by Daisy Waugh
‘Daphne, I’m not telling you this for my own benefit,’ he said suddenly, making her jump. ‘You may have noticed I know it already. Are you listening?’
‘What? Yes, of course I am, Timothy. Carry on.’ That was when she made the joke about S.U.N.G.L.A.S.S.E.S which he’d found so unfunny.
‘The other problem you’re likely to encounter,’ he said, ‘is good old-fashioned jealousy. The English have been coming over here by the shipload, buying up all the best French property, pushing up the prices. Many may simply see you as The Enemy. Are you prepared for that?’
‘But I’m not an enemy. I love French people! I love France. And everyone’s been so lovely to us, Timothy. I’m sure they don’t think of us as the enemy.’
‘If you followed international politics, or if you had any understanding of history, which of course you don’t, you’d realise that the French have always gone out of their way to do us down. At every opportunity. Frankly, Daphne,’ he added with relish, ‘they detest us.’
‘…No they don’t!…What about that time in the Second World War. When we landed on the beaches and things and rescued them all from the Nazis. Don’t we like each other for that?’
He glanced at her; a mini-beat of surprise. ‘It’s the single incident in their entire history, Daphne, which infuriates them the most. Try not to mention it. The French are impossible people. You have to understand that. They’re like women: irrational, self-interested, manipulative, devious – and fundamentally cruel. Never forget the way they treated their royal family, Daphne.’
‘Oh! I didn’t know they had one.’
But Timothy was on a roll by then, not really talking to Daffy but to himself. Timothy loathes the French. ‘If you’re going to survive in this country you have be aware of the people you’re dealing with. Don’t be naive. They may appear polite on the surface – or some of them may. But they loathe the English. The Frogs hate us. Never forget that…’
So ended their last meaningful dialogue, and the fuzz of his words have been clogging Daffy’s hearing ever since.
In the six days she’s been in residence at the Hotel Marronnier (closed for business until such a time as Daffy dares to open it again) she’s had several visitors, but she’s not dared to invite any of them in. The couple from the boulangerie opposite came bearing a tarte aux poires, which she divided into various animal feeding bowls as soon as they went away – terrified at keeping anything so fattening in her own fridge. And there have been others; disconcertingly polite and friendly, many with small presents of welcome. They tell her, in slow, polite French, how pleased they are that someone has at last decided to invest in the village bar, because there had been fears that it would have to be closed down for good. And Daffy nods, not understanding a word, limp with disappointment and sadness.
Because each time there is a knock on the half-closed shutters at the front of the hotel, Daffy’s heart lifts with hope. She thinks it might be James and Timothy missing her as much as she misses them; James and Timothy, wanting her back; come to take her home; come to let them all be a family again!
Each time she rushes to the door. But there, instead of a raspberry-lipped knight and her beautiful son she finds devious, hate-filled, foreign-speaking strangers, confusing her with smiles and presents and yet secretly despising her. She searches their faces for signs of enmity, and though she never does exactly find any, she is accustomed to assuming Timothy is right and so she gets rid of them all as quickly as she can.
Better safe than sorry, she thinks miserably. And returns to her Task List. The single thing she’s been working on for the last six days.
DAFFY’S LIST
She finds it therapeutic, making a note of the monumental tasks which lie ahead. Her list gets longer all the time.
1. LEARN FRENCH* (Ask Timothy to send out the Learn French thingy tapes??)
* how do I say
…I have just bought the Hotel Marronnier???
…Sorry, I do not understand?
…Where is the nearest Accident and Emergency???
…I am sorry about the Olympics???
2. CHECK TIM’S BOOKED AIR TICKETS FOR JAMES’S SUMMER HOLS!
3. CLEAN THE WHOLE BAR, BEDROOMS, ETC.
4. WASH GLASSES IN THE BAR!!! They’re filthy!!!
5. BUY CLEANING PRODUCTS (WHERE???) i.e. buckets, sponge for floor, also other surfaces, also disinfectant, bleach, bathroom cleaner, kitchen cleaner, floor cleaner, etc., etc., everything!!! Buy HOOVER!!!
6. BUY SOME NICE PLATES, SAUCEPANS, ETC. SOME LOVELY CUPS AND SAUCERS FOR GUESTS’ ‘PETIT DEJEUNER’!!!
7. FLEA COLLARS
8. NAIL VARNISH REMOVER
9. LOVELY BUILDER Jean Baptiste Gorgeous!!! Tel no.? Call Emma R. and ask? Will she mind???
10. PHOTOGRAPHS OF MARRONNIER FOR JAMES (BUY CAMERA. WHERE???)
11. BUY FOOD (organic??? LOOK UP FRENCH)
12. BUY STAMPS (WHERE??????) STAMPS = TIMBRES in French
13. OPEN BAR MARRONNIER!! GULP!!??!!
14. PETROL Call Timothy. What petrol does my car use? Also – how do I open petrol tank?
15. PIN NUMBER French account. Where have I put it???
16. Get one of those cappuccino machine thingies for the bar? Make sure instructions are in English!!!
17. Where does Emma R. get her hair done??
18. OFFICIAL STUFF. ALL those SCARY LETTERS!!! GOT to tackle them sometime! Another reason to learn French!!!
19. RUBBISH MAN When does he come??
ELECTRICITY
This afternoon, her sixth alone at the Marronnier, Daffy ventured from her task list to take an exploratory tour around the village. She discovered a small épicerie, hidden away on a thin street behind the church, where she bought herself some decent food at last: a chèvre (less fattening than Camembert), some ham, some eggs, a melon and some delicious ripe peaches.
‘Bonjour,’ she said to the shopkeeper. ‘Je m’appelle Daffy. Of l’Hôtel Marronnier.’
‘Ahh!’ cried the shopkeeper warmly, grasping her hands with his and gabbling something in French which certainly sounded friendly. He pulled a chocolate bar off the shelf and handed it to her. ‘…Welcome to you,’ he said, in a strong French accent. ‘You are enjoying it here in Montmaur?’
‘Oh! Oui. Merci!’ lied Daffy. ‘Oh, oui! Très, très, très!’
‘Et bien. Mais vous parlez français très très très bien, Madame!’ he laughed, but she obviously didn’t understand.
‘…Parler français? Oh I know, I’m really hopeless…Sorry. Pardon. Très pardon. But obviously I’m going to learn. I mean as fast as I absolutely can. I’m going to work really hard…I just really hope people will be patient with me…’
The épicier nodded sympathetically and she wandered out of the shop, her shopping bag knocking against her skinny shins, conscious of his curious gaze on her back, conscious of what an idiot she must seem. She kept her eyes down after that; not wanting to speak to anybody until she could speak to them in French. Afterwards, when she thought nobody was looking, she crept into the church, empty and cool, to a hard bench in the furthest, quietest corner, and cried.
She returns to the hotel eventually, crosses the place as it is growing dark, with eyes still to the ground, and a brave smile fixed to her lips, in case anyone is looking. She lets herself into the empty bar, fully intending to spend the evening writing a long, happy letter to her son James (her seventh letter since she arrived in France, and none of them posted yet). But as she flicks on the light switch, there is a loud pop! and the electricity supply cuts out.
On the opposite side of the square, Rosie and Simon Mottram, having left Oana to settle the children into bed, are sitting down in the spotless, soulless, white-plastic-floored, white-plaster-walled salle à manger for an orderly dinner chez Monsieur et Madame Bertinard. They have been at the house for almost three hours now, and in the face of so much formality, so much sucking up, even Rosie’s spirits are flagging. She wishes her husband wou
ld get off the bloody telephone for once and pull his weight.
Daffy, meanwhile, has called Timothy’s mobile, but he’s switched it off. So he can’t help her. And she’s lost the piece of paper on which, as she and Timothy were leaving Emma Rankin’s dinner, Timothy carefully wrote down the numbers of the other guests. They all gave her their numbers: Maude and Horatio, that horrible fat little Mayor and his wife, and the lovely, sexy Jean Baptiste (just thinking about him, remembering his kind hand on her hand makes her want to melt into tears again). But Daffy’s hopeless with (among so many other things) loose pieces of paper. She knows she put it somewhere, but in the growing darkness and her own welling panic she can’t begin to remember where to look.
And so, after an aimless, wretched wander around the property in search of something, some inspiration, she returns to her kitchen table, sinks her head into her hands, and waits. For nothing. For morning. For something to change.
She pictures James, fast asleep in his little dormitory, happy with his friends at school, not missing her. And then of Timothy, sweating away on the squash court, no doubt, with his mobile switched off…and she feels the emptiness of it all, of her pointless, painful existence.
I’m nothing, she thinks suddenly. Pathetic. Unnecessary. An utterly useless human being. No wonder Timothy can’t stand to be around me…
She sits there, she doesn’t know for how long, thinking terrible thoughts about death, and her own meaninglessness – thoughts that have never troubled her before. She sits there, head in hands, wreathed in this paralysing unhappiness, when she hears a knock on the outside shutter (closed tight for the night), and a man’s voice shouting her name.
It is not Timothy. The voice is French. But he’s calling to her in English. She leaps guiltily to her feet, tucks her dyed yellow hair behind her ears, straightens her neat pistachio linen trousers, her matching pistachio silk T-shirt, and clambers for the door. In her haste and the almost total darkness she sends her chair flying, knocks the remains of an untouched ham sandwich to the floor. But she doesn’t pause to pick them up for fear the voice will go away again.
He’s taller than she remembered. Or maybe he’s cut his hair. Or maybe he’s a little slimmer. He’s slim, she thinks. More like an athlete than a builder. Tall and slim, with odd coloured eyes – one brown, one greenish brown (how hadn’t she noticed that before?). He is looking at her now, a little concerned. Not smiling. He’s wearing a khaki green T-shirt, loose fitting, and it brings out the green flint in his left eye. And jeans. Loose fitting. Nondescript. Except that nothing he wears could really look nondescript. He has the easy grace, the glamour, the lean, athletic beauty of a – vampire, Daffy thinks. Or a tennis champion. She smiles.
‘Hello!’ she says. ‘Here I am!’ It sounds silly. ‘I mean – have you come to see me?’
She has a smear of dirt across her forehead and another across the front of her shirt. She looks a little mad, Jean Baptiste thinks. And even skinnier than he remembered.
‘I am very sorry,’ he says slowly, taking a hand from his pocket and holding it out for her. Her hand feels so frail when she puts it in his he almost drops it in shock. ‘I mean to come every day to see you are OK. You are ill?’
‘Ill? Me?’ She laughs. Not a well laugh. ‘Moi? Ill? Non, non, Jean Baptiste. I am very well…As you see. I am very happy. Contente. Busy, busy. Settling into my lovely house! Scrubbing and cleaning and everything. I am very, very happy. So happy. Aren’t I lucky? To have such a lovely, beautiful house. Hotel–Bar. In your lovely, beautiful country. France. And I’m so sorry about the Olympics.’
Fortunately, he’s not listening. He peers behind her, into the darkness beyond. ‘But you don’t want to have any lights?’
‘…Lights? Oh! Lights!’ She hesitates. Jean Baptiste would be able to help. Of course. But – it would mean inviting him in, and Timothy – what would Timothy think? To invite a man as wonderful as Jean Baptiste into your house when there’s no electricity; it would be…What if he raped her?
He wouldn’t need to, comes the thought. Unbidden. And it makes her laugh, suddenly, not adding much to the impression of a woman in full possession of her marbles.
‘You sure you are OK, Daffy?’ asks Jean Baptiste again.
She’d looked up the words ‘electricity’ in her dictionary a while ago, before the despair kicked in. And the words come to her now. ‘No lights,’ she says, ‘parce ce que I have un cut d’électricité. And the fact is I’m not quite certain where. I mean what – It just sort of went out, and I’m not exactly certain what to do…’
‘Une coupure d’électricité?’ He looks appalled. ‘Vous avez trouvé l’interrupteur et ça ne marche pas?’
‘…Pardon? I mean, what? I mean, sorry. Pardon? A coupure d’électricité…I don’t know.’
‘Have you found the – You have found the –’ He mimes switching the trip switch. ‘I don’t know how you say it in English…There is a little…and when you push it…er…Je peux vous montrer, peut-être? I will demon-strate…I can come in?’
Daffy hesitates. ‘Come in?’ she repeats. ‘But it’s very dark…’
He laughs. ‘Eh – exactement!’ he says, taking a step closer to her and the entrance. She stands back at once, afraid his khaki T-shirt and her pistachio silk might rub, one against the other. She breathes in as he sweeps by. He smells of fresh laundry, and soap, and of himself, and it’s been so long now, since Daffy has been alone in the company of such a man – if she ever was; a man who looks and smells as he does, a man who looks at her as if she exists, as if she, too, were a human being. It takes all her self-possession not to reach out and touch. She doesn’t. She doesn’t disgrace herself. She keeps her hands to her sides.
‘You know where is the bouton?’ he asks, peering into the room. He glances back at her, standing there blankly, skinny and completely hopeless, in all her dirt-smeared pistachio. He struggles not to smile.
‘What bouton?’
‘The bouton – never mind. You have a flashlight maybe? You know where is a flashlight?’
‘Flashlight? You mean a torch?…Non. Sorry. I don’t think I’ve got a flashlight. Pardon. I was going to put it on my list…I’ll put it on my TO DO list.’
‘Tant pis.’ He brings out a lighter and ventures off, disappearing into the small hall behind the bar. It’s pitch black in there. What small light remains in the sky has been blocked out by shutters, closed tight by Daffy to keep the robbers away. Or the French. Daffy’s been terrified, sleeping here on her own. Never mind the loneliness of the days. The nights have been far worse.
She hears Jean Baptiste stumble, followed immediately by a menacing snarl.
‘Mais putain. Qu’est-ce que c’est?’
‘Ooops! Sorry, Jean Baptiste,’ calls out Daffy. ‘I should have warned you. There’s a dog back there. Poor little thing. He sort of turned up a couple of days ago. He can be a bit grumpy sometimes but he’s ever so lovely. Once you get to know him.
‘I am wanting a door of the stairs, with a cupboard, Daffy,’ he calls.
‘Door of the stairs?’ she repeats, thoroughly confused. ‘…Pardon, Jean Baptiste? Sorry. I mean, what? Pardon?’ She dredges her memory for the phrases she was trying to teach herself before she went out to the shop…Je suis désolée à propos l’Olymp—No, no, no. Not that one…‘Je suis désolée,’ she begins tentatively. ‘Mais je…ne…comprends…pas!’
‘Ah! Tu ne comprends pas!’ She can hear him laughing and her face burns, wondering what she’s said that’s funny, how she’s got it wrong. ‘Tu apprends le français, donc? C’est excellent!’ His voice is muffled as, finally, he finds the cupboard he was looking for, and steps inside.
‘Jean Baptiste?’ she says, after a moment’s silence. She can hear the panic in her own voice. ‘What’s happening? Are you still there?’
She hears a loud click, and all at once the room is flooded with light.
Jean Baptiste emerges from the door behind the bar, smilin
g. She grins back at him. They look at one another briefly, enjoying this small moment of unity, until Daffy becomes self-conscious. She must look a mess, she thinks. She glances down at her clothing and lets out a little squeak.
‘Oh my goodness!’ she gasps.
‘Oh, mon dieu,’ he says, still smiling.
She glances at him. ‘It’s not funny! I think I’ve ruined it. If Timothy saw me, he’d be – I mean –’ She stops. Timothy won’t see her. Timothy isn’t here. Timothy has nothing to do with it. And mentioning his name has brought an unwelcome third person into the room. Jean Baptiste loses the look of warm amusement and turns a little away from her (or does she imagine it?). ‘Anyway,’ she says brightly, ‘it doesn’t matter. I mean I presume you have dry cleaners in this country?’
‘Dry cleaners? Qu’est-ce que c’est “dry cleaners”?’ he asks, without interest. She wears horrible clothes, he thinks. He wonders why someone young and beautiful should want to dress like an old woman. ‘Allez, viens!’ he says, without waiting for an explanation. ‘Viens ici. Come here. I show you where is the button. And then the next time, if you have une coupure d’électricité, you will know…’
She follows him round the bar to the cupboard, pausing to pat the snarling dog as she goes. It stops snarling immediately.
‘But I know this dog,’ Jean Baptiste says, looking down at it. ‘It is a…dog without parents. A very horrible dog in the village. Why he is in your house?’
‘Ohhh,’ says Daffy, getting down on her pistachio knees and nuzzling him with her thin, foundation-caked nose. ‘The poor little thing. He sort of turned up a couple of nights ago, and he looked ever so hungry. Didn’t you, sweetie? I think,’ she says, turning to look up at Jean Baptiste, ‘I think animals understand all our human languages, don’t you? They don’t really need to worry about phrase books. Not like you and me!’