Bordeaux Housewives

by Daisy Waugh

The early morning sun is seeping in through the half-open shutters. Daffy is woken, as always, by the church bells opposite chiming six o’clock, and then the quiet opening and closing of the boulangerie shop door opposite, as early customers arrive for still-hot bread. She feels the familiar longing for her son, just as she does every morning, before she’s even opened her eyes. Timothy has placed James into a summer tennis camp in Essex, which James says he hates. Daffy calls him at it twice a day and he’s always there, waiting for her by his telephone…

  Carefully, she boxes up the longing – the grieving, actually – until all she can feel is the slow, dull pull which never goes. Ever. Which won’t leave until they’re allowed to be together again. And then she opens her eyes.

  Today is the day, she thinks.

  A twist of hope, another of terror, and the two combined propel her out of bed. She sits up – naked now, without Timothy to insist she truss herself in satin every night. She has two things to do. Two positive steps. She lay awake last night thinking about them, too nervous to sleep. She’s going to make peace with Jean Baptiste today, whether he likes it or not. She’s going to go up to him at the Haunt party and she doesn’t even care if Murray and Len film her doing it. She doesn’t care. She’s going to talk to him and apologise and explain. He can’t avoid her for ever.

  Daffy slides out of bed and into a cotton dressing gown, pads across the bare wooden floor to the window, as she does every morning, and pushes back the shutters. This is her favourite time of day. It is still cool outside, and there is a soft orange light over the square, over the church, promising hours of hot, dry sunshine ahead. She glances across at the boulangerie and waves at Sara, standing beside her mother behind the counter. She’s wearing the overall Daffy bought her, and she’s waving back now, full of hope.

  Sara’s mother has explained the situation to her a hundred times, and so has Daffy, and yet she continues to view each encounter with Daffy as a summons back to the job she enjoyed so much. She starts to look around for her belongings, starts making her way back towards the bar. She’s doing it now. Daffy can see her. Mme Martinet is pulling her back, once again, explaining…On the evening Timothy left, Daffy went over to the boulangerie and told Sara and her parents the bad news. She was very sorry. So sorry that she was crying. She told them that she couldn’t employ Sara any more, at least not at the moment. Not until the hotel was up and running and making a bit of money. And really, considering all the rumours swirling around the village regarding Daffy’s immeasurable wealth, Sara’s parents took it very well. They thanked Daffy for agreeing to take her on in the first place – (‘Oh, but it was such a pleasure!’ Daffy had cried) – and expressed polite hope, which they didn’t feel, that there would be a time in the future when Sara could come back to work for her again.

  This morning that time has come. Daffy glimpses Sara’s face, dull with fresh disappointment beneath the mad orange lipstick, listening while her mother explains, once again, that there is no job for her at the Marronnier. Daffy doesn’t even wait to get dressed. Still in her dressing gown, she tiptoes out onto the corridor, past Skid’s room, past Murray’s room and Len’s, and hurries down the stairs toward the bar – where she finds Skid, his head in his own ashtray and a rolled-up cigarette still balanced between his fingers, fully dressed and fast asleep. There is an empty bottle of pineau beside him, and an empty glass knocked on its side.

  Very, very quietly, she slides open the bolts on the downstairs shutters and pushes them open. They squeak. The bar, which smells of Skid, is flooded with early morning light, and the sight of it, even with the body there, half-comatose and stinking, fills Daffy with pride. It’s her bar, and in spite of Skid, helping himself to a bottle of pineau every night and never paying, it’s actually beginning to bring in a little money. Not enough, probably. (Daffy has no idea.) But some. She is earning money.

  Madame Martinet, standing neatly behind her bread counter, watches with cool French disapproval as Daffy steps, barefoot, onto the square. ‘…Mais qu’est-ce qu’elle fait?’ she mutters. ‘Elle est folle, cette Anglaise!’

  ‘Elle doit avoir tellement faim!’ Sara says as the shop door tinkles open. ‘Bonjour, Daffy!’ She crosses to the other side of the counter, puts both arms around Daffy and hugs her.

  ‘Mais lâche la!’ Her mother laughs, because Daffy is laughing, because the same thing happens every day, even if normally Daffy is dressed. Daffy doesn’t mind being hugged tight by Sara. Actually she loves it. She loves Sara, whose affection seems to be so unconditional, who is always warm, always welcoming. Daffy disentangles herself eventually. She asks Sara if she wants her job back.

  Sara runs upstairs to fetch her stash of orange lipstick – she leaves a trail of orange lipsticks wherever she goes – and returns to the Marronnier there and then.

  MAX FACTOR

  There are three messages on Maude’s mobile by the time she goes down to the car deck to rejoin her van. But with the prospect of customs in front of her, her thumping head, her guilt and general confusion at everything that happened the previous night, Maude can’t quite bring herself to listen to them. She dreads having to talk to Horatio.

  ‘Good morning to you, Maude!’

  She looks up sullenly. ‘Oh. There you are. Morning, Max.’

  He laughs. ‘See? I told you. I was in the van right behind you!’

  ‘So you were.’

  ‘You sound very glum this morning.’

  ‘Yes. Well –’

  ‘Regretting not coming to admire my sea view?’

  She smiles. ‘Not exactly.’ The vans on either side of them start up their engines. ‘…We’d better get in.’

  He nods. ‘Well. Nice seeing you again, Cleo. Good luck. With everything.’ He steps towards her, about to kiss her goodbye, but Maude quickly opens the door to her van, blocking his progress. She climbs in, starts up the engine. Only then, from the safety of her seat, with the door shut and the window closed, can she offer him a final wave, but by then he’s already turned away.

  Silence. And then a voice from behind, muffled by the furniture which surrounds it. Ahmed’s voice. Growling with disapproval. ‘What is all that about, Maude? Why is that gentleman calling you Cleo? Why is he asking about sea views?’

  Maude sighs wearily. ‘Oh please, Ahmed. Not this morning,’ she mutters, making an effort not to move her lips. She bends down, as if to fetch something at her feet. ‘Everyone all right back there?’

  ‘We’re all fine,’ replies Ahmed. ‘Thank you. You didn’t answer my question.’

  ‘I didn’t, no.’ She straightens up. A man in an orange overall is waving at her to drive on. She edges forward and off the ship, onto French soil. She presents her passport, without speaking, without trusting herself to speak. Notices the two customs officers a few yards in front, eyeing her, eyeing her van, muttering something to each other, nodding their heads…

  …She waits, her breath coming in tiny, shallow pants; images of the children glimpsed through jail bars whistling through her head. Would they imprison her? Just for helping her friends? For doing the right thing? Would they?…What would she do, now, if they demanded she step down from the van. Make a run for it? Play innocent? Play dead?…Why hadn’t she formed a plan for this?…Why hadn’t she asked herself these questions?…What about the children? What about the children?

  ‘MADAME!’

  Maude jumps, aware suddenly that the passport woman has been addressing her for several seconds. She turns to the woman.

  ‘Ça va?’

  ‘What? Yes. Me? Yes, I’m fine.’

  The woman shrugs. She holds out the passport. Maude takes it with a visibly trembling hand, glances at the woman, half-expecting her to notice the hand and pull back, but she doesn’t. She nods at Maude, wishes her a sullen ‘bon voyage’ and turns toward the van behind.

  The adrenalin – and the wild relief – put Maude in a much friendlier mood. As she’s about to turn on to the motorway and lose him for ever,
she prepares to take a final look at Max, to send him a warm goodbye kiss. Except he’s not there. He’s stepped down from his van. Customs have pulled him over.

  A LITTLE LIST

  ‘Has anyone seen my mobile telephone?’ bellows Horatio for the fourteenth time this morning. ‘I’ve put it down somewhere. For Christ’s sake. With this number of people in the house, someone must have seen it somewhere.’

  Murray and Len, eating croissants at Horatio’s kitchen table, don’t even bother to reply. Emma, just arrived with Mathilde’s son and a trailer of antique wicker chairs from the château, says, ‘Darling, use mine. Is your normal telephone not working?’

  ‘Of course it is. But bloody Superman –’

  ‘DO NOT SWEAR, DAD!’ shouts Superman, making everybody jump.

  ‘Sorry. Superman left the telephone off the hook yesterday and I haven’t heard a word from Maude. Not since yesterday.’

  ‘What?’ Emma looks at him, eyes alight. ‘What? You mean not since –’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Oh dear,’ Emma giggles.

  ‘She’s obviously left me messages on the mobile,’ he snaps defensively. ‘Which is why I keep asking –’ He raises his voice. ‘HAS ANYONE,’ he shouts, sounding absurdly irritable, ‘PLEASE! HAS ANYONE SEEN MY MOBILE PHONE?’

  ‘Sorry, Dad,’ says Tiffany, feeling a bit sorry for him. ‘I haven’t seen it. But can I go swimming?’

  ‘NO!’ he yells, and thumps out of the room.

  ‘I think he’s in quite a bad mood, Tiffie,’ Superman advises. ‘Because of all the extra people coming. Let’s go bicycling. I’ll show you that spooky snail. Come on!’

  Horatio – and Mathilde – have both been informed this morning that there will be approximately fifty guests arriving for lunch today, as opposed to the previous twenty-five. Mathilde has disappeared in a great flurry – not her usual mode – for emergency supplies in St Clara. She is exceedingly put out, and Murray and Len’s faintly patronising attempts to soothe her have only made things worse. If she hadn’t been so accustomed to a life of servitude, and to such a capricious mistress, she might have revolted; cut off all their heads. But she didn’t. Unfortunately. (It would have made great television.)

  Not that it was Murray’s fault anyway. Murray is only obeying orders. Back in London yesterday, Simon Mottram had patched his call with Murray through to Rosie at her kitchen table. She was very annoyed that the party guest list hadn’t been forwarded to her earlier. There were too many French guests and not enough English, she said. The whole point of the party – of the programme – is to demonstrate that the English-in-France could be anywhere, so long as the sun is shining and there’s a swimming pool. ‘What we want is rich English expats getting off with other rich English expats, sort of thing; stuffing their faces with pâtisserie and snogging each other, with the French very much standing on the sidelines, looking – well. Sort of socialist and impoverished and all that, but dignified. Does that make sense to you, Murray? You’ve got to get the English drunk.’

  ‘Got it,’ said Murray wearily. ‘I thought it was a melon feast?’

  ‘It is a melon feast. Obviously. But above all it’s a bunch of over-privileged English people getting pissed on money they didn’t earn. Come on, Murray. Forget the wretched melons for a minute, can you? The melons are really not very relevant.’

  ‘We’ve just spent two days in a melon field, Rosie,’ he claimed. ‘Filming melons. What am I supposed to do with that, would you mind telling me?’

  ‘We’ll find a use. No worries,’ Simon interrupted. ‘We can always chop things around a bit.’

  ‘And how am I supposed to find all these English people anyway? The day before the bloody party?’

  ‘Use Len,’ Simon sniggered. ‘He’s English. Plus he’s drunk half the time.’

  ‘What? I can’t. I need him.’

  Simon thought again. Thought, among other things, that he was taking on too much work these days. Spreading himself too thin. Whatever happened to his dreams of award ceremonies, feature-length, Oscar-winning, relevant documentary-making? ‘Stop whinging, Murray,’ he snapped. ‘You’re sounding like a girl. Rosie’s going to put in a call to the Mayor chappie. He’ll help.’

  UNDER THE YEW TREE

  Daffy has no idea what to wear. Still in her dressing gown, she stands at the old wardrobe – left behind by the previous owners, like everything else in the building – and gazes unhappily at her collection of clothes. It’s the first time she has been invited out since she arrived in the village, and her mission for today means it is important that she looks her best. Her supermarket dress and two cotton skirts don’t quite fit the bill, she feels.

  She sighs.

  She’s put on so much weight. And her hair – even if she dried it, she’s run out of styling mousse. And her roots aren’t just showing, they’re halfway down her head. She glances miserably at her reflection in the mirrored wardrobe door. She doesn’t see what everyone else sees – an amazing-looking woman, sun-kissed and luscious, with gentle, sad eyes and wild, sun-streaked hair. Obviously not. She sees a bloated old hag, all washed up, starved of her son, starved of the man she hasn’t yet acknowledged she’s in love with – and too fat to fit into any of the smart clothes she brought with her from London.

  A knock on the door, and Sara comes in, grinning, as always, carrying a surprise cup of steaming, sweet-smelling chocolate.

  ‘Oh! Gosh! Sara!’ exclaims Daffy. ‘That’s the loveliest thing! Darling Sara, you didn’t need to do that!’

  Sara stands there for a bit, smiling and laughing. And then, staring at a point in the ceiling as her mouth forms the unfamiliar words, she says: ‘He/she is welcome.’

  At which point Daffy laughs aloud, and puts an arm round Sara, making her spill the chocolate onto Daffy’s dressing gown. ‘Oh God, Sara,’ she says. ‘Can you help me? I’ve got this terrifying party to go to…What on earth am I going to wear?’

  Sara looks at her blankly. She’s aware of the English party today. She’s even aware of the tendresse, having witnessed their language lessons, which exists, or existed, between Daffy and Jean Baptiste. But, ‘he/she is welcome’ aside, Sara does not communicate in English.

  ‘I mean to say, Sara,’ Daffy translates, ‘Je n’ai rien à me mettre! Qu’est-ce que je vais mettre aujourd’ hui?’

  Methodically, Sara opens every one of Daffy’s wardrobe doors and drawers and slowly brings out each neatly folded piece of clothing. Daffy looks on helplessly, wishing she’d stop, but saying nothing – not wanting to hurt her feelings. Finally, when all her clothes have been discarded and lie in a messy heap on Daffy’s unmade bed, Sara looks regretfully at Daffy and shrugs. Nothing fits the bill. She suggests Daffy visit the shops in Bordeaux.

  Daffy hesitates. Sara probably could manage things on her own for an hour or two. Although Len and Murray might want to complain – or Len might. Daffy smiles to herself. He can complain as much as he likes. Where else would he go to stay? And Skid won’t wake until lunchtime anyway, so he won’t even notice…It would be lovely to escape to the shops for a bit. Buy something beautiful…But what if Timothy turned up?

  ‘Et si ton mari arrive –’ begins Sara. ‘Je vais me cacher tout de suite!’

  ‘You’ll hide? But where?’ Daffy smiles, and slowly shakes her head. She can’t risk it. No. She’ll wear the silk skirt. And a long T-shirt over the waist to hide the fact that the button won’t do up. And she’ll look fine. Not that it will matter, anyway. Jean Baptiste will probably only have eyes for Emma.

  Or Maude. Or someone else.

  At 12.30, just as Daffy is sending Sara home for her lunch, and she’s closing up the bar, Skid pulls his head out of his ashtray and demands coffee.

  ‘You’re a bit late, Skid, I’m afraid,’ she says, collecting the tray full of mini-quiches she’s cooked especially for the party. ‘Maybe there’ll be coffee at the party.’

  He looks at her irritably. Notices the T-shirt – whit
e and v-necked, pulled awkwardly over the waistband of her purple and yellow floral silk skirt. ‘You look a bit rough,’ he says casually. ‘Are you going like that?’

  She glances down at herself – and then back at him. ‘Y—No. Of course not. Of course not!…I mean –’ He’s right, she thinks. She looks dreadful. She can’t go like this…But she threw out the pistachio trouser suit in a burst of braburning rebellion a couple of days ago. And she has nothing else that is smart. And she has to look smart. Doesn’t she? She feels a layer of something peeling away from her. Again. Another taste of freedom. She laughs suddenly. Skid, scratching the lice bites on his shaggy grey head, pauses midscratch, glances at her curiously.

  ‘What are you laughing at?’ he snarls.

  ‘Nothing,’ she says. ‘Of course I’m not going like this. I was just going up to change. And then I’m leaving. D’you want to come with me, or would you prefer to go alone?’

  He stares at her. ‘Since when’, he asks in amazement, ‘have I ever wanted to go anywhere with you, Daffy?’

  She shrugs. ‘Since never,’ she says carelessly. ‘I’ll see you there, then.’ And she skips upstairs and returns, seconds later, in the crisp green cotton dress which hugs her a little too tightly at the hips.

  She’s undone a couple of buttons at the cleavage, Skid’s sharp eyes note as she hurries by.

  Almost shaggable, he thinks idly…More than almost. It does nothing to improve his mood.

  The Haunts’ garden is already full of unknown faces by the time Daffy arrives bearing her tray of little quiches. Hearing them all – their confident voices, their noisy laughter, even the splashing of children in the pool – she feels a rush of her old, crippling shyness. She stops herself at the front of the house, listens to the ebb and flow of partygoers’ conversation. She can hear Jean Baptiste’s low voice among them…Perhaps, she thinks, if I just slip in now, so nobody notices. And then when I get more relaxed I can go over to him. I can sort of edge myself in…If I could just get through the door, just walk through the door and into the party and then I can just get used to all the people…She pushes open the door, already ajar, and lets herself in.