She was making what she hoped was a decent fist of not mainly addressing Jack.
‘It is French law, however, that one day each year the public has free entry and access to a chateau such as this.’
‘O no. Wouldn’t do me at all, wouldn’t that.’ Janet received a supportive grunt from Jim.
The front door opened and an elegant man in expensive cords, a noticeably tidy hair-cut and a cravat at the throat of his perfectly pressed shirt, kissed Zoe three times and welcomed them all warmly.
‘Bienvenue chez moi, tout le monde. Entrez, entrez.’
‘Wouldn’t want to heat that for a winter. Would you, Miss?’
Enid smiled at Jim and thought, only one more and then – that place.
I’m pleased to be excited, she told herself, climbing back into Zoe’s Espace.
Zoe, driving to Laborie, wished she could mind-read. Had Jack bitten? She couldn’t tell and daren’t stare.
Jack’s thoughts were now on the major event of his day. He watched the country’s beauties sliding by and breathed ever deeper. And shallower.
As they walked through the pretty little copse that marked the boundary of Laborie, Roy accepted Jack’s offer of a cigarette, rather than roll one.
‘Now then...’ Jim properly purred.
His eyes lit up at the solidity of the two-storey house. He and Janet moved forward together, taken seriously for the first time today.
‘Pool up here on this lawn?’ she wondered. ‘Aye. Tennis court an’ all.’
Roy quietly said to Jack, ‘You seriously going to live in summat like that first place?’
Jack smiled, ‘No. I was just curious to see it. And that last one. And – I enjoyed fulfilling everyone’s idea of how an American in France should behave…’
Roy smiled, nodded. ‘Sneaky. I like it.’ Then he trod on the cigarette. ‘And that were pitiful, mate. I’ll do you a rollie after nose-bag.’
Jack attempted a translation and failing, asked, ‘Do I say thanks?’
‘You will.’
Everyone else, for their own reasons, had no interest in this place and were more than happy for Jim and Janet to get lost in their transparent enthusiasm. When Zoe opened the house only they went in and didn’t seem to notice or care they’d not been followed.
The heat was leaving the day as Zoe parked and led them down the cart-track to Janatou.
Enid stopped to take in the haunting grandeur of a giant dead tree and for the first time that day wished she’d had a camera. The blackthorn and the more ambitious spiders had colonised the path. Almost obscured it with nature.
Jack and Zoe became detached at the head of the group. He listening to her part in the house’s history; of the summer she’d taken the photographs and sat to draw, and that this was a place she loved. Jack nodded. His mouth was drying. She said she came here to sun-bathe naked once upon a time, and when he didn’t respond she wished she’d never been so unsubtle.
Behind them it was hard to disagree with Jim’s, ‘How you sposed to get shopping down here?’
‘In a tank,’ Janet giggled.
To Enid Makin every ancient cart-wheeled rut convinced her somewhere this private could suit her. Very well.
As the path wound on towards the end of the woods Sue and Dave were sure that this, whatever it was, was not for them.
Waiting till all of them would see it at the same time, Zoe pushed the dripping branch aside and there, in low late afternoon light, lay Janatou.
‘Zoe,’ Roy said, ‘We’ll wait by the car if it’s all the same to you...’
‘Same for us, pet,’ Janet added. ‘We’ll go and have a smoke, eh?’ Zoe passed Roy the keys and said, ‘We shouldn’t be long.’
Roy nodded to Jack. ‘I’ll do you that rollie now, if you like...’ There was a tiny pause.
‘Ah. No, I’ll – I’m happy to accompany the ladies, thanks. Later?’
‘Whenever, mate.’
As they strolled back Roy said quietly to Sue, ‘Rum. First time he’s looked owt but cool.’
Around the three of them the kind of silence that includes birds and flies folded. Enfolded.
The house waited.
The view, as the sun lengthened the shadows, was breathtaking. ‘We’ve spent a day,’ managed Enid, ‘looking at lovely places - and now this...’
‘I know,’ smiled Zoe.
The house has a silent magnetism for each of us, Enid noticed.
And the deepest silence is in this American man.
‘That is a view.’ Enid caught the choking note in Zoe’s voice.
‘It’s like a secret place,’ Enid said and was rewarded with the warmest flash of a smile from Zoe.
‘It was – and it is.’
Zoe led her and Jack up the stairs.
One volet hung loose.
There was no lock on the door.
Zoe jiggled the latch just so and the feeble warm breeze lifted a carpet of dust to greet them.
Jim said, ‘We find the owner, offer him ten per cent less under table and we’d get it.’
‘And you’ve got the frog for all that have you love?’
‘Money’s numbers, love. And, I’ll bet you every lawyer round here can manage cut-glass English when they niff their cut. What do you think?’
‘I think we look at some more tomorrow – say us goodbyes and thanks, park up for a week, sniff about – and then...’
There was a fond beat.
‘You’re brains in this show, aren’t you?’
Sue said, ‘We could fix up that Sireyol place, us.’
Roy nodded.
They agreed.
Excited.
All three of them silent.
He seemed reluctant to cross the threshold. Or perhaps he was content to, or needed to, simply stand there for that moment, look, and breathe. Enid gladly followed Zoe.
The big room was plain, its simple furniture stacked against an un-plastered wall.
A long dead fire.
A bucket in a kind of kitchen space beneath the single window. But the atmosphere of the place dwarfed all and any detail, Enid felt. Undefinable yet palpable. Through the open front door stood Jack, staring at the land and that view...
Zoe opened one of two doors in a dividing wall. The simplest possible bedroom. Bed, chair, chest of drawers.
Jack came in. He stood and he looked and Enid couldn’t make eye-contact with him now, so private was he. So far from speech.
Behind the other door was a room empty of everything but dead flies and dust.
With seemingly next to nothing at all to look at, Enid was fascinated by how quiet and silently respectful – and slow – all three of them were in their movements.
She followed Zoe up a flight of wooden stairs to see the grenier. Dusty too, and empty apart from one largish box against a wall. Enid hesitated.
Zoe hesitated.
Enid said, ‘May I?’
Zoe seemed to shrug.
Enid ducked under one of the A frames.
She stopped and asked, ‘Is this the long story? Here.’
‘Some of it. My mother knows more than I do.’
Again, Enid felt compelled to ask, ‘Might I?’
Zoe’s gesture didn’t deny her.
Enid knelt to see some plates, two paintings and a large pile of letters. Oh, glory but I would love to read those.
Jack’s head appeared. Enid stood.
Bizarrely guilty, she felt.
Jack looked around, saw the box, nodded to them both and descended.
They found him sitting on the edge of the bed.
He rose and joined them as they stepped back into day-light. Zoe said, ‘There’s a source here. For water. But otherwise it’s - primitive.’
‘Mm,’ Enid allowed, watching the setting sun falling slow towards its sleep behind the Cantal Mountains.
‘Thank you so very much, Zoe,’ she managed and vowed not to speak again till her heart had stilled.
When Zoe a
sked Jack was he ready to leave, he gave her a small bow and walked down the stone stairs.
Sara’s evening feast had her fending off more bi-lingual compliments; and Zoe’s guests were free, if they so chose, to discuss the day – and tomorrow. Zoe offered digestifs and Jack took the opportunity to slip into the kitchen, kneel into Sara’s lowered eye-line and ask, in French, ‘Could we speak tomorrow?’
‘Bien sur,’ she managed and allowed him to squeeze her hand and leave her.
I am overwhelmed, she thought. Thinking dead thoughts come to this kind of life. I want to hug him for an hour.
Roy and Sue admitted they were ‘well interested’ in Le Sireyol, but wanted, like Jim and Janet, to see more tomorrow. Zoe happily produced her lists whilst Jack declared he’d seen enough, and with her permission, might sit tomorrow out.
Making a choice? Zoe could only hope. For an American he was contained, this man. I’d always had the impression they were brash. He’s not.
She turned to talk to Enid who quietly said, ‘Je crois que vous savez bien ce que je pense.’
There was a beat.
‘Oo now,’ Jim announced, ‘That were bordering on rude, Miss.’ Enid stifled a mounting blush by saying, ‘I agree. In English, then – this is none of your business.’
‘Now that’s better. That was proper rude.’
‘Again, I agree.’
‘Yer after Wreck of the Hesperus – we’re not soft, love.’ Janet’s smirk needed slapping off her silly face, Sue thought.
Zoe nodded a quiet ‘plus tard’ to Enid and spread a calming order for coffees or teas. Roy rolled a ciggie for himself and Sue and an especially neat one for Jack.
‘Now then, my colonial pal – this is a fag. None of that roasted bollocks.’
Smoke rose and a quiet fell. Zoe bustled back in with a tray. Enid took her tea to a softer chair. Watched Jack nodding approval to Roy.
She sipped at her tea. The room stilled.
Jack took a chair next to Enid’s, leaned towards her and said, ‘May I ask, please – why you were attracted to that place?’
Enid blushed. ‘You may, yes. And I sensed you were affected by it, too...’
‘You’re right. I was.’
He raised an eyebrow inviting her to answer his original question.
‘Am?’ Enid needed to know.
‘Am?’ He hadn’t followed.
‘You are interested?’
‘Yes. I am.’
‘Oh.’ There was a pause.
Enid told herself to look this man as directly in the eye as she dared.
And as her eyes flicked from his shirt collar to rest back on her cup she had to admit it wasn’t a very bold effort.
He saw the tension and asked, ‘Any of the others appeal?’
‘For me? No. That one – um...’
‘Hit your G-spot?’ laughed Jack and immediately wished he hadn’t.
Why is he blushing Enid wondered...?
‘That’s not a phrase I’m familiar with,’ she said, ‘but it sounds accurate for all that.’
He’d like to leave this subject around about right now. ‘And did it ‘hit your G-spot’?’
Again, curiously, this man blushed. Enid smiled. He didn’t. ‘Yes. Yes, it did, yes,’ he almost stammered.
‘Why?’
‘But that’s the question I asked you...’
Enid stalled.
Jack relaxed as the G-spot faded away. ‘There is a – a tristesse – there.’
He nodded slowly. ‘Yup, for sure. Yes ma’am.’
Now he lowered his voice further and respectfully wondered, ‘And do you enjoy sadness?’
‘Not in the least.’
‘But you’re attracted to it?’
‘By it, perhaps.’
They both nodded a little. In a little silence. A pause. ‘And you? What were you attracted to?’
Enid watched him go to answer her, then think again and finally settle on saying, ‘I – I guess you’re right... It is sad.’
That was him quite deliberately saying nothing. Which was his right, his privilege. Enid puzzled.
They sat, both thinking.
‘But you would like it, too. That property?’ Enid finally dared ask.
Now he responded without consideration, ‘Yes. Yes, I would.’
‘I feared so,’ she said, her voice thin.
He used the tiny silence to reach for an ashtray and stub out his cigarette.
‘Well,’ Enid placed her nearly empty cup on a side-table, ‘isn’t it all academic? Since our hostess says there are complications and it may not even be for sale.’
The man laughed. ‘Everything’s for sale.’ Enid was startled.
‘That’s – very American of you...’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Is this a pejorative concept I see before me?’
‘I hope not.’
‘It’s only true, I think.’
It was Enid’s turn to be silent.
And in the newest quiet he heard they were being listened to.
And further, he saw she had realised it – and still further, it discomforted her.
He stood.
‘Would you care to take a stroll?’ He leaned into the inherent Englishness of the word ‘stroll’ and elicited a smile and her standing immediately.
‘I should love to...’
St. Cirgues was easy on its sightseers. Next to nothing.
They turned at the end of the graveyard when some serious woods began and headed back up towards the church square.
‘And so,’ Enid believed, after quiet consideration, this to be the point, ‘you’ll buy it one way or another?’
He looked offended by an inference of brashness.
‘I don’t believe I said or even implied that. I simply said it can be bought. Whatever the ‘complications’.’
‘Because?’
He went to laugh and stifled it back into a grin. ‘Because there’s profit for someone! That usually lubricates the wheels.’
They walked into the church square. A crass single spot-light illuminated the completely unremarkable church tower and clock. She pulled her cardigan a little closer.
‘Why do you want it, Enid?’
The warmth in the casual use of her name surprised her. And, surprising her further, opened something in her.
‘I write. Not very well I don’t honestly believe, but it gives me and a small public pleasure; and I feel sure I could write in that place. And I have retired from my profession, and wish to retire from my country, and to be as honest as the evening invites me to be, I find it hard to conceive of a place so ideally suited to me. And my desires.’
She took a breath.
It was the most personally she had expressed herself in what felt like half a lifetime and the mere use of the word ‘desire’ raised a colour to her cheeks; which Jack noticed, and nodding his respect, he allowed her the space to re-gather herself.
Grateful for his discretion, she asked, ‘And why do you want it?’
‘I was born there.’
Their feet seemed to continue walking but somehow she wasn’t sure they were moving.
‘Well, not in that location. But certainly in that bed. I have it on the highest authority.’
And the air had now surely stilled around them. Enid didn’t even bother searching for words.
She would like, she thought, to sit down now. Her eyes found a bench and her feet headed towards it. He followed, his hands in his pockets now; a relaxation coming over him, she thought, now he’s said this out loud. She sat and he came and sat beside her. It was late enough for a goose pimple to be visible at her wrist.
‘Then...’
And she stalled.
‘Yes?’ he gently prompted.
‘As little as I understand French property law – the house is yours by right.’
‘I am ‘the complications’, yes.’
‘And Zoe doesn’t know?’
‘No. Or rather, she may, it dep
ends on what her mother has said to her.’
A gust stirred some leaves. And laid them down again.
‘No wonder you were beyond speech this afternoon.’
‘Mm. Zoe is right – it is a long story...’
She looked at him.
He looked younger and older at the same time. ‘I like stories...’ she offered.
‘Another time. Please, Enid.’
‘Of course. Of course.’
Some night began to fall on an English ex-teacher and an American publisher sitting on a bench in a tiny French village. They let it.
When eventually she stood she said, ‘I’m happy for you, Jack.’ He heaved a breath and looked up at her. ‘I don’t know – yet – quite what I am. But. I came to see it, amongst other things. I was sent to see it, rather. So, it’s good. That I have.’
She looked down at him. ‘Are you surprised that you’ve seen it?’
‘Not at all, but I am shaken by what it meant. To me.’
She nodded, understanding. Sympathetic. Waiting, hoping, for more.
He stood. ‘But, I’ll take a night’s sleep now, I think.’
She smiled and they took a pace or two in the direction of Sara’s house.
He stopped and waited for her to look him in the eye. When she did he said, ‘I’m sorry, Enid.’
‘Not at all!’
She walked another pace, shook her head. ‘Not at all. Jack.’
In her bedroom she felt the lady had protested that tiny telling tad too much. She should not have said, ‘Not at all, Jack.’
But what was to be done?
Go with the others tomorrow – see some other places. She had time. And, there were other immobiliers, other chambres d’hôtes.
Do this for a week? A month? Till you find the rainbow. Or – go home?
Eggs and baskets, Enid.
Be glad for him and for that place. The right person has the healing of it in his hands.
And, I am taken with the area.
The Solider's Home: a moving war-time drama Page 21
