“That’s wonderful,” said Maddy, coming to look over her shoulder. “You’re good at this, aren’t you? Must have got it from your dad. Can we put the two plants together?”
Izzie thought for a moment, with her head to one side, then sketched out another leaf more boldly this time and entwined it with the lavender motif. Rattling through the pot of children’s crayons on the table, she pulled out a deep purple and soft gray-green, and colored in the design. They both looked at the finished effect. It was simple, almost contemporary, yet captured the earthy element of the recipes.
“God, I haven’t done any drawing for ages. I’m so rusty, but it’s a start. I’ll work on that over the next few days.”
“Brilliant. If we do another label on the back with the ingredients and all the bunkum we have to include, in the same script, it’ll look really professional.”
The next morning Maddy was back on the phone to Jean Luc. He was resolved. “Now I know you are both mad. You want four dozen empty pâté jars? What are you going to put in them? Don’t tell me you are going to pass off that smelly weed for tapenade?”
“We’ve just got this idea,” said Maddy. “We’re going to mix up one of Grandmère Luce’s recipes and see if we can sell it. Call me desperate, but, Jean Luc, you know I’ve got to make some money somehow. Things are even tighter now.”
“It’s not such a crazy idea.” Maddy was surprised that for once he seemed to be taking her seriously. “I’ve done a little asking around the family and in her village, St. Estèphe. She was something of a legend. A sort of white witch.” Maddy could feel a tingle of excitement. “Apparently she had a little business going where she would cook up her recipes for ointments and creams, and the villagers would pay her with cheese and vegetables. A kind of barter system. People came for miles for her magical potions—she even had orders from highly placed people in Paris, or so she used to claim.”
Maddy scribbled frantically on the back of an envelope as he talked. “What became of her?”
“Well, she must have had children, or we wouldn’t be here.” He laughed. “I think she was a kind of earth mother—a hippie before her time. I can imagine children and chickens running in and out of the kitchen around her feet as she stirred her secret potions.”
“This is great stuff! Oh, can I beg another favor?” she asked apologetically. “When you send over the jars, could you possibly chuck in another bag of centpertuis?”
“I’ll have to triple wrap it, or you’ll kill a few sniffer dogs at customs! Take care, ma petite, and say ’ello to Izzie for me.”
Maddy laughed knowingly, blew him kisses down the phone, and as soon as he hung up, dialed Izzie’s number.
Soaking in the bath that night, enjoying the last drops from a bottle of Clarins Bain aux Plantes “Relax”—there wouldn’t be any more where that came from—she wondered where they were going to go with this Luce thing after the Christmas Fayre. Even if they sold the whole batch, they’d hardly be able to afford a turkey each. It had been fun getting all the ingredients—a nice distraction from grim reality—and the combined effect of the fresh, delicate green in the jars, with Izzie’s naïve but pretty labels, was irresistible. It made you want to open the jars and plunge your fingers into the cream. This was too good an idea to drop.
Padding down the landing in her dressing gown, she scooped up Will’s discarded socks and the little jingley rabbit Pru Graves had given Pasco when he was born. She stared at it. Pru! With her PR contacts, she’d know whether there was any point developing the idea somehow. Maybe selling it at the farmers’ market or the health food shop. Didn’t she represent some niche makeup brand that was always being mentioned in magazines like Elle? This would be small beer for Pru, but she knew her stuff.
Two cups of tea and an ashtray full of cigarette stubs later, Maddy had scribbled down everything she knew about Luce and the ingredients, with a groveling covering letter. Tomorrow she would stick a few jars in a Jiffy bag and send it off to Pru. Nothing ventured nothing gained!
Chapter 8
Talk about cutting it fine! Izzie was delirious from tiredness, having spent the three previous nights working until long after midnight on the hand-lettered labels for the jars (which hadn’t actually arrived yet) that would contain the healing balm (which they hadn’t made yet because they were waiting for more centpertuis), and they hadn’t even had the first batch certified by the testing labs as safe for sale. The Fayre was tomorrow!
This event wasn’t anything as ordinary as a “fair,” of course. Ooh, no! That came nowhere near encapsulating the weight of pretension, the frenzied preparation, the desperate anticipation that accompanied this yearly shindig. Raising money for charity was, of course, a laudable endeavor, but it was very much the supporting feature here, not the main event. The real reason for the Fayre was to see, to be seen, and to be seen to be looking fabulous, doing marvelously!
They were under no illusion as to how they had managed to secure a stall so late in the day. Invitations, hotly sought after, had been issued way back in June. Their admission resulted solely from the misfortune of one Rosalind Franks, whose famous Liberty print tissue-box covers graced the spare rooms of right-thinking people throughout the Cotswolds.
Rosalind’s nasty dose of amebic dysentery had apparently been the talk of Ringford and just showed what could happen if you went somewhere Third World on your travels. Opinion was divided hotly between her having opened her mouth in the shower and her having succumbed to a drink with ice. Whatever the cause, Rosalind had apparently been doing poorly since her return, and hadn’t stitched a single tray cloth, pin cushion, or carrier-bag tidy for months. Maddy and Izzie were clearly a poor substitute for the stall Rosalind had held for years, but it was either them or a great big gap.
The two of them had spun like dervishes preparing pots of the balm to deliver to various labs for testing. Different labs seemed to test for different things—fungal spores, allergens—and they all seemed to be at different ends of the country. Maddy had been all for going ahead without the accreditation, but Izzie had slapped her wrist.
“Which one of us is going to stump up the five-thousand-pound fine then, clever clogs?”
“We could always choose the prison option,” Maddy had replied. “Maybe they could find me a job? Look what it did for Jeffrey Archer . . .”
They were both quietly confident they’d get the accreditation—most of the ingredients were time-honored components and known to be safe. The notable exception was their secret, never-before-tested magic formula, the boiled, strained centpertuis. They now discovered, from an old botany book at Ringford library, that the evocative English name for it was “lop-ear.” Eradicated in the Middle Ages from Britain, it was apparently still a big problem in parts of France, particularly round vines. Jean Luc could vouch for that.
Once she returned from the school run, Izzie made herself a huge mug of leaded coffee, did all the stretching and yawning she needed to stop her voice sounding too sleepy, and dialed the now-familiar number. “Mr. MacNamee, please.”
The answering voice was Yorkshire, with a side order of world-weary cynicism. “Mrs. Stock, I presume?”
Izzie summoned up all the charm she could muster. Whether this long-range flirting on her part was having the least effect, she couldn’t guess, but she had to give it her best shot! “Good morning to you, Mr. MacNamee. How clever of you to guess it was me! And how are you today?”
“Not so very clever, Mrs. Stock. After all, you have phoned me three times a day every day for the past three weeks.”
“Oh dear! Has it been that often? I do hope I haven’t made a nuisance of myself, it’s just that—”
“Yes, I know, Mrs. Stock, you’ve explained more than adequately several times. The Fayre is on tomorrow and, yes, you did explain the significance of the spelling, and you did explain about your unfortunate friend and her personal problems, and you did tell me all about the dry rot and the piano.”
“Oh,
I have been wittering on, haven’t I? I hope I haven’t been boring.”
“No, I’d say that’s the last thing you’ve been, Mrs. Stock. I can safely say that no other client has ever, ever been so entertaining—or so persistent. So it’s with mixed feelings, Mrs. Stock, that I have to tell you that the results are all in.”
Oh God no! What was this?
“Mixed feelings, Mrs. Stock, because I’ve enjoyed our little chats, and I’m frankly sad to put an end to them, but I’m pleased to tell you, though I shouldn’t really—not over the phone—that all the test results are in, and your product has been given the all-clear. The ingredients you have used seem to act as a natural preservative, so you won’t need to put in any additives. I’m sending out your accreditation today, and I hope you’ll receive it tomorrow morning. Before you ask, I’ll make sure it goes out first class. I’ll even write urgent on the envelope. Is that all right? Happy now?”
“Oh yes, Mr. MacNamee. I certainly am. I could hug you!”
Embarrassed coughing came from the phone, followed by a gruff, “Well, that won’t be necessary, but thank you for the sentiment. I shall follow your progress with interest. If you’re as determined about marketing your product as you have been about seeing it through testing, I expect you’ll be taking over the world in a month or two!”
Jubilant even in her exhaustion, Izzie reached for the phone to tell Maddy the good news, but it rang as she reached for it. It must have been telepathy.
“It’s here! It’s come! A crate of dinky little pots and a load of centpertuis. Jean’s had it vacuum packed so it’s stayed fresh and there’s loads of it. He put in a note—says we owe him big-time because he had to go and ask some of his neighbors to give him some. They agreed, provided he dug it up for them. He says his back’s killing him, and everyone around thinks he’s taken leave of his senses!”
“Well, wait till you hear my news! Darling Mr. MacNamee has just told me that the balm has been certified. Thunderbirds are go! Just think, Maddy. We’re in business. Literally in business!”
“Well, that calls for a celebratory coffee. My place or yours?”
“Oh God—no more coffee. I think I’ve given myself permanent kidney damage, the amount I’ve drunk in the last few days. How ’bout a soothing camomile tea?”
“Nah,” drawled Maddy. “That’s for wimps. And don’t forget, we’ve got to boil up another batch today. Can you come over here later, and we’ll get cracking?”
Izzie finally kissed Maddy good-bye at 2 A.M. and drove home cautiously through the clear, frosty night. Her tiredness had evaporated and she felt wired and excited. It would have been great to be able to tell Marcus how hard they’d worked potting and labeling all the balm, but she knew he’d be fast asleep by now. She’d imposed on him enough recently, expecting him to act the househusband on top of his own work—she had come back only briefly to put the children to bed and then disappeared back to Maddy’s—so she doubted there would be bunting out to welcome her home now. She’d have to make it up to him.
He was fairly taciturn the next morning when she enthused about the night’s antics, while she juggled making packed lunches for the children, press-ganging Jess into practicing her recorder—Charlie was now obliged to use a neighbor’s upright for his piano practice—and bustling them out of the door to the car and school. Not sure when the Fayre would finish, she’d called in some favors and billeted out the children to a friend’s for tea. Asking Marcus to step into the breach alone yet again might be, she knew, a step too far.
Gathering all their spare change in a sandwich box for the float, they set off for Ledfinch Manor and following the neatly stenciled sign, parked round the back of the William and Mary pile. The area was jam-packed with Range Rovers and Mercedes, punctuated by the odd scruffy little estate—trade no doubt.
Women were everywhere. Any men present looked uncomfortable and edgy, impatient to get away once they had unloaded the piles of stock, and back to a world they understood. No, this was strictly a female event. And they came in such variety! From statuesque county types, complete with padded waistcoats, piecrust collars, and velvet hair bands, to the pinched, briskly efficient professionals, aprons jingling with change, enjoying a quick ciggie outside and sniggering at those unfortunate enough to have stepped in the huge desiccated cow pats that the free-range Highland cattle had left behind.
Inside, the place was awash with estrogen (much of it, Izzie suspected, HRT) and the noise level was incredible. Well-bred voices, strident yet languid, cut through the throng. “Serenaaa! Ovah heah, dahling! Put the découpage frames theah. Thet’s it, dahling. Looks smeshing!”
Izzie and Maddy had a corner pitch in the drafty hallway. Quite a good one, actually, fairly near the entrance door, and they set out their wares. Maddy had found some Provençal fabric—not quite geographically correct—gay in blue, yellow, and white, and they swagged it over upturned boxes to create different levels on the splintery trestle table they’d bagged. With some photographs of the Cévennes, including a rather arty one Maddy had taken a couple of years ago of Jean Luc silhouetted against the rising sun, and a wildly exaggerated history of Luce and her struggles which Izzie had bashed out in a moment of inspiration on her PC, it looked very fetching. After some debate, they’d decided to risk £4.99 a pot. But would anyone buy?
Before the doors opened for business, they took it in turns to tour the stands and check out the competition, and returned moderately heartened.
“I’ve never seen so much useless tat assembled under one roof. You could live several lifetimes without needing any of it,” said Maddy.
“Au contraire, ma chère,” contradicted Izzie. “I see now that my life has been incomplete without knitted socks with multicolored individual toes.”
Maddy was rooting for those little painted wooden plaques that hang on the front door, informing visitors of your whereabouts. “Honestly, if I was a burglar, I’d be laughing. It’s an invitation to walk in and nick stuff! ‘I’m in the garden.’ ‘I’m walking the dog.’ I know—let’s do a more cutting-edge range: ‘I’ve been sectioned under the Mental Health Act,’ ‘I’m rogering the window cleaner.’ Those’d sell nicely!”
Then the punters swarmed in, most brandishing lovely wicker baskets with elasticized Liberty print linings (bought from Rosalind the previous year). There appeared to Izzie to be two distinct subspecies of the same breed. The alpha females sported stretch capri pants, cashmere polo necks, and sheepskin gilets, glasses perched on top of their highlighted heads. The less genetically favored were in comfy loafers, shapeless cords, and regulation green quilted jackets with corduroy collars. All came armed with lists of people to buy for—lumpish teenage nephews, aged uncles, and strings of difficult godchildren. They were like a plague of uppercrust locusts. And buy they did.
They snapped up floral wellies, overpriced colorful resin key rings, and stuff to stop their ponds from getting clogged with duckweed. They cooed over hessian utility belts and bags for storing their garden tools, joke golf books, novelty aprons, chef’s hats for their husbands’ barbecue efforts, and embroidered cushions bearing witticisms like “Etonians do it against the Wall.”
Lord, how they bought! Money was changing hands like a bear market at the metal exchange, lubricated still further by glasses of mulled wine, spicy and sweet, on sale by the door. The noise level steadily rose, faces became redder and shinier, and shrill laughter broke out above the hubbub. The organizers looked quietly delighted.
Maddy and Izzie began to enjoy themselves. Their stall was attracting quite a bit of attention, and their pile of little pots steadily decreased. From their first rather apologetic efforts, they gradually improved their sales technique until, by three thirty, they had the smoothest patter and no stock left. Absolutely none. The ladies with their sensible, wind-chapped, horsey faces had gone for the healing balm with zeal. Eyeing Maddy’s golden, glowing complexion and Izzie’s delicate pallor, they probably thought they were buying into
their secret.
“If only they knew,” whispered Izzie, out of the corner of her mouth. “The only reason I don’t look about eighty is a fanatical avoidance of the lacrosse field all through school!”
By the end of the afternoon, and once they had given the agreed percentage to the organizers, they were left with a tidy pile of fivers. Maddy stuck to her insistence that they share everything, so they split it, and for that Izzie, cleaned out by the dry rot payments, was profoundly grateful.
Maddy looked tired. “Well, I’d call that an unqualified success,” she said as they stowed the empty boxes into the car. “Do you think we charged enough? If we’d had another twenty pots, I reckon we could have sold them too.”
Izzie nodded emphatic agreement as she swung the car over the rutted paddock back toward the drive. “I think we were definitely getting into our stride by the end. It seems a shame to end it like this. Do you think we should make more and keep going?”
“I don’t see why not, if we can get a regular supply of centpertuis and some more little pots. Do you think Jean Luc would be game?”
Izzie blushed under Maddy’s close scrutiny. “Well, how would I know? He’s your cousin, after all. Why don’t you ask him?”
Maddy whistled with exaggerated insouciance. “I thought you could ask him, next time you two speak on the phone.”
Izzie swerved. “How did you know about that?”
“Well, my love, remember when you left your mobile at my house last week?” Izzie’s face burned. Oh God! Maddy turned the screw. “I couldn’t work out where the buzzing was coming from to start with. We had a lovely chat when I finally found your phone under a pile of ironing. He was as surprised to hear me answer as . . . well, as you look now! Funny you didn’t give him your home number . . .”
Izzie slapped at her leg. “Oh shut up.” She felt like a teenager being given the third degree. “Anyway, he gave me his number because he wanted me to let him know how you are. He always asks for a full report—what you’ve been eating, what you’ve been doing. He’s very concerned about you!”
Goodbye, Jimmy Choo Page 12