A Stranger in Paris

by Karen Webb

  Bonne-Maman was a confident driver, clutching the steering wheel with delicate hands, her long slender legs, which barely reached the ground, banging at the pedals. Under her watchful gaze, the children were surprisingly disciplined. Delphine and Olivier read their comic books quietly; Gaston La Gaffe or Tin Tin, Clémence sucked her thumb until she fell asleep with her head resting on Delphine’s shoulder. Squinting at the road ahead and hunched over the enormous steering wheel, Bonne-Maman paid little attention to any of us. I don’t think she wanted to talk. She didn’t seem particularly interested in me, and knowing that she had taken this same trip every summer with an ever-changing series of nannies, I understood why.

  We drove south for three hours into the middle of France. Not to the south of France of my dreams – Nice, Monaco or Aix – but to a land-locked village in the middle of nowhere in a part of France no-one ever mentions much.

  We pulled off the motorway and stopped for lunch at La Courte Paille – a round restaurant with a straw roof. There was an open fire in the corner and I ordered a steak which the chef sizzled over the open flames, my vegetarian days now completely forgotten. The children had chicken nuggets and chips and argued over the free plastic toys. Bonne-Maman nipped neatly at a goat’s cheese salad sprinkled with honey and, declining dessert, drank a small shot of black coffee. I fancied an ice cream, but didn’t like to order it. I reminded myself that I was not one of the children, though having spent a morning in this dominant woman’s presence I felt like one.

  Holidays as a child had been few and far between and dependent on the stand-by tickets Dad got on the cheap from work. We were never quite sure if we would board a plane, and the start of our holidays usually saw us sitting on our cases at Manchester airport with Dad running from terminal to terminal like a harassed hare sweating red-faced in his best suit. Sometimes we arrived in Spain on different flights; once my mother travelled to Alicante in the cockpit.

  Back in Bonne-Maman’s car, we continued along the road for a further forty minutes. I was dozing off when the car slowed down and made a sharp left turn, before bumping down a long dirt track. The children woke with excited cries of: ‘On est là, on est là!’

  The avenue to the château stretched before us, cutting through a long line of oaks with fields to each side. It was a stretch of the imagination to pretend that anyone other than royalty would have such a long driveway in the UK. It twisted and turned for several hundred metres before the house appeared on the horizon. The beaten track beneath the car tyres was rough and perilous, the sodden earth punctured with giant pock marks. There had clearly been a recent downpour although in Paris it had been dry for weeks. A hawk perched on an electric wire, barely flinching as we passed. The telegraph pole was tilted at an angle, the wire sagging dangerously low along the ditch in which a flow of water babbled noisily. Judging from the fallen trees by the side of the track, there had been a recent storm. As we proceeded a family of partridge waddled in front of the car; three chicks following their mother into the field.

  At the end of the drive the road opened out into a small clearing. The property was hidden by a stone wall which ran around the outside. A small wooden bridge on a chain had been lowered down over the ditch. It was a proper castle then, with ramparts and a moat.

  We crossed the rickety wooden bridge and parked in front of the castle. The straw and lime walls were scored by dark oak beams. The house leant against the barn, a more recent addition, driven by the weight of the years. Despite its name, and the frills of its drawbridge entrance, I was disappointed to discover that Château de Trémouillet was a wattle and daub manor house of reasonable proportions, and not a rambling Gothic castle with turrets.

  An old man in braces was sweeping the pathway. Bonne-Maman parked the car and he came over to shake her hand, pushing the green cap back from his sweaty red forehead. The man said something and pointed to the house. A woman emerged from the doorway, rubbing wet hands on her blue apron.

  Bonne-Maman introduced me to the couple as la nounou, or ‘the nanny’. She didn’t bother with my name. ‘She is English,’ she said, excusing me in advance. I shook hands with the guardians, whose names were Monsieur and Madame Villard, though they pressed me to call them Jacques and Yvonne. The children ran off to see the park. I wanted to follow them, but reined myself in. Bonne-Maman informed me that she would show me the house, after which I could bring in the children’s bags, unpack their clothing and help prepare dinner.

  The rough stone floor of the hallway was cold beneath my feet. It was a dark house and it took my eyes a second to adjust. Vlad would have loved it. Shivering, I wonder if I should have brought some warm clothes. The house had an autumnal feel that called for a roaring log fire and a pair of fur-lined slippers to combat the chill rising from the thick stone floors. The skirting boards were encrusted with mould, which was hardly surprising as there was no sign of any central heating, just an open fireplace in the kitchen, infusing the air with a damp and acrid smell. The kitchen was a sparse and utilitarian space, devoid of any modern appliances, and divided in half by a long oak table. The original stone sink was slung low against the wall in the corner designed for a shorter generation but perfect for Yvonne, who was as short and stout as a baby troll.

  On the fireplace above the chimney, a faded olive branch adorned a simple cross. Sitting at an angle beside it there was an old black-and-white wedding photograph of a couple in late nineteenth-century clothing. The bride and groom were complimentary in size and appearance like a pair of identical twins, with only the dress and the bonnet to differentiate between Monsieur and Madame. The bride’s face was painfully unattractive, her dark eyes bleak beneath her heavy forehead and caterpillar brows. She had the kind of chin which would look better with a beard. Madame Villard followed my gaze and made the sign of the cross. ‘Mes parents,’ she said fondly, and then in French: ‘They worked here all their lives.’ My heart went out to them. Bonne-Maman pursed her lips at this interruption and we moved quickly on.

  Beyond the kitchens I was pleased to see that the château allowed itself a little grandeur. The first floor was enchanting, with nothing to disappoint. The hallway was lined with bookshelves and paintings of the family. The subjects depicted were blessed with a far better morphology than Madame Villard’s ancestors. There was an exquisite oval portrait of Florence’s grandmother, glancing down at us with those same unmistakeable doe eyes and long dark hair which framed her pale face. It was a perfect portrayal of Florence minus the bongo drums and the baggy pantaloons.

  The children had private rooms, each as pretty as a picture, with four-poster beds piled high with pillows and set into decorative alcoves. The furnishings were plush, with antique desks and cupboards, chiming clocks and gilt mirrors bedecked with angels. Just like Versailles! We had left the sixteenth-century stone kitchen on the ground floor behind us, and had risen in rank to the eighteenth century, with rooms as plush as those in which Marie-Antoinette had lounged in Le Petit Trianon.

  Bonne-Maman opened the door to show me her room – ‘Should you need me in the night …’ – before turning up the stairs to the second floor. It was considerate of her, I thought, to have allowed me my privacy far from the children. For a second, I warmed to the old lady. Admittedly the second floor was not quite as grand as the one below, but it was comfortably furnished all the same. The rooms overlooked the park at a higher level, and in the distance, I observed the russet smudge of deer on the horizon. There was a nursery with a rocking horse and a doll’s house with period furniture in miniature and one of those terrifying life-sized dolls on the bed with a porcelain face, a black petticoat dress and wide staring eyes.

  ‘My favourite room as a child,’ Bonne-Maman said. ‘There are still toys here from my grandparents’ day. The castle has been in the family since before the Revolution.’

  We continued, heading towards a narrow staircase at the end of the hallway and up a third set of stairs. The third-floor ceilings were low, and I was forced
to duck my head beneath the beams. At the end of the corridor there was a small wooden door.

  ‘Voilà, votre chambre.’ I noticed how the children’s grandmother insisted on using the polite French form of vous, whereas with Florence the friendlier form of tu was acceptable.

  Surprisingly there wasn’t a room on the other side of the door as I expected, but a steep flight of wooden stairs leading to a fourth floor. The stairs were not made of the same elm or oak as the lower stairs, but from rough planks of wood that had been nailed together like the bottom of cargo crates.

  ‘Allez-y,’ she waved impatiently, and pushed me forwards with a hard poke in the back. I climbed the stairs, realising halfway up that Bonne-Maman had abandoned me. The stairs opened onto another corridor, no more than two or three metres long. The wooden ceiling slats had sagged, clumps of plaster hung down precariously, wafting in a persistent draught which came from somewhere above my head. The corridor was so tight my shoulders rubbed against the walls on each side, dislodging the blistering lead paint from the swollen pulp which mascaraded as dividing walls.

  Hunting for my room was akin to receiving a birthday present in a huge box and tearing off layer upon layer of paper in excitement, only to find a disappointingly small box at the very bottom. One in which there would never be a diamond.

  My room in the attic was une chambre de bonne – or maid’s room. Every bourgeois house in France has at least one, and this was mine. I lifted the latch of an ill-fitting door and found myself in a cupboard. The room was barely wide enough for a single bed. The walls were gnawed with damp, and flakes of lead paint speckled the old grey cover on the bed. Poking out beneath the top cover was an itchy looking layer of sack clothing or ticking. The mattress was lumpy and uneven and smelt of wee. The bed looked as if it had been requisitioned from Bedlam, with iron bars top and tail. It had been designed for shorter people than mankind has produced in the last three hundred years. There was a crucifix above the bed on which an agonized figure of Jesus writhed in pain, the sculptor having spared the onlooker none of Christ’s suffering. In the corner, there was a small enamel sink, above which hung a mottled mirror on a chain. The mouse droppings around the taps confirmed my worst fears.

  Paltry light trickled into the room from the skylight above. Rain drops flecked the glass as the sky darkened beyond the grime of the window pane. They trickled down the ancient lead frame, dripping down the wall. No wonder the bed was sodden.

  I flicked at an ancient light switch. The single bulb above the bed hissed a moment, the circuit struggling to connect through the humid wires.

  ‘Dépêchez-vous,’ Bonne-Maman called from the bottom of the stairs. ‘You have work to do!’

  Chapter 12

  Despite the summer shower, the children had disappeared off into the woods wearing their brightly coloured plastic raincoats and boots. I wanted to follow them, drawn to a slither of light on the horizon and the parkland beyond, but my attempt at escape was curtailed by Bonne-Maman’s sinewy yet insistent frame, as she sidled between me and the doorway and guided me back to the kitchen.

  ‘Pourriez-vous aider notre cuisinière?’ she said, pointing towards the kitchen. Could you help our cook? Yvonne’s ancestors might have lived on the chimney for the past fifty years, but she was still referred to by her profession and not her maiden name.

  Yvonne’s sleeves were rolled up as she bent over the scrubbed pine table, gripping a dead bird between rheumatic fingers. The air was thick with the smell of wet feathers and bird poop, the floor covered with brown feathers. The bird was only half-plucked, lending it a tragi-comic ‘thespian in brown britches’ look. Yvonne continued to snatch clusters of feathers from the body with short rhythmic tearing sounds. Satisfied at last, she stepped back to survey the now naked bird.

  ‘A vous,’ she said encouragingly, and offered me a sharp-looking knife from the rack.

  I stared in horror. The only meat I’d ever had to deal with had come shrink-wrapped from the supermarket, plucked and smooth, its baby-pink skin devoid of feathers. I couldn’t pluck a dead bird while it looked me in the eye … not after owning a budgie all those years.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I can’t. I don’t know what to do.’

  Bonne-Maman cocked her head, her small and glinting eyes scanning my face. She looked ready to fly at me. There was something avian about Bonne-Maman herself, with those crinkled white patches beneath her eyes and her claw-like hands.

  ‘Et alors, what is the meaning of this nonsense?’ she said firmly. ‘À la campagne – in the country – we do not have time for such manières.’

  In other words, there was no time for my pussy-footing around. I had to tear birds’ flesh.

  Yvonne stared at me kindly. ‘Je vais vous montrer,’ she said, and raised the dead bird from the table, her forefinger and thumb nipping the dead flesh. She pointed to a series of dark red dots, then taking the knife cut into the flesh, exposing a layer of yellow fat beneath the skin. She prodded with the tip, until with a grunt of satisfaction she’d extracted a small black pellet like a military surgeon.

  ‘BERK!’ She spat on the floor to show me how disgusting it was and said something about the official hunting season being closed, but that luckily nobody on the estate bothered about details like that. They could blast birds from the sky ‘til their hearts burst at Château de Trémouillet.

  Before long Yvonne had removed three pellets from the carcass and was satisfied. Taking up her knife again, she proceeded to cut a circular slit around the bird’s anus. Once the incision was in place the intestines slipped forwards and out onto the table. I gagged and averted my eyes, certain I’d throw up, the smell of wet bird and acrid soot turning my stomach.

  Unable to face the bird’s despairing look of humiliation a moment longer, I ran out of the back door and retched. I was not going to pluck and prepare pheasant. No way! The glossy advert in The Lady magazine had mentioned none of this. I’d already checked out the forms that Jessica had received from the au-pair agency detailing what a family could (and could not) ask their hired help to do: light household duties, yes; ironing the children’s clothes, yes – my family were already in breach of contract with the enforced ironing of Axel’s shirts. There was, however, no mention anywhere of having to touch slippery intestines.

  I sought consolation by the compost heap, oblivious to the rain, revelling in the scent of rich soil and freshly cut grass. After a few minutes, I felt strong enough to return to the house, ready to have it out with Bonne-Maman. I’d happily go home if I must. I’d tell Florence and Axel I couldn’t stand it anymore. Anyway, what was the point of staying on now that David had gone?

  Back inside Bonne-Maman was reading Le Figaro in the sitting room, peering through owlish spectacles perched on the end of her pinched nose. The children were colouring in their art-pads at a round table by the window. They were so busy with what they were doing that they didn’t look up. Did they even need a jeune fille au pair?

  ‘I’m here,’ I said. ‘Sorry about that. Felt a bit green.’

  Bonne-Maman had lit a small wooden fire in the grate. The air was chilly, revealing an underlying layer of must which the smoking logs did little to abate. Outside the window there were flashes of lightning on the horizon and black clouds scudding up towards the house. A big storm was brewing by the look of things. Summer had forgotten to make an appearance at Château de Trémouillet.

  It must nearly be time for le goûter. My stomach had acclimatised over the past few weeks to the French tradition of a big snack at four o’clock, and I was starting to feel peckish, despite the lunchtime feast of steak and chips. I wondered if Bonne-Maman would give me instructions to rustle something up. If she didn’t say anything soon I’d ask if I could go down to the kitchen and lay a tray of treats for the children, carefully adding a portion for myself.

  I coughed, to remind the grandmother of my presence. The old lady made me wait, taking her time and reading to the end of her article before dei
gning to look up. I watched the flames dancing in the grate as they tried to take hold of the wood and started to feel sleepy. It was cardigan season, if not thermal undie weather in this neck of the woods. I hadn’t felt so cold since leaving Wales. I shivered, edging instinctively towards the fire. Bonne-Maman was wearing a woollen cardigan over her chemise and a thick-looking Hermès scarf. I, on the other hand, had brought an optimistic bag of summer wear for my trip, and still wore the skimpy spotted dress that I had chosen back in Paris that morning. In thin cotton, it ‘fit where it touched’ as my inner-mother whispered disparagingly, but had felt perfect for the South of France. I wondered if Delphine could lend me a jumper. I might be able to stretch one a bit.

  Realising that Bonne-Maman had finally spoken, I tuned back in. Hopefully she had understood about the pheasant plucking. If she found me another task, I’d willing put heart and soul into it, so long as it didn’t involve snipping at a bird’s anus.

  ‘Ahh,’ she said, ‘I see you have a little colour back. You were white as paracetamol. Now, if I understand correctly, you do not wish to help Yvonne with our pheasants. No? I thought not. Well, if you are ready, I will show you how else you may be of service, since the birds have proved too much, n’est-ce pas?’

  Bonne-Maman was up on her dainty feet before I could think what she meant. I followed her out of the door, passing Yvonne who was on her way in with a large tray laden with tea and cake. I twisted my neck and observed as she set the tray down on the table before the children. On it, there was a pot of tea, a carton of orange juice, a mound of butter and a bowl of strawberry jam. Not to mention the pièce de résistance, a brioche of gigantic proportions exploding like sugared lava from its tin, the odour of freshly baked bread tingeing the dank air with its promise of goodness. My stomach contorted in anticipation.