Up To No Good

by Victoria Corby

  ‘Oh gosh, I see what you mean.’ I contemplated the dire prospect of having to play hostess to the caged lion Robert would become if his departure for England was delayed yet again. I was unworthily relieved that it was Janey and not me who would have to live with it. ‘Couldn’t he fly, or go by train - and come back for his car later?’

  ‘I suppose so, except he’s got some canvases he picked up from an artist in Toulouse last week which he needs to take back with him. I doubt he’d want to risk them in the hold.’

  ‘Couldn’t you pack him off to Cannes with Venetia until he’s fit to travel? At least you wouldn’t have to suffer his bad moods that way. Oh, hang on a moment,’ I said. ‘Get Venetia to drive him back on Tuesday. If her conscience is really that troubled, I’m sure you can get her to agree.’

  There was a long silence, then Janey turned to me with a wide smile, ‘What a brilliant idea!’ She looked as if all her Sundays had come at once. ‘Of course it wouldn’t be worth Venetia coming back to us before she went off to stay with her friends in Cannes,’ she went on thought­fully, her smile widening further. ‘You’re a genius, Nella.’

  ‘Always glad to be of service,’ I said modestly as we reached the outskirts of the little market town that dated back to the Middle Ages and was still encircled by high defensive ramparts. There was a large square tower in the middle of one wall where, Janey announced with gory relish, the seigneur of the town used to amuse himself by throwing malcontents off the top in 1376 or some time like that.

  We went underneath a massive archway to a narrow road of tall houses, several of them with half-timbered walls out of kilter, shutters thrown open to allow a tantalising glimpse of shadowy interiors. I walked along, my head swivelling this way and that, feeling as if I’d walked into a time warp. It seemed as if the most modem additions to the buildings in the last five hundred years had been glass in the windows and the occasional lick of paint. Then I glanced in through an open doorway and saw a large woman putting something into a microwave. So progress had reached this far, after all.

  Halfway up the street we had to slow down and start threading our way past the clothes, shoe and fabric stalls on both sides of the road, making frequent detours around groups of people greeting each other, kissing, slapping backs and gossiping. Obviously shopping was a secondary motive for coming to the market, the principal one was social. We stopped at a stall which seemed to have about a thousand different hats laid out in neat piles, from panamas to flat caps to baby’s bonnets with animal ears, so Janey could replace the sunhats which the twins had buried somewhere in the garden. It seemed only reasonable to while away my time by trying on a few hats myself while she was making her selection. I walked away with a fetching little number in straw with the most deliciously upturned brim on one side, telling myself that it wasn’t really an extravagance. As Venetia had told me so pointedly, I needed to protect my skin from the sun.

  The arcaded main square was devoted mainly to food stalls and was even more crowded than the side streets. We must have spent at least an hour wandering around in the cool shade under the medieval arcades, drooling over incredibly delicious-looking fruit and vegetables which, it seemed, had been arranged to please the eye as much as tantalise the taste buds. Gleaming tomatoes were piled in enormous curved straw baskets, a green pepper placed just here or there for colour contrast, aubergines and courgettes next to each other, so vivid they could have come off an Impressionist’s palette, set off by pink, red and white radishes of all shapes and sizes, and doubtless all grades of pepperyness too. Then there were the local farmers who had laid out their surplus produce on trestle tables, lettuces so fresh they still smelt of earth, tomatoes, onions, garlic and shallots arranged in neat piles on little plates, great bunches of parsley, tarragon and basil heaped on wicker trays, and on the ground in front, buckets of brilliantly coloured flowers.

  Janey was being just as fussy as all the Frenchwomen around us about the quality of her foodstuffs; she picked up this, sniffed that, prodded these, squeezed those and accepted small tastes before she made her decisions about what was going in her straw shopping basket. She chose for me as I hovered over a stall selling nothing but melons piled high in gorgeous disarray, my capacity to make a decision undermined by their intoxicatingly sweet smell. Then I got waylaid by the strawberries, which had a scent nearly as strong as the melons... I had to leave her holding my purchases while I found the man who sold baskets as I’d run out of carrying capacity. On the way back I couldn’t resist buying a huge bunch of sunflowers, heads almost the size of dinner plates.

  ‘I think I’m going to have to admit defeat,’ I said as I added some smelly Brie and a cheese I’d been assured was made locally to the heap in my basket. ‘I can’t carry any more.’

  Janey grinned and glanced down at her own bulging bag. ‘No matter how restrained you promise you’re going to be, greed gets you every time! Shall we grab a coffee and rest our arms before we go back to the car?’

  We found places at a tiny round table outside a crowded cafe and settled down for a bit of people- watching while we waited for one or other of the waiters to notice that we were there. I was watching a small child solemnly tasting small pieces of saucisson from the charcuterie stall and informing her mother which one she favoured, when Janey turned around with a sudden exclamation. ‘Hell! There’s one person I don’t want to see - Solange Bradley-Cook, wife of a friend of Tom’s who has a château a few kilometres from us,’ she muttered out of the side of her mouth and making a great show of looking for something in her basket so her face was hidden. ‘Blast it! Too late, she’s seen me.’

  I turned and looked curiously at the blonde woman who was pushing her way round the tables towards us, a wide smile on her scarlet lips. A few years older than Janey, she was very good-looking in that highly polished, well-cared-for manner that only the French seem to be able to get away with. Exactly the sort of woman who makes me acutely conscious of my own shortcomings, but then anyone who matches their accessories and puts on lipstick just to go shopping tends to do that, I find. More than one person was following her progress with his eyes; from the little smile on her Ups I got the idea she was well aware of it and enjoyed it thoroughly.

  ‘Janee, ’ow lovely to see you!’ she cried, planting air kisses on either side of Janey’s rigid face, giving me a brief and impersonal smile as if she’d already summed me up and decided I wasn’t worth bothering with. ‘I ’ave been on the telephone to that ’usband of yours. What a wicked man he is! The things he says!’ She trilled with laughter. I got the impression Janey didn’t find this anything like as amusing as Solange did.

  ‘Did you have any reason to ring Tom other than to hear him saying sweet nothings to you?’ asked Janey calmly.

  Solange’s glossy red lips tightened a little. ‘Why yes, I ring Tom about this cricket match. ’E says he has not ’is team yet. Quelle dommage that your Davide is away, and he cannot decide who is to be in ’is place.’

  ‘I didn’t think that sort of thing interested you very much. Surely it’s Napier who normally goes over the teams with Tom, not you,’ said Janey.

  Solange looked at her pityingly. ‘But it is I who have to make the arrangements for the day. I must discuss them with Tom.’

  Janey raised her eyebrows. ‘You aren’t going to get very far if you discuss the catering for a lunch for more than thirty people with Tom, Solange. The only thing you can rely on him to do is to make sure there’s an adequate supply of corkscrews.’

  ‘That is what he say,’ Solange reported with a little smirk, looking just like the cat that’s found the largest cushion. ‘He said we would talk about it over dinner this evening.’

  ‘Dinner. This evening,’ Janey repeated woodenly. ‘Has Tom invited you for dinner?’ she asked in a tone that didn’t bode well for her husband.

  ‘Why yes, as I say,’ Solange said blandly. ‘It is only the four of us so you mustn’t put yourself out.’

  ‘The four.’r />
  ‘Napier’s stepbrother is here with a friend. Tom says it is all right to bring them too.’

  ‘I’m sure he did,’ said Janey in an even voice. She looked as if she was having considerable effort forcing a smile to her lips. ‘We’ll look forward to seeing you all this evening then, Solange.’

  Her hands were clenched in such tight fists that her knuckles were white. ‘I detest that woman!’ she said somewhat unnecessarily once Solange had left, with more air kissing and lots of waggling of fingers in au revoir. ‘She’s always making up to Tom. He loves it, of course, won’t hear a word against her, especially as she’s just the sort of woman he really likes - glossy, sophisticated, well polished, insincere. He says that she’s just being French and they all indulge in a bit of harmless flirting. With her it’s not harmless,’ she stated flatly. ‘She leads poor old Napier by the nose. He’s a nice old stick even if he is a bit dull, but he certainly doesn’t deserve to have his wife sleeping with half the men around here.’ She broke off as a snake-hipped waiter with a smile guaranteed to win forgiveness for any slow service from his female clientele appeared at last and took our order.

  He glided away and Janey went on saying with barely suppressed rage, ‘And what I detest about her almost as much as the way she’s constantly trying to lure my husband into bed is that fake accent of hers! She’s perfectly capable of speaking without one if it suits her, but she puts it on because Englishmen, particularly Tom, find it sexy.’

  She looked up and curtly thanked the waiter as he placed two tiny cups of coffee in front of us. He looked surprised she hadn’t swooned with gratitude. ‘And then Tom invites her to dinner without even asking me first.’

  ‘I got the impression that inviting people to dinner without asking you was a habit of his,’ I said.

  She looked at me and smiled. ‘It is, and it drives me mad. One of his fond delusions about the differences between the sexes is that the little woman is always ready and willing to rustle up a delicious meal for God knows how many at a minute’s notice. And I really don’t see why I should have to spend all afternoon slaving away to cook something that Solange will pick at. She claims she never eats very much, but Delphine’s sister who occasionally cooks there says that when she comes back from going out to dinner, Madame makes herself a bacon sandwich.’

  I must have looked more than usually blank for she said in a cod French accent, ‘But eet is so feminine to ’ave a tiny appetite.’

  ‘I always knew I was missing something in the super femininity stakes - it’s probably that,’ I said.

  ‘Me too. But if Tom wants to make sheep’s eyes at Solange while she pushes food around her plate looking as if something under her nose smells bad, he can do the cooking himself,’ she said with sudden determination. ‘Tonight is going to be barbecue night. Another of Tom’s theories about la difference is that women are completely incompetent when it comes to burning meat over char­coal.’ Her eyes lit up. ‘It’ll keep him away from Solange, too. She won’t risk the heat spoiling her makeup. In fact,’ she looked at me speculatively, ‘it would be even better if I kept him really busy, with lots and lots and lots of cooking. How about all of you coming to dinner?’

  ‘How much is my life worth if I give you a collective refusal?’ I asked and she grinned. I added more seriously, ‘But surely that’s far too many people for you to cater for, even if Tom is on punishment detail.’

  She shrugged. ‘Our friends often bring their guests so we’re used to large numbers, especially in the summer. It’s a doddle when you can eat outside.’ Her face sparkled with mischief. ‘And it’ll serve Tom right if he hardly gets a chance to sit down. He’s done it to me often enough. You don’t really think I’ll mind if my husband’s too busy with his chef’s duties to even look at Solange, let alone have her snuggling up to murmur little secrets in his ear, do you? I’ll put you and Maggie next to him during dinner, and perhaps Solange should go next to Oscar - right at the other end of the table, naturally. I’ll let you have Napier’s stepbrother on your other side - no, perhaps not,’ she said reflectively. ‘He’s very nice, but he bears a distinct resemblance to a sheep. I’m not prejudiced against sheep, I like them, especially the ones with curly horns, but sadly his brains match and you have to admit sheep don’t make very entertain­ing dinner companions. You’d better have his friend. Unless you’d prefer to have Rob, of course.’ She glanced at me speculatively. ‘I gather that friendship is now the order of the day. You must have an excellent bedside manner.’

  She drained her coffee, dropped some coins in the saucer in front of us and stood up. ‘We’ll have to stop off at the butcher on the way to the car. I would never have thought I’d be thankful for bumping into Solange, but if I’d gone home and then heard I had to come all the way back, I’d probably be in prison tonight on a charge of crowning my husband with his own grill pan.’

  The butcher’s was unlike any other butcher’s shop I’d ever been into. There was a vast vase of sunflowers in one comer and another packed with roses placed squarely in the window. No one seemed to have noticed or objected to the woman in front of us who had her poodle in her shopping basket, and the butcher’s wife was standing behind one counter chopping up a huge pile of meat into neat squares and threading the pieces onto kebab sticks with long lacquered fingernails. She wasn’t in the traditional hat and overalls more normally seen on those who work with meat either; instead she sported an elaborate chignon with two jewelled combs sticking out of it, immaculate makeup including shiny blue eyeshadow and a beaded T-shirt. Her sole concession to her work was a small apron tied with a large bow at the back. ‘How on earth does she manage to keep clean?’ I whispered.

  ‘You should see her in the winter,’ said Janey. ‘She wears dinky embroidered angora sweaters in pastel colours - and doesn’t even get a mark on the cuffs.’

  ‘What’s this cricket match Solange was ringing Tom about?’ I asked as we moved to the front of the queue. The butcher was asking the poodle lady what she was planning to do with the pork chops she’d asked for and they’d got on to discussing whether it was really necessary to throw thyme into the hot coals before starting the meat so it seemed as if it might be a few minutes yet before we got served.

  Janey sighed in a slightly exasperated fashion, casting her eyes up to heaven in a way indicative of her opinion of men and their passions. ‘It’s a longstanding tradition, going back all of five years or so, and they play for a stuffed sanglier’s head - a wild boar - which they found in an antique shop after a particularly good lunch. Don’t ask me how it came to be used as the trophy in a cricket match, please!’ she added. ‘From the amount of fuss Napier and Tom make about it you’d think they were playing for the ruddy Ashes! They get up scratch teams - very scratch sometimes, I had to play one year - and they, or to be accurate Solange and I, take it in turns to host a slap-up lunch with a match afterwards. Tom’s lot have won for the last two years and rumour has it that Napier is so keen to get the sanglier back that he’s even been seen having batting practice with his star player - a winemaker from Bordeaux - which he denies. But then he would, as it’s completely against the spirit of the match. Rank amateurism rules OK in this case, though for some reason it’s considered perfectly sporting for the host to try and pour as much of his wine as he can down the visiting team so they’re incapable of running in a straight line.’ She grinned. ‘Which goes to show you that these two fine upstanding English gents don’t always play quite as fair as they pretend to.’

  Several chops were held up for the poodle lady’s inspection and she shook her head decisively. The butcher sighed slightly and suggested that in that case she might prefer lamb, and she bent over the counter to take a closer look. ‘Tom’s in a deep gloom about the match this year. Our star player is in South Africa for the next six weeks getting married. Even Tom didn’t feel he could ask him to delay his wedding for a cricket match, and nearly everyone else who usually plays with us is away as well.’

&n
bsp; ‘Couldn’t Tom have delayed the match until later?’ I asked.

  ‘The host gets to choose the date - when his star players are available, of course, and usually when he’s got a guest who knows one end of a bat from the other and who might be a useful boost to the team.’

  ‘So who gets to play?’

  ‘Anyone who’s available and allows their arm to be twisted. The only rule is neither Napier nor Tom are allowed to poach each other’s guests or their workers. Friends are fair game and booked well in advance.’

  ‘Tom could always ask Oscar if he’s short of a player,’ I said as the poodle lady inclined her head graciously over the cutlets that were being held up for her inspection. ‘He plays regularly and is quite good.’

  ‘Really?’ asked Janey with a gleam in her eye that showed perhaps she wasn’t quite so blasé about who won the match as she pretended. The poodle lady departed carrying a parcel neatly wrapped in waxed paper and tied with string; her dog was still comfortably sitting in the basket. Janey moved up and started her own lengthy nego­tiations with the butcher, turning around to me after a few seconds. ‘Madame is going to make me some of her special kebabs, but she can’t do them right away. Would you mind hanging around in town for another half hour or so?’

  ‘Not at all, providing I don’t have to carry these bags all the time.’

  ‘We’ll go and dump them in the car.’ Janey turned back to the butcher and put in a large order for sausages and steaks to be picked up at the same time. ‘None of your lot are vegetarian, are they?’ she asked in sudden anxiety as we left the shop.

  ‘Put it this way,’ I said, ‘last night nobody told Oscar that they couldn’t eat his spiced lamb. Of course he was holding the carving knife at the time, but even so I don’t think you’re going to have to get Tom to rustle up any veggie burgers.’