‘Don’t worry,’ Victor says. ‘It’s not that far.’
Unable to find the energy to even attempt a reply, I simply nod and turn to listlessly watch the countryside rolling by.
When we reach the clinic in Valderoure, Victor explains to the receptionist that his femme is très malade. Glancing snootily at my wellington boots, she invites us to sit in the waiting room.
When the doctor comes out for his next patient, he glances at me, performs a double take, and then after a brief mumbled conversation with the receptionist, invites me in first. And I’m pretty sure that it’s not because he fancies me.
He’s a young, good-looking country doctor with a lovely stripy jumper and a reassuring manner. As he leads me into the surgery, I become embarrassed by the random clothes that I’m wearing and by the fact that I haven’t showered. This embarrassment makes me sweat even more, but he shows no sign of noticing any of this.
He takes my temperature – high; checks my blood pressure – low; and checks my glands – swollen. He then looks at my tongue and asks me how long I have been ill. I’m shocked to discover from Victor that it is now six days.
He then admonishes Victor for bringing me into a waiting room full of people and not phoning him before. I have, he explains, got swine flu.
Victor tells him that I have seen a doctor, but unable to say who the doctor is, nor what drugs he prescribed, and faced with my own confusing insistence that I haven’t seen a doctor, Doctor Charming says that it’s best if we just start from scratch.
He injects me with antibiotics and prescribes me with antivirals, more antibiotics, vitamins, and codeine. And then he does something that hadn’t crossed either of our minds – he asks Victor to pay him. As neither of us have brought any means of payment, he rather trustingly takes our address and tells us that we can come back and pay when I’m feeling better.
After a short stop at the pharmacy, Victor climbs back into the truck and we start to head home. ‘I can’t believe it’s been almost a week,’ I say.
‘No,’ Victor agrees. ‘I’ve been so busy. I’m sorry. I should have taken better care of you.’
I open my mouth to say that it’s OK, but then change my mind. ‘The snow has gone, too,’ I say instead.
‘Yes,’ Victor says. ‘Sunday was warmer and most of it vanished overnight. I went to get the van back on Monday.’
‘I want to sleep in the van,’ I tell him.
Victor laughs.
‘I do,’ I say.
‘Don’t be silly,’ he replies.
I sigh and glance at his profile as he drives, starting to be irritated by this new patronising aspect of his personality. ‘I’m sleeping in the van,’ I say, in a special tone of voice that people don’t usually argue with.
‘You’re better at Distira’s,’ he says, equally seriously. ‘At least she can look after you. And the van is full of plasterboard. That’s why we’re in this thing today.’
‘Empty it,’ I say.
‘She’ll be offended,’ Victor replies.
I cough repeatedly as I try to work out the most succinct series of words that will put across my absolute determination not to return to Distira’s. Meanwhile, Victor slides his free hand onto my knee, and, without thinking, I shrug it away.
‘OK! I’ll empty the fucking van!’ he exclaims.
Actions, it seems, speak louder than words.
‘We might be back in by Friday anyway,’ he eventually adds. ‘The wall is almost rebuilt.’
‘Friday,’ I say. ‘What day is it today?’
‘It’s Tuesday,’ Victor says. ‘So in three more sleeps. Or in your case, one long sleep. I can’t believe you want to go back to living in the van! It’s really not—’
I interrupt him. ‘Believe it!’ I say.
Reaching La Forge, I see that Distira’s car has returned.
‘You go have a sleep,’ Victor says, ‘and I’ll get the van sorted for you.’
He takes my arm to lead me towards her house, but as we pass a plastic garden chair, I break free and slump into it. ‘I’ll wait here,’ I say.
‘Since when were you so stubborn?’ he asks gently, looking down at me and shaking his head.
I open my mouth to say, ‘Since I got swine flu,’ but instead start coughing again.
It takes about fifteen minutes for the two men to move all of the materials from the van and for Victor to convert it back into a bedroom, but because I haven’t felt the sunshine on my skin for a week, this is in fact quite blissful.
Once ready, I climb back into bed and instantly start to doze, woken only briefly by Victor when he returns from Distira’s with my bag. ‘She’s a funny old bird,’ he says, dumping the bag on the front passenger seat.
‘Funny?’ I say, dragging myself back to wakefulness. It’s not a word I would use to describe her.
‘Yeah, I wonder if she doesn’t have Alzheimer’s. She couldn’t find your shoes, and she couldn’t find your medicine . . .’
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘I’m not going to mix those drugs with the new ones, anyway.’
‘I found the shoes, though. They were in the back garden.’
‘Really? Why?’
‘Dunno. One of them had some herbs in it, so maybe she thought they were smelly.’
‘My feet are not smelly,’ I protest.
Victor shrugs. ‘Like I said, Alzheimer’s maybe. Anyway, do you need me to stay or . . .?’
‘I just want to sleep,’ I tell him.
Victor nods. ‘You sure you’re OK in the van?’
I nod. ‘One hundred per cent.’
‘If you need anything, toot the horn,’ he says, and then blows me a kiss before heading off into the house.
That night I lapse back in and out of fever but as the next three days pass, I feel a little better with each wakening. On day two I prop myself up on pillows to read, and twice I even head into the house to make tea. I rather slovenly reduce my visits to Distira’s bathroom to the barest minimum, even going as far as using the toilet of our own open-to-the-elements bathroom, rather than visiting hers.
On Friday morning I wake up feeling as if I merely have a bad hangover, which, compared with the previous week, equates to feeling bloody marvellous.
The bathroom wall now entirely rebuilt, I am able to have a soak in our very own bath, and I arise from the waters feeling like a new woman. Checking myself in the mirror, I realise that I also look like a new woman. My face looks as if it has spent seventy years without moisturiser rather than seven days. But the rest of me is as thin as I have been since I was in my twenties – a dose of swine flu is like a free Shrink-Me Waist-Witch. I even have to cut a new hole in my belt.
Victor catches me attempting this operation, badly, using a kitchen knife. He wrestles it from my grasp. ‘We need to fatten you up,’ he comments, as he makes the hole with a bradawl. ‘You’re way too skinny.’
‘You make me sound like a goose,’ I say.
Victor smiles. ‘You are my goose,’ he says, handing back the belt. ‘I tried to get you to eat, but you were so stroppy.’
I start to thread my belt back around my waist. ‘I don’t trust her food,’ I say.
Victor rolls his eyes at this.
‘I don’t,’ I say. ‘It made me ill every time.’
‘Not every time,’ Victor says. ‘And it didn’t make me ill, not once.’
‘Actua—’
‘OK, once,’ he concedes.
‘Maybe you have a stronger constitution than I do. Or maybe she didn’t mess with your plate so much.’
At this Victor stops his mixing operation and shakes his head.
‘She’s a very strange woman, Victor,’ I say. ‘Even you said so.’
‘Strange, yes, but it’s a bit of a leap to suggest that she’s been poisoning your food,’ he says. ‘And a bit of an offensive one. You seem to forget that she’s my aunt.’
I fill the kettle for tea and wonder whether to continue this discussi
on. It’s clearly veering towards an argument.
‘I didn’t say poisoning,’ I tell him. ‘Oh, and just out of interest,’ I add, thinking that I’m changing the subject, but as I say it realising that I’m really making things worse. ‘Did you actually see the doctor?’
‘The one you say never came?’
‘Yes.’
‘What about him?’
‘I just wondered what he looked like,’ I lie.
Victor nods and then shakes his head. ‘No, I didn’t see him, CC.’
‘Right.’
‘Your point being?’
‘Nothing,’ I say.
‘I was here holding up stays to stop the roof caving in,’ Victor says.
‘OK.’
‘So am I in trouble for that as well?’
‘You’re not in trouble for anything,’ I say.
‘Good,’ Victor says. ‘Because even I can’t be in two places at once.’
‘I wasn’t even complaining,’ I protest.
‘Good,’ he says again.
‘I was just . . .’ I start, but then I let the sentence dry up mid-way. I had been about to point out that seeing as neither of us saw the doctor except Distira, that maybe . . . well, maybe he didn’t come. Maybe she did tell me that Jesus is all I need. But Victor glances up at me and a shadow crosses his features as if he has subconsciously worked out where I am going with this.
‘I can’t believe how much work you’ve done here,’ I say, to quickly change the subject. ‘Virtually all of the walls are rebuilt now, aren’t they?’
As if to confirm that we’re walking on eggshells here, Victor replies, ‘Yes. I’m knackered. And my back’s fucked. And my wrists hurt. Because there have only been the two of us here all week. And half the time Clappier isn’t here either. So just, you know . . .’
I lick my teeth and fight the desire to rise to the bait. I wonder what the missing words are. ‘Back off’, perhaps?
I look around the room and take in the sterling progress they have made, and imagine how much work and strain it must be putting on Victor, and decide to do just that. ‘It’s amazing,’ I say. ‘You are amazing. And I’m sorry I was too ill to help.’
Victor blinks at me slowly. ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he says. ‘You know that’s not what I meant.’
‘I know. So is there anything I can do now?’
‘You’re better off resting.’
‘I could do something light,’ I volunteer. ‘I’m still a bit weedy, but I’d like to do something.’
‘If you’re really up to it, you could tidy up a bit,’ he says. ‘The mess is getting on my tits.’
‘Then that’s what I’ll do,’ I say.
And Victor just about manages a smile.
Though my own contribution is limited by my convalescent state, I manage to get the space tidy and with all of us working on the place, it comes on in leaps and bounds. This process is marked by a series of milestones, many of which, because we have been here before, create a strange feeling of déjà vu. On Saturday evening we light our first fire since the disaster and cook our first meal on the range. On Sunday we remove the temporary supports from the joists and get to sleep in our unfinished bedroom again. And though from the outside the whole place still looks like a tsunami has swept through, the house begins, just about, to feel like home again.
On Monday we have to disconnect the water pipes so that Clappier can replace some tubing, which was bent during the collapse of the wall, but because his blowtorch runs out of gas before he manages to solder the final joint, we are left, temporarily, without water. This is particularly bad timing because having used a roller all afternoon, I’m splattered with white paint. With Victor equally coated with grouting, the obvious choice is to head to Distira’s for a shower. Obvious, perhaps, but I fight it all the same.
‘I’m fine to stay like this until tomorrow,’ I say, causing Victor to raise an eyebrow at me. He wipes a finger across my forehead and points it at me to show that it is now white with emulsion paint. ‘You reckon?’
‘I’ll wash in the van,’ I offer.
‘Nice solution. Only the tank’s empty.’
I roll my eyes, forced once again to capitulate. ‘Just in and out then,’ I say. ‘No dinner invitations shall be entertained.’
‘No,’ Victor says. ‘Although as we don’t have any water . . .’
‘Then we can take the jerry-can,’ I say, ‘and come back and cook.’
‘Sure,’ Victor agrees. ‘Now come on, before that paint dries in your hair.’
As we head off to Distira’s an uneasy feeling returns – a vague sense of tightness in the pit of my stomach.
TOO MANY GHOSTS
When we get to her house, Distira beckons us in enthusiastically, which makes me suspicious. She leads us into the kitchen, where we find Carole sitting at the table. Oswald, who is on his armchair, begins growling at us the second we walk in. This only stops when Distira shouts at him.
‘Oswald! Ferme-la!’ she shrieks, and the dog responds by grumbling and laying a paw over his nose.
Distira immediately takes her seat at the table and picks up her hand of cards, her apparent enthusiasm clearly not for us after all – she simply wanted to get back to her game.
‘Vous jouez au tarot?’ Victor asks her. You’re playing tarot?
Distira is holding her hand close to her chest as if I or Victor might gain something by peeping. ‘On vient de commencer,’ she says. We just started. ‘Vous jouez?’ You play?
‘Non,’ Victor says.
‘Did you say tarot?’ I ask Victor. ‘As in actual tarot?’
Victor shakes his head. ‘No, it’s just a card game.’
Distira checks her cards and, as I’m standing behind her, I can now see them. The cards are amazing: each one comprises a water colour – a drunk with an empty bottle, a clown juggling . . .
‘Gosh, what amazing cards,’ I comment, stooping in to look at them better.
‘They are special,’ Carole says. ‘From nineteen seventies. For future reading. She loose the others.’
‘Vous savez lire les cartes, Tatie?’ Victor asks. You know how to read the cards, Auntie?
Distira inclines her chin vaguely in Carole’s direction. ‘C’est elle qui fait ça,’ she says. ‘Moi, je ne fais que jouer.’ She’s the one who does that. I just play.
Carole, apparently seeing this as a request, reaches over and wrenches Distira’s cards from her hand, and despite Distira’s evident irritation at the interruption of their game, proceeds to shuffle the cards before spreading them expertly across the table.
‘Pensez à votre question, et sélectionnez-en trois,’ Carole says in an abrupt, no-nonsense manner. Think of a question, and choose three.
Victor winks at me, and then moves closer to the table. He hangs his towel on a chair-back, and taps three cards, which Carole separates out before folding the rest of the pack away.
‘Et la question?’ she asks.
Victor laughs. ‘Oh, I thought it was secret,’ he says. ‘Sorry, it was, um, can we make money from the farm? Enough to live on.’
She flips the three cards over and nods as if to say that she expected exactly this result. She lays a finger on the first card. ‘This one is past,’ she says, looking from Victor to me. And who could deny that the image on the card – a castle being hit by lightning – looks a lot like our own ‘château’ in recent days.
‘It means change,’ Carole says. ‘Not expected.’
‘Unexpected changes,’ I say quietly. ‘Sounds about right.’
‘Yes, none-expected change,’ she says, apparently mishearing me. ‘And this one is what you are obliged to do.’
Victor and I both peer at the card. The image shows a man driving an ox. ‘Looks about right,’ Victor says.
‘It means to travel,’ Carole says.
‘Travel?’ I say, surprised. ‘It looks like work. Farm work or something.’
‘No, is travel,’ she says
definitely. ‘Perhaps to the southwest.’
‘Why the south-west?’ Victor asks.
‘I feel it,’ she says, waving a hand over the cards in a faux-mystic manner.
‘And this one?’ Victor asks, pointing at the third card – a man standing next to a scarecrow with the setting sun behind him.
‘Good,’ Carole says.
‘Good?’
‘Is sunny.’
I run my tongue across my teeth, entirely convinced now that she is making this up as she goes along. When did a tarot card ever just mean ‘good’?
‘Well, as long as the future is sunny,’ Victor says as Carole sweeps up the cards and reshuffles the pack. She nods her head in my direction. ‘And you?’ she asks, now smiling at me in her unnerving and rather unconvincing way.
‘No thanks, Carole,’ I say. ‘I need to wash this paint off.’
Victor nudges me with his hip. ‘Go on,’ he urges. ‘You saw how long it takes.’
‘No, really,’ I say, but Carole is already spreading the deck.
‘Can I keep the question to myself?’ I ask, intrigued to see what meanings she will invent if she isn’t told the question first.
‘If you want,’ she says. ‘But it’s not so good. Not so spécifique.’ Which, thinking about the card interpretations she has just done for Victor, seems a laughable idea.
Thinking that this will turn out to be one of those quirky memories that we will look back upon and laugh about, I cave in. ‘Go on then,’ I say, pointing quickly to three cards in succession.
As before, Carole separates the cards and sweeps away the rest of the pack before flipping over my three cards. The second I see them, I wish that I hadn’t got involved in this.
‘Not so good,’ Carole comments, and even I can see from the sombre colours of the cards that this is so.
‘This is past,’ she says, caressing with one finger the image of a hanging man. ‘Something dead. Life make short.’ She stares me in the eye, and I attempt to maintain my poker face.
Victor sighs in a way that communicates that he too is realising that this was a mistake.
The French House Page 19
