The French House

by Nick Alexander

  ‘It does.’

  It takes almost forty minutes to reach the main beach. We lean on the railings beneath a flag that says Castel Plage and watch a ferry heading out to sea. ‘It goes to Corsica, apparently,’ I say.

  ‘Yes,’ Victor says. ‘I know.’

  ‘Have you ever been?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Me neither,’ I say. ‘Maybe we could go sometime, if I move here. When I move here.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Did you know that it used to be a fishing village here?’ I tell him. ‘They had photos in the Negresco from the twenties, and this beach was covered in boats and fishermen mending their nets. Not a single tourist in sight.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  The terse nature of Victor’s replies is starting to concern me, so I stroke his hand and ask, ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Sure,’ he says. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  We cross the main road and head through some arches to the vast Cours Saleya. A huge colourful food market is in full swing. ‘Now that’s the way to do your shopping,’ I say. ‘We should get some veg.’

  ‘Maybe after lunch.’

  ‘Yes. Let’s do lunch first.’

  It’s only just twelve, but we decide to hunt for my restaurant straight away. By the time we have walked through the old town, taken a number of wrong turns, finally located the Gésu, only to discover that it is closed on Sundays, it is half twelve and I’m quite certain that Victor is not OK. I wait until we have found another restaurant before I attempt to find out why.

  Once we each have a glass of rosé, I say, ‘So, go on. Out with it.’

  ‘Out with what?’

  ‘Oh come on,’ I say. ‘You haven’t said a word since I told you about Charles.’

  ‘Charles?’

  ‘The guy I went to the Negresco with.’

  ‘So his name’s Charles?’

  ‘I shouldn’t have told you,’ I say. ‘I knew this would happen. But you kept asking.’

  Victor shrugs. ‘It’s nothing to do with that,’ he says.

  ‘God, you’re a sulker,’ I say. ‘Just tell me, and maybe I can help.’

  Victor sighs and sips his drink. ‘I’m not sulking at all,’ he says softly. ‘I’m actually worried about you.’

  ‘So tell me what you’re worrying about.’

  ‘It’s just that . . . well . . . since this morning . . . you’ve been kind of talking about how nice it is here.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘About skiing and the beach and the Negresco, and posh restaurants in Villefranche . . .’

  ‘Right. And that’s bad?’

  ‘And going to Corsica.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, I can see that tourist heaven is quite attractive.’

  ‘Well yes. It is.’

  ‘I’m just worried you’re not going to like life up there.’

  ‘In the hills?’

  ‘Yes. Because that life has nothing to do with this one, really.’

  ‘I see,’ I say.

  ‘I mean . . . this is all lovely . . .’ He waves his glass to take in the surroundings. ‘But it’s a different thing to downsizing and living simply and farming . . .’

  ‘I know that,’ I say.

  ‘I doubt we’ll even be able to afford to eat in restaurants any more. Let alone go skiing. And as for trips to Corsica . . .’

  I nod slowly and sip my drink and stare at Victor as he fiddles with his fork. ‘But I know that,’ I say again, even though, in truth, I’m only just starting to follow his logic, only just beginning to imagine how different that life will need to be. Stupidly, I haven’t even attempted to work out how much a goat farmer might earn, or what a goat farmer’s life might be like. When I now do try to picture it, I imagine myself living Distira’s life.

  Something of this thought process must show because Victor raises one eyebrow and says, ‘You see?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m not even sure that I will be able to cope living like that. So is it really fair for me to expect someone who likes shopping and—’

  ‘I am not someone who likes shopping,’ I cut in. ‘You have me all wrong.’

  ‘OK. Skiing and posh restaurants then.’

  ‘The restaurant wasn’t very nice, either,’ I point out. ‘Well, the food was, but the service was awful.’

  ‘But you get my point,’ Victor says.

  ‘I do, but . . .’

  ‘But?’

  I shrug. ‘I don’t know. I haven’t had time to think about it, really.’

  ‘But you do see what I’m saying?’

  I stare into his eyes and smile weakly as my brain makes the adjustment from a roses-round-the-door image of me baking pies and Victor coming in from a hard day’s graft to something much, much grimmer.

  ‘I do get what you’re saying, but . . . I mean, we won’t have to live like Distira, will we?’ I sound a little like I’m pleading. Maybe I am.

  Victor shrugs. ‘It all comes down to money in the end, doesn’t it?’

  ‘Well, then, we won’t,’ I say, thinking on my feet. ‘I’ll have some income from my flat – if I rent it – or interest or something on the capital if I sell it. You have the place in Perpignan to rent or sell or whatever . . .’

  ‘Yes,’ Victor says. ‘But that won’t make much. And even that won’t last forever.’

  ‘The thing will be to use that to set things up so that they make more money. Maybe I’ll set up a business.’

  ‘I was thinking we could convert the outbuildings and rent rooms out,’ Victor says doubtfully.

  ‘Exactly! You see. Like a gîte or something. And that’s something I’d be happy to do.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Run it, I mean, not rebuild it. Though I’m happy to help, even with that.’

  Victor laughs. ‘Of course,’ he says, squeezing my hand. ‘You’re really quite brave, aren’t you? I don’t think I realised.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘No, I don’t think I did either.’

  After lunch, we climb what seems like a thousand steps to the top of the Park du Château where we ask a Japanese tourist to take our picture with the sweeping bay of Nice in the background. I suddenly realise, as Victor slides his arms around me for the photo, that this will forever be the first photo taken of us together, so I wriggle my bottom against him which, as expected, makes him laugh and protest, ‘Stop it!’

  I want us to look at this photo and remember laughter, not the very real worries that have surfaced today. Because though we have done our best to reassure each other that everything is going to be fine, a fresh set of less idyllic images are now playing on both of our minds.

  I simply hadn’t thought enough about the whole adventure to create a realistic image of what it was going to be like. But now that I have started to analyse it, the only thing I know is that what’s on offer is so alien and new, that I won’t really know if I like it until it happens. For Victor, I suppose it’s the fact of trying to imagine his partner, and potentially a baby, in the middle of this mayhem that has made everything that much more challenging, that much more real.

  We meander down the other side of the hill which the park occupies, and on through the narrow streets of the old town to the market, where, it turns out, we are way too late to buy anything – the stalls have been folded away, the square hosed down. Instead, we buy a few essentials and as much bottled water as we think we can carry from an old-fashioned corner shop and head back around the port to the van. I wouldn’t say that the atmosphere is tense, exactly, but an onlooker would definitely be able to spot that we have things on our minds.

  Halfway home we pass a farm with a sign that says fromage de chèvre.

  ‘You have competition, then,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, there are a few,’ Victor says. ‘But not loads.’

  ‘Can we go get some? At least see if I like the stuff. I mean, I’ve obviously had goat’s cheese before, but not homemade goat’s cheese. Plus they se
ll eggs, and we didn’t get any.’

  ‘I’m worried it might scare you off,’ Victor says, slowing the van and swinging into a lay-by to start turning around. ‘It might be worse than Distira’s.’

  He turns down the track to the farmhouse and parks up in a scrubby courtyard not dissimilar to our own. We walk through a group of scrappy-looking chickens. The shop entrance is signposted around the side of the house, so we follow the track until we reach the door. I ring the bell.

  ‘It’s quite quaint, really,’ I say, looking at the low sun cutting across some rusty farm machinery. ‘They could do with a few trips to the tip, though.’

  ‘They could,’ Victor agrees, and at that moment a woman appears around the side of the house with a baby slung over one shoulder.

  She is younger than I would have expected – about thirty. She is slim and pretty with shiny black hair pulled tightly back and a ruddy country complexion. ‘Bonjour!’ she says in a sing-song voice. ‘Vous voulez du fromage?’

  Victor tells her that, yes, we want to buy some cheese. He asks her if they have something called tome and she laughs and says that, no, they only have fresh cheeses, that the tome, whatever that is, arrives late summer. I worry a little about how much Victor actually knows about making cheese.

  She opens the door to a spotless room with a simple scrubbed wooden table, a set of scales and a big glass-fronted refrigerator. And then, with a simple, ‘Vous pouvez?’ and before I can even reply, she hands me her baby.

  I’m a little surprised by this, but the baby, who must be six to eight months old, is sleeping, so I simply lay it against my own shoulder in the same way the mother did and it continues to sleep. There is something a little unsettling about the smell of milk emanating from the baby, here, in the midst of a cheese shop.

  Victor catches my eye, glances at the baby, and then bites his cheek, clearly suppressing a chuckle.

  The woman washes her hands and produces three different trays of cheeses, which, as far as I can understand, differ only in how old and hard they are.

  We taste all three – they range from a creamy cottage cheese texture to the hardness of parmesan – and then Victor, rather extravagantly it seems to me as they aren’t particularly amazing, buys three of each and asks for a dozen eggs as well.

  ‘Vous êtes en vacances?’ she asks as she wraps the cheeses in greaseproof paper, and Victor explains that, no, we’re not on holiday, that we’re moving to La Forge, and that he’s thinking of getting a couple of goats.

  ‘You will talk to Georges,’ the woman tells him. ‘He will help you.’ No conditionals here. You will talk to him. He will help you. I reckon that she has spotted a business opportunity. She has that kind of face.

  Once the cheeses are wrapped, she washes her hands again, and steps outside to shriek her husband’s name, and Georges comes running. He’s a tiny man with a kind, weathered face and prematurely grey hair swept back Einstein-style. He looks a little dazzled and I guess that we have woken him from his siesta.

  ‘They want eggs,’ she says, and Georges starts to move back outside to go and fetch them. ‘Non!’ she shouts. ‘Stay and talk! I’ll get them. He wants to keep goats!’

  As she leaves, she startlingly wrenches the baby from my arms.

  And so Victor and Georges start to discuss goats. Unlike Distira, I can, for some reason, understand most of what they are saying quite easily. Perhaps my French is getting better as my ear becomes attuned, but I think Georges and his wife actually have a different accent. They speak in a similar, sing-song way, but far more slowly, almost pedantically.

  Victor makes his project sound like a hobby. ‘Just a couple of goats,’ he says. ‘Try and make some cheese, just for the fun of it . . .’

  And Georges, unthreatened by any competition from such a tentative project, seems keen on the idea of selling Victor a few goats and giving him some tips on looking after them. He even suggests that his wife could give me some tips on cheese-making!

  By the time we leave with our eggs and cheese, the men have swapped phone numbers and whacked each other on the back.

  As we pull away, I say, ‘Why did he assume that I was going to be the one making the cheese, then?’

  Victor snorts. ‘It’s what girls do, isn’t it? You look after babies and make cheese.’

  ‘Cheeky bugger.’

  ‘You don’t fancy it, then?’ he asks.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ I say. ‘But only if you help out too. I’m not going to get landed with cheese-making duties forever more, simply because you weren’t there when madame was giving lessons.’

  ‘You were cute with the baby, though,’ Victor says, and I suddenly feel a little flushed. I suspect that I am blushing. ‘The ROAD!’ I shout, when Victor starts to turn to look at me, and he snaps back to the front.

  ‘Did you see how she bosses him around, though?’ Victor asks.

  ‘Yes! Now that’s something useful I might get her to teach me.’

  ‘I think you’re already there,’ he says.

  ‘Ooh, you’re cheeky today.’

  ‘The ROAD!’ he shrieks.

  ‘Well someone has to keep us alive!’

  By the time we get back to La Forge, the sun has set and the temperature is falling fast once again. Victor parks the van and I head to the bathroom to open one of the taps.

  Despite the sunny day we have just had, the interior still feels dank and icy cold, and as I am about to leave, I pause to stare at the kitchen, try to visualise it finished.

  Hearing footsteps on the gravel approaching the open door, I say, ‘You know we really must get that range li—’ I jump when I realise that it’s not Victor behind me, but Distira.

  ‘Bonsoir,’ she says, grinning and flashing her dodgy gnashers at me.

  ‘Bonsoir,’ I reply, unsure if we are now meant to kiss or shake hands. She attempts neither.

  She says something else and I realise for the first time that the problem with understanding her is not just her accent but that she also has some kind of speech impediment, which seems to result in her swallowing her words. It could well be something to do with her teeth.

  ‘Pardon?’ I ask.

  ‘La maison est foutue,’ she says. ‘Elle est mal faite.’ Which I understand to mean that the house is badly built.

  ‘Oui, mais Victor va l’améliorer,’ I say. Victor’s going to improve it.

  She frowns at me as if I am speaking Chinese rather than French, and then thankfully Victor appears behind her.

  ‘Bonsoir,’ he says.

  She kisses him on both cheeks and then nods at me. ‘Qu’est-ce qu’elle dit, elle?’ she asks. What’s she saying, that one?

  Victor looks at me, smiles and raises his eyebrow.

  ‘She was saying that your house is crap,’ I tell him, making the most of the fact that she won’t understand, ‘and I said that you were going to improve it.’

  ‘Yes,’ Victor tells her. ‘The house will be wonderful – merveilleuse – once it’s finished.’

  ‘That I doubt,’ she replies drily, in French.

  ‘I think I might go start dinner,’ I mumble, nodding respectfully at Distira as I edge around her. Because the truth is that she gives me the willies.

  As I squeeze through the gap between her and the door, she grabs the sleeve of my sweatshirt and says, ‘Vous ne serez jamais heureuse ici, vous savez,’ which sadly I understand. You’ll never be happy here, you know.

  I stick a false grin on my face and flash the whites of my eyes at Victor as I escape, leaving him to deal with her. As I crunch across the gravel, I hear him reply, ‘But why are you saying that, Auntie? You have to be positive about these things . . .’

  Safe in the van, figuring that we will be better protected against a dinner invitation if I can get things moving, I put water on to boil for the pasta.

  But when Victor returns to the van, it is with Distira in tow. I silently pray to Him/Her/It for Distira not to invite us to dinner.

&nbs
p; Victor slides the side door open and she leans in and performs her trademark wide-eyed scan of the van. ‘C’est chouette,’ she says. ‘C’est comfortable.’ It’s cute. It’s comfortable.

  ‘Mais petit,’ I say, hoping that emphasising how small it is will make her less likely to join us. I peer at the water, willing it to boil quicker, and wonder if I should drop just enough pasta for two into the pan right now.

  Distira unexpectedly starts to smile, and then she laughs out loud. She points at the eight bottles of Volvic lined up and asks why we have bought water.

  Victor hesitates and looks at me and I realise that, of course, he doesn’t want to tell her that we have both been ill.

  She says something else about water that I don’t catch, and claps her hands, and then, still chuckling and talking to herself, she starts to wander back towards her own house.

  Victor blinks exaggeratedly and shakes his head, then climbs in and closes the door.

  ‘What’s she saying?’ I ask, as her voice fades into the distance.

  ‘She’s laughing at us buying water,’ he says. ‘I think it’s the funniest thing she’s ever seen.’

  I snort and shake my head. ‘Well, if she defrosted her vol-au-vents properly . . .’

  ‘She said that our tap is connected straight to a spring. That we have mountain water on tap. That it’s the same stuff.’

  ‘Except that this is filtered and sterilised by Danone,’ I say, turning one of the bottles and examining the label.

  ‘Well, quite,’ Victor says. ‘Though I’m sure she’s right. I’m sure it is fine.’

  ‘Oh look,’ I say, ‘me too. But just for a few days I want to play safe. I don’t think my body could cope with another round of dengue fever.’

  ‘That’s caused by mosquitos.’

  ‘Well, you know what I mean.’

  ‘It cheered her up, anyway,’ Victor says.

  ‘It did! She doesn’t like me, though, does she?’

  Victor shrugs. ‘I’m not sure she likes me.’

  ‘And she certainly doesn’t like the house.’

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘No, I’m getting that too. She’s a proper little prophet of doom. You’re cooking early.’