The French for Love

by Valpy, Fiona

  When I’ve finished cleaning, I start washing. Perhaps I’m trying to wipe the slate clean so that I can live in a state of happy denial and transform my family history back into the neat storybook facsimile it used to be. I wash bedding and cushions and chair covers, hanging them to dry on the line stretched between two apple trees in the garden. The turnaround is gratifyingly fast in the hot sun so I work unremittingly, dragging load after load out of the machine, carrying armfuls of dry, sun-warmed fabric from the line back into the kitchen and sweating over the ironing board where clouds of hissing, angry steam from the iron create the perfect backing track to my mood.

  After several days of this frenetic activity, I smooth the freshly laundered toile de Jouy bedspread over the mattress in the spare room and stand back to survey my handiwork. There’s nothing else to wash or dust or polish. I regret the fact that there are no curtains at the windows which would have kept me going for a few more days, other than the small ones under the eaves in the bedroom upstairs that I laundered yesterday. I move to the window to close the shutters against the midday heat that’s now building to a stifling crescendo of sun glare and cricket song, the humidity making my T-shirt cling limply to my clammy skin.

  Triumphantly, I realise that here’s my next project. The shutters are in dire need of a fresh coat of paint. They are a sun-cracked red which has faded with a drab brown tinge, like a bottle of old wine that’s gone past the point of drinkability. While I’m at it, I think I’ll change the colour completely. Make my mark on the house. And—yes, I know—symbolically try to blot out a bit more of the past. It’s called catharsis, isn’t it?

  I jump into the car and arrive at Mr Bricolage just as they’re locking the doors. Of course, it’s noon and every shop and business in the area is now closing for a two-hour lunch break. Only in France...

  At two o’clock precisely, I’m back in Mr Bricolage’s car park, waiting for the doors to open. I choose a sage-green gloss and a selection of brushes, congratulating myself on remembering to add a large bottle of white spirit to my basket. I’ve never attempted any DIY before, but, after all, it’s not exactly rocket science.

  Back at the house, I haul a stepladder out of the shed and drag it across the courtyard to the first set of shutters. It’s a good thing only the ground-floor windows have them, so I don’t have to climb too high. This should be a doddle.

  I dip a large brush into the can of pale green paint and begin spreading it over the rusty red. How very satisfying. My soft sage colour spreads easily over the cracked, blistered surface, erasing the old and the worn with a beautiful shiny covering. Of course, it’s still a bit uneven, but that’s good—it looks more weathered and rustic. I wouldn’t have wanted to make the shutters look too new. Quite a lot of paint is dripping onto the ground below, so I spread a couple of bin bags out below the ladder. And somehow quite a lot of paint is also getting itself onto the handle of the brush and running down the sides of the tin. And then dripping onto the steps of the ladder and, inexplicably, transferring itself from there to my arms, legs and hair. Good job I remembered the white spirit or I’d look like a soldier in full camouflage gear.

  It’s a fiddly job trying to paint the ironwork catches and the hinges, and quite a lot of paint also manages to get itself onto the stonework. I go to fetch the white spirit and some kitchen paper and discover I’ve left a trail of sage-green footprints across the recently scrubbed kitchen floor. It’s not easy to get gloss paint off stonework either, I find, and the white spirit just seems to smear it into a bigger stain. I’m starting to get a bit fed up with this job. But I’ve only painted one pair of shutters and there are... I tally them up in my head... another six sets to do, so twelve more. Oh, plus the big sets on the kitchen door. And the terrace door. And the main door. So that’s an additional six, which are twice the size. Oh, God, I wish I’d never started this. And I’m going to need more paint tomorrow too.

  My manic burst of energy seems suddenly depleted and I feel exhausted and overwhelmed with a sense of hopelessness at the task ahead of me. But I know I’m going to need to keep going or else I’ll drown in the thoughts of despair and betrayal that crash over me like an ocean wave whenever I stop. I put the ladder away and stick my brushes, thankfully, into an old ice-cream tub filled with white spirit. I pause to look at my day’s handiwork. From across the courtyard the spare-room shutters don’t look bad at all. In fact they really look quite elegant. And you can hardly see the blobs of paint on the walls around them.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  That night I collapse into bed after a lukewarm bath to try to take the edge off the now oppressive heat. I’ve used a nail brush and half a bottle of orange blossom body wash to try to remove the paint and the smell of white spirit from my skin.

  I must have successfully worn myself out, because I fall into a deep, muggy sleep straight away, drugged by the humid night air which is heavy as a thick woollen blanket.

  I’m woken a few hours later by the needling whine of a mosquito. I pull the sheet, the only covering on the bed tonight, over my head. But it’s suffocatingly hot like that, so after a few minutes I emerge again. I’ve left the skylights open to try to get a bit of air into the room and at last, thankfully, I feel the gentle caress of a cool night breeze. I sigh with relief. Now hopefully the mosquito will leave too and there’s a chance I’ll be able to get back to sleep. I let myself drift off, noting with pleasure the slight ache in my arms and down the back of my calves from today’s physical activities. Just relax and sleep will come...

  Suddenly there’s the most almighty flash of light, blinding even through closed eyelids, and simultaneously a sharp, ear-splitting crack as though some giant axe has split the house in two. My heart leaps against the wall of my ribcage and for a second I think I’m having a cardiac arrest, but the fact that it’s now pounding like the pistons on a steam train tells me that it’s still working, pumping a massive surge of adrenalin through my veins, definitely inspiring flight rather than fight. I wrench the sheet over my head again, as if a thin piece of cotton is going to protect me from the cacophony that’s erupted in the sky above, as the violent thunderstorm, which I now realise has been brewing for the last few oppressive, overheated days, suddenly explodes directly overhead.

  A rush of wind whips the sheet out of my shaking grip and icy drops of hard rain pelt my skin. I leap up, lit like some A-list celebrity by paparazzi flashbulbs of lightning and, gasping with panic and the chill of the raindrops, I grab the pole to yank shut the skylights, hoping desperately that it won’t act as a lightning conductor and leave me lying in a frizzled heap on the floor.

  The wind swirls, the rain is a deafening roar and the thunder and lightning rage. I grab a top and a pair of jeans off a chair and make my way downstairs, feeling I’ll be a little safer there than upstairs with only the roof between me and the storm. When I get to the kitchen door I flick on the light switch and spot Lafite cowering under the table, his fur spiky from the rain. I get down on hands and knees and crawl in to join him. I’m only trying to comfort him, honest; I’m not really hiding from a thunderstorm underneath a kitchen table at the age of nearly thirty, for heaven’s sake. And then there’s another almighty crash which makes the whole house shake and the lights go out. It’s completely black, partly because I’m still under the tent of the (freshly washed and ironed) tablecloth and partly because the storm seems to have discharged its entire supply of thunder and lightning with that last blow. So I sit on the floor under the table in the pitch darkness, stroking Lafite and listening to the pouring rain drumming on the roof above us.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  The next morning, the sky is a fresh blue as clear and innocent as the wide eyes of a child. ‘Storm—what storm?’ it seems to say.

  The air is refreshingly cool and I go outside into the courtyard to review the damage. To my relief, everything looks okay. And then I spot my lovely green shutters. They appear to have dev
eloped some sort of hideous skin problem. Patches of paint are now lifting off like scales, exposing bare wood underneath. Closer inspection shows that last night’s rain has made the most of this opportunity and thoroughly soaked the old panels. I prod a brown patch tentatively with a fingernail and it’s as soft as damp cardboard. And in the places where the sun is drying out the soaking wood, the paint is splitting and peeling almost before my eyes. Oh, God, what a disaster.

  But it’s nothing like the disaster that is waiting for me round the other side of the house, where one of the tall stone chimney stacks has fallen, taking a large section of moss-covered roof tiles with it as it crashed to the terrace below.

  There’s a gaping hole in the roof and I dash back inside and upstairs to the bedroom. Through jagged wooden teeth, the ceiling gapes open to the sky. Bits of broken plaster are scattered across the damp bed, washed up in a tide of fine dust. And in the middle of the floor sits the heavy concrete cowl from the top of the chimney. The oily estate agent’s ominous prediction about the state of the roof comes back to haunt me.

  I run down to the study and pick up the phone, hands shaking as I leaf through my address book to find Hugh and Celia’s number. But the line is dead and I realise that the power is still off and without it the phone won’t work. I clatter back upstairs and retrieve my handbag from the debris to try my mobile phone. Damn, I haven’t charged it up for days and now the battery’s dead. Bloody technology. Well, I’ll just have to get in the car and drive over to the Everetts’.

  But as I round the curve of the drive, the landscape looks strangely unfamiliar. It takes me a couple of shocked seconds to register that one of the tall oaks has been blown over and is now blocking my exit. So I’m stuck. Completely and utterly cut off. And completely and utterly alone. I have to admit that my British stiff upper lip is beginning to feel decidedly wobbly now, in the face of natural disasters on top of the man-made ones that have been inflicted upon me of late.

  But suddenly I notice that I’m not completely alone and in fact rescue is at hand. Making her way purposefully along the lane is a little old lady in a familiar black dress and now she’s waving reassuringly at me and shouting something I can’t quite hear.

  With a surge of relief and gratitude, I jump out of the car and clamber over the tangled branches of the fallen tree to hug Mireille, my saviour.

  When I lead her onto the terrace, she tuts sympathetically at the scene of devastation before her. ‘My dear girl, it’s so lucky you weren’t hurt. Now, don’t worry about a thing. The electricity will be back on soon. They’re used to these storms around here and I saw the EDF van going past a few minutes ago.’

  I sigh deeply. ‘Well, once the phones are back on I suppose I’ll have to call Monsieur Dubois and ask him for his brother-in-law’s number so I can get him to come round and mend the roof.’

  ‘Pah,’ retorts Mireille with utter scorn. ‘That philandering Parisian. You’re not having any of them to do the work. No, you have the perfect workforce much closer at hand. Don’t you know my sons are stonemasons? They’ll come round and sort all this out for you. And I’ll tell Raphael to bring the chainsaw, too, so they can clear your driveway before they do anything else.’

  Weak-kneed with relief, I sit down on the terrace wall. ‘Oh, Mireille, I’d be so grateful. But it’s the weekend. I can probably manage until Monday if they wouldn’t mind coming then.’

  ‘Weekend nothing! In an emergency we all lend a hand to help our neighbours in the country, you know. They’ll be here this afternoon. I’m the boss!’ And with a final reassuring pat on my tousled head, she sweeps regally back up the lane to mobilise her troops.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  At precisely two o’clock, I hear the purposeful hum of a distant chainsaw at the foot of the drive. Mireille taps at the kitchen door. ‘They’re just clearing the tree so they can get the truck through. Have you got your power back on? Good. They’ll leave the tree lying in the grass. You’ll have a good supply of wood for the fire, but oak is tough so it needs to season for a year before you can cut it up. At least it’ll be out of your way, though. Ah, here they come now.’

  A large white truck rumbles ponderously up the drive and sways to a halt in the courtyard, dwarfing my little car. On the side is stencilled ‘Thibault Frères, Maçonnerie’ and a local phone number. Two smiling men jump out and are followed by two more on foot, one of them carrying a large orange chainsaw.

  And, to my horror, surprise and then delight, in rapid succession, I realise that the one with the chainsaw is none other than Blue Pickup Guy. He gives me a somewhat cheeky grin, leading me to suspect that he must have known exactly who I was the other day.

  All four of them are wearing neat green overalls and they line up respectfully before their mother, towering above her, awaiting her instructions.

  ‘Mademoiselle Gina, these are my sons,’ she says with a hint of maternal pride. ‘Raphael, Florian, Cédric and Pierre. Of course, I think you’ve already met Cédric.’ Her expression gives nothing away, but I imagine they’ve had a good laugh at my expense over my Close Encounter of the Muddy Kind the other day.

  Each in turn reaches to shake my hand. The first three have warm, dark eyes the colour of molasses and neat brush-cut hair, graded from salt-and-pepper (Raphael), through greying at the temples (Florian) to pure black (Cédric, aka Mr Pickup; he’s just as good-looking as he was the other day, especially sporting the lumberjack look with chainsaw in hand, and I find myself hoping that he’ll pick me up sometime soon).

  The fourth, Pierre, who appears to be in his early twenties and a good dozen years younger than the others, has an unruly mop of dark curls and blue eyes that sparkle with self-confident charm.

  ‘It’s a great pleasure to meet you,’ I say. ‘And thank you for coming to help me so quickly.’ I repeat each of their names in turn to make sure I’ve got them right.

  ‘Pierre?’ I say with a smile, as a thought occurs to me. It reminds me of those old jokes—what do you call a man with a seagull on his head? Cliff. A stonemason called Pierre is like a miner called Doug. Or a gardener called Flora. Or a DJ called Mike (although, come to think of it, I’m sure there’ve been quite a few of those). It’s obviously a well-worn joke, as Pierre rolls his eyes and his three brothers grin.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ sighs Mireille. ‘My dear departed husband, may God rest his soul, was a stonemason. When his first son was born he wanted to call him Pierre. But I had other ideas. It was the same with Florian and Cédric. Finally, when we knew another baby was on the way, twelve years after Cédric, I was absolutely sure it was going to be a girl this time. So to keep my husband happy, I said if it was a boy we could call him Pierre. And so here he is.’

  ‘Although some would say he is a bit of a girl, with this head of hair,’ teases Florian, ruffling his baby brother’s head to annoy him.

  ‘Ah, you’re just jealous because I’m so popular with the women,’ shrugs Pierre. Cédric rolls his eyes in mock despair and grins at me and I notice that around his smiling eyes is an etching of finely chiselled lines that seem to tell a story of something else: weariness or sadness or pain? Whatever it is, it runs beneath the surface like a deeply buried fault line through bedrock. It’s intriguing, and only serves to increase his handsomely rugged appearance.

  ‘That’s enough, boys,’ says their mother firmly. ‘Come and see what needs to be done round the other side of the house.’ She and I lead the way. The four men take the scene of devastation completely in their stride and quickly set to work, each with his own set tasks.

  ‘Don’t worry, Gina; they’ll soon have this put right. At the very least you’ll have the hole in the roof patched up before nightfall,’ says Mireille comfortingly.

  They are putting up a scaffolding tower beside the house and Cédric is surveying the roof from the top of a tall ladder alongside it. ‘There’s quite a bit of damage to the tiles up here,�
� he calls down. ‘Really the whole roof needs to be redone. Some of these joists look like they need replacing completely.’

  With dismay I think of my redundancy money, which won’t go far if it has to pay for a whole new roof. I wonder what the insurance will cover. Seeing the look on my face, Mireille says, ‘Well, just patch it up as best you can for now. If Gina decides she wants the whole thing done later you can always come back.’ She turns to me. ‘I’m going to leave you now. Nathalie and her brother Luc are at my house for the afternoon so I’d better get back. Just ask the boys if you have any questions or need any help.’

  I hug her and thank her profusely for saving me.

  ‘Nonsense; that’s what neighbours are for,’ she replies.

  A couple of hours later, I stick my head out of the French windows.’ Would anyone like a cup of tea?’ I ask.

  ‘Non merci,’ reply Raphael and Florian, with looks of alarm at the thought of this strange foreign idea. But Cédric says, ‘Please, I’d like to try one,’ and Pierre says, ‘A coffee would be good for me,’ so I busy myself setting things out on a tray.

  ‘It’s so kind of you, coming to help me out on a Saturday,’ I say as the two younger brothers pause with their drinks.

  ‘It’s no problem,’ smiles Cédric kindly, gingerly sipping a cup of black tea. ‘We’ll fix things up temporarily today and come back next week to finish the job properly.’ The floral mug looks delicate in his large, capable hand. I can’t help noticing again how good-looking he is, his features strongly chiselled and his dark eyes alight with a warmth that speaks of a lively sense of humour behind the professional facade.