Tout Sweet

by Karen Wheeler

  I am silent for the remainder of the journey back to Marans. Sebastian seems to be in very good spirits having made contact with his brother. I think of Eric and his girlfriend, wrapped in each other’s arms. I think of the witty lawyer and his lovely wife going back to their lovely home on the Île de Ré with their three lovely children. I think of Christophe, the antique dealer, who seemed so promising but who hasn’t called. I think of Jon Wakeman and his girlfriend, and of Dave enjoying the sunshine (and probably much more) in Hong Kong. And I think of the dark boatyard and the lonely, uncomfortable night that lies ahead, sleeping in the back of Sebastian’s aluminium-lined van – like a chicken fillet that’s just been popped in the oven. And I feel very depressed. (To think that my friends in London are jealous of my ‘perfect’ life here.)

  ‘So perhaps we will bump into them if we go to the Île de Ré tomorrow,’ says Mathilde. And then noticing my face she adds: ‘Oh, maybe you are not so keen on the idea?’ Mathilde does not know that the island and I have a history. I have no intention of crossing the bridge to the Île de Ré tomorrow but I wait until we arrive back in the boatyard (doubly sinister in the darkness) to tell them. ‘Mathilde, I am so sorry,’ I say. ‘I hope that you will forgive me but I’m going home.’

  ‘But it is dark and Villiers is almost a two-hour drive from here.’

  ‘I know, but I’m going back this evening.’

  ‘Well, at least stay for some dinner with us before you go.’

  ‘I think its best if I leave now. It’s already late.’

  ‘As you wish, Ka-renne,’ she says. Her face looks pained and I can see that I have offended her. She turns to climb up the ladder to the boat without saying goodbye properly. Sebastian is quiet as he accompanies me to the gate and taps in the code to let me out. I know I have offended them with my abrupt departure, which breaks all the rules of French etiquette. We have not even swapped the mandatory kisses on the cheeks, let alone performed the delicate dance of the long, graceful goodbye.

  I drive away from Marans, my heart heavy. There are no road signs to indicate the way back to Poitiers and I drive for 30 kilometres before I realise I’m going in completely the wrong direction. Somehow, it feels like a metaphor for my life. I am alone, lost in France, late on a Sunday evening. As I drive down dark country lanes feeling sad and lonely, I realise that this situation feels very familiar. It is my recurring nightmare – the dream in which I am driving along a dark road, with no idea where I am going.

  The following day, a Bank Holiday in France, I wake up grateful to be in my own bed in Villiers rather than the back of Sebastian’s van. The sun is shining, birds are singing outside my window and, when I go to the boulangerie, René Matout gives me a big grin. He has become much friendlier now that I know his ‘secret’ (and he’s probably relieved that I’ve finally stopped flirting with him). Back at home, I make a pot of strong Arabica coffee to go with my croissant and freshly baked pain tradition and I am sitting in the courtyard admiring my hydrangeas when the phone rings. I run upstairs to the bedroom and, breathless, manage to pick it up just before the answering service kicks in. It is Christophe.

  ‘Eh Ka-renne, I am so sorry not to have called.’

  ‘It’s been over two weeks,’ I say. ‘That’s a long time not to hear anything.’

  ‘I know. I’m so sorry. I lost my mobile phone and it had your number in it.’

  ‘So how did you eventually find my number?’ I ask.

  ‘Oh, I got my phone back. I’d left it in a restaurant.’

  ‘I thought you had forgotten me,’ I say.

  ‘Pas du tout, Ka-renne,’ he says. ‘Not at all.’

  ‘So what have you been up to?’

  ‘I’ve been very busy.’

  ‘Where have you been?’

  ‘In Paris. In fact that’s where I am now.’

  ‘Really? But I thought it was a Bank Holiday in France today?’

  ‘Yes, well I’m very busy with clients.’

  ‘On a Bank Holiday?’

  ‘Listen, Ka-renne. How about you come with me to an antiques fair in Clermont-Ferrand the weekend after next?’

  ‘But Clermont-Ferrand is at least a five-hour drive away from here.’

  ‘Come on, I am going to be all alone there this time.’

  I freeze at these words.

  ‘All alone there this time? But I thought you were alone all of the time.’

  ‘Listen, I can drive up and see you on Thursday and we can spend the day together.’

  ‘No, it’s not possible. I have to work on Thursday.’

  ‘Oh, Ka-renne!’ he says. ‘When am I going to see you?’

  ‘What are you doing this weekend?’

  There is a pause. ‘I don’t know yet.’

  ‘Well what about next week?’

  ‘I’m busy with clients.’

  ‘What did you mean by all alone in Clermont-Ferrand?’

  ‘Eh, come on, Ka-renne. I told you not to be jealous.’

  ‘Look, I need to think about this. Leave me your phone number and I’ll call you back.’

  There is a long pause at the other end of the phone.

  ‘No. It’s not possible to give you my number.’

  ‘Not possible?’

  ‘Yes, my phone is for clients only.’

  ‘Well give me your parents’ number in Angouleme.’

  He pretends not to understand my French.

  ‘Comment? What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying it’s very suspicious that you won’t give me your telephone number.’

  ‘Listen! What about next Thursday?’

  ‘Why won’t you give me your phone number?’

  ‘Nah, Ka-renne, listen to me…’

  ‘Then maybe I can come and visit your parents in Angouleme?’

  Silence.

  ‘No, Ka-renne. It’s too soon.’

  ‘Too soon for what? You can just introduce me as a friend. It’s not a big deal.’

  I can feel him squirming on the other end of the phone.

  ‘No, it’s not possible.’

  ‘So where are you going to be this weekend?’

  ‘I am going to Toulouse,’ he says.

  ‘I thought you said you didn’t know what you were doing.’

  ‘It’s likely that I am going to Toulouse.’

  ‘Well, I will come and meet you there.’

  ‘It’s difficult as I’m seeing clients.’

  ‘Well, don’t worry. I can entertain myself and see you in the evening.’

  ‘It’s not possible.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Another pause. ‘My brother is coming with me.’

  ‘Well it would be nice to meet your brother.’

  ‘It’s a little complicated.’

  ‘Look, if you are not prepared to give me your phone number, then I’m afraid it’s over.’

  ‘No, I can’t.’

  ‘Right, well goodbye then.’

  He pleads with me for a while and then, just as I am about to hang up, he says, ‘Look, I can’t because… I have a wife and two children…’

  ‘You have a wife and two children?’

  ‘Yes.’

  For once my French doesn’t fail me. I call him something unprintable (of which I’m not proud) and hang up the phone. How did I not pick up on this earlier? I think back to the stories he told me: how he was very seriously looking for a girlfriend; how badly he had been deceived by women; and how jealousy ruined his last relationship. I guess I wasn’t the first person that he picked up at an antique fair. How could my judgement be so flawed?

  The phone immediately starts ringing again and I know it’s him. I head round to the Liberty Bookshop for a coffee but this is no refuge. As soon as I step through the door I see them: Jon and Dav
e sitting at a corner table with a woman that I guess must be Jon’s girlfriend. She is attractive in a low-key way: long brown hair, no make-up and wire rimmed glasses that give her a serious, intellectual air. Jon looks over and gives me a curt nod and I see his girlfriend looking over at me. Dave pretends not to notice me. He seems to have a spooky habit of pitching up at the absolute low points in my life. I can’t stay here, feeling like an outsider and a loser. Instead, I buy a bar of chocolate from Dylan and leave immediately.

  Back at home, I go up to my bedroom and check the phone messages. Christophe has called five times. I sit down on my bed, the sunlight streaming in through the windows, highlighting the dust on the wooden floorboards. The light bounces off the silver Roger Vivier shoes that I bought in Paris a few months ago, creating twinkling shadows on the walls. It feels as if they are taunting me. I might have impeccable judgement when it comes to accessories and the cut of a pair of trousers, but in terms of potential boyfriends my judgement is flawed. There has to be a reason why I am attracting the wrong kind of suitor – the deceitful and the borderline deranged.

  I look at the silver shoes, and the rail crammed with expensive designer clothes. These are the clothes that I worked so hard to get – the symbols of weekends spent at the office, evenings working late and miserable trips abroad with psychotic photographers. While other people were getting themselves a husband and a life, I was out buying shoes. And this is what I have to show for it – a rail full of clothes that I no longer wear and pile of shoeboxes the size of Kilimanjaro. The reality is that I have no need for most of these things. There aren’t enough days in the year to carry all the handbags that I own. And, chic cocktail parties in La Rochelle aside, where in rural France am I going to wear a transparent red chiffon dress or a pair of black Manolos with straps that cover the foot like a cobweb? Suddenly, I can’t stand the sight of these clothes and accessories. Rather than symbols of success, they seem to represent all that is wrong about my life.

  I run down to the kitchen, find some giant bin bags and start to discard the items that I have been clinging on to for years. As Dylan in the bookshop is always telling me, you have to remove things from your life to let new stuff in. Well, that’s what I am doing. These clothes represent my past: the red velvet Prada wedges that I was wearing when I met Eric; the Gucci beaded satin trousers that I wore to Le Caprice for his thirtieth birthday; the rosebud print Marni skirt that I am wearing in my favourite photograph of the two of us on the steps of Sacré Coeur. It all goes into the bin bags, along with a zebra print Prada handbag, the Lanvin cocktail dress in fuchsia satin that I’ve never worn and the navy YSL suit that cost a month’s salary. I even throw in my prized Bottega Veneta navy cashmere coat – a source of great (but short-lived) happiness when I found it discounted in an outlet village near New York. These clothes represent my old life and root me in the past. I don’t need them anymore.

  I don’t look back. I stuff shoes, handbags and clothes into the bin bags like so many sad memories. Anything that doesn’t fit my life now is dispatched with a ruthlessness that surprises me. By the time I’ve finished, there are less than a dozen pieces hanging on the rail – a couple of pairs of jeans, a few printed cotton skirts and (for special occasions) a sundress. I also hold onto my favourite Joseph hippy coat, trimmed in astrakhan, because it is warm and will be useful in the French winter. It feels like I am starting over. The following morning I take the three bin bags to the local dépôt-vente, or second-hand shop, with instructions to give the proceeds to Médecins Sans Frontières.

  Chapter 16

  Summer

  It is June and the courtyard is in full bloom. The French have a word for this: ‘épanouie’. But it doesn’t just apply to flowers. It can also be used to describe the blossoming of a person. Admittedly, I have cheated as far as the courtyard is concerned, shipping in the plants from Jardiland rather than trying to grow them myself. But my jasmine and Provençal lavender plants are thriving in their terracotta pots, gently scenting the courtyard in the early evening, while the scarlet rosebushes, purple hibiscus and orange-pink geraniums are a joy to behold through the kitchen window. The taste police probably wouldn’t approve of the clashing colours – I’ve read enough gardening magazines to know that white and green is the good-taste colour scheme du jour – but to my untrained, novice gardener eyes, the courtyard is beautiful. I eat my breakfast there in the morning to the sound of birds singing, and in the evening I sit in my secret garden with a glass of chilled rosé, inhaling the scent of jasmine, lavender and often the barbecue smoke from my neighbours’ courtyard on the other side of the high stone wall.

  I am never short of company. In fact, I have made more genuine friends in the short time I have lived here than I did in almost two decades of living in London. Mathilde and Sebastian, who fortunately are still speaking to me after my brusque exit from the boatyard in Marans, call by several times a week with surplus celery, tomatoes or herbs from their garden, while Lola and Dylan sometimes swing by for a glass of wine after closing the bookshop for the day. Claudette pops in all the time, often with a little gift from her allotment overlooking the chateau. ‘Naturally bio [organic], eh?’ she jokes, as she hands over a lettuce or a bulb of purple-hued garlic. But it is Desmond and Miranda who are my most frequent (and most entertaining) guests. They often drop in announced, usually on their way back from a shopping trip to Poitiers, full of energy and infectious good humour. The three of us will sit around the wrought-iron table and chat for hours in the warm evening sun, with an aperitif turning into a bottle of wine or two and usually a simple meal of risotto and salad. I have stopped feeling guilty about Elinor, having asked her once, very directly, if she minded Desmond spending so much time with Miranda. ‘Darling, if it keeps him out my way and gives me peace and quiet for my yoga, I’m happy for him to spend as much time as he likes with her,’ she replied.

  ‘This garden is so beautiful,’ says Miranda, as we sit in the courtyard late one evening, candles flickering all around us. ‘You must be so happy here.’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘I am.’

  Despite the fact that I am nearly forty and on my own, my life feels that it too is in a state of ‘épanouie’. This is partly because I have decided to scoop up all the sad feelings I have been travelling around with for so long and pack them away, like old clothes. Rather than wait for happiness to drop down out of the sky, I have decided that I am going to find it in small ways. I find pleasure in the simple, daily rituals of French life: waking up to the peal of church bells and birds singing above the high stone walls; throwing open the shutters first thing to the sight of sunshine and geraniums; walking up to the bakery on the square to buy freshly baked croissants. And then, after a day working at my computer, the early evening ritual of watering the roses and the potted herbs – basil, sage, chives and rosemary – in the courtyard signifies that it’s time to relax. My favourite ritual of all, however, is hanging out the washing. Having lived in a top-floor flat with no outside space for most of my last ten years in London, being able to peg my clothes on a washing line and watch as they sway seductively in a subtle breeze is a real luxury. There is no bottled scent as lovely as that of just-washed cotton sheets hung out to dry in the sun. Finally, I have found pleasures that do not involve a credit card.

  The house, meanwhile, is nearly finished: the brown wallpaper has been obliterated, replaced with walls freshly painted in pale, chalky colours from Farrow & Ball; I have a kitchen with a fridge and an oven and a sitting room with sofas to sit on. Even the horrible bathroom has been transformed into a light-filled, pristine white space with a new super-flat shower tray surrounded by watery-green mosaic tiles. And through the recently installed skylight I now see an intense summer blue sky as I take a shower in the morning. Life is definitely looking up. Maison Coquelicot, filled with colour and prints, is unrecognisable from the sad, unloved shell that I bought. The work is not finished yet. In fact, the two items left on
the ‘to do’ list – the installation of a wood-burning stove in the fireplace and the renovation of the exterior – seem like the most significant. But still, I wonder what Madame Mauboussin would make of it now? Despite enquiring of my neighbours, I have managed to find out very little about my spinster predecessor. ‘She kept to herself,’ is all that Claudette will say when pressed on the matter.

  And then, one day in early July, I make a surprising discovery. One of the artisans, Monsieur Fillon, who comes around to give me a devis, or quote, for the renovation of the exterior, seems to be eyeing my house with more than a professional interest. I invite him into the kitchen to discuss the work and notice that he seems fascinated by the changes that I have made – to the extent that I offer to show him around upstairs too. As I open the door to the rear bedroom (once covered in pink psychedelic wallpaper) he looks very nostalgic.

  ‘I used to live here,’ he says. ‘In this room.’

  ‘So did you know Madame Mauboussin?’ I ask, intrigued and excited that, at last, someone might be able to shed some light on the former occupant.

  ‘Yes, she is my mother.’

  ‘Madame Mauboussin is your mother?’ I ask, incredulous, as I look at the handsome, dark-haired man, who I guess is in his early forties. ‘You lived in this house with her?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But I thought Madame Mauboussin never married?’

  ‘She didn’t. She was forty-four when she met my father, Alphonse Fillon. He was much younger than her – in his late twenties – so when she became unexpectedly pregnant with me, it was a big scandal,’ he replies. ‘The neighbours were greatly occupied by the news.’

  Yessssss! Good for you, Madame Mauboussin, I think to myself.