by Daisy Waugh
He nods wearily. He’s tired. He’s been working since early morning and it was a long night last night, in Lady Emma Rankin’s large white muslin-covered bed. But he thinks Daffy looks lonely. He feels sorry for her. ‘I show you the bouton, and perhaps I buy us some beer in your bar?’
She’s appalled. ‘Buy some beer in the – But it’s not open! It’s closed! Fermé! I haven’t opened yet. You can’t buy a beer from the bar. The bar’s absolutely closed!’
He looks at her curiously. ‘…Excuse me,’ he says quickly. ‘Je suis désolé. I misunderstand. I think the bar is always needing some client. There,’ he pushes her, harder than he means to, and points at a bank of switches and fuses in the corner of the damp cupboard. ‘The big one, which say ON/OFF – c’est en anglais, tu vois? En français, on l’appelle l’interrupteur,’ he adds helpfully. ‘And now I leave you, Daffy. Je te laisse tranquille. I’m sorry I disturb you.’
‘NO!’
He pauses. ‘I arrive to you very late,’ he says. ‘I am sorry.’
‘Please, stay. Have a drink! I’ve got some wine, somewhere. I bought it today. Have a glass of wine with me, won’t you? I’ll show you all round the hotel…You will, won’t you,’ she says. ‘I mean –’ She can hear the desperation in her own voice. ‘Don’t go. Please…’
He looks at her. A mad, lonely English woman, with too much make-up and a horrible taste in clothes. And a husband. She is absolutely not his responsibility. Not his problem. She turned up here, unable to speak French, unable to find the trip switch in her own house; she turned up here of her own free will…He remembers the scene at Emma Rankin’s dinner, when her husband presented her with the keys, tossed them into the mayonnaise, and she had looked as though she were drowning…Of her own free will, more or less…He’s exhausted. He longs to go home to his half-built bungalow and collapse onto the bed…
‘You remember, at Emma’s house,’ Daffy says. ‘I mean, I don’t know. Of course – you were being so kind. I could never forget it. You were so kind…I wanted to telephone you. About building and things. Only I lost the number…’
He drums up a smile. ‘Alors. We will have some wine, yes? Et après, si tu veux, on fait le grand tour. You show me – I can maybe build for you if you want. But for me, remarque, I think the Marronnier has déjà beaucoup de charme…’
‘Yes,’ she murmurs. ‘Perhaps just some painting or something…’ She turns, before he has time to change his mind, returns within seconds, at something humiliatingly close to a run. She has an open bottle with her, half-drunk, and two empty glasses.
She hands one to him. ‘Oops!’ she says, looking at it more closely. ‘Oh, it’s disgusting! I’m ever so sorry, Jean Baptiste. I do apologise. I can’t imagine –’ She tries to snatch it back. ‘Goodness me. You can’t drink from that!’
He gives it a nonchalant wipe on his T-shirt. ‘Ce n’est rien.’
She hesitates.
‘Allez,’ he says impatiently, holding out the glass. ‘J’ai soif!’
‘Soif…soif…Ah!’ Daffy cries triumphantly. ‘You’re thirsty!’ She laughs happily. It’s a strange laugh, Jean Baptiste thinks: rusty, heartfelt, innocent, as if it were surprised by itself. And it makes her thin face look a little less mad, and a little less orange.
He smiles at her. ‘Thirsty,’ he repeats. ‘C’est bien? I have thirsty.’
‘I am thirsty,’ Daffy says seriously.
‘Ah. I am thirsty,’ he corrects himself, and she beams at him, at her new friend. Her New French Friend. Daffy can’t remember when she last made a friend. Certainly not since before she was married. The people Timothy wanted her to be friends with never wanted to be friends with her, and before that her mother had always been there, possessive and controlling. Any moments of friendship, even in childhood, had been snatched and short-lived.
But there is nobody controlling her now. As she beams at Jean Baptiste, and he smiles politely back at her, all the horrors of her last few days fade quietly away. She feels her lungs expanding, the slow creak of doors and windows opening in her mind, and a rush of cool fresh air blowing through her. This is my life, she thinks. MY life. And I’m starving.
‘Have you eaten, Jean Baptiste?’ she asks him. ‘I was going to – I mean I could make you an omelette. If you would like…Omelette?’ she says, pretending to eat. ‘Tu veux?’
He says he would love an omelette and follows her through to the kitchen. Where the chair is still upturned, and the uneaten ham sandwich still lies on the floor; where all the surfaces are cluttered with paper lists, unposted letters, and Daffy’s belongings. Her sponge bag, make-up, toothbrush are sprawled all around the kitchen sink. Her suitcase lies open in one corner, and beside it a small single mattress, a blanket and pillow.
‘Tu dors ici?’ Jean Baptiste asks her in surprise. ‘You are sleeping in this kitchen too?’
‘What?’ Daffy, having spent so long in the room, and so many hours alone, has forgotten how odd it must seem. ‘Oh yes,’ she says vaguely, picking up the sandwich. ‘It seems easier…’ She looks around the room. ‘Sorry. It’s a bit of a mess, isn’t it? Wait there. I’ll give it a tidy and then I’ll get going on that omelette. I must say, Jean Baptiste, I’m starving!…Faim,’ she adds, after a moment’s dredging. ‘J’ai très faim! I could eat a horse! No I couldn’t,’ she adds hurriedly, all her distrust of French people coming back to her in a flood. ‘No. Sorry. That’s only an expression. Actually we don’t eat horses in England. Never. I’m an animal lover, you see. The English love animals.’
He looks at her curiously. ‘Speak slow,’ he says. ‘Sinon, je ne comprends pas. I have an idea. You – make tidy la cuisine. And I make the omelette. D’accord? I was a chef,’ he says, to her look of astonishment. ‘At La Tour d’Argent in Paris. You know it, I think? It is very famous restaurant.’
‘Is it?’ she says goofily. ‘But how amazing…A chef! What made you give up?’
He shrugs. ‘I was tired of these greedy pigs eating, eating all the time,’ he says casually. ‘And besides, I miss it here. I miss the outside…De toute façon, Daffy, it’s for sure I can make an omelette!’
EMMA RANKIN’S RECOMMENDATION
They sit at the kitchen table, drinking wine and eating Jean Baptiste’s perfect omelette in half-awkward, half-companionable silence.
‘Delicious,’ Daffy says, wolfing it down. ‘You must have found some thyme. Dans le jardin. Thyme…Hang on.’ She reaches for her dictionary, lying on the table between them.
‘Ça va,’ he says, laying a hand on the book as she tries to open it, ‘C’est du “thym” en français. I found him in the garden. I show you. Mais après le grand tour.’ He smiles at her, his hand still resting on the book between them, the tips of his fingers just brushing against her wrist. ‘I think you are afraid of your new house, non?’
‘What? Non.’ She sounds indignant. ‘Frightened? No!’
She starts to pull her hand back but he closes his fingers around her wrist and gently holds her there. He chuckles. ‘But of course you are afraid, Daffy. Why do you rest sleeping in the kitchen?’
She looks at his hand, feels the warmth of it, and of his deep voice, and his undivided attention…She has nothing she wants to say, not for the moment. Nothing at all.
‘You can’t live in only this kitchen. And if you want I will help you…to make this hotel beautiful –’ he pauses to think of the right words ‘– so it feels as your home.’
‘Yes, I dare say.’ They both turn quickly at the sound of a new voice in the room. The door between kitchen and bar is a little ajar, and standing half in the shadows, spying on them, stands a tall man, slightly stooped at the shoulders; very tall and very thin – an Englishman from his voice; husky, languid, upper class. He wears jeans that hang off him; a loose white T-shirt, and, on this balmy summer evening, a beaten-up old black leather jacket. He steps into the room. ‘Got the dogs sniffing round already, have you, Mrs Duff Fielding? Yes…Well, it wasn’t going to ta
ke long…’ He lifts one side of his mouth into a cold half-smile and holds out a hand. ‘You can call me Skid, Mrs Duff Fielding,’ he says. ‘Everybody else does.’
‘Skid?’ she says faintly.
There are women – there have been many in Skid’s life – who find his approach irresistible. The air of debauchery which surrounds him; the promise of cruelty and drugs and sexual experiment; the careless upper-class swagger, the cynicism, the arrogance, the unutterable boredom which emanates from him, can make women more worldly than Daffy turn weak at the knees. Daffy gazes up at his cold, hard, bony face; the thin, mean mouth sneering down at her, and feels sick. Skid, indeed! The man looks like he needs a good scrub.
‘Do you have any other name?’ she asks politely, but without taking the proffered hand. ‘Or is it just “Skid”?…This is Jean Baptiste Mersaud,’ she adds. ‘Who very kindly helped me with my electricity cut. How do you know my name?’
Skid turns to Jean Baptiste, eyeing him coldly. ‘Jean Baptiste?’ he smirks. ‘Mais on s’est déjà rencontré, n’est-ce pas?’
‘Oh!’ says Daffy. ‘I thought you were English. You speak French?’
‘Like one of the natives,’ drawls Skid. ‘I had French nannies. And a French mother, actually,’ he adds, as if he’d forgotten. ‘Your friend and I have met before, n’est-ce pas, Jean Baptiste?’
‘Malheureusement,’ Jean Baptiste nods. Flashes him a cold, unfriendly smile. ‘He was making a fight yesterday in my friend’s bar. In St Clara. I get him out.’
Skid chuckles. Looks thoroughly pleased with himself. ‘Not such a good recommendation, I hear you thinking, Mrs Duff Fielding. Perhaps I can call you Daffy?’
Daffy looks from one to the other, thoroughly confused. ‘How do you know my name, anyway?’ she asks again. ‘Who are you? And how did you get into my kitchen? Why didn’t you knock at the door?’
‘Ah, yes!’ sighs Skid contentedly. He steps further into the room and, without waiting to be invited, pulls out a chair between the two of them and flops down his long, lazy body. With thin, nicotine-stained fingers, he produces Rizlas and tobacco and begins to roll himself a cigarette. ‘I am in your kitchen because your door was open, and because this establishment is a public bar. I imagined I could come into it without first having to ask your permission. By the time I got in I could see that the bar was closed, or at any rate doing bloody awful business. I heard voices coming from the far room, so I followed them. I told you who I am, I’m Skid. Born Randal. Called Smut at prep school. Skid at public school. And Skid everywhere ever since. He glances across at Daffy, distantly amused. ‘But if the name Skid for some reason offends you, Daffy, my angel, I’m willing to make an exception for you. You can call me Smut. It’ll be sweet. It’ll remind me of my childhood.’
‘I’m not sure I want to call you anything,’ Daffy sniffs.
The smile, cold and watchful, plays a little longer on the mean mouth until suddenly a thin grey tongue emerges. He runs it along the edge of his cigarette paper. ‘How’s Timothy?’ he drawls, and then continues, without pausing to find out: ‘He and I were at school together. We’re old friends…’ He smirks at her, watching to see her response.
‘Friends with Timothy?’ she repeats hopefully. ‘Gosh…He never said. Did – did he send a message?’
Skid blinks, briefly confused, then laughs and shakes his head. ‘Poppet, I haven’t set eyes on him since 1978. But I do have a message from someone, as a matter of fact.’
‘Oh!’ Daffy can’t think of a soul who might want to send her message. ‘How – exciting! Who?’
‘Yes, indeed. Our mutual friend, Emma Rankin,’ he says, ‘sends you much love.’
‘Oh!’ gasps Daffy, absurdly flattered that Emma Rankin even remembers her name. ‘That’s very, very nice.’
‘Isn’t it?’ drawls Skid. ‘By the way, she says she’s been meaning to come down and visit you but she’s been terribly busy –’
‘Oh my goodness. She doesn’t need to do that! When she’s such a busy lady –’
‘But one can’t help wondering, busy with what?’ he interrupts. ‘What the bloody hell does Emma do all day? Do you have any idea? Except look beautiful – and screw the natives, of course.’ He glances at Jean Baptiste. ‘Je me demandais comment elle passe son temps,’ Skid translates fluently, ‘autre que baiser les paysans. Emma’s always been a terrific shagger. Emma a toujours été un très bon coup.’ Skid keeps his eyes on Jean Baptiste, eases his perfectly rolled cigarette between his lips, reaches across to the lighter on top of Jean Baptiste’s cigarette packet between them. Suddenly, Skid’s chest and shoulders begin to shake with quiet laughter. It makes him cough.
Abruptly, Jean Baptiste pushes back his empty plate and stands up. ‘Daffy,’ he says. ‘This is a bad man here. With your permission I want to throw him in the road.’
There is, perhaps, a flicker of alarm behind Skid’s hooded eyes, but his body remains languid as before; long legs crossed, shoulders hunched, cigarette hand resting lazily on his knee, letting the smoke curl slowly up over his face. He says nothing; watches Daffy.
‘Oh, no, Jean Baptiste,’ she sounds alarmed. ‘Please don’t…I think we should –’ She looks at Skid with a mixture of fear and disapproval. ‘I mean if Emma sent him, it might seem a bit rude…’
‘I’m actually looking for a room,’ says Skid quickly. ‘I need a place to stay for a week or two…Emma seemed to think you’d be grateful for the business.’ He shrugs. Makes a minimal movement – the smallest required to give the affect of someone on the point of standing up. ‘Too bad. What a shame. She was obviously wrong.’
‘Yes, she was wrong,’ says Jean Baptiste. ‘Et en plus, je me demande pourquoi tu ne reste pas chez elle? – I am asking him,’ Jean Baptiste turns to Daffy, ‘why is it he is not resting chez Emma, if they are good friends?’
‘I would be,’ explains Skid. ‘Except her husband isn’t especially keen on me.’ He chuckles. ‘God knows why…’
‘But David is at the moment in England,’ says Jean Baptiste, and stops suddenly. ‘I think so.’
‘Well!’ declares Skid, highly amused, ‘I suppose you would know. I understand you spend a great deal of time at the château.’
‘Mais pas du tout,’ Jean Baptiste says irritably.
A silence falls. Daffy, embarrassed for Jean Baptiste, embarrassed by the wave of misery she feels, imagining him spending so much time at the château with Emma, says: ‘Excuse me. I’m just going to pop to the little girls’ room,’ and slips delicately from the table.
The two men watch her go. When she’s out of earshot, Skid glances at Jean Baptiste, who is staring at him with such undisguised dislike that he laughs out loud. ‘You’re in a difficult position, aren’t you, my little French friend?’ he drawls. He takes a long pull on his skinny cigarette. ‘All these rich, lonely, bored English housewives to choose from. All of them no doubt desperate for a decent bit of French cock. And now along come I to spoil it for you…But you needn’t worry about Emma. Not on my account. She and I did everything we wanted to do to each other years ago…’ He smiles his thin, hard smile, remembering. ‘She really is a marvellous little slut, don’t you think?’
Before Skid knows what’s hit him, he’s out cold, knocked unconscious and sprawled across the kitchen floor, with the chair he was sitting on tipped upside down and balancing on his face.
He is still lying there, minus the chair, when Daffy ventures back a few minutes later. She finds Jean Baptiste crouched over Skid’s limp body.
‘Oh my God!’ she cries, rushing towards them. ‘Jean Baptiste! What on earth happened?’
‘I hit him,’ says Jean Baptiste simply. ‘He needed it.’
‘Needed it?’ Daffy looks at Skid’s still face. ‘Are you sure?’
‘You must put him out of the house now.’
‘What? Jean Baptiste, I can’t do that! For heaven’s sake, the poor man’s unconscious! You’ve knocked him out cold!’ She looks down at Sk
id again, at the cold sneer which seems to be fixed to his lips even now. ‘I’m going upstairs to make a room,’ she says at last. Decisively. Uncharacteristically so. ‘And then you’re going to have to help me get him up there.’
‘Oh, mais non!’ exclaims Jean Baptiste. ‘You must not keep this man in your house.’
‘He’s got nowhere else to go,’ she says. ‘I’m not throwing him in the street.’
‘But it is a beautiful night. The stars are shining. He will be quite happy, I am certain.’
Daffy shakes her head. ‘He can stay here for as long as it takes, Jean Baptiste. Until he starts feeling better…Poor little mite,’ she adds. ‘Well. Not little. Not really…but I’m sure he doesn’t mean to be quite so horrid. I expect he’s a lovely man, when you get to know him.’
Jean Baptiste laughs. ‘I am sure, yes.’
‘They left a whole cupboard full of bed sheets upstairs. They don’t smell especially clean, I must admit, but they’ll have to do for now.’ She stands up. Hesitates. ‘Do you mind? Will you come with me?’ she asks awkwardly. ‘Viens with me?…I must admit, I get a teeny bit jumpy up there on my own.’
And neither sees it. Jean Baptiste and Daffy are too busy looking at each other, but just beneath them, on those thin, unconscious lips, there is a flicker of cold amusement. Victory. He has a bed for the night after all.
VERY OLD FRIENDS
Alone in her château, Emma Rankin smiles to herself, wondering how Daffy and her old friend Smuttie are getting along. She would have had him to stay herself – it might have been fun – except for Jean Baptiste. She doesn’t want to have anything or anyone around her that might feasibly discourage him from coming to call. Especially now. With the threat of him preferring Maude Haunt hanging permanently over her shoulder.
Emma has known ‘little Smuttie’ all her life, since her older brother brought him home from prep school one holiday, when she was three and they were six years old. She had been delighted to see him for the hour or so she allowed him to stay at the château. (They drank an entire bottle of pineau – or Smuttie did – and between them they got through a gram of her coke.) But sex with Jean Baptiste comes first. Obviously. She told him the reason he couldn’t stay at the château was because David was coming, but if she’d told him the truth, Smuttie would have understood.