The French House

by Nick Alexander

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Was it nice having a brother?’

  I take a deep breath.

  ‘Sorry, I suppose that’s not something . . .’

  ‘No, it’s fine. It was a long time ago, you know?’

  ‘You don’t remember, you mean?’

  ‘No, of course I remember. I just mean, it’s OK to talk about it.’

  ‘So was it nice? Was Waiine nice?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, smiling at the image my mind conjures up, as fresh as if it were yesterday. ‘Yes, it was wonderful having a brother. And horrible losing him. The worst thing ever.’

  ‘It must have been,’ Victor says.

  ‘But, well, it was just normal. Him being there, I mean. You take people for granted, don’t you? I didn’t even visit him much when he was in hospital. I was busy at college, and I never really imagined that he was going to die. Or what that really meant. And I think I hid from it a bit, too. I’m not sure I was old enough to cope. But I wish I had made more of him when he was around.’

  ‘Hmm,’ Victor says thoughtfully. ‘Was he much like you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Yes he was exact—’ But then suddenly my voice cracks, and I’m unable to continue.

  ‘Sorry,’ Victor says.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I manage, taking a deep breath. ‘But it never goes away. And yes. He was exactly like me. Only wilder.’

  ‘I wish I could have met him.’

  ‘Yes,’ I say quietly. ‘Me too. I was thinking just today that Mark will be able to come and visit us once it’s all finished, and SJ and George, and your friends. But not Waiine.’

  Without thinking, I almost add, ‘And not Vincent.’ In fact, I even open my mouth to do so, but manage to stop myself in time. There are enough ghosts in the room tonight.

  It rains all night, and it’s still raining in the morning when we get up.

  Clappier fails to materialise, but because we’re pretty happy with his progress, we decide to leave him be and head down to the coast for some shopping.

  As we’re driving away from the hypermarket, Victor’s mobile rings, so he pulls into a lay-by to take the call. With the rain drumming on the roof, he struggles to hear whoever is on the other end. Eventually he hangs up and says, ‘That was Georges. He was phoning to warn us about the weather forecast. Looks like snow.’

  I peer out at the water cascading down the windscreen. ‘Really?’ I ask. It seems hard to imagine that it could possibly be snowing one hour away. ‘We are going to be able to get home, aren’t we?’

  Victor shrugs and then phones Distira to check on the state of the roads, but there is no answer.

  ‘I’m sure it’ll be fine,’ I say. ‘It was OK last time.’

  ‘That was six centimetres,’ Victor points out. ‘Not sixty. Georges thinks we should borrow his four wheel drive Panda. It’s up to you, but otherwise, we might get stuck up there, that’s all.’

  ‘I think it’ll be fine,’ I say again.

  Victor winks at me, checks over his shoulder, and heads back onto the road. ‘Well, you were right last time,’ he says. ‘We’ll go with your woman’s intuition.’

  But by the time we begin the hill on which Georges’ farm sits, the responsibility of this is starting to weigh upon my mind.

  ‘Fine, let’s go see what they say,’ I concede.

  When we arrive, Georges and Muriel usher us into their house, serve us a single beer each, and fill us in on the severe weather warning.

  ‘C’est une alerte orange!’ Georges says. Which I understand from his raised eyebrows is a serious business.

  The men quickly decide that swapping cars is the best thing to do, and Muriel nods at me to say that she thinks they’re right, so we swap all of the shopping from our lovely warm van to their frozen red box on wheels, and then we head back, Victor thrashing the Fiat up the hills and taking the first corner at speed.

  ‘Jesus!’ he says, belatedly slowing down. ‘The brakes are terrible.’

  When we do get to La Forge, the sleet has turned back to drumming rain.

  ‘It might be like last time,’ Victor says, when I point this out. ‘It might happen overnight.’

  Stocking up the freezer provides an unexpected sense of security. ‘At least if we get snowed in we won’t starve,’ I say.

  ‘No,’ Victor agrees, adding wood to the fire. ‘I’m actually quite excited about being holed up with you . . .’

  And then I say something stupid. I say words that, forever more, I will suspect were responsible for everything that happened next.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, glancing heavenwards. ‘We’re ready for anything now. Bring it on! Do your worst!’

  Does the drumming of the rain double at that precise moment, or had I simply tuned it out while I was stocking the freezer? Whichever it is, Victor hears it too and looks up.

  ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ he laughs. ‘You might just get it.’

  We are awoken at 2 a.m. by a terrifying, ground-shaking rumble. My immediate instinct is to clutch Victor beside me, but because his reaction is to jump from the bed, this leaves us in a confused scrabble of arms and limbs.

  Victor flicks on the lights and says, ‘What the fuck was that?’

  ‘Maybe the heating exploded?’ I offer.

  ‘Nah. Earthquake, maybe?’

  We nervously venture out into the hallway and on towards the kitchen, but there are no signs of any damage.

  ‘Maybe the water tank?’ I suggest, heading off to open the bathroom door. But the new hot water tank is still attached by its two little bolts, exactly where Clappier fixed it.

  When I return to the kitchen, Victor has opened the front door and is peering outside. ‘I have never seen so much bloody rain,’ he says, closing the door again and crossing the room to throw a log into the range.

  ‘So what was that?’ I ask. ‘Because it was something big. Do they even get earthquakes here?’

  ‘I think so,’ Victor says, grabbing my hand and leading me back through to the bedroom. ‘If it was an earthquake, there might be more.’

  ‘Aftershocks. You’re supposed to go and stand in the middle of a field,’ I say. ‘I looked it up when my shelf fell on me.’

  Victor frowns at me, indicating confusion.

  ‘Oh, don’t ask . . .’ I say. ‘It’s a long story. And a stupid one. But anyway, if a big one happens, you have to stand in a field.’

  ‘If a big shelf falls on you?’ Victor asks, grinning.

  ‘No, a big earthquake, idjit. You have to stand out in the open where nothing can fall on you.’

  As I climb back into bed, Victor crosses the room to peer out of the small bedroom window. He wipes the glass with one hand and presses his nose against the pane.

  ‘What can you see?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he says, returning to bed. ‘It’s pitch black out there.’

  I lie listening for aftershocks, and doubt that I will get back to sleep, but I do drift off because the next thing I know, I’m peering blearily at the alarm clock.

  ‘Is this clock right?’ I ask with a yawn. ‘It says it’s gone ten.’

  Victor sleepily turns his head and frowns at the clock, then looks the other way towards the darkened window.

  ‘Still raining,’ he says.

  ‘It’s dark as night.’

  ‘It’s the end of the world,’ Victor says in a spooky horror-film voice, before rolling towards me, linking his arms around me, and tickling me.

  ‘It’s cold in here this morning,’ I say when I have stopped laughing.

  ‘Yeah, it’s damp. The fire must have gone out. I’ll relight it.’

  We lie for a moment, but then I hear a drip, and sit bolt upright in bed.

  I switch on the bedside lamp and follow the direction of the noise – water dripping onto water.

  ‘Look. The rain’s coming under the window,’ I say.

  Beads of water are hanging along the entire length of the windowsill. Below that, a small puddle is f
orming.

  ‘Oh fuck!’ Victor yells, jumping from the bed and hopping into his trousers. ‘I know what’s happened. I know what that noise was!’ Grabbing a jumper, he runs from the room. ‘Don’t open the window!’ he shouts behind him.

  I get up, pull on the nearest clothes available, and peer out the window. But I can’t see anything. Puzzled, I head out into the kitchen and grab the umbrella before exiting the front door that Victor has left open.

  ‘Victor?’ I shout, and his muffled reply comes from the back of the house, barely audible over the noise of the rain hitting the umbrella and the roof – the rain hitting everything.

  I scramble over the tarpaulined woodpile and climb down into the narrow alley that separates the back of the house from the higher ground behind. When I turn the corner, I find Victor standing, still barefoot, holding a coat over his head for shelter.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask, moving to his side and lifting the umbrella above both of our heads.

  Victor says nothing, just nods at the sight before us.

  ‘Oh Jesus!’ I say.

  Because the noise last night was no earthquake. It was a landslide.

  The dry stone wall that used to retain the higher ground behind the house has collapsed and a sea of mud, earth and stones has crumbled against the rear of the house, half filling the depth of the cut-away. The reason that our bedroom window is so dark, I now understand, is because it is underground.

  Back indoors over coffee and toast, we debate what to do.

  ‘It’ll take days to move all of that earth,’ I point out. ‘Do you think it’s even possible?’

  ‘We might need a digger,’ Victor says. ‘And we can’t do anything until the rain stops. It’ll just slide back if we try to move it when it’s wet.’

  I sigh and rub his shoulder, then lean down to kiss the back of his neck. ‘Well, don’t fret too much. We’ve only got a few drops of water seeping in. I’ll put a towel down or something.’

  I’m not sure even I’m convinced that what I’m saying is true – in fact, I feel an inexplicable sense of rising panic – but I’m somehow aware that I’m doing what I have to do in these circumstances. Calming others down is what women do in the face of adversity. I remember my own mother being unusually calm and reassuring about Waiine’s illness. ‘It’s just a cold,’ she would tell me. ‘It’s just a bad case of flu.’ But of course it wasn’t. It was Aids.

  ‘I need to board up the window,’ Victor says, pulling me out of my reverie. ‘Just in case the glass breaks. We don’t want to wake up in a mud bath.’ He sighs and shrugs sadly at me. ‘It’s like an episode of Grand Designs. Something always has to go wrong.’

  ‘Well,’ I say, ‘If this is the worst of it, we’ll be fine.’

  The following morning, leaving Victor in bed, I head to the kitchen to make a cup of tea and lift a box of tea-bags out of one of the new cupboards. The entire box is soaked through.

  ‘Victor,’ I call, rushing back to the bedroom. ‘We have a problem. There’s water seeping into the new cupboards.’

  He groans and slips from the bed.

  ‘Look!’ I say, pointing inside one of the units at the drips forming.

  We check the bedroom and the bathroom, and all the rear walls of the house are the same, covered in tiny pearls of water soaking through from the other side. There’s even a small puddle of water forming on the bathroom floor.

  ‘OK,’ Victor says, reaching for the phone. ‘Looks like we can’t wait till it stops raining after all. I’m calling Georges. I just hope he knows someone with a digger.’

  Myriam informs us that Georges is out doing farmerly things in the rain, and that he’ll call us back, but she says that she thinks someone they know called Stéphane has access to a digger.

  When Georges phones back that evening, he confirms this and says that for three hundred euros cash, both digger and driver are ours. As water is now seeping up through the floors as well as the walls, we agree immediately.

  That evening, I move all of our food back out of the soaked cupboards and onto the kitchen table, before retiring to the unpleasantly damp bed.

  ‘If we had the van up here, we could have slept in it,’ I point out.

  ‘I’ll go get it tomorrow,’ Victor says.

  ‘Maybe you can buy a dehumidifier as well,’ I suggest.

  ‘Sure,’ Victor says, clicking out the light and rolling away from me. ‘Night.’

  When morning arrives, it becomes clear that we will not be fetching the van. Overnight, the heavy rain has turned to heavy snow. In a matter of hours, the entire landscape has been buried beneath twelve inches of whiteness.

  ‘Snow,’ I say, simply, when Victor joins me.

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘And lots of it.’

  ‘That won’t stop the digger getting up here, will it?’

  He shrugs. ‘Maybe, actually. I think they move them from one place to another on a trailer. I’m not sure they’re even allowed on the road.’

  He turns away from the view and crosses the room to start breakfast.

  I’m about to follow him when something catches the corner of my eye – a flash of yellow.

  ‘It’s here!’ I cry, as an enormous yellow bulldozer appears over the horizon and begins to bounce energetically across the fields towards us.

  FAST TRACK TO SIBERIA

  Stéphane, the digger man, turns out to be a nineteen-year-old municipal employee doing a bit of work ‘au noir’ so that he can buy himself a new motorbike. He is cute, enthusiastic and instantly likeable, even if his age isn’t exactly reassuring.

  It transpires that the bulldozer has been ‘borrowed’ from the regional road authority where Stéphane works, and is visibly too big for our needs – the shovel on the front is twice the width of the alleyway that runs around the back of the house.

  I listen to Victor explaining all of this, but Stéphane argues, convincingly, that we’d be better off with a much bigger space around the back of the house anyway, and that we wouldn’t even be in this mess had we had more, ‘margin for error’, as he puts it.

  I head indoors and leave them to it, and eventually hear the roar of the engine revving up and the shudder of earth moving as he begins to dig out the back of our house.

  Victor returns, ruddy-cheeked from the cold. ‘Well, what he lacks in precision, he certainly makes up for in enthusiasm,’ he says. ‘And I reckon the place will be less damp with more airspace around the back.’

  We try to make progress with our tiling project, but quickly the noise and vibration of the bulldozer just behind the wall becomes too stressful for me to continue.

  I’m just about to formulate this thought when Victor switches off the noisy new tile cutter and says, ‘You know what? I think I would rather keep an eye on him.’

  I down tools. ‘Exactly what I was thinking,’ I say.

  As we pass the bedroom, I see that light is now seeping through the gaps between the planks Victor nailed over the window. Beyond that, the shadow of the huge digger wheel moves back and forth.

  ‘He doesn’t hang about, does he?’ I laugh, but when we step outside, my smile fades instantly.

  In front of the house, just to the left of where we used to park the van, Stéphane is building, out of everything he is removing, a big, muddy, hill.

  ‘Jesus Christ! Your man’s not going to dump all of that there, is he?’ I ask.

  ‘You sound Irish,’ Victor says.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I know, but your accent isn’t usually so strong. Anyway, I’ll ask him. I suppose it all has to go somewhere.’

  ‘But not there!’

  ‘No, I’ll, erm, talk to him.’

  We walk to the edge of the house and see that the alleyway down the side of the house is now three times wider than before, and where it previously comprised a neat stone wall and a gravel path, the wheels of the bulldozer have ground rocks, and snow, and mud and plants into something that looks like an open-cast mine.

 
; ‘Bloody hell!’ Victor says.

  We stand for a moment taking in the desolation, both realising that sorting out the mess that Stéphane leaves behind is going to end up being a bigger job than shovelling out the back of the house by hand. And then I walk down the new alley-cum-motorway to the rear of the house.

  From this vantage point, we can now see the digger as it revs up and moves back and forth with unnerving rapidity, scraping another road-width channel behind the house.

  ‘How are we ever going to sort that out?’ I ask.

  Victor shrugs and puts an arm around my shoulders. ‘We can take our time,’ he says. ‘At least the house will be dry.’

  ‘He’s a bit close to the wall, though, isn’t he?’

  ‘Well we need the earth off the wall,’ Victor says. ‘That’s the whole point.’

  ‘I know, but wouldn’t it be better to finish off by hand?’

  ‘Maybe. I’ll tell him to be careful,’ Victor says. ‘I think he’s going a bit too deep, too.’

  ‘Make sure he doesn’t run you over!’ I shout, as he climbs up onto what remains of the landslide and waves to catch Stéphane’s eye.

  They have a shouted conversation and then as the digger begins once again to roar up and down, Victor returns.

  ‘He doesn’t do finesse really, does he?’ I say, laughing with fake bravado.

  We walk back to the front of the house and I open the front door to step inside, but notice that the new wall-cupboards are trembling.

  ‘Victor!’ I say, ‘Look! Everything’s shaking. Tell him to move away from the rear wall.’

  ‘He needs to slow down too,’ Victor says, turning to leave.

  ‘He’s going to have the whole house down if he carries on li—’ But then my throat constricts and I find myself unable to speak. I grab Victor’s arm and he spins back around and, as paralysed as myself, watches as one of our wall cupboards breaks free and falls to the ground. The section of wall where the cupboard used to hang then starts to crumble before our eyes.

  ‘Stéphane!’ Victor shouts, now sprinting to the back of the house, but it’s too late, because just as he vanishes from view two things happen, seemingly in slow-motion. First, a huge rock falls from the wall onto the counter-top, smashing, like skittles, the two bottles of wine that were standing there. And then the first chink of daylight appears, shining through the rear wall of our house, as it continues to crumble – like the bricks of a toy castle – to the ground.