‘And how does that feel, giving up work?’
‘Very strange. I don’t think it’s sunk in yet. Or maybe it’s just one of those things where you keep waiting for it to hit you and it never does.’
‘Because it wasn’t as important as you thought it was?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Anyway,’ Victor says, glancing at me and smiling, ‘if you want to keep your nagging skills finely tuned by using them on Clappier, that would work for me.’
The snow from last time has all but vanished now, and as we bump along the final track to La Forge, the muddy slush and the grey sky make the house look vaguely hostile.
‘Do you see much of Distira?’ I ask, that thought somehow leading to this one.
‘Not much,’ Victor replies. ‘When I shower in the evening, she’s usually around. So is that friend of hers, Carole. But she never says anything. Actually, Distira doesn’t say much, either.’
‘How does she earn a living?’
‘A pension, I suppose,’ Victor says.
We pull up outside the house and together wrestle my case across the gravel to the front door.
‘God!’ I exclaim when Victor pushes it open.
‘Bad, huh?’
Bags of plaster are spilling onto the floor. The farm table is covered with bits of copper pipe and random DIY equipment. The kitchen has been ripped out, leaving clean patches of wall that throw into sharp relief just how dirty the rest is. The range has been pulled from the wall too, and soot from the open chimney has blown a black arc around its base.
‘It has to get worse before it can get better,’ Victor says. He points up at the ceiling. ‘Look at that though.’
I nod. ‘He’s good at plastering, I’ll give him that.’
‘It’s really hard, too,’ Victor says. ‘I had a go and I couldn’t even get a square foot of it smooth.’
‘He’s not obsessively tidy though, is he?’ I comment sarcastically, glancing around at the desolation.
‘No,’ Victor laughs. ‘No, I knew you’d say that. Come see through here, though.’ He grabs my hand and leads me through to the bedroom.
‘Wow!’ I say. ‘Now that’s an improvement.’
‘Clappier fixed the ceiling, but I did everything else.’
‘Nice floorboards, too,’ I comment.
‘I know. That lino was a bitch to remove, though. It took me about three days to scrape it off.’
‘And a radiator!’
‘It doesn’t work yet, but soon. Maybe even Friday, Clappier said.’
‘God, it’s lovely, Victor.’
‘I thought you’d want it painted a different colour eventually, but I just wanted to make everything white first.’
‘Clean and bright. It’s good. All it needs is a bed and some heat and we could sleep here.’
‘Not just sleep,’ Victor says, nudging my hip with his.
‘No.’
‘I thought we could do that tomorrow,’ Victor says.
‘What, shag?’ I giggle.
Victor laughs. ‘Go bed shopping. If you’re up for it.’
I cross the room so that he can fold me in his arms again, and then we turn, as if slow-dancing, as I continue to take in how hard he has worked on this room. ‘Go bed testing with you?’ I say. ‘I can’t think of anything nicer.’
‘I’m sorry it’s all so grey and cold,’ he says, his voice making my chest vibrate. ‘I was hoping to have the heating on by the time you got here, but, well . . .’
‘You didn’t have much warning,’ I concede. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
He pushes me away just far enough to look into my eyes. ‘Thanks, by the way,’ he says.
‘For what?’
‘For being here. For coming so soon.’
‘You’re welcome,’ I say, squeezing him in my arms. ‘It’s where I want to be.’ The cold suddenly reaches my bones and I shiver involuntarily.
‘You need more clothes,’ Victor says.
‘I brought a selection of the thickest jumpers I could find,’ I say, breaking out of his embrace and returning to my suitcase in the kitchen. ‘I think I need one right now.’
‘It will be better here soon,’ Victor says, following me. ‘I promise.’
I crouch down and unzip the front of my wardrobe-like suitcase, then pull a heavy-knit cardigan out.
‘It’s fine.’ I glance up at him. In the dimly lit room, his brown irises are indistinguishable from his pupils.
He smiles at me – a soft, warm, wonderful smile – and I’m suddenly struck by how beautiful he is, surprised by the realisation that he is mine, and how much I’m in love with him.
‘What?’ he says, grinning.
‘Nothing. I’m just happy. And I don’t give a damn about the place, as long as I’m here with you.’
Victor’s grin slips into a big toothy smile. ‘Me too,’ he says. ‘Come on. Let’s get back to the van. It’s freezing in here.’
Buying a bed in France turns out to be a surprisingly complex ordeal. The first three furniture stores we visit are full of hideous monstrosities, the like of which I haven’t even seen in anyone’s house since the early eighties, let alone a store. The showrooms are full of ornately carved sofas with overstuffed leather cushions and beds that look like they have been designed – if one can use the word – by the same guy who did the Fiat Multipla. A surprising number of them have transistor radios built into the headboard.
When we eventually do manage to find a simple wooden bed, the salesman informs us that it’s out of stock, and that, no, we can’t buy the display model.
Because healthy eating options appear to be few and far between, we pause for lunch at Quick, the French equivalent of McDonald’s. It’s against just about every dietary or moral principle I have and I truly haven’t eaten a burger for years. But the burger, a fish finger sandwich with the addition of melted cheese and masses of mayonnaise, is, I’m ashamed to admit, delicious. Surprisingly, doing something as mundane as hunting for a bed and eating burgers with a boyfriend feels lovely.
After our trillion-calorie lunch, we stumble upon an Ikea lookalike store called, rather unfortunately it seems to me, Fly. Fly contains a range of simple, apparently cheap, flat-pack beds, which, after some of the space-flight cockpits we have seen, comes as a relief. The pricing turns out to be something of a mirage as, like a Ryanair flight, all of the optional extras – feet, base, headboard, mattress – are really not options at all, but essentials. But they do have it in stock, and so, by 3 p.m., we are happily heading home, excited about being able to use our new bedroom and new bed.
By the time we get back to the house, Clappier has already left. Looking around the house, it’s hard to see any signs of progress.
‘You see,’ Victor sighs, shaking his head. ‘Unless you’re breathing down his neck . . .’
‘It’s a good job we bought that blow-heater,’ I say, touching the radiator in the bedroom, just in case – it’s stone cold.
‘So shall we make a start on that bed?’
The instruction sheet looks like it has been drawn – and translated – by a three-year-old and dragged through fifteen different languages, so we end up arguing good-naturedly as we screw random planks together, and then unscrew those same planks, only to decide that we were right in the first place.
By six thirty, the bed is complete and the fan-heater has taken the worst of the chill from the air, so we drag the bedding from the van and I pull my trainers off and throw myself onto the middle of the bed.
‘Careful!’ Victor admonishes. ‘You never know who built that or how capable they were.’
‘It’s fine!’ I declare, bouncing up and down, and then patting the space beside me. ‘It’s comfy. Come!’
Feigning fear, Victor edges onto the bed, and then slowly crawls all the way up and over me. He nuzzles my neck and then kisses me on the lips before slipping one hand underneath my cardigan and T-shirt.
‘Your hands are freezing,’ I sa
y, grimacing.
‘Then warm them up, woman!’ Victor laughs.
I reach down and slide a hand over the front of Victor’s jeans, gently massaging the bulge beneath. ‘Someone needs to be let out of his denim prison,’ I say.
‘Yep,’ he says, reaching down and undoing the belt, and then the buttons of my own jeans.
‘It’s very sinky,’ I say, fidgeting on the mattress.
‘Is it?’ Victor laughs, sliding my jeans down and then starting to undo his own belt and fly.
‘Can you close the door?’ I say, glancing over. ‘It’s come open and there’s a dr—– AGH!’
Distira is standing in the open doorway, holding a plastic bag. She is grinning broadly, showing her grey peg-like teeth and sweeping the room with her crazy eyes.
Victor frantically yanks at the quilt and positions it so that we are both hidden behind the fold.
‘C’est bien ici,’ Distira says quietly, her eyes finally resting on us. It’s nice here.
She jiggles a plastic bag in her hand. ‘Je vous ai amené de la bouffe. Du ragoût.’
‘What’s she saying?’ I whisper.
‘She says she’s brought us some stew,’ Victor says.
‘Please just make her go.’
‘Va à la cuisine, s’il te plaît,’ Victor says, tersely. ‘On arrive.’ Go to the kitchen, please. We’ll be through.
‘Il fait bon ici,’ Distira says, apparently unaware that she is causing any inconvenience. It’s warm here.
‘I know,’ Victor tells her in French, sounding almost as annoyed as I feel. ‘But go to the kitchen. I’ll be right there.’
‘OK, OK,’ Distira mutters, turning and waddling from the room, but leaving the door wide open.
‘She scared the bejeezus out of me,’ I complain.
Victor laughs. ‘I think I need to get that lock fixed.’
He stands and pulls his shoes on, then checks the crotch of his jeans before heading out.
Before I have finished pulling my shoes back on, Victor is back. ‘She’s gone,’ he says. ‘But she left us dinner.’
‘I don’t want it,’ I say.
‘You sure? It smells pretty good.’
‘I know, but I still don’t want it.’
Victor shrugs. ‘Ah, you want something else instead,’ he says saucily, crawling back onto the bed.
‘Maybe later,’ I say. ‘When you’ve worked out some way of locking the door.’
Something catches my eye and we both turn to look out the bedroom window, and I jump all over again because there, her nose pressed against the pane, is Distira.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ I say. ‘This is beyond a joke.’
‘I’ll talk to her,’ Victor says, standing. ‘I’ll sort it.’
‘But don’t upset her. I need to use her bathroom. I haven’t washed properly since England.’
‘Come,’ Victor says, holding out one hand. ‘We’ll go back with her now.’
Distira’s bathroom turns out to be as grubby and junk-ridden as the rest of her house. But even crouching down due to the lack of a shower curtain – what is it about the French and shower curtains? – getting clean feels wonderful.
After he has showered, Victor joins me back at our house and, with a towel over the window and a chair propped against the door, we do manage to make love. The sensation of our freshly washed bodies together feels ecstatic.
We then eat – Distira’s stew for Victor and a Pot Noodle for stubborn me – before drifting into a pleasant slumber.
I’m woken by Victor turning over in an unusually energetic manner.
I start to drift back to sleep, but then he does it again. It’s only when I try to roll towards him myself that I realise that something is wrong: my body has sunk so far into the mattress, it’s almost impossible to move. I have to edge backwards and then throw myself forwards to lift myself from the body-shaped hole the mattress has created beneath me.
Once I do manage to move from the indent my body has left, I have to put up with lying across the bumps and depressions left in the foam until the mattress starts to mould to my new body shape. It feels a little like being assimilated by the bed.
‘There’s something wrong with the mattress,’ I whisper.
‘It’s bloody awful,’ Victor replies, clearly wide awake. ‘I think it’s trying to swallow me whole.’ He reaches out and switches the light on. ‘And when you roll over—’
‘You have to trampoline your way out of the hole,’ I finish.
‘Yeah. And then it’s all bumpy from where you were lying before.’
‘I know,’ I say. ‘I think it might be that memory foam stuff.’
‘It is,’ Victor says. ‘But I thought that was meant to be a good thing.’
‘It’s quite comfortable as long as you don’t move.’
‘But I do move,’ Victor says.
‘I know. I noticed!’
He rolls towards me and fidgets around a little and then snuggles against my back. ‘I wonder if we can take it back?’
‘You can be pretty sure that we can’t.’
BIOLOGICAL TIME BOMB
The next morning Clappier arrives so early that it’s only the chair against the door that prevents him from barging in on us as well. We extract ourselves from the man-eating mattress and watch, blurry-eyed, as he hammers and swears at various bits of piping.
Eventually, despite our terrible night’s sleep, Victor and I begin to tidy the kitchen and then scrub the walls. It’s hard work to get the layers of food-grime off, and although the stickiness vanishes, the walls look worse than before. But as we can’t repaint until we have scrubbed them, there doesn’t seem to be any other option.
Just as we have picked up our tools again after a lunch-break in the van, Distira sticks her head through the door on the pretext of retrieving her Tupperware.
She sidles up to the foot of my stepladder. Something about her demeanour makes me nervous, and though I don’t imagine for a second that she would actually push me off, I do climb down, and it isn’t because I want to be closer to her.
‘Qu’est-ce que vous faites?’ she asks. What are you doing?
‘I’m washing the wall,’ I explain in French.
‘It doesn’t need washing,’ she replies, which from someone who never seems to clean her bath is, I guess, unsurprising.
‘We want to paint it, Auntie,’ Victor explains from across the room, where he is helping Clappier hang a radiator.
‘Pff!’ Distira says. ‘Quel intérêt de laver le mur si vous allez le peindre?’
And then she spins on one foot, grabs her Tupperware from the table, and gives her best shot at flouncing from the room.
I wonder, for the first time ever, if she suffers from some kind of learning difficulty. ‘What did she say?’ I ask.
Victor half shakes his head in a gesture that says, ‘It’s not worth it.’
‘No, tell me what she said,’ I protest. ‘It’s the only way I’ll ever improve.’
‘She said that there’s no point washing the wall if we’re just going to paint over the top.’
I defiantly pick up my bucket. ‘So she’s a decorating expert now is she?’
‘Looks that way.’
Once I have finished one wall, Victor pulls me into a corner. ‘Hey,’ he says, quietly. ‘You know what you were saying about being a good nagger?
‘Nagger? Oh, yes!’
‘Well, now might be a good time. Clappier said the bathroom won’t be ready for another week.’
‘Another week!’
‘Shh, yes. So, if you fancy a little trial run . . .’
‘I really can’t live for another week without a bathroom anyway.’ I suck the inside of my mouth. ‘I’m thinking maybe something drastic.’
‘Drastic?’
‘Yeah. Women’s stuff.’
Victor wrinkles his nose. ‘I’m not sure I—’
‘What’s the word in French for period?’ I ask.
&nbs
p; ‘Oh, erm, it’s your règles,’ Victor says. ‘You have your règles. But you can’t say that. You’ll give the guy a heart attack.’
‘J’ai mes règles dans deux jours,’ I murmur. ‘Will he understand that?’
‘Your period is in two days, yes, but you really can’t say that to an old French builder, babe.’
‘Really?’ I pull a face. ‘Guys are so weird about girlie stuff. OK, how about, dans deux jours, je vais avoir une problème feminine?’
‘Un problème féminin,’ Victor corrects. ‘Not féminine. A problem is masculine.’
‘Even if it’s feminine, it’s masculine?’
‘Yes,’ he says, glancing nervously over my shoulder to check that Clappier is still in the other room. ‘But I really don’t think—’
‘And what about, Donc j’ai besoin d’une salle de bains toute de suite?’
‘Yes, that’s fine,’ he laughs, ‘but I still don’t think—’
‘It’s a girl thing,’ I interrupt, arching one eyebrow. ‘It’s called using your weaknesses as weapons. Watch and learn.’
Victor laughs. ‘Jesus!’ he says. ‘Even if it works, I’m not sure it’s one I’m ever going to be able to reuse.’
‘No,’ I say. ‘No, I suppose not.’
Clappier is utterly stunned when I drop my biological time bomb upon him. He stares at me, wide-eyed and speechless, but then drops the blowtorch he is using and immediately starts to do something with the piping to the bath instead, so I can only presume that my words have had the desired effect.
Amazingly, by the time he and his helper – the spotty, moped-riding Jean-Noël – leave, the pristine new bath has been manoeuvred into position, the waste pipe plumbed in, and our electric shower temporarily reinstalled above it. In short, I am spared Distira’s sticky bathtub this evening.
Victor heads over to let Distira know that we won’t be needing her facilities and returns with another Tupperware container of stew. Judging from the sweet, spicy smell, it’s from the same batch as yesterday.
When I turn my nose up at the food, Victor says, ‘You are funny about Distira.’
‘Funny how?’
‘Well, you don’t think she likes you, but when she makes an effort and cooks us dinner, you don’t want to eat it. I think it’s quite sweet that, knowing that we don’t have a kitchen, she’s gone to the trouble.’
The French House Page 14
