Bordeaux Housewives

by Daisy Waugh

  He chortles merrily.

  ‘What did we say?’ Maude asks, horrified.

  ‘Don’t worry about it!’ he laughs. ‘I’m not offended. Ask Murray. I’m used to it. I’ve been called a lot worse than a joker, I can tell you…Right then,’ he says. ‘If it’s all right with you, Horatio, I’m going to pop this little radio mike round here…’ Horatio stands still, allowing Len to fix a small black box around his middle. ‘…And if we tuck it under your shirt…like so…’

  ‘Heck –’

  Horatio shakes his head very slightly, takes Maude’s arm and gives it a small squeeze. ‘Let’s just get this scene done,’ he mutters. ‘Don’t worry. It’s going to be fine. Len. Murray. You’ve got fifteen minutes to wrap this thing up and then I’m afraid we’re going to have to chuck you out. You can come back tomorrow.’

  ‘Right you are,’ Murray says, and hesitates. ‘…I must admit, Horatio, we were hoping for a quick dip in your lovely pool once we’d finished shooting…It’s hot work, getting your wife to perform.’

  Len snorts. ‘Bit cheeky.’

  They all ignore him.

  ‘You won’t mind if we have a quick splash, will you? We won’t get in your way.’

  Horatio hesitates. He wants them out of the house. Off the property. As far away as possible.

  ‘I swear,’ Murray says. ‘We haven’t got fleas or anything!’

  ‘Fleas?’ Superman cries, staring at him in disgust. ‘Tiffie – did you hear?’

  Tiffie shakes her head. She feels sorry for them having to work while she and Superman play in the pool. She can’t believe her parents wouldn’t allow them to swim. ‘They can go swimming, can’t they, Dad? Don’t be mean.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Horatio says. ‘Of course. You can leave by the back gate. But let’s get on with it, shall we? Tell me what I have to do.’

  It’s the longest fifteen minutes of Maude’s life, and very fortunate that Horatio has come to say her lines for her since she can barely find the will to lie straight on her sunbed, let alone speak. Her mind is racing – How much money do they have in savings? Where will they go? How much time do they have? What will they take with them? What must they leave behind? How will the children cope? And does Horatio know where they put their other passports?

  Her knees are shaking so badly by the time Murray finally releases them that she has to hold on to Horatio’s arm and have him tug her up.

  ‘Crikey!’ says Murray, glancing at her, jamming his Sony PD150 back into its case. ‘It’s the worse case of stage fright I’ve ever known, Maude. You shouldn’t worry so much!’

  ‘Heh-heh-heh.’ Len, having dumped most of his sound equipment on the grass in the sun, is already waddling towards the deep end. ‘It’s only for cable, isn’t it, Murray? It’s not like anyone’s actually going to watch it!’ And with that he dive-bombs into the pool, creating an enjoyable mini tidal wave in the process. Superman is very impressed.

  PARTY PLANNING

  It’s Ahmed and Fawzia’s eldest son, Hassan, at the root of the trouble. Just turned eighteen and due, in September, to begin a degree in Medicine at Kings College, London, yesterday he got himself into trouble with the police. It was the third time that day that they had stopped him, asked for his name, asked where he was going, what he intended to do when he got there, demanded to look in his bag – and maybe he should have been used to it. As a rucksack-carrying Somali teenage boy in London, hardly a week passed when he wasn’t stopped and questioned by the police. But on this day, on this third occasion, he was in a hurry. He was late for his work – stacking shelves at a DIY warehouse – because he’d already been stopped twice on his journey – the last time approximately three minutes earlier. So he was tetchy with them; not his usual, careful, private self, and the police officers, feeling bored and tetchy themselves, seemed to revel in that. Hassan explained he was in a hurry. He told them he’d only been stopped three minutes earlier, that he was already late for work as a result of it. He asked them to be quick. He finally snapped when the taller one, doing the writing, pretended again not to have understood when Hassan spelled out his name. Hassan snatched back his rucksack, and ran.

  They didn’t catch him, but by then he’d already provided them with just enough information to bring down everything his family had worked for all this time. He called his father in tears, to apologise, to warn him that the police would be coming. He said he would make his way to Italy, where there were cousins who would take him in, but Ahmed insisted the family stick together. He told the boy to stay hidden in London until he and Fawzia came up with a plan.

  Fawzia got the warning call from her husband while she was on her lunch break. He was on his way to fetch the younger two children out of school. They agreed a place to meet. But first she had to go back to the office…

  She had to get into the office, put her jacket on the back of her chair, just like normal. She had to call out did anyone want coffee? Just like normal. She had to get to her computer, download everything onto her laptop and wipe the hard drive clean, keeping up a mundane conversation about the newly opened sandwich shop opposite as she did so. The telephone rang three times in her open-plan office, and each time her heart almost burst through her ribcage.

  The call from the police came – was directed straight through to her boss – just as her lift touched down on the ground floor.

  And it was too late. She was gone. Fawzia, Ahmed and their children were back in hiding again.

  While Maude lay on the sun-lounger fluffing her lines, Horatio was busy. He has rented a large green van from the Hertz office in La Rochelle, and booked a return passage on the ferry to England, leaving from St Malo this evening. One of them, Maude or Horatio, needs to go to England tonight. They have to pick up the Islam family (including Hassan) and get them into France, from where, if all goes according to plan, they will be able to make their own way across to Rome together.

  ‘I’ll go,’ Maude says. They’re in the COOP, Maude still shiny-faced from her afternoon in the bright sun, and still dressed in the towelling robe. Through the open window they can hear the happy splashing of Len and Murray and their children in the swimming pool.

  ‘No, Maude. You should stay here. Keep those idiots under control. They can do stuff – film you organising the party. Cooking quiches and stuff. It’ll keep them busy. Plus I don’t want you to go, Maude. It’s too risky. I’ll go.’

  She shakes her head. ‘You’ve seen me with them, Heck – I’m hopeless. A disaster. If you leave and I stay they’ll have nothing to film. They’ll be pissed off. They’ll start asking questions. We can say my mother’s ill. Something like that. Seriously, Heck. One of us has got to go, and right now I’m the one least likely to be missed.’

  ‘…But the party – it’s the day after tomorrow. You can’t miss your own party.’

  ‘One of us is going to have to. I’ve been dreading it, anyway.’

  ‘Yes, but it’ll look –’

  ‘It’ll look weird either way. But if I say my mother’s ill.’ She shrugs. ‘What can they do? Order her not to be ill until after the party?’

  He shakes his head. ‘It’s very risky, Maude.’

  ‘But it’s far less risky for me. They see a nice, middle-class woman driving a van full of furniture onto the ferry, and they’ll think I’m organising my holiday house. They’re never going to stop me. I’ll sail through.’

  He looks at her. ‘…I couldn’t bear it if something happened to you…No,’ he says abruptly. ‘I can’t let you go. I can’t do it. I’m going, and that’s final.’

  Maude smiles at him. A deceptively friendly smile, as it happens. ‘I’m sorry, Heck,’ she says. ‘What’s final, exactly…?’

  An hour later, Horatio, Superman and Tiffany are standing in the Hertz car park, La Rochelle, hugging Maude goodbye.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ Superman is saying. She’s crying. ‘We’re going to see you again in two days’ time.’

  ‘Be good, won
’t you?’ She’s holding him too tight. He begins to wriggle.

  ‘Mum,’ he says. ‘Get off! You’re making me hot. Get off!’

  She releases him; turns her claustrophobic attention to Tiffany, who also wriggles from it, though more politely. ‘OK!’ Tiffany says, patting her mother on the arm as if she were a nervous pony. ‘Shall we go now? It’s a bit hot.’ Horatio has promised he will take the children to a bar on the way home – not the Marronnier; another one. He can’t face bumping into Murray and Len. He’s going to buy them Coca-Cola and a packet of peanuts. Each. Really, Tiffany wishes her mother would get a move on.

  Maude turns to Horatio. The discussion about Horatio ‘deciding’ who should take the ferry to Portsmouth had escalated very quickly into an unpleasant row about Horatio’s decision-making in general; and, most specifically, his decisions about kissing Emma Rankin and not wanting any more babies. They had said things, both of them, which oughtn’t to have been said – but they’d been rattled: angry with themselves for arguing about their marriage when their friends were in hiding, in need of help. Fawzia had assured them they were safe, that she’d wiped the hard drive, that nobody in London would come after them. Nevertheless, they were frightened. For their children. For themselves. For their way of life. And they had taken it out on each other.

  They’re still angry with each other. They both feel wronged.

  ‘Aren’t you going to wish me luck?’ Maude says, smiling, but not sounding very friendly.

  ‘Good luck.’

  She hesitates. ‘I’ll see you Wednesday, then…Is there anything you want me to bring back for you? Apart from the obvious.’

  He looks at her and manages to remember, in spite of everything, how much he would hate to lose her. He bends, kisses her quickly on the lips. It feels odd to both of them; phony, after all that’s been said. ‘Only yourself,’ he says gruffly.

  She begins to climb into the van but then stops. ‘…And Heck, please…’ She glances at the children, but they’re already walking away from her, deep in their own conversation. ‘Please – I know we’ve got a few things – We’ve got a few problems. But please. She’ll be all over you at the party. Especially when she realises I’m not there.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘You know who. Emma Rankin.’

  He sighs. ‘I agreed to let you go to England, but –’

  ‘You didn’t agree. We agreed together. Jesus, Heck.’

  He laughs. Not a particularly nice laugh. ‘I do apologise. We agreed – Actually, you agreed. I can’t remember doing much agreeing with you for some time. You agreed that you would take this journey to England. If you can’t trust me alone with Emma Rankin, darling, then you need only to unagree with yourself, and stay behind. You can host the party, and I’ll go to England. I’m sure François Bourse would be delighted. You’d both have the time of your lives.’

  ‘Oh, don’t be idiotic, Heck…’

  ‘Ha! Now that’s a little rich.’

  She sighs. ‘This is pathetic.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  And with that – with that, she climbs into the van, starts the engine. She honks the horn at the children, blows them a kiss, and drives away – unable to look at Horatio, because she knows he will see that she is crying bloody well again.

  ‘Good luck,’ he mutters, standing there, his hands in his pockets, his heart in his boots, watching as the green van hurtles away. ‘Come back safe. As agreed…’

  GETTING DRUNK

  Maude drives the five hours to St Malo too agitated to stop, except once, briefly, to fill up with petrol. She thinks about her old friend Fawzia, and of Ahmed and of Hassan and his needlessly broken dreams, and of the two younger children, frightened – again – waiting in a Portsmouth hotel for her to come. She thinks about how the family’s success used to be a source of pride – and incentive – whenever she and Heck were tempted to stop what they did. As the van speeds along the motorway, she doesn’t notice the tears streak down her face, wouldn’t have cared if she had. Five good, decent, productive lives have been wrecked. And for nothing. For the sake of a handful of government statistics that even the politicians would have forgotten by lunchtime. For nothing.

  At the petrol station she’s distracted, lost in her own world, thinking about the practicalities of hiding five bodies under a van full of cheap English furniture. A French lorry driver taps her on the shoulder as she’s on the point of pouring diesel into her petrol tank. It brings her back to earth briefly. She needs to concentrate.

  Once on the boat she checks her mobile – no messages. So Heck hasn’t called. The bastard. She toys with the idea of calling him and making some kind of peace. Except to make peace she would have to apologise, and she doesn’t feel she has done anything wrong. Or, at least, she doesn’t feel that she’s any more in the wrong than Horatio is, and if she calls, he’ll think she’s needy, and she won’t bloody well apologise. She puts away the mobile, and heads instead to the bar. It’s been a long time since Maude Haunt has been in a position to prop up a bar on her own, and through the fog of misery – and fear – she feels a faint thrill at her own freedom. It’s a night ferry; a long crossing. Ten hours. She has every intention of getting drunk.

  SKIDDING AROUND

  Murray has just been told by Simon Mottram, whose been told by Rosie, that the food at the melon party they plan to televise has to be prepared and organised by someone other than Maude Haunt, because Maude can’t cook. Rosie says the food at the party has to be opulent, outrageously extravagant, beautiful, delicious, etc. It’s important, she says, that the mayoral dinner (which for time and budgetary reasons has now been downscaled to an intimate dinner à quatre: Haunts and Bertinards only, what fun) must look paltry by comparison.

  ‘Not that it matters now,’ Murray says grumpily, back at the Marronnier bar. ‘Maudie’s peed off back to old Blighty tonight. Says she’ll try to get back before the party finishes. Not that we’ll miss her, frankly. I don’t think I’ve ever worked with anyone so useless in front of a camera. Have you, Len?’

  ‘Never,’ Len says.

  ‘Apparently Ma’s a bit sickly.’

  ‘Oh poor Maude,’ Daffy says, from her usual solitary place behind the bar.

  Murray nods. ‘She looked pretty upset, actually.’ He ponders that. They all do.

  Daffy interrupts the silence. ‘But you’re leaving it a bit late, aren’t you? Isn’t the party the day after tomorrow?’

  ‘Mmm,’ Murray says. ‘But we’ve been so busy…’

  Skid guffaws.

  ‘Busier than you, mate,’ Murray snaps. ‘What have you been doing all these days – apart from sitting here doing exactly shag-all?’

  ‘Exactly that, my friend,’ Skid says. He lifts his glass, takes a slurp. ‘Exactly that. Nothing more.’

  ‘Well then…’

  ‘…So?’ Daffy interrupts, nervous, as always, at the possibility of confrontation. ‘You’d better get cracking, Murray. You’ve got a party to cater for the day after tomorrow. And if Maude’s not even around…I mean I don’t suppose Horatio will really be up to it…’

  ‘No good asking Daffy,’ interjects Skid. ‘It takes her forty-five minutes to make a ham sandwich.’ He turns to her, bristling with idle hostility. ‘Doesn’t it, dearie?’

  She pretends not to hear, as she’s taken to doing now, whenever Skid speaks to her. She looks down at her feet. It’s been a week since Timothy left and the rules he laid down are already being whittled at the edges. There is still no smiling, orange-lipsticked Sara to help with the work (and Daffy misses her company), but her hair has been left to go wavy again. And the cotton T-shirts have been brought back out of the drawer. Timothy’s trio of suicide bombers – French-Moroccan shopkeepers, actually; they own a swimming-pool supply shop in St Clara – have quietly returned to their corner table. And Daffy’s stray dogs have crept their way from the kennel in the yard back into the house. They are lying at her feet right now, tucked in behind the bar.


  ‘Come on, Sharkie,’ she says to one of them, moving away. ‘And you, Boss. It’s time for your supper.’

  ‘Easy there, poppet,’ Skid smirks, annoyed at Daffy’s new system of ignoring him. There is something about Daffy – her inability to be dazzled by his wicked, glamorous past; her refusal to be anything but vaguely revolted by him – which makes him feel oddly irrelevant. This woman – this little birdbrain of a banker’s wife; abused and bullied and empty-headed – somehow, and without even meaning to, makes Skid feel worthless in a way nobody else ever really has. With each day that he continues to exploit her gentle nature, her unceasing hospitality, he grows to resent her more. He loathes her. ‘I should wake the dogs in a couple of hours, Daffy darling,’ he drawls. ‘Give you time to open the tin.’

  Len lets off another of his auto-cackles, but Murray, on this occasion, turns out a little harder to please. He likes Daffy. He likes the way she’s kind to animals; the way she’s always so keen to listen or to help. He likes her ham sandwiches. He glances at her, standing there awkwardly in her own freshly painted bar. ‘Do you want a hand?’ he asks, standing up. ‘I like dogs, Daffy. I’ll feed them if you like.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Murray!’ she laughs. ‘You’re meant to be a guest!’

  But he does it anyway. He follows her and the dogs into the small hall behind the bar, and talks to her while she slowly opens the tins.

  ‘Sorry about Skid,’ he says. ‘I don’t know what gets into him.’