for the sudden lack of hot water in the municipal shower. When word got around that the pipe had been sabotaged, everyone assumed it was the work of the Clandestine Committee against the Municipal Shower, apart from the matchmaker who knew full well that such ingenuity was beyond them as they couldn’t even remember their own code names.
Lisette Robert had fallen quite unexpectedly for the man from the council. She had noticed something about him the first time he came into the Bar Saint-Jus with his soft leather briefcase, which he had clutched to his stomach, wearing his unfortunate trousers that didn’t quite fit. There was a gentleness in his being that attracted her, as well as the weight of a past pain that he carried. When, to her delight, he returned to oversee the installation of the municipal shower, she would sit at the window of the bar, glancing at him over a copy of the Sud Ouest, the content of which she was too disturbed to take in. At night, as the perpetual breeze rode up and down her curves that were more graceful than those of the Belle, she would lie awake, her mind stirred to its sediments with thoughts of him. One dawn, unable to bear the agitation any longer, she got up to compose him a melody. Instead of the villagers being roused from their dreams by the poisonous sound of her elephantine attempts at piano playing, the most angelic strains rose from the keys and fluttered around Amour-sur-Belle.
Such was her devastation that Jean-François Lafforest no longer had any reason to come to the village once the shower was completed, she slipped out one night with her spanner to provide him with one. When, the following day, she was summoned to the cubicle by the villagers to explain to him how she had discovered that there was no longer any hot water, she was delighted to have the opportunity to stand as close to him as possible. After he had declared the ornithological findings irrelevant, and handed her back the seven grey feathers, she put the one he had held the longest inside her bedside drawer and at night would brush it back and forth against her lips as her mind spun with thoughts of him.
After the midwife left Heart’s Desire to start running her first of five baths that day, Guillaume Ladoucette looked at his watch, hoping it was lunchtime so that he could go home and hide for a few hours. But it was only twenty to eleven.
Reaching into the top left-hand drawer, he took out his slim file of customers and started to read through it hoping to be struck by an inspiring match, but his mind kept parading him ghastly images of his amorous declaration in the most inappropriate of hands.
Just as he was checking his watch again, only to be disappointed a second time, the door opened. It was Stéphane Jollis, looking more floury than usual.
‘I can explain everything!’ said the matchmaker as soon as he saw him.
‘I was hoping you could,’ replied the baker, heading for the chair with the peeling marquetry and sitting down.
‘Émilie Fraisse came in and we got talking about the old days and before I knew it I’d sold her the lot. I got carried away. It must have been the salesman in me.’
‘But you didn’t exactly sell them to her, did you, Guillaume?’ replied Stéphane Jollis. ‘I’ve counted up the money you left by the till, which for some reason you didn’t open, and it certainly doesn’t account for the two hundred and forty-six little cakes I left in your custody. Not only were there none left for my customers yesterday, there aren’t any for them today. And on top of that people have been coming in waving IOUs at me all morning, a significant number of which I suspect are forgeries.’
‘Forgive me, Stéphane. I’ll make it up to you, I promise,’ insisted Guillaume Ladoucette. ‘And, of course, I’ll pay for all the little cakes.’
‘Not only were there no rum babas left for Madame Serre, so she had to go and hunt one down at the château,’ the baker continued, ‘but apparently you were unable to correctly add up a croissant and a six-cereal loaf.’
‘I’ll waive the fee for the Unrivalled Silver Service as well. How’s about that?’
‘It’s a start,’ replied the baker.
‘Anyway,’ said the matchmaker, desperate to change the subject. ‘On to more exciting things–how did it go with the charming Vivienne Chaume?’
‘She’s on a diet.’
‘A what?’
‘A diet.’
‘How extraordinary!’ replied the horrified matchmaker. ‘No, no, that will never do. You want someone who will revel in your talent, not recoil in terror each time you whip out your piping bag. And what would happen if you got married and she decided to go on another diet and people got wind that Madame la Boulangère was refusing your little cakes? It hardly bears thinking about. Do accept my apologies, Stéphane, I had no idea. It just goes to show that you shouldn’t judge people by their appearance. She seemed perfectly sane when she walked in here. I’ll mark it on her file. The mobile butcher won’t be interested either. Now let’s see who else we can find for you…’
But Stéphane Jollis said he had to return to work and that he would leave it for a few weeks until things had calmed down. When the door closed, the matchmaker watched his friend walk past the window in his blue-and-white checked shorts, opal varicose veins which came with the job crawling down his ample calves, which finished in a pair of ridiculously small feet. Guillaume Ladoucette looked at his watch. It was a perfectly reasonable time to close, he concluded. It was only half an hour before midday and matters of the heart shouldn’t be discussed on an empty stomach, so it would be in everyone’s interest if he left now. He packed up his things as quickly as he could and congratulated himself on having shut the door behind him before anyone could sit down on the cushion with the hand-embroidered radish and thank him for such a wondrous declaration of devotion.
The matchmaker set out for home the long way round in the hope of avoiding bumping into anyone. But as he passed the old communal bread oven Fabrice Ribou came round the corner. ‘Hello, Guillaume!’ he said.
‘Hello,’ muttered the matchmaker, not looking him in the eye.
‘I must say, you’re a man of passion, aren’t you?’
‘I am?’ asked Guillaume Ladoucette, horrified.
‘And so romantic. I would never have guessed.’
‘It was a mistake.’
‘Surely not.’
‘Yes, it was. Honestly it was,’ insisted the matchmaker.
‘Anyway, I’m not of that persuasion, if you get my drift.’
‘Nor am I!’
‘But if ever my marriage comes to an end, I’ll be straight round.’
‘No, don’t!’
‘Everyone’s been talking about all these little romantic encounters you’ve been organizing. And we all saw Lisette Robert and Marcel Coussy having a drink together. Lucky sod. I feel a bit left out, to be honest with you, but I’ve already got a wife so I can’t join in. Or can I?’
Guillaume blinked several times.
‘Of course you can!’ he said smiling with relief.
‘Fantastic!’ replied the bar owner, his pine-cone haircut quivering at the very thought. ‘When can I start?’
‘Actually, you can’t,’ said the matchmaker, his mind clearing of panic.
‘No?�
�
‘Sorry. It’s just for single people, I’m afraid.’
‘Shame. Never mind. The job must be keeping you busy. I haven’t seen you in the bar for ages.’
‘I’ve been feeling a bit under the weather.’
‘You should come by. How else am I going to become rich?’
Guillaume Ladoucette locked his front door behind him to prevent the sudden arrival of unexpected guests. In an effort to remind himself that life still had its pleasures, he descended the creaking wooden steps of the cellar, clattered around for a while in his grandfather’s Sunday clogs that nipped and emerged triumphantly with a jar of potted goose. But just as he took his first mouthful at the kitchen table, it suddenly occurred to him that Madame Serre hadn’t been sitting outside her front door like a sentinel on his return. He instantly imagined Émilie Fraisse telling her that there were no rum babas left and her having to leave with a box of mille-feuilles instead. Unable to make out his letter because of her poor eyesight, he then saw her taking it to the grocer, who read it out to her in the presence of a particularly long queue of customers. And the reason why Madame Serre was no longer at her post outside her front door was because she was hiding from him in horror at his amorous outpourings.
Hoping to take his mind off his troubles, he went into the garden to make a start on the first of his walnut wines, which he would make according to the leaf method as tradition dictated that the green nuts shouldn’t be used until after 14 July. But as he climbed his ladder, he thought what a fool he had been to have given Émilie Fraisse all the little cakes. As he put the leaves to steep in four parts of wine to one of brandy, and added the sugar and orange peel, he thought how ridiculous he had been ever to think he could win her back. And as he poured the mixture into bottles and carried them down to the cellar to stand for a year, he wondered, as he often did, what she was doing.
Émilie Fraisse was in the vaulted kitchen shunting around the contents of her fridge looking for a little something to quell her appetite. Pushing to one side a beautiful piece of liver purchased from the mobile butcher, she came across the last of the boxes from the bakery. The châtelaine still couldn’t understand how she had managed to come away with quite so many, particularly when all she had asked for was a solitary mille-feuille. She hadn’t been home long before she realized she couldn’t possibly get through all of their contents on her own and started calling people in the hope of offloading them. Not, of course, that she had minded the embarrassment of pâtisserie because each time Guillaume Ladoucette had stopped to open up another box, discovered that he had the wrong size, found the correct one, filled it up and tied the string, she had gained a few more minutes in his company.
