Tout Sweet

by Karen Wheeler

  ‘Really?’ I smile as I think of Gérard attempting to extract information.

  ‘He wanted to know what I was doing here. He asked me who I was visiting.’

  ‘It’s a small village,’ I say.

  Outside, I can see Claudette. She is beating a rug against the wall, while looking directly into my petit salon. Other neighbours have also come outside to sweep their doorstep, or bring their rubbish out, in order to catch a glimpse of the unexpected goings on at 7 Rue St Benoit. A stranger parading around the village with flowers and champagne has aroused a great deal of interest.

  ‘Yes, for sure, it is a small village mentality,’ he says, nodding towards the window. ‘And your neighbours seem like the curious type.’

  He asks if there is a local restaurant where we can go for dinner.

  ‘Well, there’s Le Vieux Chateau, which is fairly expensive and the food is normally… OK. Or there’s the crêperie, but it’s very basic…’

  ‘No, not the crêperie,’ he says decisively, shaking his head, which I am pleased about. I like a man who makes a decision and who prefers a real restaurant over a crêperie.

  At Christophe’s suggestion we drink the red wine chilled as an aperitif (although chilled red wine, to my mind, is a bit like wearing a bobble hat with a ballgown – plain wrong, even in high summer). We sit in the courtyard under a blue sky. It’s the perfect spring evening, full of the promise of the summer to come.

  ‘It’s big, your rose trémière,’ Christophe says, pointing to the giant green stalk of my hollyhock, which started pushing up out of the ground a few weeks ago and which, to my excitement, is already well over a metre tall. ‘So what have you been up to since Tuesday?’ he asks.

  I tell him that I have been painting kitchen cupboards and pitching feature ideas to my editors in London. Christophe listens intently, his black-olive eyes boring into me. I look at his strong handsome face, his smooth, tanned skin and the merest glimpse of bare chest from his open neck shirt, and wonder at the machinations of fate. If I hadn’t decided on impulse to go to the antiques fair that Sunday afternoon, I wouldn’t be sitting here with him now.

  Later, as we walk down the hill towards Le Vieux Chateau, I’m tempted to broach the subject of this evening’s sleeping arrangements but I can’t think of a way of doing it elegantly. Clearly, he is not planning to drive back to Angouleme, having arrived with several days’ worth of alcohol, but the spare room at Maison Coquelicot is not yet finished. I tell myself that he can always get a room at Le Vieux Chateau.

  We are given a table next to the buffet which is already laid out for breakfast; the overhead lighting is so bright that the nuclear reactor at Lussac must be struggling to keep up. Four glum-looking people are sitting in silence at a neighbouring table. Romantic it isn’t. There is as much ambiance as a dentist’s waiting room, but unfortunately this seems to be the norm for restaurants in my patch of the Poitou-Charentes. The waiter asks what we would like as an aperitif.

  ‘Deux coups de champagne, s’il vous plaît,’ replies Christophe, without hesitation. I actually feel queasy at the prospect of chasing half a bottle of cold red wine down with a glass of champagne, but appreciate the gesture.

  The menu is dispiriting and very heavy. For starters there is a choice of foie gras, fish soup, cabbage leaf stuffed with pork (a Poitevin delicacy) or oysters. I choose the stuffed cabbage leaf, which turns out to be as unappealing as it sounds. Christophe orders the oysters, along with a bottle of Sancerre, and offers me an oyster from his plate. ‘No thank you,’ I reply, as the waiter pours the pale lemony-coloured Sancerre. ‘I like oysters but they don’t like me.’ He throws his head back and laughs a deep, sexy laugh.

  ‘So, Ka-renne,’ says Christophe, taking my hand across the table as our starters are removed. ‘I still cannot believe my luck that you are on your own. Are you sure you don’t have a boyfriend or a husband?’ For a second, I wonder what Gérard in the wine shop – who is still convinced that I am married to Dave – might have told him.

  ‘I told you. I haven’t had time to organise a boyfriend yet,’ I say. ‘I’ve only just got round to sorting out hot water and an oven.’

  ‘Ha! You have your priorities right,’ he says, speaking in low, conspiratorial tones. ‘Heating and food. Now maybe it is time to find yourself a lover.’

  The main courses arrive. I wish I could describe a sensual feast but, as with many meals I have had in the Poitou countryside, it is… challenging. My main course, a salade du périgord, a salad containing duck gizzards, arrives with a minimal of greenery – one, maybe two, lettuce leaves sodden with dressing – and a fatty deluge of animal bits. I am no faint-heart when it comes to animal innards but this is a little de trop. I leave the nicotine-coloured fatty bits piled up on the side of my plate.

  I pick up my wine glass to take a sip of the icy Sancerre, suffused with the aromas of lemon, white flowers and straw, and he raises his glass to his lips at the same time. The cool, flinty taste of the wine cleans the palate and the lingering taste of the fatty red meat that I have just ingested. I tell him a story about my niece, who once asked my brother, ‘Why doesn’t Auntie Karen have a husband?’ My brother replied, ‘Because Aunt Karen is too expensive.’ My antique dealer throws back his head and laughs his deep, sexy laugh. Neither of us says anything for a moment.

  ‘But listen! Ka-renne, there is something that I want to discuss with you,’ he says, reaching for my hand again. ‘I am looking for a long-term relationship and I don’t want to play any games, but I need someone who understands my job, who accepts that I’m away a lot, without getting jealous. This is very important.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ I say. ‘I’m not the jealous type.’ Fleetingly, I think of Eric and how it never even occurred to me that he would cheat on me. Perhaps I should have been more of the jealous type and I might have spotted his infidelity sooner.

  ‘No, Ka-renne.’ he says. ‘I am not saying that you are the jealous type. It’s just that for some women it is difficult to accept. My last girlfriend was very jealous. Christophe, where are you? Christophe, what are you doing? Christophe, who are you with?’ He sweeps his hand in front of him, in a gesture of finality. ‘Either you trust someone or you don’t.’

  ‘I agree. But surely, she must have realised that as an antiques dealer, it’s part of your job to travel to fairs and to meet clients?’

  ‘No. She couldn’t accept that at all.’

  ‘So were you very upset when you split up with your girlfriend?’

  ‘No. She cheated on me.’ He stops dead and looks directly at me. ‘I came home and found her in bed with another man in the middle of the afternoon.’

  ‘You did?’

  ‘Yes. I was leaving Paris to go to an antique fair in the south and I realised that I had left my phone behind, so I came home. It was not even twenty minutes later and I found them in bed together. In the middle of the afternoon.’

  ‘Unbelievable,’ I say, shaking my head in sympathy.

  ‘I’ve been very let down by women,’ he says. ‘Now, I’m looking for someone who wants a serious relationship. I’m not interested in one-night stands.’

  ‘Nor me,’ I say. And once again, I think of the big elephant in the room, which is the question of where Christophe is going to sleep.

  ‘The thing is,’ says Christophe. ‘You know very quickly if someone is right for you. And there is no point, at our age, in playing silly games.’

  I nod in agreement. Christophe, I notice, has hardly touched his fatty steak, which he described as being ‘as tough as old boots’. We both pass on dessert. Christophe orders an espresso and the bill, and when it arrives he refuses point blank to let me contribute. ‘I am a Frenchman,’ he says, handing over his credit card to the waiter. And that is the end of the matter.

  There is a thin sliver of new moon in the sky as we leave the restaurant and walk back up
the hill towards the village. Christophe notices that I am shivering and gives me his jacket. ‘I have really enjoyed this evening,’ he murmurs, taking hold of my hand.

  ‘Me too,’ I say, and feel a surge of happiness. Although I have ingested a lot of fatty calories for not much pleasure, I have enjoyed Christophe’s company. Here at last is a man who knows how to treat a woman. And it’s so nice to feel wanted again. But I’m not going to invite him in, as I’ve already decided that I want to be in this for the long haul.

  ‘The champagne should be nice and cold by now,’ says Christophe, as we approach Rue St Benoit. This, of course, is the moment to raise the subject of where he plans to spend the night, the moment to thank him for a lovely evening and say that I look forward to seeing him again. I fumble for my keys outside the door, playing for time. ‘Don’t invite him in,’ I chant to myself. ‘It’s not a good idea. Don’t invite him in.’ But, as Christophe said, there is no point in playing silly games. I turn the key in the lock and turn to face him. ‘Would you like to come in for a glass of champagne?’

  Chapter 15

  The Long, Graceful Goodbye

  Two weeks later, I have not heard anything from Christophe, since the evening that we went out to dinner and I invited him in – for more than a glass of champagne as it turned out. I remember the evening only through an alcohol-induced haze, but the following morning, he thanked me for a fabulous evening and said we must do it again soon. I was certain that he would call, but after two weeks of silence, the signs don’t look good, which is depressing as I had high hopes for him.

  One weekend in May, Mathilde and Sebastian invite me to join them in Marans, a small port near La Rochelle, where Sebastian keeps the yacht that he is restoring. Mathilde is rather vague as to where the yacht is moored but I quickly establish that it’s not in water. Instead, I get the impression (I don’t know why) that it is in a field. ‘You can stay on the boat with us, although I must warn you that it is not very luxurious,’ says Mathilde. ‘It will just be the three of us as Albert is at his father’s this weekend.’

  ‘That’s OK, I’ll bring my tent,’ I say, ‘and pitch it next to the boat. I’m really good at camping.’

  ‘I’m not sure it will be possible for you to pitch a tent,’ says Mathilde, enigmatically.

  I arrange to meet Mathilde and Sebastian in the port de plaisance, or yachting port, at 10.30 a.m. on Sunday morning. I arrive nearly two hours late – due to following signs to Marens, an additional 100 kilometres away, rather than Marans – and when I try to call Sebastian his mobile is switched off. Hopefully, I tell myself, they will have found a nice cafe overlooking the port in which to sit and wait. But it is not quite the vibrant port that I imagined. Instead, I find a deserted lock with just a harbour master’s office and a few modest-looking boats. There isn’t a single cafe in sight. And standing on the quayside in the rain is Mathilde, dressed in wide sailor trousers and a nautical stripe top. (It is, unlike my hastily cobbled together outfit of narrow skirt and high-heeled boots, entirely appropriate to the setting.)

  I am hit by an enormous wave of guilt but Mathilde is entirely without recrimination. ‘Ka-renne, I am so glad you are here,’ she says, opening the passenger door and getting into my car. ‘We were starting to worry about you. We couldn’t call you because Sebastian’s mobile is dead.’ She tells me that the yacht is ten minutes’ drive away. ‘But we are going to be roughing it a little bit. There is no toilet and no water or light. But Sebastian has the key to the capitainerie, so we can use the shower and toilet there tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Great,’ I say, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  ‘Any news from your antique dealer?’ asks Mathilde.

  I shake my head. ‘It looks like I won’t be getting that mirror, after all. Or the bedside tables,’ I say.

  ‘Tant pis! Maybe he has lost your number,’ suggests Mathilde. ‘Perhaps you should call him?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I say, trying to be stoical but feeling terrible about it all. ‘And I don’t even have his number. He never gave it to me.’

  ‘And anyway, you are right, it is not a good idea for you to call him,’ says Mathilde. ‘That is not how things are done.’ French women, I know, expect men to chase them with the same determination as a chasseur after wild boar, which is exactly what Christophe was doing, until, encouraged by a large quantity of alcohol, I acted against my better instincts.

  Sebastian’s yacht is not in a rural green field, as I imagined, but in le dépôt sec, an industrial boatyard, with locked gates that require an access code. Mathilde struggles to remember the four digits – ‘we will have a problem otherwise’ – and eventually the gates open. We drive into a very bleak work-yard, muddy and full of potholes and home to a dozen boats and yachts in various states of disrepair. Sebastian’s yacht is perched in a corner, next to a rusty and rather sinister looking barge, and is accessed by a 15-foot ladder with a ‘Welcome’ mat at the bottom.

  He waves from the deck above us. ‘Bonjour, Ka-renne,’ he says, with a twinkly-eyed grin.

  ‘I think you will have to come down and hold the ladder for us,’ says Mathilde. ‘It is a little dangerous, no?’

  ‘Of course,’ says Sebastian, his lanky frame descending the ladder forwards and with some aplomb. I feel ridiculous as I nervously climb the wobbly ladder in the rain in my high-heeled boots. As I reach the top I panic slightly, as there is nothing to hold onto and the deck is very narrow, wet and slippery. ‘You must be careful, huh?’ shouts Sebastian. ‘The deck is not sound. In fact, it is in danger of collapse. Try to jump across to the hatch.’

  Somehow I manage to do as he says and climb inside the hatch without incurring any injury, either to myself or the yacht. The Otter of Bembridge was made in 1959 – one of the last wooden-hull yachts to be made on the Isle of Wight (or ‘Weet’ as Sebastian pronounces it). There are mushrooms growing along the windowsill, holes in the polished mahogany woodwork and plyboard covering the rear windows, but it is obvious that it was once a very handsome boat – and will be once again when Sebastian has finished restoring it.

  ‘You see, it is a gentleman’s yacht,’ says Sebastian with pride. ‘A Woodnutt.’

  ‘A Woodnutt?’ I repeat mystified.

  ‘That’s the name of the boatyard that made it,’ says Mathilde.

  ‘It’s lovely,’ I say, admiring the banquettes, which are upholstered in plush red corduroy. Sebastian tells me that he did this himself using a ‘sanger’. I look at him blankly, until I realise he means a Singer, as in sewing machine.

  ‘We thought you could sleep here with your sleeping bag,’ says Mathilde, pointing to the banquette next to the small plywood dining table. ‘We will sleep in the other cabin.’

  ‘Great!’ I say, clocking the various cavities and recesses that could possibly harbour rodents.

  I think of the nearest bathroom, at least 2 kilometres away. Anyone unlucky enough to want to go to the loo in the middle of the night will need to negotiate their way across the unsound deck and down that wobbly ladder in pitch darkness, since it transpires that Mathilde and Sebastian have forgotten to bring a torch or candles. They’ll also need to remember the code to open the gates and then drive ten minutes to the harbour master’s office, before repeating the process in reverse, climbing back up the wobbly ladder in the darkness, unaided.

  ‘But don’t worry,’ says Mathilde, perhaps noticing the look on my face. ‘If it’s too much for you, Sebastian has made the back of his van very comfortable, so you can sleep in there.’

  I push the sleeping arrangements to the back of my mind as Sebastian opens a bottle of red wine and Mathilde serves up a three-course lunch: salad followed by warm roast chicken and vegetables with strawberries and fromage blanc for dessert. She produces all this from a tiny galley kitchen, with no running water and just a camp stove. We sit down at the table and eat from proper plates with proper
cutlery and with proper condiments. She has even prepared a salad dressing. It seems to be the test of a true French woman that they can rustle up a decent three-course meal anywhere.

  ‘So we were thinking of going for a little drive,’ says Mathilde, after lunch. ‘Sebastian has a brother, Jean-Jacques, who lives near here.’

  ‘But I thought they hadn’t spoken in a long time?’ I say.

  ‘Yes, that’s true. But Sebastian thinks that he would like to pay him a visit today. Don’t ask me why.’ She shrugs to indicate that she is as surprised by the project as I am.

  ‘Does Jean-Jacques know we are coming?’

  ‘No, it is a complete surprise.’

  ‘And where does Jean-Jacques live?’ I ask.

  ‘La Rochelle.’

  ‘La Rochelle?’ I can’t believe that I will have to go there again so soon after meeting the perfumer. (When the article appeared, with three pages of photographs of the Île de Ré, it was even more painful to look at having learnt that Eric is living there.) ‘Yes. Don’t worry, it is not far. About twenty minutes away from here.’

  I briefly contemplate jumping in my car and driving at top speed in the opposite direction. But I survived La Rochelle a few months back; I can do it again, just so long as we don’t have to cross the bridge to the Île de Ré. And anyway, who am I to stand in the way of a reconciliation between Sebastian and his brother?

  It’s raining more forcefully as we climb back down the ladder, making the rungs even more slippery. ‘Look,’ says Mathilde, opening the rear doors of Sebastian’s small two-seater van, when we are all safely at the bottom. ‘You could be very comfortable in here. There is very good insulation, as you can see.’

  It’s true that the floors, ceiling and walls are lined with aluminium foil – rather ominously there is a bucket in the corner – but I can’t see any other creature comforts. Mathilde insists that I sit in the front of the van with Sebastian, while she hops gamely into the back.