Tout Sweet

by Karen Wheeler

  Chapter 14

  The Antiques Dealer of Angouleme

  I have come to accept that I have no chance of finding myself a hot Frenchman in Villiers. The average male is sixty-five-plus and more often than not dressed in blue overalls, a flat cap and wellington boots. That’s quite a style challenge, even for a former fashion editor. I have come to accept that I am not going to meet anyone for a while and must concentrate on getting the house finished. And that, of course, is when I meet someone.

  One Sunday afternoon at the end of April, I visit a brocante, or antiques fair, looking for an old gilded mirror to hang over the fireplace. There is an entrance fee of ten euros, which might explain why I am the only customer there. It is cool and dark inside the local salle des fêtes, or village hall, and I immediately spot a potential mirror near the door. But on closer inspection, the frame is over-restored and the price inflated. When I turn around, I find a very attractive man looking at me intently. In his late thirties, he has dark hair, olive skin and eyes the colour of coffee beans.

  ‘Do you like it?’ he asks.

  ‘It’s pretty,’ I say, ‘But the gold frame, looks… a little too yellow… too new.’

  ‘Then would you like to buy a carpet?’

  He indicates behind him, to a wall of oriental carpets, but his smile suggests that he is not seriously trying to sell me a carpet.

  ‘No, thank you. I don’t need a carpet at the moment.’

  ‘Are you English?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You live here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘In this village?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What are you looking for?’

  ‘A mirror.’

  ‘You won’t find anything good here,’ he says.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Ecoute! What’s your name?’

  I tell him. He holds out his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Ka-renne. He pronounces the ‘r’ in my name with a real flourish. I am Christophe. Now, listen! Write your telephone number down here and when I see a good mirror I can tell you.’ He is already handing me a pencil and paper. ‘Tell me, what sort of thing are you looking for?’

  ‘Similar to that mirror in size. Nineteenth-century or earlier, gold frame, but pale gold… Not too yellow. And not too restored.’

  ‘I know exactly,’ he says. ‘I have an English client with a chateau near here and he is always looking for mirrors. Mirrors and chests of drawers as he has many rooms to fill. So now I will also look for one for you.’

  ‘It’s very nice of you. Thank you.’

  ‘In fact, since I am often here visiting my client, maybe we could have a little aperitif together one evening?’

  ‘OK,’ I say, thinking it could be useful to have a friend in the antiques trade.

  ‘Are you married?’ he asks.

  ‘That’s a very direct question.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘No,’ I say.

  ‘Listen,’ he says. ‘What are you doing on Thursday?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘What about if we meet for an aperitif?’

  ‘You live where exactly?’ I ask.

  ‘Angouleme.’

  ‘Angouleme?’ It is at least 100 kilometres away. ‘That seems like a long way to come for an aperitif.’

  ‘Yes, but I am coming back anyway to deliver a chest of drawers to my English client, so it is not a problem. Do you have a boyfriend?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Perfect, so we are both single. I will take you out for an aperitif on Thursday and we can discuss your mirror.’

  ‘OK,’ I say, trying to sound nonchalant. ‘Thursday. Maybe. Give me a call first.’ I continue browsing around the fair – all the while aware that he is watching me – since I’m also looking for an old wrought-iron boulanger’s stand or bread rack to use as a bookcase. I return home empty-handed but thrilled to have bagged a potential date. Pouring myself a celebration glass of rosé that evening, I realise there is a lot of truth in the old adage that you never know when you might meet someone.

  He calls later that evening. ‘Ka-renne,’ he says, ‘It is Christophe.’

  ‘Hi,’ I say, trying not to sound too excited.

  ‘Thursday is OK?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘What time?’

  ‘Seven o’clock?’

  ‘Impeccable. I will call you when I get there.’

  He calls shortly before lunchtime on Tuesday. I’m in the middle of painting a kitchen cupboard. ‘Ka-renne?’ The voice at the other end of the phone is low, sexy and slightly urgent. I brace myself for the cancellation of my first and only date in over eighteen months.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s Christophe. I am here.’

  ‘You’re here? Where exactly?’

  ‘At the cafe in front of the mairie.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, I had to deliver the chest of drawers to a client north of Poitiers. I found myself near your area with the rest of the afternoon free and thought why not drop by?’

  I look at my watch. Christophe is two days and seven hours early. I am wearing jeans with holes in the knees and my hair is dirty. I also need to wait in until 2.00 p.m. for the delivery of my garden table from Jardiland.

  ‘You don’t sound pleased that I am here?’

  ‘Yes… yes, I am pleased. It’s just that I’m in the middle of something at the moment… but I will try and get there as quickly as possible.’

  Galvanised into action, I cast aside the paintbrush and run upstairs to wash my hair. While I’m in the shower, the doorbell rings and my wrought-iron table (in a very pretty French blue) is delivered from Jardiland. I rush downstairs, hair still wet, and as the delivery men manoeuvre it into place in the courtyard, I think of the al fresco breakfasts that I will eat there in the spring sunshine; all the glasses of chilled rosé that will consumed here on hot summer evenings with friends. The table represents another giant leap forward at Maison Coquelicot. Admiring it through the kitchen window, I notice that more green shoots have appeared in the stone flowerbed. It’s so exciting that in among all the weeds which I still haven’t got round to removing – and without me doing anything at all – something beautiful seems to be growing.

  It takes me less than twenty minutes to dry my hair and swap my decorating clothes for a summery dress printed with poppies and a scarlet cardigan. I find Christophe sitting outside the Café du Commerce in the early spring sunshine, sipping a glass of orange juice. I also notice Gérard standing outside the wine shop on the other side of the square and looking in our direction. After Dave, my supposed ‘husband’, and Jonathan, my pretend SAS boyfriend, he is probably intrigued by the speedy pace of my love life. (If only he knew the truth!) ‘Ah, Ka-renne,’ says Christophe, standing up to greet me. As I wonder whether to kiss him on the cheeks or not, I experience that cringy ‘first date’ feeling. It is so long since I’ve been in this situation, and I never imagined I would be at the age of thirty-eight. But he solves the dilemma by planting a kiss on each cheek. Christophe is much better looking than I remember and is dressed well (in jeans, a navy shirt and a green waxed jacket). Here at last is boyfriend material that won’t need restyling. He looks masculine, tanned, intelligent and – this is definitely a first for me – wealthy. He asks what I would like to drink and orders me an Evian, summoning the waiter in a polite but assertive way that I find very attractive.

  ‘So how are you?’ I ask.

  ‘Impeccable,’ he replies. ‘And you?’

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘That’s a very pretty dress you are wearing,’ he says, revealing himself as a man of good taste, since the dress is vintage Marni, a quirky Italian fashion label much loved by fashion insiders.

  I ask him about his trip and we dis
cuss his client’s chateau for a while and how the English proprietor is doing a good job of the renovation. He tells me that he has lots of British clients with big chateaux to fill, who spend thousands of euros buying job lots of paintings and antique chests of drawers.

  ‘It takes a lot of furniture to fill a chateau,’ says Christophe.

  ‘I’ll bear it in mind if I ever think of buying one,’ I say.

  He smiles and draws on his cigarette. ‘So what are you doing here in Villiers?’

  ‘Renovating a house. But I’m also a fashion journalist.’

  ‘And you live on your own? Without a boyfriend?’

  ‘Well, unless he was hiding under the bed, I couldn’t see one when I got up this morning.’

  Christophe looks puzzled and I figure he has misunderstood my humour.

  ‘A joke,’ I say. ‘I don’t have a boyfriend.’

  ‘Why don’t you have a boyfriend?’ he persists.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I shrug. ‘I just haven’t found one yet.’

  He asks me how long I have lived here and why I chose this village. I tell him the abbreviated version: that I was visiting a friend one weekend, saw the house and bought it the same day.

  ‘That’s a very brave thing to do on your own,’ he says, fixing me with his dark, intense eyes. ‘It takes real courage to move to a foreign country alone.’

  ‘I never really thought of it like that,’ I say. ‘It seemed to me like an opportunity. Plus I had had enough of city life – the noise, the pollution, the people. I wanted to live in the countryside and go for lots of walks.’ (I don’t tell him that I’d reached the point where making a major change in my life was less scary a thought than carrying on with more of the same, or that only very recently did I actually start exploring said countryside.)

  His eyes light up. ‘You like walking?’ he says. ‘I love walking. And the countryside. I am at that stage of my life, Ka-renne, where I also want to be in the countryside.’

  ‘So you must do a lot of travelling with your job?’ I say. ‘There are so many antique fairs in France.’

  He nods. ‘Mostly I sell antique chests of drawers and small paintings. I buy a lot at Drouot, the auction house in Paris, and then sell to my English clients for double the price. It’s normal. At brocantes dealers always buy at half the price.’

  I imagine accompanying him to antique fairs all over France, him negotiating massive discounts on my behalf. Here is boyfriend material with added benefits! ‘Wow, I would love to go to an auction at Drouot,’ I say.

  ‘Well, the next time I’m in Paris, why not come with me?’

  ‘Excellent,’ I say, wondering if it’s too soon to ask if he has managed to find me a nineteenth-century mirror.

  ‘You know, I could tell straight away that you had good taste,’ he says, stubbing out his cigarette.

  ‘Really?’ I say, trying not to look too flattered. ‘How?’

  ‘The mirror you were looking at. You said to me, maybe the gold is too yellow, maybe the frame is too new… You were right. It was not good quality.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘The frame was too yellow. It was new. The glass was old but the frame, it had been replaced.’

  There is silence for a few minutes and then he says, ‘I have not stopped thinking about you since Sunday.’

  ‘You haven’t?’

  He leans forward and looks at me intently. ‘As soon as you walked into the brocante, I knew I had to see you again. It was like a lightning strike. You understand? You were the most attractive woman there.’

  I was the only woman there, but rather than point this out I blush, not sure what to say. There is something very full-on about his seduction technique, but this, I know from previous experience with Eric, is the French way.

  ‘It’s such a beautiful day,’ I say. ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yes. I know a really good walk near here.’

  ‘OK,’ he says. ‘Let’s go.’

  He stands up to pay for the drinks and I notice for the first time that he is shorter than me, but I’m prepared to overlook this, as he has so much else going for him. We walk down the hill out of Villiers and turn right towards St Maurice, past the twelfth-century church, across the stone bridge, through the narrow streets of the village, and then uphill again towards the old chateau. Around us, everything seems to be coming to life in the spring sunshine: the fields are no longer a dull brown, but have turned a vibrant green, while bluebells and snowdrops and small yellow flowers (whose name I don’t know) intermingle with green grass in the hedgerows. The sun is not yet operating at full volume, but the blue sky hints at the promise of the coming months. I am about to experience France in all its beauty.

  ‘So what’s it like living in Angouleme?’ I ask, as we walk past the high stone walls of the chateau. He lights a cigarette. ‘I live with my parents at the moment.’

  ‘With your parents?’

  ‘Yes, but I am looking to buy an apartment.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know, yet I would like to be near the sea. With my job, I travel all over France, so it doesn’t matter where I am based.’

  ‘Yes, like me,’ I say. ‘We are in the same situation. I’d also love to live by the sea eventually.’

  ‘Have you ever been to Provence?’ he asks, suddenly. ‘To St Tropez?’

  ‘No. But I’ve always wanted to go. Why?’

  ‘I have a holiday apartment just outside St Tropez, overlooking the sea. I will take you there in the summer, if you’d like to go.’

  Christophe is sounding better by the minute. ‘So you’ve never been married?’ I ask, as we head onto a dirt track that leads to open country.

  ‘I had a girlfriend, until last year,’ he says, looking suddenly pained.

  ‘So did you live with your girlfriend in Angouleme before you split up?’

  ‘No. We were living in Paris.’

  ‘What made you leave Paris?’

  ‘I had had enough. It was too noisy. Too much traffic. That’s partly why we split up. I wanted to move to Angouleme and she wanted to stay in Paris. But that’s not the whole story.’ He stops dead and looks at me intently. ‘Listen,’ he says. ‘I am serious. I am at that stage in life where I don’t want to live in a city. I want to settle down, lead a quieter life. I am looking for a serious relationship.’

  We walk along in silence as I digest this tantalising piece of information.

  ‘How old was she, your last girlfriend?’

  ‘Twenty-eight. Now, I want someone my age. Someone who is also serious about settling down. How old are you?’

  ‘Thirty-eight,’ I say. ‘And you?’

  ‘Thirty-eight too.’ He looks around at the vast expanse of silvery-green meadow on our right and breathes in deeply. ‘Ah, impeccable,’ he says and I am not sure if he is talking about the meadow or me.

  When we arrive back in Villiers, the clock above the mairie shows that it is nearly 5.00 p.m. I’m already committed to going to Elinor and Desmond’s for dinner, but I invite Christophe back for a drink in my courtyard anyway.

  ‘Avec plaisir,’ he replies.

  Back at the house we sit at the blue table sipping Evian, surrounded by my recently acquired hydrangeas and jasmine plants.

  ‘This is perfect,’ he says. ‘This little courtyard is very private. In France, we say that the life lived in secret is the best life.’ He looks me straight in the eye as he says this. ‘So, can I take you out to dinner?’

  ‘That would be very nice,’ I say. ‘But this evening I am already going out for dinner with friends.’

  ‘Then when?’

  ‘What about Thursday, as originally arranged?’

  ‘Impeccable,’ he says.

  Later that night, I lie in bed and I
cannot sleep for excitement. Could it be that I have finally found a man to fill the gap in my life left by Eric? It’s very early days yet but the signs, for once, look very good indeed. Christophe has a lot going for him. First, unlike nearly all my previous boyfriends – most of whom were too poor even to buy me a coffee – he is not on his uppers. Secondly, he, like me, is a free spirit, unfettered by the chains of a nine-to-five job. Thirdly, he is attractive and intelligent. Fourthly, he might be able to get me a good deal on a mirror and – if I’m really lucky – a pair of bedside tables.

  He calls me several times before our dinner on Thursday night to tell me how much he is looking forward to seeing me. This, I tell myself, is how it should be: no playing games, or waiting around for a phone call. Good things happen fast. I count down the hours until Thursday evening. In the intervening time, I indulge in a little self-renovation (nothing major – just painting my toenails and applying a little fake tan to my legs), as I am worried that I am starting to look a little too rustique. As Miranda is always telling me, it is important to maintain standards, even when living la vie rurale. Unfortunately, the John Frieda salon is no longer a cab ride away, so I can’t get my highlights done and I’m not sure that the local hairdresser would be able to recreate the complicated three-step process that turns my hair a convincing caramel-blonde.

  On Thursday evening, the doorbell rings at almost exactly the agreed time of 6.30 p.m.

  ‘J’arrive,’ I shout, sticking my head out over the geraniums on the bedroom windowsill. Below I can see Christophe clutching a bunch of orange and yellow gerberas – well, it’s the thought that counts – and a bottle of champagne. I also spot my neighbour Claudette, sweeping the pavement and eyeing my house curiously.

  ‘Flowers and champagne. That’s very nice,’ I say, as I open the door.

  ‘And these also,’ he says, handing me two bottles of red wine (how much does he think I am capable of drinking?). ‘They need to go in the fridge.’ As he moves towards me to kiss my cheeks I detect a sharp, citrus masculine cologne that has been applied with a light hand, so as to only be noticeable close up. ‘It was very strange. The man in the wine shop asked me a lot of questions. Almost like an interrogation.’