We sat down on the verandah with a glass of wine to wait for them.
‘I tell you one thing,’ said George placidly, ‘if this evening serves no other purpose it seems to have brought out a latent admiration for the French in those two.’
When the girls reappeared they were dressed to kill. I should have known they would not have been caught out filling their cases with only those clothes suitable for three weeks in the French countryside. They had had the good sense and foresight to throw in the outfits they normally reserved for the style temples of Basset Regis.
Clara wore a crimson, sprayed-on, satin-look bustier, with a seven-inch-wide black and gold belt, gold chandelier earrings and black laced ankle boots with needle heels. Naomi had chosen a cream crepe wraparound shirt caught with a diamante tarantula, smaller versions of which crouched on her earlobes, and black baseball boots. Each get-up was teamed with the black stretch microskirt and black tights which were the tribal markings of the honky-tonk angels of Barfordshire.
As we hoisted our jaws back into position, Royston arrived on the verandah and obviated the need for comment.
‘Girls, girls! Très glam! It’s going to be a pleasure to be seen out with you.’
Any idea George and I might have had about walking up to the château through the woods, and returning the same way in the moonlight, had been quickly dispelled by the girls’ toilette, which had the kind of hard-edged urban glitz that crazes and disintegrates on contact with the open air.
We took the car, and I made Royston sit in the front with George. Naomi and Clara sat on either side of me, their faces turned outwards like bookends, somehow managing to keep their black lycra-clad thighs from touching mine.
Disappointingly, the château presented its usual desolate appearance. There were no lights on that we could see, and it was just as well there was a moon as we bumped through the archway into the side courtyard. Here, more encouragingly, were parked the Count’s scooter, a battered 2CV with the soft top down, and a white Rolls the size of a mobile home.
‘Marie-Laure and Alex have got a Rolls,’ said Naomi.
We piled out and stood uncertainly on the tussocky grass, Clara gradually losing height as her heels sunk into the ground.
‘Come on,’ said Royston, ‘everyone uses the back.’
We followed him through the further arch and round the side of the house. Here, sure enough, there were signs of life. Some battered armchairs and a sofa stood on the grass, rusty croquet hoops peeped above the plantains, and a flight of cracked stone steps led to open French windows, through which we could hear voices, and some sprightly music in a Latin American idiom.
‘Hallo-ee!’ called Royston. ‘It’s us!’
This was the cue for a frenzied fusillade of yapping, punctuated by deep, sonorous woofs. Voices called ‘Asti!’ and ‘Obi!’, a door slammed, and then the Count appeared at the top of the steps. He wore a full-length cheesecloth robe in orange and white stripes in which he resembled nothing so much as an ambulant marquee.
‘Royston, my dear fellow! George, Harriet, and your charming family. Do please step this way.’
Again, that curious headwaiter’s mixture of arrogance and obsequiousness. I didn’t like to look at the girls as we followed him up the steps.
We entered an enormous uncarpeted room about the size of Basset Magna village hall. In contrast to that which we had seen outside, the furniture in here was all of the garden variety – tubular steel folding chairs covered in nylon, and a couple of loungers with cushions. There were three people in the room, but perhaps wisely, no one was sitting down. One, a young man with a big nose and a receding hairline, stood consulting what looked like a timetable. He wore a gingery suit with windowpane checks. Two smartly turned out elderly women were dancing a corseted version of the lambada in the centre of the room. It was the women who were talking: they spoke in French but their matter-of-fact tone was at variance with the sullen sensuality of their dancing. A vast chandelier hung from a carved boss in the centre of the celling at a very slight angle. The fireplace was full of chocolate wrappers and cigaretteand crisp packets. At the far end of the room there was a sort of audio-visual plant, a table with a CD and tape player ( the source of the music), a television and video machine. Beneath the table were cardboard boxes stuffed with tapes, videos and discs. The light was dim. It was a relief to see a scattering of what looked like rather good paintings hanging on the walls. From far away we heard the barking of Asti and Obi.
The Count clapped his hands. ‘Here are our guests, everyone!’ he cried. The young man lowered his timetable, and the two women stopped dancing and wandered towards us, still talking.
‘May I present,’ said the Count, ‘my son, Claude … my wife, Isabelle … and my sister, Véronique …’
We all shook hands. Claude said, ‘How do you do?’ with an accent that would not have been out of place in the china department of Peter Jones. ‘I hope you’re having a good holiday down there,’ he added, like a tactful doctor making some gynaecological allusion.
‘Couldn’t be better,’ barked George. I detected an edge of anxiety in his voice and hoped it wouldn’t infect the girls. The two elderly women beamed and brushed their cheeks against ours, with little moues and murmurs.
‘A drink,’ said the Count. ‘Some wine, I think.’
A bottle, one or two glasses and a bowl of cheese footballs stood on a low table near the fireplace. Claude picked the bottle up and upended it over a glass.
‘A dead man, I’m afraid,’ he remarked. It was strange how this English idiom sounded slightly sinister in his mouth. The Count took another bottle from a wooden wine rack of the self-assemble variety to be had from DIY centres, and handed it to Claude to open. The two ladies beamed approvingly. They presented an interesting contrast in styles. Madame de Pellegale had her grey hair in a Cleopatra bob with a heavy fringe, and wore a brown embroidered dress and a lot of heavy red and brown jewellery. Her sister-in-law, Véronique, was the epitome of bourgeois chic, her hair lightened with blond streaks and teased into a feathery toque of rigid artlessness. She wore an emerald green silk shirt, black trousers and high heels. Waves of some flowery scent emanated from her. When the lambada tape stopped both sisters took it as their cue to retreat once more to the far end of the room.
As Claude poured the wine, George remarked: ‘What an astonishing house this is. Has it been in your family for years?’
‘No, absolutely not,’ replied the Count. ‘It is only a simple country retreat.’
‘When was it built?’ I asked.
‘In the twenties. It is the folly of a zip-fastener king.’
‘Splendid,’ said George.
Claude gave us each a glass of wine, and handed round the cheese footballs which tasted rather musty.
Royston said: ‘Well, what do you think, Claude? It’s not often we have such a bevy of beauty here, is it?’
‘No, indeed,’ said Claude. He and Royston moved in on the girls. It struck me that Claude was nervous, and entirely devoid of humour.
Isabelle and Véronique embarked on one of those dances where the participants stand next to one another and repeat certain actions, facing a different wall each time. They performed it with such insouciant elegance that it took me a few seconds to realise that it was ‘Aga-doo, doo, doo’. This was a firm favourite at the Basset Magna Cricket Club Dinner and Disco, but one would never have known the two versions had a common root.
The Count, noticing where my attention lay, remarked: ‘Isabelle and Véronique like to dance. There is plenty of space here.’
‘Yes, it’s perfect,’ I agreed. I was beginning to feel that we were the cast of some strange Fellini or David Lynch film, and that at any moment a voice might shout ‘Cut! Print!’ and we’d all be restored to normality.
George and I took simultaneous gulps of wine, and simultaneously almost choked. To describe the stuff as rough would have been like calling Old Spice piquant. This was to fine wine what th
e Sun was to diplomacy. We glanced at each other with streaming eyes as the stuff scored a gully down our throats. It was like having your stomach lining cleaned out with wire wool. Not only that, but having hit the bottom it seemed to leap straight up again, like one of those test-your-weight machines in fairgrounds, and jangle a bell at the front of your skull. It was both uniquely disgusting, and totally intoxicating. Château-bottled Skid Row.
‘Salut,’ said the Count. Unsteadily, we raised our glasses. But such was the effect of the wine that we then took another mouthful and found it not quite as bad as we had thought. Wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, George moved towards the French window. As we followed I saw that Royston was already replenishing the girls’ glasses. Claude was saying: ‘I have a business which makes bathroom fittings, chiefly – er – des robinets …?’
‘Taps,’ supplied Royston.
‘I see,’ George croaked, and then cleared his throat and began again. ‘I see you play croquet.’ From this remark it was possible to deduce how many thousand brain cells he’d lost in the last minute. You’d have needed a flame-thrower before attempting to propel a croquet ball through the low-level scrub outside.
‘Not really,’ said the Count kindly. ‘Because I am not cutting la pelouse.’
‘The lawn, yes,’ said George in case I hadn’t caught his drift.
‘Don’t you have any help with all this ground?’ I asked.
The Count made a movement between a head shake and a shrug. His paunch rose with this movement, as though on a pulley, and then fell back again.
‘Rindin, the fermier’ – he waved in the direction of the melon field – ‘he was coming, but I have no more use for him.’
This we took to be a comment on Rindin rather than the grass, which was plainly crying out for the farmer’s attentions.
‘Why is that?’ asked George, downing another large mouthful of wine. His face was taking on an unfocussed appearance. It was so long since I’d seen George drunk I couldn’t remember what to expect – was he maudlin? Droll? Sick? A berserker, even?
‘He is a peasant!’ announced the Count in answer to George’s question. ‘Without sensitivities. You yourselves have been troubled with his fearful pump!’
There seemed no point in explaining, yet again, that we didn’t mind the pump. The Count had cast us in the role of innocent victims.
‘Ecoutez!’ he cried. And sure enough, if you listened hard enough, you could hear the dim drone of Rindin’s irrigation equipment like a swarm of distant bees on the evening air. The Count’s face darkened. ‘Connard! Some more wine.’
He went to fetch the bottle. I said to George: ‘I hope dinner’s fairly soon or they’ll have to carry me in.’
‘Really? I’m rather enjoying myself.’
That was that then, there was no further point in trying to halt my husband’s gentle slide into hog-whimpering rattedness. The music now was a treacly tango, ‘Jealousy’. Isabelle and Véronique were giving it their best shot.
‘Do you girls dance?’ I heard Royston enquire.
‘I must ask,’ said George, as the Count returned with the Red Infuriator. ‘Why is your house furniture outside and your garden furniture in here?’ This from the man who was constantly upbraiding me for my lack of tact.
But the Count was unperturbed. ‘When it is hot we spend all day in the garden, so naturally it is nice to be comfortable for that longer time.’
‘Doesn’t it get wet overnight?’ George persisted.
‘It does,’ agreed the Count. ‘But we rise quite late, and by midday it is dry again.’
This seemed like a perfectly lucid answer. I was trying to work out why that bothered me when the door opened and a man I recognised as Mad Max from Priscilla’s café announced that dinner was served. He wore the same greasy jeans but had pulled on a sweater.
As we headed for the door, Clara said: ‘Isn’t that the man from the café in the square?’
‘That’s right,’ said Royston. ‘You’ve been there, have you? She’s a great girl, Priscilla. You don’t get many of those to the pound.’
‘She is English,’ Claude pointed out. ‘But Max is from Portugal.’
We trooped along a dark and winding corridor to the dining room, which was not quite as large as the room we had left, but rather more gloomy because it was at the side of the house with a window overlooking the courtyard. There was no chandelier in here, just a couple of standard lamps on either side of the table. The effect of this was that we were all seated with our backs to the light, which gave us a slightly sinister appearance, like participants in a seance. This impression was reinforced by a huge white cloth which enveloped the table, and a black iron candelabra in the centre which I recognised as one of those made at the forge in the Lalutte town square. As I sat down I noticed on the wall opposite a painting which seemed familiar. It was undoubtedly an old master, but the combined effects of poor light and killer booze prevented me from identifying it.
In keeping with Max’s parentage, it was sardines to start with. He might with advantage have prised them apart a little more. The way each portion clung together in its surrounding puddle of oil betrayed the tin from which it had recently been extracted. Clearly we were in yet another household where the art of living had not merited close study.
The sardines were followed by couscous, the only course upon which the moonlighting Max had employed his proven culinary skills. It was homemade but had grown rather chilly on the long, weary way from the kitchen. Finally (a total cop-out of which the girls greatly approved) we were presented with a large art-nouveau china washbowl filled with assorted icecreams and ice lollies. Claude, the spoilsport, asked for a dish and spoon, but we took our cue from the Count and ate our choc ices direct from the wrapper. All three courses were accompanied by copious infusions of the savage red wine. On several occasions I indicated to the girls that they should slow down, or better still stop drinking altogether, and I think that in fact they were disposed to do so. But every time they took a sip, however small, Royston, who was sitting between them, topped up their glasses.
During the meal Isabelle and Véronique scarcely spoke, although it appeared they had some English, for they laughed and nodded a good deal in the right places. Claude explained to us how bathroom fittings would be adjusting to the single market (the Greeks were not great ones for mixer taps, apparently), and Royston said that the young had got to be trained in such a way that they stayed in the country and kept rural communities alive.
‘Don’t say that in front of them,’ said George, nodding at Clara and Naomi. ‘They think rural communities stink. Don’t you, girls?’
‘I never said that,’ said Clara, in what would have been a scathing manner had she not been struggling with the last lump of a scarlet frozen sky rocket.
‘You don’t have to,’ said George.
‘The trouble with villages,’ put in Naomi, ‘is that there’s nothing to do, and you can’t get out of them.’
‘Like straitjackets,’ suggested Royston.
‘Exactly.’
‘But if there was interesting work in the area, and other young people about, that might change things.’
The girls didn’t look at one another, but I could sense the tremor of feeling that passed between them. Work, however interesting, was not something they rated, except insofar as it was a source of ready cash.
The Count, perhaps sensing a natural break, pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. ‘Shall we go back to the salon for coffee?’
Isabelle and Véronique bustled ahead, and by the time we got there they had put on a tape. It was the ‘Teddy Bears’ Picnic’, and from their encouraging gestures it was clear they thought it had some special significance for us.
Outside, dusk was falling and the air was criss-crossed with swooping bats. In the half light the easy chairs looked rather like picnicking teddy bears. Véronique and Isabelle (there having been no takers) bobbed about together happily. I realised I was
quite pissed, and would have a horrendous headache tomorrow.
‘Oh!’ cried Royston, who had been to the lavatory, ‘the ‘‘Teddy Bears’Picnic’’ is super! Come on, George.’ George was so surprised, and so drunk, that his mumble of uncertainty never saw the light of day. Véronique and Isabelle bore down on him and pulled him on to the dance floor, and Royston grabbed the girls, one on each side, and followed. I suppose they too were suffering from the effects of the Infuriator because they did not, as one might have expected, fell Royston with a kick to the shins and then finish him off with a hail of blows to the body, but allowed themselves bemusedly to be put through the motions of the dance. This involved the two sets of three advancing and retreating rather in the manner of the ‘Dashing White Sergeant’; then the ladies each twirled in turn; then there was a complex figure in which each set of three, holding hands, twined in on itself and emerged intact; finally (and this was obviously the purpose and highlight of the whole exercise) the man kissed each of the ladies in turn. Then the whole thing began again.
‘It’s meant to be progressive,’ called Royston, ‘but there aren’t enough of us.’
It looked quite progressive enough to me. The Count watched benignly for a few seconds, and then announced that he was going to hurry along the coffee. Left alone with Claude, I was aware that my conversational reserves on the subject of bathroom fittings were running dangerously low. To my surprise he grabbed my arm and dragged me over to the window.
When he spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. ‘Mrs Blair – Harriet – I am so sorry!’
‘Sorry? Whatever for?’
‘It is not what you are used to – not what you expected—’
Not being entirely sure to what he was referring I was guarded. ‘We’re on holiday. We wouldn’t want everything to be the same as at home.’
‘But they are mad!’
I laughed breezily. The Infuriator had ensured that it was poor Claude who seemed like the mad one. ‘Not at all. Your family are charming. Really.’
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