by Karen Webb
I tipped water from the heavy-based pan into the cup, spilling it onto the recently scrubbed worktops. How annoying! This wouldn’t have happened with a kettle, and now I had to use the neatly ironed teacloth to wipe it up. I was making a mess for Fuschia.
I ate, worrying about the deluge of crumbs falling from my baguette and thinking that I shouldn’t be stuffing my face, but washing the children’s clothes or tidying their rooms. The teacup was full of leaves and I thought back with longing to those neat bags we had in Cwrt Mawr kitchens. Maybe I’d put too many leaves in, as they appeared to have soaked up most of the water, but there was now no more of it left in the pan; plus, there was the question of where to put the leaves. They were sure to block the sink, and the kitchen bin gaped open, scrubbed within an inch of its life with bleach, and awaiting a new bin-liner.
I finished my first French breakfast with indigestion and rushed to the sink, eager to wash the plate and knife. I wiped the table-top and put everything back, stuffing the Chinese gunpowder leaves onto the top soil of a plant in the kitchen window.
Perhaps I should try and find Fuschia and see if she needed any help. I found her in the salon, at the back of the house, polishing wooden statues. The walls were lined with enormous oil paintings of an abstract nature. The largest of the collection was a swirling mass of cream, brown and black, which reminded me of the storms off the coast of Aberystwyth, producing my first pang of home-sickness. The artist had scrawled his name at the bottom right of the picture: HUGO. There was something bad-tempered about the painting – a lugubrious fellow no doubt.
Beneath the painting was a wooden sculpture as high as my hips. I ran my hand over it. The head was smooth and rounded with a crack running across the top, the sides long sinews of carved and knotted wood. There was a little bit of fluff stuck in the crevice at the top. I tried to pick it out with my fingernail. Fuschia walked past and seeing what I was doing burst into a fit of laughter, holding her hand to her mouth and scuttling away, her espadrilles flapping on the floor tiles. I didn’t see what was so funny. I stepped back and looked at the statue. It reminded me of something I couldn’t place.
With Fuschia gone, I inspected the room. There were two white-leather sofas, grouped around a glass coffee-table, on which there was a bronze statue of a naked lady arching backwards in a moment of pure ecstasy. The smooth wooden table gleamed and smelt of polish. There was a side unit with drawers and cupboards which smelt of beeswax, housing a row of spirits that would have satisfied even the Ifor Evans rugby team. A robin bobbed across the neatly trimmed lawn, stopping to rest beneath a plum tree, its branches laden with fruit.
It was impossible to imagine that Paris lay somewhere over the horizon. It might as well have been a million miles away.
I sat on the edge of the cold, white sofa without feeling the slightest bit at home. This was nothing like the neat bungalow on the estate where I had grown up. The footprint of my childhood home would have fitted comfortably inside the dining room alone. But for all its grandeur, I wasn’t sure I liked it. There wasn’t a TV for a start. And the sofas were too cold to imagine curling up on and reading a book.
Above my head came the sound of rhythmic tapping on the stairs. Madame Blanchard coming down on her crutches? I sprung to the middle of the room, standing to attention as if I’d been waiting there since sunrise.
Madame Blanchard swung into the room with surprising agility.
‘Bonjour, Karen, heureuse de vous rencontrer enfin.’
She kissed me on each cheek, then settled herself down, propping her crutches up on the side of the white sofa. Of all the different Florence Blanchards I had imagined, none had looked like this. She had a sweet, angelic face, without a trace of make-up on her clear skin. Her dark eyebrows were unplucked and framed her pale-blue eyes. Her hair was tied back into a long plait which tapered all the way down her spine to her waist. It was knotted with a simple elastic band like a schoolgirl. She was wearing a blue, strappy T-shirt which clung to her flat breasts, revealing the hollow of her breast bone: a ‘no bra’ kind of woman. Her trousers were ethnic and baggy; the sort of outfit only a very thin woman could wear. Her naked arms were long and muscly, and there was a shocking sprout of black hair visible in the hollow of her armpit. Her hand, as she reached out to clasp mine, had well-defined, strong fingers; short nails, no varnish. There was nothing Yves Saint Laurent or Chanel about Madame Blanchard. Her smile was kind and reassuring.
Florence Blanchard told me that she spoke and understood English perfectly, but that after I’d settled in she would only speak French to me, ‘so that you may learn’. She also reminded me that of her three children, Delphine, Baptiste and Clémence, only Delphine could speak a little English, having spent her early years in America.
Florence – as she told me to call her – sighed and gave what I would come to recognise as her worried look.
‘I’m afraid Delphine is a little difficult,’ she said. ‘She is struggling with the idea of yet another jeune fille au pair. She feels that now she is eleven years old, she is big enough to manage without one.’
‘Oh, I see,’ I said, feeling worried. ‘So, how do you think she’ll react when she sees me then?’
‘Je ne sais pas,’ laughed Florence. ‘Last time she cracked eggs in the poor girl’s shoes and played so many other tricks she turned my hair grey. But she is a good girl, and she will grow to love you, n’est-ce pas?’
Florence surveyed the room and then brought her eyes back to rest on me. She looked me up and down. I was wearing a baggy blue and white pin-striped dress, bought from my favourite shop in Aberystwyth: Lettuce and Melbury. The shop specialised in vintage materials sold at extortionate prices. Far from the clutches of Cassie and her black leggings brigade, I’d reverted to type, with a suitcase full of romantic dresses. The stripes lent, what I hoped, was a kind of Mary Poppins appeal to my outfit. Of course, I’d also brought an array of sexy black underwear, bought from Marks and Spencer’s, lingering with intent in my bedroom drawer. I intended to wage my own religious war on David, as soon as I found him.
My mind had been wandering but Florence was talking, an earnest look engraved upon her Madonna-like face.
‘To find the right girl is very important for us,’ she said, reminding me why I was sitting on her sofa. ‘I have my work, and my husband is very involved in his own.’
‘Oh, do you work?’ I asked, surprised. I couldn’t imagine Florence in an office.
‘I am an artist,’ she said, ‘and most days I am busy with my sculptures.’ She indicated the self-pleasuring woman and the wooden statue to indicate that this was her work. I understood better why her fingers were so strong.
‘Oh, how lovely,’ I said, ‘I particularly like the wooden one. What does it represent?’
Florence smiled a wry little smile, her head on one side.
‘It is a phallus,’ she said. ‘How do you say … ? A penis.’
I remembered Fuschia’s laughter as I’d plucked fur balls from the crack.
Florence smiled. ‘I am working hard for my next exhibition,’ she said, ‘and I’m working in bronze. I’ve just bought a studio, in an old biscuit factory, which I’m having renovated. It is not ready yet, though most days I’m out, overseeing the works. Until this of course!’ She laughed, revealing a neat row of teeth and pale gums, pointing to her leg which she raised slightly, to show me that normally she was both graceful and athletic. ‘And my husband,’ she continued, ‘is – how shall I put it? – very important in business.’
I widened my eyes with a look of interest, though I cared nothing about business.
‘Yes, he is a very important man,’ Florence laughed, ‘or so everyone tells me. This week there was an article on him in a very prominent journal.’
‘Oh, he’s famous then!’ I said.
‘Well, if the world of business interests you, then yes,’ said Florence, dismissively. ‘We do not share the same love of art of course. He thinks of it as my little,
how shall I say, foible? Yes, he sees it as my foible. A whim, if you prefer.’
‘Oh, and art is everything, isn’t it,’ I said, waving my hand in the air as if batting a fly.
I wanted to keep on the right side of my new employer – both employers – and yet I sensed a vague thrill of disloyalty towards Monsieur Blanchard coursing through my veins.
Florence graced me with her delicate smile. ‘To me, yes, my husband and my children are everything. But we women must forge time for our creative selves, n’est-ce pas?’
‘Oh, absolutely.’
‘Then today you shall meet some artists,’ smiled Florence brightly, ‘I’m having a déjeuner with Hugo and Marcel.’
‘Hugo? The artist who painted this?’ I asked, pointing to the abstract storm brewing on the wall of the otherwise neat and tidy salon.
‘Yes, how clever of you. Hugo is a great painter, and Marcel … well Marcel is a very talented architect. That is also art of a kind, n’est-ce pas? He is very modest; he plays the piano so well. And it is he who is designing my atelier; a room for me to seek refuge in, far from the world. They are coming here today. You can cook a little light lunch for us perhaps? Rien de compliqué.’
Hawk talons of panic pierced my heart. I hadn’t cooked since the days of powdered mashed potato and frozen fish fingers with Cassie. There had been no need since that run on free curries up at Cwrt Mawr, when food appeared magically on my plate every evening, after long afternoons of blissful love-making. Where was Rafi with his big saucepans of bubbling dal when you needed him? Had the advert said anything about cooking? Hmmm. There had been some mention of tasty meals. After only half a day, I was about to come unstuck.
Thankfully, Florence, appearing to sense my terror, smiled and patted my arm.
‘I will help you,’ she said kindly, ‘until you find your way.’
Florence swung into the kitchen, and I trailed in shadow behind her. Watching her work, I saw that this was clearly a woman who knew her kitchen inside out, though she had a house full of domestic helpers. She displayed an immediate and evident talent for housewifery and cooking, while sending out the clear message that none of these tasks were her responsibility.
My new boss was the first in a line of French women I would meet over the years, all of whom operated a military regime in the kitchen and who believed that their way was the only way to do things.
Florence propped up her sticks, swinging from worksurface to worksurface, clunking a heavy frying pan onto the hob and spraying it with olive oil from a small, silver pump. Four succulent lamb chops were thrown in. They sizzled in their juices while she snipped fresh rosemary from a branch and sprinkled it over the meat with a twist of sea salt and pepper. She prepared a pan of boiling water for the runner beans which she topped and tailed with deft, muscular fingers; fingers used to squeezing clay and pressing it into phallic shapes all day. Fingers which seemed to say there was somewhere else they’d rather be, engaging in less menial duties. Her nails were clipped short and unvarnished in a clearly no-nonsense manner. The pink nail varnish I’d painted on my own nails, for my new life in Paris, had started to flake and I longed to remove it. A long strand of her hair trailed down Florence’s face and she smiled and pinned it back up. Her face was young without make-up. I admired her translucid skin and those light-brown eyelashes, uncluttered by the gunky mascara that clogged my own. She took a yellow Moroccan bowl from a cupboard and tore strips of fresh spinach leaves into it, adding thin slices of chopped shallot and preparing a vinaigrette with such vigour that the muscles on her arms stood out.
I watched awkwardly, not knowing what to do, sensing I was underfoot. Florence, who was clearly thinking the same thing, told me to go and set the table. ‘Quatre places. Toi, Marcel, Hugo et moi. The plates are in the cupboard in the dining room.’
I found everything in a neatly arranged cupboard and set the places. Florence called through to put out both wine and water glasses, and I made an educated guess at which one to put where. We’d always drunk tea with our meals at home, never wine, especially not at lunchtime.
The doorbell rang and Florence asked me to carry the food through while she swung up the hallway to open the door and welcome her guests.
Deep voices filled the entrance hall. When she returned, Florence’s pale skin was flushed. The two men who towered above her in height flanked her sides like bodyguards. Hugo was exactly as I’d expected from his turbulant artwork: broad-shouldered and arrogant-looking, with a mass of swirling black hair. He kissed the air to each side of my cheek, looking visibly displeased at my presence. Although I didn’t understand what he was saying, I knew that he had immediately dismissed me as a domestic and sensed a prick of pride at the memory of the degree certificate rolled up in my case. I wasn’t really a servant of course. I was a graduate; an expert in Middle English and the Norse sagas. American Literature and the Romantic poets. This wasn’t forever. I was masquerading as a nanny in the name of true love, only to keep a roof over my head. But Hugo, who neither knew this nor cared, handed me his jacket and pushed past.
Despite the warm spring weather, Marcel was wearing a trilby hat à la Humphrey Bogart. He took it off, bowed and then kissed me on each cheek; a kiss moist enough to lift a microparticle of blusher. His eyes met mine and held my gaze. With Marcel, I existed. He didn’t look as if he expected me to clean his shoes. His smile was the charming, slanted kind, with a sharp canine tooth which protruded slightly over his lip leaving a small indentation in the flesh. He reminded me of a cat.
Back in the salon, Florence had come over all faint with her exertions, and the two men busied themselves by pulling up a chair, sitting her down, and relieving her of her crutches so that we could begin our meal. I wondered why they didn’t rub her feet. Marcel uncorked the wine. The conversation was in English for my benefit. Only Hugo, who spoke very little, barked an unapologetic stream of French, staring at Florence the whole time. I realised how difficult it was to grasp the French language when it was spoken quickly, and by someone who lacked the patience of a lover. Rapid-fire Parisian French always sounds pissed off. I longed to be back in David’s arms, practising the few phrases I knew off by heart: Je t’aime; Tu me manques; Embrasse-moi.
A wave of sadness swept over me. The tiredness of the journey, the exhaustion of having to smile for hours on end in a strange house, and now, worse still, trying to look interested when I hadn’t a clue what was being said. If only I could go back to my hessian-clad room, and crawl into the architectural equivalent of an art teacher’s bag.
Marcel seemed to pick up on a little of my sadness and caught my eye with his own bright-blue inquisitive stare. He winked, cast a quick glance at Florence and Hugo who were consumed in a heated discussion, and sucked a runner bean in through the side of his mouth while crossing his eyes. I smiled, and he scrunched a blink of acknowledgement. He had a kind face.
After cheese and more wine, all of which was handed out in a matter-of-fact way as though this was regular lunchtime fare, and a closing ceremony of lip-dabbing with crisp linen napkins, Florence stood up and nodded in the direction of the salon. Hugo and Marcel rose to their feet and pushed back their chairs. I prepared to follow the party to the white-leather sofa. ‘Can you prepare the coffee?’ Florence asked, intercepting me with her crutch. It was a gentle, soul-destroying reminder of my role in the household. Of course, they wanted some time alone amongst friends now.
Frustratingly, coffee, surely the simplest of tasks to demand of a new employee, proved yet another challenge. My mother drank milky coffee laced with a dash of brandy on frosty mornings, or when she was in shock at one of my dad’s latest antics; but hers was the instant stuff from screw-top jars involving none of the paraphernalia with which I was now faced.
Florence’s was a real coffee machine, requiring the use of filters and ground coffee. I wondered if I could cheat, and scanned the shelves for a jar of instant, but to no avail. The Chinese gunpowder sat in stubborn solitude.
The machine glugged and spluttered while I took out the cups and saucers. Florence called to me to bring chocolates from the fridge. When I returned, the water had trickled right through into the Perspex carafe. I touched it gently knowing it might scald but it was stone-cold. Not only this but the water was completely colourless. The coffee grains hadn’t released their essence into the water, or turned hot, or into anything vaguely resembling coffee. I wanted to grab the moist bundle and squeeze it hard into the water, but what would be the point? This still wouldn’t qualify as a hot drink.
Why couldn’t they teach coffee-making to grumpy French artists and their friends in Home Economics lessons at school? All those hours wasted learning about eggs and protein, and I couldn’t make a jug of coffee. I cursed my family for buying instant coffee all those years, and cursed myself for not having added a coffee percolator to my list of engagement presents with Steve. But Steve’s family had only drunk tea – tea and beer.