by Olga Wojtas
I looked down at Madeleine for support, but she just shrugged and started playing. To my horror, I realised it was Offenbach’s Galop Infernal – otherwise known as the can-can. The lecherous elderly men were already straining forward, anxious for a glimpse of my drawers.
I was still swithering about what to do when the front door burst open, and the judge, the teacher, the policeman, and the undertaker and cheesemonger rushed in.
“Terrible news!” shouted the teacher.
“Terrible, terrible news,” intoned the policeman.
“The mayor is dead,” proclaimed the judge.
Twelve
The hall erupted in consternation.
“What?”
“The mayor?”
“Dead?”
“The mayor’s dead?”
“What happened to him?”
The undertaker and cheesemonger shook his head. “You don’t want to know. His injuries are so terrible that I’ve put him in a closed coffin.”
“Of course we want to know! Tell us!”
The policeman stepped forward. “I’m afraid he was innocently going about his business in this very village when he was torn to death by a wild animal. A wolf, to be precise.”
The earlier consternation was as nothing compared to this one.
“In the village?”
“Not in the forest?”
“A wolf?”
“It’s that Englishwoman’s fault – she brought the wolf here!”
“Let’s get her!”
I hastily draped more of the musical flowers over my face, but my disguise had worked – they were heading towards the door rather than the stage.
“To arms, citizens!”
“Where are the pitchforks?”
The mob rushed outside, carrying the Jeans with them.
I looked at Madeleine. “I don’t believe the mayor was torn to death by a wolf,” I said.
“Nor do I,” she said. “They’ve killed him, just as they killed all of the others.”
“Apart from Sylvain,” I said. She had been absolutely certain that he was still alive, and if she was now wavering a bit, it was up to me to be absolutely certain for her. “I’m going to change back into my proper clothes and then we’re going to find him, even if we have to search every grotte in the province.”
She shot me a small grateful smile.
The village was in uproar, the mob prowling the streets and lanes, wielding their flaming torches. Madeleine and I escaped unnoticed down the side of the town hall and into the conifers. I quickly put on my blouse, jacket and tulip-bell skirt with its petticoats, and sat down to put on my DMs. That was my mistake.
There was a sudden rustling in the conifers behind us.
“Get them!” said a voice. It was the teacher.
Clutching my DMs, I leaped to my feet. My bare feet. Pine needles pierced my soles and I found myself tumbling to the ground. Beside me, Madeleine was grappling with the judge and the policeman. And before I could get back up, a rope was looped over my shoulders and pulled tight, pinioning my arms, while my hands, still clutching the DMs, were tied behind me. After that, everything went black – for the second time, a hessian sack had been thrown over my head.
“Monsters! Murderers!” I heard Madeleine scream, followed by a choking sound suggesting that she too was stifling in a hessian sack.
I was manhandled to my injured feet.
“Be careful of her!” I heard the policeman say. “She can walk through locked doors.”
The teacher laughed. “By the time she works out how to get through these, it will be too late.”
There was the sound of padlocks being unfastened and bolts being drawn back. A forceful shove sent me sprawling. A thud and a muffled cry told me the same had happened to Madeleine.
Bolts shot back into place behind us and the padlocks were relocked. And then possibly the sweetest voice I have ever heard said, “Don’t worry, mesdames, you’re safe now. Let us help you.”
Someone was untying my bonds and lifting the sack off my head. A man was smiling down at me, a man who looked like a Botticelli angel: serene, slender and boyish, golden curls framing his delicate face. Some people think Leonardo da Vinci is the greatest Italian painter, but it’s definitely Botticelli – he is my favourite.
As he helped me to my feet, Madeleine, now also free of her hessian sack, gave a small, gasping sigh, “My Sylvain!”
She pushed me aside and hurled herself into the arms of a figure standing behind the angel.
We were in semi-darkness, in a corridor with flickering candle-light at the far end, but I could see Sylvain well enough. Frankly, he made Serge Gainsbourg look like Robert Redford. I believe the expression in Glasgow would be “a shilpit wee bauchle”. But there was no doubting that this was Madeleine’s missing husband. They were all over one another like a rash, the most adoring, devoted rash anyone could wish for.
“My love!”
“My life!”
“I thought I had lost you!”
“I thought I had lost you!”
You wouldn’t get anyone behaving like that in Morningside. Admittedly, Waitrose is full of couples running up and down the aisles looking for one another, but less adoringly than irritably. However, the romance of the moment got to me. He absolutely wasn’t a looker, but he must have something the men of Sans-Saucisse didn’t.
The emotion was affecting my eyesight as well. I was seeing double. The Botticelli angel looked as though there were two of him, and right beside him was an elderly, magisterial figure, also duplicated.
“Madame Maque!”
I recognised the voice as that of the mayor, still carefully not wearing out my name.
“Mr Mayor – you’re not dead,” I said.
“We are none of us dead. At least, not yet.” The mayor stepped out of total darkness into semi-darkness. A trick of the light made it look as though he had a black eye. He gestured to the Botticelli angels and the magisterial pair.
“May I present the Dupond Twins, Dupond with a D,” he said. “And also the Dupont Twins, Dupont with a T.”
The magisterial duo and the brace of Botticelli angels bowed to me.
I inclined my head. “Gentlemen.” I followed this up with a questioning glance at the mayor.
He understood me. Indicating the first magisterial Dupond, he said, “Our judge.”
“And your teacher,” I said, looking at the second magisterial Dupond.
“Indeed, I am,” said one of the Botticelli angels.
“I’m the undertaker,” said the other angel.
“And cheesemonger,” I added.
“And cheesemonger,” agreed the second magisterial Dupond.
I was confused. “I thought undertaker and cheesemonger was a single job.”
The angelic undertaker and magisterial cheesemonger laughed.
“That would be ridiculous,” they chorused.
I looked at the mayor again.
“The Jeans had to double up,” he explained, “because there are only four of them. And they needed all five positions for the takeover to work.”
This made no sense to me, but everyone else was nodding sagely, so I nodded sagely as well.
Now that I was closer to the mayor, I could see that he did indeed have a black eye. “I take it that the Jeans kidnapped you and put you in here? They beat you up?”
He gingerly touched his eye socket. “They kidnapped me. But it was Sylvain who beat me up. That time you and I were in here to see the shield, and I mentioned my admiration for…” He nodded in the direction of Madeleine without sighing or saying her name. “It turned out he had overheard me, and was still a bit cross.”
“When we were in here, I heard voices in the background and thought it was a radio play,” I said. “You said you couldn’t hear anything. That wasn’t true, was it?”
He shook his head. “It turned out to be Sylvain shouting at me, and the Duponds and the Duponts trying to calm him down. But I di
dn’t know they were there. I just thought it was the fathers, and wanted to get you out before you realised I had lodgers.”
“Yes, these fathers,” I began. “Who are they exactly? Some sort of village elders?”
“Let me introduce you,” the mayor said.
“Let me put my boots on,” I said. I pulled the remaining pine needles out of my feet, and went to pick up my DMs. Something brown and furry shot out of the left one. I hoped it was a mouse rather than a rat.
Once I was shod, the mayor led me down the corridor towards the flickering candlelight, which came from round the corner. We were now in a shorter corridor, brightened by several candles stuck on an upturned barrel.
Four men of varying antiquity were sitting round it on the floor, playing cards. They looked up at me incuriously.
“Fathers, this is Madame Maque, a distinguished foreign visitor to our village,” said the mayor.
“Not another one,” muttered the eldest father. “I don’t know why people come here when they can’t be bothered to speak the language.”
“Madame speaks French perfectly, unlike our other lady visitor,” the mayor said hastily.
“Gentlemen,” I said, nodding to them. “I believe you’re the village elders?”
“No, we’re not,” snapped the second eldest. “We’re the fathers.”
“And husbands,” said the third eldest.
I wondered if this was a fin de siècle variation on WAGs.
“Ex-husbands,” said the fourth eldest.
“We’re not ex,” said the eldest.
“She thinks we are,” said the fourth eldest and cackled.
“And soon we will be, thanks to our lads,” said the second eldest morosely. “Jean, are you sure you shuffled these cards properly?”
“Better not disturb their game,” whispered the mayor, moving me further down the corridor.
“Sorry, I haven’t quite worked out – why are they called the fathers?” I asked.
“We call them that to distinguish them from the sons,” said the mayor.
“Yes, I can see that would help,” I said. “Who are the sons?”
Even in the gloom, I could see the mayor was astonished by my question. “The Jeans, of course,” he said. “They were all named Jean after their respective fathers.”
“Right,” I said, as though I was following. “And what was all that about ex-husbands?”
“They’re not ex-husbands,” he said. “They’re husbands. There was never a divorce. She thinks they’re dead, but they just all ran away. Understandably. The first one was before my time, must have been almost fifty years ago. The second one was before my time as well, about forty years ago. Then the third one, that would be thirty years ago, when I was too young to know anything about it, but I remember the fourth one. When no body was found, people said he must have been torn to death by wild animals.”
There was something I needed to clarify. “She?”
“Maman,” he said.
If the four fathers were Maman’s husbands, then the four sons…
“Oh my God,” I said, “she’s a 4x4!”
“What?” said the mayor.
“It means she’s had four children with four different men. It’s an analogy with four-wheel-drive vehicles, where all four wheels get torque from – you’ve got no idea what I’m talking about, do you? Have you ever seen a car?”
“No,” he said, “but I hear they have them in Paris, along with electric street lighting.”
“Yes,” I said, “yes, they do.”
“Speaking of Paris,” he said, “come and meet Mademoiselle. We gave her the seat, of course.”
He took me round the corner into the last corridor, dimly lit by a couple of candles stuck on the floor. A bearded bloke of about forty was leaning against the wall. He had his eyes closed, and one foot was moving up and down as though he was tapping out some rhythm.
A petite lassie in her mid-twenties, dark-haired and bright-eyed, was sitting on a crate. She jumped up, beaming, at our arrival.
“Madame Maque, this is Mademoiselle–” the mayor began.
“Hello, fit like?” said Mademoiselle.
“Nae bad,” I responded automatically, my language skills kicking in as always, before I registered that I’d been addressed in the Doric.
“Are you Mary Garden?” I asked.
“Fairly aat.”
The mayor, uncomprehending, went back round the corner to join the French speakers.
Mary Garden might be young, but she was already every inch a star, poised and confident. One thing, however, puzzled me.
“Why are you speaking in the Doric?” I asked. “I thought you left Aberdeen for the States before you were ten.”
“Ee kin tak e quine oot o Aiberdeen but ee canna tak Aiberdeen oot o e quine.”
How true, I thought. In my own case, you could take the Blainer out of Morningside, but you couldn’t take Morningside out of the Blainer.
She was studying me closely. “Wis aat you singin throu ere?”
The moment of truth. She had realised I was the person who had impersonated her.
“It was. What did you think of my singing?”
“Nae bad.”
The ultimate Aberdonian compliment.
“So, they could have been fooled into thinking I was you?” I asked.
“Nae for a meenit. Tak a look at ye. I’m a wee boukit deemie an ee’re a muckle sonsy deem.”
The question had been about my singing (which I knew was every bit as good as hers), so I wasn’t going to put up with any sizeist comments.
“This is pure muscle,” I told her. “Testament to my hours in the gym.”
“An yer oors o haein fly cups an funcy pieces.”
I was going to protest that at most I had one cup of tea and perhaps two or three Bourbon biscuits at a time, but then I remembered that Bourbons wouldn’t be invented for another ten years.
“Just because you’re blessed with a fast metabolism,” I muttered. And then I thought to ask her how she came to be here. I had got used to her Doric now, and was hearing it as more or less standard English.
“We were waiting where we’d been told for a cairt to pick us up, when a hearse came past. The next thing, we got grabbed and shoved in a coffin.”
She saw me glance towards her somnolent toe-tapping accompanist. “Separate coffins. Nae the same one. And then we got dumped in here. I’m going to be having a sharp word with my agent when I get back to Paris.”
Her agent was scarcely responsible for her being kidnapped and shoved in a coffin, but was no doubt used to dealing with artistic temperaments.
“How are you finding Paris? Are you enjoying being at the Opéra-Comique?” I asked, remembering she had made her debut there in April.
“It’s great. I’ve got an amazing social life.”
I wondered what her social life entailed. Cart Woman had decided it was pretty racy, purely on the basis that she was part of the Paris arts scene. But then, the Paris arts scene was never known for its moderation. Mary Garden was famous for being Debussy’s muse. The composer had a reputation for being a bit of a lad, and there was no doubt about it, Mary Garden was very attractive as well as being very talented.
“I hope you don’t mind me asking,” I said, “but is there anything going on between you and Debussy?”
Her mouth fell open and she clutched her hands to her bosom. I could see why they called her the Sarah Bernhardt of opera. Acting is much more restrained now. It’s cinema close-ups that have changed things – big gestures just look ridiculous.
“Michty be here! Niver a bit!” she said.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply anything. It’s just that he’s older than you, and you’re at the start of your career. And he’s French.”
She nodded. “He’s fair taken with me, but I tell him I’m married to my music. And I tell him he’s married to Lilly Debussy,” she said. “Some women like a man with two bows to his fiddle but I�
��m nae one of them.”
It was reassuring that nobody was going to exploit Mary Garden. I felt a bit sorry for her agent.
“They’re a at it. Maurice Maeterlinck–”
“Sorry, Maurice Maeterlinck, the playwright? He’s been after you as well?”
That really shocked me. He was already in a long-term relationship. We all know about Frenchmen behaving badly, but I had expected better of a Belgian.
“He said he wanted to take a photo of my sole.”
“Has he got a foot fetish?”
She tossed her head. “Dinna be daft. Not the bottom of my foot.”
“He wanted to photograph your soul, your spiritual self, your emotional nature?”
“Aye, and it turns out you can best see someone’s soul when they’ve nae clothes on.”
“Oh, one of these so-called glamour photographs? What did you do?” I asked.
“What do you think I did?”
I got the distinct impression that Maeterlinck had been warned that if he persisted, he would be singing soprano alongside Ms Garden.
“And do you have much trouble with Debussy, with him being a player?” I asked.
“Nae trouble at all. He’s a really good player. Pity he never got to play tonight. He’s fair upset about it.”
She nodded towards her somnolent accompanist.
“That’s Debussy?” I gasped.
“Faith aye. Come and I’ll introduce you.” She prodded her companion, who opened his eyes. They were lovely eyes. Deep pools of longing that you could imagine yourself floating in for aeons. I remembered there was a Mrs Debussy and pulled myself together.
“Mon cher maître Debussy, permettez-moi de vous présenter une admiratrice,” said Mary Garden.
Debussy looked at me helplessly. “What’s she saying now? She claims she speaks French, but I can’t understand a word of it. She’s got a really peculiar accent.”
“She’s got a really peculiar accent whatever language she’s speaking,” I said. “She was introducing me to you.”
And then I heard myself saying, “I’m a huge fan of your work,” a slight exaggeration, but we Blainers have good manners instilled in us from an early age. Debussy looked delighted.
I put out my hand to shake his, but he raised it to his lips and kissed my fingertips. I don’t normally fancy blokes with beards, but there was something strangely alluring about him, and his eyes were really lovely.